This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
A few months ago during the eventually unsuccessful Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Piotrus_3 you voted "oppose". I wonder if you'd like to discuss any concerns of yours, or if you would have any suggestions in the event I'd decide to run again (which I am not planning to do anytime soon, or perhaps at all, but in either case I believe I can only benefit from constructive critique). For a better sense of my work and activities around the project, I invite you to consider reviewing my userpage, my talk page archives (which are not redacted), to watchlist my talk page, or use edit analysis tools like Wikichecker, content.paragr, dewkin, xtools-pages or xtools-ec (which in theory should work as of late 2014...). I would be more than happy to talk about your concerns over the 2009 ArbCom case, or my understanding of WP:CANVASSING, or any other issues. By the way, in your extensive critique you mention I've used my admin tools to unblock Molobo; you are right I shouldn't have done so - but... this was in 2005; a year before the concept of a wheel war was defined for the first time on Wikipedia ([1]). I certainly admit I erred a number of times in the past decade, I have no problem apologizing for the mistakes of the past, and I'd love to hear if you have any concerns over my more recent edits. You are a respected member of the community, and I believe I could only benefit from your suggestions and advice (however harsh and frank they may be). Cheers, and belated Happy New Year, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here17:32, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
@Piotrus: After not much less than a year, I had no memory of your RfA, so I looked back at it, and re-read what I wrote. Frankly, I was astonished at the intensity of my criticisms of you. Did I really feel that strongly about the issues? Evidently I did. I started my comment in that RfA by saying "I have spent a long time studying this RfA, and looking at various pieces of history relating to Piotrus and to related issues", and I am certain that must have been true, or I would not have been in a position to write at such length. I do not intend to spend the same amount of time studying again the same things, to remind myself of why I wrote what I did, and determine whether I still see things in the same light, so I can't comment much about that. However, I have now looked at a 5% sample of the 271 edits you have made so far this year, and I did not see any problems with any of them. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:26, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for looking into that. Please let me know if you'd have any questions/concerns/suggestions in the future. As I noted, I may want to stand for RfA again one day, and I'd hope that I those concern about Wikipedia future, like yourself, would be able to help me became a productive admin. Helpful criticism, I believe, can only make me stronger. If you see anything to improve with my edits since the 2009 case, please don't hesitate to point it out to me. Cheers, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here11:40, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
The IP who has been reverting all of my edits returned again with a different address (see here) and I brought this to AIV as you suggested, although the first admin believed a warning was sufficient. They continued after the final warning, but for some reason User:Ronhjones felt this behavior was still acceptable and denied action on the second report at AIV. I'm coming to you since you know the IP's history, and they should be blocked after repeatedly being disruptive. Gloss01:19, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
@Gloss: I did not say their behaviour was acceptable - there were just two warnings for 178.192.218.32 and one small edit after the final warning, which was not wp:vandalism - not a great edit, maybe, but not vandalism. If you think it is a sock then do go to WP:SPI, where they are far more experienced in handing such cases. Ronhjones (Talk)16:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
@Ronhjones: That one small edit is still disruptive editing. Do you understand that all of their edits have been going through my contributions and reverting edits of mine for the sole reason of being disruptive? No, the edit after the "final warning" wasn't vandalism, but it was continued disruptive editing! Gloss17:29, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
@Gloss: Still only 2 warnings given, not the usual 4. Address never used before, could easily be a newbie. One should not bite the newbies. The banner at AIV says quite clearly "The user must have been given enough warnings to stop their disruptive behaviour." Ronhjones (Talk)21:37, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
@Ronhjones: I'm not sure if you're just not familiar enough with the situation or what, but if you read this thread you'll see that it is not a newbie. It is the same person as User talk:92.105.159.7 and User talk:178.199.182.16 who were both blocked for disruptively going through all of my edits and reverting them. As you'll see, neither of them were given a "usual 4" warnings. It's the same person, doing the same disruptive reverting. And your failure to think they deserve a block simply confuses me. Gloss21:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
@Gloss: If you submit to WP:AIV you get whatever admin happens to be around - I was around there for about an hour before I went off elsewhere, only retuning to your ping. Correct, I know absolutely nothing about this particular vandal, so I have to analyse the contributions of the single IP. I can't confirm/know what his past editing was possibly like, that would be better at WP:SPI. I left the report up at AIV, but it was soon taken down with no action by another admin. Ronhjones (Talk)00:38, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
@Gloss: It is largely anticipation of this kind of situatioon that led me to invite you to contact me directly, rather than just going to AIV. Unfortunately, though, this came at a time when because of illness I was scarcely doing any work on Wikipedia, which is why I didn't respond to your messages. I have now had a look at the editing history, and it is too late for there to be any point in blocking that IP address, as it has not edited for a while, and if the person edits again it will almost certainly be from another IP address.
I have myself often been in the situation that Ronhjones was in on this occasion: I see a report on an IP address which has only made a few edits, but there is a note saying something like "Same person that has received a block on multiple other IPs for this same issue". I usually have a quick look to see if I can see what other IP adressses have been involved, but unless I immediately see a closely related IP address that has recently made edits on exactly the same pages as the newly-reported one, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack, and I soon give up. Under that situation, unfortunately, the only possible thing for an admin to do is to treat the IP editor as a newby, as Ronhjones did. In cases like this, I suggest giving a little more information, such as at the least a list of previous IP addresses, or a link to a talk page discussion of the vandal. In this case, even that would not have been helpful enough, as even I, with some knowledge of the history of the case, took quite a long time to discover evidence that it was the same person, needing to search back through edits as far back as last November, and it is very unlikely that an administrator who had no prior knowledge would have ever got there. I know that when you edit the AIV page, there is a note saying "keep it short", but keeping it so short that there is not enough information for an admin to act on is taking it too far. The best, in my opinion, would have been to have given diffs for (say) three edits by the new IP address, together with diffs for corresponding edits by old IP addresses, and mention that the old ones had been blocked.
On this occasion, I would certainly have blocked the IP address had I been around, so please do let me know if the same problem occurs again, and probably I will respond more quickly: this was an exceptional situation, due, as I said above, to illness. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:57, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
@A.Minkowiski: I think it's a very good example of why I think it's usually fairly pointless blocking most school IP addresses for a short period. I have blocked for three years. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:31, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
I don't know why people do forget either to warn user's or reporting them immediately if there is something like pure vandalism. Since morning, I have seen bundles of vandals evading detection either they are not being warned or reported. But I am doing my best to warn, report and watch what do they do ...A.Minkowiski _Lets t@lk13:26, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes. Very often editors simply revert IP vandalism, without any warning or reporting, especially in cases where the IP address edits in bursts with gaps between. The result is that very often a single IP address can be the source of enormous amounts of time-wasting vandalism over the course of years, which could easily have been stopped quite early if only people would always warn or report. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:31, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
That's why I always have look at my watchlist for all the time along with warnings, reports page protection, deletion and other stuff you know. I actually fight against vandalism from starting, equally I try to make understand every user that "What Wikipedia is" and "What Wikipedia is not for". A.Minkowiski _Lets t@lk14:16, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
@OccultZone: I have had a quick look, and can't see any obvious evidence that it's the same person. You may like to tell me why you think so, but I probably won't be able to get back onto it for quite a while now, as I am out of time. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 17:13, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
You blocked my account for agreeing with someone, called me a "sock puppet", and dismissed any possibility you might be wrong. Well, I am back, and I would like to say if you had bothered to take the time to actually look at what I contributed instead of dismissing me off-hand, maybe you would not have made such an egregious error. However, I will not rush to judgement and condemn you as some sort of monster, or a "puppet" for someone else (I think that is called a "meat puppet"?), so I will be more than willing to accept your apology for taking such inappropriate actions against me whenever you are ready. Prodigy 16 (talk) 04:02, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
Your opinion, and you know what they say about opinions.... and timings of what? The fact that I happened to agree with someone too soon makes me automatically guilty? What an asinine proposition, coming from someone I was not even talking to. The jackassery abounds. Prodigy 16 (talk) 13:03, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
The IP was blocked at 1:38 on January 19, and during that time, your account sprung from what had essentially been a seven-month hiatus, beyond one userpage edit. And given that your actions since returning/language used matches the IPs that went around vandalizing Wikipedia when you were blocked... yeah, your explanations don't wash. Lukeno94(tell Luke off here)13:08, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
Regarding Snehil Sharma Article
Hello Sir, He is very famous choreographer and Spiritual philosopher in Chandigarh being no personal connection with him. I am having strong references for my contribution. As an Administrator, you must help me to improve this article.--Maleena2014 (talk) 18:10, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
(talk page stalker)@JamesBWatson: Do you think there's some puppetry going on here, of either the sock or meat variety? The contributors to this article have suspiciously similar editing habits and writing styles. The accounts were created only 8 hours apart. And one of them gave a barnstar to the user who appears to be the subject of the article! --Drm310 (talk) 18:32, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
@JamesBWatson:@Drm310: I don't know anything about barnstar, what are you talking about as I'm new here but because being a PR agent so I know the "Snehil Sharma" the personality and Everything specified on the Article is genuine. I even know that Snehil Sharma is directing "Tele Film" for social cause. So I'll contribute same when Press Trust of India will release the press release.--Maleena2014 (talk) 19:23, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
I have recreated the Wiki page of Nitesh Estates with the improved content in it. Nitesh Estates is a public listed company and hence its required that its Wikipedia page must exist. I request you to please go through this page and if you feel that still the changes are required in it then please do that and instead of removing the page please remove the unwanted content from this page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitesh_Estates
@Saniawilliams: The previous article was deleted because it was so promotional in tone that it seemed to be an advertisement. While your new version is not as bad as the original, it still manages to contain such language as, for example, "The group boasts ultra-modern, top-of-the-line buildings" and " a phenomenal growth fuelled by the resolute and dynamic leadership of its founding Managing Director, Nitesh Shetty". The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:12, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Nickst Spi
This user is evading scrutiny, which is why he left in the first place. Is it acceptable for him to make personal attacks on me from an IP address to avoid sanctions? He left because he was blocked for being disruptive, and I'm the one that filed the report. The modification of redirects was one of the disruptive traits that Nickst took up. This seems idiotic. I understand the desire for a clean start, but if he was doing that, he should not've started the behaviour that he was blocked for again, which is how I caught on to him. RGloucester — ☎02:43, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
@RGloucester: The answer to your question is no, of course it isn't acceptable for him to make personal attacks on me from an IP address to avoid sanctions. Can you point me to any personal attacks? If so, I'll consider whether any action should be taken. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:31, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
See this. This is an edit by the second IP, who made only two edits. His only other edit was to direct a user to an RM. Coincidentally, that RM was the one where the other IP modified a redirect, making it impossible to move the article back to the status quo title. I was able to get this fixed at RM/TR, but that's meant that the page has been deleted, and that I can't show you the IP's first edit. As I think administrators can see deleted content, the modification was of a deleted version of Buhas bus attack. A user moved Buhas bus attack unilaterally during an RM, to Volnovakha bus attack, and then the Nickst IP modified the redirect so that the bold move couldn't be reverted. RGloucester — ☎14:20, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
Why you protected page? censorship seems ... you have not noticed the ongoing discussion on the User talk:Cplakidas. Wikipedia is based on sources--87.17.107.33 (talk) 18:46, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
Oh, you mean Langobardia. I took the trouble to explain the reason on talk pages of two of the IP addresses you have used, User talk:79.19.99.123 and User talk:80.182.9.48, in the hope you would see at least one of them, but presumably you have missed them both by moving to yet further IP addresses. I suggest registering an account, as that way it will be much easier to keep track of messages to you, as well as other advantages in having an account. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:47, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
Democratic Confederalism
I have just found out that this article has been deleted, and I'm not sure why. If there was a problem with my quotes, let me know, and I will edit or remove them. The deletion of the article seems drastic and unnecessary, but hopefully your explanation will help to clarify the issue. Kind regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by LibComInt (talk • contribs) 02:40, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
There never has been an article titled Democratic Confederalism. I assume you mean the category page Category:Democratic Confederalism. If so, what more explanation do you need of why it was deleted, beyond what is given in the deletion log entry? There are three reasons listed there; I shall try to expan on them a little, in the hope they will become clearer to you.
