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Editor refusing to explain closure of MR against consensus

The move review discussion for 30 seconds to mars,was recently closed by User:Jreferee as no consensus despite only seven !votes being cast and of those only two were to endorse closure. Two editors including myself have requested an explanation with no result. Could someone please either get an explanation for their actions against consensus or reverse the disputed closure. PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 22:01, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I think this ANI thread is a little early. Earthh asked the question and 8 hours later you took the issue to ANI. Give it 24 to 48 hours from Earthh's message and then come here.--v/r - TP 22:22, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, Jreferee did respond;[1] PantherLeapord's own behavior is cause of the breakdown in communication.--Cúchullain ^t/c 00:55, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Observation: The problem is that the 2 overturn-pending-explanation votes were not adjusted after the explanation is given. However, even when you toss those 2 votes out, there are 2 endorse close, 4 overturn, 1 relist. That is still sufficient evidence that the move is not supported, and the MR should not have been closed as such. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 04:18, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Jreferee just replied with the following:

The move review close was based on the strength of arguments regarding whether the closer interpreted the consensus incorrectly. In other words, it was a review of whether the closer interpreted the consensus incorrectly, not whether the close was correct or incorrect. The iVotes that addressed the sufficiency of the close explanation were not directed to whether closer interpreted the consensus incorrectly. SmokeyJoe only wanted an explanation, which BDD provided. SmokeyJoe did not provide much argument, so it seemed to be a week endorse. B2C appeared to indicated that B2C adopted BDD’s explanation, giving strength to B2C position as endorse. Cúchullain and BDD both had strong endorse arguments, with BDD close additionally benefitting from closer’s discretion. On the overturn side, there were strong arguments and additional comments which addressed whether the closer interpreted the consensus incorrectly to varying degrees. BDDs additional details on his close (18:34, 28 August 2013) was there for twelve days, but did not significantly move the discussion one way or another. I did not see a general sense of agreement one way or another. Since BDDs additional details on his close seemed to quell general concern for his close and there appeared to be no consensus in the move review, which has the same effect as endorse close, I close the review as endorse close.

What confuses me is that this implies that votes not going either way were to be interpreted as "endorse". Is that how things are supposed to be done normally? PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 04:40, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• I have asked B2C and SmokeyJoe to comment here, as their comments (and lack of follow-up) contributed (inadvertently, most likely) to this report. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 05:04, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm interested to see how this turns out. I was initially alarmed when an administrator, Jreferee, was upset with PantherLeapord because, quite frankly, I don't want him to make any mistakes since I was his mentor a bit ago after he got into a bit of trouble and sought out the adopt-a-user program. However, quite frankly, there's no way this should have proceeded this way by my definition of "consensus." Though it may be wiki-career suicide, I, too, disagree with the actions of Jreferee. However, with that said, I'll stop short of accusing anything more than a hasty or accidental action. I've certainly made worse mistakes than this. I do think that the decision should be reversed, but Jreferee, who has a history of very positive contributions, should simply duly note this, and everyone should move on. --Jackson Peebles (talk • contribs) 06:21, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Jreferee spoke about the endorses but not the overturs. The majority of the users expressed an overturn, so there's a consensus. Almost everyone in the move review wrote that at the requested move there was no consensus to move the page to the current title.--Earthh (talk) 13:17, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Looking at the whole; even the comments presents the official name is "Thirty Seconds". I like how the argument against "Thirty Seconds" is the Allmusic usage of "30 seconds..."[2], but the title is "Thirty Seconds" and the url changes as well to match it.[3]. Further evidence comes from the "Awards" which all list "Thirty Seconds".[4] MTV also lists "Thirty Seconds".[5] The official website is "Thirty Seconds to Mars".[6] Now let's not get into the limitations of Twitter where the short-hand is adequate. BBC uses it, but here is the interesting thing, other websites use "Thirty Seconds" and aside from the Youtube, the major sites all use it.[7] If anything, the usage in authoritative (not short hand) form is for "Thirty Seconds" and Wikipedia is a professional-level encyclopedia and should reflect that in both prose and title. The prose says "Thirty Seconds" not "30 seconds" throughout and when weighing the factors, seems to be a clear choice. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:17, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• You should read my comments on the move review. AllMusic changed the name recently, it was 30 Seconds to Mars when I posted it, but if you read the biography, they still use 30 Seconds to Mars. This also underline the fact that the "Thirty Seconds" is a new name. Since 1998 the band has been using "30 Seconds" while "Thirty Seconds" is used from 2013 onwards, that's why "Thirty Seconds" should remain a redirect (read WP:COMMONNAME).--Earthh (talk) 14:57, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Hey, I just am pointing out what I see. For professionalism we should use the official name when it is recognized internationally as such, short or long form of "Thirty". Let's not get into the Manning issue, but this is not out of the Prince (musician) issue and its not like "Mammoth" to "Van Halen", but just whether or not you write out the number or don't. For appearances and professionalism combined with the adoption and official use of "Thirty" and not "30", the official use should trump over a shortening no matter how prevalent. Examples to this are rather rare, yes, but Wikipedia is the sole major site that doesn't use "Thirty". ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:59, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• They currently use both "30 Seconds" and "Thirty Seconds". 30 Seconds to Mars has been the official name since 1998, only in 2013 Thirty Seconds to Mars became the official name. 30 Seconds to Mars should remain the title of the article since it has been the official name for almost the entire band's career and we should write that more recently the band is also known as Thirty Seconds to Mars.--Earthh (talk) 20:22, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• I think that you guys are getting a bit off-topic. --Jackson Peebles (talk) 23:48, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I failed to follow-up after posting this in the move review:

• Pending explanation - This close should have been made with a full explanation of how the closer found consensus in favor of the move. If this explanation is provided, as an addendum to the RM, and it's reasonable, I will fully endorse. Otherwise I will support an overturn. --B2C 06:07, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

However, the closer, BDD (talk · contribs) did provide a full explanation:

• Some editors here have asked for an explanation of the close: here goes. There were no real policy-based arguments to weigh. The nominator claimed the move per WP:COMMONNAME; the oppose voters thought the status quo was the common name. No one bothered to dredge up evidence. (And no, their Facebook and Twitter don't count; those "sources" conflicted anyway.) So I went with a headcount. After about two and a half weeks without decent arguments, I went with the majority position. So there you go. Not the most elegant decision, but you make closes with the arguments you have, not the arguments you might wish to have.

I disagree with BDD's finding; I think absent a policy based argument favoring the move, it was at best "no consensus". Finding WP:LOCALCONSENSUS in favor for the move by finding a marginal majority of such a small self-selected sample through counting !votes is not a reasonable explanation. If I had followed up, I would not have endorsed (I wish someone would have notified me to follow up before closing the move review...). Overturn.

What's relevant here is that my input should not have been viewed as an endorse in the closing of the move review. --B2C 23:10, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• I think closing it as no consensus is ridiculous. There's a 2.5-to-1 majority against endorsing the original closure, and this smacks as the SECOND !supervote in this case. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 15:43, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
  • You think closing "it" as no consensus is ridiculous? By "it" do you mean the original RM, or the RM review?

    You think "this" smacks as the SECOND !supervote in "this case"? What is the first "this" referring to? Does "this case" refer to the original RM, the RM review, or this ANI review of the RM review? --B2C 17:47, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• For fuck's sake, if you're going to make this pointless/stupid of a comment, then don't bother commenting at all. As a ten year old could tell, the move review closure is what was closed as no consensus (the RM wasn't closed as no consensus), both closures have been !supervote's, and you're wasting people's time when you attempt to distract from people's comments like this. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 15:13, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
  • In my comment I wrote that the original RM (BDD's finding) was "at best 'no consensus'". You replied to that saying you "think closing it as no consensus is ridiculous". There was no way to know you were referring to the no consensus result that actually occurred at the RM review, and not to the "at best" comment I made about the original RM. Anyway, thanks for the clarification. We agree the no consensus finding in the RM review is incorrect. --B2C 04:26, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that during the requested move, the nominator had been canvassing, leaving a message on User:Noyes388 talk page to notify him of the requested move, which he supported (read this).--Earthh (talk) 19:19, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• Overturn per above post by myself and failure to adequately explain actions in the interim as well as the input of B2C and PantherLeapord. --Jackson Peebles (talk) 22:18, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
• Overturn original MR closure - Clearly a textbook supervote and should be reversed ASAP. PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 22:37, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that we found a consensus. Could someone proceed and restore the original name?--Earthh (talk) 12:29, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. The RM review and the original RM both need to be overturned. --B2C 04:26, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

• The information page Wikipedia:Closing discussions provides process regarding Requested moves and reviewing requested moves. Consensus was decided at the Requested Move proposal and that close was reviewed at Move Review. Some of the same editors in the move request or move review discussions wanting to continue their move positions or move request positions in this AN thread. However, the discussion close and review of that close process provides for closure so that the community can move on. In regards to the request of this AN thread - "Editor refusing to explain closure of MR against consensus" - I was happy to provided it. In further details of that, I do appreciate the above feedback, but my reasoning reposted 04:40, 10 September 2013 above from here is still valid. I close the Move Review based on strength of arguments regarding whether the closer interpreted the consensus incorrectly. I considered, but gave less weight, to arguments that merely posted a conclusory statement or did not focus on strength of arguments regarding whether the closer interpreted the consensus incorrectly on arguments. B2C posted, "This close should have been made with a full explanation of how the closer found consensus in favor of the move. If this explanation is provided, as an addendum to the RM, and it's reasonable, I will fully endorse. Otherwise I will support an overturn." BDD provided that explanation on 28 August 2013, B2C did not reply, and the discussion was closed 9 September 2013, so I think reasonable to have seen B2C's position as fully endorse and give it the weight I did (more than SmokeyJoe, less than Cúchullain and BDD), within the confines of that discussion. B2C's position in the move review does not make or break the close any more than any one position does. In looking at the discussion as a whole, the collective move review endorse and overturn arguments - which both fell in the spectrum of weak to strong arguments - resulted in both sides providing strong arguments in their reasoning of whether BDD's interpreted the requested move proposal consensus incorrectly. There was no general sense of agreement one way or another. -- Jreferee (talk) 16:54, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

And the community has disagreed with that reading. Please do the right thing and undo your closure. PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 01:45, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

When I wrote my comment at the RM review saying I endorsed pending a reasonable explanation from BDD, I fully expected BDD to provide a reasonable explanation. I was so sure about that, I neglected to come back and check until I was notified about this ANI discussion on my user talk page. My bad. Surprisingly, the explanation provided by BDD on 28 August 2013 was, frankly, borderline pathetic. Certainly not reasonable:

Some editors here have asked for an explanation of the close: here goes. There were no real policy-based arguments to weigh. The nominator claimed the move per WP:COMMONNAME; the oppose voters thought the status quo was the common name. No one bothered to dredge up evidence. (And no, their Facebook and Twitter don't count; those "sources" conflicted anyway.) So I went with a headcount. After about two and a half weeks without decent arguments, I went with the majority position. So there you go. Not the most elegant decision, but you make closes with the arguments you have, not the arguments you might wish to have. --BDD (talk) 18:34, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

"No real policy-based arguments to weigh". And, yet, BDD found consensus? That's reasonable?

"So I went with a headcount...I went with a majority decision". That's reasonable?

Finding consensus in such a vacuum is exactly the kind of RM decision that needs to be reversed, and your RM review failing to see that is exactly the kind of RM Review decision that needs to be reversed. For the record, I have no position on the original RM question. I have no personal preference (never heard of the topic before), and don't know which meets COMMONNAME better. --B2C 19:21, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I am seriously considering taking this to arbcom unless the closure is reversed even if it is only so the community's will can be enacted. PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 22:41, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Thirty Seconds to Mars (also commonly stylized as 30 Seconds to Mars) is an American rock band from Los Angeles, formed in 1998

• RM1: The result of the move request was: not moved. @Jenks24: (talk) 15:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
• RM2: The result of the proposal was moved. --@BDD: (talk) 18:30, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
• MR: Thirty Seconds to Mars – Endorse Close. - There is no consensus in the move review, which has the same effect as Endorse Close. No action is required on the article title. -- @Jreferee: (talk) 00:17, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

On a re-reading of the above discussions I see: RM1 was clear. RM2 was a stretch to close this way, and definitely so if RM1 is considered. MR is a cautious "no consensus" that another admin may have read a rough consensus for Overturn or Relist.

• Is Jreferee at fault?

1. Could another another admin agree with the close? Yes Jreferee's close is defensible, and well defensible in isolation.
2. Did the closer have a COI or was he otherwise INVOLVED? No
3. Is there now so great a problem that it can't be worked on? No

No, Jreferee is not at fault. This discussion does not really belong at ANI. But where? So, ways forward?

(1) Jreferee could unclose the MR so that it might receive further attention.

(2) A fresh RM could be intiated to reverse the close on the basis that there was never a consensus to move (undermining the standing of the MR process and returning to the old endless "If you don't like the RM result, start a new one").

(3) Do nothing (offensive to an ordinary editor who believes that both BDD and Jreferee erred).

(4) Initiate #2 as an RfC.

(5) Go to Arb Com (my view: in the absence of even an allegation of poor conduct by any user, they should see no role for arb com in this question).

I recommend #1, failing that then #4. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:14, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. In fact, I suggested (1) on Jreferee's talk page[8]. I suggest others encourage him as well. If he refuses to comply with our requests, I agree #4 is the best course of action. --B2C 23:36, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

No response, yet. --B2C 22:55, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Jreferee (talk · contribs)... we're waiting for your response to my question on your talk page[9]. Thanks. --B2C 23:27, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

If there is no comment within 48 hours of this comment then I may take action to overturn the closure and allow another admin to review it. PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 08:01, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• Well, for the record, Jreferee said he was not going to. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 20:09, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Well as long as they do not revert the reversal of the closure then things should be fine. PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 10:36, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

What's going on here? I've just nominated Thirty Seconds to Mars for the Good article status, fixing multiple issues and expanding it, but how will we resolve this issue?--Earthh (talk) 12:48, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

The simplest way to resolve this is for Jreferee to revert his close. That way I can clarify my position (as it has been misinterpreted), others will have a chance to chime in, and someone else can close it. However, for reasons I cannot understand, Jreferee (talk · contribs) is not cooperating. I mean, he cites lack of policy basis to revert - but that's an excuse. Anyone can revert anything they've done, including a close. He doesn't need "policy basis" to revert his close. I, for one, am still hoping he'll change his mind, because the alternatives are:

• Someone else reverts the close (preferably an admin after reading this thread - it certainly can't be anyone involved so far, other than Jref).
• Someone starts a new RM as an RFC per SmokeyJoe (talk · contribs)'s #4 above.

--B2C 17:43, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Jreferee (talk · contribs)'s obstinacy on this matter is disappointing, to say the least. All that we're asking for is a revert of the move review so I can clarify my position, and give it a few days to see if others have anything to add, and let someone else evaluate the discussion. His refusal to cooperate is bewildering and contrary to the spirit of WP as I understand it. But there we are. I suppose someone else can revert the move review, but it really should be an uninvolved admin. Otherwise, somebody who cares (not me) needs to start another RM. --B2C 23:49, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I am seriously considering doing just that. As long as Jreferee does not try to get it speedy closed due to some imaginary waiting time then it should be able to get a clearer consensus on this. I will give Jreferre another week or so to do the right thing before I start it. I know that I am being STUPIDLY generous with waiting for so long but I always assume good faith in that Jreferee will do the right thing and revert their closure before the 7 day deadline expires. PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 00:04, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

User:TTN

An editor previously sanctioned for indiscriminate deletion nominations in running amok with copy and paste nominations of everything fiction related. Seriously, his "rationales" are virtually the same for just about every nomination, whether he's talking about a toy, a character in a film, or something else. Why is a guy who was sanctioned for this in the past once again diving into the same? His comments moreover make no sense. To suggest that something from Transformers or Lord of the Rings has "no real-world notability" is patently absurd. These are billion dollar world franchises with toys, books, films, comics, and games that have endured for decades now. They are not merely relevant to "fan boys", but to writers, artists, toy makers, voice actors, and the others in these multi-million dollar entertainment industries that do indeed have real world relevance to scores of such employees around the world and will continue to have relevance as these are not exactly dead franchises. Even if one does not think we need an article on every character, TTN offers no real justification against merging/redirecting rather than deleting and again, his non-arguments that these things are irrelevant to the real world is just indiscriminately copy and pasted across article after article carelessly. He provides no evidence that he actually checked for sources or has an familiarity with the subject or seriously considered redirecting/merging first for many of his nominations. His discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ivan Drago is particularly distressing as the others in the discussion indicated. Perhaps the most notable roll by a major actor in a major film that is frequently considered as indicative of Cold War stereotyping is called for deletion, and yet TTN's own nomination even indicates that an alternate solution (covering this in the film's article) also exists rather than deletion. Yet, despite what therefore should have at worst been an article's talk page discussion that is going on now anyway, gets taken to AfD instead. I just don't get how it could possibly be acceptable for someone who previously seems to have left under a cloud to just come back to his old form. You'd think he would at least maybe make some effort to show he can also add sources, improve writing, etc. If he can't, then he should at least write specific explanations for articles concerning different things that he nominates rather than just copy and pasting the same thing across all of them. Finally, he should certainly not dismiss stuff that doesn't matter to him but that indeed has economic and cultural significance to others. --199.123.13.158 (talk) 16:34, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, he is apparently not open to discussion. --199.123.13.158 (talk) 16:36, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Just because he removed your comment on his talk page doesn't mean he's not open for discussion (he's not just dropping the AFD and letting it run, he's participating in those). As for what he's AFD'ing, these are articles on fictional elements that lack any real-world, out-of-universe sourcing, and fail our notability guidelines; if they are truly "economic and cultural significance to others", there needs to be sourcing to show that to keep the article at a minimum. I will agree that some of these, after some thought, are better to be discussed as merges rather than deletions if only because they are reasonable search terms, and it would help if TTN chooses the merge option over AFD for these. But the bulk of his other AFDs are appropriate deletion candidates per our notability guidelines and he's in his right to start them. It is important to note that his block was based on violating a 6 month restriction from ArbCom back in 2008, which of course has long since expired. --MASEM (t) 16:52, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - I've disagreed with the user about his deletion nominations and took issue with the redirecting of past "merges" without bringing the content over, but I'm going to speak up in his defense over this. TTN seems to have a scattered shot gun approach, he'll AFD some problem article and than do completely unrelated ones despite 20+ similar articles not having a chance of N or GNG only to loop back and hit something days later. Does it make sense to me, no, but it doesn't have to. While I am not a fan of the methods, TTN does show that the decisions are usually well under the threshold before nominating like List of Universal Century superweapons, Boss Borot and Overlord (Transformers). While I may have some minor issues with TTN, he is well within his right to make these AFDs and they are not problematic - TTN even states that he'd withdraw the AFD if someone is going to commit to working on most of these long abandoned pages that were in violation of N/GNG when already made. If you want to argue of Gundam and Transformers you will need the books and most of those would be perfect for a combined article instead of individual pages, but even still these nominations are made in good faith and likely with an informed search on the subjects. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:06, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
• comment The fact that TNN can use the same cut and paste nominations on dozens of articles says more about the appallingly sorry states of dozens (well actually hundreds and potentially thousands) of articles than it does about the nominator. And I will note that merges and redirects done on their own on these articles are fully restored to their previous unsourced state. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:17, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

comment actually I see his "cut and paste" approach to be more indicative that he has not actually read the article in question but is nominating it because he doesn't like the article. Web Warlock (talk) 17:33, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

do you have anything to support your assumptions about his processes and actions? like any of the articles becoming well sourced from easy google searches? .... Bueler? ..... -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 10:25, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Spot checking and following what TTN's nominated, I've not seen a case of an article that in its present condition that is not woefully failing sourcing and notability issues nor where appropriate sourcing was easily found via google (which should be a reasonable expectation due to the contemporary nature of these topics). If anything, its more the ILIKEIT attitude of those trying to keep these articles without showing new sourcing (like the IP's complaint above) that is the problem. --MASEM (t) 17:40, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with TRPOD and Maasem here, the problem isn't so much TTN as the fact that he's going after well-entrenched long-term articles on wholly unnotable subjects that date back to the dreaded "an article for every evolution of Pokemon" days, but that didn't suffer the fate of those at the time because they didn't attract the same attention then. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 18:21, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

• This is at least partially my fault. TTN was previously using non-formulaic deletion nominations, and the wording on those nominations was... poor. I asked him to change his wording so that read as a statement on policy rather than a statement on subjective opinion, and since then he has been using these formulaic deletion rationales. I am of the opinion that both in wording and in tone, these are perfectly valid nominations and have, thus far, been properly applied. AfD can be a contentious place, with some contributors seemingly going out of their way to be bombastic. Clearly worded, policy grounded nominations should be appreciated, not condemned, even if one is used repeatedly. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:30, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
• Am I the only one who thinks this IP sounds like User:A Nobody? ThemFromSpace 17:32, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
  • The IP's first edit [10], reverting TTN's redirect 4 minutes after the edit, followed by following other TTN edits, does scream familiarity with TTN. --MASEM (t) 17:36, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
    • oh thats just your paranoid deletionists seeing fanboy socks behind every IP. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:43, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
• While the IP's complaint is a bit over the top, they do make some good points – the copy and paste nomination rationales, going to AFD first in lieu of any discussion or merge proposals, no indication of first checking for sources, flooding deletion discussions with several daily nominations – these things may not necessarily violate any policies, but to me they do speak of a general lack of courtesy to other editors. I have not voiced any opinion on this previously, but I have seen it from several other editors in other AFD discussions. While there may not be anything actionable as a result of this AN/I complaint, there are definitely some valid concerns about his approach that need to be examined. BOZ (talk) 17:56, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
  • At the same time, these are the same articles on fictional elements that have been in question since before the TTN Arbcom case, and yet haven't shown attempts to improve sourcing to address notability issues since 2008. And given that the community has rejected special notability criteria for fictional elements (defaulting to the GNG), these articles need improvement or should be merged/redirected or deleted. Again, I agree TTN probably needs to consider that if the article title is a non-disambiguated title that is a possible search term and that the content is not otherwise a copyvio or problematic, merge/redirect is the better option which should take place on talk pages. --MASEM (t) 18:14, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
    • The articles have varying dates of creation; some are several years old, and some are not. Either way, the date of creation is not relevant to whether it should be kept, merged, or deleted. I do completely agree with your last sentence. BOZ (talk) 18:17, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
      • The trouble is that, as pointed out before, these articles have a very loud cadre of WP:ILIKEIT/WP:ITSNOTABLE defenders who would shout down any such proposal and would (and have) quickly revert any WP:BOLD redirecting. They'd have to wind up at AfD anyway, there's no reason to waste time in getting there. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 18:21, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

This was opened by an IP from Ashland University and you wonder whether it is A Nobody? Rangeblock applied. Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.—Kww(talk) 19:14, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah, that plan sure did backfire, didn't it? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:17, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Irregardless, (and I hope TTN is reading), there is something to be said about being aware of when to AFD (when there's no reason to merge/redirect) and when to go to a merge/redirect discussion on the article talk page, or even better, if looking at a large swath of articles that apply to the same Wikiproject, to get input there. TTN hasn't done anything "wrong" (requiring admin action) but these is the same path that did lead to the past Arbcom case, and the same advice from Kww applies here. --MASEM (t) 19:21, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

There is an obvious contradiction between our policies allowing, and in fact openly encouraging merge discussions at AfD, and the fact that merge and AfD are two different processes. This should not be about TTN's nominations, which are all within consensual practices, but about the creation of Article for Discussion. As a user frequently dealing with fictional elements at AfD, my view is that notability discussions relegated to a mere article talk page section, run the risk of being very much restricted in scope and limited to the regular editors of the page in question, who may not always be sufficiently distanced from the topic they're writing about, ready to see their work questioned, or experienced enough to deal with notability questions. In most cases, WP:NOTPLOT is at stake, so is it reasonable to condemn policy discussions to confidentiality ? Limiting the visibility of such debates will result in lower participation, with either very weak consensuses, or unsolvable deadlocks. Competent editors need a way to centralize discussions, and I don't care whether it's at AfD or AfDiscussion, but until WP can solve this identity crisis for good, it's pointless to place the blame on good faithed, individual editors like TTN.Folken de Fanel (talk) 20:18, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

