Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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Copyright input request

• Allstarecho (talk · contribs)

Hi. Today's batch at WP:CP included Lazy Magnolia Brewing Company, which consisted almost entirely of text pasted from the official website and its subpages. (Admins only, I'm afraid, can view this, since it is now deleted.) When the copyright infringement was pointed out, the contributor evidently made an effort to obtain permission, but restored the text out of process while doing so, ostensibly so that the copyright holders could see the text in use. Not having received permission, he removed the single tagged section, but that left considerably more text from the site exposed (See the bottom of his talk page for some conversation about this.) Given the contributors evident misunderstanding of copyright policy (including the note in edit summary that "copyedit this section too to address any concerns.. although I'd hardly call descriptions of what a beer tastes like as being copyrightable"), I started checking the contributors other work and have found two more pastes for which he is evidently responsible (Including Grand Gulf Military State Park (Mississippi), which the contributor removed with the note "no copyright notice on that site but to appease the stalker...") and Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, which he restored as not copyrightable, notwithstanding Mississippi's explicit claim otherwise. (The facts are not copyrightable, but the language used is.) I also found another copyright infringement which he did not place, but in an article which he split without noting the origin. There seem to be serious misunderstandings about copyright policy here, including that we can publish copyrighted text in the hopes that the owners will grant license, that beer descriptions can't be copyrighted and that we can use copyrighted text if it is not explicitly claimed. Since this contributor is taking my scrutiny personally, I would welcome other input. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:06, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't need other input, but thanks. Nothing to see or do here, carry on. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 17:17, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Unless you've now decided that beer descriptions and websites that do not explicitly claim copyright can't be used under our copyright policy, I'm afraid that I do. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:33, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

In the U.S., prior to the Copyright Act of 1976, published works needed an explicit copyright notice to be covered by copyright law. (Lack of a copyright notice on a print run of Houghton Mifflin's American publication of The Lord of the Rings allowed Ace Books to publish an unauthorized version of the trilogy.) After 1976, all published works were covered, regardless of whether they had a notice or not, and unpublished works were covered as well -- so whether a webiste explicitly claims copyright or not is totally irrelevant. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 18:00, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

• Although Allstarecho evidently still feels harassed by my overview of his contributions, I have found copyright from diverse sources going all the way back to 2007, with Lanier High School (Jackson, Mississippi), which duplicates this copyrighted 2006 source: [1]. And, in fact, I see he removed a Corensearchbot notice from an article he created here and was advised of copyright policies here. To boot, he still does not accept that this is in any way wrong, per edit summary: as usual, facts can't be copyrighted but whatever. I believe more input might be valuable. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:56, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
• You are correct in your analysis. Simply remove anything prior to 1976 (as mentioned above) that is not covered by a copyright release statement. If the editor replaces it, then block them. Black Kite 00:06, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
  • That's somewhat easier said than done, given the extensive contribution history, but I'm doing my best. :/ Meanwhile, the more I look, the more I am concerned that this contributor has shown no interest in complying with copyright policy, given the tone with which he's addressed these concerns and previous issues. His attitude doesn't seem to have changed since he was advised in September, 2007, when he said, "I'm not incorrect because I said I don't FEEL text about a public educational institution, especially one my tax dollars help pay for, is copyrighted." In other words, evidence suggests he has not been unaware of these policies, having removed a number of Corensearchbot notices as well as basically shrugging off that 2007 conversation. He seems simply to have not felt inclined to honor them, just as he removed without comment this notice of the issue and request to address it by yet another administrator on May 30th of this year. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:20, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a serious problem of repeated, intentional copyright violations. If the user continues to upload copyright infringements, he should be immediately blocked. Meanwhile, we're going to have to plow through his contributions to remove any and all copyvios that he's added, since it's clear he won't do it himself. Any assistance would be welcome. (Moonriddengirl, do you think the damage is extensive enough to merit a checklist at Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Contributor surveys?) – Quadell ^(talk) 02:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• Taking MRG's assertions on trust, I agree with Quadell's conclusion. Allstarecho, your actions are out of line and you must reconsider your position or else cease contributing. No amount of flippancy routes around the absolute intolerability of copyright violation on wikipedia. --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:50, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• I've done an initial review of Allstarecho's contributions, and the problem is in fact far worse than Moonriddengirl's description - he has been routinely and indiscriminately borrowing copyrighted content from a variety of sources for years, and considerable effort will be involved in cleaning them up. His comments demonstrate that he has a distorted understanding of how copyright functions, which is probably the root cause of this, and as such I wouldn't trust him to clean his own contributions. His actions to restore his deleted contributions and remove copyvio templates prevented the issue from being detected sooner, and are are making the cleanup twice as difficult as it needs to be, and he should be blocked at least for the duration of the cleanup. Moreover, I would not unblock him unless he promises to cease copying content from external sources altogether - I don't trust him to distinguish public domain sources from copyrighted ones with any degree of reliability. This is unfortunate because he does also contribute original content, but a necessary precaution to enable the cleanup to proceed without disruption and without new copyvios being added. Dcoetzee 04:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

User says he is retired, but did not go gracefully. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 05:12, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to say that saddens me somewhat. I have had generally positive interactions with Allstarecho in the past. I do agree that copyright is a serious issue, and we need to tread carefully when copying text and pictures from other sources. I certainly wish he had handled this better. sigh. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:17, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

It'd been handled better if I hadn't been wiki-hounded all fucking day. I mean, look at my talk page history. And just to ease some people's fetish with the idea that I don't understand copyright: I do. Most of these g'damn articles were done in my wiki-infancy. Any newer ones which may be in question, I don't agree that statistical facts (dates, percentages, times and related words to explain such facts) is copyrightable.. just like a textual logo isn't copyrightable. But whatever, I'm done with the Wiki. I've had all I can stand of the wiki-hounding and wiki-stalking I got in one day - no, not even a full one day, more like the bombardment I got in the span of about 7 hours. No need to reply or try and explain any of your own interpretations of copyright to me because frankly, I don't give a shite anymore and am now, with this last post, retired.. so if you waste the finger strokes, you're just preaching to the choir. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 05:47, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• Nicely done....we have pushed away ANOTHER good editor over some minor BS. Allstar was and is one of the better editors here at Wikipedia and it is a sad day when the good editors say "to hell with it" and walk away because of pointless minor BS and no one says a damned thing about it. Pathetic. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 06:16, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Copyright isn't minor BS, and he will be back. Viridae^Talk 07:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
  • There's nothing good about pasting text from copyrighted sources onto Wikipedia. This contributor was advised years ago that this was against policy, but as recently as May 24th copied [2] and many of its subpages onto Wikipedia, removing the {{copyvio}} template from the article that was placed by an administrator (not me). That he chooses to view the clean-up of this as persecution just verifies the problem to me. What are we supposed to do when it's been proven that a contributor has pasted text against policy on Wikipedia? Look the other way? He has ignored or rejected correction on this issue with hostility at every point I've seen. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:09, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
    • This kind of thing is potentially a very serious problem. I see that AllStar has been blocked, but that's just the tip of the copyright iceberg. I have seen various articles over time (by many editors) that "read like copyright violations", but how do you go about proving it? Thanks to endless sites parroting wikipedia, finding the original source can be very difficult. You take a suspicious-sounding phrase put it into Google, find hundreds of entries containing it, check each one to see if they are wikipedia parrots or not, and maybe you'll find the original. So you repair the article and hope that's reflected eventually in the mirroring sites. OK, that's 1 down, a few million to go. It's the proliferation that's really the problem - the same problem as with copyrighted images. Someday wikipedia might get sued over this kind of thing, if they haven't been already. But that's also just the tip of the iceberg. It is so incredibly easy to copy-and-paste on the internet, how can an author who publishes on the internet have any realistic expectation of it not being proliferated, regardless of his theoretical legal rights? This will be an interesting issue for the Supreme Court to tackle someday. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:12, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
      • If they ever abolish copyright, my Wiki day will be a lot more fun. :) We are trying to organize this sort of thing. Dcoetzee made a program that surveys contributions, and we've been using successfully at WP:COPYCLEAN. All true, what you say about finding the original source. It's tedious work. There are mechanical plagiarism detectors that I utilize, but they don't eliminate Wiki mirrors. Maybe someday we'll get one of our own that does. Even cutting out the mirrors we know about would simplify things enormously. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
        • A number of years ago, probably in the early days of the VCR, comedian Robert Klein was doing an HBO standup special. He "warned" people watching at home not to tape the show, as it was a copyright violation. He then went on to point out that that violation was on roughly the same level of illegality as "tearing a tag off your mattress". And as a practical matter, that's what the internet has done. I have seen occasional images which were protected from downloading, but generally that's not done. Youtube seems to have the right idea - you can view it but not download it (as far as I know). But text is usually written in text form rather than as an image, so technologically (though not legally) you can do anything you want with it. The courts might eventually have to settle question of whether the burden of protection is on the original poster - i.e. if he doesn't protect the text somehow, then he shouldn't complain that it gets proliferated. I suspect the law is far behind the technology on this issue. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:37, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

          • Not true. YouTube videos are easily downloaded [3], and in some cases converted to friendlier formats [4] 67.142.165.30 (talk) 17:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

          • As long as we keep Wikipedia safe while the jurists sort it out, it's all good (from a copyright standpoint that is; the whole plagiarism thing is a different, much debated story). Personally, I think the policies in place do a very good job of demonstrating due diligence, and we've got some contributors who put a lot of time into enforcing them even though I know from past conversations that some of them actually support the abolition of intellectual property laws (or, at least, the radical overhaul and relaxation of them). --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
      • When I first saw this thread my reaction was much like Neutral Homer's, & I almost posted something along those lines... but for some reason I sat on my hands & didn't. I'm glad of my silence: repeated copyright infringements does not do anyone any good, & AllStarEcho's best response would have been to say something like, "Oops, I did all of that early on when I didn't know any better. Sorry." And if fixing this got too stressful, take a lengthy break. Most of the regulars here have an otherwise positive opinion of AllStarEcho, & if he were to admit his mistakes, promise not to do it again, I suspect he'd be given another chance. But his ranting above about "wiki-hounding and wiki-stalking" doesn't help his case. (And before anyone thinks I'm without sin, I keep wondering when someone will start looking carefully at some of the first articles I wrote. Especially since many of them are practically identical to what I wrote 6 years ago. If that ever happens, I promise to try to handle that kind of examination with more grace.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:12, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Given that the user has extensively damaged Wikipedia by uploading hundreds of copyright violations over several years, which may take months of effort to clean up... given that he continues to remove warnings and templates regarding copyright... given that the user shows no remorse or inclination to change any of this behavior... given that he has said he has retired and has no interest in editing... and given that he turned his userpage into a terrifically offensive attack page against people who challenge him on any of his behavior... Given all this, I have blocked the user indefinitely. If he wants to unretire and promises not to copy-and-paste any more material from random web sources, then I will unblock him (or anyone else can). – Quadell ^(talk) 11:06, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

On a related note, User:Allstarecho/regularmaintained will be helpful in this cleanup. From this list, I've already identified Frank Frost as a direct copyvio of this.  Frank  |  talk  12:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I was a bit hasty on this one. Thanks to User:Voceditenore for pointing this out.  Frank  |  talk  13:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

The source of that article is this NYT piece dated 1999. Cf our article. "Over the years, cigarettes and alcohol wore Frost down but he continued to record, tour and diversify his repertory, appearing in the films Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads and Crossroads." NYT, "Cigarettes and alcohol wore Mr. Frost down over the years, but he continued to record, tour and diversify his repertory, appearing in the films Deep Blues and Crossroads." --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Just out of interest are you now going to block yourself, or some other admin going to do it for the blatant and deliberate copyright violation above. You did get permission from the copyright holder to publish the above didn't you? After all there was no necessity for you to quote any of that, the links were there for anyone else to see the above text. --WebHamster 11:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It's likely to be a long haul. We have a program we use at WP:COPYCLEAN (developed to clean up the problem at User:GrahamBould, I think) that lists the contributions of a user prioritized by size. Once that's run, I'll be opening an investigation tab at the copyright cleanup project to help structure investigation. All contributors most welcome. :D --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:11, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• Good block.  Sandstein  14:12, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Could someone with the buttons look at the header that comes up when editing Allstarecho's user & talk pages? Doesn't seem like the sort of thing that should stay in place. Athanasius • Quicumque vult 15:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant User:Allstarecho/Editnotice and User talk:Allstarecho/Editnotice. Don't know if these subpages stay for a blocked user or not. Athanasius • Quicumque vult 16:03, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow; it's true what they say: you learn something new every day. Now I know how that's done :-) Anyway, I'm not sure what should be done there or why. Can someone show a policy or precedent regarding the editnotice and whether or not it should be removed? Allstarecho is not banned, as far as I know, and I'm not certain even that would warrant deletion. I think he could return at any time and be unblocked (OK, not in that order), and I'm not sure there's a need to dig into this right now.  Frank  |  talk  17:05, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

This comes as a surprise; hadn't been watching the noticeboard in a day. If Allstarecho takes a few simple steps would support a negotiated unblock. Ball's in his court; door remains open. Durova^Charge! 20:35, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

On scanning this yesterday and the day before I thought "Ok, this can't be that bad, he's a longstanding editor in...". I stand suprised.

