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Uncivil comments after editing Politico-media complex

Stuck

User:Dsmith1usa and I are in a little dispute over at Politico-media complex and the user has become rather aggressive and rude with these two comments [1], [2] after I removed some of his additions which I feel are unsubstantiated in the sources provided, suffer from weasel words and border on original research and afford undue weight to one commentator. Appreciate some sort of input to keep the discussion focussed on the content. Hiding Talk 16:04, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I left a response in the article Talk requesting that the "The Editor known as Block" section be removed, as it's a clear violation of WP:NPA. I invited both of you to continue any discussion about your personal dispute here, and we'll attempt to mediate as best as possible, but I also advised that the personal dispute should be taken off of the article Talk and either to here or to one of your User Talk pages. Hope this helps. :) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 19:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

It either will or it won't. It looks like it is still meandering along a diatribe path, but thanks for the input. I'm pretty much just treading through the processes, to be honest. Hiding Talk 12:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I just looked at the discussion again, and it appears Dsmith is still making this a very personal argument there. I noted that your side of the argument has remained civil - good job! Dsmith, on the other hand, appears to be treading on thin ice with respect to WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA and WP:POINT, and he seems to feel that he's entitled to warn the rest of the community about your "hypocrisy", despite what policies he might be violating by doing so. If he continues after further advice, I'll refer you both to mediation. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 06:01, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Cheers, it's appreciated. Hiding Talk 11:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I've made several attempts to help defuse the situation on that talk page, but it is clear to me that Dsmith1usa is not interested in mediation - he has, instead, continued the dispute directly in the article talk page and has resorted to violating WP:NPA even after several warnings. I can't do anything more in this situation - I left him a warning in his User Talk page with a specific diff that violated the policy. Depending on his response to the warning, I would refer you to either a more formal mediation step, Request For Comment on User, or the Admin Noticeboard. (I noticed that you yourself are an admin, and I applaud your effort to work this out through the normal channels rather than taking this into your own hands.) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 15:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, Dsmith has made a number of very wordy (to the point of being almost unreadable) comments in my own Talk page criticizing my attempts to facilitate discussion. Among other things, he has (or at least I think he has) stated that WP's Consensus policy is flawed, and he has referred to a number of people as "Wikipedia Equestrians" - I took his manner to mean the typical "aristocracy/tyranny of the majority" argument that frequently comes up in one-against-many situations. In any event, I maintain that he does not appear to be willing to work constructively in this situation, and he apparently refuses to do anything about the personal attacks that still exist in the article Talk. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 16:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

False accusation of trolling

• [3]. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 14:45, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The comment to which you object was "apologies for feeding the troll". The earlier comment was actually the one that started the tiff, with an accusation of "forum-shopping".

In my opinion (since you are evidently asking) is that the person at fault here is the one who started out with accusations, rather than assuming good faith; and then compounding the problems by going straight to a wikiquette alert when they got what was actually a very mild reproof in response. I'd be inclined to offer some gentle wisdom, but at this point I just can't resist saying... apologies for feeding the troll. :-) Seriously, mate, you badly need to cool it. Cheers —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 15:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Text of Rfc altered to make an accusation

An Rfc on an article filed a while ago has been changed by Green108 to make an accusation. 17:04, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Personal attacks by user Fyslee

Stale

Please help. Fyslee keeps inserting personal attacks on me in article discussion pages. I have placed a series of NPA warning templates and he has either ignored or removed the templates and replaced them with more personal attacks.

• My removal - Here I am removing a post where he is demonstrating a personal grudge he has against me because I didn't take his side on his ArbCom.
• Here he makes more comments, some of which are fine, but most of which are personal attacks on me. I removed the personal attacks here and here.
• Fyslee restored the comments here and then I re-removed them [4]
• Please note that all along, I have been placing warning templates on Fyslee's take page - [5], [6], and [7].
• Fyslee ignored these templates by continuing to post and restore personal attacks on me. He also removed these warning templates and replaced them with more personal attacks.
• As I am typing this, Fyslee placed another attack on my talk page. Well, this one seems a little more congenial - as if he is offering me advice - but I think it is clear that his intention here is to enflame. Please review the result of Fyslee's RfA and note that he has a history of personal attacks.