It was not a category page, but rather a misplaced attempt to write an article. If that had been the only problem, however, I would have just moved it to Democratic Confederalism.
More problematic was the fact that it was clearly written to promote a point of view, and was not written from a neutral point of view, as required by Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia is not a medium for promoting or publicising opinions.
Most problematic of all was the fact that the text consisted very largely of direct copies of text from elsewhere, making it a copyright infringement. It is almost never acceptable to copy significant quantities of text from anywhere else into Wikipedia, and pages which largely consist of copyright-infringing content must not be allowed to stand, and are deleted immediately. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:59, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
@Binksternet: Oh, god, I just about remember this person. He/she was, as I remember, very persistent and stubborn, and very disruptive, but I don't remember any of the details. Since you have evidently recently put a lot of work into looking into the case, you may be able to point me to one or two places where I "interacted significantly with the guy", whether in talk pages, blocks, or whatever. If you can do so, I shall be grateful, as it will save me searching through loads of editing history to try to pick up where I left off. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:30, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
@Binksternet: OK, I've just had a look at your \Long-term abuse page, and I see you do mention asn occasion when I blocked a couple of ranges. I should have read the page before posting here. Sorry. However, if you do have any other useful information, please feel free to let me know. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:32, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes, by "significantly" I simply meant that you blocked two IP ranges for two years which is quite a lot. I did not see any evidence of you trying to reason with this person. Binksternet (talk) 20:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
This unblock request from the person follows a note from you explaining why long-term disruption resulted in a block. Note the unblock reference to how useless is the act of blocking one IP when there are so many other IPs available. I bet that was what made you block two ranges. Binksternet (talk) 20:41, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
@Binksternet: Yes, in fact when you posted that, I was just drafting a message to you mentioning that very unblock request, which in effect says "if you don't unblock me then I shall just keep evading the block." Fortunately, most blocked editors don't think that clearly. I also see my comment here, in which I expressed the view that the editor should have been blocked before. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to do much about this kind of disruptive editor. Blocking IP addresses helps to slow them down a little, but is not very effective as they just come back on another IP address. Protecting articles is not very effective, because they just move on to another article. However, I do find that in cases like this, if we can keep blocking, reverting, and protecting almost as fast as the editor can come up with new IP addresses and new articles to attack, there is a chance that they will eventually give up, and even if they don't, the temporary slowing down of their activity reduces the amount of damage. For that reason, please keep letting me know of new bits of editing from this person. Particularly useful will be information about either of the following: groups of similar IP addresses that are exclusively or mainly used by this person, and articles which have recently been attacked by this person from more than one IP address. I am going to have to go offline soon, so there won't be much I can do now, but I will try to come back to it when I get a chance. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:52, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
(Non-administrator comment) In my opinion, it's a bit meh. There are almost exactly 36 hours left in the 72-hour block, so there's no real point--the talk page, which should be used for unblock requests, won't be anyway in a block this short. Unless you're discussing an indef with no talk page access, to which I'dgiveatentativetodefiniteyes. Origamiteⓣⓒ08:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
@Cyphoidbomb:@Origamite: Yes, I quite see what Origamite means. In a way, it doesn't matter whether talk page access is removed or not, as the edits are silly and childish, but don't really do any harm, and the block will run out before long anyway. I am also inclined, unfortunately, to think that an editor who behaves like this will probably just carry on being silly when the block expires, and if so I will go for an indef-block, in which case whether he/she is allowed to mess around for the last day or so of the current block won't make a lot of difference. However, I also think that losing talk page access might just very slightly increase the chance of the editor getting the message "you know, you just aren't going to be allowed to carry on like this". Since removing talk page access certainly can't do any harm at all, as he/she clearly isn't going to use it constructively during the block, I am going to give it a go, on the very faint off-chance that it might help to get the message across. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:33, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
Here we see that an editor has used a particular IP address. By an amazing coincidence, that very IP address was blocked at a time when the same editor was wrongly blocked for block-evasion. What a truly strange thing: an IP address is blocked, during that block an editor is mistakenly thought to have been evading the block on that IP address, and is therefore quite unjustly blocked for block evasion. After the blocks have expired, that editor really does edit from that exact same IP address. (Unless, of course, someone can think of a more likely explanation...) The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:36, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
As I stated before on the pistol page, the IP you so vehemently want to attribute to me, is the IP for where I work, where I was told about the edits being done. I logged in (on an IP that is shared by about 37 people give or take depending on the day, including my friend who told me about it) to see, and observed that the page was locked. So I put in a request for an edit. Lordy lordy, I must be guilty. How dare I put in a request for an edit! I was trying to go about things the correct way, and all I have got for it is grief. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prodigy 16 (talk • contribs) 17:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
Sigh... Unfortunately I have about 2000 better things to do with my time than explain why that is totally implausible. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 17:28, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
whatever you want to think, the evidence of Lukeno94 following and harassing me is right there, I see you are unwilling to do anything about it, so further attempts to get you to act like a decent human will be fruitless. I will have to go with the assumption that you and Luke are either the same person, related, or just really close... Prodigy 16 (talk) 17:36, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
The talk page in pistol is being used by another user to attack me, I have asked several times to quit going off topic, and to stop the personal attacks as they are not relevant to the discussion, but the user refuses to stop. I do not know how to correctly do the warnings on peoples pages, or I would have done that also. Any diffrences we have aside, that is not acceptable behavior, and I can see by your history that you try to be fair. I apologise for any part I may have had in it, but at this point it needs to be ended, and removed. I will edit it down to the original statement to remove all the off topic bickering, but I do not know if it will just be reverted. Prodigy 16 (talk) 15:25, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
And the personal attacks continue, no matter where I go, he follows to harass me. and as predicted he reverted the page, probably hoping to lure me into reverting it back so he can say I was warring. Prodigy 16 (talk) 16:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
Firstly, this talk page has been on my watchlist for a very long time. Secondly, you had no right to remove my posts as you did... particularly as your opening statement contained as many "personal attacks" as I've used at any point. Also, stating "the irony of the above post is pretty strong" is not a personal attack. But by all means, carry on. This is amusing. Lukeno94(tell Luke off here)16:31, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
The original statement I made never mentioned you. I do have a glimmer of hope for you though for you since you felt guilty enough to name yourself as the perpetrator. Whether or not you have had this page on your watch list, to see that I made a comment, then to follow me here to post on what I said shows an unhealthy level of obsession, and is behavior fitting only a stalker. Please stop stalking me. Prodigy 16 (talk) 16:44, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
(talk page stalker)Prodigy 16, you need to look at your accusations of stalking. The two of you have only 5 pages in coomon in the encyclopedia. Luke's, Materialscientist's and this talk page. Also the Pistol talk page and Ford Fiesta (first generation). Luke edited on all the user talkpages before you registered this account and has only responded to your edits here and on his talk page. Since the Pistol talk page is where this all started that can be discounted. The final page, Ford Fiesta (first generation), Luke started and you obviously followed him there as you and him are the only two editors of the article. I see no evidence that Luke is stalking your edits but in one instance you appear to be following him. -- GBfan17:57, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
I don't know about the particular team, but I do see that the new article, unlike the old one, indicated that he has now played for a senior team that he apparently had not played for at the time of the deletion discussion, so I have restored the article. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 18:38, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
Disruptive user 120.144.196.178
Greetings!
I noticed the other day (Jan. 26) you blocked user 120.144.196.178 for 48 hours due to disruptive editing. They're at it again! Would you be able to block them again, or indefinitely?
@Garchy: Thanks for pointing this out to me. Block again, yes, but block indefinitely no, because there is a general consensus that IP addresses should never be blocked indefinitely. However, I have blocked for a month, which is somewhat longer than the time for which the IP address has been used for disruptive editing. Experience suggests that doing that stands a reasonably good chance of persuading the editor to stop, but if it doesn't then I will be willing to consider blocking for longer. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 16:47, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks!
That's the most reasonable post i've seen yet. Thank you for that! It has indeed helped me see another perspective and has allowed me to see your point of view. As with you there are points I could probably argue but here you've simply demonstrated a desire to share understanding (and did so successfully) which is what this place is all about imo. It is appreciated!Lazord00d (talk) 13:34, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Vandalism report
Re: User:2001:e68:4429:3d3a:d5f7:69a3:bdb2:7f4f
I guess I should have made more note of the fact that the IP hopping vandal is the latest in a very long line of extraordinarily similar vandalism across a range of articles. --Falcadore (talk) 13:30, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
amongst others. His most recent efforts - the last one, appears to be creating a Malaysian remake of 1980s film Black Rain with a current Hollywood cast. Be aware though, he slips in a few genuine edits here and there, maybe as much as 50% of his posts. His frequent themes involve giving hollywood actors careers in drifting (Kristin Wiig has been a favourite target) or something obsiously silly. --Falcadore (talk) 14:12, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I don't have time to check this now. I shall try to find time to do so when I can, but it may not be for a few days. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:21, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
I came across the ANI discussion on Lynctekrua, and noticed that with this edit, the user posted a massive amount of javascript to their page. I have no idea what the script does, but with this user's history.... Anyway this could be a problem in the making, so I thought you should be advised. --OrduinDiscuss01:02, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
@Orduin: Thanks very much for letting me know. It looks to me very much like part of an attempt to hack into Wikipedia, and gain access to things such as passwords. That fits in very well with impressions other editors have had that Lynctekrua has been trying to hack into Wikipedia and get administrative powers. I have revision-deleted the edit, and if anything of the same sort happens again after the present block expires, I shall seriously consider blocking the editor indefinitely. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 15:38, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
@Origamite: I'm not sure about the first one, but the second one includes sysop functions, and clearly mentions blocking. It would probably be a good idea to delete both pages. --OrduinDiscuss04:06, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
@Orduin:@Origamite: I was fully intending to look at the editor's actions on returning from the block. Unfortunately, experience of the editor's attitude in the past led me to confidently expect him/her to both immediately start re-creating unsuitable script pages and also to immediately start defying his/her topic ban on AfCs. Sure enough, as soon as the block expired, he/she started rapidly doing both of those. Either of those would have led me to impose an immediate indefinite block, but another administrator beat me to it. What did Lynctekrua think would happen? That nobody would be checking his/her editing, and we wouldn't notice? Or that we would sit back and ignore such blatant and immediate defiance on such a large scale? Or did he/she intend to get blocked? Bewildering. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:14, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
Talk:Veritas Language Solutions
James, could you have a look at Diff of Talk:Veritas Language Solutions. This sounds like it could be the company CEO Sharon Stephens turning up here shouting "police" and "laywer". The company has folded. And there seems to be heated debates "out there" re unpaid salaries to translators. As far as I can tell no RS have picked up on the story. -- SamSing!00:08, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
@Sam Sailor: This seems to me quite problematic. Much of the controversial content is unsupported by reliable sources, and therefore certainly does not belong in the article. I am also unsure whether it even belongs on the talk page; certainly if, as suggested, it is libellous, then it doesn't. Also, both sides in the dispute are clearly from editors with conflicts of interest. I have posted a message to [User talk:SharonPV]], explaining about the "no legal threats policy", but trying to do so in as friendly a way as I can, as she may well be acting in perfectly good faith. Having thought about it, I think the whole talk page discussion does not really belong there, and I am considering removing it.