Perhaps we should launch a sitenotice campaign to remind all editors about the copyright policy, and offer an amnesty period ("Just tell us about it now, we'll clean it up.").

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Given that the primary idea is to protect Wikipedia, I'd heartily support both...especially since we can have reason to hope that a contributor who self-discloses means to follow policy henceforth. With this particular editor, I think I'd be uncomfortable with anything short of supervision, given that he has demonstrated contempt for copyright in his editing and in his parting shot (or one of them, anyway). Perfectly fine to despise copyright laws. Using Wikipedia as a forum to demonstrate that, by pasting others' text here particularly when multiple editors have advised of policy, is flatly disruptive to a dangerous degree, no matter what constructive contributions he might also have made. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:40, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Having slept on the matter, there's more to be said. The 'open door' is in need of oil at the hinge. Allstarecho has taken an unusually strict stand about copyright compliance regarding another editor, and Allstarecho repeated that hard line about copyright toward the other editor as recently as last week. Until yesterday Allstarecho's position seemed worthy of respect, but now it is clear he was raising the bar very high for someone he disliked, while setting it unacceptably low for himself. Diffs are available upon request. If Allstarecho changes his mind about retirement I would support him, but in addition to the usual concerns that need to be worked out with a habitual copyright violator he will need to address this double standard--which occurs on the very same topic that caused his indefinite block. Durova^Charge! 15:01, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Evidently Allstarecho has requested unblocking already (and been declined). I remain concerned about his attitude towards copyright. Even after requesting unblocking, he said, "Most of it was a misunderstanding. I still don't see how statistical facts can be copyrighted. Facts are facts, period." I trust that anyone with knowledge of copyright law will recognize that there is plenty of copyrightable, creative text in such "statistical facts" as "Indian Summer Spiced Wheat Ale is a light profile American-style wheat ale spiced with Orange Peel and Coriander. The recipe uses a mix of wheat and pale barley. This beer is very lightly hopped to allow the spices to shine through. Clean fermenting yeast produce a very dry, crisp base to further accentuate the spices. The aroma has a distinct citrus note without being overly fruity", text which this contributor copied to Wikipedia from http://www.lazymagnolia.com/Indian_Summer.html (one of multiple pages copied from that site; and more statistical facts that can't be copyrighted from April of this year). This is only one of many, and the clean-up on this has only just been initiated at WP:COPYCLEAN. I have found duplicated text already in possibly up to a dozen articles, and I suspect that there will be much, much more. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:18, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed: all the usual concerns apply. In addition, the issue of double standards also needs to be addressed. If you have a list I could work from to lend a hand with the cleanup, let me know how I can help. Durova^Charge! 15:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, please. :) Anybody and everybody welcome. There is a section open for him at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Copyright_Cleanup/Contributor_surveys#Allstarecho. Helpful instructions are on the first subpage, Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Allstarecho. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:49, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Rolls up sleeves. Durova^Charge! 15:53, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

*I am going to ask that everyone stop and actually read the damned page you are linking to before calling it a copyvio. In reference to the Southwest Mississippi Community College page (that Durova has tagged), this link is supposed the copyvio. Nothing on that page is copied, verbatim or near verbatim, onto Southwest Mississippi Community College. That does not a copyvio make. I think we need to actually read the pages before calling a copyvio or not nominate them at all. I also believe that in the case listed in this post, we own Allstarecho an apology for saying it was a copyvio when it wasn't. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:21, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

• • Obviously the wrong link was posted. That was corrected almost immediately by Durova, but missed by me. Once corrected, I see, quite clearly, the copyvio. Sadly, I must agree with the community on this one. :( Delete away. My apologizes. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:27, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
    • I can understand your initial confusion here, but I can't honestly support the idea that anyone who mistags something contributed by Allstarecho as a copyvio would owe him an apology. I can point out quite a bit of text that he has contributed that is. WP:AGF only works when there isn't "strong evidence to the contrary", and suspicion of his contributions is extremely reasonable at this juncture. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:50, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Before seeing the correct link I thought an apology was needed, but after seeing the correct link, I now see that an apology is not necessary. I stuck that part with the rest above. Again, my apologizes for the confusion caused by my struck post above, I will be more cautious and check the links more than once before posting. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 00:04, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
        • Apologies for the confusion. Nominations for deletion are something I rarely do. Was having trouble with the Twinkle interface, and simultaneously copied the wrong URL by accident. Durova^Charge! 04:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Indefinite block, reset

Given that (1) this contributor has requested unblocking several times due to the blocking conditions set by User:Quadell, "Anyone may unblock if he wants to unretire and promises not to copy and paste copyrighted content into Wikipedia anymore", and that further evaluation has disclosed more significant infringement than Quadell may have known and that further conversation here suggests that there may be more involved in an unblock than that simple statement and that (2) this contributor persists in asserting (as discussed above and at his talk page) that he has not violated copyright because the text he has placed can't be governed by copyright, I have reset his block and left a note on his talk page explaining why. I would request that anyone considering unblocking him do so carefully in light of the fact that he has shown no remorse or even recognition that he has violated policy and was advised of (and ignored) policy many years ago. He may say that he will not place copyrighted text on the project, but if he believes that copyright cannot protect material such as he has placed, then he cannot be trusted to comply as he can't be trusted to recognize what is copyrighted and what is not. I do not consider myself involved in spite of his personal attack on me, as my only involvement with him has been in relation to these copyright infringements. But I bring it up here anyway for others to evaluate. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:23, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• I feel bad saying this because I quite like Allstarecho, but support indef, especially in light of this rather worrisome edit summary: "...I am officially retired.. as this user anyway. ; bye bye."] I don't know if that means he will create sockpuppets, whether he already has an alternate account, both, or neither and it's just another parting shot. It may be worth a CU poking around in case socks do exist and are being used. This whole mess has been rather sad. //roux   04:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
• Could we wait a bit before boldfacing supports or opposes? Afterward he posted FYI, as far as socks, Ive posted under my IP a few times in my life but only cuz I forgot to log in. The latest was at Talk:Autofellatio, Friday. Transparency. So you can sleep better at night knowing I'm not running around socking up the Wiki.[5] We all know how this usually goes: an editor feels cornered, responds aggressively. Maybe doesn't even mean it and regrets it the next day, but by that time the ball is rolling and an indef converts to a siteban. Yes there are problems here: serious ones he needs to acknowledge. Wikitime can be brutal, though. Durova^Charge! 05:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Durova's right. I doubt anyone would support Allstarecho being unblocked without some preconditions, and perhaps he'll agree once he's calmed down and if he returns. AniMate^draw 10:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Let's build a path back with caveats that restoring someone else's copyvio edits is also problematic, intentional or not. I suggest too a bit of empathy as my wee brain recalls their home burned to ashes not too long ago and I believe they live in the US South, Mississippi, which likely is a major suckfest economicly. There may be some real life issues trimming the fuse short. This does not excuse everything but we can at least pretend that behind that heat is a passion for what they believe and that same energy that has generally been constructive here can still be directed toward our collective goals. In dominatrix-speak it's an attitude adjustment! -- Banjeboi 12:11, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
    • I support civility and empathy, but in evaluating his constructiveness, I think we need to consider what has previously not been recognized: that a number of his articles have been built with content pasted in large or small scale from other sources. He may have been a stellar vandalism fighter, but he has been working outside policy for a long time even though he had every reason to know what policy was. This can't be put down to a short fuse, I'm afraid. Further, his ongoing talkpage dialog does not seem to me to demonstrate any awareness that he has created a problem or why. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
      • I would refer you to Durova's comment at the top of this subsection; He was sufficiently aware of copyright issues to use it against another editors violation of policy. I have no clue as to his motives, since my knowledge of him comes from his interactions on the noticeboards, Jimbo's talkpage and AIV, and while he seemed fine (if somewhat "sparky") there the disregard - I can't think of any other phrase - for a core policy and the potential trouble for the project that might incur leaves me to feel that any return to editing will need be heavily monitored/mentored. Given his two responses in the thread I don't feel that he will willingly accept such conditions. It is a pity in respect of the good work he has done, but perhaps it would be best if the editor and WP remain estranged. LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:16, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
        • We're too willing to cut people loose, which neither addresses the problem nor helps WP:ENC. Clearly Allstar has lost his admin standing, but I'm with Durova's more, "Can he be rehabilitated?" line of query than with the calls of "Cut this cancer off". Situations where there are no signs of intentional malice or disruption call for firm kindness. -->David Shankbone 20:29, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
          • As pointed out above, he was notified of copyright policies years ago and as recently as a week ago removed without comment a note from another administrator pointing out the issue and requesting his assistance cleaning up. He has multiple times removed without comment warnings placed by Corensearchbot. These may not be signs of intentional malice, but they're troublesome. Further, Durova seems to suggest that he is familiar enough with copyright concept to hold another contributor to it, which would make it puzzling why he would not know himself that he cannot copy from newspapers and websites unless these are properly licensed or public domain. I do not say that Allstarecho cannot be rehabilitated, but I have asked that any administrator who unblocks him does so carefully in light of the circumstances and ensure that his statement that he won't infringe further recognizes what the problem is and how not to continue it. I have myself offered to supervise indef-blocked copyright problem editors and seen them go on to productive contributions, but it does take willingness and time on both sides. (I don't think that Allstarecho was ever an administrator, but perhaps I'm mistaken.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
          • A massive amount of good faith has been extended to AllStarecho. If you review the dialogue on his talk page, you'll find literally hours of my time just in calmly explaining to him what the situation is. It's a long, tedious dialog which would probably take more than an hour to piece together and read coherently, and took plenty longer than that to unfold. My point in collecting this (really just the tip of the iceberg) is that I would like it to be seen that there is recognition of the value of Allstarecho's past contributions and that there is definitely the presumption that he can come back and be productive within policy. It's really up to him. I remain of the belief that he can be a net positive to the project - if he wants to be. So far, he hasn't expressed that desire.  Frank  |  talk  00:14, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
• Is now a good time to confess that I haven't taken any of my photographs? Seriously, this is a sad case and I hope everyone overlooks any recent outbursts by Allstar, and recognizes a long, productive, and honorable history. That the honor is being called into question undoubtedly raised his hackles, especially, as I suspect, he seems truly ignorant of the copyright issues involved. I'd prefer to see a more formal RFC-U, with or without his participation, with whatever has been found out. A gentle RFC-U. I think he's earned that rather than Trial by ANI. -->David Shankbone 17:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Including, amazingly enough, the ones with yourself in them. :) I've thought pretty highly of AllStarEcho, and I don't know what to make of all this. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
    • It's helpful to have agents :) -->David Shankbone 17:43, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Aha! So you outsourced the picture-taking. Just like Mathew Brady did. Sort of. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
• Whether or not to leave Allstarecho indef blocked is a tricky question because it's difficult to discern his mental state and intentions. There are a lot of people here who are motivated to see him rehabilitated - and I have seen Moonriddengirl successfully rehabilitate long-term copyright violators before - but it's an arduous process of continuous review and education, and it starts with an admission of error and a willingness to learn, which Allstarecho has unfortunately not demonstrated. I might support for the time being an article-space block - no editing of articles, but discussion pages and project pages are okay. This would have to be enforced by monitoring. Dcoetzee 22:31, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I was thinking something similar that they be allowed to continue there non-article building work - which seems fine - but that article building, mainly the Mississippi ones, needs to be done in userspace with each being launched once reviewed. In effect we would get the vetting needed, they would still get credit, and possibly DYK brownie points and when issues arise they can be dealt with in a less heated way from all perspectives since article space is not compromised. For existing articles they can post suggestions with sources to the atlkpages and others can add them in or review to allow ASE to do so once vetted. -- Banjeboi 02:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Benjiboi's suggestion sounds very reasonable to me. LadyofShalott 02:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me as well. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 02:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• A ban from articles? I see the intention, but oh dear. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:08, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Maybe just until he can be trusted again. Hell, I had to earn everyone's trust back after coming back from my indef block and in some cases I am still earning it. If we go with Benjiboi's idea, with the vetting of articles and ASE creating them in his userspace, I say give him 6 months of it. Then let him back in. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 03:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
    • First, I would only support such a move with indication from Allstarecho that he understands the issue. I don't see how mentorship could work without an open-minded approach, and so far I have only seen him defending his contributions as not copyrightable. Second, before such a measure can be enacted, an uninvolved contributor with a good understanding of copyright and time to evaluate these concerns would need to agree to review these edits. Third, I don't believe that a specific time would be helpful. For the sake of argument, presume that the problem here is difficulty grasping the distinction between uncopyrightable fact and copyrightable expression. If he still has this problem in six months, releasing him from mentorship would obviously be irresponsible. On the other hand, if he demonstrates in three months that he understands what can and cannot be used and shows an ability to paraphrase material without infringing copyright, continuing direct monitoring would make no sense. The purpose isn't punitive, but protective, and pre-approved article building should continue for whatever time it's needed. Finally, whatever person mentors him should ideally also be willing to look back in at some point after the restriction is lifted to ensure that the problem has not resumed. We can't presume that it will not when a contributor, any contributor, has continued pasting material into the project after having been told to stop. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
      • (edit conflict) I think the concern is that we should be fostering good article writing behavior, and a ban from articlespace may be seen to foster, well, posting to ANI or XfD. The only way ASE is going to regain the trust of the community is through hard work and proven example that the same behavior has been corrected. I don't see a system of userspace-vetting-move working out; it's unduly restrictive on ASE to make good contributions under such terms, it's a waste of time for those who have to confirm his contribs, and it might not even satisfy everyone as of course someone who understands copyright (as the double standard situation suggests) will behave well when watched. If ASE can work without a net, then I think that'll carry weight, and this current indef block may necessitate that be on another Wikimedia project for a period of time. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 11:28, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