TTN's behavior is simply repeating his past course of action and dancing on the edge of outright defiance of the Arbcom ruling. As his reponse here[11] to me indicates, he is not complying with WP:BEFORE and presumes articles on fictional topics are not notable, without attempting to actually assess notability. The pace with which he is nominating articles on diverse topics is a very strong implication of fait accompli behavior, which was particularly condemned by Arbcom ("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". His statement in the AFD I cite, " I would ask that you instead focus on the status of the article", is an almost unmistakeable signal of his intentions to use AFD as a cudgel to drive article cleanup, an action that is by consensus forbidden as disruption. He was previously urged, as Arbcom notes, to "[work] collaboratively and constructively with the broader community"; his refusal to do so was a key element in the topic ban Arbcom imposed. He is repeating the same unacceptable behavior on a related topic now, and his deliberate noncompliance should be seen as grounds for similar limitation of editing privileges, which I hope will come swiftly. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 19:59, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

In the Lucas Garner AfD you refer to, you wrote a very passionate "keep" comment, arguing "no significant effort to assess the subject's notability" and an "unconvincing and unsupported" AfD rationale. Yet, Lucas Garner remains unsources, (itself a valid rationale for deletion), and I note you have failed to edit the article to provide reliable secondary sources, now 11 days after your comment in which you seemed so convinced of their existence. All I can see here is rather an issue of WP:ILIKEIT mixed with blatant assumptions of bad faith, rather than any fault on TTN's part. I note, however, that WP:AFDFORMAT considers that "a pattern of groundless opinion, proof by assertion, and ignoring content guidelines may become disruptive". Folken de Fanel (talk) 20:35, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I take it you can produce no substantive refutation regarding TTN's refusal to conform to the standards prescribed by Arbcom, so you're casting aspersions against me for pointing out his noncompliance. And if you think that "There is an extensive body of critical work concerning Niven's writings; he has been a leading SF writer for nearly fifty years" is "passionate", well . . . . Merely knowing who he is hardly proves I'm a fan of his writing. Seems to me that you're the one assuming bad faith, especially you've now accused me of disruption for claims that are at least as true of TTN as of me. And "unsourced" is a rationale for BLP deletion; otherwise it's "unsourceable" -- and the works themselves provide implicit sourcing, of course. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 20:49, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Since TTN's nomination are appropriate deletion candidates per our notability guideline, and that's also the case with Lucas Garner, then I see no reason to refer to the Arbcom ruling. However, I note that in your AfD comment, you were quick to accuse TTN of violating WP:BEFORE, while "Lucas Launcelot Garner" doesn't get any hit either on GBooks or GScholar besides primary sources, therefore TTN's rationale was perfectly valid. So yes, I maintain that your intervention doesn't provide any ground to claims of "unacceptable behavior" from TTN, if anything, you've shot yourself in the foot.Folken de Fanel (talk) 21:07, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Are you joking? Searching under a nonstandard form of a fictional character's name is, of course, going to produce few if any hits. Using "Lucas Garner" as the search term generates more substantial results, unsurprisingly, and as is often evident, very little of the substantive discussion and commentary regarding genre fiction is available or indexed online. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:19, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

"Lucas Garner" is not extraordinary enough as to ensure that all results will be relevant to the fictional character. And quite frankly I don't see more relevant hits than before. If you yourself acknowledge that "very little of the substantive discussion and commentary regarding genre fiction is available or indexed online", then accusing TTN of violating WP:BEFORE was blatant assumption of bad faith, because the minimal requirement of WP:BEFORE is an online search. And if the so-called substantive discussion is that confidential, then the subject is unlikely to be notable anyway. Again, besides the fact that you didn't like that the article was questioned at AfD, I don't see any proof of "unacceptable behavior" from TTN.Folken de Fanel (talk) 21:46, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

• Placeholder for more substantial comment later, but I believe that TTN's nominations violate 1) best practice as codified inWP:BEFORE, as there is no attempt to find content, 2) WP:ATD in that there is no attempt to merge or redirect articles with absolutely clear merge targets, and 3) WP:POINT or WP:DE violation, in that he persists in nominating articles in the face of a preponderance of keep, merge, or redirect outcomes. There's no question that most of this content could stand improvement, and merging, trimming, and sourcing are entirely appropriate, encyclopedic ways to deal with such content, but TTN's blanket attempts to delete everything not only doesn't improve that coverage, but if implemented as per his expressed desire would have the effecct of prohibiting non-admin improvement of deficient articles by deleting them. Jclemens-public (talk) 21:00, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

  Your 1) violates WP:AGF, as seen in the case of Lucas Garner above, TTN nominated articles for which notability was clearly in doubt and search engines yielded no result. Your 2) is irrelevant given how long bold merges or redirects usually last (as The Bushranger pointed out, AfDs are unavoidable), and I have explained above the limits of article talk page merge discussions. Your 3) cancels out your 2), and again per WP:AFDFORMAT and WP:MERGE, there's no fundamental contradiction between AfD and merging/redirecting. I also don't think you're depicting "merge" and "redirect" comments in his AfDs accurately: I myself only propose merging as a compromise but I would have had no problem in seeing the content gone for good, and I don't see merging and redirecting as strictly speaking "improvement", merely the acknowledgment the articles were not notable in the first place. Thus, I also completely disagree with your assessment that "sourcing" was ever a possibility for the content that TTN nominated. Some editors sure seem unhappy that some articles went up for deletion and were deleted/merged, but that's not a valid reason to drag TTN to WP:ANI.Folken de Fanel (talk) 21:35, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

  WP:ATD is policy; your !votes which opined 'merge' or 'redirect' for fictional topics were policy-based. TTN's AfD nomination of mergeable and redirectable content which is non-problematic except for notability concerns, is not. That is the issue here: Too much is being said "but this is sub-standard", which is irrelevant. As a volunteer, collaborative project, we work to use whatever people have contributed in the best and most suitable encyclopedic fashion, and TTNs actions have not been consistent with either the spirit or letter of that goal. Jclemens (talk) 01:32, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

  So TTN should be free to boldly redirect non-notable topics and bypass AFD completely which ATD promotes. I don't have my head in the sand to know how much that will rile those that want to keep those articles, and leave the only option to a talk page discussion which of course will be extremely biased. This is a strong example of why we really need an "Articles for Discussion" to augment the normal AFD so that issues like merges and redirects can attract larger audiences than just the talk page alone. --MASEM (t) 01:42, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• Oh good, my time-machine worked. The main issue here is, as it always was, not about the content. Rather it is about the methods by which TTN chooses to go about his crusade. Nominating dozens upon dozens of articles for deletion (well over 100 afds in less than a month) and redirecting even more at the same time makes attempts to improve this content a daunting task for anyone, made worse by the stubborn nature of his editing and communication (what little there is) and his lack of effort in attempting to improve content before removing it. All of this goes against the collaborative nature of the project, TTN seems less interested in collaborating to make the project better than he is in meeting his own personal objectives--Jac16888 ^Talk 21:38, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

• at least within the D&D space, the projects have had YEARS of time in which they knew there was a great concern about the sourcing of the articles to find and produce sourcing for the unsourced/improperly articles. That they have chosen instead to allow a proliferation of MORE unsourced/improperly sourced articles is not the fault of TNN. If they had taken any responsibility for the quality of their articles they would not need to be " defending" a dozen indefensible articles in a month. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:58, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

• And most of the time when they do bother to add additional sources, they're just more sourcebooks or novels, which are then claimed as third-party sources establishing notability...I think the main problem is a serious lack of WP:CLUE about what "notability" actually is, really, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:58, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

And again, most of the articles nominated were created as far back as 2008, so users had enough time to improve content if that could really be done. That you have a different definition of what "collaborating" and "improving" means isn't a reason to drag TTN here.Folken de Fanel (talk) 21:52, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:DEADLINE applies. It would be faster to improve the content if everyone would pitch in and do so collaboratively--I daresay that poor and non-collegial behavior has made the entire topic more hostile than it needs to be. Jclemens (talk) 01:36, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

That makes the assumption that they can be improved. To take one of the current batch of AfDs as an example, I sincerely doubt that hook horror has sufficient coverage in third-party reliable sources to come anywhere near notability; while it is indeed true that there is no deadline, using WP:DEADLINE to keep stuff that can't be improved because "it might one day" only does the encyclopedia a disservice. As for those that can be improved because there is sufficient third-party reliable sourcing available to demonstrate genuine notability, why wait? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:08, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• TTN is doing great work. His nominations appear to be within policy and he is helping us get our act together in some of our weakest areas. He seems to nominate on average less than 10 articles a day, across multiple fandoms, so the argument that he is "flooding AfD" just doesn't fly. That this complaint was brought on by one of our most disruptive editors, who has been banned for several years now, also says a lot. TTN should continue his work and feel free to report back here if he feels any sort of further harrassment. ThemFromSpace 21:53, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Lord of the Rings? If they tag Fangorn there are going to be serious issues... NE Ent 22:21, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I was wondering why TTN wasn't responding to the comments here so I went to TTN's Talk Page and he wasn't notified of this AN/I. There was this bare link posted:

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:TTN

(which has since been removed) but not the standard notification which provides a fuller explanation of the discussion that is occurring. It hardly seems fair to be talking about someone without letting them know. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:02, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I know, but there really isn't much to add. It's just the usual divide of people who fully agree with me, people who agree with my methodology and not my methods, and those who completely disagree. I believe I am within acceptable limits of policy with only around five AfDs per day that have mostly ended with the articles being removed in some way, so I don't plan to change too much unless someone thinks it proves to be a larger issue. TTN (talk) 23:10, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Just thought I'd place it here, though it has absolutely nothing to do with this particular thread: Liz, in my view the standard template "Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you." is useless too. The message includes no link to the particular discussion, and "may have been involved" is just weasely. There. Load off my chest. (Yes, I know it doesn't belong here). ---Sluzzelin talk 23:14, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

It does include a link to the particular discussion if you use the |thread= parameter. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:58, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

That's a good and fair point, Bushranger, and I gotta plead ignorance. I suspect, however, that others are ignorant too, because whenever I've clicked on the supposed link to "a discussion" that parameter apparently hadn't been defined. It's good to know that it's theoretically possible for this template to link to the specific thread though, thanks again! ---Sluzzelin talk 00:08, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• Most of TTN's AFDs were, and are, valid. Wikipedia embarrasses itself with the amount of trivial crap that we allow to pollute what is supposed to be an encyclopedia. Unfortunately, such AfDs attract little interest except those editors interested in keeping such trivia (Colonel Warden, Cavarrone, etc.) By the way, the OP is a sock of a banned editor. Black Kite (talk) 01:11, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• Black Kite, after checking the interection analyzer I can say I voted "keep" in just two AfD started by TTN. I voted in other 7 AfD started by TTN, always as "redirect" and/or "merge" and all these votes are in accordance with the final outcome of those discussions, something quite common in respect to my work at AfD. Your referring to me as someone "interested in keeping trivia", besides totally ignoring the specific arguments I raised in those two afd, smells in its wording of a personal attack and implies some bad faith by you while frankly I do not even know why I was involved in this discussion, I voted these discussions because I have the relevant delsort in my watchlist, not because I am interested in the AfD started by a specific editor. Cavarrone 05:58, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• • So do you think WP:ATD should be deprecated as no longer policy? Or do you think it's OK for editors to nominate things for deletion despite policies which explicitly prefer merge or redirection outcomes? Jclemens (talk) 01:38, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Nobody has proposed deprecating WP:ATD. While it does suggest merging non-notable fictional elements, editors are not obligated to do so when they find the content unencyclopedic. If TTN were proposing the deletion of Superman, Drizzt, or Son Goku, I could see this kind of outrage and AN/I discussion taking place, but the vast majority of his nominations have been articles that demonstrate absolutely no notability. Some of his nominations have been controversial, but I think he's learned from those experiences. Most of his nominations could have been boldly merged or redirected, but they would have been instantly reverted by hardcore inclusionists. Perhaps it would be more diplomatic to propose these topics for merging (and I have voted to merge many of them), but nominating them for deletion is perfectly within policy. His work cleaning up the disruptive editing of a banned sockmaster in the Ultra Series has been especially helpful to Wikipedia, as this user created dozens (if not hundreds) of articles and categories on trivial subjects. Maybe this has increased the workload of admins, but it's a good faith attempt to improve Wikipedia. I agree with Sven Manguard and others who say that it's about time that this fancruft finally got cleaned up. I might have done things a bit differently (merger discussions, bulk nominations, coordination with appropriate WikiProjects, etc), but I approve of TTN's campaign against cruft. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 02:58, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• None of TTN's nominations are actually valid, because he never addresses the possibility of merging or redirecting. At the very worst, the material should be redirected, not deleted. I accept that in some case as deletion nomination may be the only way of getting an article effectually merged or redirected-- and I have made a few such nomination to solve an impasses at an article talk page. But almost all of these are cases where it is a matter of degree for the extent of content that we should have, and either TTN does not realize this or he intends to ignore it.

The problem is that he assumes a policy that when the article on a franchise or major complex work is split, none of the parts of it may be devoted primarily to plot. Now, it is true, and I think everyone here agrees that the WP coverage of a work should not be entirely devoted to plot. But in an article some part of it must cover the plot, and consequently when an article is split, some separate article or articles that are the resultant parts of that split must cover the plot.

The actual problem is not that WP articles covered plot, but that many of the older articles on works fof fiction and related topics covered only the plot, and covered it in a very immature fashion. There's an obvious reason--the articles were written by those with a lack of understanding of how much there is to say about fiction, and how much is actually published in terms of analysis and relationships to other works. Most plots in WP articles are absurdly sketchy and incomplete. The basic question that someone comes here about a work of fiction is to find out what happens in it. Plot is the very basis of fiction and an article that does not cover it fully might be about the publishing of fiction, or the reception of fiction, but it will not be about fiction itself. Almost all of our articles need a proper reanalysis of the plot based upon a careful reading or watching of the primary source, informed by published analyses of it when available--presentations that make the story line and the role of the characters clear. About half the existing ones are the sort of thing that appears on amazon or goodreads or primary school book reports: an list of everything in the beginning, which an elementary student can write without having read more than the first chapter, and then a failure to tell how the story develops and ends. Doing it properly takes effort--first careful reading, then careful thinking,and finally clear and organized writing, all of which are in short supply among WP contributors.

To be sure, a few such articles are in excessive detail. People here have not yet gotten the idea of proportionate coverage--that major works deserve detailed analysis, and minor ones needs more cursory treatment. In particular, TTN does not appear to have gotten the idea: he demonstrates this by his identical nominations of important characters in important works, and trivial plot elements in very minor material. If he really wanted to effectually improve WP coverage of fiction, the most useful thing he could do is to start with the least important works, and reduce the coverage to half the length while at the same time making it clearer. To do this reasonably, there would be a lot of merges, and many redirects. But he's out to make a point, and the proof of that is that he insists on nominating not just the sort of thing that nobody much cares about, but significant elements in works that many people here know and care about deeply. In other words, he;s out to make trouble--or at the least, indifferent to the trouble that he makes.

These deletion nomination exemplify the worst fears of those of us who want a rational treatment: unless we keep individual articles, merged content will be gradually eliminated and not even redirects will be left. So even those who, like myself, think the treatment should in many cases be much reduced, find ourselves defending everything we have, because we know by experience--experience now being confirmed by TTN--that unless we do so, even the important parts will disappear from WP.

WP is not a paper encyclopedia--it does not primarily care about the intrinsic importance of things, but pf providing information about anything which is of possible general interest that can be written in English based upon reliable sources. Even the sort of fiction I consider junk is of this sort of general interest-even Transformers, to pick what is probably in to many of us a pretty extreme example. If people care about it , and if we can present the information, we should have it.

TNN's approach will destroy the encyclopedia. If he removes material which he thinks is so unimportant as not to be worth the coverage, some of us will want to remove material we think equally foolish: professional wrestling and pornographic performers are two areas where there;'s been considerable sympathy for this approach. And in each case it's been provoked by the very low quality of much of our existing coverage. But this differs for everyone. Some people think industrial products aren't worth covering, some high schools, some college football, some state or provincial politicians. And so it goes until we're left with a condensed encyclopedia suitable for the school curriculum in 1900.

This isn't personal--I'm using "TTN" as a shortcut; it should be read as "fiction minimalists" which for the moment happen to be most prominent as a particular individual. Minimalists of any sort have no place in a comprehensive encyclopedia. The two concepts are antithetical. DGG ( talk ) 03:02, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, I disagree, but that shouldn't be much of a surprise given that I describe myself as a minimalist. What about the WP:GNG? I assume you think that we should give these articles a free pass? I fail to see why people act like deleting an article from Wikipedia is like burning down the Library of Alexandria all over again. Wikia exists solely to catalog obsessive fancruft, and we do not need to do so here. Note that minimalism isn't about going crazy with a red pen and deleting everything; rather, it advocates removing only that which is unnecessary. And, before you ask, consensus determines what is unnecessary. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:52, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but based on all the failed attempts I've tried to get a fictional element guideline passed (with many different iterations), the community requires fictional elements to meet the GNG, meaning out-of-universe discussion from secondary sources. Arguing that we are a comprehensive encyclopedia is antithetical to the fact that we are not an indiscriminate collection of information. We could document everything, but we have chosen not to, and in terms of fiction, we have chosen to avoid the fan-level type of cover that some would like to see but that is much better suited to other wikis. TTN's action are not out of line with any policy or guideline, only those that can't accept that we're not a fansite for one's favorite work of fiction. --MASEM (t) 03:56, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Your logic misses one important point: material that refers only to plot should never be split into a separate article. All articles, fiction and non-fiction alike, are supposed to be based on material in independent, reliable sources, not primary sources. That's what WP:V demands, and it shouldn't be weakened for any area. When these articles are deleted, anything that actually needs to be kept is generally in the superordinate articles.—Kww(talk) 03:57, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

DGG wrote above: "WP is not a paper encyclopedia--it does not primarily care about the intrinsic importance of things, but pf providing information about anything which is of possible general interest that can be written in English based upon reliable sources."

I disagree with this, at least if taken literally. This seems to deny our insistence on notability, the WP:GNG, and indeed WP:NOT (the indiscriminate collection of information section). I do not think I am a"fiction minimalist" -- I have surely contributed to a number of articles about works of fiction over the years. But I do think the tendency, especially in some popular genres, to have articles on every major (and sometimes minor) character in a work of fiction, and every plot element or artifact, to be overdone and more appropriate to a specialist wiki. Most fictional characters, even in a major work of fiction, are not independently notable, IMO. Yes surely some are Sherlock Holmes or Frodo Baggins, for example, ought to have separate articles. But when independent, secondary reliable sources cannot be found (after a reasonable search) for a character or an element of a work of fiction, then that article ought to be merged, redirected, or deleted.

DGG writes of what happens when an article is split. Well, if an individual element does not have the sources, the secondary coverage, to make it

independently notable, then is shouldn't be split out, (nor written about at such length as to require a split) and if it is, it should be re-meerged.

I have not read most of the specific AfD nominations and discussions referenced above, ans so have no opinion on their specific merits. But we do have many articles about non-notable fictional characters, objects, and other elements of particular fictional works (or groups of works), An effort to remove some of these strikes me as a good think, so long as it is not done in a manner likely to overwhelm AfD or those who might wish to argue different points of view. DES ^(talk) 04:10, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

DGG, to add to what the others have pointed out, fictional characters do not gain notability from being in a notable, or even famous, work. They gain notability, and therefore the ability to have valid articles, by being discussed themselves - I don't think anyone would suggest that Star Wars is anything other than one of the seminal works of fiction of our time, but that doesn't mean that, say, Nahdonnis Praji is notable because he was a character in the movie; he goes in List of Star Wars characters, where, as part of the group, he is worthy of mention, and if that page gets too large List of Imperial characters in Star Wars would be an appropriate split. But Nahdonnis Praji itself should at best be a redirect, because he does not get coverage on his own to meet the WP:GNG. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:15, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I stand by what I have said. The only practical meaning of "Notability" at WP, is what is considered of sufficient importance to have a separate WP{ article. We normally judge that by the GNG. The GNG is considered here a generally applicable guide, to be used when possible--when it yields results in conformity from common sense, like everything else here. It's application in disputed cases, including disputes in this field, tends to depend on quibbles about the interpretation of the key words, "significant" and "independent"; I could generally construct an equally plausible argument about these in either direction, and the arguments that people make are not based upon abstract considerations, but on whether they holistically want the article to stay or remain. Every major character in a major work of fiction is discussed in outside sources to some degree, But the reason why are they discussed is because they are major characters in major fiction, and any of our rules about it are merely approximations to determine this.

Much more important than whether we have a separate article is whether we have content. Whether we have substantial content about something does not depend upon notability. It depends on verifiability and proportionate importance to the subject. Nobody could rationally defend the giving of equal importance to the major and minor characters of a work, or to the characters or episodes of major and minor works. Lack of notability (in the sense we use it here) of the actually important characters or episodes of aspects of setting is not reason for deletion, but for merging--provided we keep the merged material. The campaign for deletion of this material is therefore inappropriate and destructive, We should instead be focussing of=n including it--including it properly. DGG ( talk ) 22:42, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• • DGG's point should not be overlooked: Lack of notability is a justification for not having an article on a topic, not a justification for removing that topic from the encyclopedia. In some cases, non-notable articles should be removed, because they don't fit anywhere, but that's not the case here. Every single one of TTN's AfD's that I've ever looked at has a valid, easy-to-find, and essentially uncontroversial merge or redirect target. Jclemens (talk) 04:53, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
    • That's a completely valid point, and I don't disagree that some of the AFD TTN's is information that could be covered elsewhere -- but first cutting down on the tons of in-universe information that doesn't belong in WP per WP:NOT#PLOT. And many of these AFD's already have the appropriate trimmed information in the larger merge target. But ignoring that factor, the problem of walled gardens still persists: per ATD, TTN should be able boldly and freely able to merge/redirect these without first garnering, but dollars to donuts that the changes would be reverted within days, and/or his edits complained about just as they are now. And if he either started or followed up with merge discussions, which currently are required to take place on the talk pages of these articles, there would be no traction at all. As I mention later, this highlights the problem that we have no means of discussing non-administrative actions (what AFD is limited to) in a venue desinged to garner cross-WP input, nothing intrinsically wrong with TTN's actions. --MASEM (t) 06:02, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
      • You're justifying asking for non-policy-based deletion discussions on two faulty premises: 1) WP:ABFing about the possible actions of fiction-topic fans, and 2) Postulating that AFD is a valid place to start merge discussions. It's not, per Wikipedia:PEREN#Rename AFD. Jclemens (talk) 07:15, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
        • "Assume" means to act as if something is true without prior knowledge. In this case, we have years of experience that gives us prior knowledge: in general, when an article about a fictional character or television episode is redirected to a parent article, a fan of that character will undo the redirection. A simple look at A Nobody's current ban-evasion here and here show that there's no reason to think that problem has gone away. It's reasonable to argue about philosophies and goals, but to deny that that cycle exists is simply denying the existence of history.—Kww(talk) 07:26, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
          • Yea, I'm working on the fact that this has happened, repeatedly, in the past (Heck, I'm having problems right now suggesting a merge of a one-off movie character Ivan Drago into the parent film because of the inclusion-minded editors that are calling the merge "deletion"). Talk pages of fiction articles are well-established walled gardens that fight to keep their content that they know they can't find true secondary sources for. We've tried developing special guidelines for fiction notability but the community has decided there are no special ones (and in fact we strive towards a specific type of out-of-universe coverage for fictional elements) so it is not like. And I'm well aware AFD as "AFDiscussion" is a PEREN, but there's no reason there can't be parallel processes that take advantage of deletion sorting for merges, redirects, and moves to have these discussions visible to a larger audience. --MASEM (t) 13:27, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Semi-Tangent: AfD is not Wikipedia:Merge This For Me

To approach this from another direction, I tend to agree with ~90% of TTN's noms, but don't consider them a productive contribution in spite of that. The primary flaw in TTN's method is that he puts a ton of stuff up for AFD that should just be straight-up merged or redirected. This results in a lot of parasitic bureaucracy and diverts Project editors from other tasks they'd rather be doing, which is "disruptive" by dicdef if not in Wikipedese. Yes, doing the work yourself may take you longer and certainly exposes you to more criticism, but it takes Wikipedia as a whole less time.
In short: try to merge first, only go to AfD if there's a dispute over it. --erachima talk 07:19, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• I disagree. These topics have historically been run by "fanboy"-type editors, often with limited experience, and they will revert any redirecting of these articles. Particularly when many of these articles are poorly sourced (or unsourced), AfD is a perfectly valid venue, and too many people here are making a mountain out of a molehill to create teh dramahz. I think this thread should be closed. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:36, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

been there done that. the content is restored as it was without any additional sourcing and then been accused of "merging content against process and without consensus". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 08:40, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Counterpoint. This AfD was utterly unnecessary and simply resulted in a 9-day delay before redirection. --erachima talk 10:36, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• No, it wasn't utterly unnecessary. There is a clear redirect consensus; no editor can wander in on their own and revert the redirect, claiming a lack of consensus. As frequently happens with similar things. The same issue exists with songs, which clearly fail WP:NSONG, and yet some editors will ignore that and try to keep them for WP:ILIKEIT reasons. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 11:43, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Lukeno94, I both disagree with your statements and find them insulting. You are broadly categorizing the sort of people who are interested in these articles as being inexperienced and acting against policy, when in many cases that simply isn't true. I know there are quite a few experienced editors here who are interested in articles on the subjects TTN has been nominating (myself included, for anime and manga articles). I certainly agree that almost everything TTN has been nominating should either be deleted or redirected, and think there are a lot of likeminded editors who are interested in those subjects. Some of those articles are things that clearly should be redirected, and I think TTN should be trying to redirect those before nominating them for deletion. To use the example of Akane Higurashi, that article was created by someone who hasn't edited in 5 years, and hasn't had many substantive edits since. I personally was surprised that such an article was still around, as I would have expected articles like that to have been redirected long ago. That kind of thing that appears to be a forgotten old article that no one seems to care about anymore and has an obvious redirect target is exactly the sort of thing that should just be redirected rather than being taken to AFD. While it is possible that someone would have come along and undone the redirect, I don't think it was likely. I've been seeing a lot of articles nominated by TTN that I have a similar opinion of (i.e., they should have just been redirected), and think he should try just redirecting those. Calathan (talk) 17:48, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

i would suggest you pick 10 articles in the same state as the ones TNN has nominated, redirect them and then time how long it takes for them to be restored to their previous state without the inclusion of any additional sources. You might get one that will stay as a redirect for as long as a month, but that that would be the limit before the crap was reinstated. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:14, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

There are too many articles. If I go on to redirect every single one, it's just going to be more of this like in the past. There are zealous fans, people who disagree with redirecting without discussion (even when there is no discussion to be had) and revert only for that reason, and other such people who may randomly revert later. If I feel a topic can actually be improved, I'll start a merge discussion, but all of these plot-only articles are fine AfD candidates. People keep bringing up BEFORE, but it's not like I'm doing this to force them to be merged. I'm fine with a merge/redirect verdict, but I am aiming for deletion over anything else. AfD is something with a wide view, open to discussion, and not able to be overly influenced by personal factors. It's the best forum to discuss these as far as I can tell, and bold redirects would end up there more often than not anyway. TTN (talk) 18:16, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry you don't like those comments, Calathan, but we're simply describing what we have observed through past experience: WP:BOLD redirections/merges get undone posthaste because "of course it's notable!". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 20:09, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually the problem is the exact opposite of what the two comments above have just said. The reason we need to keep separate articles for significant fictional topics, is that when they are merged it is the start of an quiet but effective process of destroying the material altogether. First as little is merged as possible, and then the the amount gradually reduced, until it becomes just an item on a list. Eventually, even the redirect is removed on the basis the article contains no significant information.

