Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive41

Aug 17th to aug 22nd

Warren Benbow

For the second time in a couple of days, there seems to be a serious ongoing effort to thwart a good faith VfD by premature deletion. I restored the disputed speedy, Warren Benbow a few days ago after reading the deleted stub and confirming that the claim of notability in that stub was correct. I expanded the stub to a reasonable size, with enough referrences to establish the subject as a candidate article for Wikipedia. For reasons that I cannot understand but which he has attempted to explain, User:Geogre disputes the right of an administrator to restore a disputed speedy. Today geogre speedied again. In order to placate his concerns I listed the article for deletion on restoring. Geogre has speedied for a third time. The article isn't even close to being a speedy candidate and I think geogre would admit this. Meanwhile the VfD is proceeding but only when the editors are able to view the contents of the article.

When administrators in good faith dispute whether an article is deletable, it seems to me that it is appropriate to make the article visible and invite other editors to view it and discuss whether it should be deleted--in other words, to list on VfD. I have done my best to ensure that this happens, but the other administrator keeps insisting that the article, despite not qualifying for speedy deletion, must be speedied.

There is some room for dispute about whether the statement "drummer, songwriter, music producer and educator" is an assertion of notability. Some, but not much. A brief google would have confirmed this claim and more: Benbow has worked with many prime names in the business and was a major collaborator with James Ulmer on the Odyssey album.

I would appreciate help in ensuring that this deletion discussion is able to run to its five-day term. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 21:02, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Sidaway is warring to impose his view outside of process. Instead of creating a new article where the deleted one was, he undeleted it and then overwrote it with his new article. (To make a point.) The new article is worth keeping and should not be deleted regardless of Mr. Sidaway's fight with other admins. Mr. Sidaway has pointed out his opinion that VfU is for "non-admins" and has not given other admings WP:FAITH as he is requesting here. I suggest that Mr. Sidaway and the other admin(s) refrain from deleting or undeleting and let it be resolved as "non-admin"s would have to - according to process on VfU and/or VfD. ("and/or" in this case because of the admin war.) - Tεxτurε 21:23, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

If I may quote from WP:VFU: If a short stub was deleted for lack of content, and you wish to create a useful article on the same subject, you can be bold and do so.

I think everyone involved owes Tony an apology. Also, I have no problem with him undeleting it - the original version, while substubby, had real info, and why shouldn't that anon get credit for creating the article that turned into what it is now? According to process, Tony did nothing wrong, except perhaps undeleting instead of starting anew - big whoop. Much ado about nothing, and people are really ganging up on Tony here. You can whack off about process all you want, but we also have another little ideal here called WP:IAR. --Golbez 21:28, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't undelete stubs that have been deleted unless they are useful in providing information that I can use to expand on. Those initial stubs are usually all that I am given to go on when I write the article--usually I have absolutely no idea that the subject existed when I start to write (which is why I think this kind of stub is so fascinating).

I have absolutely no problem with speedies, in practice well over nine tenths of all speedies are spot on. But almost every day I find quite reasonable article about apparently notable individuals that do seem to assert notability but get deleted anyway. I routinely undelete and expand, and they become worthwhile articles. A very small number have subsequently been VfD'd and they nearly always survive, so these aren't sickly children I'm creating, but hardy, tough articles capable of fighting for themselves.

Most times if I inform an editor that I've undeleted a speedy because I think he got it wrong, I'll get an acknowledgement, usually it's a very warm one in which the editor's good intentions stand out. I could count the negative feedback on the fingers of one hand. But, well, occasionally things will go sour even though I do my best. But only twice, and both in the past couple of days, have I seen editors fight so hard against the principle that their decisions can be challenged. I don't think I have anything to hide, I'll always take a dispute to VfD and I don't think it's a waste of time doing so. These are articles Wikipedia has a right to feel proud of and I'll gladly give Wikipedia the opportunity to prove it.

If an administrator does a speedy which I recover and expand, and he thinks I was doing something wrong, well it's easy enough to challenge me. If you think the article was speediable, it stands to reason that the article will not survive VfD for one minute--administrators will come up and say that it is a speedy candidate. So take it there. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 21:48, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your quote: If a short stub was deleted for lack of content, and you wish to create a useful article on the same subject, you can be bold and do so. It does not require you to be an admin. Mr. Sidaway proceeded to engage in an undelete war as shown below. Mr. Sidaway instigated this here. Who are you blaming? - Tεxτurε 21:34, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

1. 16:14, 17 August 2005 Tony Sidaway restored "Warren Benbow" (6 revisions restored)
2. 16:13, 17 August 2005 Tony Sidaway deleted "Warren Benbow" (To placate geogre I will delete and then selectively undelete only the parts I worked on.)
3. 16:03, 17 August 2005 Tony Sidaway restored "Warren Benbow"
4. 15:47, 17 August 2005 Tony Sidaway restored "Warren Benbow"
5. 15:46, 17 August 2005 Tony Sidaway restored "Warren Benbow"
6. 11:48, 17 August 2005 Tony Sidaway restored "Warren Benbow"

You have omitted from the list above the large number of bad speedies done by another administrator. But most of all, you have omitted to make a substantive point. Why should an administrator refrain from recovering wrongly speedied articles? --Tony Sidaway^Talk 21:51, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

The other administrator is not included because you made this your issue and I am responding. You say "why should an administrator refrain from recovering wrongly speedied articles" - I ask you why should an administrator refrain from deleting a wrongly undeleted article? You undeleted outside of process because you think that VfU is only for "non-admins". At the end, you did a right thing and only undeleted your own new article. (Something any user can create without undelete.) At that point the other admin violated process by again deleting it. I am not saying that no one else has done wrong here. I am asking that you, and all other parties, stop. Allow process to work. Your newly created article will be kept without you making this WP:POINT. What are you doing on this page? Making a WP:POINT? - Tεxτurε 22:14, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Just saying "WP:POINT" doesn't actually make a, er, point. Since when did following deletion policy constitute disruption of Wikipedia? Since when was "lack of notability" a speedy, particularly when it's clearly disputed? - David Gerard 23:06, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't undelete stubs that have been deleted unless they are useful in providing information that I can use to expand on.. You mean, like Fat Sex, which you undeleted for no good reason then went back and redeleted when you found it was, heavens, actually a valid speedy delete? As an admin, you could have read the history before you undeleted it, but your repeated undeleting to prove some sort of point wouldn't allow for that, would it?

Most times if I inform an editor that I've undeleted a speedy because I think he got it wrong, I'll get an acknowledgement. Whom did you notify that you undeleted Francesca Easthope? Zoe 23:37, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

The Fat Sex article wasn't really a valid speedy, but once I determined that it was clearly a hoax I didn't see the sense in disputing it, and accordingly speedied it again.

You have to understand that, although you're obviously getting a little angry with me and I'm not getting angry with anyone, in fact it is I who am following policy, both letter and spirit. I do understand that I need to be tactful about it, and I apologise if you think I haven't but it just doesn't do to falsely imply that I'm some kind of rogue here going and doing stuff against policy, when the articles I'm resurrecting are, as David Gerard points out, disputed speedies. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 16:17, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I sometimes tell people if I've undeleted a bad speedy, and sometimes I don't. I do quite a lot of these, maybe one or two a day, and the construction of a good article takes precedence over the niceties. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 16:17, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The version that got speedied was, in full: Warren Benbow Warren Benbow- drummer, songwriter, music producer and educator; b. New York, NY . Born December 22, 1954. There is no claim to notability here: there are many, many drummers who are not in Wikipedia (and many songwriters, and many educators, and there are many "music producers" who are waiting on tables). Merely listing a profession is not at all an assertion of notability, unless substantially every member of that profession gets a Wikipedia article (eg, holders of public office).

It was a bit of a provocation by Tony Sidaway to restore that validly-speedied stub, a bit of a symbolic slap in the face to the admin (Geogre) who speedied it for good reason. Nevertheless Tony Sidaway created a brand new perfectly valid and encyclopedic article which was in no way speediable [1], and Geogre was very much unjustified to speedy this new article three times. Tony should have just created his brand new article without first restoring the validly deleted stub. No VfU was required to do so. It would be a concern if someone tried to WP:POINT by resurrecting a validly speedied article and making some cosmetic change to it (for instance: adding the single adjective "notable", as someone else has done in the past), but this is not at all the case here. -- Curps 03:34, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Both the original speedy and the restoration of it were kind of iffy.

1. The version that was speedied was the second edit of the article, which contained a great deal less information than the first. The proper procedure would have been to revert back to the version with gobs of informative text. First version, Second version (speedied). Except....
2. The first version was an apparent copyvio, word-for-word identical to this external page.

So, what happened? The second version of the article was a legitimate speedy candidate—saying that someone is a drummer and educator doesn't tell us what's notable about them. The first version wasn't a speedy candidate, but it was a copyvio. Since Geogre hasn't mentioned that, I suspect that he didn't check the history very closely. (A slap on the wrist for that; checking the history is an important part of speedy deletion.)

Hold on a minute. The anon author himself created the first and second versions you mention. If there were multiple editors you'd need to check the history; if there's only one editor, you just look at their final version. -- Curps 08:06, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Meanwhile, Tony didn't examine the history very closely either. A big lump of unwikified text contributed by an anonymous IP is pretty suspicious. If he really wanted to restore the article, he would have been better to flag it as a copyvio and start a new temp page.

Finally, Geogre really shouldn't have speedied Tony's new article version; I can't see any reason for him to have done that, given that he didn't seem to have seen the copyvio. Did I miss anything? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:38, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• Looking at the deletion log, I'd say Tony should receive a block for 3RR violation.
• Other than that, two points. First, if an admin dispute another admin's action (such as deletion), then there is a disagreement between admins and they should talk this out, or bring the matter to public (which would be VFU in this case). Second, if any user wants to create a good article in the place of a speedied substub, they can do so; I don't particularly see why they should then first argue over undeleting the deleted part. In other words, rewrite first (to stub level, at least), undelete history later (or not at all, it's probably worthless). Radiant_>|< 10:06, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

I have no more to add. David Gerard put it well. Please stop attacking fellow sysops for doing their job correctly. Radiant!, you really need to read WP:3RR if you think this is a case for application of that rule. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 15:58, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• If you were actually doing your job correctly, you wouldn't have so many good users criticizing you. And if you really believe that a delete/undelete war is not disruptive, there is something seriously wrong with you. Radiant_>|< 10:33, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Pointless Waste of Time

On April 11, this article was listed on VfD. Starting on April 15, the article was repeatedly deleted, with various contents. The VfD was heavily sockpuppeted, and was apparently never closed properly. On April 25, User:Mindspillage closed the VfD with a result of "already deleted". On May 25, User:Tony Sidaway undeleted the article, and User:Texture re-deleted it, citing "Per VFD vote". Earlier today, Tony Sidaway re-undeleted it, on the grounds that the VfD was not closed properly. Could someone take a look at this? --Carnildo 23:12, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

could undeltion wait until say a week friday? I'll have some spare time then. It was never properly deleted so Tony Sidaway is correct. I supose it could be put through VFU if we want to follow the formal proccess.Geni 23:30, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I think it already has been though vfu.--nixie 01:20, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

what happened?Geni 01:25, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

There seems to be a record of the vfu here User:Grue/Undeletion--nixie 01:45, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

ok forumaly under the rules Tony Sidaway is correct. However there appears to be a consensus to keep deleted on that VFU.Geni 01:54, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• No, formally under the rules Tony is wrong. The article was deleted, but apparently not because of the VFD (because it's closed as "already deleted"). But for whichever reason it was deleted, VFU decided to uphold that deletion. That's what it's there for. Radiant_>|< 10:22, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

There is abosolutly no way that article qualified under speedy delete.Geni 11:19, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• That is correct, it is not a speedy delete. Nevertheless, it is a delete. And no matter what the grounds for deletion were, WP:VFU had consensus to uphold them. WP:NOT a bureaucracy; if consensus has been shown that some action was appropriate, then it follows that the action was appropriate. Radiant_>|< 12:15, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Request assessment by another Admin

I would like to request another Admin to take a look at this VfD. The nominator (anonymous user at 217.140.193.123) and one of the voters, Arrigo, are the same person — as it has been established already by several other users (see the registered user's talk page). This appears to constitute an illegal sockpuppetry. I would much prefer if another Admin would verify and, if it's the case, enforce policy on this, because I've been involved in a very unpleasant altercation with the concerned user in the past. Thanks, Redux 01:17, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the vote is going to effect the result.Geni 01:46, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Even so. Policy prohibits double-voting, regardless of whether or not it is successful in influencing the outcome. Regards, Redux 01:57, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Ted Kennedy

This article has been under attack by a series of anonymous editors. It seems from their behavior and prior knowledge of Wikipedia (one anon posted a frivolous report on WP:AN/3RR with his fourth edit) that they are either the same person or an effort directed by a message board or blog. They are not vandals - those are quickly blocked - but instead insist on reinserting material that a large consensus of editors on the have agreed does not belong in the article in its present form. Suggestions on how to deal with this are welcome. Gamaliel 01:54, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• 24.147.97.230 (talk · contribs) - Comcast Cable (the "fatboy.cc" vandal)
• 207.69.167.24 (talk · contribs) - Earthlink
• 202.79.231.67 (talk · contribs) - Asia Pacific Network Information Centre
• 66.176.129.11 (talk · contribs) - Comcast Cable Communications Holdings
• 38.118.3.16 (talk · contribs) - Performance Systems International
• 162.83.136.16 (talk · contribs) - Verizon
• 141.155.154.108 (talk · contribs) - Verizon
• 18.60.3.22 (talk · contribs) - MIT
• 65.205.189.54 (talk · contribs) - UUNET Technologies
• 216.69.164.185 (talk · contribs) - Go Daddy Software
• 68.120.235.145 (talk · contribs) - Pac Bell Internet Services

I've protected it for the time being, but it looks like the POV issues aren't going away. Mediation may be in order at some point.--nixie 02:23, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• Oh, grow up--I-2-d2 04:39, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Masterfully argued. Slac speak up! 04:43, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

One user, many IPs

Based on editing behavior, apparent location, and the use of a single ISP, it appears to me that the following IPs are being used by the same person, chiefly to edit Expansion theory, Matt Slick, Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, John W. Ratcliff, AARM, and Azerbaijan.