I am not going to presume to suggest a remedy, but please note that Fyslee has been warned many times about this kind of behavior both prior to and after his RfA. I would like to see this behavior end as I feel he adds a level of combativeness to already tense talk pages which makes it impossible to resolve any content disputes. Thank you. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 18:26, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Levine. After reviewing your diffs and the RfA, I believe that this situation is probably being inflamed from both sides. I haven't done an in-depth review of the article in question, so I can't make any judgements or comments on whose edits are POV or what not. But to my eye (and without knowing a large amount of the history here), I'd say that you both have some valid points and are both kind of at each other's throats in this matter. So I have a little advice for you, and I will attempt to give some advice to him as well:

• • First, regardless of WP:NPA, it is generally not a good idea to remove or edit other users' comments on Talk pages when a dispute arises. This only tends to aggravate the situation, and from Fyslee's point of view, you are likely partially invalidating his points. I'm not endorsing his statements directed at you, but I believe a more appropriate way to respond to them is to address the content only, and to politely ask the other editor to remove the personal statements from his comments and leave them out of the discussion in the future.
  • Second, remember that when editors address one another directly on each other's talk pages, some are much more direct and blunt than others. I personally feel that Fyslee's recent comment to you on your Talk page is borderline on WP:CIVIL - he has some decent points in his message, but he also appears to be rejecting your attempts to notify him of his behavior. I don't think there's much more you can do in that particular situation other than to respond politely to him.
  • Third, if a content dispute continues over whether his or your version of the Stephen Barrett article should stay (and which one violates WP:NPOV), I would refer to the results of any previous arbitration (and request enforcement if applicable and appropriate), or go through the Article RfC process, formal mediation, or arbitration as a last resort.

It is all too easy for editors to confuse criticism of one another's content with personal attacks on the editor's character or the validity of his comments. I'd advise both of you to remember that you each have different points of view on this matter, and while you may not agree with each other, both of your POVs are valid. That does not mean that they are both necessarily correct or in compliance with policies and guidelines, but they are worth considering and discussing, and it is up to the broader community to come to consensus as to what should be in the article, as well as to ensure that policies are being obeyed. I will advise Fyslee that his statements toward you have been, in my opinion, unnecessarily harsh and personal, and that your point of view is no less valid than his. I hope that will help to settle things. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) It should go without saying (to those who are familiar with Levine2112's tactics) that he is having these same problems with other editors as well (they react to his provocations and baiting) and his feigned innocense and feigned civility is an old pattern which those who edit alongside him see through. His contentiousness and continual revert warring and (unpunished) 4rr violations are tiring and we aren't superhuman. His tactics have obviously irritated some of us and instead of accepting our advice and the opportunity to "see himself as others see him," he starts bombing us with warning templates, which is itself an attack which only inflames the situation. I too am tired of the situation.

As a strong supporter of a banned user, he was earlier exposed during an RfArb as a poor researcher who tried to mislead the ArbComs with false and carelessly researched linkspamming charges against me. His charges were totally picked apart (but he didn't get punished for it), yet he still tries to attack me and bait me. Now, instead of trying to defuse the situation by talking calmly to us, he misuses our talk pages and this board. If he considers himself man enough to dish it out, then he should be able to take care of things himself. I only discovered his provocative warnings on my user page at a late date, so to speak, and found them quite disrespectful, yet I didn't bomb his talk page with disrespectful attacks in the form of warning templates, which should be reserved for newbies and not used on other experienced editors. Such actions are his way of baiting and inflaming others and he's done it before. I prefer to tell him to his face and I have left a message explaining how I feel about his actions. It is an explanation, but of course he will interpret it as an attack. Adults should be able to talk together honestly.

He apparently has no idea how strongly his treatment of others affects them. Because we know him after a couple years, we can see straight through his seemingly civil way of twisting and wording things, but we aren't fooled. Others may be, but we know him too well.

I have not restored his last deletions. If he will be more careful and respectful in how he treats me and refers to me I will certainly be more careful in how I respond to him. I didn't start this and have no intention of finishing it either. I only responded after repeated provocations and this is not my best hour. I shouldn't have taken the bait and will be more careful in the future. After a couple years of this, it's hard to really know what he means sometimes, since the pattern og baiting and false politeness has been established for so long. If he is changing tactics and would like to start assuming good faith for once, I'd like to do the same.