As for the suggestion of a "third-party-inline" tag, since the Gazette is an official public record from a government agency, I don't see it as really qualifying. However, a tag on the article for disputed content and possible non-neutral point of view would certainly be appropriate. As soon as I have posted this message, I shall consider whether to do those couple of things, but I have very little time available, so I won't be doing anything else about it just now. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:18, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
I wish we could just get on with our business but we are constantly fighting people who are attempting to Ruin Mrs Stephens. I can guarantee she has not done anything wrong but unfortunately we have a combination of disgruntled suppliers and ex-employees constantly attacking us. Please note that Planet Veritas has taken some of the supplier debt and is in the process of paying it in good faith. Various suppliers were contacted and have agreed to this. Any issues please contact me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theoneandonly77 (talk • contribs) 12:36, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
@Dougweller: Yes, it certainly looks like block evasion, so I have blocked the IP address, and semi-protected the article, both for a month. (Feel free to extend that time if you like.) However, I still don't see any evidence that it is an open proxy. In fact, the two IP addresses you mention geolocate to two places 28 miles apart by road, which is a small fraction of the distance from where I am to where my IP address geolocates to, so that the edits could actually be coming from the same place, and if they aren't then they are coming from places very close together. That is exactly what I would expect if it was one person editing from different computers in their neighbourhood, but it would be a truly remarkable coincidence if they were using open proxies and, out of all the proxies in the world, happened to come up with two so close together. If you have any evidence that it's an open proxy, then please do let me know, but I honestly don't see any. I have once again, having read your message, tried to connect to the proxy and failed, as I did on several occasions before when I tried. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 15:11, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
Actually, Huon, that was a mistake. The article had a speedy deletion tag as a copyright infringement (G12). I checked, and, like you, couldn't see any copyright problem. I did think, though, that the page was promotional, so I deleted it as promotion (G11). I intended to put the G11 deletion reason instead of the existing G12, but evidently by mistake I left the G12 in place too. When I read your message here, my first impulse was to correct the deletion rationale to G11 only, but having thought a bit more, I have decided that, since it's only a draft, it will be more helpful to allow a chance for it to be improved. I have therefore restored the page, and declined the G12 speedy deletion nomination. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:48, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
You blocked this guy for edit warring. His response has been to resume the war except that instead of adding the word "originally" all over the same article (Gray's Anatomy) he's now removing it and arguing consensus.andy (talk) 08:55, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
I came across your report at AIV so I have already blocked them. They obviously did not learn anything from the previous block which is a shame.--5 albert square (talk) 09:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
Well, 5 albert square, it's lucky for Bryce Carmony that you came along before I saw Andy's message here. 5 albert blocked for 72 hours; I would have blocked for longer. However, we'll see how it goes when this block expires. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 15:34, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
@5 albert square: More lenient than I would have been, but that's a judgement we each have to make, and I have no quarrel with you because your judgement was different from mine. Who's to say what is best? The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 16:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
Unbelievably he's at it again! He carried out the exact same edit here, 36 hours after the end of his previous block. See also his edit on the article's Talk page. Does this guy have a death wish? andy (talk) 22:29, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
... and I see he's requesting an unblock. I would have declined that immediately, but since I have blocked him once, perhaps another administrator can look at it. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:04, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
@Qxukhgiels: I have read your retirement statement. I wish I could say "nonsense, you are over-reacting, reconsider", but I'm afraid I understand all too well everything you said there. Well, I hope you succeed in your aim of spending your time "doing something much more productive". I shall do what you asked me to. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
Hello James, Could I please bring to your attention the activities of the above "editor". He/she is constantly inserting unsourced edits to various crime articles, notably Zodiac Killer and in spite of requests to either supply references, or answer comments from other editors, is edit warring. Could I leave you with this please? Regards, David, David J Johnson (talk) 18:14, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
@David J Johnson: By the time I found time to look into this, the editor was already blocked. However, feel free to contact me again if the trouble starts again when the block expires, and I will deal with it if I get there first! The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:18, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
User 302ET[14] reverted my edit on the Fahrenheit (2005 video game) page[15] even though I gave a good reason, the 1UP.com links can't be used as links anymore[16], it just says The webpage cannot be found. But because I didn't see a reason for a See Also section on the Sarah Bryant page[17], user 302ET is targeting my edits.68.75.19.153 (talk)
Thank you for going over my edits. I left you a message on my Talk Page — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mevina2 (talk • contribs) 02:54, 8 February 2015
@SLBedit: I have blocked the IP address, and also increased the length of the block on the previous one. However, I have little doubt that the editor will simply re-appear on another one. I have also told the editor that any edits he or she makes while evading blocks is likely to be reverted. In my experience, that is the one thing which has some chance of making a difference in cases like this: as long as they think that, no matter ho often they are blocked, the edits they do will stick, they will just keep on doing the same, whereas if they realise that everything they do while evading blocks will just be reverted, there is at least a chance they may eventually give up. However, experience indicates that if that happens, it will take a while, and a number of blocks and total reverts. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:42, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
@SLBedit: I don't see why not. It would be advisable to avoid getting into an edit war, but reverting edits once shouldn't be too problematic, provided you really are sure it is the same person. However, if you do revert, I certainly wouldn't use the default "revert" edit summary: I would give a few words explaining that you are reverting a block-evading editor. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:16, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
@George Ho: Yes, I agree. In fact, looking at the history of the article, I see no point in just doing so for a limited time, so I've done it indefinitely. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk)
rangeblock guy
I guess behind the harassing could be the same guy as this guy. Interestingly, a guy blocked off from editing MSC Cruises where a spammer was active (adding amongst other a list of tourist destinations for every ship). The Bannertalk14:35, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
The page of Ziffi.com was deleted by you, in regard of the same Iwould like to say that it is a company website which was set up in 2010 and have been funded recently as well. It is one of the coming startups and we thought that there is a need of Wiki page as well, it might have come across as promotion but it was not meant for the same. Anyhelp regarding the same would be highly appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.87.129.222 (talk) 07:15, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes, it did seem to be promotion. I'll check the new copy of it, and see whether it's suitable for inclusion. You say "we thought": who do you mean by "we"? The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:47, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Harley-Davidson Riders Club of Great Britain
Hi James. Re "Harley-Davidson Riders Club of Great Britain" article deleted by you on 30 Jan 2015. I suspect that this deletion was due to the actions of a vandal. The article might need editing but is an innocuous bit of information with no controversial aspects. Could this be undeleted so I could edit as nescessary?
JackoMiles — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackomiles (talk • contribs) 15:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
As far as I can tell the original article was a legitimate article but was renamed and moved possibly by the Blocked "creator" you mention. Indeed it is this character that I suspect of vandalism. As far as conflict of interest is concerned. I have detailed knowledge of the "Harley-Davidson Riders Club of Great Britain" but no financial interest. The organisation is a normal motorcycle owners club established in 1949.
Jack Miles — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackomiles (talk • contribs) 10:07, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
It's not legitimacy we look for, but notability, and it wasn't covered enough in reliable sources. If it had been vandalized, the person who put it up for deletion would have reverted the vandalism, page move or otherwise, instead. Origamiteⓣⓒ13:40, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
@Jackomiles: The fact that the article was created by a blocked editor evading a block would on its own have been sufficient reason for it to be deleted, but in any case the deletion discussion looked as though it was heading for deletion because of a lack of evidence of satisfying Wikipedia's notability guidelines. As for undeleting it, my answer is "no". If blocked or banned editors find that they can get away with evading their blocks, as the editing they do is kept anyway, then there is no disincentive for their block evasion. You evidently think you know what was in the article, as you have made comments above about its contents. How do you know what it contained? Also, you say that the article was renamed and moved. How did you know that? I didn't know it. Can you tell me where it was moved from, i.e. what its previous title was? The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:47, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Help with Italian-speaking user?
Returnnew (talk·contribs) is blocked, and is requesting an Italian-speaking user to make his unblock request to. I find him an obvious sock (see his pinging of Jackmcbarn, someone who he's never come across but who blocked the original account). Could you help? Origamiteⓣⓒ17:04, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
@Origamite: I am very out of practice at Italian, but I have offered to help the editor. Frankly, from what he/she has written in English, I doubt that using Italian will make any difference to his/her case, but I am willing to give it a chance. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:10, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes, after I deleted the file from English Wikipedia I realised there is another copy of it on Wikimedia commons. I don't know whether this file, or any of the other files uploaded to commons by the same editor would qualify for deletion there. (See commons::Special:Contributions/Oporishim.)
It seemed strange that you had deleted the picture, but it was still there. Another little oddity of WP
Yes, I concur. Their edits felt a little 'familiar', and the edit summaries were a little odd. I probably know them better as Android9 and 'Mayor' Mohan Bose.
@Pikachu2568: Personally, I wouldn't have bothered about the page blanking, but in view of the previous edit to the page by the same editor, it is clear that he or she is not going to be constructive, so I have done what you suggest. (By the way, it is usual to post new sections at the bottoms of talk pages. If you put them at the top, they may be overlooked, as that is not where they will be expected.) The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
@DoctorJoeE: Thanks for telling me. I blocked the last IP address in October for three months. I deliberately did not give a block notice, because I had decided that the editor had reached the stage where it would be better to apply revert, block, ignore. However, I have now blocked it for two years, and rolled back all of the edits from the IP address which had not been followed by edits by anyone else (which in fact means nearly all of the edits since the last block expired.) I have also posted a note to the IP talk page, saying that any future block-evading edits are likely to be reverted, as there is just a possibility that the realisation that nothing will be achieved by evading the block my be an effective disincentive. After that, I shall return to "revert, block, ignore". Please do let me know if you see the same person on any other IP addresses. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:57, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Account_aggregation#Internet makes less sense now because of deletion of the [insufficiently notable (only $25 million but only one in field?) but now unobservable] article [presumably] describing [presumable] "technology solutions provider" EWise. I feel tempted to delete entirely the Account_aggregation#Internet sentence
"While outside of the U.S. client-side account aggregation, provided by technology solutions provider eWise, has been adopted by financial institutions like Citibank and First Direct (owned by HSBC) in the UK, and Westpac in Australia."
as the sentence makes even less sense now, as well as being grammatically convoluted. Yet, don't Wikipedia readers deserve the benefit of prior search, no matter how trivial?
-SalineBrain (talk) 02:17, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
@SalineBrain: The article was proposed for deletion by Piotrus on 13 October 2014. Proposed deletions are normally left for a week to give anyone who disagrees with the proposal a chance to say so, and if nobody expresses disagreement the article concerned is then deleted. In this case, it was actually left for ten days before deletion, during which time nobody contested the proposal. Since you have now expressed disagreement, I have restored the article. Piotrus did not think that the subject of the article satisfied either the general notability guideline or the guideline on notability of organisations and companies. If you disagree with that view, I suggest that you explain why on the talk page of the article. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 17:01, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Hi, it's me again! Yesterday you blocked two opposing editors for edit warring. But if you check the history of John Prescott it should be clear to you that the IP that you blocked is easily evading the block by using sockpuppets. Please look into this. Viewfinder (talk) 20:20, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
Hi, I kindly told you I was waiting to be unblocked so I could edit Eric Stover's wiki page and you went ahead and deleted it when I was still blocked thereby not giving me an opportunity to make the necessary edits. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Human371Rights (talk • contribs) 18:12, 2 March 2015 (UTC) That editor is now renamed as KaleToTheChief
@Human371Rights: I suppose your "thanks" are supposed to be ironic. If, however, what you really mean is that you wish that I had not deleted the page Draft:Eric Stover, so that you could edit it, I'm afraid Wikipedia policy is that pages known to consist substantially of copyright-infringing material are deleted immediately. Also, if when you say that you "kindly" told me that you were waiting to be unblocked so that you could edit that page you are referring to the message you wrote on your talk page beginning "These are my first Wikipedia entries, and I thought I could use the law school's website..." then you posted that after both the deletion and the unblocking had already taken place. If at that time I had restored the deleted page, since I had already indicated that I knew that it infringed copyright, I would have placed myself in a legally indefensible position, as I would clearly have been deliberately and knowingly publishing a copyright infringement. Copyright is a matter of law, not something on which we are free to do what we like. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:02, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
69.63.114.3
Hello, Mr. Watson. I am here to inform you that 69.63.114.3 is no longer an open proxy. School administrators have instated authentication. I wanted to let you know. Thank you. Jamdor (talk) 12:38, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Rope and little brother
Hello. Regarding this revert. I think what the IP was talking about is compromised accounts in the context of example #2, the little bother defense. The last section of that essay contains the statement:
"As you might guess from the existence of this essay, this is a very common unblock request, and is not accepted. In fact, if you are a registered user, this guarantees you won't be unblocked, because if true this means your account has been compromised and must remain blocked for security and attribution reasons." -Wikipedia:My little brother did it#Seriously, though...