• 130.94.121.241 (talk · contribs)
• 130.94.121.242 (talk · contribs)
• 130.94.121.244 (talk · contribs)
• 198.65.167.211 (talk · contribs)
• 207.150.135.28 (talk · contribs)
• 207.67.144.53 (talk · contribs)
• 207.67.144.58 (talk · contribs)
• 207.67.144.61 (talk · contribs)
• 68.44.255.244 (talk · contribs) (mistake)

These IPs have been involved in several editing wars and several have been warned or blocked for 3RR violations. I have placed a message on each IP's talk page asking the user to get a username. I will consider edits by any of these IPs to been made by one person for the purpose of counting edits. I further believe that any of them that are involved in a 3RR violation should be blocked indefinitely on account of having been used to evade our policies. Once the user starts editing under a single identity any IPs that have been blocked could be restored. -Willmcw 02:00, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Barker College network now indefinitely blocked

I have just blocked the entire network range of Barker College, an Australian school located in Hornsby. There has been excessive vandalism occuring, and for some unknown reason this school has managed to procure an entire /24 network block (?!) which is totally out of proportion to their actual size. How they got away with this, I have no idea. Anyway, that's just an aside. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:34, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, forgot to note that the IP range that is blocked is 203.32.119.0/24. See APNIC whois to check ownership for yourself. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:35, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanx, Ta bu. I was thinking someone should do that. Slac speak up! 04:36, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

/24s were pretty much yours for the asking even ten years ago - David Gerard 07:53, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Trust me, 10 years ago they were using BBC Micros and didn't even know what the Internet was. I doubt they reserved this until recently. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:55, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Savoir-faire again

A while back, Tony Sidaway closed Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Savoir-faire with the controversial result of "keep", despite an apparent consensus to delete. I posted here requesting a review of the result, and User:Texture, after taking a second look, concluded that the article should be deleted. Now, Tony Sidaway has undeleted the article and reverted Texture's changes to the VfD. --Carnildo 05:01, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• I thought that transwikied articles could not be deleted, or it would violate the GDFL by removing authorship information. Is that incorrect? — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:10, August 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • I believe twiking transfers authorship, hence why it's more than a simple cut/paste. --Golbez 05:13, August 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • It's merges that can't be deleted. --Carnildo 05:39, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
    • So where is the edit history? As it currently stands there is no edit history - it appears fully formed in Wikibooks. The transwiki thus creates a GFDL violation for which we, having put it there, are responsible. Guettarda 06:07, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
      • No. See I wish more people would bother to acquaint themselves with the transwiki process, as currently there's only a small amount of editors that do it at all, and for none of them is it their main concern. As a result there are hundreds of articles in the backlog. Okay, rant over. Look at the talk page of the transwikied article, it will have the edit history from Wikipedia, thus crediting the original contributors. Also, the transwiki logs on both projects will record the move thus crediting the source (Wikipedia). There is no GFDL vio if the transwikied article is deleted, and in fact if there were, we would have an unmanageble amount of stuff still here on Wikipedia (we still do, really). Dmcdevit·t 06:53, August 18, 2005 (UTC)
        • Further to Daniel's explanation: In addition to the transwiki logs, usually the edit summary that creates the article contains an interwiki backlink to the location of the original, as it does in this particular case. Uncle G 12:41:50, 2005-08-18 (UTC)
• Any reasonable person looking at the VFD will agree that the outcome is either 'delete' or 'transwiki'. It has been transwikied. Thus, per WP:CSD #A5, it can be speedily deleted. Radiant_>|< 10:12, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Editors are welcome to come to Wikibooks:Wikibooks talk:How-tos bookshelf to discuss whether and how to incorporate the transwikied article into the how-tos bookshelf, which seems to be the logical place for the content to be merged. Uncle G 12:41:50, 2005-08-18 (UTC)

The result of the VfD was keep; this was discussed extensively [2]. If you think it should be deleted, please submit it to VfD and put your case. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 15:53, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• This was indeed discussed extensively, and consensus in that discussion did not agree with Tony's opinion. Radiant_>|< 10:34, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency

Take a look at the above, then vote at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency

CensorshipOfCensorship 07:09, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The above user has been permanently blocked as a troll and a sockpuppet, for plastering the above message all over such articles as Masturbation and Vagina. Zoe 07:23, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

I have now blocked 4 (I think, I've lost count) newly-minted trolls who are dropping this stupid template on articles from Vagina to Muhammad to Democratic Party (United States). See what nonsense this has caused? Zoe 08:29, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

To be fair, trolls can latch on to anything for a little fun. I don't think that's a fair criticism of the project (which I think could work just fine, although the title could use improvement, if they come at it from the right perspective—no idea if they are or will). If it wasn't that, maybe they'd be placing penis images in the articles instead. Everyking 08:44, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I would like to mention that Agriculture as gone as far as putting User:Evil Monkey/Nudity under VFD, stating that it was a collection of "indecent" images. I have swiftly canceled the VFD and issued a warning to Agriculture. Rama 09:37, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

No, that was not Agriculture, but a troll who spelled his name AgricuIture. Zoe 09:45, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you so much for spotting this and sorting out the matter. I issued an appology to Agriculture, obvioulsy :p Rama 09:52, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The VFD isn't entirely regular either. I've got a bad feeling. :-/ Kim Bruning 10:03, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The conflict is spreading. Now there is an apparent vendetta listing at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/WikiProject Anti-war; the three previous edits by the anon who listed it are nasty comments on the "Decency" one. Leaving aside for the moment what I think about the relative merits of the two VFDs, I'd like to know if people think the right thing to do is let the new VFD run its course or shut it down as trolling. Antandrus (talk) 15:41, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I've just deleted the page as a bad faith nomination. (I didn't achive it I just wiped it off the face of the earth. ) Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 01:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Good for you! Seems the last couple of days we've been running an all-you-can-eat buffet bar for trolls, and now at least the soup and salads are taken away. Antandrus (talk) 02:01, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Evil Monkey went ahead and deleted his userpage with the nudity images, saying that he will not be dragged into a battle over censorship. That same page was cited by the WfD group to find images that might not be suitable, which was one of my points for deletion of the Wikiproject. The whole project, IMHO, has boiled down to causing a major disturbance on Wikipedia's articles, the abuse of the above template (which I protected from recreation), the use of sockpuppetry and RFC's and now people calling for my head and for my bannishment. Do yall see why I put it up for deletion in the first place? Zscout370 (Sound Off) 19:59, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Without prejudice, I would have to say it would be just as easy to say that it's the VFD that has caused the major disturbance, at least as much as the project itself ever would have. Tomer ^TALK 02:41, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

User:Willmcw

Wikipedia administrator Willmcw is being extremely uncooperative on the Wikipedia:Stalking guideline proposal. This page contains a proposed guideline that is in the process of taking community input for its development and, as such, major edits are subject to talk page discussion conventions. Willmcw made a major rewrite of an existing section on this article without giving reasons for doing so or discussing the matter on the talk page. His rewrite was subsequently contested [3] and requests were made of him to explain the proposed rewrite and resolve objections to it before including it in the guideline proposal.[4] Willmcw has been unresponsive to these requests and has instead initiated revert warring [5] [6] [7] to preserve his rewrite while refusing to respond to objections about it on the talk page.

Willmcw has also indicated his opposition to this proposal so it is also questionable whether it's appropriate for him to be engaging in major rewrites of its text while the consensus-gathering process is occuring. Any advice or assistance you have is much appreciated and may be offered at Wikipedia talk:Stalking. Thanks. - Rangerdude 08:16, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Please stop deleting other people's posts from pages, as you did here tonight, [8] and yesterday on the village pump [9] (curiously enough, it was Willmcw's post about the wikistalking page you deleted two or three times), and as a new (and highly abusive) user account was doing tonight from your talk page [10] (also curiously enough, it was Willmcw's post that you are stalking him that kept being deleted). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:23, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Slim - Your pattern of harassment and disruption directed against myself is approaching a level requiring intervention. As was explained to you in detail yesterday, the post by Willmcw you refer to was merged into a single header as it was one of two simultaneously posted notices about the same guideline proposal. You made a bad faith assumption then in accusing me of attempting to delete his material, persisted in it then when I explained to you the purpose of merging the two even after I agreed to facilitate your bizarre whims and restore Willmcw's redundant second notice for the exact same article, and still persist in it now. Regarding the second case, I am unaware how the deletion you accuse me of tonight even happened as my only intended edit there was to post this incident notice. Any deletion that resulted in it was either by accident or programming fluke, and your persistent bad faith assaults of alleging otherwise are in clear violation of Wikipedia:Assume good faith and will be noted as such in dispute resolution proceedings against yourself for a pattern of continued personal harassment against me and for abuse of your administrator powers. Rangerdude 09:57, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Rangerdude, if this is a threat of yet another of your frivolous RFCs, please desist. You've done enough to discredit the RFC process, and your idea that dispute resolution is something you start "against" somebody whenever you're mad at them is mistaken. That's not what dispute resolution means. Bishonen | talk 22:51, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

My mistake, I see it's not a mere frivolous RFC this time, but a cockamamie RFAr. Bishonen | talk 00:08, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

FYI, I have never indicated that I oppose the proposed guideline, and I have responed in great detail to Rangerdude's questions about why I replaced his words with those of Jimbo Wales in the "Precedents" section. -Willmcw 09:35, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

This is incorrect. Willmcw vocally opposed the establishment of a wikistalking guideline when I first initiated discussions about creating one on July 5th at the Assume Good Faith talk page.[11] Since the creation of a separate article and talk page for this proposal, Willmcw has also consistently opposed multiple attempts to expand the article, deleted extensive passages from the article in account of me being their author, and substantially altered the content of the proposal with amendments deemed unfriendly by the editors who authored and initiated the proposal process. Rangerdude 09:57, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Re-read my words. The July 5th discussion was not a proposed guideline, that was text you wanted to add to an existing guideline, "Wikipedia:Assume good faith". As for "unfriendly amendments" this is not a debate on a motion. It's a proposal that all editors are free to edit, just like any other. Your repeated attempts to stop the participation of myself and other editors have been noted. -Willmcw 19:03, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

User:SlimVirgin

Hello - some sort of page protection appears to have been applied to my user talk page. I believe that this action was taken by administrators User:Willmcw and User:SlimVirgin who were both actively altering my talk page at the time the protection appeared, yet the log is ambiguous. Whatever the case I am currently being blocked from posting a response on my own user page!

Unfortunately it appears that whatever page protection was applied was intended to inhibit me from responding to a disruptive WP:POINT allegation made moments prior by Willmcw against me[12] and currently being promoted by SlimVirgin[13] on the Village Pump for the purpose of impeding and discrediting a new wikipedia guideline proposal, Wikipedia:Stalking, that I listed yesterday. Willmcw's allegation, SlimVirgin's promotion of it, and the page protection of my user talk page also appear to be a retaliatory action by these two editors for my noticeboard post above in which I reported Willmcw for disruptive and anti-collaborative behavior on the same Wikipedia:Stalking guideline proposal. Both of these editors have been extremely harassing in their behavior towards me for some time, and the events of the past few minutes give me reason to believe that one or both of them are abusing their administrator privileges to engage in this harassment and to disrupt the effort I initiated on the guideline proposal. Any help would be once again greatly appreciated. Rangerdude 09:14, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

A look at the protection log for your page shows that SlimVirgin did it, and a glance at the history shows it was done to prevent another editor from continually deleting Willmcw's post on your page. Probably not the best move, but not likely for the reason you describe. --TJive 09:19, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

They're just bullying him. Okay, they might feel he deserves it but trolling him with a message like that isn't going to help anything. I suggest to SlimVirgin, an editor I have the utmost respect for, that this isn't helping make a great encyclopaedia. The other guy is just acting to type, so far as I can see, but I do make the same appeal to him. -- Grace Note

Rangerdude's talk page was protected for 10 minutes while I dealt with a highly abusive [14] new user account who kept deleting from Rangerdude's talk page a post from Willmcw alleging that Rangerdude is wikistalking him. Why a new user would think to do that, I can only imagine, but he was blocked for vandalism, disruption and personal attacks, so the page was unprotected around 15 minutes before Rangerdude posted here with his latest complaint. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:31, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Slim - as an active party to a dispute between myself with yourself and Willmcw, I consider your application of protection in any area involving this dispute to be a conflict of interest that violates the protection policy, whatever the reason. I similarly consider yours and Willmcw's conduct regarding the Wikipedia:Stalking guideline proposal and the accompanying WP:POINT disruption he posted to my talk page that you are now promoting to be cases of personal harassment on both your parts and will pursue them accordingly. Disruptive behavior, such as your recent hostile actions toward me, has no place on wikipedia, and least of all by an administrator. This is your final warning to cease and desist before dispute resolution is initiated against you as well. Rangerdude 09:41, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, just from reading here, it seems like someone was vandalising your user talk, and that Slimvirgin nabbed the vandal. You'd prefer to only catch vandalism yourself? Ok, that's a reasonable request in itself, but are you sure? Your user pages might remain vandalised for days when you're not around to check them. Kim Bruning 10:11, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

It seems obvious to me that in the case of this page Rangerdude did not mean to delete text but it was some sort of error that ate up recent changes; Kim Bruning just did the same thing. --TJive 10:24, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Ut oh, there's a bug you say? :-/ Kim Bruning 10:41, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Rangerdude, you're trying to poison the well against me, and I won't allow it. I'm not party to your dispute. I've never even read the wikistalking page, much less edited it; nor have I edited (so far as I know) any of the other pages you and Will are disputing. What I've done is try to defend Willmcw, an excellent editor, against your weeks-long harassment of him, your filing of a failed RfC against him and Cberlet, another failed RfC against FuelWagon because he defended them against you, and now by the looks of it, you're threatening one against me too. You're a disruptive editor, your "final warning" to me notwithstanding. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 10:53, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Slim - You cannot actively assist Willmcw in his repeated attempts at harassment and disruption of my work here, repeatedly attack me personally, inappropriately employ your administrator powers to control my user page, and then disclaim any participation in this dispute in spite of all that you have done. As noted previously, your behavior toward me for the past several weeks has been unduly hostile and has regularly breached wikipedia protocol on civility, assumption of good faith, and no personal attacks - the latter in spite of a standing Arbcom caution against you from another case in which you were cited for making personal attacks. I've repeatedly addressed these issues to you, Slim, and have done so in a reasonably civil manner yet instead you persist in bad faith attacks such as the fraudulent allegations of deleting other users comments posted above and your blatantly provocative and harassing attempts to assist Willmcw, a personal friend of yours and an editor you nominated to adminiship, in pursuing disruptive and fraudulent WP:POINT allegations against me[15] [16] for the explicit purpose of disrupting a guideline proposal I have made. Due to your repeated transgressions of this nature, I am filing a formal harassment complaint against you for your behavior, Slim, and will request that you be added into the mediation case between myself and Willmcw as an active participant in his harassing actions that originally necessitated the case. In the meantime, I will ask you once again to abide by conflict of interest protocol and refrain from employing your administrative powers and energies in any manner that impacts the pending case between us and its related editing disputes with Willmcw. I will consider your failure to do so and any subsequent interfering administrative actions such as the protection you applied to my user page last night to be an abuse of your administrative powers and will both report the incidents as appropriate and add them to my case of grievances against you. Rangerdude 18:53, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

NOTE - after its initial posting the above complaint regarding harassment and abuse of admin powers by SlimVirgin was removed from this page by Willmcw, himself a party to this dispute and subject of a related complaint found above. The diff of Willmcw's deletion may be found here. Removal of complaints by other users pertaining to yourself and your friends constitutes vandalism, Will. Rangerdude 19:25, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Apologies for deleting your comment. I was trying to restore the comment by Antandrus that you deleted. [17] It looks like we both made accidental deletions. Assume good faith, old pal. -Willmcw 19:33, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

You're already juggling so many disputes I'm not sure you could handle another one, so I've turned down your mediation request. You're getting close to a Wikipedia record for the number of editors you've fallen out with, I'll give you that. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:39, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

An Admin who thinks he is god?