I have just read KieferSkunk comments above and find them very useful and wise. I will try to do my best to improve my interactions with Levine2112. Thanks. -- Fyslee/talk 19:04, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I greatly appreciate your words and wisdom here. KieferSkunk. Thanks. I sincerely this helps improve all of our experiences here a Wikipedia. (I regret however that Fyslee's comments above are patently untrue and continue to enflame the situation.) -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

At this point, accusations and defenses are probably not going to help the matter any more. I'm not going to be able to review each of your histories to validate each other's claims, but I'd advise you both to step back and take some time off from the articles in which you both are participating. Go back in with a cool head after a couple of days or so, discuss the issues neutrally, and see what comes of the discussions then. Again, also consider using Article RFC if you're still unable to work it out or if you have trouble getting other editors involved to discuss the matter. Thanks, and good luck. :) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 19:29, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I regret that Levine2112 fails to assume good faith and accept that I have expressed things as I see them and that's my POV. I am not attempting to mislead anyone. That's just the way I see things and he needs to accept that his actions and long-standing pattern of editing and way of referring to myself and other users with opposing POV has caused feelings in other persons that he may not have intended, and apparently does not understand. That indicates he needs to be more sensitive, and..... so do I! I am not perfect nor any saint.

I accept the advice above and will try to defuse the situation as best I can. -- Fyslee/talk 19:49, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

It does need to be noted that Levine is a bit tag happy and, seemingly, rather than resolving any issues, would rather take offense at almost any comment. But rather than actually being offended, he seems more interested in generating enough warnings to then come here as a victim. It should be noted that he has (on his talk page) expressed a liking to this sort of behaviour, of which I find very disappointing as it only suggests that he is editing to be disruptive (trolling), which leads to other editors (myself included) being frustrated, commenting, and having Levine slap a NPA tag on our talk pages. This is happening with a group of editors, and it does need to be asked, why does a group of editors have problems with a single editor that he feels he needs to continually ask "NPA". I would suggest that his behaviour needs to be examined. Shot info 22:58, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Has a Checkuser request User RFC (use this before going to Checkuser) been filed for this situation? If not, you may want to consider doing so. That would be a good way to deal with the situation if the consensus among the article editors is that Levine's behavior is out of line. Flame-baiting is definitely not acceptable behavior, but WQA is not really the place to assess if this is what he or anyone else is doing. All we can do here is to help resolve disputes, but it seems that this situation may be beyond the scope of WQA. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

No worries, there has been some discussion about the formal process, but I (for one) do not prefer this path after being dragged into the ArbCom described by Fyslee above (and I wasn't even involved). So I am cautious about the formal processes. Nevertheless, a RfC has been discussed and I think you might be correct in recommended this. Thanks for your time. Shot info 23:17, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Please note that Shot info has also been personally attacking in conjunction with Fyslee. In fact I was almost going to report him here with Fyslee, but I thought Shot info had ceased this behavior. Apparently I was wrong. Please see here for the warning templates I have placed on Shot info's talk page and fromt here you can see what remarks of his I was responding too. Again, I am not presuming to propose a remedy here. I just wish this kind of incivility would stop. Thanks. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 23:55, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Even just before Shot info posted here, you can see how he even uses edit summaries in an attempt to enflame me. [8] This needs to stop. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 23:58, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Sighhh, it just never stops... Shot info 00:09, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Levine, it doesn't look to me like Shot's comment (which you posted a diff for) or the edit summary was a personal attack against you at all. This is starting to look like a many-to-one situation here, in which other editors believe you are flame-baiting and trolling, getting them to respond in an uncivil manner, and then reporting them for policy violations. I'm seeing more evidence of that now that I look back in the histories. Nobody here is blameless, but I think you should step back (as I mentioned earlier) and consider a change in your tactics.