Thanks fine. Agree the change wasn't helpful. I realize there are a lot of contradictions among our essays, this one probably among the least of anyone's immediate worries. Thanks. --RacerX11Talk to meStalk me16:51, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
May i know for which reason you have deleted my wiki page (utenseal). I am not promoting anything here. We have setup our own ecommerce business. and we are on facebook, google+. So, we are in plan to be on wikipedia. Please allowed us to be on wikipedia. Please let us know what can we do further to be on wiki.
I assume you refer to User:Utenseal? That was deleted because it was too promotional. A business must be notable to be in Wikipedia. Also, we are not for advertising; unlike Facebook, not every company gets a page. If you are notable, someone else will make your page for you. Origamiteⓣⓒ12:04, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
@Utenseal: You have a business, and you wish to make it more visible to potential customers by posting content about it on various web sites. That is absolutely fine, and I wish you every success. However, Wikipedia is not the place to do it. Wikipedia is not a place for businesses to post about themselves to call attention to themselves: that is what "promotion" means, in this context, and it is against Wikipedia policy. It is also very unlikely that your startup business is notable enough for inclusion: Wikipedia does not accept articles about any subject, but only about subjects which have received a significant amount of coverage in independent sources. Also, Wikipedia's guidelines on conflict of interest discourage us from writing about our own businesses, or anything else where we have a close involvement, as Wikipedia articles need to be written from a neutral point of view. If and when your business gets sufficient attention from independent observers (not its owners) to satisfy Wikipedia's notability guidelines, probably some uninvolved person, with no connection to you or your business, will write an article about it. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:40, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
@Utenseal: One more point which I forgot to mention. Your username suggests that your account represents a business, which is against another Wikipedia policy, so you should not continue to edit with the account. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:43, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
I would like to know the reason for deleting the page (Antano Solar John). I would like to correct my mistakes and make a resubmission. I am not promoting a person or a business, I am writing about a person who has been a inspiration to me and many people like me. Hoping to hear from you soon. Thank you.
Ajeeth Boaz — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajeethboaz (talk • contribs) 07:12, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
@Ajeethboaz: I am not sure why you direct this question to me, as I never said that the draft article was promotional. The page I deleted was not a draft for the article about Antano Solar John, but just a one-sentence page expressing your frustration at seeing your work deleted, and it did not actually mention Antano Solar John. Since two other administrators have both deleted your drafts as promotional, and another one (DGG) has nominated it for speedy deletion as promotional, perhaps you would be better off asking them. Nevertheless, I will give you a few of my thoughts on the matter, as they may help you.
Each of the drafts of this article has read, to a greater or lesser extent, as though it was written by someone who thinks Antano Solar John is great, and who wants to spread the word about him, rather than as though it was written by someone with no personal opinion. That is no doubt why some editors thought it promotional. (I would also say that I doubt that I have ever read any piece of writing which uses the word "solutions" as the subject of the verb "leverage" which has not looked like promotion.) You describe him as "a person who has been a inspiration to [you]", and that is probably a good deal of the problem: if you feel that way about him then anything you write about him is likely to be written from the point of view that he is wonderful, rather than from a neutral point of view as required for a Wikipedia article. It can be very difficult indeed to write neutrally on a subject about which one feels passionately, even if one genuinely intends to be neutral.
In my opinion, the fact that the drafts have seemed somewhat promotional is a minor point, the much larger point being the fact that nothing I can find anywhere suggests that he satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. If he doesn't, then any time and effort you put into continually rewriting the draft article is likely to be wasted, as it will just be deleted again and again. It is possible to make an article less promotional by rewriting it (and do I think your latest draft is less promotional than some of the earlier versions) but no amount of rewriting an article will change the notability of the subject of that article.
In view of what I have just said, my advice to you is as follows. (It is only advice, and it is, of course, entirely up to you whether you take it or not. However, it is advice based on years of experience of seeing new editors trying to get articles accepted and repeatedly having them deleted.) (1) If your only purpose in editing Wikipedia is to share with the world your opinion of this man who, as you say, you regard as an "inspiration", then you would be better off putting your time and effort into writing about him on some other web site, as your efforts are unlikely to succeed on Wikipedia. (2) If, on the other hand, you are interested in contributing to Wikipedia in other ways, and Antano Solar John just happened to be the first subject you chose, then my advice to new editors is that it is best to start by making small improvements to existing articles, rather than creating new articles. That way any mistakes you make (which you will, because we all do) will be small ones, and you won't have the discouraging experience of repeatedly seeing hours of work deleted. Gradually, you will get to learn how Wikipedia works, and after a while you will know enough about what is acceptable to be able to write whole new articles without fear that they will be deleted. Over the years I have found that editors who start by making small changes to existing articles and work up from there have a far better chance of having a successful time here than those who jump right into creating new articles from the start. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 12:21, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
Page deleted
I need my Sandbox page back that you deleted urgently please. That was my work and I hadn't saved it anywhere else. Please can you send to me. How can you just delete it with no warning, without giving me a chance to edit it? I hadn't even submitted for approval yet so I don't see what the problem is.
@Gracecharlotte90: Hi, Grace. If you enable email on your account I will email you a copy of the deleted page. To do that, go to the "preferences" link at the top of the page, scroll down to "Email options", and click "Set an email address". When you have enabled email, let me know. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 21:16, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by "marked as not relevant", but the page was deleted because it was an advertisement. Wikipedia is not a free advertising service. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 15:58, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
@Gereon K.: I'm not at all surprised. thanks for letting me know. I have blocked the new IP address, and semi-protected the article for a while. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:03, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
@Boyconga278: Can you explain why it's vandalism? I see you and Uishaki reverted one another, but I know nothing about the subject, so I am unable to tell whether it is vandalism or not. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:34, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Patsi Arias
Hi,
I represent the management for news anchor Patsi Arias. I'm attempting to create a new page for Patsi. A page was previously created back in 2011 but never completed. When attempting to start over again today, I see that the page was deleted. I'd like to re-create the page. Patsi Arias is a veteran news anchor currently with Time Warner Cable's NY1Noticias.http://www.mediamoves.com/2014/12/patsi-arias-named-anchor-at-ny1-noticias.html She is the full time news anchor. She was previously with Telemundo's morning show UnNueva Dia as the NY correspondent and prior to that, was with Telemundo 47 for 7 years where she earned a total of 3 Emmy Awards. If we neglected to add sources and verify information, then we shall most certainly do so on the new page. Please advise if there are any issues with continuing in the creation of the new page.AccentTalent (talk) 12:35, 23 March 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by AccentTalent (talk • contribs) 12:35, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
@AccentTalent: The first thing to point out is that if you represent Patsi Arias's management then you should not be creating an article about her, as you may find it difficult to write from the neutral point of view that is required for a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines caution against creating an article on a subject to which you have a close personal connection. The article was deleted because of a lack of sources. The one source you linked to is merely an announcement that she had got a new position, which really does not amount to the kind of substantial coverage required by Wikipedia's notability guideline. Please note that I am not making any judgement as to whether she is not notable or not, I am just saying that so far nobody has produced sufficient evidence that she satisfies Wikipedia's notability standards. You may find it helpful to read WP:NOT and WP:BIO, which give information about what kind of evidence of notability is needed. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:46, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Regarding OccultZone
I see that you have good standing with OccultZone, so I hope you can counsel him on this a little. If you noticed, most of the links Swarm had pointed out were in response to my edits. The only thing that allowed me to survive the wave block was that I saw the situation escalating and chose to stay out of there for a while especially after other new editors got into the fracas. And chose absurdly bad timing (my timezone, my bad) to return and re-instate what I felt was still being discussed on talk, shortly after he was blocked (which I didn't know - I was still telling him this was going nowhere and we should move it to another forum - which someone else already did - which I again didn't realise).
The problem is, he thinks that I was socking as those new editors who were arguing with him just before he got blocked. You're right in saying its across different topics. Instead, the common denominator in the big picture is what he perceives as him protecting that page against me and my alleged scary army of socks. He thinks he is warring with me. Ergo, I was the cause of his grief, so he's now throwing anything/everything at me hoping something sticks. Either that or he thinks the socks could be my retired brother. I'm very transparent on all these. Also, if you are able to, could you tell me how Checkuser can be expedited so that he and I can get this sock nonsense out of the way? Or should I make a specific request at one of the Wikitalk pages?
@Zhanzhao: I understand what you mean, but it is not obvious to me at a glance where all the rights and wrongs lie. It may well be that you both of you are due for some criticism; I'm not sure. To study the history of the case in enough depth to be able to come to a clear conclusion would take me quite a lot of time and effort, and I am unwilling to get that much involved. I posted a message to OccultZone in response to a request for a review of a block for edit warring, and I restricted myself to looking into the case enough to satisfy myself that the editing involved could not reasonably be regarded as edit-warring, and stopped there. Another quick look at the history does make it seem that OccultZone may be specifically targeting your edits, Zhanzhao, but whether justifiably or unjustifiably I can't say. To be honest, this is the sort of dispute that I really hate getting involved in, which is the main reason why I never patrol Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, and go there only if there is some specific case there that touches on something I am dealing with or involved in. I understand that you must find the situation frustrating, but I'm afraid I am going to give your request for help a miss. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:05, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
No problems. Checkuser was already run its course and already vindicated me as expected, though OccultZone is still continuing attempt to draw some form of linkage to my so called alleged socks - even though I pointed out that "evidence" of common behavior/same wordings used that he was pointing out was so weak that I could even point out instances of him using the very same type of phrasing. I used people I was sure he knew for some of the examples, so unfortunately I actually used one of your old edits to prove a point.
No offense was intended, in fact 3 of the other examples I used were actually Jimbo Wales' old edits, so you're in esteemed company. I just thought you could counsel him earlier on, but the way I see it, he's like a train-wreck in slow-motion that doesn't want to stop, so I'll just see how this plays out. Zhanzhao (talk) 10:55, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
Edwin Gordon, MLT & Audiation
Hi James,
I'm unversed in wikipedia procedures, policies, or even user/editing 'ethics' so I pray I'm addressing the following properly:
Respectfully, as an educator who has read his research, implemented methods logically arising from it, and seen reliable, predictable, robust, and measure-able results among all my music students, I can only say his name and the word "audiation" (which he did not coin) deserve a place within wikipedia.
Please do let me know if I can assist in any way to help provide the necessary criteria to have Dr. Gordon and Audiation restored to Wikipedia-acceptable status.