But when we cannot keep separate articles asking for deletion is saying that we should not even have a cross-reference, that someone who comes here and looks for it will find nothing. The nominations give no reason given why it should not be at least a redirect. There's a good explanation for that: there is no possibly valid reason. Anything someone might want to look up, for which there's relevant content in Wikipedia, should have a redirect. What the fiction minimalists are trying to ideally do is remove all mention of fictional characters and settings from WP, and will use whatever route suits their purpose. WP is meant as a comprehensive encyclopedia, and comprehensive has a actual meaning. The only way to keep it so is to maintain in this field every possibly justifiable separate article, and all merged informative sourceable content, and , as a last ditch effort, at least the redirects. DGG ( talk ) 22:18, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Except, of course, that these editors that desperately want separate articles consider merging or redirection equivalent to deletion, and avoid all attempts to merge or redirect when done on talk pages. I agree that at minimum, if its a searchable term (a non-disambiguated name of a character for example), a redirect to the larger work or list is completely appropriate, even leaving behind the entire edit history of the article so that anyone can bring appropriate content to the target, but when editors that have created and maintained these pages reject these options calling it equal to "deletion", we can't let that stagnant on talk pages. Again, I think this is a symptom of the larger problem that efforts to expand or augment AFD for any type of article discussion that needs wider interest (as to take advantage of the deletion sorting efforts to categorize those better) is what the issue is, TTN's actions only highlight that problem. --MASEM (t) 22:53, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• DGG, you seem like a reasonable and intelligent editor, but I think you're beginning to develop a battleground mentality on this subject. I disagree with you philosophically on many points, but I would not say that your views or actions have no valid basis. You're ignoring policies that contradict your interpretation of common sense (which is why relying on common sense is so flawed – "common sense" is noting but a set of biases that we refuse to admit exist), using slippery slope arguments, and assuming bad faith. I think you need to realize that we're all here to make a better encyclopedia. If some information is lost as a result of it, no big deal. People still have Google. They can find out what style of underwear Superman prefers from Wikia. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:51, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• I find your lack of good faith disturbing. Now, I'll be the first to admit that there are some subjects where WP:GNG falters due to a lack of coverage for fair reasons or foul in "regular media" (webcomics, for instance), but accusations that there is a cabal that is attempting to "remove all mention of fictional characters and settings from WP" is, to call a spade a spade, patently absurd. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:02, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Sorry, but you're the only one talking about cabals here. There's nothing about like-minded people attempting to influence Wikipedia in their preferred direction that requires any secret collaboration. However, just because these various defenders of TTN don't need to be in a cabal doesn't mean their interpretation of policies actually follows the spirit of Wikipedia: people contributing to a single, free, knowledge repository, which will naturally tend to increase coverage of topics the authors care about. DGG is absolutely correct about the merge->trim into oblivion citing WP:DUE cycle: I ran into it just this week on an unrelated topic. Jclemens (talk) 04:59, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Then that needs to be dealt with, but "keep all the things whether they're notable or not" is not the way to do it. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:29, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Have you looked at TTN's notability thresholds? He's not satisfied that the GNG is met, that multiple independent reliable sources have covered a topic in a non-trivial manner--he wants real world impact. That is, as far as I can tell, a belief that unless something about the fictional element has changed the mainstream world, the amount of independent RS coverage isn't relevant. TTN's desired notability thresholds are not policy based, in that he appears to mandate an SNG level of coverage when the GNG is already met, yet he gets a pass from you and many others despite a plethora of such non-policy-arguments. His hyper-narrowed personal beliefs are at least as disruptive to the consensus-based collaborative improvement process as any of they hyper-inclusionists' ever were. Jclemens (talk) 02:39, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• • • • • can you show me where there have been independent sources that cover the subject in a significant manner and TNN is still stating that the article still should be deleted because of lack of real world impact? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:33, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• • • • • And that's what my attempts at making a fictional element notability guideline have generally results - consensus want fictional element articles that are covered in an out-of-universe manner, meaning development and reception, which is met by meeting the GNG. This includes understanding that many sources that those that want to keep these articles are primary in nature or simply don't provide significant coverage as required by the GNG. By having "significant coverage in independent secondary sources", a fictional element is assured of having some out-of-universe aspects. --MASEM (t) 02:48, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• • • • • In my experience with, at least, the D&D monster articles nominated by TTN, the "multiple independent reliable sources" are almost invariably sourcebooks, adventure paths, and the like that, regardless of publisher, are primary sources and establish no notability whatsoever (i.e. a Paizo-published module for a game published by the spooooky wizards who live on the coast is still a primary source for a monster in the game). - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 10:59, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
          • "real world impact" is directly alluded to as "attention by the world at large" in WP:N, and as "real world notability" in WP:WAF. It is therefore incorrect to claim TTN's "desired notability thresholds are not policy based". I also note that a certain group of users have focused their criticism solely on TTN, but TTN does not delete or merge articles by himself. This group seems to have overlooked the fact that delete, redirect or merge outcomes in TTN's AfD are decided by consensuses, themselves validated by closing admins, and that 99% of the outcomes confirm TTN's notability assessments.Folken de Fanel (talk) 12:24, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with the topic title somewhat. This is the same kind of stuff we went through with user "Mathewignash" and Transformers articles a year or two ago. Article after article after article of in-universe fiction and fancruft...99% of which were sourced to toy catalogs and guides. We redirected/merged several dozens of these things, and they had to go through AfD because this user and 1-2 others at the time would just revert away. So yea, sometimes AfD is needed to enforce a merge, as it gives opponents less wiggle room to counter it. Tarc (talk) 13:45, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Once more I surprisingly find myself agreeing partially with Tarc. Sometimes AfD is needed to enforce a merge. It is also true that sometimes an AfD is needed to prevent persistent attempts at a merge, by trying to establish the separate article as justifiable. I have repeated asked, & it's almost been adopted a couple of times, that we call AfD Articles for Discussion and discuss all disputes about whether to have a separate article there. It's the best place for general attention. There is merit in a certain degree of consistency, and discussing the disputed items at one place would help achieve this. DGG ( talk ) 16:03, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

While in the past, I would have agreed that "AfD is not Wikipedia:Merge This For Me", I do agree with some of the points that yes, if you did bring up a merge discussion on the talkpage of an article, generally only stray IPs will appear who would disagree, and not listen to reason. In order for the merge to be final, it must either be a protected redirect or have the content deleted so newbies can't simply revert the merge. Both need administrative action, so you might as well bring it to AfD, even if it clogs up the logs some. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 19:39, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

To go just a little further down this tangent, merge proposals on little-watched pages often get no traction. We should have a centralized merge discussion noticeboard that operates like WP:RM does with requested moves. Keep the discussion on the talk page, but have a single location listing all of the current proposals and their primary arguments. bd2412 T 19:45, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

@User:DGG: You said, "The reason we need to keep separate articles for significant fictional topics, is that when they are merged it is the start of an quiet but effective process of destroying the material altogether. First as little is merged as possible, and then the the amount gradually reduced, until it becomes just an item on a list. Eventually, even the redirect is removed on the basis the article contains no significant information." Do you have any examples of where this has happened? If we have article content that was merged from subsequently deleted pages, then there is potentially a GFDL violation. Cheers, Bovlb (talk) 15:54, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that would violate WP:Copying within Wikipedia#Reusing deleted material (guideline). See also WP:Merge and delete (essay). Flatscan (talk) 04:08, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

User:L'Origine du monde

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

L'Origine du monde (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

On their talkpage, this user has shown a fundamental misunderstanding for the CheckUser policies, an inability to drop the stick and move on, a misunderstanding of harassment, and an inability to refrain from personal attacks on other editors (in this case User:Reaper Eternal). Furthermore, L'Origin du monde continues either blatantly ignoring the facts or deliberately misrepresenting them in an attempt to frame Reaper Eternal as a bad person. They have been warned about this multiple times before here, and on their talkpage after that ANI.

I feel that this user is exhibiting a battleground behavior overall, and if someone uninvolved could look and remind the user about talkpage guidelines with regards to other persons' comments, as well as about dropping the stick and stopping to demand apologies from people for a "bad" block (which is arguably just a misunderstanding), I'd appreciate it. I am unable to notify L'Origine du monde as they have requested I not post on their talkpage further, and as such I am honoring that. I will notify Reaper shortly. Thanks ~Charmlet ^-talk- 01:57, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I question either the competency or the sincerity of User:Reaper Eternal, and would like him to understand how checkuser works, what an ip adress is, and what he is allowed to do in terms of blocking usernames he dislikes, and even have some understanding of how long it takes to get an email about checkuser answered (2 weeks+). I think he should make a proper apology, and put a note on my block record explaining that the block was without merit. At the moment people keep assuming that I got blocked because I did something wrong, and invoke the holy word Checkuser to signify inability to understand and I am getting hassled because of this block thing.♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{(♥ Talk♥ )} 02:16, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

@ L'Odm: you're obviously familiar with the works of Gustave Courbet. Perhaps you might consider replacing all on-wiki penis pictures with this image, which explicitly depicts M. Courbet and male friends removing items of clothing to reveal hard, pink and hairy parts of their bodies.
@ Everyone else: y'all know what not to feed.
--Shirt58 (talk) 12:20, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

User:Reaper Eternal blocked me for evading a checkuser block placed by a check user on an IP due to logged in use a year after I used that IP. He did not ask the checkuser if there was any connection between us, and repeatedly told me my name and paintings were vandalism. Checkuser should not stifle discussion or understanding. One thing that is very irritating, is the number of ill informed people who seek to interupt my attempts to discuss this with Reaper Eternal. ♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{(♥ Talk♥ )} 11:58, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Seriously, someone got blocked over an 1866 painting? Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 12:04, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Adam - No, they got blocked by a checkuser based on evidence that, quite frankly, I don't wish to detail to the world what it includes. L'Origine du monde needs to just drop it. At an AN/I thread about their failure to move on and drop it, they keep failing to move on and not dropping it. This needs to stop. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 12:45, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• Seriously time for a WP:NOTHERE block, IMO. Drama-mongering can be tempered by being at least a somewhat positive contributor elsewhere...to articles, to policy discussions, to DYKs, etc... That seems to be absent here. Tarc (talk) 13:03, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support block for the combative accusations of harassment against users who politely point out talk page guidelines. Harassment is a serious issue and the way this user casually throws out accusations diminishes the seriousness of actual harassment.--v/r - TP 14:08, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support block per WP:CIR as User is clearly showing lack of competence and quite clearly continuously showing battleground behaviour, Plus as mentioned above she won't drop it & move on!. Davey2010Talk 14:28, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment I've asked L'Origine to drop the stick and move on but most of his/her edits have been attempts to obtain apologies for a mistaken 2 week block (where they were confused with User:93.96.148.42) and to penalize the Admins who participated in it.
  

While I sympathize that it must have been tough to be blocked unfairly from editing Wikipedia for two weeks, the block wasn't personal and when addressed, it was lifted. Also, L'Origine is a new account (created August 16, 2013) and I think this was a mistake that will not happen twice. To ask for Reaper to be desysop'd for this error is unreasonable and looks like payback more than anything else.

I think administering another block for L'Origine is just continuing this dispute when what needs to happen is for all parties to move on and get back to editing Wikipedia. I support whatever actions will bring this about. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:42, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Except L'Origine du monde doesn't move on (See here) which is why she's here once again,-

If she dropped it in the first place we obviously wouldn't be here. Davey2010Talk 18:14, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

She/He has been unblocked for less than two weeks (since Sept. 8th) and so far, most of her/his activity has focused on addressing their block. I say, give her/him a warning and a little more time to get over this. To follow a mistaken block with another block 10 days later will just make this situation worse. Let L'Origine see the impact of her/his behavior and a chance to respond before considering another block. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:30, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Liz's (grammar check) opinion makes sense if you consider WP:ROPE. If everyone just left L'O's talk page, we'd have a clearer view of this issue.--v/r - TP 18:48, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh, did I make a grammar blunder, TP? My mistake.

While there is truth to WP:ROPE and I think that is an approach that can make ambiguous behavior more clear, I was really just thinking that what set L'Origine off was an unfair block and now, less than two weeks later, some Editors are calling for a real block. It just adds fuel to the fire. While I've found her/his attitude belligerent at times, I'd like to see what she/he has to contribute once this old block is no longer paramount.

But, to be honest, I think that the quick call for blocks (Off with his head!) just because someone is irritating isn't a good enough reason. People seem to leap very quickly to "indefinite block" rather than a 24-hour, 36-hour, 1 week or 1 month block, just because they want to make some users go away. It seems very selectively applied. Plus, there are Editors here that I use to find annoying whom now I work well with...10 days of edits don't tell you everything you need to know about a person!

Instead of jumping from 0->Indefinite block in 60 seconds, how about a higher level warning, first, ideally from an Admin who has had no previous contact with L'Origine? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:56, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Remember that "indefinite" does not equal "infinite" - it means "until the community is convinced that the behaviour will not recur". What good will yet another uninvolved admin trying to reason with them do? They have proven that ANYONE who doesn't see things their way will immediately be both stonewalled/filibustered and attacked. Every so often I need to yank the stick out of my dog's mouth when she refuses to drop it - there's no difference here (note: I am not referring to anyone as a dog) ES&L 13:31, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

ES&L , I don't think any user who has been active for two weeks can have "proven" anything about the potential as an Editor. This is not like some long-time Editors who've been behaving poorly for months (or years) and just get a pass. She/He has been active since September 8th! I thought it used to take a track record of bad behavior over time to warrant an indefinite block. But the threshold keeps getting lower and lower. Just irritating the wrong people can make Admins bypass warnings and go straight to indefinite block. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:03, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

No, ES&L is not saying anyone is a dog, just there is no difference between how we should treat dogs and Wikipedia editors. The evidence does not support the contention: see User_talk:JamesBWatson/Archive_55; LOdm last posted on 10 Sep and, following JBW's patient, polite, and thorough explanation on 11 Sep, has not posted there again, and, as far as I know, not mentioned JBW again. LOdm's last post to Reaper Eternal's talk page was 17 Sep. Both Liz and myself have posted suggestions on LOdm's talk page and neither been attacked nor filibustered. She took exception to Uncle Milty's reversion of her edit on RE's talk page, registered a complaint: following Milty's reply she has no reposted nor (as far I know) mentioned him again. Therefore I submit that dog don't bark. NE Ent 14:13, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

It's more her continued (on her talkpage, I give) demands for apologies, and personally attacking Reaper, calling him incompetent, when she herself has absolutely no clue how the CheckUser tool actually works. WP:KETTLE would apply here, except Reaper isn't incompetent, so it's more the kettle falsely calling people black. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 14:49, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• Support block I spent nearly an hour reading this editor's talk page and reviewing their contributions, and while they have a lovely signature, I don't think they're a net positive to the project. Their editing patterns seem tendentious, their conduct toward other users is hostile, their article edits (32 of them in total out of 287 edits - mostly in the usertalkspace) aren't nearly constructive enough for the sheer amount of drama they create. Granted, they had a rough start with the block, but that's not a big enough excuse for the way they're currently treating other users. ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:22, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support ... they're still going on about this? --Rschen7754 18:24, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• Neutral I have mixed feeling about this. On the one hand, our treatment of the editor has left a lot to be desired. They were blocked in error, and had the image on their userpage added to the Bad Image list without adequate support in policy, and so far no one has been willing to remove it, again, despite the fact that the editor is right on policy. That said, the editor has been making WP:POINTY edits ever since creating the account. If it weren't for our mistreatment, I'd be ready to get on board with a WP:NOTHERE block, and we can't go on overlooking the ongoing conduct out of concern over the earlier treatment forever. In the end, I just don't know if its time for as block yet. Monty₈₄₅ 19:01, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support They've been given the rules, but don't like them; they've been advised to drop the stick, but won't; they've even been told than a single block event is not the end of the world, but they've certainly been acting like it is; anyone who steps in to help is immediately attacked. Their continued harassment due to their absolutely incredible misunderstanding of the policies they've been told about and absolute BEGGING for an apology (which wouldn't mean much when it's begged for anyway) is ridiculous. They have had multiple warnings of this indefinite (not infinite) block for 2 weeks ... it's time ES&L 19:08, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support as per my comments elsewhere. I'm still to see any convincing evidence the checkuser block was in error, let alone any evidence this user can be constructive. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 19:33, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support block, one admin mistake and the account essentially became a drama-only account. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:12, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose block. The drama mongers are the people bringing this to ANI repeatedly, which doesn't include User:L'Origine du monde. Most of his or her recent edits are about sex topics [12] [13] [14], but they seem in good faith. Older edits were about other topics [15] [16], but don't seem problematic either. Also he or she made about 3,000 edits [17] as Special:Contributions/93.96.148.42 since 2008 (with only one 24hrs ARBPIA block), before someone else took over that IP, creating the unfortunate check-user incident. Also another 1,000 edits [18] as User:Research Method before that. Claims of "NOTHERE" thus seems rather spurious. Long-term editors should be treated with a bit more deference if "editor retention" means more than "admin retention [even when they make mistakes]". Someone not using his real name (talk) 07:59, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm terribly sorry, but I'd like to see some evidence or explanation of me being a "drama monger" for requesting review of WP:HARASSMENT of Reaper Eternal, failure to drop the WP:STICK, and personal attacks against Reaper. Focus on the incident that made me bring them here, which clearly warrants a block, as it's been going on for weeks on end even after warnings and previous AN/Is. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 22:04, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
    • A quick perusal of some archives, e.g. User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_141#Bbb23, User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_130#What_purpose_does_this_block_serve.3F easily proves the assertion that you are among the top drama mongers on Wikipedia, dear Charmlet/gwickwire. If Reaper Eternal is so concerned about this issue, he can ask for an interaction ban himself. Someone not using his real name (talk) 05:38, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Seriously? Two Jimbo discussions that I had an opinion in makes me a "top drama monger"? Then what should I say about you who comments on more Jimbo threads than I have? WP:KETTLE much?

        Now, you know as well as we all do that this isn't about me, so retract your "drama monger" statement, kindly. And just as a side request, don't call me dear. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 14:45, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

        • Folks, please can this side issue. It's not germane to the main topic and continuing it will do neither of you any favours. Whoever can restrain themselves from continuing this sub-thread will show themselves to be the bigger person! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 15:10, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
• If L'Origine du monde can promise to drop their spat with Reaper Eternal (that means stop talking about it any further, at all, in any way, anywhere), and can agree to stop personally attacking other editors (calling someone incompetent is a personal attack, without proof), then I think nothing needs done. However, the vast majority here have supported a block. Regardless, this needs actioned and closed. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 01:38, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

The User:Reaper Eternal was recently made a checkuser. This means he can block people, and no one will question it. His name is worrying. I speak from experience. I was blocked for 3 weeks, ( it took two weeks to receive a reply from the email he told me to use - saying it was not the right one.) he misdescribed technical aspect of the checkuser [ [User:Elockid|Elockid]]'s block as identifying me as a "long-term disruptor of Wikipedia" blackening my name, blanked the eponymous 1866 painting from mine, and other's users pages without discussion, tried to ban my name as offensive,without discussion having identifying 2 of my edits to my User Space as vandalism and disliking me talking on Oral Sex. I used to edit from that IP. There were 3k of responsible edits there from back then. I had linked those edits to this account. Even when checkuser Elockid explained, at my request, that User:Reaper Eternal had misassociated me with the block, User:Reaper Eternal still refused to unban me, apologise, or admit that we have a content dispute. People here calling for me to be banned "again" confirm the damage my reputation continues to suffer. User:Reaper Eternal has not complained to me about my behaviour towards him on or off his wall.♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{(♥ Talk♥ )} 22:53, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Just so we are 100% crystal clear, ♥ L'Origine du monde ♥, people in this very discussion are voting to impose a block on you unless you stop your vendetta against User:Reaper Eternal. You are aware of this, right? So, if you continue with posts like this (above) and pursue some sort of apology for your previous block, it will likely result in a future block, perhaps lengthy.

You understand this, I hope. Because Editors are telling you exactly what you need to stop doing in order to avoid a block and yet you continue on. I just want to be sure that you realize that your actions have consequences and you've read the earlier discussion on this page and so you won't be surprised if your account is blocked again, you'll know the reason why. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:11, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Seriously? You're warned again for this behavior, and in the face of an indefinite block for this behavior, you continue with the same behavior? I think this goes way past even Liz's good faith (which I commend, might I add, AGF is always good). By the way, L'ODM, you still fail to realize that CheckUsers are privy to much more information that you are willing to accept, and that their blocks are made upon this information which nobody else (aside from other checkusers) can question. If an admin could close this and implement the consensus and obvious need it'd be great. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 23:13, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Charmlet you are not a checkuser. You are a trouble maker. I will take my complaints about Reaper Eternal to the Arbitration Committee/Audit Subcommittee as instructed.♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{(♥ Talk♥ )} 01:12, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Johnuniq Claiming NOTFORUM while standing on a SOAPBOX - Talk:Penis#Removal_of_inappropriate_image_from_the_article

Non-human_penises_Iceland_Phallological_Museum.jpg

I objected to this contribution self described as NOTFORUM to Talk:Penis#Removal_of_inappropriate_image_from_the_article as breaching policy.