If Allstarecho says (1) that he wants to unretire, (2) that he recognizes that what he did was wrong and won't do it again, and (3) that he's willing to be mentored by someone who's willing to spend the time looking through his contribs for violations, then sure, it'd be great to have him back. Tellingly, he hasn't agreed to any of the three, and he has been insulting and hostile to anyone who has suggested it. I also think he owes Moonriddengirl a pretty big apology for (among other things) calling her a "cunt", and I personally wouldn't unblock him unless he offers one. But that's just me -- others may find such incivility more tolerable that I do, I don't know. – Quadell ^(talk) 18:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Idea

I approached ASE with Banjeboi's idea of having ASE create articles in userspace and have them approved and moved to mainspace until he earns the community's trust back. I also offered to work with him via the mentor program. He could easily tell me to take a hike, but if he thinks this is a good idea (and granted I am not an admin), I think should consider it and let this good editor come back from a bad situation like others let me come back from my situation in 2008. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 05:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Falastine fee Qalby

Krisztina Morvai is a far-right Hungarian politician who has recently been noted internationally for some utterly antisemitic outbursts and has a long history of smearing political opponents by calling them "zionists". Reminding of these facts was obvioulsy too much for Falastine fee Qalby (talk · contribs), who removed them altogether under the thinnest of pretextes: [6], [7]. I take offense at a person with a - to put it mildly - strongly pro-Arab wikiagenda to rush at the defence of that great pro-Palestinian, Mrs. Morvai (http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/02/02/the-anti-israel-neo-fascists-of-hungary/). It sure pushes the boundaries of POV a bit too far - or does it?--RCS (talk) 20:55, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

The user has now started an edit-war [8], [9]. --RCS (talk) 21:07, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a content dispute with you pushing to place in inflammatory material. It has no place here on AN/I, whining about it won't help you here. Who rushes to the AN/I for dispute that started less than an hour ago? -Falastine fee Qalby (talk) 21:09, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

The censorship you want to exercice speaks for itself. By the way, you have started an edit-war and are on the verge of 3RR and PA. --RCS (talk) 21:15, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

And now this!!!! How disruptive can an editor get? This is the silliest request for deletion of the year (already).--RCS (talk) 21:18, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Both of you, enough with the fighting in the War Room. Anyways, in regards to She is also a rabid antisemite with a huge problem with circumcision → If that is not a blatant BLP violation, then I don't know what is. Such removal on the talk page is acceptable under WP:BLP and WP:NOTFORUM. MuZemike 21:21, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

He placed it back and he will continue to do so if someone doesn't step in. -Falastine fee Qalby (talk) 21:34, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec)You call me the pov pusher, yet your only edits to the article is to label this person as an antisemite. Your accusation is ironic, clearly you are the one with the agenda. -Falastine fee Qalby (talk) 21:23, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I nominated it for deletion because you and your likes have only one purpose on that article, and that is to post libel. That's all.-Falastine fee Qalby (talk) 21:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Saying that a living person is antisemitic, conspirationist and sexist based on an inference on the source given is not only original research but also a BLP violation. MuZemike 21:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I have to leave now so please do what you can. RCS is adamant about keeping his blatant POV version. -Falastine fee Qalby (talk) 21:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I have changed the wording on the talk page section (see [10]) and have tried to remove the BLP-violating material and what was not supported by the sources (see [11]). Hopefully, both sides will be satisfied with this. MuZemike 21:51, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

(<-)Please review the definition of Category:Antisemitism. It is not Category:Antisemitic people, which was deleted years ago. This relates to the discussion of antisemitism; which is why the ADL is in this category too. Part of Ms. Morvai's notability is specifically how her statements are received within the context of the discussion of antisemitism in Europe, so the category is appropriate, and not a BLP violation, as it is reliably and verifiably sourced. -- Avi (talk) 00:47, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Related : User:Carpiggio

Carpiggio (talk · contribs) now removes every passage related to Morvai's and Jobbik's antisemitism. This is pure and plain vandalism.--RCS (talk) 09:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Apparent WP:COI issues at West Ridge Academy

I encountered this edit on Talk:West Ridge Academy while reviewing recent edits using Huggle, in which User:Good Olfactory addressed an IP editor who had expressed frustration about edits removed from the article (see here). There are some genuine issues with the article, such as the repeated addition of spurious categories, which I agree are problematic. But the gist of the reason behind the page protection seems to be edits such as this one, which adds sourced material about allegations about the school. I do understand that there are legitimate issues about the tone, but I have far too often seen editors and admins demand that reliably sourced material be removed and discussed at a talk page as a means of suppressing unflattering material regardless of the quality of sources. This may or may not be happening here, and I understand the frustration of the IP editors involved.

While it may be appropriate to semi-protect the article, it appears that User:Good Olfactory has a rather clear conflict of interest issue here. Good Olfactory has edited the article on no fewer than 45 occasions and has been actively involved in content disputes on this article. On the User:Good Olfactory page, he describes himself as "typically active in the areas of categorization and my mainspace edits primarily relate to religious topics (especially the Latter Day Saint movement)...".

As many of the contested edits involve efforts to connect the school to Mormonism, as User:Good Olfactory has expressed a strong interest in LDS-related subjects and as his edit history shows a deep and continuing interest in the subject, as Good Olfactory has edited this particular article a few dozen times and has been actively involved in content disputes in the article in question, it would appear that he has a WP:COI issue with this article and should not have unilaterally stepped in to protect the article. There are well over a thousand admins, and any one of the other 1,659 Wikipedia admins, most of whom are untainted by this conflict, could have been approached and been asked to attempt to address this issue with some measure of remove from this dispute.

Appropriate action should be taken to ensure that User:Good Olfactory steps away from using administrative powers while involved in what appears to be a rather clear conflict of interest violation and to ensure that further measures are taken in the event that any further such WP:COI violations take place. Alansohn (talk) 02:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Protection of the page was instituted to stop ongoing edit-warring (not involving me). If the perception of bias troubles Alansohn, I've no problem with lifting the protection and letting another admin decide to reinstate or not reinstate the protection. (In fact, I'm trying to gain assurances that the edit warring will stop, so I'll probably be lifting it shortly anyway.) This complaint could have easily been dealt with by a note on my talk page; I'm not sure why it needs to go to ANI. (Though it may have something to do with the fact that I've blocked Alansohn in the past. This is not the first time since I blocked him that relatively minor issues have been brought up here by Alansohn instead of with me personally.) (Incidentally, I was asked via email by another user to intervene, so my intervention wasn't "unilateral" and I was simply making an effort to assist a user who asked for help.) Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:04, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I understand that a personal attack is an effective means to attempt to deflect the issue, but the problem of abuse of administrative powers despite clear edit warring by admin has still not been addressed. Sadly, this is far from the first time that Good Olfactory has abused administrative powers to further his own agenda despite clear conflicts of interest. If only these perceived problems could have been addressed by contacting any of the hundreds upon hundreds of admins not directly involved in edit warring here, there would be no issue. Abuse of administrative privileges in this manner directly undercuts the legitimacy of these powers. Admins need to be held to an appropriately high standard in this regard, and this hardly passes the smell test. An appropriate warning to refrain from use of administrative powers in this article, accompanied by escalating action in the event of further problems, will likely address the problem here. Alansohn (talk) 04:34, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

As I said, it would have been both easier and appropriate to just let me know on my talk page that you were troubled by it. Not a big deal. I haven't personally attacked you, just expressed surprise at your reluctance to approach me about a concern through any forum except ANI. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks like a big deal to me. I agree with Alansohn. You're admin'ing with a COI, and need to desist. ThuranX (talk) 04:45, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I meant it would not have been a big deal to just ask me about this, where I could have easily responded to the concern by lifting the protection. I've done so now anyway as we're trying to make progress on the talk page. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

To be fair to Good Olfactory, I also suggested semi-protection as a result of some edits that appeared to be coming from the school, essentially replacing content with something that looked like it was ripped straight from an advertisement brochure. TallNapoleon (talk) 05:16, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

A big part of the problem with User:Good Olfactory's actions here and elsewhere is a "the ends justify the means" approach in which blatant abuses of administrative powers can be covered up and dismissed by claiming that it's simply "not a big deal" and by cleaning up the problems created by his disruptive points after the damage has already been done and the users involved have been thoroughly intimidated. And this is not the first time. While actively in the middle of an edit war, Good Olfactory protected the same article back in March (see here), and also failed to see the clear conflict of interest then. As someone who is clearly invested in LDS issues and articles with strong opinions on the matter and as someone who has previously been actively edit warring in this article, the question is not if some action was necessary to protect the article. The issues are why would an admin with the clearest possible conflict of interest abuse his administrative powers for the second time in the same article to reflect his personal bias on the subject? Why impose this disruption himself when it would have been "no big deal" to ask any one of hundreds upon hundreds of admins who wouldn't know a Mormon from a foreman who could have been approached on their talk page and asked to intervene without imposing User:Good Olfactory's biases on the entire community? All that was needed in response to a request for intervention from User:TallNapoleon was a response from Good Olfactory that there was no way he could properly get involved here and that a third-party with a small measure of neutrality should be approached. Alansohn (talk) 12:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so "there are some genuine issues with the article", and "it may be appropriate to semi-protect the article", the issue is with the person who applied the protection, even though that admin wasn't involved in the edit warring, and hadn't edited the article since March? --Kbdank71 14:10, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, this is the kind of baldersdash that makes editing Wikipedia so discouraging. Good's action of protecting the page was not an abuse of Administrative authority; there was edit warring and appropriate action was taken; end of story. The facts are: 1) there was edit warring, 2) Good was not involved, 3) Good semi-protected the page, 4) silly accusations through a misapplication of policies are made here, 5) Good has now removed the semi-protect, 6) edit warring has returned. I don't care what you Admins do, but get your act together collectively, cast aside these type of silly accusations that don't apply, and semi-protect the page again. Based upon this type of allegation no admin with expertise in a given topic could act as an admin on those topics...let's try not to be silly. Of course admins should act as an admin in their areas of expertise. A COI only exists if the admin herself/himself is involved.