Agreed, my name is John Ritchie, and my wife is a music teacher who has studied Gordon's methods. While there is controversy in the world of Music Education as to the efficacy of all his ideas, he is nonetheless a remarkably important figure in the field today and absolutely did not deserve to have his page, ideas, and any reference to him expunged from the Wikipedia. Certainly the articles could be better written and and less promotional in nature, but that doesn't mean the ideas don't have a place here. It seems like a heavy-handed attempt to silence rather than encourage a conversation and it's most confusing. 75.73.18.240 (talk) 01:27, 28 March 2015 (UTC) John Ritchie
The best move you can make is to either a) create an article in your user space (which would involve you registering an account so you had user space) and work on it over time and/or b) utilize Wikipedia:Articles for creation to help guide you through the process of article creation. LizRead!Talk!01:40, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
The articles Edwin Gordon and Gordon Music Learning Theory were deleted because they were copyright infringements. It was not a "heavy-handed attempt to silence": it was simply a matter of complying with the law. That does not mean that Edwin Gordon is not a suitable subject for a Wikipedia article: it simply means that copying and pasting text from other web sites is not the way to write the article, and you are perfectly welcome to write a new article about him, in your own words. As for Audiation, the issue there is that there is no evidence of substantial coverage of the concept by reliable sources other than those written by, or associated with, Edwin Gordon. I am sure you know more about the subject than I do, so you may well be able to provide sources which cover the subject; if so, then please do so. Wikipedia:Notability should give you an idea as to what sort of evidence is needed. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 12:04, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply. Your rationale for deletion makes sense, and while I don't know enough about the subject to produce a proper Wikipedia page, I'm sure someone else that is reading this does and can do so without lifting text completely from another source. It seems to me that if/when Gordon's page is reproduced, Audiation would fit perfectly as a sub-heading on it rather than on its own page, at least until further independent coverage on the topic is produced. 75.73.18.240 (talk) 14:40, 28 March 2015 (UTC) John Ritchie
I'll try to find time to look at it tomorrow, but right now I don't have time, I'm afraid. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:27, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
Undeletion and Reinstatement of Telfaz11
I believe in good faith that the references cited for the article about Telfaz11 are neither unreliable nor do the several reliable citations count as bombardment, and would like to ask you to kindly reconsider undeletion of the article for Telfaz11 and reinstating it, as it does NOT meet any criteria for deletion; many clear and focused articles have been cited from very reliable sources such as The Washington Post,Toronto Star, and BBC News. Looking forward to your response. Postdepartum (talk) 13:35, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
The article satisfied at least two of Wikipedia's criteria for speedy deletion.
It was unambiguously promotional, including such language, for example, as "Telfaz11 has attracted and helped launch some of the top internet talent in the Middle East and has helped create demand for local premium online content" ... and so on and so on.
It was substantially the same as an article deleted as a result of consensus at a deletion discussion. There were a few minor changes in wording, such as "a Saudi Riyadh-based online entertainment network" instead of "a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia based internet television network", but by no stretch of the imagination can it be considered to be substantially a new article.
As for your comments on sources, I have just checked the first five references listed. Two of them do not even mention "Telfaz11", and the other three merely make one brief mention of Telfaz11: in one case the only mention is in the caption of a picture. At least eleven of the other references are links to YouTube, which is not regarded as a reliable source. That covers just over half of the references listed: the others are not a lot better. I have also checked the three references which you refer to in your message above. You mention the reference to the Washington Post; that reference is a link to a page which does not even mention "Telfaz11". You mention the reference to the "'Toronto Star"; that is a link to a page where the only mentions of "Telfaz11" are in a caption to a picture, which says "The rap video was produced by Telfaz11, an online video network based in Saudi Arabia", and a one-sentence mention in the text, which says "The video was created by Saudi-based Telfaz11, which says it is the first Arabic online video network": thus we have effectively a one-sentence mention, which is repeated as a picture caption. The reference to the BBC News which you mention is another page not mentioning "Telfaz11" at all. There is no sign of anything that could possibly be regarded as the sort of substantial coverage in multiple independent reliable sources that are required to establish notability in the terms of Wikipedia's guidelines. The deletion following the deletion discussion was because there were not sources showing notability according to the standards of those guidelines, and although the number of references has been substantially increased, their quality hasn't. It is clear that the changes made to the article have not addressed the reason for deletion.
You have twice created this article. Both times it was substantially promotional in tone, and both times it totally failed to provide evidence of satisfying Wikipedia's notability guidelines. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:54, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
@SLBedit: I see that Diannaa has blocked two of the IP addresses, and semi-protected various affected articles for a short time. I would consider protecting them for a longer time; if the trouble continues, feel free to let me know. I have also blocked the one of the IP addresses you mention that Diannaa didn't block, though I think blocks will be of little value, as the editor just moves to another IP address. Article protection is likely to be more effective, but even that is of limited use, as there are so many other articles the editor can move to. I'm afraid it's just a question of reverting edits, and blocking and protecting as and when the editor is seen to be in action, and hoping to limit the damage. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:27, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
@SLBedit: I've semi-protected many of the recently edited pages for varying lengths of time. However, there has been disruptive editing from this editor since at least as far back as 2013, and some of the articles have been protected long ago, only to have the same editor returning much later, so the likelihood of persuading him or her to stop is pretty remote. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:19, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
Do we have them as articles? I can only think of Lists. This is to do with something at User talk:LordTrant. I did ping Melanie, but she hasn't responded. If you get a moment, I'd appreciate you having a look. Peridon (talk) 16:49, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
@Peridon: Sorry it's taken me a few days to respond, but I've not had much time available for Wikipedia recently. My thoughts on this matter are as follows.
I don't think that we normally have glossaries of this kind. I certainly can't think of any.
To me, the page seems to run totally against the spirit of Wikipedia is not a directory, even if nothing in there explicitly refers to glossaries.
Does the topic satisfy Wikipedia's notability guidelines? Bearing in mind that we already have an article Pewter, does specifically the glossary of terms related to pewter have sufficient coverage in its own right to have a separate article? Looking at Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone_lists I doubt it.
I wonder about the copyright status. Do individual editors of pages at governmentauctionsuk.com have the authority to over-ride the general copyright provisions of the site as a whole? I cannot find anything saying so, and the statements not only at the bottom of the page but also at http://governmentauctionsuk.com/page/terms-of-service are certainly not compatible with the CCNA. Of course, it is entirely possible that the copyright owner is allowed to post the content at governmentauctionsuk.com while still retaining the right to license it under freer terms than the strictly controlled access at that website, but I would be much happier if I could see a statement from that website explicitly saying so. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 18:51, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
He's certainly able to edit that site, or get edits done very quickly - he was getting CC licensing up on it. I don't know if it's still there, as I suggested he was getting a bit ahead of things by doing that before we knew if it was going to be needed. It is gone - but the 'LEARN MORE' buttons are still out of the box, which they weren't when I first saw that page. I have a feeling he is GAUK, or at least a webmaster with no worries about changing things in a quite major way.. The membership mentioned looks to provide info not available to the non-member rather than having your own page there - things like the prices achieved in the auctions. Peridon (talk) 20:17, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
@Peridon: Yes, but I have known cases where someone such as a webmaster, or a teacher designated to keep the school web site in order, has been under the mistaken impression that being in that position gives them unlimited authority to post anything about the organisation they work for, whereas someone in a more senior position has taken the view that they do not have the right to release content subject to copyright. However, in this case I don't really regard that as a major issue, and very probably this editor does have the necessary authority to release the copyright, as far as that site is concerned. On the other hand there is the complication that the text was first attributed to http://www.pewtersociety.org/resources/glossary, which also claims copyright: can we be sure that is not the original source? I think of my four points above, I would attach least weight to number 4, and most to number 2, but I am still distinctly unsure about the copyright situation. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:35, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
@Peridon: By the way, what 'LEARN MORE' buttons, and out of what box? I don't see anything saying 'LEARN MORE' anywhere. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:39, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
At the bottom of the http://governmentauctionsuk.com/antique-auction-guides/pewter#8 page - but I've just noticed the CC licensing bit is still there on the white part just above. That's what I was saying to him about contradiction. I've not heard anything from him for about a week, but he could just be waiting patiently for a reply. (Unusual that, here...) Would you have a word with him? Your explanations look clearer than my thoughts... Peridon (talk) 13:55, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Hold the presses! Being interested in pewter (and possessing a few tankards which are very nice with some good ale in them...), I was reading the rest of the GAUK page. I suspect there's a copyvio there, indicated in the 'How it's made' section by "As with most hand-crafted work, our pewter pieces may vary slightly in shape", which is obviously a statement by a manufacturer rather than an auction site. If that's copyvio, the rest probably is too. Peridon (talk) 14:03, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
@Peridon: Well spotted. That seems to come from http://www.woodburypewter.com/history_care.asp, as does a large chunk of the text at the governmentauctionsuk.com page. Prompted by that, I have searched for a few more quotes from that page, and unfortunately what I have found is the all too common situation where text appears all over the internet, making it difficult to track down the original source. (It amazes me how many people honestly think that anything posted anywhere on the internet can legitimately be copied and reused anywhere, copyright for some reason not applying.) However, even without knowing which sources are original and which are copies, it looks as if the page at governmentauctionsuk.com has been entirely assembled from bits and pieces copied from various other web pages, making it virtually certain that the whole thing is a copyright infringement, and the claim to have the right to release it under a Creative Commons license is probably completely spurious. I will drop a note to the talk page of the editor in question. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:26, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
@Clarityfiend: I fully understand your point, but it seems to me that, in view of the potential damage to a living person, it is better that anyone looking for Cal Wells the financial investment executive on Wikipedia should see a page where it is made abundantly unambiguous that the person covered is a different Cal Wells. It is very easy to just launch into reading the text without reading little things like an italic note at the top of the page saying that there is another person of the same name, whereas if the search leads in the first instance to a page where the only information given is that there are two different people of that name, the risk of misunderstanding is far less. I clearly remember a time many years ago when a businessman called John Le Mesurier was much in the news in Britain, because he had been involved in serious illegal activities. At that time the actor John Le Mesurier was still alive, and very famous in Britain. Television and radio news reporting about the crooked businessman always said "the businessman John Le Mesurier", evidently in order to avoid confusion with the actor John Le Mesurier, but even with that disambiguation, I knew people who were convinced that it was the actor who was in trouble, and that "the businessman John Le Mesurier" was just a journalists' way of referring to him. When it comes to protecting the reputation of innocent people, I really think we should err on the side of providing more disambiguation than might seem to be needed needed, rather than risking providing too little. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:22, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that's not what a dab page is for. It's for navigation to existing articles. There isn't one for the other Wells, nor do I see any notoriety that might be affixed to the wrong person, as in the Le Mesurier example. Time for an WP:AfD? Clarityfiend (talk) 01:05, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
I know full well that "that's not what a dab page is for". I was, in fact, assuming you would have read my comment at Talk:Cal Wells, which begins "I am well aware that this page does not comply with the guidelines for disambiguation pages", but presumably you hadn't, since if you had you would see the potential for "notoriety that might be affixed to the wrong person". Do you have a suggestion for a better way of dealing with the problem, or do you think that we should just ignore it, and leave Cal Wells the financial investment executive to suffer? When he asked for help on this issue, this was the best solution I could think of. If you can think of a better solution, then that will be great, but unless and until a better solution is produced I think the policy WP:IAR should take precedence over the guideline WP:DAB. If you strongly disagree then of course you are free to start a deletion discussion, but if so then please let me know, so that I can explain my reasons. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:12, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
Where does it say that Wells "bankrupted his team"? I don't see it in the history anywhere. Seems to me somebody would have to dig deep outside of Wikipedia to make that connection, and even there I only find it mentioned in one forum. Therefore I will go ahead with the Afd. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:27, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cal Wells until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:39, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
about deleting sollie ephraim page
hey, please i need help i want to create a page for a local modeler on wikipedia page please gelp me on what to do please!