Under exactly what authority does UninvitedCompany think he can unilaterally permanently ban users, and destroy their user pages, and protect their talk pages so that they can't respond? - [18]

It should be noted that the alleged images are listed at User:Evil Monkey/Nudity as well as being considered entirely appropriate for articles, having, as far as I can tell, already survived IFD, and have been on Wikipedia for over a month.

Note that an arbcom case has only just opened and has by no means come down with even remotely any penalty such as a ban. UninvitedCompany seems to think he has greater authority than ArbCom, and can completely act outside it.

Does UninvitedCompany has infinite power and permission to unilaterally with impunity?

Particularly when the user/victim in question has challanged a prior abuse of adminship by UninvitedCompany in an RfC, and has diametrically opposed political opinions?

This seems to be a case of right wing strongly anti-Islamic admins thinking they have the right to dictate to everyone else.

It also seems in contempt of the arbitration committee's right to make the decision.

-- -Ril- 12:44, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it, sysops have a duty to maintain order on Wikipedia, not merely stick to the letter of the rules. Trying to twist the spirit of the rules by using ones own user page or talk page to carry on disruption, in the hope that the letter of the rules will leave the sysops without means, is naive and blamable.

If this is indeed what you decided to do, it is rather understandable that you should suffer the consequences.

Obviously, this does not prevent you from commenting on your case, since you are here. Rama 13:04, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Discussion of this is at User talk:-Ril-/ban. "Anti-Islamic"? Every time an anti-Islamic troll is blocked they rant that "Islamists have taken over Wikipedia". Go figure. dab (ᛏ) 13:18, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

You would say that, but UninvitedCompany admits to being "extremely anti-Islamic" - [19] -Ril- 13:51, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Presumably UC's block follows the disruption clause of the blocking policy: "Sysops may, at their judgement, block IP addresses or usernames that disrupt the normal functioning of Wikipedia." — Dan | Talk 14:32, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Speaking neutrally here, as an arbitrator on the case in question ... I have in fact seen lots of good contributions from -Ril- — have a look through his edit history and interests. Though relations between him and the Wikipedia community in general have evidently unfortunately broken down and I can see someone blocking him completely as a troll/vandal if they only had the recent actions to go on.

I would ask that he not be blocked indefinitely while the case is in progress, but only as needed to stop this level of disruption. Please also mention the disruption incident(s) on the case evidence page - David Gerard 15:40, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree here with David; permanent blocks on someone in the midst of a case is unfortunate, and that -Ril-'s current actions aren't, I feel, wholly representative.

James F. (talk) 17:04, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Given the fairly strong support for UninvitedCompany's action on User talk:-Ril-/ban, I would suggest to the arbitrators that they need to come up with an appropriate temporary injunction regarding -Ril-'s editing privileges, and that the current one is inadequate. If this is done, I am willing to lift the block, but not before. --Michael Snow 17:43, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm a party to the arbitration case, and obvious feel that -Ril- is often a problem, but I don't think a blanket ban is necessary. A revert parole and/or ban from certain areas would be just as effective, and would allow him to continue to work in those areas where he has made useful improvements to the encyclopedia. - SimonP 22:40, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Willy

Willy zilly nilly (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Please help reverting all that, my connection can't handle it. Radiant_>|< 13:01, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) also blocked. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:09, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I've made a feature request - bugzilla:3185 - that page move rollback should not leave a redirect behind, reducing the amount of work cleanup like this requires. Thryduulf 13:41, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• Additionally, rollbacking moves shouldn't require a confirmation screen. Imho. Radiant_>|< 14:11, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Also related: we need a Special:Newusers page, with a NU patrol to compliment RC patrol, and we need it bad. Func( t, c, @, ) 14:26, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm starting to wonder if such a feature will ever come. Is it that difficult? No, I can't contribute cote - but I am one of the poor bastards constantly cleaning up after this guy. (Of course, if we got a list of new users, guess what - he'll just use a normal looking name.) Hey, devs, what's his IP? At least tell us what ISP he's using. AOL? --Golbez 14:32, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

See wp:lvip. He's using a blueyonder.co.uk proxy as one. — Stevey7788 (talk) 22:51, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd consider helping with bits of coding for things like this if it was explained more clearly the process. Devs don't quite seem to encourage developing the software enough, to my mind. At least, not from what I've seen. Rob Church ^{Talk | Desk} 02:05, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

User:WikiPoliceman

Improper username, unsanctioned m:Role account? Didn't read everything on page, maybe a polite name change request if its innapropriate. ∞Who?¿? 17:09, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• Also see the new police dept User:WikiPoliceman/WPPD, do I get a badge :) ? ∞Who?¿? 17:20, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

User:WikiPoliceman/WikiPolice seems to have survived; is there any reason not to delete it, along with the user & talk pages? -- Essjay · Talk 06:56, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Oops, User:WikiPoliceman/WikiPoliceman too. -- Essjay · Talk 06:57, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, and User:WikiPoliceman/WikiPedia Police Department. All deleted now. What do we think about whether the userpage can be allowed? Dmcdevit·t 07:03, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

On second thought, I blanked it and replaced it with {{indefblockeduser}}. Dmcdevit·t 07:07, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

User:Madchester

As I've mentioned here (and elsewhere) before, I've been having enormous problems recently with some editors over pop-music articles. I received some help from other editors, and things seem to have improved considerably with regard to one of them, and somewhat with the regard to the other. However Madchester (talk · contribs) seems to have started up with the same sort of approach (at, for example, Yourself or Someone Like You and Parachutes). He has been reverting my edits wholesale, including corrections to Wikilinks, adding MoS-style links, etc. I'm concerned that an admin should behave like this. Could someone have a word with him? I don't seem to be getting through. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:46, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Personal attacks and abusive language at Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/US_Government_Simulator

Can an admin, or perhaps several, start monitoring this discussion. We have a number of people, apparently from the external site, creating accounts and then being particularly abusive. Examples include:

• Because I dropped $125 to help buy the damn server! So stop being a bunch of whiney hypocrites and shut your unknowledgeable mouths! - User: Randomosityii
• I've had enough of wikipedia douches trying to get the whole govsim/nationsim genre deleted 213.67.49.17 17:21, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
• ut hey, you're so goddamned BIASED that you won't recognize that. Also, we're not on Avidgamers anymore because it got too slow and we decided to BUY our own site and forums. That's right...we BOUGHT the site instead of using a free one. That's why it's no longer on Avidgamers...but your head is so far up your ass that you can't realize that. (from Randomosityii (talk · contribs) again)
• I mean seriously, the only "delete" votes are coming from people totally clueless about the gaming world of govsims. The fact that they are passing judgment on us in such an ingnorant manner is really out of line (from "John Joffey")

Wikibofh 17:49, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Willy again

He's back again, as User:Shake your willy (contribs). Slightly more than 100 pages moved. I'll start from the most recent, if anyone wants to help, please start at the first pages he moved. Thanks. Meelar (talk) 18:20, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

They're all moved back (thanks to everyone!). Now all the garbage redirects need to be deleted; if any are still bluelinked in the move log when I get back from lunch I'll finish them off. Antandrus (talk) 18:52, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I believe it is all cleaned up now. Antandrus (talk) 20:07, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

After moving the pages back and deleting the "on wheels" back-redirs, there's one more step to take: check the deletion log and search for any "Deleted to make way for move" entries. These may be signs that a double-move-revert was accidentally done, resulting in the original article being a redir to itself (or it may be a perfectly innocuous and valid move). This is most simply fixed by just deleting the article and then selectively restoring only the pre-Willy versions. See for instance the deleted history of Everglade Township, Minnesota for an example. -- Curps 20:30, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. Missed that one. Antandrus (talk) 22:58, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I made a transwiki mess, please help

I saw Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Michael Quilty and took it upon myself to be bold and create sep11:Michael_Quilty since that's where the article really belongs. However, I stupidly didn't bother to read m:Transwiki until after taking this action and now realize it was not the correct thing to do because of revision history preservation. Would a kind admin please delete sep11:Michael_Quilty, let the VfD finish naturally, and then Transwiki (if so voted) per the correct procedure? I'm very sorry for this. Thanks, Thatdog 18:28, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

It's okay, I repaired the transwiki. You don't need to be an admin to transfer the history though. Dmcdevit·t 21:39, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, that probably looked like vandalism

Image:Circpn.jpg In fact it is a complaint, that this image is being spamed all over the place, can we just get rid of it? I mean what purpose does it serve?--anon

It really helps if we know what you're talking about. Where is it being spammed? --Golbez 19:58, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Where isn't it being spamed? look in the deletion log--172.132.70.241 19:59, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

There's been a persistent vandal using it; I've noticed it being used to vandalize the userpage of User:Agriculture, as well as some newly created pages. And no, we shouldn't get rid of it--far easier to keep issuing blocks and wait for the vandal to get bored, and then we don't lose an encyclopedic image. Best, Meelar (talk) 20:37, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Neutral admin wanted

Feeling neutral? Come lend a hand.

¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 21:53, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Looking for concensus of administrators

I was hoping that I could attract some comment here regarding a particular vote that was settled by User:Tony Sidaway this afternoon. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Religion and schizotypy. Mr. Sidaway feels that if a concensus is reached concerning the vote cast by the user Gabrielsimon he would disregard that users vote to keep the article. During the voting process, User:Gabrielsimon (now User:Gavin the Chosen) used a sockpuppet,User:Khulhy to cast more than one vote. I feel this in itself should disqualify the user from having his vote counted, not just the sockpuppet. Comments here would be appreciated. I would further ask for opinions regarding the closure of the VfD in general. Mr. Sidaways approach to counting votes is I feel biased toward certain users and I have indicated as much on his talk page. Thank you for your consideration in this matter. Hamster Sandwich 23:52, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Without counting Gabriel, the tally would be 6-12, which as I understand is still "no consensus". ~~ N (t/c) 00:06, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

• Looking at that VFD, it seems a good solution would be to merge the article as suggested. The vast majority of votes feel that this doesn't warrant a forked article. The point of contention (from Tony's talk page) is that he automatically discounts all votes from accounts less than a month old (on grounds of WP:SOCK). Some may feel that to be overly harsh, or running counter to WP:FAITH. In this particular case, being more lenient towards new users would likely have tipped the scale towards deletion. Radiant_>|< 10:45, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

User:Donald R. Alford

Can someone tell me what is going on with this user? Two anons, and another user are constantly reverting it. User:67.182.157.6 keeps redirecting it to User:67.182.157.6, and says its an impostor. If that is the case, I would think at least {{sockpuppet}} or {{impostor}} would be used with some evidence, preferably by a reg'd user or admin. ∞Who?¿? 23:57, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

He is a DotSix reincarnation that was blocked for vandalizing the RFAr page. I don't really know much about that case. 67.xxx may be the "main" identity of DotSix. Or something. Dmcdevit·t 04:32, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

You are correct, Who. User:67.182.157.6 is not using the proper procedure. User:67.182.157.6's real name is Donald R. Alford. He has been a notorious web troll since 1998 who recently brought his "act" to Wikipedia. (For proof of this, see [20].) At least until recently he did not create a username for himself but he called himself DotSix. His behavior has been so atrocious, in less than a month on Wiki, he has already been the subject of an RfC [21] and an RfAr [22]. The latter case has been accepted by the Arb Committee and is being presented here [23] and here[24]. the evidence page is still a work in progress. User:67.182.157.6 does not deny that he is Donald R. Alford. (In fact, some of what he has written in the last couple days strikes me as a de facto admission that he is Donald R. Alford.) At any rate, what he is claiming is that he did not create the user page User:Donald R. Alford. I don't believe him, but at any rate, that is what he is trying to say when he calls User:Donald R. Alford an "imposter." The fact that he is trying to redirect User:Donald R. Alford to User:67.182.157.6 instead of tagging it as an imposter or tagging it to be deleted is, at best, further evidence that he believes the rules don't apply to him. At worst, it is evidence that he really did create User:Donald R. Alford. --Nate Ladd 05:42, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

User:Geni

What gives User:Geni the right to make threats like WP:AN#MediaWiki:bad_image_list? Zoe 04:14, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Nothing does, and it was out of line. --Golbez 04:32, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

That's a neat catch-all: you aren't really breaking any policy or anything, but you are getting on my nerves, so I think I'll ban you for being disruptive. Leaves room for total subjectivity, no objective standard at all. Everyking 06:51, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

In the interests of full disclosure

I have just unblocked my IP address that was apparently used by a vandal with a Brigadoon fixation last night.

06:04, 19 August 2005 Thryduulf unblocked User:212.139.29.250 (colateral damage (block of this vandal has hit me))

I don't think I've done anything wrong, but felt it prudent to note it here. Thryduulf 06:18, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually we banned you for a reason. I don't quite know what it is, but we never make mistakes. Now, get ye back to the stocks! --Golbez 06:36, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, if you can let me know roughly how often your IP changes (how often Tiscali changes DSL IPs on DHCP), that would be good to know - David Gerard 07:17, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

In general it seems that once you have an IP, it is yours until you drop the connection. In my case this means that I only get a new IP when I turn my router off, which on average I suppose is about once a fortnight or so at most, however its been a bit more frequent than that recently due to plumbers/builders/decorators. It or the connection occasionally just stops working and so I have to reset by turning the router off then on again. If you use the USB broadband modem that comes with the package then you might be turning it off when you turn off your computer, I can't remember whether it has an independent power supply or not (its been about 18 months since we stopped using it).

I don't know how relevant it is, but I noticed I had a 212.x.x.x IP this morning whereas I'd only previously spotted 80.x.x.x (or was it 81.x.x.x?) IPs. Note that I do also edit from work (where I am now), and from a variety of places when I'm traveling. Thryduulf 11:09, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Cool :-) From personal experience I know that Eclipse changes your IP every few days or weeks, and BT changes it somewhat more often. I didn't keep track of hard numbers. From Zen of course I have a static IP and seven more for the asking - David Gerard 19:30, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Ril Group-New Violation-Authentic Matthew

First Ril Group VfD

The result of the debate was Inconclusive, due to various allegations of sockpuppetry. Therefore, Keep, but permitted to be relisted under hopefully more controlled and less messy conditions. khaosworks 01:37, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Note: to whichever admin closes this VfD — -Ril- (talk · contribs) has taken control of the VfD, deleting and moving to the Talk page comments opposed to his position, while leaving in comments supporting him, including many of his own (including personal attacks and unsubstantiated guesses at sockpuppetry presented as dogmatic claims. I've tried to reinstate his deletions, but he's made a real mess, and I'm sure that I've missed many. My own feeling is that the VfD has been compromised, and should be restarted. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:37, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

• The VFD, for anyone interested, is here.