Please do not use Wikipedia for any sort of campaign—some may be pro, and some may be anti censorship, but no editor should use an article or talk page as a forum to promote their personal views. Any proposal regarding the encyclopedic topic of this article needs to focus on benefits to the encyclopedia, without an editorial on "censors". Anyone with access to the Internet will have no trouble finding enough human penis pictures to satiate any appetite—in fact, this article has the handy Penis#Humans section which links, naturally enough, to Human penis. Johnuniq (talk) 08:01, 19 September

[edit] Johnuniq is pushing a SOAPBOX over WP:Civil and is in danger of hypocracy. I undid this inflamatory comment, and sought discussion at User_talk:Johnuniq#Your_recent_contribution_to_Penis_Talk. User:NeilN and User:Charmlet started to misexplain things on my page and wouldn't go away. In short, the discussion at Talk:Penis#Removal_of_inappropriate_image_from_the_article needs new blood.♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{(♥ Talk♥ )} 02:07, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

My apologies to the ANI regulars that I suggested raising this matter here (see my talk). This is my explanation, but I'm hoping others will comment and that I can do some other things.

I have the bad image list on my watchlist, and noticed this discussion where L'Origine du monde sought to have this image (NSFW) delisted, apparently because it was wanted for their user page. I also noticed some back-and-forth at Penis where people periodically put their view that there should be more pictures featuring the human penis, particularly in the lead. Given the comments at Talk:Penis, I thought my comment was reasonable, and welcome feedback. Johnuniq (talk) 02:18, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

There are currently NO pictures featuring the human penis at Penis.♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{(♥ Talk♥ )} 02:21, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

This is rather a bizarre content issue. ♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ is right, but all they've suggested is replacing the current lead picture with this. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:27, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Somebody has stolen or hidden the images. How on earth can we talk about images without seeing them? Is there any reason why thumbnail images should not accompany this discussion?♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{(♥ Talk♥ )} 02:35, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I converted the image to a link. AN/I is for discussing conduct, not content. The contents of the image itself is tangentially relevant at best for the discussion here. Those interested in seeing it are welcome to click the thumbnail link. Monty₈₄₅ 02:38, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

"Stolen"? Must be Carmen Sandiego...but as Monty points out ANI does not discuss content issues, we are not "talking about images". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 04:59, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Sticks have two ends. Perhaps if Charmlet & NeilN would just stay off LOdm's talk page (or just let them have the last word on their {LOdms} own page)? NE Ent 02:44, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to (and already have) desisted from posting on L'Origine du monde's talkpage. I'd appreciate looking at their defensive, borderline battleground, mentality when confronted about removing another editor's post off of the talkpage in question, as well as the issues I present in the original posting above. Please also note that the timing of this second post makes me think it is quite retaliatory in nature, and is truly about a content issue, thus shouldn't be handled here. The first report still needs looking, however. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 02:48, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Already had done so. Please see [19]. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:53, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• L'Origine, for goodness sake, will you stop this crusade against Reaper Eternal? He cannot explain to you how CU works, because the majority of that process is known to CUs only; otherwise, anyone could work out how to get around it and sock freely, without detection. You were caught socking, end of. If you want to know what an IP address is, look it up on Google, or on Wikipedia. Your block was valid, based on the CU evidence; stop making personal attacks every time you type. I think you need to read WP:CIR, because at the moment, and this has been pointed out before, you're showing an amazing lack of competence... Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:40, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

On top of that, L'Origine, you deserve a couple of fish slaps for messing about with another editor's posts. There was nothing out of place with Johnuniq's reply to you, where you made a WP:NOTFORUM post. If anything, it is your post that should have been removed for NOTFORUM.

To further strengthen Lukeno94's point, CU's legally cannot reveal what data is obtained using their tools as that would infringe on a user's privacy. If a CheckUser has deemed that there is technical evidence of socking, those of us without those privileges must assume good faith that they know what they are doing. Blackmane (talk) 08:54, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Lukeno94 and Blackmane, I think you meant to post your comments about L'Origine's conduct in the thread above this one. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:53, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Who, and why, has messed around with my post again, so two different issues are confused. It says at the top "This page is for reporting and discussing incidents on the English Wikipedia that require the intervention of administrators and experienced editor". If incidents are to be discussed without images, or content is not to be mentioned here, please direct me to the relevant policies, and preferably include reference to such policies on this page. I have restored the image, as it is directly relevant, and is an integral part of my post. It contextualises this SOAPBOX personal attack

Please do not use Wikipedia for any sort of campaign—some may be pro, and some may be anti censorship, but no editor should use an article or talk page as a forum to promote their personal views. Any proposal regarding the encyclopedic topic of this article needs to focus on benefits to the encyclopedia, without an editorial on "censors". Anyone with access to the Internet will have no trouble finding enough human penis pictures to satiate any appetite—in fact, this article has the handy Penis#Humans section which links, naturally enough, to Human penis. Johnuniq (talk) 08:01, 19 September

♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{(♥ Talk♥ )} 11:51, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

It is quite clear that Johnuniq is using the talk page as a forum to promote his personal views. When he chooses to do this while accusing me of doing the same, he is wrong.♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{(♥ Talk♥ )} 12:05, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I have restored the link to the image and set it out above your initial post. No one here needs to look at the image to discuss user conduct with regard to it. Further, you've already reverted one admin who did the same, and I'm asking you now to stop. If your intent is to raise issues of content, do it elsewhere. If you truly intend to focus on user conduct, then what the image shows doesn't matter. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:22, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• I think we're getting very, very close to a WP:CIR block here... Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 16:55, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• I am monitoring this user (and in particular I am waiting to see their response to Liz's recent, very reasonable advice). However, I intend to issue an indefinite block if there is not an immediate improvement in their behaviour. AGK [•] 22:22, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• Reminds me of an old US Navy joke: the beatings will improve continue until morale improves.
• How would reducing the number active editors by one improve Wikipedia?
• LOdm is a newbie, with around 300 edits.
• LOdm did not accidentally block herself. Someone else did, and that has been acknowleged.
• LOdm is not all over Charmlet & NeilN's talk page, throwing the "D" word around. They are all over hers.
• The removal of Johnuniq's talk page comment was done once [20] (remember bold?) and accompanied by a polite explanatory note [21] which is plausibly in accordance with WP:TPG (removal of personal attacks). She did not edit war over the reversion but commenced discussion.
• LOdm did not start the ANI thread above.
• LOdm was given very poor advice by Johnuniq to start this ANI thread. As five year, 25,000 edit with (as his user page states "dramaboard" experience), this is entrapment or attractive nuisance or simply really bad advice.
• The editor who currently the alleged "victim" of LOdm (Reaper Eternal) has been notified [22] of this discussion but seems to have more important things to do (Special:Contributions/Reaper_Eternal ). I suggest we all find all other things to do and leave LOdm alone for a few days or weeks. NE Ent 23:06, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Hey, whoa, kindly don't exaggerate when defending this user. One edit telling them the removal was Johnuniq's comment was wrong, worded to take into account they were well aware of our guidelines based on prior discussions on their page and before I saw their comment on Johnuniq's page. One edit explaining why they may feel wikihounded and advising them to focus on working in article space. One edit concluding with dropping the stick. And what's the "D" word? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:32, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Valid point, corrected. D -> "drama" NE Ent 01:02, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

LOdm has been editing with other accounts and IPs (disclosed on his or her talk page) since 2008, and has made at least 4,000 edits. Someone not using his real name (talk) 08:57, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

unrelated to the discussion: L'Origine du monde, please fix your signature so it is the correct size. --Onorem (talk) 22:41, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Correct size???? Or simply annoying? Vegaswikian (talk) 23:31, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's only a guideline, not a policy...WP:SIGAPP. --Onorem (talk) 23:34, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

It may not be to everyone's liking but a user's signature is the not the biggest issue on the table here! And thanks for the alternative perspective, NE Ent. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:06, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Who said it was? --Onorem (talk) 01:10, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

• @NE Ent: Calming everyone down is often good, but it can have unfortunate consequences, namely that by sending conflicting messages a recipient may seize on the messages they like and take them as evidence that their actions have merit, and that they have support, and that they can disregard other advice. If you check my contribs at the time my notifications thingy was lighting up, you will see that I was involved in some tricky stuff and I was looking for a quick way to stop the back-and-forth on my talk. I would have just removed the section but I didn't want to do something that might have given the impression that NeilN's comments were unwelcome. Therefore I hatted the discussion with my "take it to ANI" mention—not my finest moment, but after two other editors had explained their view regarding the minuscule fuss at Talk:Penis, there was nothing further that I could say. I have spent hours providing advice to some new editors, but experience shows that it is not possible or desirable to provide ongoing support for all users that one encounters. Johnuniq (talk) 01:57, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Frankly, the Penis article is proof that some articles on Wikipedia will always be crap. Why is it ok to have an image of a dog penis there but the section on human penis just has a link to Commons is beyond my common sense. I suggest closing this thread with WP:FAIL. Alternatively, Johnuniq and L'Origine du monde can share a WP:MINNOW; the former for suggesting that this be brought to ANI and the latter for accepting said suggestion. Someone not using his real name (talk) 08:44, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

• Note I moved this section from archive back to here and changed it to a sub-section, as this is part of the over-arching issue that we're discussing. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:30, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Blocking

Given this users WP:NOTHERE behavior and the clear consensus reflected here I am issuing an indef block. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:10, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I think this is a mistake, imposing an indefinite block against an Editor who clearly didn't have many advocates. And, surprise!, the next day, his/her User Page is "courtesy blanked" (even I'm sure they didn't ask for this "courtesy") and their User Page is proposed for deletion (MfD) even though it hasn't been 24 hours and this Editor might successfully appeal their block (which isn't a ban, after all).
I'm trying to AGF but the rush to judgment and attempt to erase his/her presence on Wikipedia is just mind-boggling. I mean, there are hundreds of Editors who haven't been active for 3, 5, 7 years and their User Pages aren't proposed for deletion. How does this make sense?
I came to AN and AN/I with an open mind but it's clearly also being used as a way to get rid of unpopular Editors. But, on the other hand, if one has allies, Editors are given second, third and nth chances to change their behavior (even when its clear that they won't). There are vandals and there are people that are just kind of irritating and I don't think they should be treated the same and it definitely shouldn't matter whether or not one has friends in high places. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:19, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

• The courtesy deletion/MfD does seem weird, but the indefinite block has been brought on by this user's constant stream of personal attacks, particularly those aimed at the original blocking admin, and their insistence of turning any discussion around to this topic; combine that with a lack of any real contributions elsewhere (a small handful, but not much.) with this account, and they're simply not a benefit to the encyclopedia. This person had crossed the line of being merely irritating. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:56, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• This editor has appealed their block and I have pasted their appeal to WP:AN as the block was made by community consensus. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 21:42, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Mass rollback possibly needed

Last night 161.253.117.4 (talk · contribs) added Jewish religious categories to 130 biographies. I've checked 4 - 2 living, 2 dead, none of them mentioned the subject being Jewish. Dougweller (talk) 08:18, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree, these all need to be rolled back. If someone with the script (User:John254/mass rollback.js) already installed could take care of it, that would be awesome. -- Diannaa (talk) 14:11, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I've mass rollbacked them, as it seems clear they were added without regard for whether the article content would support the categorization. In light of the scale of the additions, I agree the reasonable approach is mass revert. If the IP editor wants to selectively re-add the categories to apporiate articles which specifically mention the category characteristics, that would be fine. Monty₈₄₅ 14:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Just want to note that all edits were to bio articles of people with Jewish or Jewish-like surnames, not simply to random bios. --Auric talk 23:58, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but that isn't a reason to add the categories, particularly for BLPs. Thanks Monty. Dougweller (talk) 14:16, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Bot gone wild

I'm not sure of the procedure here but could someone please block or stop Cyberbot II from continuing its spam-tagging pending further discussion? It's making 20+ controversial main article tags per minute and it seems bot-edit-warring against editors who try to revert it, while the operator is offline. Please see User talk:cyberpower678 for the beginnings of a discussion on this. Best err on the side of not making a huge mess for human editors to clean up, if the bot gets fixed or properly approved it can always resume its rounds. Thanks, - Wikidemon (talk) 08:35, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I have shut down that specific task, because multiple editors raised concerns. I have no opinion on whether the bot functioned correctly or not, but since it is not a very urgent task, some more discussion and clarification can't hurt. Fram (talk) 09:01, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

These spam tags should be removed automatically, as it would take too long to do it manually.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:22, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure why this change happened (ok if spamming site), I found another (inferiour?) link and changed: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ARM_Holdings&diff=574425185&oldid=574323253 comp.arch (talk) 10:28, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

• Well I just woke up, so I am sifting throught everything to determine whether the bot was malfunction or not.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 11:37, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
• From what I have been shown, the has been functioning correctly. It's validation engine to the regex list is exactly the same as MediaWiki's. The reason why it's tagging so many at once, is because it's running it's initial round. The bot removes them on it's own once they become whitelisted.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 11:51, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

  For example, I just tried to add the link mentioned above right here, and was blocked by the blacklist.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 11:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

The bot is back to edit warring.[23] Can we please shut it down pending discussion? I'm not sure the question is whether it's functioning as approved, but whether it's operating without consensus. Bot approval is not the same as consensus, and this one seems to be doing a lot of high-speed damage. Plus, AFAIK bots are not allowed to edit war or create policy. Let's organize a wider discussion on what if anything this bot should be doing to tag articles. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't see this high speed damage? I understand that the bot didn't make any incorrect taggings?

The bot is not creating new rules, it's just warning about infractions of current rules. If the blacklist and the whitelist are broken, that is a different problem that needs to be addressed elsewhere.

Mind you, the bot needs a few fixes: don't re-add the tags, and tag at much slower pace. I don't care if it's the initial round, it's still too fast. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:08, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes it's back. This bot is blatant spam and should not be allowed to tag article pages. It should place the tag on the talk page. The existence of a possible blacklisted link is not worth ruining the appearance of a page over. Please can this bot be shut down until it is modified.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:34, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

If we have that many blacklisted links appearing on pages that the bot that's tagging for them is referred to as "spamming", that's a very troubling problem with the fact that there's so many blacklisted links that have snuck into the project, not a problem with the bot. We should be thankful that the bot is bringing this to blatantly obvious attention, not calling for it to be changed so we can stick our heads in the sand over the problem. (Also {{blacklisted-links}} works the same way as {{update}} or {{copypaste}}. Have fun moving those to the talk page.) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:53, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that links that were previously thought of as OK are now being thrown up as spam links. This is compounded by the agressive nature of the bot, which doesn't allow the template to be removed for more than about 12 hours, when it takes weeks for a link to be white listed. I have no real problem with the bot, but a huge problem with the way it operates, we all volenteer here, and loosing good links because of a mistake in the blacklist is not a good thing; this is happening. It is for these reasons that I shut down the bot, and would request it not be started again for a week or so, to allow time for the whitelist/blacklist issues to be sorted. Liamdavies (talk) 13:42, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

No-one has problems with having a maintenance tag on an article for 1 year, why is it an issue to have this template there for a couple of weeks? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I think the problem is more with the template than the bot... A smaller tag on the link itself and a notification on the talkpage would seem more appropriate than a banner across the top of the page. MChesterMC (talk) 11:04, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I am going to comment here regarding the tagging on the talkpage vs. page itself. Maintenance tags are generally added to the page, and this is a maintenance tag. Although I see that there is no hurry (like with copyvio tags), the problem at hand is worse than not having incoming wikilinks, or having problems with references: I recently ran into a case where I had to whitelist a link, revert a page to a non-vandalised version that mutilated the link in question, de-whitelist, and then ask for whitelisting (I did not want to make the call on whether the link should be whitelisted) - there are cases where a simple rollback (which is ignored by the blacklist) does not work anymore. That is a serious nuisance, and that is what this bot could avoid. I would ask to consider to make the template left by the bot in line with banners that are produced by the other maintenance tags. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:25, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment by uninformed amateur, maybe not worth an answer, an opinion: This thing is clearly out of control. I tried to talk to Cyberpower678, and feel I was blown off. First I was told that it’s not his problem, then I was directed to a page that I don’t understand, and the same link keeps getting tagged, despite Liam. Now Cyberpower678 just posted that he’s gone for a while. This simply cannot be right, can it?Sammy D III (talk) 16:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that links are either (1) used inappropriately on an article, or (2) inappropriately in the spam blacklist. Complaining about the bot is just shooting the messenger. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Jackmcbarn: (1)No (2)sounds good. Can’t this be turned off, or be made to skip this one link? I tried to address blacklist, but am in way over my head. Either way, thank you for your reply. Sammy D III (talk) 16:40, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes; you need to either have the link removed from the blacklist or added to the whitelist. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The bot is running fine and is highlighting a problem not creating it any way and maintenance tags aren't spam. The bot isn't at fault for links being on the blacklist and i think The Bushranger summed it up correctly it highlights a major issue of how these links got added to the project in the first place.Blethering Scot 17:11, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I think Cyberpower has done a good job of reacting to feedback about this bot. Personally, I'd prefer to see the tags on the talkpage, but opinions will differ on that, and I'm not personally keen on maintenance tags in the "customers'" faces in general. That's a separate discussion that should be had elsewhere.

If the bot is exposing a long term problem, that may be painful. If the bot is too keen on edit warring, or needs throttling, then let's address that somewhere. Maybe we should address it before the bot is active again.

But the main reason for my post is the first thing I said - I think Cyber is being responsive, and if the bot task has exposed a large number of incorrect pre-existing links it's going to be hard for one editor to deal with the huge amount of "bounceback" that is bound to cause. I write code, and I am often in the position Cyber is now. He's trying (very hard) to do the right thing, so let's cut him a little slack, even if in doing so we need to get him to hold off on the bot tagging for a short while so we can discuss. I'm personally grateful he's taken the time he has (and the flack he has) to look at this issue for us. Begoon ^talk 19:00, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I am clearly missing something here. “I think Cyberpower has done a good job of reacting to feedback about this bot.”

I started with “Comment by uninformed amateur”, in fact I am impaired. But I try. I don’t know how to do diffs, so I am leaving page urls. I first tried this as “why is cable car guyblacklisted?”:[24]. No answer, not a problem, nobody goes to my stuff, anyway. So I tried this: [25]. Helpful? Who but a code person could get this? [26]. Then I came here. Lots more help. And despite this: “I tried to address blacklist, but am in way over my head.” Not one of you in any way tried to help me check this, or did it yourself. At 11:37 and 11:53 he defended the action of his program, then he posted this: [27]. At no time has he offered any real help, turn his program off, or in any way address the problem it was causing. Then he left with “Since I likely won't be able to think straight for a while”. As someone who deals with neurologists regularly, this doesn’t sound credible to me. But I am not a Doctor, I admit this. Now I read this (I’m repeating it, I know): “I think Cyberpower has done a good job of reacting to feedback about this bot”. This sounds crazy to me, and believe me, I know crazy. Personal attack? Feel free to block me, I certainly don’t belong in the ivory tower.Sammy D III (talk) 21:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Cyberpower has no responsibility for links being on the blacklist he never put them on there so 100% he has no issue to answer in that respect. He is also not resposible for adding or removing a link from said blacklist and cyber has pointed several users in the correct direction of what should be done. Now its time to stop putting the boot in on a perfectly functioning bot which has done exactly the task it is supposed to and a user who has no responsibility for the blacklist whatsoever. What has happened here is that a long list of users are unhappy that the links they want in the articles are on the mediawiki blacklist and these links should never have been put in wiki space in the first place and need removed or proven to be suitable for removal from said list. Blethering Scot 22:23, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

As mentioned above, Cyberpower has no responsibility whatsoever for what's on or not on the blacklist; asking him why link X is blacklisted is like asking a gas station attendant how a refinery works. And if you are "someone who deals with neurologists regularly" you should know very well that when someone gets frustrated/annoyed it becomes difficult to have rational discussions ("thinking straight") so that commentary is frankly rather disingenuous. Now let's get back to removing these bad links - and if there are some that are, in fact, valid links wrongly on the blacklist, Wikipedia will not get sucked into a black hole and implode if the link has to be commented out until it's whitelisted. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Cyberpower indeed has no responsibility for flaws in the blacklist, and Cyberpower correspondingly has no reason to complain if the community shuts this task down for being unwise and a harm on the encyclopedia. In the past few days about 10% of +/- 1200 the articles on my watchlist have received a tag that impugns the integrity of the article and that a casual reader who arrives on this project from google would have no meaningful way of understanding or dealing with. Clearly, degrading articles is not conducive to the apparent purpose of the bot tag, an automated function for trying to deal with spam. The vast majority of the tagged articles on my watchlist are not spam, they are commercial sites of uncertain reliability (and many, clearly appropriate for the purpose cited). When I've removed the tags as inapt, the bot just re-tagged them. I could remove 100 tags per day from my watchlist, the bot would retag them... am I supposed to submit a WP:3R report to see who gets blocked first? The problem with bots is that they do not watch or listen to any consensus process, and there is no consensus for this. The template encourages me to go through a ridiculous guilty-until-proven-innocent process (full of warnings that reports would likely be denied) just to assert that no, the link in the article is either something we can deal with, or is a reliable source and not spam for the purpose provided. This whole thing reeks of betabot if you ask me, and I hope we all learned a lesson there. No, we long-term editors (who may have day jobs, who are working on creating new content, etc) will not line up 24/7 behind a scrubbing machine to limit its damage. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:51, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry what? Do you know how bots work? Stick {{nobots}} on the page, and it won't war with you again. Legoktm (talk) 06:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to be blunt, the only reason I can see for wanting the tags off the pages posthaste is a worry that it will stop people from clicking on the links in question, and I'll leave the implications of that to the reader. What I will say is that if the links are on the blacklist, they are likely inappropriate. I currently have 7,378 pages watched, and since this process started running all of two have been tagged. If the links are appropriate and you want the bot not to keep squawking, <!--comment them out--> until they are whitelisted, the encyclopedia won't be destroyed by this. And if they're declined for whitelisting, then maybe, just maybe, it's because they really are inappropriate links. The bot is not malfunctioning and it is not damaging the encyclopedia; the damage came from people who, in good faith or otherwise, and knowingly or otherwise, exploited a loophole in the blacklisting process that allowed the links onto the pages. The solution isn't to shut down the bot, stick our heads in the sand and declare 'no bad links here, nope', the solution is to thank the bot and remove the links. The scope of the problem is our fault, not the bot's. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:09, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

That's a load of nonsense. As an editor of 6-7 years standing, if I look at an article and say no, no bad links here, nope, then my judgment deserves something other than an edit war ay a bot. Your "maybe" rhetorical comment is unintentionally apt: maybe yes indeed there is a bad link, but in fact, no. And the decision must be in the hands of human editors editing real judgment over articles, not a bot unleashed on the project to make policy by sheer persistence and in the process making a huge mess for us more thoughtful editors to clean up. That was exactly the betabot problem. Should my time here on Wikipedia mean I have to go to war with poorly conceived bots over their auto-tagging? If there's no deadline, then shut down the bot instead of making us human editors invest untold hours cleaning up messes, perhaps we could just stop dumb bots from causing damage. No, I'm not going to nowiki a bunch of links in my article, I'll just undo the harm by removing the inapt tag. I'm hoping we can all decide that good faith editorial discretion trumps hasty script experiments people unleash on the encyclopedia. - Wikidemon (talk) 07:56, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? Have you even looked at the time I've committed to writing this script. It's BRFA was open since May. You had a chance to comment all this time, and chose not. This BRFA was advertised and no one gave significant. You have the audacity to call my script a betabot and poorly conceived, after it's been reviewed by other BAGgers? So I basically just conjured this script from my ass. Ok I get. I just months of work for nothing, all because YOU didn't comment while I was actually still developing this bot. Gee since I'm such I'm such a disruptive user, why don't I just leave. You'll be rid of burden.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 11:14, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Back away from the edge Cyberpower! So, fix the code so that it doesn't edit-war ... maybe it should only visit an article a maximum of once a month. The bot's doing something unwanted - the best response is to find out exactly what is unwanted, and fix it ... that's what botops and bot designers do. So yes, everyone's bot is STILL in beta mode because they'll never, ever be perfect ES&L 11:27, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Like everyone else is writing on here, there is no issue for the tags to remain while the link is blacklisted. It's a maintenance tag just like an orphan, notability, and other tags. When a page is at AfD, do we remove the tag. No. What happens if it gets removed, a bot adds it back. It's no different with this tag. And your concept of what beta is wrong. A betabot is a bot still being tested. This bot is out of it's testing stage, running under scrutiny until the code was complete and bug free. Now it's approved and the code is final, out of its testing stage, hence no longer beta. Oh, and have a look at my talk page. It'll explain my attitude at the moment. Sorry.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 11:50, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