Alan, my advice is to stop stalking Good; it shows up very poorly on you. Just to be clear, I conflict with Good on almost all editing of religious articles; but this type of complaint has done nothing to protect Wikipedia, improve it, or improve the actions of admins.--^StormRider 15:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm no apologist for admin abuse, but frankly there ISN'T ANY on this occasion. If Good had been actively involved in the ongoing edit war you might have a case but he wasn't and you don't. Commendation for Good for responding with positivity to this report - I can't fault their actions at all. Exxolon (talk) 16:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

As a collective reply to all those who support this abuse: There are a million circumstances under which administrative action may be appropriate. None of them involve circumstances in which the admin has a clear conflict of interest. While he had refrained from editing the article all the way since March 2009, he was actively involved in an edit war in this same article over a similar set of issues just ten weeks ago, providing no evidence that he has the appropriate distance or neutrality to take administrative action in this article. That the edit warring has restarted after the improper page protect was removed only demonstrates that the problem could have been resolved if any of Good Olfactory's admin supporters here, some who might have some neutrality in this particular edit war, might have been able to address the matter on their own without violation of Wikipedia policy in a matter in which Good Olfactory has been directly involved just weeks ago. As to the shameless personal attack from User:Storm Rider in an effort to distract from the violations here that have also been noted by User:ThuranX, I applaud your support for an admin who has taken abusive administrative action in direct support of your edit warring, but you can hardly be neutral in this matter. It reflects rather poorly on any editor for supporting such abuse that benefits your own edit warring and that could have been addressed as no big deal by any admin other than User:Good Olfactory without the clear bias and prior edit warring of his own in the article in question. Alansohn (talk) 16:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You're just not getting it. THIS WAS NOT ABUSE. Admin abuse can be several things - if he'd blocked someone he was in dispute with, if he'd locked the article in his 'preferred' version. If he'd semi'd the article while in dispute with IP editors - then there'd be a case to answer. He might have a point of view about this article but his actions had nothing to do with his personal pov regarding this article - they were a perfectly correct attempt to stop the edit war which he was not involved with and encourage proper dispute resolution. Step away from the dead horse please Alan. Exxolon (talk) 18:01, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

It must be because it wasn't put in BOLD LETTERS before. As an admin you have a choice: You can edit war in an article or you can take administrative action in support of one side and call yourself objective. But you can't do both in the same article. Good Olfactory was actively edit warring just severl weeks ago, and then protected the article once he had imposed his position on the article. While he is not actively edit warring now, he has taken the same action to impose what is essentially the same version he pushed when he was edit warring. You can do one or the other, but not both. I look at this article and I clearly see Good Olfactory as an ardent edit warrior in this article. This horse is very much alive. If you want it dead, any neutral and objective admin would be able to readily deal with the article. It would be no big deal for Good Olfactory to ask any one of the more than 1,600 other admins, preferably one who hasn't been actively involved in removing sourced content from this particular article, to take a look and deal with whatever problems that may exists in the appropriately neutral fashion required by Wikipedia policy. P.S. Incidentally, you're also falling into the edit warring trap on this same article. Alansohn (talk) 19:22, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

We disagree on Good's actions - that's okay, I wasn't expecting to convince you. However your accusation that I'm "falling into the edit warring trap" is totally bogus. I'm reverting blatant NPOV violations - this counts as vandalism and isn't subject to edit warring rules or the 3RR rules. No reasonable editor would consider my 2 reversions of blatant POV insertion as "edit warring" as you do. Exxolon (talk) 21:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You are not working together to address an issue. You are blindly reverting to the ame version over and over again. That is the definition of edit warring. Alansohn (talk) 21:34, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

OKAY guys, this goes to far. Instead of stopping this silliness you have encouraged it. User:Alansohn has now taken to carry on his tirade on the West Ridge Academy article. This is what happens when silliness is not stopped immediately and you guys allow this caliber of editor loose with the impression s/he is right. I have warned him to focus on improving the article and I expect you to stop him from continued harassment to Good or to me now given it appears he now wants to follow me around. Geez, I hate Wikipedia when things like this develop. --^StormRider 19:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• CORRECT guys. This does go too far. After detecting administrative abuse by Good Olfactory I reported the abuse here and added the page to my watchlist in case any further problems arise. As well as seeing more edit warring by Storm Rider and other editors, I see a shamelessly uncivil personal attack from Storm Rider himself on the talk page. I responded. Now we have more incivility and personal attacks from Storm Rider himself. I hate when edit warriors attack others and see something wrong when those they attack respond with requests for some basic decency. While the edit warring for several days on this one article is bad enough, the personal attacks from User:Storm Rider are utterly unneeded. Alansohn (talk) 21:34, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Your repeated usage of the term "abuse" is also bordering on a personal attack. You disagree with Good's actions? Okay. Not okay to repeatedly slam them as "abuse", "abusive" etc. That's not a civil way to categorise his actions. You'd probably get more positive responses if you got down off your high horse about this. Exxolon (talk) 22:46, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I have blocked for 31 hours the IP registered to the Academy which keeps adding advertising copy. It's difficult to determine if additional action is needed. —EncMstr (talk) 20:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment from outside observer: It's not just blatant advertsising. In the last 24 hours they have reverted the page 9 times, each time re-adding [12] a blatant copy vio from here - Voceditenore (talk) 20:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Possibility of BLP/BNP vandalism

In light of the news, it appears likely that there will be some politically-motivated BLP vandalism when the U.K. wakes up this morning. Uncle G (talk) 04:29, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• A fair point, yes. Following the usual procedure would be easiest: keep a close eye on possible targets, blocking persistent vandals (or reporting them to AIV), and protecting (or requesting protection) if it gets out of hand. AGK 12:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Frank Sontag: 3RR block and page protection

I had requested protection at RFPP. An admin handled it, and did so correctly. However, the admin looks to have stopped editing and may not be able to quickly respond to my request. As I'd like to handle this matter quickly, can someone take a look at my request here? Thanks, NonvocalScream (talk) 04:53, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• Although I wouldn't oppose another administrator doing so, I don't think blocking the other parties to the edit war would be a productive action. There has been no recent activity on the article, and so I don't see how blocking the remaining editors would be anything but a punitive action. You might wish to discourage them by means of a talk page caution from reverting and not discussing changes they disagree with. AGK 12:47, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The page is a WP:BLP, and it is therefore rather important that all claims on that page are referenced by WP:RS. One editor has used socks to evade a 3RR block, and continues to replace the unreferenced material. However this would probably best be handled by a block of that editor for non-BLP editing, rather than stopping references from being added. Verbal chat 13:10, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

That editor (DLA9999) is currently, it seems, blocked. I've looked through the history going back to last year and can't find a version with references, which the user claims exists, and has accused me (via their email from their sockpuppet) and another user (via their own email) of removing. Nonvovalscream, was the email you received from this editor, or another possible sock? Thanks, Verbal chat 13:16, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I've watchlisted the article and would be happy to act if/when necessary. MastCell ^Talk 16:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The email is in the WP:OTRS database, as a ticket I was corresponding. I would have rather protected the article and forced talk page participation. Most of the time, that has worked in the past. Best, NonvocalScream (talk) 17:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Possible Copyright Issues

I'm about to go offline, but I noticed the contributions of Rickbrown9 (talk · contribs) and I was hoping someone with a bit more spare time could look at a few of his image uploads. Any help'd be great. \ Backslash Forwardslash / {talk} 10:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• The image File:MukundaGoswami.jpg would appear to be a cropped and resized version of this, which explains the artifacts. Another image, File:Butch-1.jpg is identical to the one here, only flipped and with a sepia filter. The light reflected on the photo matches that on the uploaded image. - Bilby (talk) 11:45, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Given File:ImNotTalking.ogg, File:ImNotTalking2.ogg and File:No-Survivors.ogg, I'd say there are two possibilities: 1) the uploads are all copyvios or 2) the uploader is Richard Shaw Brown. The user's edit pattern is strongly focussed on Brown's band, The Misunderstood. For the latter, since the recording contract probably would assign the rights, the mafiaa might give us an offer we can't refuse. MER-C 12:32, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

That seems quite likely, given the location of some of the photos. - Bilby (talk) 12:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

What does that make User:Rsbj66, whose user page says he is Richard Shaw Brown, but who stopped editing in April 2007? Lost password, perhaps? Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 12:53, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

That's plausible. MER-C 12:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

After Rsbj66 stopped editing, most of the edits on Richard Shaw Brown were done by multiple IPs from 125.24.xxx.xx, which Geolocates to Bangkok. If this is him as well, than the vast majority of the edits on the article have been made by the subject of the article, which seems like it might be a bit of a problem. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 13:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I've put notices about this discussion on Rsbj66's and Rickbrown9's talk pages, as well as a COI template. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 22:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Smanu

I am raising this ANI again. This user is continuously engaging edit warring on Lady Gaga discography when told not to do so. The user is from Italy and is hell bent on adding the Italian charts to the discography page when talk page consensus has been reached regarding choosing Ireland over Italy with valid reasons. Warnings have been given to the user to stop edit warring and discuss on the talk page but of no use. He/She has previously engaged in such edit wars over other Lady Gaga articles and is engaging in trolling and personal attacks against me for reverting his changes - See here and here. Administrative intervention is needed. --Legolas ^(talk2me) 11:16, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• I've blocked Smanu for 14 hours. You and Moon-sunrise narrowly avoided a block too; in future, please discuss changes you disagree with—and don't flatly revert. AGK 12:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Alleged abuse of admin powers by Stifle

Resolved

 – No abuse here. Icestorm815 • Talk 18:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Reopening: the page still needs to be unprotected. Durova^Charge! 22:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Trying to end a discussion after just a few hours is inappropriate and goes against WP:CONSENSUS. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:11, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

A controversial DRV was closed, saying it could be recreated, provbided work was done at the time.

Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2009_May_29

This is impossible, because Stifle has protected the page. http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Plot_of_Les_Mis%C3%A9rables&action=history

Surelly, using his admin powers to protect a page like that, to enforce a more extreme view thn the closer of the DRV - but a view he advocated for - is completely inappropriate. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:46, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Surely s/he will unprotect on request after seeing the amended and appropriate version of the article? –xeno^talk 16:48, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see even a hint of admin abuse here. The DRV ended as "no consensus to overturn" and the page was protected as a redirect. If you wish to follow through with the second part of the DRV's result "Editors wishing to recreate this article should so in a way which substantially alters it from its pre-Afd state, making it ineligible for WP:CSD#G4", start an article in your userspace. --auburnpilot talk 16:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, "no consensus to overturn" means "keep deleted". It should not be recreated in article-space until it can be shown to not fall under a speedy criteria. The DRV was very clear. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 17:01, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

It's kind of telling that the user who undid the redirect is claiming that this protection is admin abuse. I don't think the protection is strictly necessary (it's not like anyone was edit warring in the face of the consensus; Stifle's protection was preemptive), but I'm wary of unprotecting it based on Shoemaker's Holiday's request with no draft in place. Mangojuice^talk 17:08, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any abuse of Admin powers here, but I might not be the best person to ask at the moment. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

This editor seems to have a history of confrontational editing (see contribs, almost any talkspace, no need to post specific diffs). No evidence of admin abuse at all. Tan | 39 17:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. Nice of Shoemaker's Holiday to notify me of this discussion. I don't think I have anything to answer for; if someone presents a draft of a new article, I'll either unprotect or suggest a new DRV. Stifle (talk) 17:53, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree, no abuse here. – Quadell ^(talk) 18:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• P.S. - if people aren't paying attention, it is obvious that Stifle was CoI'd from protecting the page. He voted to "keep as redirect". By protecting the page, he clearly protected to his preferred version. This is 100% abuse of admin tools and a desysop has happened in such cases. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Content tangentially related to the present topic

Nothing here is actionable. Please move on to more approperiate venues and boards.