Second Ril Group VfD

The result of the debate was keep (no consensus). Dmcdevit·t 07:07, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

Well... I was going to close it myself, but it's cool. Concur with vote results. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:26, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Third Ril Group VfD

User:-Ril- has been blocked from editing for 24 hours. The situation has presented itself where Authentic Matthew was put on WP:VFD. The vote was a disaster, and it got kept because no admin could work out exactly who voted what, etc. So it was run again, this time in a far more orderly fashion. The vote was about 65% to delete and the rest to merge or delete. Another admin closed it off, making it a keep vote. I concurred with this, though I do find the article to really pretty stupid and feel that it has major problems. Anyway, it just go reopened by -Ril-, who readded a VfD tag and created Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Authentic Matthew (consensus). I have:

1. Deleted this VfD,
2. Removed the tag from Authentic Matthew
3. Blocked -Ril- from editing for 24 hours due to disruption of Wikipedia,
4. Left -Ril- a note on his talk page explaining why he is blocked.

I have told him I will leave a message on WP:AN and WP:AN/I, so this is what I am doing. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:54, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I support that. He has done vfds in bad faith before.--Wiglaf 14:00, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

-Ril- also renominated Historical persecution by Muslims for deletion one day after the previous VfD was closed as "no consensus". The best explanation he's provided is "...you do get to keep re-nominanting stuff until a consensus is reached as to what to do with it..." [25]. Carbonite | Talk 14:04, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

The most problematic aspect of these renominations is that they are always accompanied by -Ril- sending messages to everyone who agreed with him the previous round, (see [26], [27]). There is no rule against this, but it does produce an end result that is almost certainly biased. - SimonP 14:14, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

Sigh. He & I got into an exchange over this very article. A week ago, my opinion was that it was a slam-dunk delete, but by the time the VfD vote rolled around, the article had improved to the point where I thought it was worth leaving alone for a while, just to see if it would continue to improve. -Ril- did not like my opinion, & argued with me on my Talk page over my vote. (Sheesh, it's just one article, I only have one vote, & if the VfD vote fails, it's not the end of the world.) After annoying me with (IMHO) POV arguments about how the article was wrong, I took another look at the article & realized that maybe my vote was misguided -- but by that time, the only way I would vote for its deletion was if -Ril- promised not to post one more word about this issue. -- llywrch 02:07, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Ril Group continue to defy VfD

The following have participated in the Violation and are here after refered to as the Ril Group:

• 81.156.176.160 (talk • contribs)
• -Ril- (talk • contribs)
• 81.156.177.21 (talk • contribs)
• Doc glasgow (talk • contribs)
• DreamGuy (talk • contribs)
• Garrett (talk • [[Special:Contributions/#Garrett^contribs)
• goethean (talk • contribs)
• The Rev of Bru (talk • contribs)
• The Wife of -Ril- (talk • contribs)

Remove Authentic Matthew(By Redirect)

The article has now been restored.--Melissadolbeer 07:50, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea what's going on here. --Golbez 08:12, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Hi,it is confusing. Ril keeps removing Authentic Matthew even though his VfD failed.

--Melissadolbeer 08:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

For better or worse, Ril is blocked right now anyway. Why are you bringing this up? Is there anything new to discuss? That has to do with administrators? Dmcdevit·t 08:50, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

it's a case of ongoing disruption. If a vfd is being wrecked, somebody has to look after it and restore order, so I suppose this is a call on admins to help out. dab (ᛏ) 09:09, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I have just learned that User:-Ril- has been blocked indefinitely by The Uninvited Co., Inc. pending action by the Arbitration Committee or a decision by the community. Discussion is at User talk:-Ril-/ban. --Melissadolbeer 09:20, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, what the crying out loud heck is this? There's a "Ril group" with my name on it being called as a violation? Where did this come from? I haven't done anything with Authentic Matthew in ages and I certainly did not violate any rules. This seems to me like someone freaking out long after the fact and making baseless accusations.DreamGuy 10:48, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

I wondered about your name there too. Let's not turn this into a witchhunt, shall we. The "grouping" of editors should be deprecated. "-Ril-'s wife", fair enough, but well known editors like DreamGuy? Posting some sort of substantiating diff would really not be asking too much. dab (ᛏ) 11:00, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I see what she's doing now... She was complaining that the article was redirected after there was not enough consensus to delete, which she is claiming is consensus to keep and never redirect or make any changes ever... Apparently she only just now even btohered to look at the article when it had been merged and redirected ages ago. She undid the redirect and got it looked at the highly POV violating version.... greattttt. DreamGuy 13:11, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

WTF? '-Ril- group' indeed! - I've joined an RfC against him, and supported his banning - but now I'm his 'groupie' (well since the same person accused me in an RfA of being his sockpuppet I supopose this is better). Unfortunately, -Ril-'s behaviour has disguised Melissadolbeer's obscure POV pushing. Two weeks ago, I redirected Authentic Matthew to Gospel of Matthew after discussion in the wake of the last VfD. (Where even the 'keep' minority seemed unhappy with the name. No-one objected until now, and all was calm. Unfortunately, Mel Etitis was misled into believing I had done so unilaterally, but only because 'someone' had deleted the discussion on the talk page (see our respective talk pages). I've got a little knowledge of this subject, but I'm not willing to go toe-to-toe on this. Obliged if others can help. --Doc (?) 14:15, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Doc has summed the matter up correctly. Melissadolbeer is intent on keeping her Authentic Matthew article up no matter what. Ril is intent on taking it down no matter what. A few of us believe, for reasons of NT history and WP policy, that it should probably be renamed or redirected or deleted or rewritten. For voting on the matter, we seem to have incurred Melissadolbeer's wrath — I can't say I'm too concerned. She has proven herself unable to conform to WP rules, as has -Ril-. Shrug. --goethean ॐ 14:24, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

A small recap of the history of this issue for those with no familiarity

Basically, the result was that a majority were for Delete/Merge, but this isn't one of the options, and neither Delete nor Merge on their own had a majority (it should be noted that it had already been merged before the VFD).

There were 3 VFDs,

• The first was sabotaged by excessive sockpuppets - see Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/Authentic Matthew (inconcluded) for quite how extensive they were - to the extent that the VFD was completely abandoned (note: it was not closed, but abandoned)
• The second was Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Authentic Matthew, and attempted to avoid the problems that lead to the first being abandoned, by being administered by an Admin - Ta bu shi da yu. The exact results were
  • Keep : 12 votes (including one by a user with only 7 prior edits)
  • Delete: 21 votes
  • Merge: 4 votes

The result was somehow declared to be a "keep" and that there was "no consensus"

• Thus the third attempt, which was deleted (the VFD itself) after 2 votes by Ta bu shi da yu

It should be noted that Ta bu shi da yu's personal opinion was that the article should be deleted

During the second VFD, Melissadolbeer raised an RFAR against the first 7 people that voted delete, claiming that they were sockpuppets - the first 7 were long established and quite distinct editors (the RFAR was dismissed).

Mel Etitis seems to think that -Ril-'s actions in VFD'ing the article were down to a prior grudge against Melissadolbeer, but Melissadolbeer has no substantial edits concerning anything other than the article.

Disruption involved includes spamming a large number of talk pages with bizarre allegations, including claiming that, for example, the "-Ril- group" listed above are sockpuppets, has been committed by Melissadolbeer (talk • contribs • block)

and sockpuppets Mikefar (talk • contribs • block), Poorman (talk • contribs • block), -Angel77- (talk • contribs • block), -Johnny- (talk • contribs • block), -Watcher1- (talk • contribs • block), Angel77 (talk • contribs • block), Ghpbermuda (talk • contribs • block), Goodboy (talk • contribs • block), Jlchan (talk • contribs • block), Kendea (talk • contribs • block), Paulya (talk • contribs • block), Teenangel (talk • contribs • block), Watcher1 (talk • contribs • block)

and IP's 202.176.184.118 (talk • contribs • block), 202.176.97.116 (talk • contribs • block), 202.176.97.230 (talk • contribs • block), 203.144.210.225 (talk • contribs • block)

Note, the obviousness of these sockpuppets includes things like them not attempting to remove the sockpuppet tag from any of their user pages for at least the last two weeks, and pasting the same content as each other, as well as not making edits to any other articles.

Melissadolbeer also, today, deleted [28] half the talk page of Authentic Matthew, including the part where discussion finished over two weeks ago about redirecting the article and protecting the redirect. Absolutely no-one opposed this suggestion at the time, nor at any point in the last two weeks.

It should also be noted that -Ril- did not turn the article into a redirect, that change was made by Doc Glasgow on 4th August - [29], it was undone [30], then re-done [31], by Stbalbach, who had mistaken a mediaeval reference to a "Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew" for a reference to an "Authentic Matthew" rather than to the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew - this was discussed calmly in the talk page.

Between 5th and the 19th there was no dispute whatsoever, and the article remained a redirect.

On 19th August, Melissadolbeer reverted the article back to her version [32] (22nd July version) (Acjelen had done some minor copyediting, despite having reservations about the content itself), not to the consensus and more neutral version [33], that was the last version (5th August version) before being a redirect.

Mel Etitis then immediately (1.5 hours later) protected the article, claiming there had been an edit war. This claims to have been done in good faith.

--Ron 14:34, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Closing and sock puppetry

While I respect Khaosworks' decision in the circumstances pertaining, I'm not convinced that the first VfD was irretrievable.

• By my own well published standards I would have had to exclude Jamesgibbon (talk · contribs) (less than a month of editing and altogether far too keen an interest in VfD) but most administrators probably would not.

• Unsinkable (talk · contribs) was more blatant, another newcomer with only two edits ever made to an article and lots of VfD edits. I would have excluded him and I think many administrators would also have done so.

• I would probably have ignored Poorman (talk · contribs), although this isn't clear cut because on the face of it he does seem to have made good faith edits on the article in an effort to resolve conflict. I still think the risk of his being a sock of someone whose vote was already counted would be high because he only had a couple of dozen edits at that point, and he clearly knew his way around Wikipedia so was probably not a true newcomer.

• JamesBurns (talk · contribs) is an intriguing case. That account seldom ever edits articles, and most of its edits are on VfD or in articlespace to add VfD tags. I suspect that it could be a role account. I sometimes count its votes, and sometimes not. I'd be inclined against where there was other evidence of sock puppeting on a particular VfD discussion.

• Friday (talk · contribs) would have been excluded as too new by my standards. In a less controversial VfD I might count votes by such relatively new editors, but here where there is clear evidence of sock puppetry by some editors I prefer to adopt a uniform standard.

• Blu Aardvark (talk · contribs) would have been excluded by me as a newcomer with few edits, a suspected sock puppet.

• Davilla (talk · contribs) would have been excluded by me as a newcomer with few edits, a suspected sock puppet.

• Mikefar (talk · contribs) authored the original article. I might have been inclined to count his vote to keep for that reason alone, even though his account was quite new. Most other administrators might discount the vote for precisely the reason that he was the author; I take the opposite view, I respect an author prepared to defend his work. I misattributed to him a statement that he restored, originally made by Melissadolbeer. I would have excluded Mikefar as too new and a suspected sock puppet.

There were some other probable socks that didn't cast a vote but merely made all kinds of silly allegations.

There was also a lot of silly edit warring but from the point of view of the closer this shouldn't matter at all. Each individual edit is in the history and it full effects can be seen. By examining the votes of the non-excluded editors one could arrive at a decision on whether a consensus existed on the disposition of the article. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 16:20, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Related personal attacks

Get lost -Ril-. Just for once, can we have a debate on an issue, that doesn't become a discussion about you. That's what went wrong last time - and it poisoned things - and I suspect caused some to vote diffrently in response. For the record, I am not calling Mel's actions into question here - he was misled by selective editing of the talk page (although I do think the protect should be removed - and redirect re-instated, pending further discussion). --Doc (?) 14:45, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

From one sock to another

(cur) (last) 19:37, 14 July 2005 -Ril- (→From one sock to another)

(cur) (last) 19:08, 14 July 2005 Doc glasgow (→From one sock to another - OK, but ....)

(cur) (last) 18:52, 14 July 2005 -Ril- (→From one sock to another)

(cur) (last) 18:49, 14 July 2005 -Ril- (→From one sock to another)

(cur) (last) 18:45, 14 July 2005 -Ril- (→From one sock to another)

(cur) (last) 18:29, 14 July 2005 Doc glasgow (→From one sock to another - BTW)

(cur) (last) 17:40, 14 July 2005 -Ril- (→My username)

(cur) (last) 17:39, 14 July 2005 -Ril- (→My username)

(cur) (last) 17:36, 14 July 2005 Doc glasgow (From one sock to another)

(cur) (last) 17:35, 14 July 2005 John Barleycorn (My username)

--Mikefar 06:09, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Is it possible to find out if the following are Sock Puppets?

• 81.156.176.160 (talk • contribs)
• -Ril- (talk • contribs)
• 81.156.177.21 (talk • contribs)
• Doc glasgow (talk • contribs)
• DreamGuy (talk • contribs)
• Garrett (talk • [[Special:Contributions/#Garrett^contribs)
• goethean (talk • contribs)
• The Rev of Bru (talk • contribs)
• The Wife of -Ril- (talk • contribs).
• RonaldTaril (contribs)

In any event they are beating me to a bloody pulp! (see Authentic Matthew)

I have never used a Sock Puppet and I feel I am being bullied by the Ril Group. The Ril group's VfD failed,but that does not stop them from removing the article. --Melissadolbeer 04:51, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, give me a break. I don't like Ril either, but to claim all of these unconnected established users are sockpuppets without an iota of proof is tantamount to severe troling. And I think to suggest these people are sockpuppets of Ril is quite insulting to them Dmcdevit·t 05:25, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Are you sure they are all unconnected?--Melissadolbeer 05:48, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Melissadolbeer, your accusations are really quite bizzare, I have to say. Even if I had never encountered Doc glasgow, DreamGuy, or Garrett's edits before, a quick look at Authentic Matthew and its VfDs shows these to be very different editors. The burden of proof is on the accuser. Do you have any diff or edit link that could even reasonably hint at these users accounts are being operated by the same person? Ril would have to be quite a clever and sophisticated troll to have so many disputes and ill will with his own sockpuppets. Given your behavior, I would be more likely to believe that you are a sockpuppet of Ril than DreamGuy or Master Thief Garrett. Func( t, c, @, ) 09:24, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

-Ril-'s personality is sort of known by now, and he admitted to having several socks. Here are ones believed to be -Ril-:

• 81.77.0.25
• 81.156.176.160
• The Wife of -Ril- (talk • contribs).
• RonaldTaril (contribs)
• User:-RonTaril-

--Noitall 05:45, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

I would add Doc as their writing style and spelling are the same! --Mikefar 06:23, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, there are so many things that make "Doc" look like -Ril-, mostly based on interests, location and User page, without any of the bad characteristics. But on balance, at present, I think not, because:

1. no Wikilawyering
2. began before all -Ril-'s troubles, and made quite a few edits
3. no 3RRs
4. no real edit wars or stalking
5. no reverts with statement "POV" or misleading reasons

It is certainly possible that Ril had fun and sacrificed one of his socks and wants to carefully live on under the radar as a user, but I think it too difficult for him. He is so quick to do the above actions, that I do not think he can keep it out of his system. Also, the articles of interest and other Admin items do not totally match up. I may change my mind if the real Ril pops out, but right now on balance I have to say no. --Noitall 06:57, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Good points and some other thing don't add up, but did you check their user page histories. Could they play at good puppet/bad puppet? What about

• 81.156.177.21 (talk • contribs) ?