No. It's always Beta because you always need to be responsive to the community (just ask Bill Gates - all Windows versions are beta :-) ). You cannot compare an AfD tag to a linkrot/blacklisted tag - one is specifically noted by policy to remain (and that's the AfD one). Your bot needs to follow the same WP:BRD processes as any other editor ES&L 12:55, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Windows sucks. I'd say it's always in it's alpha stage. And since when does Microsoft respond to user demands? Windows 8 tends to go against that. Ok the AfD tag is a bad example, but allows one maintenance tag to stay and another, which is much more severe to simply be shrugged off?—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 13:03, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Visiting once a month is not the answer at all maybe less frequently but certainly not that infrequently given these links shouldn't even be on the site at all. The main issue here is several editors being unhappy that a link they want is on the media wiki blacklist and reverting the bot which has done the correct thing. Editors should either be removing these links or applying for it to be taken off the blacklist. As a community we should be trying to remove these links and taking seriously the issue of editors edit warring or insisting that blacklisted pages stay on the site. The bot is an essential part of that and should be thanked for highlighting a very worrying issue, punishing the bot rather than the editors initiating it would be highly inappropriate but a compromise should be made by reducing its frequency potentially once a week but equally editors edit warring with it without valid reason or applying for said link to be removed should equally be warned by the community as we cannot continue allowing blacklisted pages to live on the site.Blethering Scot 21:08, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Instaurare violating topic ban again

After having it clearly pointed out to him only a month and a half ago that he is still topic-banned from LGBT subjects, he has added a shooting at an anti-LGBT group, evidently motivated by their anti-LGBT positions, to Domestic terrorism in the United States: here. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:11, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I've issued a final warning, rather than a block, in spirit of AGF. GiantSnowman 15:18, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I would have thought that the whole big discussion last month was clear enough. This isn't ignorance of the restriction, it's Instaurare trying to see how many times he can violate it without being blocked. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:21, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

If that was the case then there would have been more than one borderline edit. GiantSnowman 15:23, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Could someone clarify to me the boundaries of the topic ban? I thought this was outside its reach. Instaurare (talk) 00:13, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Sure; the topic ban applies to ALL LGBT articles broadly construed. This means that even if it is close to the topic then it is within the scope of the topic ban. ANY discussion at ANY venue about a LGBT-related subject is also within the scope of the topic ban. Any future breaches of this topic ban WILL lead to blocks. Are we clear? PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 00:36, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The Domestic terrorism in the United States is not an LGBT article, is it?. That's where I'm confused. Instaurare (talk) 01:08, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

No, but "a shooting at an anti-LGBT group" on Domestic terrorism in the United States is a "LGBT-related subject" and, therfore, within the scope of the topic ban. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:12, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay. Does it extend so far as to prohibit editing articles of LGBT persons about any subject? Like could I edit Tammy Baldwin about health care? Instaurare (talk) 01:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The topic ban DOES extend to the above example. PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 02:19, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Even if it has nothing to do with her sexuality? Instaurare (talk) 06:15, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The way to get a topic ban lifted (or not extended when it reaches its best-by date) is simple: when in doubt, don't. If you feel the need to ask, at all, run away, run away. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I'm just afraid of making an honest mistake and getting blocked for it. Instaurare (talk) 20:27, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Since you've already made "honest mistakes" that violated your ban at least twice, you could just be careful and responsible instead of reckless in the future. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:43, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Style Network/Esquire Network pagemove question

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Can someone please make sure the pagemove from Style Network to Esquire Network was done correctly for GFDL attribution? I thought it was a basic pagemove using tools and hadn't looked when the move took place on Monday, but the Style Network's history suggests a poorly managed move with cutting and pasting not using tools. Nate • (chatter) 15:29, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

We need to do something there. I'm not really sure whether its eligible for histmerge, which is the preferred solution. It has a bit of history that would conflict, but we may just be able to discard the pre-paste history... will wait for some additional thoughts on that. If we can't histmerge, the alternative is attribution templates on the talk page + an edit summary making attribution. Monty₈₄₅ 17:14, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

The only edits to Esquire Network before then were just varying between rd's to G4 (TV channel) and Style Network, so the pre-paste history wouldn't be an issue, I just want to make sure everything's all kosher. We always have these issues with network articles it seems; I try to prepare everything for a proper pagemove, and then somebody else just copy-pastes it without thought. Nate • (chatter) 17:57, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I left a caution on User:Chris1294's talk page (and a notification of this discussion). I don't see any essential edits that need to be saved if a histmerge is done, but I am not an expert. Maybe list it at Wikipedia:Cut-and-paste-move repair holding pen and see what happens. Rgrds. --64.85.214.181 (talk) 17:30, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I placed a histmerge header on the Esquire page to hasten the process, it all looks clear-cut for merging. Nate • (chatter) 18:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

And it has been done flawlessly by Anthony Appleyard. Thanks everyone. Nate • (chatter) 11:33, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Breast implant WP:ALLEGED problem

I'd like some help with an edit war over Breast implant which starts from a problem with WP:ALLEGED.

We've had a long debate about this in Talk. I tried to discuss it with Taylornate but he just stopped participating and made his own changes, blanking out a lengthy, balanced discussion.

In summary, there are many people who believe that breast implants cause systemic diseases such as scleroderma. In the WP:MEDMOS medical literature, there was some evidence for this many years ago, but subsequent evidence seems to have rejected this theory. Nonetheless, there are many people who believe this, including women with breast implants who develop autoimmune diseases, and there are many sources that would be WP:RS for non-medical articles that make this claim. I think it's important to give readers both sides of the argument, including enough evidence for them to make up their own minds, which according to the medical literature, seems to be that breast implants do not cause systemic disease. Taylornate wants to delete everything except three medical references, giving what he thinks is the truth -- and indicating his skepticism by refering to them as "Alleged." I think this violates WP:NPOV and WP:ALLEGED.

I think the problem here is that Taylornate doesn't understand how Wikipedia works. We're not supposed to decide who's right and wrong in Wikipedia's own voice. We're just supposed to get the most reliable sources on each side, give both sides fairly, and let the reader decide. Could somebody else try to explain that to him?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Breast_implant#Alleged_complications

But this comment in Talk is exactly on point:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Breast_implant#Alleged_health_risks

Alleged health risks

I came here to study the silicone breast implant controversy but found nothing on it. All I found is study after study saying there is no risk.

But what I want to know is why people said there was a risk, even if doctors and scientists were saying there wasn't one. I'd also like to see the history of lawsuits, such as the one which drove Dow Corning to near-bankruptcy.

Who started the rumor that breast implants cause disease? Who promoted this belief? Who profited from it? When (if ever) did courts stop accepted expert testimony from people claiming that the implants cause disease? --Uncle Ed (talk) 16:48, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I tried to answer Uncle Ed's question, with answers from the peer-reviewed medical literature. But Taylornate deleted my answer, and essentially said, "I'm right, you're wrong, and if there are people who believe breast implants cause systemic disease, their ideas don't deserve the respect of a hearing, and there's no need to have a Wikipedia article that explains what they believe and why they're wrong." --Nbauman (talk) 16:28, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

What admin action are you requesting? It sounds like you need WP:DR, not here. GiantSnowman 16:38, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I thought I could get an admin to give an explanation of WP:NPOV and WP:ALLEGED as it applies here.

Where on WP:DR should I go? --Nbauman (talk) 19:06, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

NBauman, have you considered the possibility that it may be you who does not understand how Wikipedia works?--Taylornate (talk) 19:35, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

That remark is not helpful, Taylornate. @Nbauman: The problem has two aspects: (1) Are the sources currently used in the section reliable sources as defined by WP:MEDRS? and (2) If the content is to remain, what would be the best wording for the section header? Or could the section header be eliminated and the content left in the article? I think the best place to start is to post a query at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. -- Diannaa (talk) 22:58, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

To clarify:

The issue here is, which comes up repeatedly, is, "How do we deal with a controversial view, which according to reliable scientific sources, is probably wrong, but many people believe? Do we delete the wrong view, or do we explain the wrong view and show why reliable scientific sources have decided it was wrong?" I included early reliable scientific sources which later turned out to be wrong. (That's the process of science.) I could probably find sources which meet WP:RS but not WP:MEDMOS, which take the wrong view.

The issue is, do we just give the view that we believe is correct, or do we give both views and let the weight of evidence speak for itself? I think WP:NPOV requires us to give both views.

Another issue is that the use of "Alleged" violates WP:ALLEGED. I think that's self-evident. I don't see how someone could disagree. --Nbauman (talk) 23:50, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I do understand what the content issues are, but it is not part of the administrator's job to arbitrate in content disputes or make rulings on content, and it's not the kind of problem solved at this particular noticeboard. If you wish help with medical sourcing, the best place to start is the Medicine wikiproject. If you need help with dispute resolution, please try one of the avenues at WP:DR, as suggested by another admin. -- Diannaa (talk) 00:50, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Is complying with WP:ALLEGED a content issue? It seems like a straightforward violation of a WP guideline. --Nbauman (talk) 01:55, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Administrators deal with behavioral issues, not content issues. (Alleged) violations of content policies/guidelines are generally left to editors to handle through dispute resolution. Rare exceptions are when the violations are problematic to the point of disruption (such as BLP violations), one of the editors in a dispute is being otherwise disruptive (such as edit warring), or when one editor has shown a pattern of policy violations across many pages, or over time. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

A user keeps violating WP:ALLEGED, blanking out WP:NPOV material, repeatedly reverting changes, and insisting that he's right (in my understanding). That seems to be behavioral, not content. Where in dispute resolution do I take that? --Nbauman (talk) 09:40, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

That would be WP:WQA...oh...wait...oops. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:46, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

With your original post here, I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you were misunderstanding some things. With this post I think you have crossed a line and are flat-out lying. I haven't done anything that could be construed as repeated reverting by any possible understanding of the term.--Taylornate (talk) 13:36, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Nbauman is incorrect on that point. Whether he is intentionally lying or not, I don't know. Everything is there in the page history: Taylornate did a series of about a dozen edits starting at 07:00 on the 24th, with no intervening edits by other people. At 07:03 he restored the section header that Nbauman had removed some hours earlier, but there's been no edit warring or "repeatedly reverting changes"; Taylornate's prior edits to the page date all the way back to Dec 2012. Nbauman, there's several dispute resolution venues; it's up to the person filing the report to select the one they think is most suitable to the problem they are encountering. This page gives a quick overview of the function of each type of dispute resolution. I would suggest WP:RFC if you wish to attract more interested editors to the talk page discussion; or WP:DRN if you wish to continue the discussion with the assistance of a dispute resolution volunteer.-- Diannaa (talk) 14:44, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Let me correct that. Taylornate only changed the Alleged complications section once. But that change deleted the entire WP:NPOV section, without discussion in Talk. --Nbauman (talk) 04:59, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Except that we did discuss it on the talk page,[28] and I documented straightforward reasoning in my edit summaries. In your edit summary[29] you even refer explicitly to our "long discussion" on the talk page. So did you actually forget about this somewhere between writing that edit summary and making this post? What are you trying to accomplish here? Wherever you take your complaint from here, they aren't going to take your word for everything.--Taylornate (talk) 05:28, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Emergency undelete needed

In order to perform a histmerge, I moved Graffiti (Chris Brown album) to Graffiti (Chris Brown album) temporary, after which I deleted everything. Unfortunately, I can't undelete the contents! Whenever I click the "restore" button, I get sent to a search page, and I can't figure out why. Please undelete everything except the last four edits (they're artifacts of the pagemove and related issues) and move it back to Graffiti (Chris Brown album). Nyttend (talk) 22:05, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

This was reported at VPT recently, apparently you can only restore 500 revisions at a time. Monty₈₄₅ 22:09, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, I started with about 100, then did 499, then 524, then 896, and we're done. Bencherlite^Talk 22:23, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

You know you are charged $5 for every edit you restore. You got a lot of blocking to do this month, Bencherlite. Drmies (talk) 00:52, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

@Drmies: Well, where shall I start? I know - give me a D..., give me an R.... Bencherlite^Talk 06:36, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! My connection was really bad (public network in a laundromat) and very slow, so I figured that I was getting some sort of time-out error. Figured I'd better treat it as an emergency, since it had the potential of disrupting lots of readers very fast. Nyttend (talk) 00:59, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Can you point to where this was at VPT, Monty845 (talk · contribs)? I can't find it. Thanks. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:21, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

For some reason I cannot... It was raised there [30], and there was as discussion, from which I picked up the 500 number, but I cannot seem to locate the discussion at VPT, or in the Archives. Searching the archives says its on the main page, but the section link, and searching, does not work. Monty₈₄₅ 04:33, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

It's here at archive 117, which wasn't linked from the technical village pump's archive box until this edit of mine. As it says at that discussion, the limit is 1,000 edits. Graham87 05:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm thanks for the correct number, dunno where I got it confused with 500. Monty₈₄₅ 05:22, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Angry reaction to my looking through edit history and fixing problems

I have been looking through the edit history of IP editor 209.3.238.61 (IP registered to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC) because I saw some problems with the editor's contributions at Max Weber. I reverted some of this editor's work, and I fixed other entries as I saw fit. This editor started today to go through my various contributions to revert me out of spite rather than for the improvement of the encyclopedia.

One of the places where this issue is being discussed at User talk:ItsZippy. User:ItsZippy thought my reversion and revert/fix were appropriate.

Am I off base here? Should I have refrained from going through this editor's contributions to see what other problems were being put into the encyclopedia? I do not want to WP:Hound this editor off the project, but I want to make sure that contributions are useful, relevant and high quality. Binksternet (talk) 23:20, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Were the edits sufficiently egregious to warrant excision, or might discussion have had a reasonable result? If they verged on vandalism - then by all means remove them. If they are simply of questionable value in your opinion, then usually discussion is likely to cause less rancor. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:48, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't know whether these particular reverts were justified. But I do know if you repeatedly revert another Editor's work, you're likely to get a negative reaction. Especially if your Edit Summaries were not informative or, worse yet, completely omitted. Bottom line? You could be very well be right, but a reaction is fairly predictable. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I've had some engagement with this user in the past - a couple of weeks ago he was making some changes to Irenaean theodicy and Augustinian theodicy. Another user and I felt that, although the concerns he raised were valid, the edits he made were not helpful - in the end we discussed it with him here and he was very amenable to the consensus making process. I was slightly concerned yesterday when he asked me to protect the pages to maintain the version that we'd agreed on two weeks ago, but I think that was more down to a misunderstanding of how consensus works, rather than any maliciousness. In this case, I think discussion with the user will be very effective - he seems very willing to listen and learn. He has the potential to become a useful editor here, provided are supportive and encouraging to him. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 09:19, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I've also notified the user of this discussion, something you ought to have done yourself. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 09:28, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for notifying the IP editor. I was under the misapprehension that IP editors could see through WP:Notifications that they had been mentioned. Binksternet (talk) 12:21, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

It says clearly at the top of this page and right above the edit box that you must notify the editor, ip or registered user; a talk page notification is required, not a reliance upon wp notifications. --(AfadsBad (talk) 12:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC))

We're getting off track here, but the notice at the top of the editing window says "You must notify any user who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} to do so." It does not say that there is only one way to achieve notification. That's what I was looking at when I was creating this topic. Of course the top of this ANI page, in normal reading mode, says the user's talk page must be used, so there is a disconnect between the two versions. Binksternet (talk) 13:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The specific direction to tell an editor on their talk page was added by Bishonen in June, a little over three months ago. Little changes of that nature are probably missed by a lot of people who have been coming to the same noticeboard for years. I know I missed it until today. Binksternet (talk) 13:15, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I see they don't say the same thing. However, I think registered users can turn off the notifications, so it should best say talk page in both locations. Yes, off track, but thanks for the reply. --(AfadsBad (talk) 16:27, 26 September 2013 (UTC))

User:Bink on the Max Weber Talk page is trying to block an Admin report I am trying to prepare there by doing section deletes every time I try to pull the materials together. He is apparently upset that there is agreement between my edit there with User:Petrus (Petrus wants some added strengthened citations which is good with me) and is oddly trying to block this report being made and the edit itself being posted. Last Friday he requested Admin protection against posting the otherwise agreed upon format for the edit (misrepresenting that a 3rd editor was involved by not mentioning him) at the same time I was requesting Admin help. His Admin report got serviced first, not knowing that there was an agreement edit about to be posted, and his Admin protected the page without knowing this. I waited 2 hrs for my Admin to arrive without his/her arrival. My request is that there is an agreement between two users about posting the edit against a single disgruntled user who seems upset that the agreement about mods with another User is not in his favor. I would like to post the agreement edit (with any mods for cites as needed) for the constructive benefit of the Max Weber page. Max Weber was a trained attorney and this appears to be a situation of a Music major (User:Bink) having his feelings hurt and still wanting to have influence outside of his field. It seems odd that this full history was not posted by him here. He has also been posting an agenda against all anonIP-Users in a picture/poster campaign on his User page and on the Max Weber Talk page which is Conta User:Jimbo and contra-Reagle which must be seen to be believed. He is presently at 14RR on the Max Weber page and appears intent on setting a record. Odd that he mentions none of this here in the above exchange. 209.3.238.62 (talk) 19:53, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

There's a basket full of misconceptions brought forward by IP 209 in the post above. I have no wish to stop 209 from making an "Admin report", whatever that means. (I guess it is simply a complaint about me brought to admin attention, which 209 has now achieved.) The text I have deleted at Talk:Max Weber three times [31][32][33] was a copy/paste repetition of two previous talk page entries, one by Special:Contributions/72.68.5.132 (which is the same IP person as 209 but at a different computer) and User:Piotrus. There is never any need to repeat somebody's talk page entry in the same thread—in fact it is detrimental to have so much text on the page.

The idea is incorrect that there are two competing admins, one for me and one for 209. I had no idea User:Mark Arsten would step forward and semi-protect the Max Weber page when I asked for some help at WP:RPP on 20 September.

209 apparently thinks that Piotrus agreed to a proposed text addition on the talk page. The specific entry by Piotrus said that he was in favor of adding the proposed text only if it contained better references, and "hopefully incorporate Interpretations of Weber's liberalism from see also directly into the body" which Piotrus said was important for the article's development. In response 209 composed some text and added it to the article prior to polling everybody on the talk page, that is, prior to getting my take on it. 209 said on the talk page, "By agreement per above discussion", even though it was only Piotrus so far, and even though Piotrus gave only conditional agreement, with not all the conditions met.

This IP editor has repeatedly accused me of pushing an agenda against IP editors, simply because of a photo taken of me by Wikimedia Foundation product manager Fabrice Florin, the photo being my response to Fabrice's question of what improvement would I like made to Wikipedia. My response was to think immediately of IP vandalism. The photo shows my (quixotic) wish that Wikipedia would make a very big change and require user registration, a very unlikely step which would eliminate IP vandalism in one step. (I spend a lot of time dealing with IP vandalism.) Of course a secondary effect of such a change would be that constructive IP editors such as 209 would have to register a username, but they would not be stopped from contributing. Our friend 209 represents this stance as a personal attack, which of course it isn't.

209 needs to realize that disputed text under active discussion on the article talk page needs to gain consensus before being moved into the article. It is a group effort rather than a win by whoever is the most insistent or pushy. Binksternet (talk) 23:01, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

MacKeeper

I am very concerned about the MacKeeper article. A little googling shows that this "product" has two kinds of reviews -- highly positive ones that say it's the best thing since sliced bread[34][35], and highly-negative ones describing it as malware, saying it will slow down your computer, and so forth.[36][37][38]

Those are the hallmarks of a misleadingly-marketed product that doesn't do what it's cracked up to do and puts you at risk of further problems somewhere down the line. Ordinary software simply does not gather this mix of reviews.

In light of this, the MacKeeper article needs to make it clear up front that the product is not reputable. But --

• I don't know if those negative reviews would be considered RS.
• The product's supporters are going to be highly-motivated to make sure the article does not cast the product in a negative light.

Therefore, as a practical matter, how can one get an article that accurately describes this "product", and maintain the article in an appropriate state? Keep in mind that MacKeeper's supporters are likely to come back weeks, months, or even years later to try to make the article more to their liking. Indeed, it appears that this article has already been through at least one such cycle.[39]

Furthermore, the issue is not whether this or that user has a conflict of interest. It is more about keeping a sensible description of highly suspect software. Given RS guidelines, I'm not sure I could turn the article into something more appropriate. But even if I did, supporters would likely come back at some time in the future and make it more promotional.William Jockusch (talk) 01:30, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest bringing it up on WP:RS/N. Before this thread gets closed as "no admin action needed", I would suggest looking for news articles and other WP:RS. Use google news search and google book search. See what you come up with and go where they take you. Watchlist the article once you've improved it and do what you have to to keep it in decent shape.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I did such searches. I came up with little or nothing. I don't know if I could make an argument that some of those negative reviews qualify as "experts" or not. My concern here is that without admin action, the article is likely to remain in bad shape. The [in all probability paid] positive reviews may qualify as RS under the guidelines. So without admin action, I am likely to have to fight a long-running battle that will not produce an accurate article. Far from clear I have the stomach for that.William Jockusch (talk) 02:28, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest that you treat neither kind of reviews as reliable sources about what it's good for. Cite something from the manufacturer explaining what they say it does, and ignore the reviews entirely for that section. Then, go on to the reviews section: even self-published sources are reliable for what they claim about themselves. Accordingly, you can say "The software has received exalted praise: some reviews say that it's the best thing since sliced bread<ref>1</ref> and that it will cure AIDS and cancer<ref>2</ref>. At the same time, it has attracted profound criticism: other reviews say that it unslices your sliced bread<ref>3</ref> and that it can cause AIDS and cancer".<ref>4</ref> The whole point of having such a section is to list people's responses to it, so reviews are the best you're going to get. Nyttend (talk) 02:43, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is not here to right great wrongs; it's not our position to decide that "the...article needs to make it clear up front that the product is not reputable". If the RSes have the split you describe, we need to describe the split, not say "therefore this means it's not good" - that's textbook WP:SYNTH. (And also, this doesn't seem like an AN/I issue at all to me.) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Agree with Bush on this one. I note that the refs you bring up are pretty weak in general, so I'd look for guidance from bigger Mac orgs (like Macworld, etc.) for guidance if possible. If those sources don't exist, maybe the article shouldn't. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 20:09, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Repeated NFCC violations (Result: 48 hours)

Judgeking (talk · contribs) needs blocked for repeated violations of WP:NFCC. Werieth (talk) 04:12, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) After looking at the page edit history, this looks like it belongs more on WP:AN/3, no? Technical 13 (talk) 04:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Already filed, but the user repeatedly violoates NFCC and will not discuss it. There has been a discussion about this already, but the user is owning the page. Werieth (talk) 04:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Blocked for 48 hours. This isn't a simple matter of editwarring, since unfair use of nonfree works is copyright infringement. Nyttend (talk) 04:24, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not question anyone's judgment here, but I would like to discuss this a little. Werieth is doing a great job of protecting Wikipedia here, I'm just finding myself asking if perhaps he's being a little overzealous at times here. It appears at this time that is current method for dealing with these has been driving away editors (at least it appears that Special:Contributions/Rachael89 has been driven away). I've noticed that his communication/language skills make him difficult to understand at times, and I believe that if some of our more sensitive and English attuned editors could make some cookie cutter responses for him to use in edit summaries or whatnot (I could make a userscript for him that would make it easier for him to get rid of such images and use these edit summaries at very least) that it "might" help our editor retention at least a little. Technical 13 (talk) 04:35, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Use the standard {{uw-nonfree}} when warning users. You will find that some users just dont like our restrictive policies on non-free media. Unless we make a drastic shift in our stance about copyrighted material (which wont happen) it will make users unhappy. Werieth (talk) 04:46, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• No way this should end in applause for the OP, this went through twenty-three (23) reverts and un-reverts by my count. I don't care who's on the side of the angels, this sort of edit warring crap should not be happening on Wikipedia. 3RR is 3RR. If you get to two, seek outside help. Trout smack. Carrite (talk) 04:42, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:3RR#Exceptions #5 Removal of clear copyright violations or content that unquestionably violates the non-free content policy Thus this isnt 3RR. Werieth (talk) 04:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Hence my overzealous comment Carrite. I'll start development of an NFCC assisting script tomorrow, it should be fairly easy based on Anomie's User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js and some other image related stuff I started this morning for Monty845. I'll just need those edit summary ideas to add to it. Thanks if you can help with that. Werieth, I don't agree that they all necessarily violate #1 and #3, although #8 is a maybe in my eye and I'd rather stay on the line of they should have been removed for that. The question becomes, would you be willing to use a script to help you remove those with better edit summaries that are clear, concise, and less offensive to the editor whom you are removing the images of? Technical 13 (talk) 04:53, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Whenever we use nonfree content in a way that doesn't qualify as fair use, we're infringing copyright. Page histories for the article and for WP:AN3 show that Werieth reported soon after they got past 3RR, so he followed the "seek outside help" long before it reached the extreme proportions where it ended up. I came close to blocking Werieth, but only because I got confused who was doing what; as soon as I saw the situation, I planned to block the user who was adding the content and to leave unblocked the user who was removing it. No comment on Wereith's interactions with other users, since I've not seen such interactions. Nyttend (talk) 05:13, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

This is not an unambiguous, slam-dunk violation of NFCC. THIS is the file they were warring over, which is only flagged for deletion if no presentation of a valid fair use rationale by Sept. 27. This is a content battle at root. There should have been 3RR repercussions for both parties well before the war got to 23 reverts... Carrite (talk) 06:25, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Carrite, I think you need to review WP:NFCC. It was more than just one image. Files have a fairly high bar to meet, something that was quickly skimmed over in the background (was on screen less than 30 seconds) and is not critical to the article fails NFCC#8. There where a total of 5 files that I removed due to NFCC issues (The article had a total of 6), most film articles only have 1. Take the image of Jennifer Connelly as another example, it is a picture of a living person, no significant makeup, no major alterations to her normal visual appearance. We have 4 free images of her on her article. Completely replaceable non-free content, (non-free media of living people is fairly well defined as prohibited). I could break this down image by image and explain every violated point but I would recommend you review NFC. Werieth (talk) 10:16, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Good block. I count 23RR on that edit war. That should have been stopped way before that by some other admin. (I mean I know we've briefly discussed about 3RR this past summer, but still there is some ridiculousness to all this stuff.) --MuZemike 05:42, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

So Werieth is back after he made a similar report here where he made eight reversions in a 13-hour timespan recently. Now we have an instance of 22 reversions in a half hour. Even if these reversions are considered exempt for the purposes of WP:3RR, which they may not be unquestionable violations, this in my opinion should still be considered edit warring. Werieth should have stopped after making the report at the edit warring noticeboard but he made 17 reversions after that. Werieth also should have stopped after making this section but he made 12 reversions after that.