The page protection was not warranted and goes against our standards for page protection. Seeing some of the people claiming that it was not an abuse with their tract record (especially Tan) is telling on the matter. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:11, 8 June 2009 (UTC) Ah, quite the accusation. I'll dismiss it, considering the source. For the record, it's "track", not "tract". Unless you were referring to somewhere where you thought I abused a list of land parcels. Tan | 39 21:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC) Coming from the notorious "I lied my way through RfA" Tanthalas, the accusation against Shoemaker above was 100% inappropriate. The fact that you, of all people, would try to smear someone and claim knowledge about how things work around here is highly inappropriate. Then, there the little fact that Shoemaker has actually created encyclopedic content. When was the last time you tried to actually contribute in a worth while manner? Ottava Rima (talk) 21:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC) Where did I say I lied? Can you provide diffs on either my statement of that, or verification that I lied? I'm about to take this accusation damn seriously - and consider it a de facto violation of WP:NPA - unless you can provide proof. Garnering an influential RfA voter's support through ingratiation is a lot different than your accusation. Tan | 39 21:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC) I love how you say that, and yet it has been said regularly at the WT:RFA for quite a long time now. You are -the- example of gaming RfA. Do I need proof? No, as your RfA states many answers that you lied about because you felt that it was best to pretend about what kind of character you have to get through RfA and feed people what they want to hear. My my, you are suddenly unproud of it. I love how you try to call it "ingratiation". If you really believe your actions were right, why not submit yourself for RfA and allow the results to stick? You still haven't answered when you last actually bothered to create content. Do you actually do anything but cause drama and misrepresent yourself to get more power? Ottava Rima (talk) 21:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC) The above isn't helpful. Take it to your respective talk pages, perhaps? –xenotalk 21:49, 8 June 2009 (UTC) Xeno, this deals 100% with credibility of Tan to make accusations against Shoemaker. You are also involved in the discussion above, so your "collapse" is highly inappropriate. You really should know better. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC) You assaulting Tan with WR'esque memes adds nothing to this discussion. Several other admins other than Tan agreed that there was no abuse here. Per my usual, you may have the last word on this. –xenotalk 21:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC) I appeal to the community to determine if I should be tolerating these obvious character assassination attempts by Ottava. As far as I've interpreted for the past couple years, this is quite obviously a blatant violation of Wikipedia policy. Tan | 39 21:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC) Xeno, several other admin did not attack Shoemaker's integrity like that. Also, there was a clear CoI, which cannot be hidden behind. He voted and then page protected. That is 100% against the page protection standards. ArbCom has desysopped quite a few people doing that very thing lately. And Tan admits to "ingratiating", i.e. misrepresenting himself to game an election. I wonder what Jimbo would think about that. Perhaps we should just ask him directly - "Jimbo, if someone pretends to feel a way and claims that they wont be doing something at RfA then admits that they were saying that just to be elected, do you feel they should keep the ops? Especially when they have since had a track record of just inflaming discussions at ANI, attacking content contributors, and making it difficult for people to even want to be a part of this community?" I am sure there is one obvious response. Tan, if you feel that you did the right thing, go ahead and relist yourself at RfA. If not, that will be admission that you are a liar and are too afraid of being possibly held accountable. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC) If you wish to alert Jimbo, do it. If you wish to start on RfC on my conduct, in my RfA or elsewhere, do it. If you wish to present evidence, do it. However, as it is, these are unsubstantiated, sustained personal attacks, and again, I appeal to the community to judge this. Tan | 39 22:03, 8 June 2009 (UTC) I have to agree with Xeno. It is well-known that Ottava Rima frequented Wikipedia Review and is now making WR-like accusations here. That type of behaviour has no place at ANI. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:14, 8 June 2009 (UTC) In my RfA, Ottava Rima accused me of being a drama queen, so this is kind of fun to watch. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 22:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC) And the community denied you for it. You, like Tan, just sit at ANI and cause problems and attack people mercilessly. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:32, 8 June 2009 (UTC) WR-like accusations? Do a search for Tan's name at WT:RFA. The people who make the claims against Tan are in the dozens. Tan even admitted that he misrepresented himself to the community at RfA. And does WR make content? No. They attack people like Tan attacks people. Gaming the system, making attacks against good content editors, and friends with those like Xeno, a WR member. I wouldn't be surprised if Tan was one. It sure would be interesting. The fact that he wont list himself up for reconfirmation only verifies that he knows what he did was wrong and that the community wont accept him as an admin again. He already admitted to manipulating the community. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:32, 8 June 2009 (UTC) The personal attacks continue. May I please get some intervention/action here? He has presented no evidence of anything, made many accusations, and is clearly in direct, blatant, intentional violation of NPA. I'm clearly not the civility police admin, and it would be hypocritical of me to state that I've never lashed out. However, this is sustained and extremely personal - he is assaulting my integrity. Again, for the third time, I appeal to the community to judge this. Tan | 39 22:38, 8 June 2009 (UTC) Personal attacks? I am attacking your action. Therefore, it does not fit the definition of a personal attack. You know it. I know it. The community knows it. However, making false accusations of personal attacks is a violation of Civil. You have violated it four times so far. That is more than enough for a standard block. Are you going to continue? So far, you have violated Civil against Shoemaker and now me. So, we have you admitting that you misrepresented yourself at RfA, which is the definition of lying, then you are causing problems here and chasing away a content editor (Shoemaker), and you are also attacking people (myself and Shoemaker) in a similar manner that you have attacked hundreds of editors at ANI. Do you really think what you are doing is appropriate? Ottava Rima (talk) 22:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC) I'm just wondering why OR has not been blocked yet. All of this brouhaha over an article about the plot of Les Miserables? Absurd. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 22:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC) Read what Durova stated below. The "brouhaha" is about CoI abuse then a group of admin who don't create content and just stay on ANI acting as if there wasn't a problem. We are an encyclopedia first and foremost, and this was unacceptable. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC) I have nothing further to add. My appeal to the Wikipedia community to judge the above precedings stands. Tan | 39 22:45, 8 June 2009 (UTC) It's Ottava's usual bile, and something should be done about it. That admins refuse to do so is highly educational. I'm not sure, but I think the policy runs thus: the more eephants we have in the room, the more weight we have compressing everything we've swept under the rug. //roux   00:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC) Roux, last time I checked you have done almost nothing but cause problems here. Go look up the definition of "ingratiate" and actually pay attention to WT:RFA before you dare try a stunt like that again. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:04, 9 June 2009 (UTC) Proof Because two people above are making it clear that they are unable to see the elephant in the room that has been known about at ANI, AN, and RfA, lets just post it so we can rehash some old business. Now, let see Tan testify for himself (from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pedro/Archive_33#Hmm here): Quote - "While you're right that I did "admit" to gaming the system, I feel that that statement definitely misrepresents me and my intentions here. I spend a lot of volunteer time on here - improving articles, cleaning up, blocking vandals, helping new editors, and generally trying to make Wikipedia a credible place. Sure, I don't agree with some of you guys sometimes, and I've never been one to go out of my way to join any of the Wiki-clubs, except for Keep's now-defunct page (and that was through admin coaching). What did I game? Well, simply put, I needed Balloonman's support in my second RfA, or it was going to fail, regardless of my intent, knowledge, or performance. Was it malicious? No. Was it even totally fake? No. I identified the crux of the next RfA, and solved it. I don't know if my performance since then has disappointed you, and if it has, I hope you would come to my talk page and tell me what the problem is. I've always respected you as an editor and as an admin, and I truly want you to understand my reasons for being here. Tan | 39 21:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC) " Mind you, he thinks that he lied and cheated his way to adminship for the right reasons. What are some of those reasons? Well, inflaming situations and attacking some of our most valuable content editors to the point that they retire. I think it is obvious to everyone that Tan has overstepped his bounds and cost this encyclopedia far more than he can ever give. Anything short of putting himself for reconfirmation would be inappropriate. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC) The reason it's so interesting to see you mudslinging with Tan is that the both of you opposed my RfA on the grounds of my allegedly creating drama. You're creating more drama than I can even imagine creating. What a hypocrite you are! This thread is nothing more than a food fight, and should be closed ASAP. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 01:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC) Drama? No. Drama is long term. This is momentary and dealing straight at the issue. You, like Tan and others, respond to many ANI threads and do very little outside of that. Admin shouldn't be those who participate in places like this in a manner that results in chasing our main content contributors off this project. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC) Calling people liars and such is unacceptable, and is unworthy of any editor. And no one forced that other editor to leave, he chose to do so because he couldn't get his way. Long term? I have seen you on here many times, and you're always angry about something, always stoking the flames. Anger is not productive, not beneficial to wikipedia. Spare us your hypocritical lectures. Go clean up your own act. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 01:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC) The term "liar" only comes up once, and it was not used to state that I think he is a liar. One can lie without being a liar. Misrepresenting yourself is a lie, regardless if you decorate it as "ingratiate". The above is an admittance that what he did to get Balloonman's support was wrong, and he was called out about it just before. This happened about the same time. It wasn't a coincidence, and people everywhere know exactly what happened. And if I am always angry about something, how come I have so many FAs, GAs, and DYKs? And I am constantly prepping new pages in my user space? Seems like I wouldn't have time to fit that into my busy schedule of being angry. Hell, I find it odd how I can be working on three pages for FAC, 12 for GAN, and another two sets of 8 DYKs right now while being so angry all the time. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC) Admittedly, it's a miracle. Oh, hey, I was amused by your earlier self-congratulatory comment about contributing to defeating me (or rather to keeping my plurality too small to win) for an adminship that I didn't want in the first place, and want even less now, as I would have to be dealing with the likes of you on a daily basis. I've gotten that haughty attitude from a number of opposers who thought I might actually care. It turns out I can be a much more effective vandal hunter without adminship. And as one admin I admire told me, I would be a much more responsible admin than many of them here. But you didn't want that, so you've got me as is. You confuse outspokenness with irresponsibility. I have never abused the semi-admin authorities I already do have. So my not being an admin is your loss, not mine. As for you and Tanthalas, hypocrites that you both are, it would be interesting to put the two of you into a fish tank, like a couple of bettas, and see which one survives. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 02:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC) I didn't defeat you nor does my voice have any sway at RfA. My record at RfA can testify to that. So, you have no reason to care about what my response was at your RfA. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC) I can care about anything I feel like, but you don't necessarily know what I'm actually caring about at a given moment. Meanwhile, as I said at the RfA, the oppose votes were very useful, some because they were actually helpful advice (which yours most assuredly was not) and some because they revealed a lot about the character of the opposers (which yours most assuredly did). >:) Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 02:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC) Ottava Rima: what do you want? Are you wanting Tanthalas39 blocked? Restricted? Admonished? Desysopped? Beaten with a stick? Only a couple of those can be accomplished here. Please, be specific. If you don't like his behavior, or you feel something needs to be corrected, that's the purpose of a request for comment. I'm not seeing the point of this subthread. --auburnpilot talk 01:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC) I want him to apologize to Shoemaker for his inappropriate attack. Shoemaker retired in part over it, and this project needs Shoemaker back. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC) I am a bit disappointed that the user in question sees these deletion discussions as a "battle." Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 02:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC) Sorry to confuse you, A Nobody, but this thread is in response to Tan being upset that I criticized the people that were critical of Shoemaker. The first section and the last section deal with Stifle, so you may want to move your comment up or down. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I still see zero "proof" (the title of this subheading) that I lied, misrepresented myself, or otherwise broke any Wikipedia policy whatsoever. I see continuous personal attacks with zero evidence from Ottava. Apparently, the community wishes to ignore that; I will go with whatever is consensus here. However, I will not respond any further to these baseless allegations. If you wish to do anything formal, go right ahead and let me know about it on my talk page. I'm done here. Tan | 39 03:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Peace, please

Shoemaker's Holiday announced his retirement today. He has contributed three featured articles, nearly fifty featured pictures, and is Wikipedia's most prolific contributor of featured sounds. He was the Wikimedia Foundation's best editor at restoring etchings and engravings, and he was WMF's only editor who digitally restored wax cylinder recordings. For copyright reasons, often the only license-free versions of important music are on wax cylinders, and for historic performers that's all we'll ever have. Because of Shoemaker's Holiday, Wikipedia's readers can not only read about Enrico Caruso but also hear Caruso sing; because of Shoemaker's Holiday, we can listen to John Philip Sousa's music--with Sousa himself conducting.