Ril Abuse

Melissa has been stocked by Ril and his friends for quite some time. They have told lie after lie about her and she is very upset! Melissa simply did not say the things they said she did! Indeed she has been the victum of one lie after another. Ril and Doc have acted badly.

I do accuse Ril of telling lies, trolling, abuse of process, being a bully and wrongfully using sockpuppets. Here is some of the testimony against Ril to support my serious accusations (see User talk:-Ril-/ban. The Uninvited Co., Inc. for full details)

I have reviewed your edits [34] [35] [36] where you have added inlined, sexually charged images to the "WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency. I find these edits to be in bad faith, and consider them to be vandalism indistinguishable from a type we see all too often. While the images may be relevant to the subject, the captions you used, the fact that they were inlined rather than linked, the fact that you pursued a sterile edit war to be sure that they remained on the page, and your lack of other participation in the page all speak to the fact that this was a mere act of vandalism rather than an attempt at reasoned discussion.

Based on this vandalism, and your substantial prior history of problems with the community 1, 2, [3], I am making your block indefinite pending the outcome of the arbitration proceeding now underway and pending any further discussion by the community, who may ban users at its discretion.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:29, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Excerpts

• It is long overdue...but be careful as all procedures need to be followed...--MONGO 04:28, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

• I support this. I feel that -Ril- was trolling. Note how he added a reference to Ouze Merham in this edit. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:05, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• No problems from me over the ban. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 07:43, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• When you get to a point where you can't possibly understand a user's actions except in the context of trolling and disruption, I think it's safe to assume that's what they are. Ask yourself, "Why would someone be doing this?" And if the only answer that satisfies your question is "Trolling" or "Vandalism", it's time to ban them. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 02:56, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

• It is quite obvious that -Ril- (Lir?) does not have the civility that is so important for Wikipedia to work. I have seen nothing but disruption. Even if he has made valuable contributions, his behaviour is liable to alienate other valuable and more civil contributors.--Wiglaf 07:27, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

• all I've ever seen from -Ril- is trolling and tounge-in-cheek wikilawyering. The decision to block may have been bold, but I agree with it. People should not be expected to put up with this sort of behaviour, and the arbcom still gets to have the last word. dab (ᛏ) 13:13, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, he is a troll. For instance, he has wasted a lot of people's time on nominating articles for deletion only to make people upset. As soon as you remark that the vfd was unnecessary, he accuses you of personal attacks. A serious problem user, and I strongly support a ban.--Wiglaf 13:44, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
• Well done, Uninvited. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:14, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

• I concur. -Ril- does have a good number of very productive edits under his belt. He also has, over the course of the past several months especially, developed an attitude regarding other users whom he apparently holds in lesser esteem, with extreme contempt—a view that exudes from far too many of his Talk, User_talk, etc. comments, and his edsums of late are notably less than exemplary. It's unfortunate that we might lose someone with such obvious analytical talents, and wideranging interests, but something obviously has to change. This isn't -Ril-pedia, after all. (déjà vu!) Tomer ^TALK 20:11, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

• Well done, UninvitedCompany, any other user would have been blocked for at least 24-48hours for that, Ril has a long history of disruption on a number of levels, and the Arbitration case should not accidentally provide him with some kind of immunity. -Splash 21:09, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• -Ril- has started sockpuppeting. His latest appears to be as RonaldTaril (contribs).--Wiglaf 21:23, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• My only interaction with him was to nominate one of his nonsense categories for deletion (Category:Wikipedia:Suspected sockpuppets of Jesus). In general, his actions were very disruptive and made it extremely difficult to assume good faith. I support this block. Carbonite | Talk 11:46, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

• Speaking objectively, the vandalism of Ril's user page was an effective method of achieving discord. Erwin Walsh

I just noticed this RFC lodged by -Ril- against the admin who blocked -Ril-. This brings into question the validity of a ban due to a conflict of interest. It is hard to imagine how UC has remained impartial when there have been prior incidents. Erwin Walsh

Actually, the community response to the RFC -Ril- lodged against me was so positive and heartwarming that, if anything, I think I should like to thank him for it. I now have another of these from User:Wikinerd, leading me to believe that someday I may have a collection of them. Kind of like barnstars, but different. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:29, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

• see User talk:-Ril-/ban. The Uninvited Co., Inc. for Much much more!--Mikefar 04:36, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Good Will Authentic Matthew

With Ril blocked and some good will from Doc (I plan to follow his good example) we are working things out. --Melissadolbeer 07:29, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Willy on wheels again

We received another attack by this vandal now. Be on the lookout, because he usually comes in waves of two, three or four. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:39, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

OH MY GOD. We need a technical fix for this yesterday. ~~ N (t/c) 14:11, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the option of "delete and move" when there is a page in the way is really doing more harm than good. I think it should be disabled. It's not like there is a huge difficulty in deleting things "by hand" when we need to make a normal move and there is something in the way, and it is awfully easy to make an accidental deletion when doing a mass reversion like here. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:14, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

See response below. -- Curps 20:48, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Willie on Wheiels (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) still hasn't been reverted or blocked. ~~ N (t/c) 14:28, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Blocked indefinitely. I haven't got time to clean up after him, unfortunately. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:36, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Bandalism in Brogress (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), now. This is an emergency. Might the developers disable all page moves? ~~ N (t/c) 14:41, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Keep on wheelin... (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) blocked after just one move, I happened to refresh the move log at the right moment. Thryduulf 15:03, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

• As a temporary solution, would it be possible to get Jamesday or Brion Vibber to put a stringent limit on page moves? Restricting it to all accounts created before august 1st, for instance, should be easy to code. That should give us some breathing space. Radiant_>|< 15:25, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
• Anything would help. Is it just me, or is he coming back more and more frequently now? I think this is the third day in a row he's been around, when previously he'd stay away for a week or more between incarnations. Meelar (talk) 15:29, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
• I think he knows we're vulnerable, and keeps coming back because he enjoys the chaos he causes. I can almost hear his idiot laughter. We need, at the very least, a page move throttle--one or two per minute for either new accounts or non-admins. Antandrus (talk) 15:33, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

And now Thou shalt not have any gods before Willy on Wheels (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Dmcdevit·t 15:50, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

• Even worse when servers are slow. Meelar (talk) 16:13, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

now would be a good time to contact his ISP, find out who he is and sue the crap out of him and/or go over to his house and call him names or pour coffee over his computer. dab (ᛏ) 16:20, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Seconded, can't we find his IP and contact his ISP? Or trace it and hack him? Or have him beaten to a pulp in an alley? ~~ N (t/c) 16:25, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

wow, that's a paradigm shift indeed. I'm willing to bet the Britannica never considered hiring thugs and ruffians to protect their integrity :p dab (ᛏ) 16:32, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I think I think it's safe to say that the Britannica never met Willy. We should introduce them to each other :) -- grm_wnr Esc 16:37, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

It's people like Willy that burned down the Library of Alexandria. I think an appropriate punishment would be: find out when he's out, then hire a team of movers to move everything in his house to an unnamed warehouse in a distant city. Oh, leave behind a couple of car tires and tricycle wheels. Antandrus (talk) 16:43, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

No, not an unnamed warehouse, but one called Willy's house on wheels! Dmcdevit·t 16:57, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Given the nature of the vandalism, a better real-world version would involve sending each item from his house to a different city. We would leave a polite note behind whenever we remove an item: "Your stereo is no longer at this location. It has been moved to Vancouver." "Your blender is no longer at this location. It has been moved to Tokyo." "Your car is no longer at this location. It has been moved to Atlantis." TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:14, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

'Teen broken on wheel with Wikipedia logo branded on chest. Wikimedia denies involvement, pointing to their "NPA" policy.' dab (ᛏ) 18:42, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, what could we do if we do know a persistent vandal's real world identity? We happen to know all about the "Stop Drinking Soda" vandal, even his employer. Dmcdevit·t 17:02, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Willy blocks enacted today alone:

• 13:20, 19 August 2005 Sjakkalle blocked "User:So two Willys walk into a bar..." with an expiry time of indefinite (WoW)
• 13:40, 19 August 2005 Sjakkalle blocked "User:Willypedia - The Free Encyclopedia" with an expiry time of indefinite (Willy on Wheels)
• 14:06, 19 August 2005 Matt Crypto blocked "User:Ring ring ring ring Willyphone!" with an expiry time of indefinite
• 14:27, 19 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:Willybot" with an expiry time of indefinite
• 14:33, 19 August 2005 TenOfAllTrades blocked "User:Willie on Wheiels" with an expiry time of indefinite (Willy on Wheels sock)
• 14:38, 19 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:Bandalism in Brogress" with an expiry time of indefinite
• 15:00, 19 August 2005 Thryduulf blocked "User:Keep on wheelin..." with an expiry time of indefinite (willy)
• 15:20, 19 August 2005 Ahoerstemeier blocked "User:WOWOWOW" with an expiry time of indefinite (willy on wheels)
• 15:35, 19 August 2005 Antandrus blocked "User:Thou shalt not have any gods before Willy on Wheels" with an expiry time of indefinite (asdf)

What was that about waves of two, three or four? -- Francs2000 | Talk 16:56, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I find the deafening silence from the developers extremely annoying. Not even a request for suggestions. Not even a "we're working on it". Though I should ask, has anyone specifically contacted them? Perhaps they don't read this daily. If they aren't going to do anything right away, then they could at least tell us his IP range so we can block him, AOL and all. --Golbez 19:03, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure they don't read this page unless somebody calls their attention to it. Trying IRC is probably the best place to reach them. --Michael Snow 19:10, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Then considering the amount of complaining we do about Willy on IRC, they must know. --Golbez 19:18, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Special:Newusers and Wikipedia:NU patrol -- things we need. Heck, we wouldn't even nessesarily need a 'special page', if Recent Changes would show us something like:

16:17 User Willy on Soda has joined Wikipedia. (Talk | block)

Func( t, c, @, ) 20:22, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Sjakkale,

It's easy to catch such accidental deletions after the fact, though. Just search through the Delete log listings for "Deleted to make way for move" entries (there's not too many of them). Some of these are valid non-Willy-related moves, and some are cases of two simultaneous page reverts by different admins, which leave the article redirecting to itself and the old history deleted. This is easily fixed by deleting the article and selectively restoring the pre-Willy revisions. It's just a matter of remembering to do this after a Willy attack; the actual effort is very small. -- Curps 20:48, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

There was something odd, as someone has already pointed out. Willie on Wheiels (talk · contribs) ran from 13:03 to 13:05, but was not blocked until 14:29. Apparently this script stopped of its own accord, after 61 moves... or did the developers put in a throttle feature after all? I think this sort of "stopping of its own accord" has happened before as well. -- Curps 21:26, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I think it has been determined that WoW does not actually use a script. Rather he loads as many pages as possible in a tabbed browser, sets them all up to be moved, and then goes through them as quickly as possible hitting enter. This limits him to about 50 moves at one time. It is likely that an account is abandoned after each barrage, even if it is not blocked. This is also why the page moves always come in waves, with each taking about twenty minutes for him to set up. - SimonP 21:48, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Firefox allows you 33 tabs open and acesserble in one browser window. As a test I was able to have set up and ready to go those 33 tabs in 4 minutes flat no problem first try. That could probably be extended by another minute by forceing people to fill in the reason box.Geni 01:01, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

His latest sockpuppet User:Vandalism script in VB.NET certainly does seem to promise to change that. It's disturbing that low-tech methods could cause us so much trouble already. -- Curps 01:11, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

User:Coqsportif

I've blocked Coqsportif (talk · contribs) indefinitely for trolling, disruption, and WP:POINT. If anyone disagrees, feel free to unblock, but he's had every opportunity to reform and yet nothing changes: his entire contribs list is either WP:POINT or outraged protestations of innocence. For complaints about him, see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive11#User:Coqsportif and Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive11#Something_needs_to_be_done_about_User:Coqsportif.. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:36, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Mississippi

I am not sure this is the correct place on the noticeboard, but Mississippi has been vandalized several times today by an anon vandal. It had been listed as protected, but the vandal was able to vandalize it, and I could revert it back, so it obviously wasn't protected. Salsb 20:52, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

• User:209.194.117.111 added the {{protected}} template in this edit but the article was never listed in the protection log. Perhaps this is an admin who forgot to log in...? - Thatdog 21:04, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Looks more like a well-meaning-but-sadly-mistaken newbie; admins must be logged in to protect pages or use any of the other gadgets on their Swiss Army mops. - jredmond 21:24, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

The vandal has been blocked. Gamaliel 21:07, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

The Mississippi vandal is the same as the Luxembourg vandal. Same IP range (63.19.xxx.xxx) and same style. Really exceptionally persistent. Antandrus (talk) 05:41, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

User:Wiffle0rz

Only contributions seem to be prank or borderline articles. [37] Wyss 02:38, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

VfD debacle(s)