I agree with Techincal 13 that Werieth's editing and communication style is lacking. It leads towards other editors getting pissed off, edit warring, threats of blocks and bans and editors leaving Wikipedia. Better communication could really help relieve a lot of what has been happening. At the very least can we get Werieth to step back from reverting after he has submitted for admin help with an edit war? If there is a clear 3RR/edit warring violation then the other party will get blocked or the article will be protected and there is no immediate need for the image to be removed that could not wait until an admin could help out. Aspects (talk) 06:12, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The catch is that that last bit could easily be read as "there is no immediate need to remove copyright violations". It takes two to tango; the fact that there are editors who are willing to 23RR to defend NFCC violations is troubling. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:42, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Erb? I think the point is that it would be good if communication here were improved. I don't see anyone defending the user who was blocked as much as wondering if better communication wouldn't have resulted in less conflict and perhaps an outcome other than a block. Hobit (talk) 17:29, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Aspects, once you're past 3RR, it doesn't matter how many more reverts happen: either your reverts are exceptions from 3RR, in which case you shouldn't be blocked no matter how many you make, or they're not exceptions, so you're liable to be blocked, even if you don't make any more. Carrite, I'm not very sympathetic to objections such as "oh, it's missing a point from the rationale, so we have to get rid of it!" I agree that a slightly flawed rationale is nowhere near a good reason for revert-warring. I checked the images in question, but only fast enough to see that (1) they were marked as nonfree and (2) too complicated for PD-simple; with that checked, I blocked because the user was adding way way too many nonfree images, because no rationale could possibly justify so many of them. Nyttend (talk) 00:38, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that a violation of NFCC is not necessarily a copyvio, because NFCC is more restrictive than copyright law and American common practice as determined by the courts. I personally think that's a mistake on our part, that NFCC should follow legal precedent, but it does not, therefore it's not a slam dunk that an NFCC violation can be actively pursued that way an obvious copyvio can be. This means that a violation of NFCC (an internal policy) should not be treated the same as a violation of copyright law, and editors who wish to use "copyvio" as reason to exceed 3RR need to make the case that the NFCC-violation is an actual copyright violation in order to do so. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:07, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• While that's a fairly technical argument, I've got to say I agree with it. People should be aware of the difference. Hobit (talk) 13:11, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Arguably even most of these images could be used under claim of US fair use law (you're not required to attribute or the like); just that removing non-compliant NFCC does help us stay far below any legal threshold that may trigger a suit. I do, however, point that the Foundation wishes us to remove non-frees used inappropriate in a timely manner. --MASEM (t) 13:44, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
    • None-the-less, calling it a "copyvio" is factually wrong and as such, doing so should be avoided. Hobit (talk) 16:13, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Judgeking definitely should be blocked for refusing to engage at all, and while in general Werieth was in the right to remove repeating without the issue, I am going to caution Werieth again that his choice to what to remove is a bit questionable, particularly in the case in this specific example for Labyrinth, as at least one of the files (the concept painting) has a reasonable chance to be used. (He did a similar wipe over here that took out a screenshot used to describe the gameplay of a video game, a typically standard allowance). If there are many multiple non-free, that is a problem, but if each image has a rationale for use on that page, a license, and otherwise don't fail NFCC#1 (freely replaceable) or #2 (commercial opportunity - aka press images), then this issue is how subjectively the rationales meet #8 and whether there is more minimal use per #3, which is not something the the 3RR exemption for NFCC allows for edit warring over. Yes, bolding removing excessive images once is a problem, but if it the a judgement call as to what are proper images the next step is NFCR or the talk page or the like. Werieth needs to be aware (I've tried to tell him this even though I back his NFCC work) that these actions are not always the right approach. --MASEM (t) 13:44, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

User:Holdek and sources templates again

I am sorry to bother the community with this user for the third time, but I am afraid this goes over the top. I am afraid they need at least a topic ban for this article, given the previous history of editing. Would someone please inform the user of this thread, since last time they told me I am not welcome to post at their talk page. Thanks in advance.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:46, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Done for you. Blackmane (talk) 08:35, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:25, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

And as a note, Holdek has removed the notification from their talk page. Blackmane (talk) 12:40, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• I was willing to give Holdek WP:ROPE that they are merely enforcing WP:V, but his latest actions look increasingly disruptive and not in the spirit of collaboration. Looking at his past 200 edits or so, he seems to be only gaming the system. Another example is this. I support an indefinite block per WP:NOTHERE. Someone not using his real name (talk) 16:46, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Possible COI pushing

I have noticed that User:Samdtraquel might be making WP:SOAP COI edits. The thing that drew my attention was on Talk:Arsenal F.C.#Partnerships where he requests that a large number of companies should be listed on the page. One of which was Bodog, where he also made an edit promoting a partnership with Arsenal. This was reverted by another user, who referred to Samtraquel as a "client" and mentions that he had been warned about posting things like that. I suspect that Samdtraquel might have some involvement with bodog and I suspect there might be a COI here. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 10:16, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Let's see if I can help connect the dots without running afoul of WP:OUTING. This user has 4 edits, two to Talk:Arsenal F.C., one to Bodog, and one to Patrik Selin. Patrik Selin is a former CEO of Bodog. User:Samdtraquel's edits were to remove information about him working there. The proposed edits to Arsenal F.C.#Partnerships are also related to Bodog. The common denominator here is Bodog, so at minimum, User:Samdtraquel is an WP:SPA. Bodog was a client of my public relations agency until someone from that organization made a direct edit to Wikipedia, at which point we resigned the account, as we don't want our client's actions to reflect poorly on us. All articles written by my agency are moved to mainspace by uninvolved third parties. I'm Tony Ahn (talk) 11:32, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you user C of e for pointin it out. Appreciate the observation made. Forgive the user's ignorance but the post was a recommendation, with corresponding references, and as always subject for approval by administrator.

Wikipedia must not worry about User Tony Ahn for the changes happened on the said page he mentioned that would reflect poorly on him and his agency as he was not responsible for the said change (which was reverted by him) and should not be at fault for it. He has been a consistently good contributor and editor of Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samdtraquel (talk • contribs)

Johnpacklambert

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

A couple of days ago this editor began a series of edits that involved the removal of articles from 'from' categories.

• Billy Mayfair, he removed[40] 'Sportspeople from Scottsdale, Arizona' from this golfer's article even though his article says he resides in Scottsdale.
• Aaron Watkins, he removed[41] Sportspeople from Mesa, Arizona even though the article says he resides there. Edit summary- residence not notable
• Mike McCullough (golfer), he removed[42] 'Sportspeople from Scottsdale, Arizona' from this golfer's article even though his article says he resides in Scottsdale. His edit summary- 'Not from Arizona enough to be put in that states's golfers cat'. As I pointed out[43], as long ago as 1979 it has been reported[44] that McCullough lives in Scottsdale.
• Amanda Blumenherst he removed[45] 'Sportspeople from Scottsdale, Arizona' and replaced it with 'Sportspeople from Phoenix, Arizona' even though the Blumenherst article clearly says she was born in Scottsdale and still resides there.
• Aaron Watkins (golfer) he removed[46] 'Sportspeople from Mesa, Arizona' even though the article says he resides in Mesa. His edit summary- Current residence not notable.
• April Steiner Bennett he removed[47] 'Sportspeople from Mesa Arizona' with the edit summary- Not notable for being born in a place. Edit summary- Not notable for being born in a place
• Misty Hyman Almost the same as Blumenherst, he removed[48] 'Sportspeople from Mesa' and replaced it with 'Sportspeople from Phoenix' even though the article says she was born in Mesa.
• Julie Dusanko he removed[49] Sportspeople from Scottsdale Arizona and replaced it with People from Scottsdale Arizona though Ms. Dusanko is a former professional baseball player.
• Michelle Estill he removed[50] both Sportspeople from Scottsdale Arizona and People from Gilbert Arizona even though the article says she was born in Scottsdale and lives in Gilbert.
• Martin Laird he removed[51] Sportspeople from Scottsdale even though the article says it is his residence. Edit summary- No from Scottsdale.
• Mina Harigae he removed[52] both Golfers from Arizona and Sportspeople from Mesa Arizona when the article says Ms. Harigae resides in Mesa.

There's at least another 8-12 of these edits, but I stopped with these. All the above edits have been reverted by me or another editor. IMHO a few of this editor's edits, Michelle Estill for instance, border on vandalism.

Clearly there is something wrong. He removes categories because the person who he thinks their only connection to the town was that they were born there but in other cases removes categories because he feels residence isn't notable. That seems totally contradictory.

Consensus has long been that athletes aren't from a town that they are represent through being a sports team member from that location unless the athlete is from the town.(For example Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig aren't Sportspeople from the Bronx because they played for the New York Yankees) A sports athlete is therefore a Sportspeople from somewhere else than the place they take part in their sport.

Johnpacklambert, aka JPL from this point forward, shortly after having some of the golfer edits reverted started CFDs for both 'Sportspeople from Mesa Arizona[53]' and 'Sportspeople from Scottsdale Arizona[54]' along with other occupation categories for Scottsdale.

I think the CFDs are a bad faith attempt to get around the reversions. These sportspeople categories are clearly well populated and the people are from there. Both The Sportspeople from Scottsdale and Sportspeople from Mesa CFDs he proposes merging articles into the generic 'Sportspeople from Arizona' category even though the person is from Scottsdale or Mesa. JPL has tried moving people into Sportspeople categories that are patently incorrect, namely with Blumenherst and Hyman. Note that JPL also removed people wrongly from these categories and then CFD the categories. At another CFD[55] not too long ago, several editors were bothered by JPL removing articles from categories that were up for CFD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WilliamJE (talk • contribs) 13:50, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't expect JPL to reply for about 5 hours, but there's some discussion between these two editors at User talk:Johnpacklambert giving his rationale for some of these edits. Dougweller (talk) 14:24, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

It should also be noted that JPL has been submitting a large number of categories for deletion. It appears based on conversations that he feels less is more in relation to categories. He recently submitted several regarding military awards where he stated he wanted to eliminate all military award categories except maybe the Medal of Honor ones. This seems excessive and counter to being helpful to Wikipedia. 138.162.8.59 (talk) 15:06, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: This is hardly JPL's first rodeo. A cursory examination of his talk page will reveal numerous notices for edit-warring to add or remove categories against consensus. His use of CFD borders on OWNership. Frankly, categorization would be better off without JPL pbp 15:19, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• Response I was under the impression that we had determined that the mere place of birth is not notable for a person. I am sure I have read that in the guidelines somewhere. I found it. It is the opening line in the place section of Wikipedia:Categorization of people. "The place of birth, although it may be significant from the perspective of local studies, is rarely defining from the perspective of an individual." So I think the guidelines are on my side in that case. In other cases, I will admit that some of these edits might not have been the best. Still, I question categorizing people by a place where they only have temporary residence there. On the issue of nominating categories for deletion. I am trying to implement an at least possible interpretation of WP:OC#Award. There is no rule against nominating lots of categories for deletion. I am trying to follow procedures in doing so. Clearly there are categories that we do not want, some of the military award categories were deleted. This seems to be a case of just attack John for doing anything you don't like.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:52, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Considering the guideline in categorization of people, and considering that all the connection that Estill's article asserts to Scottsdale is that she was born there, I find it very hard to understand how we can justify categorizing her as from that place. It is definitely not justified to call it "bordering on vandalism". It is a removal built around a lack of any in-article assertion of a connection beyond birth, and the guideline on categorizing people by place suggests that in general people should not be categorized by where they were born.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:00, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment' You also removed Estill being from Gilbert Arizona when that's her residence. Why? The possible vandalism part is that and your moving Misty Hyman to Sportspeople from Phoenix when there isn't a single mention of Phoenix in her article and the same for Amanda Blumenherst who you moved to Sportspeople from Phoenix in place of Scottsdale when her article says she is both born and resident of there....William 16:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment The central principal of Wikipedia is verifiability. Categorization must be verified. We only put people in categories that they verifiably belong in. Thus, it would seem that if place of birth is not notable to the individual that one needs something else to put the people in a place category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:12, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment. Verifiability, Really? This article[56] comes up on the first page of a google search containing the words Michelle Estill and Scottsdale....William 16:52, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment Well, I have explained my view on people being categorized based merely on birth. The residence issue is much trickier. At least one case the only mention was that the person died in Scottsdale. Does it make sense to call someone Category:Actors from Scottsdale when they were not from Scottsdale when they were an actor? However lets look at some cases. Category:Brigham Young University alumni is not a sub-category of Category:People from Provo, Utah although alumni of BYU in almost all cases resided for some time in Provo. With the residents of Scottsdale, many maintain 2 or 3 residences. Are we really going to put everyone who keeps a vacation home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in Category:People from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Being from somewhere is a complex, hard to define issue.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:38, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment Vandalism is not the right term. Both people were moved to Phoenix because the text places their formative life in Phoenix by placing them in high schools there. "Vandalism" is not the right term. I am really annoyed by the accusatory nature of this. I will admit that I made some unwise choices. That is a scary thing, because it seems some other editors want to punish and ban anyone who makes choices that they do not like. My basic theory is we should categorize people by the defining aspects of them. I was wrong. I admit it. Will this help. I doubt it, since at least one of the users here has maintained a determination to punish me for 10 months or more.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:38, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment Your moving to Hyman to Sportspeople from Phoenix totally contradicts your explanation. The word Phoenix does not appear anywhere in her article. As for Blumenherst, she is clearly identified as a resident of Scottsdale and you moved her to Phoenix because she went to school there. At best you have an argument for putting her both not removing her from Scottsdale entirely. Doing so makes it a case of vandalism....William 16:52, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment The claim the CfDs are "bad faith attempts to get around the reversions" makes no sense at all in any way. 1-the CfDs were all started before the reversion. 2-CfD is a totally logical way to respond to reversions. If one thinks a category is being misused, but others persist on still using it in that way, one possible response would be to start a CfD. That is not really what is going on here, but do we really want to classify that as bad faith. CfD is a place meant to discuss categorization policy, so to call going there "bad faith" in most cases makes no sense. 3-It is just plain not making sense. I have presented the view that people born in a place lack a personally defining connection to the place, thus we should not categorize by that. If I am wrong, and we have a general consensus to categorize by place of birth, we should change the language of Wikipedia:Categorization of people in the "by place" section to say "people should almost always be in categories for the place they were born". Either we need to conform our practice to our guidelines or conform our guidelines to our practice. Yes, the result of the CfDs if they happen will not be the removal of people from being categorized as being from Scottsdale, so I do not achieve the result of my edit by the CfD, so calling it an attempt to achieve the same result does not make sense.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Maybe I did or did not face some reversion before starting the CfD. However, I can tell you that I intended to start the motion on Scottsdale before I even looked at one article on a golfer. I had already started general nominations that included Category:Sportspeoeple from Modesto, California for example. This whole motion seems to violate the basic principal of assuming good faith. At a basic level, I in good faith believed that people who just reside in a place to play golf are no more connected with a place than those who reside there to play football. Or should we put Ziggy Ansah in Category:Sportspeople from Detroit, Michigan?John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment There is another issue that is at play here, that needs to be addressed. It is not clear if Category:Sportspeople from Phoenix, Arizona is meant to only cover the boundaries of the city, or if we are using Phoenix in the sense of the greater metro area, and if Category:Sportspeople from Scottsdale, Arizona should be a sub-cat of the Phoenix one. Closely related to that, is the question if an actress grew up in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, assuming we keep the categories for actors from those three places, should she be in Category:Actresses from Queens, New York, Cateogry:Actresses from Brooklyn and Category:Actresses from the Bronx or should we just make it simple and put her in Category:Actresses from New York City. I think, realistically, we should go with the later course. I think the balance between category clutter or the one hand, with the other having the competing interests of category completeness, category useability and category relevance on the other, would suggest this decision. You can disagree with me, but it is a reasoned idea. The one issue that goes against my view is the view that Category:Actresses from Queens, New York should include every actress who ever lived in Queens. However is that really the best way to do such categories. Well, maybe it is if we have them, which is maybe why we don't want them. However, I think someone who grew up in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx is best described with the general appellation of New York City and not the three more specific apellations. I think with such high level of movement they become from the place as a whole. In the same way, someone who grew up at 10 military bases in 10 states is not really accurately described as from any of those places. Having known many people who grew up in the military and who when asked "where are you from" respond "no where", I think actually usage supports my understanding here.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:07, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Verifiability means that unsourced statements in articles are removed. It is not the duty of editors to look for sources to statements that other editors have made. It is the duty of those introducing the statements into the article to include those sources in the article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:58, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• Seemingly compulsory pointless bold bit JPL likes to edit categories and gets upset when people disagree with his editing. Some people don't like that, and they get upset too. Is there something ANI can do about that? I've seen it here many times, yet Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Johnpacklambert says "There is not even a hint of a consensus that there is even a problem to be resolved here". Am I missing something? Or is it just something we have to put up with having here, like "Neighbours" at 5.30 used to be - annoying but unavoidable? Begoon ^talk 18:32, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Probably nothing that ANI can do, alas. There are behavioural issues but a quick look at the RfC suggests that while a lot of people are upset there is indeed no real consensus. JPL has a tendency to swamp discussions with umpteen consecutive comments etc, as in this thread. It ties everyone in knots and I wonder if perhaps a bit more thought before making a comment, adjusting a category or nominating something at CfD might go a long way to easing the issues? FWIW, I, too, have become very frustrated with JPL of late but in part is coincides with my thoughts about the CfD system: the fact that he is so familiar with it and yet even recently has had to be reminded to notify people of discussions is a particular niggle. Perhaps just try a bit harder to be more accommodating and perhaps try to answer more of the points raised on your user talk page, JPL? - Sitush (talk) 20:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment This complaint is a-not about CfD, it is about editing categories. It seems this has now become a "pick on everything John does" section. Also, when I don't explain my reasoning in depth enough people attack me for not stating clearly and precisely why I think what I do. I did notify the creator of at least a lot of the most relevant categories, and even asked him to stop creating such categories until we can come to an agreement on which ones we really need.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:07, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• JPL, do you have any idea how to nest talk page comments? I didn't, btw, say that this complaint was about CfD. I was merely enquiring whether if you were to spend a bit more time cogitating before doing something then whether that might avoid some of the issues being raised. But no worries, if you're going to carry on doing what you do then that is your choice and doubtless someone will open another RfC in due course. - Sitush (talk) 21:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Separate the issues. Unfortunately, this discussion is conflating two different questions. The question of whether individual articles belong in any given category which exists is a separate one from whether that category should exist at all.
  JPL is quite within his rights to nominate any category for deletion, unless the intent is purely disruptive, or it is a tendentious attempt to re-open an issue which is already settled. However, it is quite wrong of JPL to write that "CfD is a totally logical way to respond to reversions". That is not the purpose of deletion discussions, and those CFDs have been disrupted by the separate argument over reversions.
  Similarly, this ANI thread is disrupted by arguments which belong at CFD. (Disclosure: I support the removal of these categories, but not the drama which has surrounded them, or the rambling, TLDR and off-the-point contributions JPL has made to the CFDs, such as these off-topic posts[57] today).
  Yesterday I supported discussing the specific categories at CFD[58], but at this point I think that they are too contaminated by the the off-topic chatter. So I suggest the relevant CFDs should be closed, pending an RFC on the question of people-by-occupation-and-place categories.
  As to the contested edits to individual articles, this clearly needs some centralised discussion. JPL needs a warning not to use CFD in this way, and also for the disruptive way he has pursued this disagreement. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:25, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment I think BHG is totally not understanding how I am using CfD. This is really frustrating. The reasons for the CfDs have nothing to do with what articles are in them in this case. They are built around a belief that the intersection of being a sportsperson and being from a specific suburb of Phoenix is not notable. To kill the CfDs because of other comments on them would just discorage comments. There needs to be somewhere where the rules of categorization can be discussed. This whole process is frustrating. Especially since my point clearly shows that the directive is on my side, and we do not in general categorize by place of birth. If that directive is not how we do things, than it needs to change. But it is clearly unfair to try and punish me for having a view on this issue.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment Let me try this one more time. The claims about my motivation in creating the CfD are false. I intended to create the CfD on Category:Sportspeople from Mesa, Arizona before I made any edits to any categories. When I actually created it is not at all relevant to this issue. I did not, let me repreat, did not create it, as a reaction to any reverting of any edit on my part. I created it because I do not think that the intersection of suburb of Mesa and occupation, at least in the case of sportspeople is notable. That is my view, and that is the key question at the CfD.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:28, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
    • ...JPL, please indent your comments/replies here. Failing to do so makes the discussion nearly impossible to read (and continuing to do so after being requested to do so has been found disruptive in the past). I have done so here; please do so yourself in the future. Also, please stop placing Comment before each of your posts, AN/I is all about comments and it only makes things even harder to read. I honestly find all of the above nearly impossible to comprehend because of these two issues. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:31, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
      • • Sorry. This whole discussion is very frustrating to me. The initial attack seems to largely be based on my 1-following what appears to be the guideline of Wikiepdia:Categorization of people under the place section. 2-a result of my hesitancy to accept that residence means "being from there", at least initially prompted by the fact some people had 2 residences listed. I have admitted I was probably too quick to remove people based on residence. I am not convinced I was too quick in removing anyone based on accident of birth, even in the vases where further evidence has been brought forth to show residence past birth. Why my second view, because we categorize not by what is, but by what is verified, and until articles have statements in them that indicate a categorization is appropriate, the categorization should not occurred. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnpacklambert (talk • contribs) 23:00, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
      • JPL, you have enough editing experience to know how to address different types of issue.
        if you disagree with individual reversions, try discussion with the other editor(s). If there is an unresolved disagreement about what constitutes "from", then open a centralised discussion at WT:CAT ... but that is a separate issue from how "people from" intersects with people by occupation, which is the only issue which belongs at a CFD about people-by-occupation-and-place categories.
        You are using these CFDs to discuss an question which arises at a higher level of the category tree; that is a misuse of CFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:54, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
        • The discussion of specific cases involved in the category was not started by me but by User:WilliamJE. If you want to criticize someone for bringing up specific cases in a CfD, then shouldn't you criticize him. Why should I let back and let someone claim "John is doing wrong removals from the category" when Wikiepdia:Categorzation of people clearly says "The place of birth, although it may be significant from the perspective of local studies, is rarely defining from the perspective of an individual". You act like I brought up individual cases, that was another user. It is unfair to blame me, and to threaten me with punishment when it was another user who engaged in such. Why should I let false claims of a consensus stand?John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:05, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
          • Ok, maybe I did start the discussion in the case of Scottsdale, but it seemed evident to me that the existence of lots of people in the category who only maintained residence in that location part of the year was problematic. This whole process has become very frustrating. If CfD has low participation, one should look at the talk page for Wikipedia:Categozation of people. Until I just made a comment there, no one had commented since last june.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• Misty Hyman's article says she graduated from a specific high school in Phoenix. That to me says she is from Phoenix. I may be wrong, but the claim that there is nothing in the article connecting her to Phoenix is not accurate.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:24, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I have now added a clearer indication that Misty Hyman's high school was in Phoenix. However the article already mentioned Paradise Valley, Arizona. Paradise Valley has a complex relationship with Phoenix, with most institutions identified as being say Paradise Valley Community College actually being within the boundaries of Phoenix, and we do not have Category:People from Parasies Valley, Arizona. Classifying people who are from Paradise Valley as from Phoenix may or may not be an agreed on course of action, but it is not an issue worth bringing up here. Especially since This issue, and most of these other issues were never brought up on my talk page. This all feels like a blindsiding attack.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:35, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• On the issue of Mike McCullough being brought up here this seems totally out of line. All the article had was a mention that at some point McCullough was a resident of Scottsdale. That was not even in the main text, but in a side info box. True, User:WilliamJE has found by doing some sort of google search an article that mentions McCullough lived in Scottsdale in 1979. Does the article link to that source or incorporate the finds of that source into the article even now? Not when I last looked. Categorization should follow the text of an article. People do not have some special pass that allows them to add categorizes because somewhere, somehow they know they apply. They need to add categories that are based in the text of the article. This is a logical minimum requirement for categories. The proper response to removal of people when their articles do not have any in the article support that they have lived in a place long enough to be from there is to place it in the article. I could not know that McCullough had lived in Scottsdale for 34 years because it was not incorporated in his article, and the fact that WilliamJE has to use an old newspaper search to demonstrate this suggests it is not a commonly mentioned thing in McCullough's biographies.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:07, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
• I think User:WilliamJE should have someone tell him to tone down his attacks. His accusation "it was vandalism" and "John Pack Lambert knew it was wrong and still did it" are just not justified. He seems to have gone beyond acceptable behavior in attacking me.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:39, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
  • What I find most disturbing is the note "your dead wrong" left on my talkpage. Such notes are inherently uncivil.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:57, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
• Why am I accused of "getting upset" when it is another user who said "categorization would be better off without John Pack Lambert". Such downright rudeness is really unjustified.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:10, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment It's safe to say that JPL and I disagree a lot at CfD. He frequently wants to delete categories that I think are valid, useful and serve a purpose in a larger context of categorization. But we manage to co-exist at CfD.
  