@Jodyegenasis: I suggest a first step is to look at Wikipedia's notability guidelines to see whether she is suitable to be the subject of a Wikipedia article. I will try and give you more help when I can, but now I am out of time. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 21:38, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
Open proxies
There are a large number of IP addresses accessible through a VPN application called Cyberghost which haven't been blocked on Wikipedia. I can send you a list; would you be willing to take a look at and potentially block them? Conifer (talk) 18:03, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
@Conifer: I saw this message about a day after you posted it, by which time at least one of the IP addresses had already been blocked, and since I was short of time I left it at that, assuming someone else had dealt with it. However, if you know that some of the IP addresses are still not blocked, please do send me a list. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:03, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Hello, JBW. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
"James", there are a number of articles being produced about various fish, which purport to come from a number of different editors. You have removed linkspam from one or two. The articles are all in the same format - an infobox ,and a small number of paragraphs, each of only a few words, giving the common name of the fish, distribution, etc. The article titles are the latin taxonomic names of the fish. This must surely all be the work of one editor. Calling it sockpuppetry is only marginally correct, as the articles are edited only by one editor and, apart from being excessively short, are not controversial. Some have been CSD labeled, which is not an accurate connotation. Any thoughts? --Anthony Bradbury"talk"18:52, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
@Anthony Bradbury: I agree that the word "sockpuppet" is questionable, though at least one of the accounts was created while another one was blocked, no doubt to evade the block, so I suppose that one at least is a sockpuppet. Also, whether intentionally or not, an effect of using so many accounts is to evade scrutiny, as editors seeing the unhelpful editing of one account and not seeing all the messages sent to the other accounts treat it as a new editor who does not know how Wikipedia works, rather than as a persistent disruptive editor who is ignoring numerous messages about the problems with his or her editing. The WP:CSD#A1 (no context) speedy deletions (at least the ones I have seen) are not really valid, as it is clear what the articles are about: namely particular species of fish. The creator of the articles has explicitly described his or her intention as "to bring up publicity through wikipedia", so there is no doubt that the purpose is spamming. Apart from the spam links, though, the articles, although very poorly written, do no harm, and to have an article giving a few bare facts such as the Latin taxonomical name is perhaps more useful than not having an article at all, so I'm not inclined to delete them. Now that I have blocked a couple of the accounts indefinitely, though, if any more are created it will be block-evasion, and I will be willing to consider deleting them. There are still 114 articles with links to the spammed site (down from 533 when I checked yesterday), and I think all 114 of them should be removed; the only reason I haven't done them is that there is a limit to the time I am willing to spend on it in a day. Also, if any more links to the same site appear, then it should go on the spam blacklist. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 21:03, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for ploughing through this lot - I wasn't sure what was to happen with these over-headlined stubs. If they are to be kept (minus BEDO link), I can make a start on condensing them into one para (by rolling up the blocked editor's contrib list from the bottom). Elmidae (talk) 21:32, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
Well, a link search now shows the spam link on 218 pages, instead of 114. However, I have looked at a substantial sample of the pages, and none of them has had the link added since I checked and found 114. Linksearch sometimes seems to miss a lot of pages, for no obvious reason. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:22, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
Sock blocks
Hi. I notice you recently blocked SeeSpot Run due to sockpuppetry, and I see he's challenging it. I also note that WP:SOCKBLOCK says "If you are improperly blocked for sockpuppetry, you should realize that it may not always be easy or even possible to correct the situation." What can you do if you are improperly blocked for sockpuppetry? You can't request an unblock from a "main" account that isn't yours. I can't really make up my mind whether it is a sock, there is circumstantial evidence for sure, but is that enough? I'd be interested to hear if this scenario is common, and what on earth we can do about it, if anything. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)13:59, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
On the general point about editors wrongly blocked for sockpuppetry, there are genuine problems, to which there are no perfectly satisfactory solutions. It is often difficult or impossible to provide evidence that one is not a sockpuppet. I'm afraid there is no magical way of settling such an issue: it's a question of weighing the evidence and coming to a conclusion about what is most likely.
On the particular question of whether this account is a sockpuppet, there are many similarities, of various different kinds. If the similarities were all of one kind (such as editing articles on one particular topic) then I would not regard them as convincing, but when there are different types of similarity, with no reason why a pair of editors with one of those similarities should also have another one of them, it begins to look suspicious, and when there are many completely unrelated types of similarity, it begins to look more than just suspicious. In my opinion the sum of all the evidence is very convincing. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:52, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
@The Banner: To be precise, I didn't block the account: it was already blocked, and I just recorded the fact that the account has used a sockpuppet. The evidence included: the sockpuppet making an unblock request using very similar wording to an unblock request of the master account; the sockpuppet being a single purpose account, exclusively editing an article that the blocked account had created; both accounts showing similar idiosyncrasies in use of English; the sockpuppet having a user name which referred to the place where Mahendra Niraula has said that he lives; the sockpuppet making an unblock request which related to an autoblock which appeared to result from the block on Mahendra Niraula; and so on... Altogether too many coincidences to be plausibly just chance. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 15:34, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
@The Banner: I now realise that I was mistaken in thinking the block was indefinite, so I have changed the user-page tag. The editor may wish to remove it if and when he is unblocked. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 15:44, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Next meetups in North England
Hello. Would you be interested in attending one of the next wikimeets in the north of England? They will take place in:
If you can make them, please sign up on the relevant wikimeet page!
If you want to receive future notifications about these wikimeets, then please add your name to the notification list (or remove it if you're already on the list and you don't want to receive future notifications!)
Thanks, Mike. Unfortunately I will be away at the date of the Manchester one, and I'm unwilling to go as far as Liverpool for a meetup. Leeds is more possible, but I didn't go. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:53, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Yes, it looks quite likely. I have asked them about their connections to one another, and I'll keep an eye on them. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:52, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
I was coming here myself re the User:Arwajhussains userpage, when I noted this section. I added a 'userpage' template to it, which was then removed without comment by 112.79.37.49 (talk·contribs). (I have reverted) I had already noted that the page included the unsourced claims that this editor had a 3 year relationship and was now married to Shraddha Sharma, a page that seems to have attracted a large number of 'fanboy' SPAs. I have removed the unsourced claims, from Arwajhussains userpage - 220ofBorg03:54, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
It seems to me that at best the page was misuse of Wikipedia as a web host, and at worst a hoax. I also saw that the user Arwajhussains has stated that he or she is not Arwaj Hussain, but a "fan" of Arwaj Hussain, which means that the page is not about the editor whose user page it is, reinforcing the view that is was misuse of Wikipedia as a web host. Consequently, I have deleted the page. I am also unhappy with the other editing that Arwajhussains has done: much of it looks rather like adding fantasy content to an article and then removing it. I have give Arwajhussains a message expressing my concerns, and I hope that he or she will take note. I have broadly similar concerns about the other accounts. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 12:47, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
requesting self block
I want a self block for 4 years. Seeing that you dont have your own personal criteria I want this block right now without furthur discussion A.A.Wasif | Talk14:03, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
User:CosmicEmperor made his first Wikipedia edit a couple of months back by stating in his userpage - "My Username is LoverBoyInGarden . I don't remember my password and i didn't register anu E-Mail so i am unable to access . I had no other choice . So I created a new accountFrost The World (talk) 04:56, 5 January 2015 (UTC)" ([24]). A sock of User:Undertrialryryr took over the account User:Frost The World for short while. User:LoverBoyInGarden made a total of 4 edits, though his talk page and user page was regularly edited by CosmicEmperor.
The CosmicEmperor's userpage was repeatedly vandalized by another sock of Undertrialryryr - like User:Fawadkhooburat ([25]) - and a number of IPs. I met him on Talk:Bengali people where he behaved most erratically, probably charged with emotions. He did not like my stand and my rebuke, but was unable to take strong stand. So, he created yet another account - User:কসমিক এম্পারার, and came to call names on my talk page. Even in the discussion on Bengali people talk page another sock of Undertrialryryr - User:Universal tiger - made an appearance.
I am sorry to be slightly uncomfortable at this bizarre story. I really couldn't help noticing that the socks listed on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Undertrialryryr/Archive have modus operandi similar to CE. And, I was also not very surprised to notice the similarities between names like CosmicEmperor and Universal tiger. I hope this is not some kind of juvenile game. Can you give me any advise? Aditya(talk • contribs)10:41, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
[added] BTW, this looks like another attempt to discredit CosmicEmperor. User:কসমিক এম্পারার has been blocked. If he needs guidance, please intervene. My level of patience is totally useless for this kind of stuff. Aditya(talk • contribs)11:03, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
@Aditya Kabir: If you are trying to suggest that CosmicEmperor is a sockpuppet, then all I can say is that I don't see any evidence for the suggestion. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:54, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
No. He is the butt end of a very strange joke, which involves strangest of vandalism and other disruption by a number of socks of the same puppet-master. Probably that has reduced his aversion to multi-accounts lower than the average, and he keeps creating and abandoning accounts. Worse than that, the strangeness of the vandalism has probably also got him a into a competitive mood. A nice rundown on identifying and handling socks and vandals may be good for him.
The whole of this thread consists largely, as far as I can make out, of vague hints that various accounts are sockpuppets, without ever making it really clear to me what the evidence is, and in some cases without even making it clear what account is accused of being a sockpuppet of what other account. I have wasted quite a lot of my time looking at the editing of the accounts referred to, without coming to any clear understanding. I suggest that anyone who believes there is sockpuppetry going on take it to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:41, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Sorry. I posted first at a time when I only had a very strange situation in hand and had no clue of who was a sock of whom. I posted again I was sure that the joke was on Cosmic Emperor. Many things has happened since. This SPI has been going for quite some time now, and it is now in ANI. Aditya(talk • contribs)20:36, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Hello I noticed it said you locked that said article and the expiration ended in November 2014 but it still shows up when you go and edit. --ACase0000 (talk) 05:05, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
If you check the log carefully, you will see that the move protection was set to expire on 23 November 2014, but the edit protection was indefinite. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:10, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
@ACase0000: Not at all: it was very misleading, and I'm glad you pointed it out to me, because other people might well be confused by it too. The move protection was, in fact, nothing to do with me: it was left over from an earlier occasion when another administrator protected the article, but the way the software works, such left-over past protection still continues to be shown in the protection log as long as there is any protection on the article, unless an administrator specifically removes it. I have now remove it, to avoid confusing people. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
@OccultZone: I will certainly discuss it if you let me know what range, and why it should be blocked. However, right now I am out of time, so I will not be able to follow this up at least for several hours, and perhaps not until tomorrow. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:29, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
A week ago, I happened to discover the real master of 3 suspected socks that are now blocked by Elockid.[26][27][28] Upon my findings,[29] I have realized that there is problem with the IP addresses. You sure remember [30][31], Gilliam had blocked one of these[32] for 1 year with the summary {{blocked proxy}}. 216.81.81/94 is the particular extension that is abused by this editor. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 09:36, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
@OccultZone: You seriously overestimate my memory if you can write "You sure remember.." and link to blocks I made nearly three years ago. No, I don't remember them at all. However, I have spent some time looking at the history of the range you mention, and have come to the following conclusions.