Now that we have had at least two controversial deletion debates over pages in the project namespace (the "Decency project" thing, and the "Wikiblower" thing), can we have a discussion of what can and cannot be VfD'd? Both VfD's have caused a great deal of conflict over whether VfD has "jurisdiction" over the project namespace, and there doesn't seem to be a clear answer. The deletion policy offers "flexibility" to userspace and projectspace; some have argued this means project pages shouldn't be VfD'd, and others argue it means they should. Is this something that we can settle in a rational manner, or should we just lock Jimbo in a closet somewhere until he agrees to decide the point once-and-for-all? -- Essjay · Talk 07:24, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

it is part of a debate that is apparently necessary, never mind if it takes place on vfd, vp, or talk, and if people want to jump at each others' throats over differences, they will do it no matter where. But certainly, this is not the point of vfd. debates over the appropriateness of user projects should not be mingled with debates over notability of content. The many "npov" and "is not censored for minors" votes on the decency thing show that having the debate on vfd leads to confusion. Vfd is broken, and we need to look for solutions. We cannot solve all problems with one bold strike, because the consensus system is too inert for that. The way to go is to separate the problems, and address them independently. The first step will be to separate debates over the WP/User namespaces from article Vfds. Why is Ifd and Vfd separate (both dealing with content issues) while Vfd is unhappily mixed with community issues? To reduce instruction creep, my suggestion would be to add a new section to rfc, for discussing problematic pages in WP/User namespace. The most important thing is to disentangle these debates from disputes of article content and notability. dab (ᛏ) 08:40, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Can we say that VfDs can't be VfD'd? Speedy delete tags, however, should be allowed as per normal rules. violet/riga (t) 11:37, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, a VfD that itself gets successfully VfD'd was certainly not going to succeed anyway. But I agree that having VfD votes on VfD pages would tend to introduce confusion, would destroy valuable voting records, and wouldn't serve any point. No matter what happens with the rest of this discussion, I think it's clear that any voting/dispute resolution page that is normally archived after completion should not be subject to a VfD, only speedies for obvious spam/nonsense cases. Aquillion 21:43, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I realize that may sound like a contradiction in terms, but we have to have something to point to that says "you can't do that." When someone wants to insert POV into an article, we point to NPOV. When someone makes a personal attack, we point to WP:NPA. We need to be able to decide whether or not we believe it is appropriate to make policy and/or destroy policy through VfD. As it stands now, there is no determination. Some pages may be VfD'd (Wikiblower & Decency, for example) and any attempt to close them early as inappropriate use of VfD is shouted down. I noticed that NPOV was put up for deltion however, and it was quickly attacked as an inappropriate use. This makes no sense! The two convenient examples, Wikiblower & Decency, are loaded examples, so I am going to move into the hypothetical: If a given policy proposal A can be rejected by listing it on VfD rather than going through the established proceedure for developing policy, then every policy must be subject to VfD. If NPOV cannot be overturned by taking it to VfD, then no policy should be subject to VfD. There needs to be an absolute standard by which we say "You cannot destroy a policy you dislike simply by taking it to VfD" or "Anything that is on this site, regardless of it's standing as an official policy, a decree of Jimbo, whatever, can be overturned by a VfD decision." Without an absolute standard, we are stuck in a place where some VfD's are considered no-brainers to close (i.e. the proposed deletion of NPOV) while others are a source of controversey, costernation, and the departure of valued contributors. I'm beginning to think this is one of those instances where we need an official word from Jimbo. -- Essjay · Talk 12:39, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

1. "[S]hould we just lock Jimbo in a closet somewhere until he agrees to decide the point once-and-for-all?" As he has participated and voted in at least one of the examples you mention, I take that to be a tacit acceptance that it's a valid VfD.
2. So far as I'm aware (I don't know the Wikiblower case, and it throws up nothing on search), neither of your examples involved policy; this slide from "project page" to "policy" is one of the features of this debate, and it should be guarded against. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:07, 20 August 2005 (UTC) --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:07, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

1. True, he did, but as an "ordinary editor" with the specific caveat that his actions were not to be seen as official in any way.
2. The Wikiblower was a policy proposal; the "proposer" maintains that it was good faith, others mantain that it was not. (I will not make any judgement on whether it was or not.) Nonetheless, rather than being voted down via the policy proposal proceedure, it was VfD'd, and considering that it was giving me a migrane, I stopped watching it about two days in, so I don't know what eventually became of it. My question, however, is not "were these two examples legit VfD's," but rather, "is it acceptible to use VfD on the project namespace" (a.k.a. Wikipedia:). I've seen a number of answers to that question here, in IRC, and on the mailing list, and they all conflict; the only conclusion I can draw is that the only way this is going to be settled is by a quotable pronouncement from on high. -- Essjay · Talk 15:12, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

You are looking for Wikipedia:Wikiblower protection which survived its VFD and was promptly defeated in policy voting by an overwhleming majority. It is also notable in that the proposer of the policy tried to VFD the VFD. Dragons flight 04:46, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

I don't see much wrong with Wikipedia: space VfDs. In the particular examples cited, and in a couple of others, the proposal got considerably more oxygen from VfD than they ever would have done otherwise. Contentious oxygen, but that's not particularly important. The only downside to a straight-off VfD is that it is effectively a poll without prior discussion. But the Decency VfD got more than a little discussion: discussion that I speculate might not have been nearly so wide-ranging had it simply been left alone. Importantly, we should not immunize Wikipedia: space agains VfDs as that would give the trolls immunity to put whatever they liked there. It's easy to avoid the CSDs (and the only likely one is patent nonsense anyway), and we'd be unable to remove the most stupid pages without a full blown vote on it....which might as well be done in VfD. The same applies to removing {{proposal}} tagged pages from VfD - anyone can stick a tag on anything. As it is, we get a bit of a flap every so often about a proposal page — most of the time there is no problem, and we shouldn't knee-jerk a response. -Splash 17:54, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

And btw, I just reverted this diff which seems more than a little premature to me: whichever way we go, we haven't got that far yet. -Splash 17:57, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

A summary

↔ Several distinct issues are intertwined:

• It is absolutely unacceptable and contrary to The Wiki Way that any true policy proposal be subject to VfD. The primary location for debate on the proposal is the proposal's talk page. The fine point, not to be overlooked, is that VfD leads with voting: debate is secondary; and that it tends, at one extreme, to push a failed proposal into the deleted pages table, which is both opaque and (in the case of a contentious proposal) inefficient.

• Some pages created within Wikipediaspace are not policy proposals. These fall into several broad categories:

1. WikiProjects and Processes: Functional pages intended to coordinate the activities of a subgroup of the Community. These may well act to create policy proposals; however, their entire premise is that they are not themselves policy -- proposed, failed, or accepted. From time to time, pure process and subcommunity content may become laden with policy proposals; these should be periodically extracted and moved to distinct policy proposal pages. A WikiProject or Process page should never assert itself as Policy of any kind.

2. Information pages: Some pages do not direct editors or set boundaries of right action (except in trivial fashion), but merely provide factual information. In some cases, they would be better moved to article mainspace; in others, they are so specific to the Project that this would be inappropriate. The Help namespace is the logical place for these; but that has become the target of mirroring from Meta. Until a new namespace is created for Info, these pages remain in Wikipediaspace.

3. Individual opinions: By definition, these are not factual, and poor candidates for Info namespace, not to mention mainspace. By definition, they do not attempt to control or codify right action, therefore they are not policy proposals. They should simply be moved instanter to userspace.

Please note that a judgement call is not invited here. Unwise policy proposal is still a policy proposal. I define here a category of page in which policy is not proposed, because the actions of editors within the Community are not spoken to. For example, "Dethrone King Bush in 2006" is a proposal for action, but not within the Community, therefore it is not a policy proposal (3 above). "Seventeen Wikipedians were born in 1938" is (may be) factual, but not eligible for mainspace (2 above). "The love of BMWs is the root of all evil" is opinion, and does not call for any action (3 above).

4. Vandalism and patent nonsense: About which more than enough has been written; shoot on sight.

5. Debate and discussion: Threaded, signed, opinionated debate belongs on Talk -- whichever talk page is most relevant to the matter under discussion. It should be removed from the "front" side to the "back" side of pages as it accumulates.

• Obviously, this is a great muddle, and multifaceted source of contention. I have been mulling Wikipedia:Infospace and Policyspace for a long, long time, and I think I am finally able to write the proposal. The demand that these namespaces be provided by the development team, however, is quite beyond my reach.

In conclusion I urge all admins to observe these distinctions and take certain specific actions:

• Oppose VfD scope creep. To remove contentious policy proposals from VfD is itself a disruptive act, but regardless of the outcome of such invalid process, take no action to delete a policy proposal -- ever. Allow consensus to form in opposition to foolish and evil policy, and allow that consensus to stand, visible to all.

• Oppose VfD scope creep. Humans organize; it is what we do. Few social movements are so dangerous and lack sufficient motivation that we both must deny a forum to a given subcommunity and hope to gain by doing so; highly motivated groups will merely reorganize out of sight. Rather, it is to the advantage of opponents of such subgroups that members identify themselves clearly. Take no action to delete such project, process, and party pages. Indeed, these are the only pages that truly belong in Wikipedia space.

• Head them off at the pass. Take immediate action on certain pages before they fall into the clutches of VfD. Move opinions to userspace; shoot patent nonsense on sight.

• Support Infospace and Policyspace just as soon as I get around to writing it. (Please don't laugh. It's time for lunch, I just woke up, I'm already ready for my nap, and my backlog would crush Atlas.) When the proposal matures, urge the development team to implement the trivial change needed.

• Sort stuff out. It is less glorious than grand oratory, but of infinitely greater service to the Project, to move pages from where they don't belong to where they do. Policy proposals to Policyspace, information to Infospace, opinion to Userspace, talk to Talkspace. The machinery of Wikipedia itself, the wheels and cogs, processes, parties and noticeboards, move to Wikipediaspace.

Above and before all, defend the Wiki Way against all comers. If we should lose the process of policy formation to the VfD gang, we lose all. — Xiong熊talk* 19:21, 2005 August 20 (UTC)

I agree with much of what you say, and strongly agree that we should never delete policy proposals made in good faith (and the benefit of the doubt should be given in all but the most bad faith cases). However, I disagree with your second contention that we shouldn't VFD bad WikiProjects. Having a WikiProject is a way to organize and create something for the betterment of the project. Ignoring really nasty WikiProjects gives the appearance of tacit approval, which can mislead users and give outsider a false impression of what this encyclopedia is about. I am inclined to be quite permissive about what is allowed, but at some point we have to be prepared to draw a line. For example, a theoretical project called "Skinheads for Putting Niggers in their Place" is clearly not okay. Absent a better way, I think using VFD is probably the best (albeit very crappy) way of deciding what projects the community is willing to tolerate and what projects are too blatantly deterimental to be allowed to exist. Maybe such people will go elsewhere to do what they are doing, but we don't have to help them by giving them space and advertising, and making it look like what they are doing might be okay even in cases where the community massively disapproves. Dragons flight 05:15, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Unlike policy proposals, Wikiprojects just get together and they can work right away. No voting, no cosensus building. Hell, it could be just a one man or two man team and they could do a Wikiproject. Plus, if the Wikiprojects' main goal is to introduce POV, disrupt Wikipedia or circumvent current policy, we should have the ability to get rid of these pages as fast as we can. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 05:18, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, I still disagree fundamentally with the premise at the top of the summary. The wikiway, if such a thing there is, lets anyone do what they like with a page. That includes nominating it for deletion. Life's tough sometimes. That said however, there's a lof of food for thought in the summary.-Splash 23:18, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

• Okay, here goes.
  1. Like any namespace, Wikipedia namespace contains some amount of junk - so a page in Wikipedia namespace is not automatically immune to being VFD'ed.
  2. VFD'ing an existing policy page or process page (which includes Wikiprojects) is not a good way of modifying said policy or process, and borders on WP:POINT. Such nominations should be speedily unlisted. This includes attempting to VFD a VFD debate.
  3. VFD'ing a proposed policy or guideline, or a non-functioning Wikiproject, well, that depends. If it's a serious proposal, it should be discussed rather than deleted. If the proposal itself is disruptive, silly or nonsensical, it can safely be deleted.
  4. It should be pointed out that "Wikiblower protection" fell in the latter category when nominated, but it was rewritten early during the VFD to look like a serious proposal (which was nevertheless almost unanimously rejected)
  5. What I just wrote is precisely what already happens. Wikispace pages are sometimes VFD'ed, and get consensus to keep if useful, or consensus to delete if nonsensical. We do not need the instruction creep of immunizing a namespace from deletion on principle.
• Radiant_>|< 08:46, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

One very serious weakness of our Community is that it contains such a high proportion of technicians. Our Project is a service to humans, not to machines. I should very much like to hear more debate rational, and not merely logical.

• Why question a reasonable statement by postulating an absurd limit case? Anything can be broken if you lean on it hard enough. We are men; our works are corrupt and approximate.

The outstanding recent examples of attempts to subvert the Wiki Way are Wikipedians for Decency and Infobox Standardization. I don't agree with either the latter proposal or the agenda of the former organization. However, neither resemble in any realistic way Niggers against Stoopid Skinheads.

There must remain in this Community a place for intelligent discrimination and subjective, human judgement. If you are unwilling to apply your soul to your work, please, step aside. We can build an unlimited number of machines to follow explicit and inflexible rules.

• VfD is a terrible way to decide anything; if it is the "best" way, then we are very lazy people, or have closed minds. Instead, I think VfD simply serves the purposes of many who have agendas that they could never force through openly.

Many proposals with merit do not appeal to the masses. We do not require immediate acclamation in order to permit a proposal to develop. VfD must never be allowed to promote evil agendas by systematic elimination of their negatives.

• "POV" is a clumsy acronym that attempts to attach a stigma to judgement and personal opinion -- among other things. The correct word is "biased", if you insist on a negative connotation. I resist the implication that it is wrong to feel, to have a point of view of any kind. You would reduce us all to mere machine parts.

Every WikiProject has an agenda. It is naive to imagine that any human endeavor can be free from bias. NPOV is not an achievable state. It is a laudable goal, and every effort must be made to ensure that our article content does not serve a narrow agenda. But a WikiProject is not an article page. If we permit humans to do the human thing, and group as they will, then yes, they will advance agendas.

When bad men combine, good men must congregate. I see nothing in that text to suggest that good men must invade the combination of bad men, beat them with axe handles, and burn down their shacks. We gain more than we lose, by tolerating the intolerant; we lose more than we gain, by imitating them.

Let us not, in the fashion that a technical education seems to drive us to again and again, ruthlessly eliminate every human dimension from our work.

• If you disagree fundamentally with the Wiki Way, then you are in the wrong Project. If you question its existence, then again, you are in the wrong Community. Take away this, and nothing is left but a bunch of butt-headed technicians yelling at each other.

The Wiki Way does not say, "you can do whatever you like". That is anarchy and libertine excess. Consensus is at the heart of the Wiki Way, and few indeed are those who still retain the illusion that VfD is a process of forming or expressing consensus -- rather, VfD is a hack, a messy patch applied when consensus fails to jell quickly enough to satisfy some vocal Community members.

It's true, I put the Wiki Way into short words; but I most certainly did not compose it. The Wiki Way was elaborated long before I had ever heard of a wiki. I suggest that if you disagree with Wikipedia:The Wiki Way, you may wish to spend considerable time seeking it elsewhere. You will find I did not distort its spirit. My personal inclination is towards a much less plastic method of policy formation. But I have finally come to realize that the Wiki Way, like all human methods, is a compromise between extremes; and for every view on "my" side, that policy formation should be more organized; there is a view on the "other", that there should be no policy at all. If I can live with it, so can you.