My complaint about JPL at CfD though is that he often doesn't notify the creators of categories and the relevant WikiProjects that the categories are being debated and might be deleted, merged or renamed. I know this because I often follow-up and post notifications on Talk Pages where I think the Editor(s) might have a stake in the outcome (whether the view is "pro" or "con"). Admittedly, about half of the time, the creator is no longer active, so no notification of the creator is called for. But, on the other hand, I think that if Category:African-American players of American football category is up for deletion, the discussion would benefit from hearing from Editors who write about African-Americans and those who write about football. Is this a useful category? Is it biased? Or is it part of a larger structure of categories about African-American athletes?

It's likely that JPL will say my concern is a separate issue from the one brought up in this complaint. But the larger question is how CfD includes or excludes Editors from the conversation of what happens to Wikipedia categories. Yes, there are guidelines on how categorization should be done but there is also the taxonomy of categories that WikiProjects work to put together. Categories aren't important in themselves and shouldn't be reified, they are a tool that organizes articles in order to help Readers find what they are looking for. They are partly navigational tools. The people who have a deep knowledge of Indian actresses or military honors or Muslim comedians should be invited to participate in the CfD process about those topics and be welcomed, not discouraged, from giving their input.

Yes, regulars like JPL who has been active at CfD for years know the guidelines backward and forward. Often I find his logic correct but the outcome wrong because we have to also consider how deleting categories impacts people who write articles about these subjects, whether the way categories should be corresponds with how categories work or function in practice. And that's why we often differ on decisions at CfD. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:49, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, my first point would be that this is not really about CfD at all, it is a complaint about edits to specific articles. My second point is that I did notify the creator of Category:Muslim comedians that the category was up for deletion. On the other hand, with Category:21st-century Indian film actresses it was largely a follow up to the discussion of Category:20th-century Indian film actresses, and the person (someone other than me) who started that discussion (which I stayed out of, because I really am conflicted about such categories), did not notify the creator (the same as the creator of the 21st-century category), so it is clearly that I am not by any means the only user who starts CfD's without notifying the creator, so why do people want to single me out for it?John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:11, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Johnpacklambert and categorization of dogs

I noticed that Johnpacklambert has removed a bunch of categories from the Rin Tin Tin article, apparently taking the view that a dog cannot be an actor, that a dog cannot have a nationality. The same tack was taken by Johnpacklambert at Ace the Wonder Dog, that a dog cannot be an actor. I would like to ask the community whether they would allow a famous dog to be categorized by place or as an actor. Binksternet (talk) 16:34, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

JPL may not be trying to disrupt Wikipedia, but it's abundantly clear that his edits are having that effect. As for the dogs, if an animal can be an actor (which seems to be accepted), then an animal should be able to be a "serial actor", a contract player, an American actor, etc. And why would an article about a male dog be excluded from Category:Male dogs? --Orlady (talk) 16:45, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

This `is not an ANI issue, and shouldn't be here. But since you asked: Category:Actors is a sub-category of Category:People by occupation.
Do Binksternet you and Orlady Category:Dogs to be a subcat of Category:People?
If not, then don't categorise individual dogs as people.
(Somebody should move this sub-thread to WT:CAT.) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:12, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl:: Category:Animal actors has been a subcategory of Category:Actors for nearly 7 years. With that kind of precedent, unilateral efforts to take individual canine actors out of "actors" categories look like disruption. --Orlady (talk) 17:50, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Orlady, specific cases like this aren't really the purview of AN/I (as I understand it). Similar decisions are made daily at WP:CFD. The question I'm left with after reading your comment is a) how to publicize discussions about categories like Category:Animal actors when they are proposed for deletion, merging or renaming and b) how to get people who care and know about the categories & subject taxonomy to participate in the debate.

To be honest, CfD, even more so than AfD, has a relatively small group of people who weigh in with their opinions about the fate of categories that are being challenged. It would be great if there was a "sorting" system, similar to what occurs at AfD, so that different WikiProjects would be automatically informed if a related category was up for discussion. Right now, I think CfD could stand to improve their notification system but that is really a proposal for a separate RfC.

As for adding or removing individual categories to an article or to a subcategories, any Editor has that ability. And like with any edit, any other Editor has the right to revert that decision and discuss the proposed change on the article or category Talk Page. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:14, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

It appears to me that until we sort out the problems with categorizing people by place (and probably occupation) we are likely to have arguments. An RfC seems the only solution. People move around, some more than others. Someone might graduate from high school only having spent 2 years in that area. Dougweller (talk) 20:47, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl, the example you give is exactly why I hate dealing with categories. The false supposition is that Category:Actors should only include human actors because it is a subcategory of "people by occupation". That is a mistaken conclusion—the category of actors can never be a complete subset of human occupations if animals can be actors, which is clearly the case. The set of "actors" is larger than "human actors", though you would never know it by looking at categories on Wikipedia. I think the fact that a category is technically a subcategory of a parent category should not restrict the first category from including elements outside of the purview of the parent category. The more blindered, narrow interpretation is apparently being followed on Wikipedia. The whole field of Wikipedia categories makes me crazy because of nonsense such as this, and because of the embarrassing male v female occupation dispute which started with "American novelists" v "American women novelists", and centered on the activity of Johnpacklambert. Makes me wanna scream. Binksternet (talk) 22:00, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Please advise

I started a GA review on Parsnip, and User:AfadsBad commented. While I thanked him for suggestion, I advised him not to interfere with my review. In over 150 reviews, that has only happened to me twice and just recently. I brought the issue up at GA's discussion page for advice, and Afadsbad commented belligerently and ventured to say he/she would disruptively tag the article, etc., to affect the GA review.

• Please review the history at Parsnip to consider the user's recent edits.
• Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Other users chiming in on reviews for the user's comments including statements regarding his desire to disrupt
• Talk:Parsnip/GA1 for further comments by said user
• Talk:Parsnip#Non_good_article_review_--_all_are_welcome for the user's attempt to run his own ersatz GA review.
• And a seemingly spiteful attempt to chime in at Talk:Estadio Chile (poem)/GA1 after the review was failed.
• Also at the user's talk page User talk:AfadsBad#Talk:Parsnip/GA1

Please advise on how I should proceed with this user before continuing the GA review.--ColonelHenry (talk) 16:13, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Further, please know I notified the user with the ANI template, but they have chosen to remove the notification from their talk page. [59]. --ColonelHenry (talk) 16:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• I hatted the discussion on WT:GAN because it was getting out of hand with people debating who told who to fuck off, and wanted to get people back to improving articles and reviewing GAs rather than talking in here. AfadsBad appears to have an interest in biology related articles and felt Parsnip could be better improved, and left comments on the GA review. Up to that point, everything was fine, but then a giant misunderstanding appears to have erupted, and their comments on Talk:Parsnip/GA1 (particularly misinterpreting your actions as a direct indication that they should fuck off) haven't helped. I would check with Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) about quickfailing that article on Criteria #5 because it's now unstable. Tagging an article with problems is okay, as long as it's not doing in a WP:POINTy fashion. If you want to discuss specific content on the articles - great, but other than that I'd just advise everyone to chill out a bit. I don't think any other admin action is required at the moment other than just a general proviso all round to comment on content, not each other. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:40, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• @Ritchie333: - See below. --ColonelHenry (talk) 16:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

And now another user (User:MarshalN20) who was involved in this discussion has twice removed my comments from a FAC review (which I was withdrawing from because of the GA issue). First time [60] and second time: [61]--ColonelHenry (talk) 16:44, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:BOOMERANG needs to be applied here. Henry is now spreading the drama to a FAC (see [62]) which I nominated for review. I kindly request that a stern statement be made to this user that his combative behavior is unacceptable. Best regards.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 16:46, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Crisco has pointed out that the referencing style in question at the FAC is fine, yet Henry insists on causing drama and even writes: "my comment stands for further discussion wherever it goes", which is a blatant attempt at inciting further drama.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 16:52, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh boy, this could be great. Can I play admin? ColonelHenry, your comment on the FAC was needlessly pointy. MarshalN20, your removal of the comment was somewhat out of order: they are free to comment on the referencing system. Both of you are hereby trouted. Now, Colonel, please leave it be--at least on that FAC. I see no need to restore the comment since there will be plenty more reviewers and if it is an issue, it will no doubt be spotted. Let's set that problem aside, then, and concentrate on the main issue, which hopefully has some real fireworks. Drmies (talk) 16:55, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• I thought it was important, since the nominator asked me to withdraw that I state my withdrawal and there is I do not believe there was anything pointy about saying "he was belligerent to me elsewhere" because the FAC director looking at this down the road is likely going to wonder why I withdrew. I have no intention to continue involvement with the FAC. However, the removal of my comments without a response sets a troubling precedent.--ColonelHenry (talk) 17:02, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• You're overexaggerating. Drmies (talk) 17:13, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, I fail to see how. But that's inconsequential it seems, because that is diverting attention from the issue raised above, since besides assigning blame I'm still awaiting for someone's advise on how to proceed vis-à-vis now that my GA is hijacked and specifically the pointy-ness which remains unresolved. That's the problem with AN/I, the core problem gets ignored. --ColonelHenry (talk) 17:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

This particular diversion from the main thread could have ended five indentations ago. Drmies (talk) 17:24, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Back to the main point: "I advised him not to interfere with my review" is a shitty thing to say. I think you should apologize and get back to the review. And then we'll close this thread. Drmies (talk) 17:28, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• I not in the habit of apologizing to belligerent people until they show a step back from their behavior as well. On the advice of another GA reviewer whose assessment I respect, I'm going to fail the Parsnip GA now that User:AfadsBad has introduced instability (hey, pointy disruptiveness doesn't warrant any intervention is what I seem to get from this), and while I can try being accommodating toward outside non-reviewer comments at GAs, even if they're not constructive or beneficial, asking someone to not interfere isn't entirely out-of-line (especially when they begin to hijack a review or advise the nominator of something improper like to allow copyright infringement when the reviewer fails the GA for that reason). However, not addressing the disruptive behavior makes the AN/I process rather hollow and feckless.--ColonelHenry (talk) 17:33, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• But I did address disruptive behavior: yours. Drmies (talk) 17:59, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• And that establishes why admins, aside from showing up for page protection too late, are essentially a waste of time and frustratingly hypocritical. And yet Wikipedia wonders why it loses contributors, go figure.--ColonelHenry (talk) 18:05, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Wow ColonelHenry, as much as I usually appreciate your work here, your complete failure to see that your comment has led to an unfortunate misunderstanding and now huge escalation is just ... well, "unbelievable"...but now you're blaming admins? Take a good hard look in the mirror today, please - this is an appropriate time to reflect on how someone else saw your comments - every single person in this thread (except you) has said that ES&L 18:09, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• yeah, I ask someone to not interfere with a review they happen to hijack, yet I'm the problem. At the GA conversation, several commenters saw it otherwise (especially one who called AfadsBad's actions unacceptable). Yet, bring it to admin, they'll let the hijackers and malefactors go unmolested. Not one of you addressed the fact that one editor saw fit to remove valid comments that just happened to make them look bad from a FAC that stated I was withdrawing in accordance with the nominators wishes (a nominator who asked me to do so belligerently), and so far not one of you addressed that a GA review got hijacked by someone who stated clearly that they intended to hijack and disrupt. Yet because I asked someone not to interfere, my comparatively innocuous behavior garners a "wow." --ColonelHenry (talk) 18:15, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Since you didn't provide diffs, I will: [63]. The tone and content of this comment is not at all in the spirit of collaboration or good faith. Afadsbad's comments that spurred that outburst were not anything near "hijacking" and were in fact good-faith attempts to assist. Now, to be fair, his response does indeed reek of WP:POINTy intentions, however pretending that this came from a good-faith attempt to head off a "hijacking" is disingenious. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 18:30, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm involved in this and had intended not to comment here, but as I'm the one Henry mentioned who described this comment by AfadsBad as "absolutely unacceptable" and "disruptive", I'll comment: We're all having a bad day at the Wikipedia office. To me it sure looked like AfadsBad threatened to disrupt the GA process to make a point, stating they would "tag the hell out of the article" and intentionally sink the GA review ("Have fun with the article stability part"). I know if it were an article I had worked on that was up for GA, maybe sitting in the queue for weeks, and due to some bickering totally outside my control, the GA was going to fail, that would make me very upset. So I'll start with me: I screwed up by using the probably more-heat-than-light characterization of AfadsBad's comment as "absolutely unacceptable" and what threatened as "nothing short of disruptive". ColonelHenry didn't do a good job of welcoming outside comments at the Parsnip GA, also didn't react well to Marshal's comment at the Estadio Chile GA, and Marshal's removal of Henry's comment at the FAN wasn't justified. So, sucking all around. It's turning out that AfadsBad and Sasata are working productively on the article now, so in this conversation on my User Talk, my advice to Henry was to chuck this one back into the GA pool and go pick out another one, which he's done.

In sum, we all sucked today, nobody's particularly happy how this all played out, but Henry is moving on to something else, editors are working constructively on the Parsnip article now, and there's nothing ANI-actionable here. Recommend closing this thread. Zad68 18:54, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

My initial intention was simply to let matters chill, but (seeing as how I keep getting beat around like a dead skunk) I defend my decision to revert Henry's comment at the Peru national football team FAC nomination. Henry was clearly trying to incite, rather continue, the drama in the FAC page (his accusation of my alleged "belligerence" and his statement "my comment stands for further discussion wherever it goes" have little to do with the review itself). In fact, his unwarranted vengeful behavior even led to him commenting on the FAC director's page, where he asks Ian to punish me with "whatever action or sanction" he sees fit (see [64]). I am just as appalled as everyone else by the development of this situation, but please do not mark me with having taken any erroneous action or ill intention. Regards.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 19:03, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Let's backtrack to WT:GAN. I reminded everyone to ignore all dramas. AfadsBad took my advice to heart and is making good faith attempts to make me think "gosh, I never knew parsnips could be so engaging, brilliant even", and has successfully avoided three highly experienced admins scrutinizing their actions. Now, who fancies getting Barbara Dennerlein to C-class? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:50, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

block ip sock avoiding block

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/132.194.219.175 obvious duck of user blocked yesterday https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/132.194.210.73 Gaijin42 (talk) 18:43, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Range block applied (72 hours) - 132.194.208.0/20 (4096 possible IPs). There's been no one else using the range for a couple weeks, so we should be okay in that respect. -- Diannaa (talk) 19:40, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't know about this topic until after I blocked the IP (for one week). Should I do anything, or doesn't it matter? BTW, the IPs are editing from University of Colorado.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:11, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

It's not a problem that you blocked the individual IP; the range block is better though, as there's every reason to expect they will be able to continue editing otherwise. Presumably part or all of that range is assigned to the university. -- Diannaa (talk) 22:50, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree the range block is better. Just wanted to make sure I could leave things as is. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:32, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

72.74.168.119

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Could an admin help get Special:Contributions/72.74.168.119 under control please? They have added their personal view that "Although the current russell Tribunal is a propoganda tool for the Palestinians and their terrorists supporters" to the Russell Tribunal page 4 times. My comments at User_talk:Sean.hoyland#Russell_Tribunal didn't work. They are also using talk pages for soapboxing here and here. Looking at their other edits e.g. [65][66][67], WP:NOTHERE appears to apply. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:55, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

It is actually Sean Hoyland who is the problem he is reverting edits without discussion.72.74.168.119 (talk) 19:02, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I've re-blocked the IP as it continues to be used for block evasion. I've also revoked talk page access as this particular user only uses it to continue shouting the truth from the rooftops.--Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 19:40, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

At least they weren't climbing the Reichstag - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:25, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Bizarre case of intentional incivility

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

In this edit, SRich32977 openly announced that he was going to be uncivil and then proceeded to be. It's one thing when someone is unintentionally uncivil, but this is bizarre. So I asked him to change his comment to make it civil, both in the article and on his talk page, but he refuses. Apparently, he doesn't believe that WP:CIVIL applies to him. Could someone please have a chat with him about this? MilesMoney (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I used the term "Bullshit" to describe the ersatz discussion on that talk page. And perhaps I should not have said I was going to make an "uncivil" remark. Given the discussion that preceded my remark, Bullshit is an appropriate description. But calling a remark "uncivil", when it is really and simply impolite, does not make it uncivil – or worthy of an ANI. – S. Rich (talk) 19:52, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

SRich, you called it uncivil. Fix it. MilesMoney (talk) 19:57, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I am striking the word "uncivil" and substituting "impolite". At that point you can close this ANI. Agreed? – S. Rich (talk) 20:12, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Srich, is that what it takes? Marshaling WP's resources and attention with an ANI just in order for you to respond to the reasoned, good faith, remarks and dissents of other editors? How will you respond next time others disagree with you or ask you to stop edit-warring or ask you to strike personal attacks and out-of-context misrepresentations of their views? I propose you take a break from this group of articles which seems to upset you and come back your pre-WP:BATTLEGROUND old self of last May or so. Would that seem OK for you? SPECIFICO talk 20:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Here is the history behind this ANI: 1. I insert a piece from the Huffington Post as a further reading item: [68]. 2. Specifico reverts: [69]. 3. I then opened a BRD thread on the article talk page: Talk:Ludwig von Mises#Further reading item .E2.80.93 Mariotti .28BRD.29. 4. Nonsense about my "misrepresentation of the reason I [Specifico] gave in my [Specifico's] edit summary" (e.g., Specifico's edit summary) then ensues and neither Specifico or MilesMoney addresses the issues raised. 5. Etc. – S. Rich (talk) 22:01, 26 September 2013 (UTC)23:30, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, yes, and I'm sure we've had a family feud going back for generations, but none of this is an excuse for your behavior. And, no, it's not sufficient for you to remove the part where you admitted you were uncivil. You need to remove the part where you actually were uncivil. Maybe you should just remove the whole thing. MilesMoney (talk) 01:03, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I've posted on the article talk page urging Srich to reconsider his behavior in this matter so that we can all avoid going through a lengthy rehash of the matter at ANI. For example, Srich -- your account of 1-4 above is incomplete and inappropriately colors description with further expressions of your anger at other editors. I'd again like to ask you to take a breather from the articles that upset you. Please think about that at least overnight and let us know. That would be a better outcome than for all of us to go through the details of your recent behavior here on ANI. SPECIFICO talk 01:22, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I gotta disagree with you. The original offense was not huge, but he's been so incorrigible and dishonest about it that a block or topic ban would be appropriate at this time. I don't think anything less would get through to him. MilesMoney (talk) 01:25, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I really don't know what's so surprising about incivility in Wikipedia! Its commonplace, Wikipedia and incivility is like Peanut butter and Jelly, like Forrest and Bubba, ... like farts and stink. There is nothing shocking or bizarre about incivility here! 71.126.152.253 (talk) 01:28, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Not knowing the specific article that well, I guess I could support a ban of some type from the topic of the article, broadly construed, given the clearly disruptive and incorrigible behavior. John Carter (talk) 01:36, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Many of Rich's edits are just fine. The only category where I've seen him act this way is libertarianism. MilesMoney (talk) 01:50, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)"The original offense" – that would be my "Bullshit" in response to various off-topic posts in the article talk page thread. "Dishonest" – sounds like AGF has been lost, particularly since no evidence of dishonesty is presented. "Incorrigible" – I'm not sure what you are referring to, but Incorrigibility certainly applies to the criticisms being bandied about. "Account of 1–4 above" – what items in the account are missing, or are inappropriately colored? I asked if my rephrasing of "uncivil" would serve to close this ANI and I changed the characterization of my own remark from "uncivil" to "impolite". But that was not good enough. The heading for this ANI thread is quite appropriate – "bizarre". John Carter, please take a look at the BRD that I opened and how it played out to this point.. I hope that thread would explain my remark. Who is being disruptive? Me? I asked these folks four times to respond to the issue and they did not. They simply make accusations. (Thank you, MilesMoney, for your comment.) – S. Rich (talk) 01:57, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Look, this isn't complicated. You made an uncivil statement that you admitted was uncivil. When this honesty got you into trouble, you offered to remove the label while keeping the uncivil statement, which is dishonest. You remain incorrigible in that you refuse to acknowledge that, as you admitted initially, your statement was uncivil, and you refuse to redact it. You keep trying to bring in all sorts of other things, but they're just a distraction from your increasingly bizarre behavior, and yet another form of dishonesty. MilesMoney (talk) 02:07, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment if I may ask a small question: SPECIFICO what precisely did you mean by this [70]? For what I cant tell S. Rich quoted your edit summary literally. I just can't see what misrepresentation you were referring to. Thanks. Gaba ^(talk) 02:04, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Gaba, I'd recommend that you ask this question on the talk page of the article, where it's pertinent. Here, it just doesn't matter, because the nature of their disagreement or misunderstanding does not entitle SRich to be intentionally and unrepentantly uncivil. This is a distraction from the business of AN/I. MilesMoney (talk) 02:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

No it is not since that was the comment that actually sparkled this mess. Since we are at it, MilesMoney what do you mean by "you offered to remove the label while keeping the uncivil statement, which is dishonest"? What specifically is dishonest here? Striking through the word "uncivil" and not "bullshit"?