The IP range is allocated to the United States Department Of Homeland Security. I can find no evidence that any IP address in the range is hosting an open proxy: if one was in January 2014, at the time of Gilliam's block, then it does not seem to be still doing so now. The smallest blockable IP range that covers all the IP addresses you mention would be 216.81.64.0/19 (i.e. everything from 216.81.64.0 to 216.81.95.127). Since the beginning of 2014, that range has produced 1357 edits, at an average rate of 88 per month. I have checked a fairly substantial sample of recent edits, and a smaller sample of older ones. A few of the edits I checked were unconstructive in one way or another (as for example this sequence of three vandalism edits) but the substantial majority were perfectly constructive. Also, none of the few unconstructive edits I saw were very recent, and there is no point in blocking because of past problems which are not continuing. I did not see any recent edits which in any way resembled the editing which led to the blocks you mentioned three years ago, so those are irrelevant as far as considering any new block is concerned. The Sockpuppet investigation you link to has links to edits from this IP range, but those edits date back to 2012. The overall conclusion of all that is that I don't see any grounds at all for any block now. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:23, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
I was trying to assert significance to the article, and encourage other editors to help in a collaborative effort to make it into a good article. Please could you restore the deleted content. It was also quite insulting to use the term "conspiracy theory", especially when you are referring to a well documented protein. Mister Sneeze A Lot (talk) 01:53, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
I deleted the page because it was use of a talk page to publicise speculative ideas about reincarnation, not for discussion about working on the Wikipedia article. A Wikipedia article's talk page is not a forum for discussion of any and every idea related to the subject of the article. I also note that you said "This got me thinking ..." and later "I could not find anywhere on the internet about anyone studying this", which is a pretty clear indication that you were using the page to publish your own original ideas, not to comment on material which has received substantial coverage in reliable sources, as required for Wikiedia content. Wikipedia is not a medium for publishing original ideas. As for conspiracy theories, I don't how anyone can reasonably deny that writing about "one of those things that is deliberately being kept off the internet because they don't want us to know about it" is conspiracy theory. To refer to it as such is a simple statement of fact, and I don't see any reason to regard doing so as "insulting". If you believe that there is a group of people called "they" who conspire to keep things off the internet to stop us from knowing about them, then you believe in a conspiracy theory. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:32, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
@Mister Sneeze A Lot: What does that have to do with it? I have no reason whatever to doubt that you are acting in good faith. No doubt you sincerely didn't know that Wikipedia guidelines don't allow use of a talk page as a general forum, and used it as one in good faith. The fact that something is done in good faith does not prevent it from being mistaken. Also, you probably sincerely, in good faith, believe that "they" have a great conspiracy to keep knowledge from the public by preventing it from getting onto the internet. After all, there are many people who sincerely, and in perfectly good faith, believe in such global conspiracies, and I have no reason at all to think that you aren't one of them. (For some reason, the overwhelming majority of people with such beliefs seem to live in the United States. I have no idea why.) The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:31, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
@SLBedit: I've put a range block covering both that IP address and the one he moved to when that one was blocked. You may also be amused to read this. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 15:42, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
I am writing about the modification to the Cerberus Generale entry which I made to state that the capitoned entty is not an insurance carrier. AFter I made my comment, someone suggested speedy deletion and it was opposed based on the fact that Cerberus has a pretty good looking website. I am here to tell you that in spite of the website, Cerberus Generale is not a registered insurance carrier in any of the countries in which it claims to operate http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/firmSearchForm.dohttp://www.oci.gov.hk/download/ins.pdf name=http://www.findaninsurer.com.au/ . If that isn't enough, let's take the claim that they are one of the world's largest insurance companies, if that is the case, they are the first of their kind to not be rated by any credit rating agency (AM Best, S&P, etc) http://www.ambest.comhttp://www.standardandpoors.com/en_US/web/guest/home. I shouldn't have to go further to explain the issues with this. Please delete this page as it could be used to support false claims. If you would like further information, please let me know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edit4325634 (talk • contribs) 17:38, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
@Edit4325634: When you tag an article for deletion as a blatant hoax, you are asking for a Wikipedia administrator to look at the article and see whether it is so obviously a hoax that it can be deleted immediately, without further consideration, and without any discussion. Usually, the administrator who assesses the deletion proposal will have no prior knowledge either of the article or its subject, and he or she is not expected to do extensive searching for evidence. Therefore, speedy deletion as a hoax is usually for a page which is so obviously a hoax that anyone reading the page can immediately see it is a hoax. It is reasonable also to allow an article which is obviously a blatant hoax in the light of evidence which has been presented so that the administrator is aware of it, but not an article which is only obviously a hoax in the light of evidence which is not visible in Wikipedia, and which the reviewing administrator is unlikely to be aware of. I declined the speedy deletion as a blatant hoax because it was not obvious that it was a hoax from reading the article. In the light of what you have now told me, I have checked, and it is perfectly clear that much, perhaps most, of the content of the article is pure fiction, so I shall delete it. If you ever propose an article for speed deletion again, please bear in mind that if the reason for deletion is not immediately obvious to anyone reading the article, then you should post an explanation on the talk page of the article. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:53, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Yea, my bad. I came across the article after Edit removed most of the text and stated that it was a hoax. I reverted that because it could be considered harmful if it wasn't true and threw a blatant hoax csd tag on there instead because I felt that it was a borderline case which could always be PRODed or AfDed later. In the future I'll reserve that CSD tag for only the extremely obvious cases. Winner 42Talk to me!14:13, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Tsogo Sun
Dear JamesBWatson,
please advise me how to restore the Tsogo Sun page. I don't want to dispute the reason for deletion, I just want to understand what can be done to make the page right. It was created via AfC, the draft was checked by a WP admin and then was accepted by independent editor. As I see, one of Tsogo Sun's employees should create a new account, disclose his/her affiliation to this brand and publish the text that was accepted via AfC. Am I right? Please explain what options can be used in this case. Alexandra Goncharik-sms-17:01, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
Dear JamesBWatson, one more question regarding this issue. How I can prove that this article was not created as a paid one? To be honest, I do not want to go this way because of WP:HARASS and bias against editors writing about commercial companies. I don't want to feel like a defendant in a courtroom. I have a university degree in international business, so I am really interested in covering business topics in Wikipedia. However, as I see, my education, hundreds of bona fide edits, and personal interest are not enough to show my good faith. I know that you have reasons to believe in my violation of Wikipedia's terms of use, because I admitted that some of my previous articles were created with the conflict of interest, but it doesn't mean that all my contributions should be treated as paid editing (does it?). I remember us discussing this article in the past. You was against its publication (doubting in its notability), that is why I asked for a second opinion (I consulted with another wiki admin and then submitted the article via AfC). I have researched the present state of media coverage for Tsogo Sun. There are dozens of independent publications to show its notability: Times LIVE (see link), Reuters (see link), Bloomberg (see link), The Guardian (Nigeria) (see link), etc. As you see, I am ready to find a constructive solution. I would like to solve this issue without going into personals, free from any bias and harassment. Hope to solve this issue with your help. Please, give me a short and exact answer about what can be done here. Alexandra Goncharik-sms-15:16, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
Dear JamesBWatson, please reply to my messages as soon as possible. I don't want to consider this issue as an abuse of authority from your side, but I was unable to find any justification for your actions (speedy deletion of the article) in WP terms of use, policies and guidelines. According to FAQ on paid contributions″the disclosure provision in the Terms of Use is intended to work with existing policies and practices, so that there is a fair balance between identifying paid contributions and protecting those who are helping advance Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. This requirement, like others, should be applied constructively to enable collaboration and improve our projects. Users who violate them should first be warned and informed about these rules, and then only blocked if necessary. In other words: assume good faith and don’t bite the newcomers. Harassment should also be avoided. For example, under the English Wikipedia policy on harassment, users must not publicly share personal information about other users.″ So even if you believe that it was undisclosed paid editing, you can't speedy delete an article that has no other issues according to WP:DEL#REASON or WP:SPEEDY and was submitted via AfC. That is why I ask you to restore the article and solve this issue in a friendly and constructive manner, without any unsupported allegations. Look forward to hearing from you here or via my wiki email. Alexandra Goncharik-sms-11:36, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Dear JamesBWatson, I have just added a statement on my user page about paid contributions and my activity as a Wikipedia consultant. I am not sure about how to disclose my affiliations, because both of my articles about my employers were deleted, as well as my article about Comindware Tracker that I created at the request of my former colleague a long time ago, when I had a poor understanding of WP principles. Now I avoid editing Wikipedia as a paid contributor. I just consult others on how to create and edit wiki articles in compliance with the rules. I help them with writing, proper sourcing and wiki make-up, but I do not make direct edits within paid projects any more. I hope my explanations will help you to have a more clear view of the situation. I am open to discussion. Please reply me. Alexandra Goncharik-sms-13:10, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
@Alexandra Goncharik: Firstly, I note your remark "please reply to my messages as soon as possible". I appreciate your sense of frustration at having to wait a couple of days for an answer, but at present I have a limited amount of time available for Wikipedia, several issues have come up demanding my attention (your messages being just one of them), and I did not think that it would be a good idea to write a rushed answer, rather than give myself time to consider all the issues.
The article Tsogo Sun has, as you are no doubt aware, been created several times. The first versions were crude attempts to use Wikipedia for advertising, they failed to provide evidence of notability, and at least one of them also a copyright infringement. The version you created was much better, and although it still looked to me rather promotional in tone, it did not seem to have faults of such kinds as would justify deletion, so I was happy to accept it. Recently, however, something quite different drew my attention to your editing history, and I discovered that you had a history of creating unmistakably promotional articles on a number of subjects, in such a way as to make it appear that you were working to advertise on behalf of businesses and perhaps other organisations. In view of that, I re-examined the earliest revisions of the article about Tsogo Sun you created, and, despite as I said above not being the sort of crude attempts at advertising that earlier creations were, there was enough there to persuade me, in view of what I had seen of your editing history elsewhere, that this article was created in the same vein. If I was wrong, then that it unfortunate, and unintended, but it is necessary to make judgements on the basis of the most likely explanation of the observed evidence.
I shall restore the article, as you have asked. I note your statemnt on your user page "Sometimes I act as a consultant advising my employers and colleagues on how to edit Wikipedia". I hope that if and when it is relevant your advice includes telling them that they should almost always avoid editing any article in which they have a conflict of interest.
You say that the article was "submitted via AfC". Many editors, usually but not always fairly inexperienced ones, assume that means that the article has received some sort of official approval, and is therefore exempt from deletion processes that might be applied to other articles. However, that is not so. The fact that an article has been accepted at "Articles for Creation" merely means that someone who chooses to create a Wikipedia account and look at draft articles has accepted it. It is, unfortunately, far from rare for that to be done by someone without as good an understanding of Wikipedia standards as might be desirable, so that sometimes grossly unsuitable articles get accepted. Furthermore, even when a draft has been accepted by someone who is perfectly competent to do so, there may be cisrcumstances which that person did not know about, which change the situation considerably. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 12:58, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for restoring the article, your detailed answer and constructive approach!
Excuse me for being pushy (I mean my "as soon as possible" comment). I know that there are no deadlines in Wikipedia, but I was really frustrated with the deletion of my contribution without any prior discussions.
You are right, I knew that the page for Tsogo Sun has been created and deleted several times. I requested the last version of the article from one of WP admins and based my text on it, trying to use only facts, without any puffery. I suppose that it why it still looked somewhat promotional in tone.
Unfortunately, I did have a history of creating promotional articles, but I did my best to change this approach and upgrade my views on Wikipedia's mission. My contributions started just after my graduation with a page about my first employer that I created on my own initiative, but with marketing in mind. It was deleted, fair enough! So it was a painful way of learning by my own mistakes. I started to study Wikipedia's policy and guidlines to make my contributions better (neutral in tone, properly sourced, etc.). WP:COI has become one of the most important pages for me.
Thanks for sharing your ideas about AfC, I really considered it as a kind of "official approval". I used it for my own articles and adviced my colleagues in marketing and PR to submit their contributions via this process only, adding comments about their affiliation. As I see, it is not a 100% guarantee of getting an exemplary article. Nevertheless, I can say from my own experiense that faulty articles get noticed and deleted from Wikipedia, sooner or later. This is encouraging. Alexandra Goncharik-sms-14:23, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Block reason
Screenshot showing how it would appear.
When we select a block reason, is the sole purpose to select a template to automatically appear when the user tries to edit? I mean is there some log or other purpose? If it is only that, then why not, for cases of spamublock, just select "Other reason" and then in the text box below add "Please see your user talk page for a full explanation. Thank you."