• The gentleman with the deletionist and revisionist agenda has carried out a disturbing program of overly-bold policy amendment, apparently enjoying unlimited time in which to put his stamp on page after page of policy and process. Absent consensus, this comes perilously close to abuse of power.

I'm sure I may be excused if I repeat what has been said before: Admins exercise no special authority. Sysop privileges are extended to certain users for the specific purpose of carrying out the will of the Community at large, as consensus expresses itself. Ideally, admins have no personal agenda at all; absent that, it is incumbent upon them to express such agendas as little as possible and remain neutral in their actions.

• It is clever, but wrong, to say that anything I have written in this section constitutes instruction creep -- on several grounds:

• The words "instruction creep", like so many in-group expressions, substitute an emotional hot-button phrase for reasoned, neutral evaluation. A less heated statement would be "We don't need a new rule."

• Stripped of stigma, the statement itself may now be challenged. Our Community has grown; our social network has become denser. Naturally, we do need new rules. We should indeed question the need for each, and introduce them with care; it is easier to introduce a rule or process than to remove it -- witness VfD. But we cannot operate a tractor-trailer over an infrastructure intended for a tricycle. New rules must be built from time to time.

• That said, none of my words are novel. The Wiki Way is core; VfD is the "instruction creep", the hack pasted onto the rulebook. At one time, it appeared that this new method of dealing with contentious issues might prove effective and acceptable to the Community. Now, we see there are serious weaknesses in this.

Application of VfD to policy is scope creep -- extension of a limited process to engulf something quite beyond its compass. Opposing creep is not creep itself! It is the return of sanity to a process that has gotten way out of control.

— Xiong熊talk* 15:33, 2005 August 23 (UTC)

IPA

Something weird has happened to the display of International Phonetic Alphabet characters. I can't work out what, can anyone else figure it out?--nixie 11:33, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

It appears something was done server-side. I have alerted the developers on IRC, TimSterling is looking into it. Func( t, c, @, ) 14:10, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

problem report: Macedonia

62.162.193.198 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), has performed childish vandalism (adding grafiti) on Macedonia and broke repeatedly the 3RR, sometimes using various IPs. He/She has been warned on 19:45, 19 August 2005 and on 13:17, 20 August 2005 (UTC), but didn't stop vandalism.

If you check this diff you will see the following: "I have about 11000 different IP addresses that I can use only on one server. Not to mention the other servers." You can verify that User:62.162.193.198 used various IP's here.

A combination of silly (creating joke) sneaky (making other sensible-appearing substitutions and typos) and childish vandalism (blanking sections). You can check wiki's history for more IPs.

User:62.162.193.198 may already have an account (blocked or active) and that is the main thing to be checked by an admin.

I must also note that some of Anonymous' edits are violating the WP policy of no personal attacks, and harassing other contributors. quote from here: "Vandalism is what you are doing for the last 5 days. You have been warned for 100 times, but that didn't change a thing. Nationalistic Greeks are blind and death."

I believe this problem needs attention by admins. Thank you very much. MATIA 16:28, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Message to the administrators by the "vandal":

I do not have a account here on Wikipedia because I see that having one will not change anything on this issue. I know couple of my friends that spend a lot of time on Wikipedia trying to show how much Wikipedia is wrong and what all is done from the Greek users to stop any edits we want to make on the Macedonia related pages.

Just check the nationalities of the users who edit the Macedonia-related pages. 85% of them are Greek and 10% Bulgarian.

It seems that anyone can even proof that the earth is in a form of a triangle, if he/she manages to outnumber the opponents of that theory on Wikipedia.

This seems the only way how to fight against the assimilation, ignorance and denial from Wikipedia (and its users) towards the Macedonian people.

P.S. Little mistake in spelling. I did not mean "death". I ment "deaf". They do not want to hear anyone's oppinion except theirs. Macedonians have been complaining for a very long time about the assimilative and offensive text towards them regarding Macedonia issues on Wikipedia. But, it seems that noone even cares. 62.162.194.4 15:01, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

The supposedly anonymous user keeps disrupting Wikipedia to make his point. Please, have an admin check the diff history of Macedonia and Talk:Macedonia. Thank you very much. MATIA 19:56, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

User:RyanCahn

RyanCahn (talk · contribs) has a long history of creating bogus articles, and has been blocked repeatedly for it. His latest two that I know of are The Fox and the Hound Steal Money and Boo Party. He refused to admit that they were hoaxes, and continued to edit them to try to convince us that they were real articles. I blocked him for 24 hours for it. He sent me the following email:

Do not block me when I come back to here. I can't help myself editing fake pages. I just want fake pages to exist, not destroyed! Please stop blocking me when I come back to here.

I told him that if, when he comes back again, he continues to create bogus articles, I will block him permanently. If he has some sort of psychological problem which requires him to create fictional articles, we don't want him here. He has indicated on his talk page that he will go to Commons to create fiction there. Zoe 20:55, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

I gave the admins at the Commons a heads up about the user, and from what I was told, he was blocked there too. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 21:36, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

On his Talk page on Commons, he's indicated that he will be moving on to Wiktionary. Zoe 21:52, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Do they not know about http://uncyclopedia.org ??? Func( t, c, @, ) 23:59, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Don't know, don't care, as long as he is gone from our projects, I dxo not care where he ends up. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 00:43, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

The wiktionary is one of our projects, and one of our less closely watched ones at that. No, what this man needs is the Uncyclopedia. It's a perfect fit for him, and he'd probably end up being an admin there. --Ardonik.talk()^* 04:07, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

I think he's just a kid. Zoe 04:31, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

posible but while waiting for him to grow up may be a long term stratergy the short term is still problimaticle.Geni 09:53, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I guess he could indulge himself in his own user space, provided he doesn't start writing whole volumes there. Everyking 04:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, I blocked his anon incarnation 67.160.58.132 (talk • contribs) for another week, and he sent me email basically like the one Zoe quotes above. "I just feel to edit fake pages," etc. I wonder if he believes that he is making his imagined games real by creating Wikipedia articles? FreplySpang (talk) 18:35, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Stokes County, North Carolina (63.19.*.* vandal)

Could somebody with knowledge of North Carolina take a look at Stokes County, North Carolina and Category:Stokes County, North Carolina? A repeatedly-reverted vandal has managed to add several place names and made other edits to the county article which are suspicious. Zoe 04:31, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

It looks to me that this is the same as the Luxembourg/Mississippi vandal (above) -- 63.19.xxx.xxx. We have been having a persistent vandal who has been inserting fictitious places in north central North Carolina and southern and southwestern Virginia; probably all of the vandal's "contributions" have been deleted, and I don't remember the IP, but it looks quite likely that it might be the same one. Be extremely suspicious of anything from a 63.19. IP. Antandrus (talk) 04:43, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

YES, it is the same one. Look in my admin log [38]; look at the pages I deleted on 23 July. This person has been a long term problem. I notice that Curps has been range-blocking him today for an hour at a time. Antandrus (talk) 05:04, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

He's back yet again. This one has a truly staggering amount of vandalism to his credit: to anyone reading this, please be alert to any edit from a 63.19 IP. I hate doing long range-blocks but this guy is a problem. Some of his vandalism is quite subtle. Antandrus (talk) 02:18, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I even found and fixed some vandalism on meta by googling "croboy 63.19" (he likes "croboys" and they show up in his "work" a lot). Antandrus (talk) 02:26, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

As mentioned in Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/North Flinty Knoll, nearly all of the several dozen entries in Category:Stokes County, North Carolina do seem to be verifiably real, with the possible exception of Double, North Carolina. However, in a county of only 45,000 inhabitants, it is very unlikely that most of these places are notable. An official map published by Stokes County shows only four towns and a state park: Danbury, King, Germanton, Walnut Cove and Hanging Rock State Park. A VfD might be in order for the rest, but it would be an inclusionism/deletionism issue rather than a hoax issue (as for so many of this anon's other contributions). -- Curps 02:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Revert warring anon

User:83.109.179.167 is being a real problem, engaging in POV edit warring and making accusations. Could an uninvolved admin look at this and consider a block? Everyking 07:38, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment. I have applied a 3 hour block for now for multiple 3RRs. This is probably a somewhat dynamic IP considering today's the first time he's been active, despite not being a new user (references to User:Wik). Incidentally, he committed 3RR vio in incessantly trying to add a Wik sockpuppet accusation to User talk:Rivarez. There seems to be a larger, historical conflict going on here (Rivarez has only been around for 2 days as well). Dmcdevit·t 07:53, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

More WikiPolicemen

Recently User:WikiPoliceman was blocked and all his subpages deleted for being a disruptive role account and troll and using his pages to create some kind of fantasy police department (while making vague references to a cabal). Reminds me of the Bank of Wikipedia fiasco. And now there is User:OfficerDibble who is definitely a reincarnation, with similar subpages, and a new one about The Disturbing Case of User WikiPoliceman. (More shades of the bank.) And I just learned that, as he says, Zoe is my "power-crazed cohort." I was about to go to bed, anyone want to take a look at this? Dmcdevit·t 08:21, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Cohort? Horde, maybe. This person is blocked and all of their nonsense deleted and the earth salted. Zoe 08:58, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

I put the template for a user who is permanently blocked onto the OfficerDibble's user page and that earned me a visit from an anon 84.68.8.33 who signed a contribution to my talk page as OfficerDibble. I've consequently blocked that IP address for 24 hours. We probably won't be getting problems with that being an ISP cache as it is the first time that IP address has made a contribution to Wikipedia. David Newton 14:46, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I've found and blocked another anon sockpuppet. I also think that TheBadge is a sockpuppet as well. So far that account has uploaded a modified version of the barnstar with the same graphic used by Wikipoliceman at the centre, altered the barnstars template to include that, and made good post to the user talk of the person who welcomed them to Wikipedia. I'm not going to block straight away, but I suspect we have another sockpuppet with this user. David Newton 15:06, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

And ironically, some anon just awarded me and a few other people the barnstar for excellence in "censorship." This new one TheBadge is surely the same guy, even usingthe same little happy face with bolding. Dmcdevit·t 18:15, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

I went ahead and blocked him, just incase someone else did not. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 05:19, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

VfD vandal

An anon keeps deleting all of User:Cyrius's VfD votes (and even proudly proclaims the fact on their edit summaries). As soon as they are blocked, they relog in with a different ID and continue the deletions, no matter how many times they are reverted. Probably the same person who kept vandalizing Cyrius's Talk page until it was protected. Zoe 08:52, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

One of the ids had been listed by someone as a possible sockpuppet of a :RyanCahn:

1. 63.116.190.10 (talk · contribs)

If so, then perhaps the others are? It would make sense, given his :comment, and the nature of the Vfds being vandalized.

Others ids that seem to involve the same activity:

• 67.177.151.38 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 67.177.151.38 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 68.199.55.48 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 216.120.184.2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 63.116.190.10 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 67.98.188.102 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 61.14.18.242 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 68.120.235.145 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)+
• 24.1.135.225 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)+

--Mysidia (talk) 09:36, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

And more recently than the above (16:11, 21 August 2005 (UTC)):

• 209.25.147.34 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 69.57.138.6 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)+
• 209.121.91.81 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)+,65.89.46.150 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)+
• 85.137.213.103 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)+, 59.120.56.66 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 38.119.66.205 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 130.91.181.69 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 12.42.48.204 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 193.0.101.132 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 18.60.3.22 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 159.61.240.138 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 61.14.18.242 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

-

• 202.229.17.176 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)+, 202.175.181.228 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)+
• 210.3.4.114 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 210.17.210.134 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 203.125.88.227 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 210.3.4.114 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

(This vandal is very persistent.. it is a little difficult to even keep track of which ids he has used already) --Mysidia (talk) 16:30, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

A WHOIS on his IP's show them as being all over the place, perhaps someone with better knowledge of networking then I can explain if this is some sort of anonomyzer or something else. -Loren 09:55, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I would agree, except for 'cscn.casecorp.com', 'equityloans.paxed.com', 'XRAYF.MED.UPENN.EDU', and one or two others that don't look like they could be running a proxy intentionally or by zombie. Perhaps someone is IP spoofing? It'd be a lot of effort to go to for vandalism, though, and then most of the IPs would probably be random and so not associate with any hostname at all. ~~ N (t/c) 16:45, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

At least some of the addresses are showing up in open proxy system/public open proxies lists, try googling 63.93.27.9 and see [39]. Perhaps some of these addresses are really open HTTP, Socks proxies, web servers with proxying through HTTP CONNECT --Mysidia (talk) 17:32, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I was just looking at that myself. All but 2 of them are listed in RBLs. I'm assuming they're all proxies though.

• 202.229.17.176
• 68.199.55.48
• 216.120.184.2
• 63.116.190.10 Could not find listing
• 67.98.188.102
• 61.14.18.242
• 68.120.235.145
• 24.1.135.225
• 209.25.147.34
• 69.57.138.6
• 209.121.91.81
• 65.89.46.150
• 85.137.213.103
• 59.120.56.66 Could not find listing, googling makes it look like open proxy used for spamming
• 38.119.66.205
• 130.91.181.69
• 193.0.101.132
• 18.60.3.22
• 159.61.240.138
• 61.14.18.242
• 202.229.17.176
• 202.175.181.228
• 210.3.4.114
• 210.17.210.134
• 203.125.88.227

--BMIComp (talk, HOWS MY DRIVING) 18:27, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Permaban all? ~~ N (t/c) 18:30, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

yes but make sure whoever does it has an active email address.Geni 18:41, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi there. I'm hoping something reasonably effective be done about this fellow soon. He is relentless [40]. Incidentally, our defending the pages he is vandalizing very likely simply encourages him. I've been reverting his vandalism because it seems the best of the available options; however, is it possible to simply leave some pages in the vandalized state, where that wouldn't really impact the page? I realize this is a strange question, but the Administrator who closes the VfD above, for example, will surely know of Cyrius' vote, and can simply return it to its original state just prior to closing it (and perhaps locking it then). Right now we're feeding him — it must be an amusing game for the fellow.—Encephalon | ^ζ  18:42:36, 2005-08-21 (UTC)

Hrm.. compare recent edit, [41] to the vfd, to the vandalism history for 2004 Atlantic hurricane season (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I doubt this is just a coincidence, but it is also hard to tell if it is still the same vandal or not... --Mysidia (talk) 19:01, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

You're probably right, Mysidia. The following rather gives the game away, doesn't it [42]?