Can we please learn from this? And would someone please unprotect the deleted page? When two featured article contributors say they can get enough sources to justify notability I think we can trust them. Here's hoping some of the things that were posted above weren't really meant in earnest, but were expressions of frustration by people who--justifiably--thought they had earned more credibility than they were receiving. A few retractions and olive branches would be very timely. Durova^Charge! 22:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Did you know that that many or most of Sousa's Band's recordings were actually conducted by Sousa's assistant, Arthur Pryor? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 02:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Shoemaker's research was excellent with that sort of thing. If you locate any flaw in his documentation please raise it at featured sound talk and ping my user talk page. Durova^Charge! 03:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

If he is a good and reasonable contributor, and if he still believes in wikipedia, then he should come back and try to put the general interests of wikipedia first, and try to ignore specific setbacks. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Bugs, you're a baseball guy. A good coach doesn't use his pitcher every game--especially not after a muscle strain. That might win a couple games but it'll burn out the arm. Same logic here. Give the fellow some water and a pat on the back, even if he lost his cool and shouted at the umpire. He's still a good player. Durova^Charge! 03:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I was working on saying and forgot to add that key point: that he should give himself a few days off, or whatever time is needed. Or think of Brett Favre, who has "retired" twice, un-"retired" once, and may be about to un-"retire" again. Time off can be good. It can revive the hunger. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Shoemaker isn't the kind of editor who retires every month. I'm really worried here. Let's be gracious and show appreciation for his good work, rather than apply additional pressure. Durova^Charge! 04:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

No pressure. He should take his time and decide what's best. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I've unprotected as pages should not be preemptively protected. Starting with "admin abuse" was perhaps not the best way to initiate this request - WP:RFUP would have been a better venue if Shoemaker was seeking a neutral opinion on the propriety of the protection. –xeno^talk 23:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your unprotection. Durova^Charge! 23:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• Your first paragraph, Durova, is frankly meaningless. It doesn't matter if somebody has never written a featured article or has more featured stars than anybody else. When an article is deleted, and a deletion review confirms that there is no consensus to overturn the original result, the next step for somebody wanting to create that article is userspace. All the stars in the world do not earn you or anybody else special treatment. This entire episode is drama for drama's sake. --auburnpilot talk 23:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Quite the contrary - DRV are supposed to be weighed by quality of the statements, not quantity. We are not a democracy. Those that produce featured content who are weighing in to state that they will do something are given more weight. We are an encyclopedia first and foremost. Those that create content are given privileges because that is our main priority. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Obviously this situation could have been handled better by several people. Our shared mission, though, is to build an encyclopedia. This person's departure leaves the site poorer in valuable content skills that no one else has. Content work doesn't earn someone tickets to misbehave deliberately, yet his actions seem to stem from frustration rather than malice. Shoemaker's Holiday did major contributions in technical media few editors understood, and the site's consensus model doesn't handle that well: he often got the brush-off undeservedly. Let's learn from this and be better at listening to productive people who bring rare skills. Durova^Charge! 23:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

What is to be done about Stifle's protection will be up to arb com, I suppose, for use abuse of admin powers in a field where every knows he is deeply committed. It is every bit as bad as if someone with my views had personally reverted the deletion review close. I do acknowledge, however, that he expressed above his willingness to unprotect, or relist at DRV . Shoemaker did quite right in the manner in which he worked on the article, and was right to come here. This was not a routine matter for RFPP, this was blatant abuse by an administrator. and Shoemaker's departure is something to held against Stifle, and equally against those who defend him here. I am equally concerned about the closing of that DRV, for Sceptre as a non-admin had no business closing that AfD, especially as he did it via G4, which he as a non admin can suggest, but not actually delete under. The only possible result for a DRV in circumstances like that was relisting. That it was closed without any reason given for why that matter was ignored was not helpful of the closer. But even more than dealing with Stifle, we need to deal with get Shoemaker back. DGG (talk) 00:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Somewhat related ,but user:ChrisO gave up his admin bits today as well. His last edit was to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sam Blacketer controversy. seicer | talk | contribs 01:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Legal threats on talk page of Taleb

Hi! I would like an end of the legal threats (direct or indirect) made on the following talk page Talk:Nassim Nicholas Taleb. See for example [[13]]. It would be very helpful if some admin can explain the policies of WP:LEGAL, and how you should proceed if you want to take legal action against Wikimedia foundation or some contributor. Ulner (talk) 16:49, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I dropped a standard {{uw-legal}} on the users talk page as i agree that this is likely an implied threat. I leave it up to the admins to handle this further - also, you might want to give him a notice that you started this ANI discussion as well. Its just good form to do so :) Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 17:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Ulner (talk) 17:07, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

While not considered a (blockable) legal threat by the community, I bring to everyone's attention the User:IbnAmioun userpage and the intent of this user to contact the WMF office (see the edit summaries on [14] and [15]). Judging by the content on the userpage, this editor is editing with a clear COI. MuZemike 17:49, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello, See the comments in the harassment charge I raised. The COI is resolved as I only get involved to defend the Taleb family against stalking and harassment, simple self-defense (no updating, etc.). I filed a complaint of stalking harassment against a living person. I would like it to be handled the right way please. IbnAmioun (talk)! —Preceding undated comment added 22:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC).

Suggestions re: a persistent block evader

User:TungstenCarbide was blocked for civility issues by Toddst1 back in March. The initial block was for 72 hours, and several admins and editors tried to talk TC through it. However, the block quickly became indefinite (courtesy of Kafziel) following a string of abusive messages on TC's talk page. From there, TungstenCarbide has returned with a string of sockpuppet accounts:

• User:TungstenCarbide II (blocked 09 April 2009 by Rootology)
• User:TungstenCarbide III (blocked 21 April by Black Kite)
• User:TungstenCarbide IV (blocked 22 May by Ckatz)(this is where I first learned of the issue)
• User:TungstenCarbide V, User:TungstenCarbide VI, User:TungstenCarbide VII, User:TungstenCarbide VIII, User:TungstenCarbide IX, User:TungstenCarbide X (fairly rapid series of socks in early June 2009, all blocked by Ckatz)

The last few socks started leaving notes on my talk page, as well as at Wikipedia Review, so it has become a bit of a game for him/her. I strongly suspect that this guy has switched names to User:Strontiumsulfate; that account opened a few hours after TCX was blocked, and the only edit to date is to add "Here kitty, kitty.." on that user page. ("Cat"z jokes, haven't heard those before...) Any suggestions on how to get at the root of this person? Is it worth filing a checkuser request to establish if it is a common IP, or if we're stuck with an IP range? --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think Checkuser is appropriate if not substantially overdue. If there's a static IP it should be blocked, if there's a range, it may depend on the collateral damage. Plus it might be wise to check for sleeper socks. Mangojuice^talk 17:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback; I have now filed one here. If you are familiar with these requests, I'd appreciate it if you could please look it over to make sure I've dotted the i's and crossed all the t's where appropriate. Thanks again. --Ckatz^chat_spy 18:11, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

2 Skinnee J's and Andyaction

Andyaction (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who has admitted he is/was a member of the band 2 Skinnee J's (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has been advised that he has a conflict of interest, but insists on inserting unsourced material, even though advised to provide sources, has also inserted point of view "statements" here [16], here [17], here [18] and here [19]. He persists in posting sarcastic comments on the user talk pages of Chiliad22 and Jezhotwells. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Politely made aware of WP's guidelines, but chose to ignore them. Blatant, inappropriate COI editing and incivility. ~Pesco^{So say•we all} 20:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

User:WFLonTVS

WFLonTVS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Enthusiastic spamming. User account suggests connection with the site. Disembrangler (talk) 20:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

No indication that user has been warned of policy violation. KuyaBriBri^Talk 20:28, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Category disruption

68.198.119.123 (talk · contribs) is going across dozens (possibly hundreds) of articles about fictional characters, adding Category:Film characters. I posted a note on the user's talk page explaining that a vast majority of these articles are already categorized in more specific subcategories (ie. Category:Science fiction film characters) and asking him/her to stop applying the category indiscriminately, instead checking first to see if a more specific subcat is already applied (& if not, to apply a more specific subcat instead of the generic "Film characters"). The user's activity has not abated in the slightest, despite a warning and an additional request to stop with a request to read WP:CAT. I don't have the time to undo all of the edits myself, and the user shows no sign of stopping. Messages seem to be ignored, so unfortunately I think the only solution may be blocking and mass-reverting. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I just gave them a 15 minute block to put a stop to it and try to get them to talk to you.

Please WP:AGF and discuss with them on their talk page some more, not just template warnings etc. Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

FWIW I only used 1 template warning. I wrote 3 separate specific messages myself explaining the situation & asking them to stop, but still no response and no slowdown in activity. If you'll read my messages, particularly the first, I think you'll see that I did AGF, but there's not much else I can do when the user doesn't respond to any messages. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

BJAODN

I was just browsing through some old AFDs and saw a few mentions of BJAODN. I typed it into the search bar and saw that the page does not exist, but that WP:BJAODN redirects to WP:Silly Things. Since I'm sure I'm not the only user who's ever tried to get to a "WP:" page without typing in the prefix (or not realizing it is a "WP:" page), I thought I'd create a direct redirect to Silly Things. Unfortunately the page has been creation protected due to numerous deletions and restorations in 2006 and 2007, so I could not so it. Would an admin mind terribly creating BJAODN as a redirect to WP:Silly Things? I just think it would make things a bit more convenient for new and forgetful users (like me for the latter), and it would look a bit nicer than seeing a creation protection template. I understand that WP:Silly Things is itself only maintained for historical purposes, but it would still make it that little bit easier for newer users who may hear of it and want to see what the page entails. Cheers, MelicansMatkin (talk) 20:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I think these days WP:CNRs aren't very much in favour. –xeno^talk 20:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Xeno is correct. That would be a cross-namespace redirect and so far, consensus has always been against creating new such redirects... SoWhy 20:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the info; I wasn't aware of that. Cheers, MelicansMatkin (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Legal threats

Resolved

 – Editor blocked indef per WP:NLT for this. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• Blondie0833 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Got some legal threats from this user on my talk page about us "adding material and information" to Crieff Highland Games. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 20:32, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Blocked indefinitely. Tan | 39 20:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Ta - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 20:36, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

For reference, there was indeed some unpleasant material in the history of Crieff Highland Games. I deleted the history (twice, it went back further than I thought) earlier this evening. Doesn't excuse the pointless legal threats, but worth us keeping 'em peeled. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris} 21:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

82.69.26.149 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) seems to be the only source of the "unpleasant material"; the IP seems to be fairly stably assigned, so to my mind should either be blocked or given a stern warning. I'd do it myself, but I live too close to Crieff for comfort. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:06, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman and David Boothroyd censorship

User:Jehochman is preventing editors from working on David Boothroyd (aka former arb Sam Blacketer) in userspace (on my user page and most recently at User:JoshuaZ/David Boothroyd) despite the existence of multiple reliable sources from the British press addressing the controversy. He has suggested he will block anyone who includes the material and will only allow selectively restored versions of the Boothroyd article that do not mention his Wikipedia controversy. Coverage in the British national press includes:

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191474/Labour-councillor-David-Boothroyd-caught-altering-David-Camerons-Wikipedia-entry.html
• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/wikipedia-sentinel-quits-after-using-alias-to-alter-entries-1698762.html
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/26/wikipedia_westminster_councillor/

Jehochman is now clearly dedicated to preventing any development or discussion in spite of reliable sources. This censorship must end. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TAway (talk • contribs) 21:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• This has already been through three AFDs (1, 2, 3 with 2 and 3 closed as delete), one very lengthy DRV (Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 May 27#David Boothroyd). All have been rooted in extreme BLP concerns, which has led to its recent deletions, salting, and DRV. Please do not throw the word "censorship" around, especially when the intent is to prevent and negative unsourced information from being added to the userfied copy. MuZemike 21:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
  • With 2 and 3 both having been closed after almost no discussion by Jehochman. This is not about preventing unsourced information -- all the information is sources -- but protecting a former Arb and Wikipedia's credibility. The media has covered him on other issues, they are now covering his Wikipedia activities, and we even use Boothroyd's election guide as a reliable source in over 700 Wikipedia articles. The media coverage is there, and this is censorship. TAway (talk) 22:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
    • The problem is that there is at least the appearance that what's being protecting isn't BLP concerns, but Wikipedia's rep. The story is out, in reliable sources, the only question is about notability, not verifiability. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 22:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Yes - and isn't it odd how long we had an article on David Boothroyd BEFORE this controversy broke? The article survived the first AfD, then was bought two more times in rapid succession in violation of WP:NOTAGAIN. "Censorship" isn't quite the right word - but it closely resembles a whitewash. Snarfies (talk) 22:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
• Jayron32 has userified the article to User:JoshuaZ/David Boothroyd. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
  • After userification, Jehochman selectively re-deleted any versions noting the Wikipedia controversy. He also threatened that any re-creation that included the Wikipedia controversy was a "potentially a blockable action." TAway (talk) 22:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Correct - repeatedly re-creating deleted material is blockable, especially when it involves BLP concerns. I'm unsure what the problem is here. Black Kite 22:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
      • How is it restoring "deleted material" when the new sources are appearing after Jehochman's inappropriate speedy deletions? Why is it that the article was immediately speedied after Boothroyd resigned from ArbCom after years of existing, then deletion is accepted as the "status quo" when the media picks up on the scandal? He has salted an article and blacklisted an entire issue under threat of ban regardless of how it develops and continues to appear in the media. That is censorship. TAway (talk) 23:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
  • as the references accumulate, the material is no longer deleteable. I have respect for Sam for his work here, but neither he nor anyone is actually helped by censorship. That he was an admin here is relevant to his possible outside notability. Jehochman is operating beyond the limits of consensus here. DGG (talk) 23:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Is it true that there was an article on David Boothroyd before the controversy? If so, for how long? ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:28, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Yes. And David Boothroyd effectively wrote it.