@Anna Frodesiak: When a user is blocked, the reason is listed in the block log, like this. If there have just been one block, then the block log just contains one item, like this, and really if instead of giving the block reason it just said "Please see your user talk page for a full explanation" then it wouldn't be a big deal, as checking the talk page would not be difficult. Indeed, that would be the usual situation, as the substantial majority of accounts that are ever blocked are blocked just once. However, it would be a different matter when dealing with one of the minority of users who has been blocked a number of times. When such an editor is being considered for another block, or when an unblock request is being considered, what the blocks were for can make a big difference: for example, an editor who has been blocked several times for copyright infringements over the course of a year and has recently infringed copyright again should probably be indef-blocked, but an editor who has a few blocks for minor incidents unrelated to copyright and has now infringed copyright for the first time should probably just receive a friendly message explaining the problem. If there is a fairly long block log, checking through the talk page history for each block to find the reason can be very time-consuming and troublesome, so it really would not be helpful to have a block log that just said "See talk page for details, See talk page for details, See talk page for details..." would be very unhelpful. Here is an example of a reasonably long block log (I have seen longer ones). However, I don't see any problem with giving a block reason like "Using Wikipedia for promotion, and also because the user name is against policy. See talk page for further details." In fact, I yhjink I would have been giving block reasons like that for a long time if I had thought of it before. Certainly I would far prefer that to throwing the spamusername block notice in an editor's face as soon as she or he tries to edit. (I feel particularly strongly about the spamusername block notice because in my experience, a large proportion of its recipients were in fact perfectly good-faith editors who genuinely didn't know that posting an article to tell the world about their business/band/club/whatever was unacceptable.) The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:03, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
Ah, right. The individual's block log. Of course. I look at those all the time. What you say about many blocks and having to search talk histories to find reasons makes sense.
I like your "Using Wikipedia for promotion, and also because the user name is against policy. See talk page for further details." Unless there are objections, I will probably start to use that for simple, new user, spamublock types. How about adding an "and/or" to that and using this template? The "and/or" would mean "promo edits and possibly your username is promo too". These spamu editors often want to let the world know about their org by adding their "profile". I really want to add "profile" to that template. Thoughts?
James, that IP was a very irritating troll, with their absurd templated warnings on Calton's page and their edit summaries, such as removing Calton's talkpage comment here with the edit summary "Legal threats" (!). You'd have to be a saint, which Calton isn't, to not somewhat rise to such bait. I see Calton reported them on AIV,[34] but they don't seem to have been blocked.
I understand you gave Calton two weeks in consideration of his previous block log and the ANI discussion from 2013 that you mention. He's a hotblooded fellow. But the offense this time doesn't seem heinous to me. Yes, I know, all editors are equal, we need to be equally polite to everybody even if they're trolls, and not lose our temper with anybody. Mmmm. Well. Anyway, unless you object, I'd like to unblock Calton. Time served (ten days) seems plenty to me. He's a useful editor. Bishonen | talk09:31, 24 April 2015 (UTC).
@Bishonen: I have found over the course of time that In most respects I tend to agree with your views on admin matters (though "Whatever Bishonen says, do" is putting it stronger than I would). However, there are a few areas where you and I differ, and one of them is certainly that you tend to give far more weight than I would to "so and so is a 'useful editor', so we should allow him or her to get away with more incivility and aggression towards other editors than we would from a more average editor." Even so, having thought about it, I have decided that, considering (a) that there was provocation, (b) that there has been a long time since the last similar incident, and (c) that the remark was, on the scale of offensive remarks, a relatively mild one, two weeks was longer than necessary, so I have unblocked. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:45, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
Hi, could you take a look at the activity for 72.20.140.25. You've blocked it previously and its back to its old habits. Granted there are some self reversions (maybe a teacher caught the student doing it), but its the same type of vandalism and disruptive editing. I ran across this via a Special:PendingChanges edit review. Thanks, --Scalhotrod(Talk) ☮ღ☺ 14:45, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Plancess EduSolutions Pvt Ltd.
Hi James,
Yesterday I had created a page with name Plancess for my organization Plancess EduSolutions Pvt Ltd, it was not at all promotional, I just wanted to provide information to the community by sharing information. But it was deleted by you.
Can you please share me little brief what else I should add in the article so that it may be accepted by the wiki community.
Since you refer to this company as "my organization", you are clearly closely involved, and therefore Wikipedia's guideline on conflict of interest strongly discourages you from editing on the subject, and you certainly should not be creating an article about it. A Wikipedia article needs to be written from a neutral point of view, and someone closely involved in an organisation is likely to find it difficult or even difficult to write neutrally.
If you honestly regard the article you wrote as "not at all promotional", then that is a good illustration of one of the main reasons for what I have said above. The article read from start to finish like a piece of marketing copy, and if you really did not see it that way, then I can only assume that you are so closely involved in the subject that you are unable to stand back from it and see how your writing will look from the detached perspective of an independent observer.
I have searched for information about your business, and nothing I have found suggests that the business satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. If it doesn't, then writing an article about it is likely to be a waste of time and effort, as the article is likely to be deleted, no matter how it is written and who writes it. No amount of rewriting an article can change the notability of the subject of the article.
I see that the account that created the article is blocked from editing. I am sure you created a new account in good faith, in order to ask me for advice, but doing so is not in line with Wikipedia policy: if you are blocked, then the only acceptable way to return to editing is to use your original account to request that you be unblocked. If your request is accepted by an administrator, you may edit again, but unless and until that happens, you should not edit anywhere except the talk page of your account, and you should not try to get round the block by using another account. For that reason, I shall block the account you used to post here. Instructions on how to request an unblock are at User talk:Plancessiit. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:17, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
Unblocked editor
Greetings JBW. Some time back you unblocked an editor to give a second chance. A quick look at their talk page history suggests not much has changed. I've recently crossed paths with them and am finding it impossible to get them engage in talk, or article talk page dicussions despite some unconstructive editing. Your thoughts are welcome. Flat Outtalk to me02:53, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
He has learned how to edit war without violating 3-rr. His level of activity is very low. I have warned him about WP:AC/DS concerning BLP and any more disruptive edit to R.Kelly should lead to topic ban. That would be best choice IMO. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 05:10, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
Festival of Family Classics article
Hi, can you fix part of the article that says "The two hour-long episodes (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in 80 Days )were split into two-parters.", please? The part I'm referring to that needs fixing is "Days )were" so it says "Days) were". Dragon'sLair83 (talk) 23:15, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
Hi, I'm writing to you because I have just seen the block placed on User:FreeatlastChitChat, and I must say I am very shocked by it, and in particular by your comment that "the exact words "Rape Jihad" feature both in the title of one of the sources and in the body of its text". Firstly, this is not really accurate. There is no discussion of the concept of "rape jihad" in the body of the text. Please note that the very article in question, Rape jihad, has just been deleted and salted as irretrievable OR and SYN. Furthermore, as I have explained here the edit summary "No mention of rape jihad Anywhere in the sources given", was entirely accurate in terms of its content. It was just slightly misphrased. The section was supported by eleven citations to articles, not one of which mentioned "rape jihad" in their content. One of them used it as a catch-phrase in the article title, even though it was never used in the article at all. This one citation had been deemed completely unreliable by WP:RSN. See here. In effect FreeatlastChitChat was removing a section which was supported by eleven citations with no content related to the phrase. User:Pax has repeatedly misrepresented this as a "lie" on FreeatlastChitChat's part. At most, it was a very slight slip-up in phrasing. In reality he was correctly applying Wikipedia policy. Having properly gone to WP:RSN, he discounted the unreliable article, in the content of which the phrase never appears anyway. I really think you have been misled by Pax's misrepresentations of the facts here. Contrary to the statement by OhNoitsJamie, FreeatlastChitChat has shown that he "understands our WP:NPOV policy" very well. I think an injustice against a sincere editor should be overturned. I can't comment on your statement that the edit summary "putting in a neutral tone" was false, as the link has been deleted, but I will be perfectly willing to discuss it if I am able to access the relevant text. Paul B (talk) 14:51, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
I gather the 'neutral tone' edit summary may refer to the addition of the phrase "Ultra right wing, conservative and Islamophobic", to describe the Gatestone Institute, well, that's exactly what they are, as the analysis section of the Gatestone Institute article notes. I think "ultra right wing" is probably over the top. "Conservative and Islamaphobic" would be enough, with a qualifier such as "have been described as". But I still can't see how this is a blockable issue. Remember that this institute's publication had already been deemed unreliable. It should not have been there at all. These edits have to be seen in the proper context in which they occurred. He was simply trying find a way of signalling the POV in the face of relentless edit-warring back in of unreliable content. That is a legitimate issue of neutrality, as the portrayal of the institute as a 'normal' scholarly source misrepresented the situation. There has been a longstanding problem of how to characterise groups in such a way as too inform the reader of their POV without obviously trying to prejudice the reader. He probasbly went a bit over the top, but given the appalling level of misrepresentation that the "other side" was engaging in (as evidenced by the the deletion of the whole sorry mess) this is hardly a major sin. Paul B (talk) 16:20, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
I regret not having phrased my block notice differently. The essential reason for the block was edit warring, with other issues being supporting matter, rather than in themselves major reasons for the block, and it would have been better if I had made it clearer that the emphasis was on edit warring. Template:Uw-ew says in bold print "Do not edit war even if you believe you are right", and in general the belief that edits are justified is not a justification for edit warring. It is true that the edit warring policy states that there is an exception for reverting "to enforce certain overriding policies", but it gives no indication what those "certain" policies are apart from citing the BLP as an example, and rightly or wrongly it is left entirely to the judgement of individual administrators to decide which are the "certain" policies, and exactly what kinds of editing are to be considered exempt on those grounds. As I have said, the essential reason for the block was edit warring, but any doubt that I might have had about whether to block for that reason was reduced by the existence of other problems in relation to the edit warring edits.
However right or wrong you may be in taking the view that the people who use the expression "rape jihad" are "ultra conservative, right wing and islamophobic", it is not neutral wording: it is wording designed to promote a particular view. It is not such gross point-of-view pushing to itself be grounds for a block, but describing an edit which puts those words in as "putting in a neutral tone" is misleading. Also, for an editor who has a history of reverting other editors' edit on the grounds of inadequate sourcing to himself or herself add such clearly non-neutral content without giving any source whatever is at best questionable.
You say "the edit summary 'No mention of rape jihad Anywhere in the sources given' was entirely accurate in terms of its content", but it wasn't. The source linked uses the expression "rape jihad" both in its title and in the very first sentence of its text. Whether you are justified in thinking (as you seem to imply) that although that phrase is used, the subject matter of the source is not substanially concerned with "rape jihad" or not, the fact remains that the source does mention "rape jihad", so that the edit summary, which said "no mention", (not "no discussion of the concept") is simply wrong.
Although Wikipedia has policies and guidelines, it leaves the question of how to apply those policies and guidelines in such matters as when to block editors to the judgement of administrators. My opinion is that it would be an abuse of administrative power to allow my own views of the issues involved to determine what action I take. for what it is worth, I do actually think that FreeatlastChitchat was for the most part right in his or her view of the editing that was going on, but it would have been wrong of me to have taken that into consideration. In my opinion, some of the most significant facts about Adolf Hitler are that he was a bigoted racist murderous megalomaniac, but the article Adolf Hitler does not express itself in those terms: "neutral point of view" does not mean "the correct point of view". FreeatlastChitchat was edit warring. He or she is fully aware of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring, and indeed had already twice been blocked for edit warring, both within the last five weeks. Edit warring is disruptive, whether the edits are justifiable or not. I was certainly aware of the fact that there are factors that could be taken as justification for the edits, but justification for an edit is a very different matter from justification for edit warring to force that edit to stick. Nevertheless, if the recent edit warring had been the only issue, I might well have thought that a warning would be enough, but in the case of an editor who has repeatedly been blocked for edit warring and who also exhibits other problems in relation to the edit warring, my judgement was that it was necessary to convey the message "edit warring is unacceptable, no matter whether you or I or anyone else thinks your edits are right, and since two short blocks have failed to convey that message to you, it is appropriate to try a longer block, in the hope it will do so". I also note that another administrator, independently assessing an unblock request, supported the block, which suggests to me that my assessment was probably not wildly out of line. You say "I think an injustice against a sincere editor should be overturned", but Wikipedia's policy on edit warring says (basically) "don't edit war", not "don't edit war unless you are sincere". In fact, if it did say that, it would be pretty pointless, as almost always everyone who edit wars is sincere; I expect that the editors who were being opposed by FreeatlastChitchat are probably sincere too, whether or not you or I or FreeatlastChitchat or anyone else thinks that their sincere beliefs are mistaken or unreasonable. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:39, 12 May 2015 (UTC)