1. (cur) (last) 2005-08-20 19:47:17 84.12.94.37 (Fuck you, Cyrius.)
2. (cur) (last) 2005-08-20 19:43:49 Bmicomp m (Reverted edits by 84.12.94.37 to last version by Smoddy)
3. (cur) (last) 2005-08-20 19:42:22 84.12.94.37
4. (cur) (last) 2005-08-20 15:11:02 Smoddy m (Reverted edits by 67.98.188.2 to last version by Func)
5. (cur) (last) 2005-08-20 14:57:00 67.98.188.2
6. (cur) (last) 2005-08-20 14:03:09 Func m (Reverted edits by 86.35.6.34 to last version by Smoddy)
7. (cur) (last) 2005-08-20 13:31:34 86.35.6.34
8. (cur) (last) 2005-08-18 21:55:19 Smoddy m (Reverted edits by 159.238.106.166 to last version by Wayward)
9. (cur) (last) 2005-08-18 21:53:05 159.238.106.166 (Fuck you Cyrius.)

Incidentally, have any ban decisions been made for the above IPs?—Encephalon | ^ζ  19:16:08, 2005-08-21 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, I'm pretty sure the above vandal is the one who was vandalising 2000 Golden Raspberry Awards 2001 Golden Raspberry Awards 2002 Golden Raspberry Awards 2004 Golden Raspberry Awards, amongst other articles. -- BMIComp (talk, HOWS MY DRIVING) 20:19, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

And anything else I've touched. If I've touched it and its being vandalized right now, it's probably him. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

BC/E

The BC/E battle has started again on Zoroastrianism. No idea what to do if anything.Geni 09:58, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

A minor breach that will soon be resolved, I wouldn't worry about it, jguk 10:05, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

User:Agriculture vs. User:Gorgonzilla

These two are right back at each other's throats again. They're making quite a scene at the VfD for Wikipedians for Decency, but it hasn't spilled over onto any articles. I'm going to leave them both talk page messages warning them to cool it. If that fails, should someone give them an involuntary time-out, or should we leave them be? Fernando Rizo T/C 22:43, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

The language again implies we've butted heads before. For what it's worth I apologize, I came back to test the waters, and let myself get trolled again. I should have expected it, as that is what Wikipedia is about afterall, trolls, trolling, and vandalism. Either way, don't bother yourself too much on my account, I was just showing myself the way out anyway. There is nothing of value on Wikipedia. Agriculture 22:54, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Then, if we have nothing of value, why are you still here? Your always welcomed to leave at anytime. No one is forcing you to edit here. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 05:13, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Bill Brady Bandit

An annonymous editor who constantly removes an entry Bill Brady in the Notable Londoners section on London, Ontario article. There has been a lengthy discussion on that articles talk page concerning this. He claims to have "dug in for battle" and is ready to fight to the death. Ridiculous! The anon changes his IP address to evade blocks put on him. Please do what you can to keep this guy under scrutiny. Hamster Sandwich 22:51, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

A WHOIS search on the IPs used by the anon vandal show that all of the IPs are listed under:

• Bell Canada BELLNEXXIA-10 (NET-65-92-0-0-1)

65.92.0.0 - 65.95.255.255

Nexxia HSE (Toronto) HSETOR0411-CA (NET-65-95-0-0-1)

65.95.0.0 - 65.95.127.255

• Bell Canada BELLNEXXIA-11 (NET-70-48-0-0-1)

70.48.0.0 - 70.52.255.255

Sympatico HSE SYMB102704-CA (NET-70-49-96-0-1)

70.49.96.0 - 70.49.99.255

Would someone care to comment on whether it would be feasible to block all IPs in this range?-Loren 23:02, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I've protected the article on London, Ontario (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Protection from anonymous edits would have been sufficient, but that feature doesn't exist yet. --MarkSweep 23:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Those IP addresses appear to be part of a pool that are assigned to Bell DSL subscribers in the Toronto area. You're going to upset a lot of Canadian editors if you block the entire range. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:03, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Page protection by an admin himself just involved in that warring

User:Jtdirl protected the page Dublin statues and their nicknames 23:43 21 August 2005, as shown by diff [43] just after being himself the revert-warring one party as shown by those hours' edit history: [44] Reported by: 217.140.193.123 06:42, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

He has vprotected it. We're allowed to protect against attacks by vandals or sockpuppets being used by banned users, even if we've edited the article. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:49, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Where is the evidence that it was vandalism or sockpuppet. Anyone could allege in an edit war that another party is vandal or sockpuppet, such allegation necessarily not being true but a weapon in warring. 217.140.193.123 07:09, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

• Check the recent [45] and [46] before that. The anon is reinserting a dubious claim originally added by User:ClemMcGann . Neither of them left a very useful edit summary. If the user isn't a sockpuppet they would've at least explained their edit. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:21, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

From the talk pages, and from information given by User:Kiand, etc, I would not regard that sentence even highly dubious. Anyway, even if it is somehow dubious, it is still dispute of contents. I have believed that no one is entitled to regard something as vandalism, if it is not totally obvious that it is vandalism. Things that are "dubious" are by such definition not vandalism, and cannot be treated in that way. I think Jtdirl has again shown such habits that earned him an admonishment from the ArbCom. Perhaps Jtdirl should be admonished again, but at least his protections should be unprontected. 217.140.193.123 09:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

The source cited was a blog (which is not acceptable as a WP source), and it didn't even say what the edit claimed it did. This looks like vandalism by a series of sockpuppets. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:28, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Slimvirgin, please kindly do not make possibly unfounded conclusions, in a similar manner as Jtdirl has made. Vandalism has strict definition, simple vandalism. 217.140.193.123 09:48, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

When an unknown user makes a contentious edit, where the source is a blog, and the blog doesn't even say what the edit says, and then sockpuppets and anon IPs turn up to revert to that edit, it's no surprise that we regard it as vandalism. If you want the edit to stick, find a credible source. Otherwise, stop posting to this page and to the 3RR page. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:53, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

"Auld bitch" indeed...I'm with Jtdirl and Slimvirgin on this one–in fact, I've probably done the same thing myself at one time or another. Go find a real source, brush up on your civility, and register a user name. Mackensen (talk) 10:10, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I am looking at the citation removed by User:Jrdirl in his edit of 23:43, 21 August 2005. It's not a blog at all, but a link to an online copy of Ulysses by James Joyce.

And as for the Prooshians and the Hanoverians, says Joe, haven't we had enough of those sausageeating bastards on the throne from George the elector down to the German lad and the flatulent old bitch that's dead?

It's not a very good citation for the claim, but it's difficult to see it as vandalism, however hard I squint. This looks to me like a content dispute. I don't like page protects anyway so I'll unprotect and discuss on the talk page. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 13:57, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

User:203.173.156.2 at Jedi census phenomenon

This guy's being disruptive and trolling, but has so far been just on the other side of outright vandalism. Just read the talk page and page histories. He has a reasonable pretense of good faith but 'm not buying it, and we shouldn't have to deal with this sort of thing. — Phil Welch 07:17, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Replied on Philwelch's talk page. --Ngb 10:23, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

CARM editors (was "#One user, many IPs)

I'd previously mentioned this/these editor/s. She/They have obtained three usernames.

• 68.44.255.244 (talk · contribs) / Peggy Sue (talk · contribs)
• Interested Party (talk · contribs)
• Tom S 48 (talk · contribs)
• 130.94.121.241 (talk · contribs)
• 130.94.121.242 (talk · contribs)
• 130.94.121.244 (talk · contribs)
• 198.65.167.211 (talk · contribs)
• 207.150.135.28 (talk · contribs)
• 207.67.144.53 (talk · contribs)
• 207.67.144.58 (talk · contribs)
• 207.67.144.61 (talk · contribs)

Matt Slick (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), John W. Ratcliff (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), AARM (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and Azerbaijan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Expansion theory (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).

The group says they are a husband, wife, and sister-in-law, some of whom use the same pool of IPs and who have used each other's accounts.[47] They want to have their full three reverts apiece. Based on a series of tirades and legal threats,[48] their assumed good faith is low. My patience with these folks is wearing thin, and I'd be quite happy if another admin could help sort things out, or give me guidance on how to proceed. (I appreciate the helpful involvement of user:Irmgard). Thanks, -Willmcw 10:50, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Comment by user:Irmgard: From what I have seen, there is a real edit war raging - on one side these users (the CARM party) and on the other side the AARM party, consisting of User:Hyperbole user:FanofJR and some IPs. Both sides seem to be new to Wikipedia (and not very conversant with the rules here) and both sides definitely have their (incompatible) bias which they want represented in Wikipedia and both blame the other side on being biased (looks to me like this is the carrying of an ongoing flame war (moderators vs. disgruntled suspended users) into the new field wikipedia). The sockpuppet accusation regarding the CARM supporters comes from the AARM party, so it should be looked at with caution. In my view, none of the parties should be singled out to be blamed for the edit war - they both do their best to contribute (to the edit war ;-) ). Also I have my general doubts, if arguments and references regarding a flame war because of some users were banned from a moderated notice board is noteworthy enough to be documented in Wikipedia. -Irmgard 12:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I have one comment. user:FanofJR is certainly not from AARM; he showed up on the John W. Ratcliff page to write POV-negative comments about Ratcliff in what he apparently perceived as "revenge" for the inclusion of controversy on the Matt Slick page - and seems to have since vanished. I think that particular problem has been resolved, and the John W. Ratcliff page is acceptably POV-neutral. (It could use a run-through for clarity, but I'm almost afraid to edit it lest I touch off another edit war). --Hyperbole 07:31, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

While agreeing with Irmgard, it seems to me that we have a fundamental problem with the topics being covered. In my opinion, CARM is notable; Ratcliff is notable (as the designer of 688 Attack Sub and some lesser games); AARM is only notable in the context of CARM and Ratcliff (that is, it could be mentioned in either or both articles but does not merit its own article on its own importance); Slick is only notable in the context of CARM (notwithstanding being the author/publisher of a single book related to CARM). I advocate merging AARM and Slick into CARM with appropriate redirects. This needs to be done in one exercise and it would be best if the edit warriors understood the reasoning. Unfortunately, they all seem to have their fingers in their ears while they voice their own opinions. Perhaps we should let it burn out and tidy it up later. —Theo (Talk) 13:55, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Theo, I wrote the original draft of Matt Slick as a collaboration with Falphin (who posts to, and supports, CARM), and I'm sure that we would be more than amenable to spending some time merging AARM and Matt Slick into CARM. I further believe that we could do a good and professional job of it. I would say that the extent of my bias here is that I feel that the CARM page should and must reflect the existence of criticism of CARM in order to be NPOV. I feel that criticism of CARM is significant, and that the fact that the CARM administration is here forcefully and threateningly trying to whitewash all mention of that criticism really should be indicative of some of the reasons that the criticism arose in the first place. I have no intention of writing an angry, anti-CARM page; all I want is for readers to understand that opposition to this organization exists, and to be pointed to that opposition, should they want to read further on the subject. To me, it's a freedom of information issue, and one that should be able to easily be written in an NPOV style. Does this really have to be so difficult? --Hyperbole 07:31, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with merging Slick and CARM. AARM should be mentioned as an aside in Ratcliff and CARM, but really as an aside only - it does not contribute to the noteworthyness of Ratcliff or CARM. An exodus of some two hundred users (out of over five thousand) of a moderated forum to a playground where they like the rules or opinions better including their critique on the former forum moderators is no more noteworthy as the arguments in the divorce case of Joe and Jane Doe (though Joe and Jane might, at the time of the divorce, see their arguments as important enough for the New York Times frontpage). --Irmgard 17:06, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, a merger might help. These folks are all barely notable, except to each other. I think that the problem with the CARM users is greater than Irmgard concludes, but it may be easier to change the articles than to change them. User:Hyperbole has generally acted correctly, but I'm not sure who else is on the "AARM side". Thanks for the input. -Willmcw 00:01, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

-Ril- evading block

There is a genuine attempt (however unlikely) to sort out Authentic Matthew in a civilized manner. This is being thwarted by the 'support' I am receiving from indefinitely blocked user -Ril-, acting under a number of accounts and now an IP. He has trolled on this issue before. Prompt admin action would be welcome.--Doc (?) 11:52, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

-Ril- is now using another sock to try to close the poll Wikipedia:Bible verses. He initiated the poll - and it's a fair enough poll - and due to be closed today. Could some disinterested party perhaps close and summarise. I'd do it mayself except a) I'm not an admin b) I have voted and commented on the poll. --Doc (?) 12:56, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

• I voted in the poll as well, but it should be obvious from looking at it that all notable verses should have their own articles (38 votes for that option; 8 votes to options for more articles, 11 to options for less) and a small minority of verses, i.e. hundreds of them, are notable (15 votes for that option; 6 to options for more articles, 8 to options for less). The issue of whether there should be a WikiBible project is split, but that's not really relevant - if people want such a project, let them start it. Radiant_>|< 13:38, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Agree with your summary - but can someone deal with -Ril-, please --Doc (?) 13:57, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

• I've permablocked -ril- (talk · contribs). If you spot any other socks, please put them back in the drawer tell us here. Radiant_>|< 14:47, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

User:Doogle777

Is there any way to prevent this user (Doogle777 (talk · contribs)) from spamming my e-mail account, apart from removing my e-mail adress from the preferences? He has sent me four emails with content the same as on his talkpage. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:13, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

• BTW, I am very deletionist with my e-mail. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
• I have a hunch that Doogle777 might be the same person who I blocked five times today. 86.130.203.181 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 82.60.48.178 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 83.233.27.60 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 213.239.212.45 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 81.169.180.180 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:19, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

you might be able to do something with your spam filter.Geni 15:12, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Edit wrongly marked as vandalism

After editing the article about the SLMM I found that the edit had been reverted and the revert had been named "rv vandalism".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLMM

I believe this is wrong, as I corrected facts and deleted a statement that can not be proved, and that anyway does not belong to the article. The revert seems to be from the person that added the content first (only an IP address as author) and it seems to me that he is rather biased. I do not want to do any more reverts, so I hope a admin can look into the problem. Ulflarsen 16:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

You don't really need an administrator, just someone to point out the problems. Continuing to discuss the matter on the talk page should be enough for now. I have informed 203.217.57.218 about the proper steps to take in dispute resolution, which do not include reverting good-faith edits. JRM · Talk 16:31, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok - will try to engage the person that did the edits. I was however rather suspicious, since he seems to forward the arguments of the very hardline Sihalese - and as I said, I didnt want any edit war over it. That he marked my edit as vandalism did not enhance my trust in him/her. Ulflarsen 16:49, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Willy is back again today (so what else is new)

• FUCK DAMN CUNT BITCH HELL SHIT PUSSY (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

He's been hitting us weekdays, usually several times at least, so expect him back momentarily. And as a neat segue to the section above, "wrongly marked as vandalism," I got reported at Vandalism in Progress for moving his pages back. [49] Ha ha ha ha. All right, I need a vacation now. Antandrus (talk) 16:57, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

• It's definitely Willy on Wheels-style, all right. --Ixfd64 17:00, 2005 August 22 (UTC)