  The article that was created in article space was a simple copy and paste, by an editor without an account, of the autobiography that User:Dbiv had had on xyr user page since 2004-03-31. M. Boothroyd didn't write xyr autobiography in article space, and nominated the copy and paste for deletion in the article's second ever edit. The only significant subsequent expansion of the article came from an IP address assigned to Westminster City Council. If that wasn't M. Boothroyd himself, it was someone who was using M. Boothroyd's autobiography as xyr source, because it gave that autobiography as an external link in the edit. Uncle G (talk) 02:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• The article would be deletable with or without the Wikipedia scandal - it isn't censorship to say someone isn't notable, nor is it censorship to argue that involvement in one significant event (related to Wikipedia or not) doesn't change that essential fact. He wasn't notable at all before, and the scandal qualifies as his 1BE. I don't think it is Jehochman that is overly focused on the scandal element here; its the folks who insist on recreating this article only to focus on the scandal element of it who need to find other work to do. Nathan ^T 00:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• There shouldn't be an article on Boothroyd or any other marginally notable living person until Wikipedia implements an effective mechanism for protecting such articles from malicious editing. Cla68 (talk) 00:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • So consensus was that he was notable enough for an article until there was substantial coverage of his getting caught sock puppeteering and violating Wikipedia's integrity by engaging in conflict of interest edits? This is fascinating. I move that anyone encouraging this kind of policy violating behavior should be put up for recall. We can't have this kind of censorship and bias on Wikipedia especially not from Admins and ARbcom member. It fosters rot right at the core of our trustworthiness and undermines the integrity of Wikipedia as a quality information source. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
    • That of course presupposes that there isn't already rot right at the core. --WebHamster 01:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Actually, it pressupposes something rather different. See below. Uncle G (talk) 02:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
    • No, that was not the consensus. The first AFD discussion really didn't apply our primary notability criterion at all. No rationale for keeping makes any mention of reliable sources. We kept the article because it satisfied one of the other, secondary, notability criteria that we had at the time: an arbitrary number related to book readership.

      I suggested a complete rewrite from reliable sources, but that didn't happen. In retrospect, that could well have been because there weren't actually any to be had. The source of all of the content was, indirectly, M. Boothroyd documenting himself, throughout the entire life of the article, and the second AFD discussion can well be regarded as doing the right thing, in accordance with Wikipedia policy and guidelines on reliability and independence of sources, albeit four years after the subject himself first requested the right thing to be done. Uncle G (talk) 02:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

      • That's interesting because I'm finding lots of sources that discuss his political activities before his indiscretions were covered very substantially. I'm also finding he was VERY active in working on political subject including some that are very negative in tone about Conservative politicians. Where is the accountability? Where is the investigation and clean up that needs to be done? Do we know all the sock accounts he used? Have we asked if there are more? Who knew what when? Are we to believe that Arbcom was completely in the dark about his true identity? Stop trying to sweep this under the rug and let's root the rot out. If we spend half the time trying to make things right that we do trying to cover up the impropriety, maybe we wouldn't have this problem all the time. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
        • It doesn't look good to make wild and foolish accusations of sweeping things under a rug when people are doing nothing more than straightforwardly answering your questions. If we'd spent the effort to make things right, by the way, the copy of the autobiography wouldn't have stood in article space for four years, based upon nothing except what the subject claimed about himself. That is what would have been right. Uncle G (talk) 02:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• TAway appears to be a sock puppet account or somebody with an axe to grind. The matter of deletion was dealt with at WP:DRV. It is not proper to continue badgering to get one's way against consensus. I hope that TAway stops disrupting Wikipedia to make a point before somebody else blocks them. They did not notify me of this thread. Apparently. Their goal is to stir up drama, not to resolve a problem. Jehochman ^Talk 00:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• I'm not a sock puppet and I have no axe to grind. I simply stumbled upon this mess when commenting upon a different mess after finding this board recently. It appears to ME anyways that this is not about protecting a BLP, but is a CYA for Wikipedia. From what I can gather, Boothroyd's article had existed for several years before this last bit of trouble. How does it become deleteable only after it's discovered that Boothroyd had managed to somehow attain a position of trust and power on the project, and then abused that power using sock puppets? The situation -- and Boothroyd -- have been dealt with in reliable sources. Why is this even an issue? It seems obvious that the article belongs on the project. Unitanode 02:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • To be clear, the above regarding my not being a sock puppet was in regards to Jehochman's apparent ad hominem against the originator of this thread. Unitanode 02:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • The reality is that it was deletable right from the start, had we applied our sourcing policy properly at the time of the first AFD discussion. But we didn't. We applied a notability criterion that we no longer have, and the existence of what was effectively an unsourced autobiography in article space for four years is an example of why that criterion, and others like it, were and are bad ideas. Uncle G (talk) 02:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Whatever the reality of the policy issues, this bears the distinct odor of a coverup. I'm not well-versed in the ins-and-outs of policy here, so I'm commenting simply on the appearance of things. Unitanode 02:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• Just for the sake of comparison.. the political office held by Boothroyd in the UK is on par with a US "city councilman" - Apart from the bad press for getting caught with "wiki-fingers" (pardon the bad pun).. I don't see how he qualifies for an article. The fact that it was here before just means we have a huge problem with borderline BLPs that noone bothers to read. - and we already knew that. If we had an article for every US city councilman caught in a compromising position - we'd really be screwed. --Versageek 02:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Actually, the problem of the article existing before is that AFD didn't come to the right conclusion the first time around, because we applied a bad notability criterion. It has been partially addressed by the fact that we don't have that particular criterion any more, but constant vigilance is required to ensure that we don't slip back into applying such faulty notability criteria at AFD, and don't formulate such criteria. Uncle G (talk) 02:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• The article clearly passes the GNG guidelines based on very substantial coverage in numerous reliable sources. It was borderline before this incident, but there's no question now. There's coverage of his activities as a politician, coverage of his activities in private enterprise it look like, and there's now quite a bit of coverage of his subterfuge in editing under aliases against our policies as he sat on our highest administrative body. We are a major information source, we aren't censored, and we shouldn't pretend that he's non-notable now to hide the truth. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Administrative action v. outcome

Actually there are two separate questions: whether the article was deleted correctly and whether Jehochman's post-deletion actions were appropriate. The complaint regarded Jehochman's actions, not the deletion itself. So let's break this down:

1. The poster lists three sources and calls them reliable: The Register, Daily Mail, and The Independent. Would an editor who knows British periodicals please weigh in?
2. What is our general practice on userspace recreations of courtesy deleted biographies?
3. The poster asserts He has suggested he will block anyone who includes the material and will only allow selectively restored versions of the Boothroyd article that do not mention his Wikipedia controversy. Yet no the poster provides no diff of this assertion. If Jehochman actually did suggest that blocks would be forthcoming, we need clear answers to the first two questions.
4. If at least one of those three sources is reliable, and if userspace recreations are allowable in this situation, and if Jehochman selectively deleted that news and threatened blocks--then a problem exists. Otherwise there's probably little problem, except for one thing:

This issue is developing news, and arguably a reputation management issue. Jehochman is a reputation management professional who appears to have acted boldly without requesting the review and assistance of fellow administrators at the admin boards. It wouldn't be good to see this spin out of control with claims of 'coverup', and if mud gets thrown it might possibly stick. So respectfully requesting that Jehochman seek community consensus before taking further action. Durova^Charge! 03:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There is absolutely no doubt that the Mail, the Register and the Independent qualify as reliable sources. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 04:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh? Had thought there was doubt about citing the Register. Anyway if at least one of them is then question 1 is answered. How about the userfication question? Is it permissible to develop BLPs in user space after deletion and DRV? Durova^Charge! 04:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You make some good points, but let's be clear. This is NOT just developing news. This is a subject we've long had an article on, who has been covered in the media for years. There has recently been a major surge in coverage due to policy violating behaviors that are also unethical for a politician. So he's under fire. Not only are we subject to allegations of a cover-up, so far we are guilty of one. All of a sudden the subject was no longer notable right when lots of coverage was occuring that wasn't favorable? This is the worst kind of censorship and it puts us in a very bad light. It also comes at a time when Arbcom is already involved in coddling POV pushers, bias and NPOV violations. So we have a major problem that needs to be fixed. So instead of attacking anyone who questions those trying to sweep things under the rug, we need to take a step back, take a deep breath, restore the article, put in a few sentences about the issues involved, and see what happens. We have this rush to action any time there's a controversy, but cooler, more rational, and more reasonable heads should prevail. Let's do the right thing instead of engaging in subterfuge to cover up for those violating our policies. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

As the person who had the article usefied, I'm currently thinking about this with both the Mail and Indepdent as reliable and the Register as a source only as a matter of last resort for uncontroversial details. The Mail and Indepdent are pretty clearly WP:RS. Regarding the matter of development in userspace, there's a variety of conflicting precedents about that. Given that the closer of the DRV made the decision that userfication in this case was ok that seems ok. He's given one week to work on it as a time limit. Given that, I see it as very hard to see a problem with working on a userfied version. I haven't seen Jehochman claim that he will delete/issue blocks for any mention of the controversy in question although I've already asked him to clarify what precisely he considers to be a BLP problem. It might help matters if Jehochman would have other arbs or admins take a look at this in more detail since a variety of users seem to be upset with his handling of the matter. In any event, it would be appreciated if users would help contribute to a draft rather than attacking Jehochman or stirring up further drama. (Oh, and the next time something in my userspace is the center of an ANI thread could someone please do me the courtesy of letting me know?) JoshuaZ (talk) 04:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually Jehochman wrote in an edit summary to your user talk page: "(WP:BLP1E enforcement -- blocks will be issued if same old problems are reinstated.)"[20] Durova^Charge! 04:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but I don't know what he meant by that. Is the problem using The Reg as a source? Is the problem the Wikipedia matter as a whole. Is the problem some of the unsourceable details about his career that were in the earlier version? Needs clarification. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It's one in the morning in Jehochman's time zone. So he probably isn't available to answer that right now. Was it only a citation to The Register that he removed? It's a long page to scour and you're more familiar with it. Durova^Charge! 04:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, it is 1 AM here too... :). Anyways, I can't tell since he deleted the offending edits [21]. But I believe that was the only material in question. I do of course understand the late hour and don't have any issue waiting for his clarification. (Indeed, I sent him a note. I still see this ANI thread as unnecessary). JoshuaZ (talk) 05:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually this is developing news. That's not the only thing it is, but it certainly is that. Do you have an analysis of the numbered questions, please? Durova^Charge! 04:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not just developing news. Here are a few of the sources that Google News search comes up wit (the first 10 or so predating the latest controversy):

• 1) [22] Fox News
• 2) [23] The Guardian
• 3) Time/CNN [24]
• 4) [25] The Independent
• 5)The Argus [26]
• 6) Wood and Vale [27]
• 7)Westminster’s Icelandic folly - PressDisplay.com - Oct 13, 2008 has a story on him.
• 8) Westminster affordable housing row

PlanningResource - PlanningResource (subscription) - Oct 23, 2008 Labour member of the committee Cllr David Boothroyd, has branded the move as “a smash and grab raid”. He said: "So many people are waiting for transfer to a ...

• 9) Local elections good for gay Labour

PinkNews.co.uk - May 5, 2006 Gay councillors, Matt Cooke and Alan Dobbie held seats in Labour controlled Haringey and David Boothroyd held his in Westminster.

• 10) And then of course there's the very substantial coverage AFTER his latest controversy [28], [29] Daily Mail
• 11) The Register [30]

And then there are other stories that I'm not sure are related. There are several tech stories. Is he David Boothroyd, Contributing Editor to Vision Systems Design? Does he write on wireless standards?

And I understand he's also an author. So there's more notability based on his book and writings and presumably more sources available on Google Books.

And to answer your other questions, Jehochman needs to stop acting unilaterally and in haste. And other veteran editors need to stop covering this up and maintain what's left of our integrity by doing what's right. There's no need for userspace recreations, because the article should be recreated in main space and protected with a couple sentences covering the latest issues so we can all get back to editing and expanding the encyclopedia. ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Childofmidnight, those are all very interesting sources. Would you move them out of this subsection to the previous subsection please? For purposes of this subthread, all we really need to determine is that at least one of the new sources is reliable. We're already there. The second question is whether it's ok for users to recreate BLPs in user space after they've been deleted. And looking into this a little more, there's also a subquestion: if it's ok to do this in userspace, are editors prohibited from starting work before DRV? Durova^Charge! 04:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I can answer questions 1 and 3, Durova. Question 1, yes, the Daily Mail (second most-circulated paper in the nation) and Independent (a past top British Press Awards recipient) are both ironclad reliable sources. We use the Register as a source in the Essjay controversy article so I am assuming it is fine. TAway (talk) 04:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Question 3: I was incorrectly blocked by Jehochman for "WP:POINT violations" for having the article (entirely sourced) in my userspace (it was in my user space prior to his inappropriate speedy deletion, but he claimed I had restored it post-deletion), and only unblocked if "you will not restore this content anywhere on Wikipedia." When the article was userfied to JoshuaZ's userspace, Jehochman appeared and re-deleted, then selectively restored revisions without the Sam Blacketer controversy material saying, "Attack page or negative unsourced BLP: Deleted revisions were improperly restored" (it was not unsourced, and only "negative" in that it certainly reflects poorly) and "blocks will be issued if same old problems are reinstated." He then left a message on the userfied article's talk page making clear what he had done: "there were a bunch of WP:BLP problems in the deleted history. These were accidentally restored. I have deleted and selectively restored revisions I think may be acceptable."