And another request to SPECIFICO: could you please provide a diff of S. Rich edit warring? Because I'm having trouble finding it. Thanks again. Gaba ^(talk) 02:23, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Quite so. And my frustration grew when there was no discussion as to the rationale for including or excluding the further reading item I had posted. – S. Rich (talk) 02:08, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Please note that I did not strike the word "Bullshit". I struck "uncivil" and replaced it with "impolite". In any event, bullshit appropriately applies to the repeated, baseless allegations of misrepresentation of the edit summary. Perhaps MilesMoney considers the (mere) use of "bullshit" to be uncivil, particularly when it is labeled as "uncivil". Also please note that I did not say "you are a bullshitter". I referred the to repeated nonsense about the non-existent edit summary misrepresentation as bullshit. – S. Rich (talk) 02:35, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

65.27.198.248

Request block for 65.27.198.248 (talk · contribs). Despite repeated warnings, anon IP continues to add unsourced content to WEBN (see page history). Appears to habitually add unsourced content to various radio station articles w/o edit summaries (see contributions). User has made no attempt to discuss this matter on his or other talk pages. Levdr1lp / talk 22:36, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I remember a similar character that Neutralhomer (talk · contribs) used to deal with. Probably just a coincidence. Doc talk 07:17, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that person edited TV stations in the 65 range, but was in North Dakota. In this case, if the anon editor is unwilling to communicate and continues to edit after warnings, then a block may be required. If not to stop them from editing, then to force them to communicate via talk. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 07:24, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

User:Andrewm19912

Among other outstanding issues (such as an apparent on-going edit-war reported here), this user keeps removing warnings and notices posted to their talk page in an apparent attempt to hide their bad behavior from other editors, admins and bots, likely so that automated/guided warnings never reach level 4+ and result in an AIV/ANI report, even going so far as to label valid edits (such as an invitation to the TeaHouse) as vandalism. User makes no attempt to respond to warnings, engage in discussion, or explain their behavior, so warnings and notices seem to be falling on deaf ears and I believe Admin Intervention is necessary to either block this user or make them sit up, take notice, and start adhering to policy.

Some (but not, by far, all) examples are here, here, here, here, here, & here. besieged^talk 23:27, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• I blocked the user for three days based on the AN3 report. Of course, all users are entitled to remove most warnings from their talk page, but this user appears to have other issues. I don't know, though, that it requires additional sanctions at this time, although it may come to that after the current block expires.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:37, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

PA and sexual harassment by User:AmericanDad86

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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AD86, reposted this twice, after it was originally removed by another user, and then me. The problem has been fixed, I admitted it was a mistake on my part, and warned any further harassment by him would be taken to an Admin for resolution. As I said, the problem with my oversight on the page was fixed, so therefore that thread by him, which not only personally attacks me, but sexually harasses me, no longer needs to be there. He seems to have a trend of personal attacks on users. He'll probably defend himself by saying this is a personal attack on my part, while maybe not the most properly worded edit summary, any reasonable editor would agree is not a personal attack. CTF83! 23:33, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Just for the record, CTF83'S abusive conduct with me extends back to early May when I first came past him. In my very first encounter with him, CTF83 removed a whole slew of my edits under the edit summary of "unnecessary crap (though spelt grap") as shown here [71]. He would then follow that up by coming to my talk page by telling me to stop including "unnecessary crap" and to "grow up" as shown here [72] and here [73]. Mind you, that's how we first came past one another. Sporadically ever since, he will show up to a page in which I'm editing to start some more garbage. His most recent instigating antics took place just a few days ago: He came to the Stan Smith (American Dad!) article, reverting my edit under the edit summary of "horrible grammar," as shown here [74] when in reality I was correct and he was the one to have made a mistake even as he would later admit to, as shown here [75]: where he also complains to get this... my incivility undoing his revert with the edit summary of "horrible grammar". While he seems to revel in partaking in incivility, he throws a whining hissy fit if he is to be treated with incivility. He has been bugging me about how "mean" I was in responding to his incivility for the last several days. Telling him that perhaps this won't happen if he revises his obnoxious behavior seems to go in one ear and out the other with him. Moreover, he's also been moving talkpage comments. AmericanDad86 (talk) 23:49, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) AmericanDad retired in a diva-like huff in early July right after this rather crazy thread. As can be seen from the comments, it was closed because AmericanDad announced his retirement. Unfortunately, he came back about a month and a half later and has been merrily editing at quite a pace ever since. All that said, I'm not convinced that the comments made by AmericanDad constitute sexual harassment. They're obviously condescending, and I get why you consider them harassment (calling you dear and honey, even though you state on your user page that you are male and gay). Perhaps AmericanDad can explain why he used those words in his comments.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:58, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Enough is enough. I'm calling up Wikipedia tomorrow for the continued harassment from this administrator BB23. I will be making out a formal complaint against him for the continued harassment. His remarks have absolutely no bearing on what's going on here and he's been engaging in these spiteful types of behaviors for as long as I've been using this website. And he's pulling this with administrative tools for God's sakes. Bbb23, the harassment stops now. Tomorrow I'm filing a formal complaint against you to the headquarters and calling in. Won't read the rest of this thread nor your replies. You might have people who will side with you here at the administrative noticeboards but we'll see what happens when I call up the corporation with a formal complaint against you on your behaviors tomorrow. Goodbye! AmericanDad86 (talk) 00:10, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I didn't move any comments, I was the second use to remove a personal attack as I showed you in bullet 4 on WP:TPO. Also I've never sexually harassed you, or readded personal attacks towards you. CTF83! 00:00, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Not arguing with you nor repeating myself no reading the remainder of this thread. You will receive incivility for every time your behavior is abusive CTF83. Can't take it at all, then don't dish it out, pal! Goodbye! DONE! AmericanDad86 (talk) 00:02, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

BBB it was clearly to harass and perhaps with homophobic Connotations. Block him, and maybe he'll retire for good. You see his attitude and unwillingness to change, block him! CTF83! 00:05, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

@CTF83!, I can't take any administrative action against AmericanDad because I'm WP:INVOLVED. Quite some time ago, I made the mistake of getting into a content dispute with him, having forgotten that before that I had blocked him for edit warring. Now, all I can do is express my opinion about his behavior.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:32, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok.... BTW, is there even a number to call the foundation to complain? Lol CTF83! 00:36, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

They have a phone number, and I'm sure they'll be delighted to hear from him.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

When I call up Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation tomorrow, I will also be letting them know of these nasty and unfounded accusations you and the administrator have spewed. In addition CT83, I will be informing them of your use of the n-word a few months ago CTF83. Won't read any further of your replies. Goodbye! AmericanDad86 (talk) 00:14, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I've read that... 3 times now I think... how about you do us all a favor and follow through! CTF83! 00:24, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

@AmericanDad86 Acting like a WP:DIVA again I see, Perhaps instead of just pissing everyone off, You should actually contribute without starting wars!. -Davey2010Talk 00:21, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd say that not reading or responding to comments will be an excellent way for you to get blocked, and I wouldn't expect much from the Wikimedia Foundation, given your habit of opening AN/I notices and accusing everyone who disagrees with you of personal attacks. I'm posting here because my input was requested for this matter, given that I was the editor who came across that highly-offensive post pertaining to CTF83! and their grammar abilities. In what way was it necessary to call him "dear" and "honey", and how did it help to say, "I know this is a lot to take in for you. Are you understanding or do I have to break this down more for you"? And why did you not just bring this to their talk page? DarthBotto _talk•cont 00:46, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• Someone block this account as WP:NOTHERE, and if someone else could try to explain to him the two following points it'd be great:
  • The WMF will not do anything with this situation, aside from potentially block the diva.
  • If you say you're going to stop responding, stop. Or, you can always be blocked sooner and then not be able to respond.
• This is too far out of hand - a block should've been handed out long ago. This type of crap directed at both Bbb23 and the other editors here should not be tolerated. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 00:49, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Multi-IP disruptive editing in violation of WP:NCCAPS

Over the past month there has been at least three IPs involved in making disruptive edits to articles about various UK-based game shows. The changes usually are to the capitalization and formatting of the name of the subject (in conflict with WP:NCCAPS WP:NAMECAPS and all provided sources), also often adding an exclamation point to the end. This is easily interpreted by patrollers as being made in good faith, but a look at the IPs contributions reveal edit wars, and despite warnings and attempts to resolve the dispute, have shown no sign of stopping, with one article resulting in temporary semi-protection and even personal attacks ([76] [77] [78]).

To make things more complicated, the majority of the edits made from these IPs are constructive, including improving categorization, replacing raw data with associated templates (e.g. start dates with {{start date}}), and even adding references.

The involved IPs / sampled similar edits include:

• 90.204.13.244 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) – [79] [80] [81] (resumed editing after recent block)
• 2.223.49.249 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) – [82] [83] [84] (last edit 18 September)
• 2.121.221.142 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) – [85] [86] [87] (last edit 4 September)

Note also ClueBot NG has regularly scored these edits as vandalistic.

A fourth IP appears to make very similar edits (categorization, start/end date templates) to the same types of articles, but corrects the capitalization errors:

• 81.153.20.89 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) – [88] [89] [90] [91] (regularly edits since 18 September)

I'm unsure how to handle this. Place a block on 90.204.13.244? Probably not worth looking into an abuse filter? Although it seems like the regex for this would be easy to write? — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:27, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikistalking and Wikhounding by User:Cavann

This user has lately filed two non-actionable AN3 reports against me [92] [93] in the last 3 days, he has falsely accused me of making racist comments [94] (when I ask him what is racist about my comment, he is unable to answer [95]), and has lately taken to following my edits [96] and reverting to spite me [97]. In this instance he reverted an edit of mine from well over a month ago. Can someone tell this guy to back off? The false accusation of racism is by itself blockable. Athenean (talk) 07:25, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I did not revert to "spite you." Get over yourself. I have edited similar articles before [98] and I wasn't the only one concerned about you blanking an entire section [99]. Your comment was irrelevant and offensive.Cavann (talk) 13:50, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• AFAICS:

1. Cavann's revert of [100] Athenean's removal of sourced content[101] relates to a dispute about whether the publication concerned was retracted. Have two two editors discussed this point before bringing it to ANI?
2. Athenean's contested comment[102] could be read as being subtly provocative, by implying that objectors to this viewpoint are "nationalist"; they may disagree on many grounds, and it is unhelpful to presume motive. Athenean should take more care in phrasing contributions to sensitive racial topics
3. Cavann's accusation of racism[103] is a blatant assumption of bad faith. I hope that Cavann will withdraw it

Both of you, please can you try to sort this out between yourselves? I see nothing actionable at this stage, just two editors who need to a) practice WP:BRD, and b) be more careful about how they write and more tolerant of what they read. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:17, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

The only thing that may require admin attention is Athenian's potential sockpuppet behaviour with the single purpose IP to circumvent 3rr [104] Cavann (talk) 21:04, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I've noticed a clear wp:own behaviour by Cavann in another article (Turkish People) the last months. Actually the activity of the specific user became more extreme after a topic-banned wp:spa DragonTiger23 informed him that he should adopt a more extreme national agenda [[105]].Alexikoua (talk) 22:04, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Almanach de Gotha

After God knows how many years , I have given up editing the above page and taken it off my watchlist. It is impossible to keep it NPOV, non-advertising and accurate because it's repeatedly edited by warring single purpose accounts.  Giano  08:39, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Is this an "incident" report? Doc talk 09:20, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

It looks more like a frustration report. Nevertheless, the history of this article, especially the activity of User:HofKal, does warrant some looking-into.

• Edit warring (see talk page)
• Whitewashing e.g. [106], a "scathing report" removed. I've read it and it's scathing alright.
• fake pageprotection [107]

Looking at it, i cannot escape the thought he's actively promoting the 2013 edition and using the notability of the original to do it. It's worth noting the new versin (since 1998) and the original have nothing to do with each other. Kleuske (talk) 11:12, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

This article can go for months without any edits. User:HofKal was warned last January for apparent promotional editing. He is the only single-purpose account who seems to have been active on that article in 2013 so it shouldn't be hard for admins to deal with the situation once they are notified. One more revert from him should justify a block. EdJohnston (talk) 13:42, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Active link spammer, WP:COI editor, and WP:UAA is back logged

Resolved

 – Both have been blocked now. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:10, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I've observed User:RMP Arts making a significant number of edits adding content like this and this, promoting the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. I advised the editor, via {{uw-coi-username}} of the problematic nature of their edits (see their talk page). I received no response. I then place a second warning asking them to stop their edits [108]. Again, I have received no response and the editor continues apace. I reported the username to WP:UAA [109], along with another username (User:Rmp updates) that has performed very similar edits, though inactive since last October. However, WP:UAA is quite backlogged at the moment. I've undone all the edits constituting COI/LINKSPAM from both accounts, but the currently active account continues. I'd rather not chase them around all day. And still going. Some assistance please. Editor has been informed of this thread. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 14:06, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

To: Hammersoft, I do not see the issue with the postings I am making and wish you would have given me the chance to respond instead of deleting my posts. The posts are facts and are honors these artists have been awarded, please stop deleting these posts and if you have further issues please send a message — Preceding unsigned comment added by RMP Arts (talk • contribs) 14:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• I did give you a chance to respond. You ignored my requests. You have a direct WP:COI with the subject, and are link spamming. This needs to stop. The only reason it got to this level was because you ignored the {{uw-coi-username}} post on your talk page, and then ignored the second stop request on your talk page. You have had multiple chances to explain yourself. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:18, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

After seeing the RMP Arts addition to the Martin Scorsese biography I was headed over to RMP Arts' user page when I saw that Hammersoft had already tagged the user as having an inappropriate username, signifying a group account. As well, I would have gone through all of RMP Arts' contributions to discover whether the same link was being added in multiple places, but Hammersoft beat me to it. I think there is room to name the Rolex Mentor Program in certain articles on Wikipedia but the connection should be made using WP:SECONDARY sources so that the connection can be assured of being significant to the topic rather than promotional for RMP. Binksternet (talk) 14:37, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

User:Joefromrandb: continual disruption after RfC and block

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Joefromrandb (talk · contribs)

Joefromrandb has a history of personal attacks, profanity towards editors, and edit warring, as noted by this RfC, where a number of editors agreed that his actions were unacceptable. He ignored the RfC altogether, and continued personally attacking other editors (like with this diff). This illustrates a perennial problem with Joe: his WP:IDHT mentality. Often, rather than acknowledging wrongdoing, he proceeds to attack editors who point out bad edits on his part, sometimes profanely.

A day or two ago, Joe acted disruptively at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Breeze Barton, which led to User:Floquenbeam slapping him with a 24-hour respite from editing. Joe's actions during the block exemplify his IDHT mentality and frankly warrant another block. Instead of using his talk page to appeal the blocks as is the only appropriate action when blocked, Joe uses it to attack Floquenbeam and other editors (many of whom I might add had nothing to do with the AfD or the block), and to advocate punishment of Floquenbeam for blocking him. When User:TParis, User:Ks0stm, User:EatsShootsAndLeaves and User:Technical 13 all tried to talk him down, he attacked them as well, as part of a general tirade against admins who had the audacity to tell him he acted wrongfully (and removed his rollback after he edit-warred a year ago). These include the following diffs:

• Threatening Flo with action here over the block (with an inappropriate edit summary)
• Filing a completely inappropriate admin-help request
• Bringing TParis and User:Ks0stm into this discussion, even though they had nothing to do with the AfD or block
• Continual insulting of Floquenbeam
• When ESL tries to explain what's wrong with Joe's actions at AfD, using profanity and alleging an admin cabal
• Began a fishing expedition in an effort to recall Floquenbeam
• Responding to TParis with profanity
• Profane personal attack against User:Ks0stm
• Refusing to accept User:Ks0stm's attempt at conciliation
• Admitting to holding a grudge
• Creating a whole section on his talk page to say how Floquenbeam's block rationale is a blatent lie
• Responding to TParis' comment with BS x4, plus one in the edit summary for good measure
• Claiming Technical-13 is on drugs

It's time for Joe's actions to stop. My proposal is the following:

1. Joefromrandb gets hit with a two-week block, partially due to the actions that warranted the RfC, partially due to ignoring the RfC's findings, but mostly due to the tirade during his block
2. Future personal attacks or edit warring should result in even longer blocks.
3. One-sided interaction ban with User:Floquenbeam

pbp 15:52, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Series of escalating blocks for Joefromrandb?

1. Support as nom pbp 15:52, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
2. Oppose unless that is what is required based on Joefromrandb's inability to get it in the interest of protecting the encyclopedia. Technical 13 (talk) 16:49, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
3. Support, but oppose. Any future blocks should be a series of escalating blocks (as per standard practice, I would think), but I do not support a reblock based upon his actions during this last block. He was mad, he said a few regrettable things, but nothing that warrants re-blocking now that his original block has expired. Better to just let the fire burn itself out than add more fuel to it. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 16:58, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

One-sided interaction ban with Floquenbeam?

1. Support as nom pbp 15:52, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

   I assume there's no need to respond to this drivel. This kid has been told by multiple users to find something to do that doesn't involve me. His obsession with me is both unfounded and creepy. Ping me if there's actually anything that needs addressing. Joefromrandb (talk) 16:28, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

   @Joefromrandb: The fact that pbp is following you around doesn't absolve you of your inappropriate remarks. -- tariqabjotu 16:38, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

2. Oppose on the grounds that Joefromrandb remains civil to Floquenbeam. Failure to do that should simply result in a 24 hour block for each offense which may be set into place by Floq if any other capable editor would have done the same. Technical 13 (talk) 16:49, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Other comments

• I'm curious why no one thought to revoke Joe's talk page access during his block. Anyway, yes, there's definitely a problem here, although perhaps I'd start with a week, rather than two weeks. That being said, pbp, can you explain how you encountered this behavior? You weren't involved in the offending AfD, so it seems like you're still following Joe's every move in the hopes you'll find something. Just as you point out that it looks like Joe hasn't taken the RfC to heart, perhaps you should take heed of the points during the RfC that you need to find something better to do than constantly being on the lookout for Joe's transgressions. -- tariqabjotu 16:35, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

  To clarify, I think the next block should not be two weeks, but maybe closer to one week. However, I don't think the block is needed right now. Several experienced editors (including administrators) observed the offending exchange, and none of them seemed eager to extend or modify Joe's block. (PBP doesn't count.) If (or when) it continues, that's a different story. -- tariqabjotu 18:38, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• Joe can earn his own blocks, PBP, please stop pushing the issue. Let someone else take Joe to task.--v/r - TP 16:38, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
• I don't see any reason for additional action against Joe, yet. Yes, WP:IDHT is deafening, and I feel sorry for the poor deadhorse, but easrly symptoms of deceased equine flagellation and martyrdom are not reasons for blocks...yet - oh, and no need for IB's yet either as nothing has been proven above that would require such ES&L 16:43, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
• Honestly, I'm not all that fussed at the comments he delivered to me, but I have a thick skin. The only part that got me a little offended was his calling me "little boy" when I'm 20 years old, but that's easy for me to overlook. I'm not of the opinion that any of his comments to me were blockworthy, but I have no opinion on his comments to others since I haven't looked at them (and don't intend to). Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 16:51, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
• Can someone explain what Purplebackpack89 has to do with any of this? There are some pretty experienced editors aware of the posting on Joefromrandb's talk page, and I don't think any of us need any protection. Am I correct in my hunch that PBP and Joe have some long previous history? If this is just an opportunity to get a few kicks in, I'm going to be disappointed. No additional block for anything that he has said on his talk page, no interaction ban with me, and it's probably not a good idea for anyone to provide him with more helpful advice on his talk page right now. Either it will blow over, or blow up without outside help. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:58, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I think PBP was instrumental in Joe's RFC/U ... well, in it's filing at least - I believe that their participation was actually one of the reasons it failed to gain traction either in the community or by the "target" ES&L 18:29, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• PBP needs to drop his long-standing grudge against Joe right now, and stop poking him, or it'll be an interaction ban we need to discuss next. And I join Floquenbeam in calling for everybody to stop offering advice to Joe on his page. Please go read User:Geogre/Comic. Internalize it. Bishonen | talk 19:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC).

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Continuous vandalism on Template:Islamism in South Asia

User:Handyunits is constantly putting original research in the template's Events and controversies section where there are no references or citation in corresponding articles to support the edits and even without leaving any notes on the template's talk page. Such similar problem was solved for {{Hindu Nationalism}}'s Events and controversies but an edit war is going on for the template {{Islamism in South Asia}}. The user has been warned on his talk page but he has also reverted that. I'm seeking to resolve this issue. Thank you!--Benfold (talk) 16:30, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• I have full-protected the template for 1 week. Both Handyunits and Benfold were edit warring. Also, Benfold: Please don't label the actions of other edits in a content dispute as vandalism, it does not help the situation. Monty₈₄₅ 17:06, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Benfold, I agree with your assessment above but, in future, seek admin help (at [[WP:RFPP] or here) rather than edit warring. --regentspark (comment) 17:13, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for protecting and i apologize for labeling content disputes as vandalism but this is because the user showed no interest to discuss the matter in the template's talk page and keep reverting since a tfd closed. Dear RegentsPark, thanks for the suggestions. I'll keep that in mind if such situation occurs in future. Thanks again to both of you.--Benfold (talk) 17:19, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

uncivil/NPA at Huey P. Newton

I have had trouble figuring out what to do about recent comments that are, in my view, clearly uncivil (if not personal attacks, as i interpret them to be) and not substantially about improving the article at Talk:Huey P. Newton, by Pokey5945.

Because this article, and the discussion there, figured so heavily in my recent ARBCOM case, I am unsure of how to proceed. I certainly want to keep the discussion there on-topic and as strictly about improving the article as can be managed, since NOTFORUM and personal attacks have been an issue there in the past.

If anyone can take a look, I would really appreciate it. I am inclined to re-collapse the uncivil comments, but do not want to do so before soliciting other opinion. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 17:25, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I should also clarify that I'm not sure how to deal with comments that are in part about the article and in part attacks on other editors. i am loath to cut someone's comment up into sections, but perhaps sometimes this is warranted? -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 17:29, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I went to that Talk Page looking for a long, feisty debate but I just see a few comments of disagreement. Is there more than has been deleted? Because it seems like an ordinary content dispute, judging by what's posted there now. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:35, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Right now it's just a couple of assertions that other editors (I presume me among them) are POVPUSHers, etc. It's pretty minor by most standards, but that has also blown up pretty severely in the past, so I am eager (perhaps overeager, given my history, which is why i was soliciting comment) to keep the place civil. And, well, it has an impact when anyone asking a question gets sniping at other editors in response. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 18:55, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• It is pretty minor, but Pokey5945's comments are pretty useless and sound very hollow. Drmies (talk) 19:07, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

File:Photo of bacon camp s.f. logo.jpg mislicensed, still fair use?

The image File:Photo of bacon camp s.f. logo.jpg was (IMHO) almost certainly mislicensed by the original Flickr photographer, since it's a straightforward reproduction of artwork I would assume (in the absence of further evidence) they do not own the copyright to?

In your opinion, would the image still be usable under "fair user" criteria in the Bacon mania article (where it was originally put)? Ubcule (talk) 18:32, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

The photographer has licensed the photo by a free license, but as a non-de minimis photo of a copyright logo, it is clearly a derivative work of the logo's creator, and makes the photo non-free. The license should be a non-free one, and in light of that, the logo of an event that is discussed only in one paragraph is not necessary for understanding the topic, and thus should be nominated for deletion. (Things like these can be brought up at WP:NFCR as it is not an immediate admin incident to be dealt with.) --MASEM (t) 18:38, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

HBC_AIV_helperbot5

Doesn't seem to be cleaning up the WP:AIV properly. is something wrong?  A m i t  웃   18:55, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

RfC at List of new religious movements

Is there any chance of a ruling or closure on the RfC and extended debate at talk:List of new religious movements? The narrow issue is whether the sources justify the inclusion of Landmark Worldwide in this list, and the wider issue is whether there is any merit in defining the term 'New religious movement' in some specialised sense, or whether the phrase should simply be interpreted to mean what the everyday meaning of the words suggests. Thanks DaveApter (talk) 20:44, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Propose to ban User:Hasteur

• User:Hasteur edited other's comment in WP:Archive.is RFC diff:[110] replacing it with {{collapse top}} box with highlighted text.
• This highlighted text is not relevant to the original comment, but it repeats the point expressed by the same User:Hasteur earlier in the same RFC.
• Being pointed to this, he just undid the comment he does not like. diff:[111]. 79.47.98.149 (talk) 21:45, 27 September 2013 (UTC)