Let's face it, had the evenly split post-speedy-deletion discussion at the Boothroyd deletion review been allowed to take place as a normal 7-day Article for Deletion it would have been a clear "no consensus" outcome. He has used his ability to speedy-delete and thus force DRV discussion instead of AfD discussion to claim that the book on this issue is now closed. He completely ignored administrator User:SoWhy's attempt to approach him on the matter and instead dismissively pointed to the DRV. By my count, three sysops (SoWhy, Sandstein, and now DGG) have commented with concerns about his protective and anti-consensus behavior during the developing Boothroyd situation.

Jehochman has openly stated "our website with its search-ranking-fu does not need to be made available to those who wish to amplify his (David Boothroyd's) problems" (assuming bad faith of those who hold the story with its coverage to be verifiable and notable). It is my contention that Jehochman is a search engine optimization expert who wants to keep the story out of the search engine results for the sake of Wikipedia and Boothroyd's reputations both. He is obviously about as far from a neutral broker of the Boothroyd situation as one can get right now and is in fact editing with a declared agenda: to minimize the search engine imprint of this story. His actions during AfD (speedying a deletion and denying a full AfD despite substantial new media coverage of a new development) and actions to suppress development of the issue's media coverage on-wiki via blocks and block threats are censorship. TAway (talk) 04:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, let's not rush to conclusions here. Or at least please excuse the ignorance of an editor who doesn't spend much time at AFD. In good faith, Jehochman might have been thinking of the editors David Boothroyd had voted to ban during his time as an arbitrator, who might add frivolous accusations to the substantial material. A portion of editors believe in being generous with courtesy deletions upon the subject's request. Regarding the block of May 27, could people who are familiar with AfD standards comment on the practice of recreating a BLP in userspace before DRV gets underway? Is that an ok thing to do? Durova^Charge! 05:04, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Not enough in the way of precedent. If it were an unambiguous attack page then recreation in userspace would have clearly been blockable. However, the deletion reason seems to be primarily BLP1E which is not sufficient reason generally to argue against a userspace recreation. I'm not aware of any similar block occasions for such more or less borderline situations such as BLP1E, or courtesy deletion requests. (There may have also been a GFDL violation in TAQway's actions but I'm not sure). JoshuaZ (talk) 05:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm leaving a whole mess of things to the side here and just offering my own view on Durova's second question. As a matter of commonsense, if we in fact do courtesy deletions of not-well-known BLPs (as has happened here) then it strikes me as the acme of foolishness to turn around and allow recreation of said BLP - even in a different form - in userspace. Leaving the specifics of this case to the side, let's think of this from the perspective of the subject of a theoretical article similar to the one we are discussing. The article subject comes to us and says, "Hey, I'm a local politician in Topeka, KS who is barely notable and I don't want a Wiki bio because I'm worried about defamation and having an article about me is not important for Wikipedia/the world, so can you delete it?" We say yes and then do so, but then we allow an editor to develop a new article in user space, presumably for the purpose of one day importing it into article space (otherwise why would would it be there?). At a basic level that strikes me as illogical, and I think the BLP subject in question would be understandably agog that we deleted it and then let it be created again in some other part of Wikipedia for it to be worked on and then maybe moved back into article space later. The particulars of this case are more complex (and I'm intentionally ignoring them to make a general point), but personally I feel "our general practice on userspace recreations of courtesy deleted biographies" has to be "we don't do that." If not then courtesy deletion is effectively meaningless. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, couldn't userspace be noindexed? The DRV closer in this instance specifically allowed userspace drafts with a time limit. So the post-DRV recreation seems ok. Not sure about the other one. Striking for now. Need to reverify: thought that was written, but having trouble finding it. Durova^Charge! 05:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I suppose that helps, to the extent that average people know what "noindexed" means and/or are comforted by some techie's explanation of it (I barely know what it means, to be honest). Again I'm just thinking about this from the perspective of a the subject of the BLP who asks for deletion—presumably (most of the time) a person who is not familiar with Wikipedia or even maybe the workings of the series of tubes in which this web site lives. If we say, "Sure, we'll delete that!" and then in following up the person in question somehow sees (maybe on the talk page of the admin who did the deletion) that the article we just deleted has been recreated at some random user's user page....well let's just say it probably wouldn't be fun to respond to that OTRS ticket. The moral component of our BLP policy is (or should be) as much about perceived harm as actual harm—i.e. if a BLP subject says "I'm an unimportant person and this article has done and/or might do me harm" we probably are not going to fight with them about that but rather will largely take their word. Similarly I would not want to get in a conversation/argument with such a person about how they don't have to worry because it's in userspace which is "different," something something something "noindexing," etc. etc. And it still doesn't deal with the fact that an article in userspace is, by definition, something that is being worked on to be put in article space, otherwise we wouldn't have it there in userspace.

Like I said there are different aspects to this particular discussion that might complicate matters, but in general I really cannot imagine a compelling argument for saying we can delete a BLP based on a real life request from an article subject and then turn around and put it in user space to work on it so we can later re-create the article we just deleted. In all seriousness I might be missing something but that strikes me as the rub of the matter. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

What you are missing: that almost immediately after Boothroyd's deletion request he became the subject of national media attention. National media attention in multiple sources completely changes the ballgame. TAway (talk) 06:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Stalking and Harrassment of Nassim Taleb by Ulner

I am a connected to the Taleb family (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) whose living biography wikipedia is handling; I only act to correct distortions and harrassment and do not add new material. I would like to report userUlner as obsessed with Taleb and making every single change possible on every item and bickering, in a way that exhibits web stalking of a living person, causing much DISTRESS to Taleb's family. I would like to seek Ulner refrain from further harassment of Taleb. —Preceding unsigned comment added by IbnAmioun (talk • contribs) 21:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC) IbnAmioun (talk) 21:43, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried discussing this with User:Ulner? I don't see any messages on their talk page, but I may be missing something. -- Darth Mike ^(talk) 23:08, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered that you might have a WP:COI conflict of interest and that maybe you shouldn't be involved with the Taleb articles? Who cares about minor misrepresentations on wikipedia? They hardly matter but having someone so dedicated to observe your articles sorta raises the suspicions of users that there really might be something unwritten worth knowing regarding the matter. Anyway I'll be keeping a closer eye on Taleb related articles from now on.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 23:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

194x144, that wasn't entirely helpful. Please WP:AGF

IbnAmioun - Also, please assume good faith about other contributors. You seem to be reacting very defensively to other editors who want to help improve the article. I've reviewed a dozen or so changes and none of them seem to be abusive or vandalism. If you have specific examples that you're concerned about, either on the article or the talk pages, please provide them here.

Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the help. My problem with User:Ulner is that he seems obsessed (to make 50 entries in such a short span betrays obsession) and he bickers over the smallest thing as he is doing now --any small detail seems to be a stumble to him. There is no problem if you have editors going back and forth on a point but you should realize that someone FROM THE QUANTITATIVE FINANCE INDUSTRY (of which Taleb is extremely critical) making 50 edits on a living person without others intervening can be extremely distorting. IbnAmioun (talk) 23:58, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

This basically seems to be a content dispute at Nassim Nicholas Taleb. That article seems over-written, and might be trimmed down a bit. It is a bit laudatory; the guy tanked two hedge funds with his strategy, but that's not mentioned. (His basic concept was kind of cute - buy options on both sides that are way out of the money, on the theory that the market underprices options far from the current price. This pays off when something drastic happens, and bleeds money when markets are relatively stable. Hence his paper "Bleed or Blowup", and his "Black Swan" book.) This needs attention from someone who understands derivative strategies. Is there a laid-off quant in the house? --John Nagle (talk) 06:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Atollardo persists in removing speedy delete tags from pages they created.

This user has been warned 5-7 times in the last 2 weeks about rtemovingt speedy delete templates yet keeps on doings so. I would suggest a short term block. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 23:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

He sure has been, doesn't look like he answers those warnings in any way either, maybe a block would encourage this user to discuss the matter instead of just edit warring.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 23:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

from the backtrack he keeps recreating csd deleted pages. I have nominated two others as well but admin may want to look at his contribn log. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 23:29, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Looking. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll give him a final warning. His edits seem infrequent enough that a short-term block wouldn't have much effect. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Darkfrog24: Tendentious contravention of MoS

Darkfrog24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user has been deliberately converting correctly-styled material to incorrect style. The matter has already been discussed here, where there is a brief history and a samping of pertinent diffs. The user erroneously claimed that his position was backed by MoS protocol, but refused to elaborate to any degree. Since that discussion, he has continued to make the same kind of changes. Ilkali (talk) 00:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Bad move reverts

Resolved

 – Script misfire (?), feel free to re-implement moves. –xeno^talk 02:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I checked my watchlist and saw this, a revert of my moves to article space, fixing naming, renaming per GAN, etc.:

1. (Move log); 02:06 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved Talk:Henry Fielding's early plays to Talk:Henry Fielding's Early Plays over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)
2. (Move log); 02:06 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved The Covent-Garden Tragedy to The Covent Garden Tragedy over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)
3. (Move log); 02:06 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved Talk:The Covent-Garden Tragedy to Talk:The Covent Garden Tragedy over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)
4. (Move log); 02:05 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved East Coker (poem) to User:Ottava Rima/East Coker (poem) over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)
5. (Move log); 02:05 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved Little Gidding (poem) to User:Ottava Rima/Little Gidding (poem) over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)
6. (Move log); 02:05 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved Sermons of Jonathan Swift to Sermons of Dean Swift over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)
7. (Move log); 02:05 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved Talk:Sermons of Jonathan Swift to Talk:Sermons of Dean Swift over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)
8. (Move log); 02:05 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved Wikipedia:Peer review/Sermons of Jonathan Swift/archive1 to Wikipedia:Peer review/Sermons of Dean Swift/archive1 over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)
9. (Move log); 02:05 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved Nicolo Giraud to Nicolò Giraud over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)
10. (Move log); 02:05 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved Talk:Nicolo Giraud to Talk:Nicolò Giraud over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)
11. (Move log); 02:05 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved Christopher Smart's asylum confinement to Christopher Smart's alleged madness over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)
12. (Move log); 02:05 . . TownDown (talk | contribs) moved Talk:Christopher Smart's asylum confinement to Talk:Christopher Smart's alleged madness over redirect (Pagemove vandalism cleanup)

Ottava Rima (talk) 02:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

For convenience: TownDown (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

It looks like Slackr (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) already left them a message asking them to explain themselves [31] (probably ec'd with you). If they don't respond in due time I gather you can safely re-implement these moves while we await a response (could have been a script misfire, for example). –xeno^talk 02:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

And it looks like they've already responded and even apologized [32]. Mistakes happen. Shell ^babelfish 02:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't blaming him. I just wanted to make sure that the pages could be restored to their proper names, hence why he wasn't named as causing any problems. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

So move them back? I guess I don't understand what needed admin attention here. If there's a particular article that can't be moved back, that's one thing but you really didn't given any information about what you wanted. Shell ^babelfish 02:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• I believe soap (talk · contribs) has reversed the moves, but if any targets require g6'ing, let us know. –xeno^talk 02:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry for any inconvenience caused. I'm really glad that it was resolved. I'm pretty sure I won't do it again. --TownDown ^{How's it going?} 03:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Banned user Hayden5650 re-editing

I suspect that Hayden4258 (talk · contribs) might be the same as Hayden5650 (talk · contribs) based on the similarity of name, apparently coming from the same country, and some similarity of editing patterns, such as the interest in articles on human races. Since 5650 was banned in 2007, I don't believe a checkuser will be useful. Hayden5650 engaged in extensive sockpuppeting.-gadfium 04:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I come from New Zealand. Don't know how I can prove it. --Hayden4258 (talk) 04:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I am aware that you are from New Zealand. So was 5650, or at least he was interested in New Zealand articles. See for example his edits of late July 2007 to Rotorua Boys' High School, Jonah Lomu and David Bain.-gadfium 04:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Without any judgment on whether or not the 4258 version should be blocked, a comprehensive look through both user's contribs pretty much quacks. I'd bet a paycheck these accounts are the same user. Tan | 39 04:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I have blocked Hayden4258, between the editing behavior, the nick & the IP range - there was far too much duck like activity. --Versageek 04:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.-gadfium 05:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)