NPA templates in user talk pages should be used with care. Please do not overuse them. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 00:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Summary of recent actions: I followed up on Shot Info's Talk page and provided some guidance on the apparently overused NPA templates there. Brief argument ensued there in which both Shot Info and I asked Levine2112 to disengage. No further discussion occurred there. I also have not seen any new arguments between Levine and Fyslee. I have not been following the original article(s) where the arguments started, but last I saw, it appeared that all parties had disengaged from arguing with one another. Perhaps we're back to where we should be now. I'll give this a couple more days before marking as Resolved. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 05:42, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Stale: There have been no additional comments on this WQA in close to two weeks now. I have not been monitoring the individual users, so I don't know if there are any additional issues that pertain to this alert. I'm marking as Stale, but if anyone involved in the case has any additional information, you are more than welcome to add it here. I'll change the status as appropriate, if necessary. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Incivility on Talk: Radio North Sea International

Resolved

Some seemingly umprompted personal attacks on editors in the last three sections of this talk page [[9]]. At least one editor -RICHARD GEOFFREY ASHTON - seems to have no Wikipedia history other than these attacks, hence - as far as I can see - some concern about sock puppets. Advice? I am not sure how to go about talking to this editor, or Konalgia911. Thanks. KD Tries Again 15:37, 30 July 2007 (UTC)KD

There is no question that both of the above-named users are violating WP:CIVIL. From what I can see, you have managed to continue adhering to it in the face of their violations, for which you should be commended - it's not always an easy task.

If you suspect that either editor is a sockpuppet, you should file a report at WP:SSP if you have not already. That could solve part of your problem. For any non-sockpuppet violators of civility, I will try, as a hitherto uninvolved third party, to impress on them that their behaviour is not acceptable in the Wikipedia community. Hopefully that will help. If not, we'll have to take it from there.

I hope this was helpful. Please don't hesitate to respond here to what I have said. Sarcasticidealist 02:40, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. One of the other editors, who appears to have worked on the article in good faith, made an accusation of sock puppetry. I'll keep an eye on that.KD Tries Again 14:27, 1 August 2007 (UTC)KD

They seem to be confirmed socks. I'll mark this as resolved. Sarcasticidealist 13:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Dispute regarding James Solomon AfD

I've recently become more active on wikipedia, commenting on various AfDs, engaging in discussion and trolling Random Article to find articles for improvement. Results have been pretty good so far, but after finding the article James Solomon, and nominating it for deletion, I apparently offended User:Mikkalai. As is seen on the AfD page, I am apparently guilty of 'militant ignorance'. The user in question then removed two Copy to Wiktionary tags I had placed on the articles Vervelles and Guige. While it seems minimal as to vandalism, I would like to stop this problem short before it explodes.

Thank you, Ravenmasterq 02:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

While I'd say User:Mikkalai's comments on the AfD crossed a little over the WP:CIVIL line, I'd be tempted to suggest that you just ignore the incivility unless it persists - the user in question seems to have a long history of constructive edits, and if such a user slips up and crosses the line in rare instances I think it's best for the project to just let it slide (it would be nice if he'd acknowledge the slip up and apologize, though). If the behaviour persists or causes you to feel unwelcome in the community, then action is certainly called for, but it doesn't seem like too big a deal at this point. If it is a big deal to you, I'd be quite prepared to give the user a mild rebuke on his talk page, but I'd rather just ignore it unless it becomes a real problem.

As for the removal of the transwiki tags, I don't think it qualifies as vandalism. He apparently disagreed that the articles should have been transwiki'd, and behaved accordingly (although he should have left an edit summary explaining his disagreement). If you still want to transwiki them, I'd suggest that you say as much in the articles' talk pages and leave a note on Mikkilai's talk page inviting him to discuss the issue there. If he declines to discuss the issue with you after a few days, re-add the tags; if he removes them while refusing to discuss the issue in the talk page, that's a much clearer breach of Wikiquette.

Please let me know if you have found this helpful and whether there is anything else I can do. Sarcasticidealist 02:31, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• The only problem I have with the removal of the tags is that they seemed to be targeted towards me personally; those pages grab little traffic and it seemed to be an edit out of spite.Ravenmasterq 03:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, if that is the case, Mikkalai would be in violation of WP:HARRASS, although I'm sure you'll agree that two transwiki tags are pretty flimsy evidence of such a violation. The only advice I can give you on that front is to keep monitoring the situation and, if you feel that he is "following a contributor around the wiki, editing the same articles as the target, with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor", then bring that up here. Sarcasticidealist 03:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

but this sort of thing can escalate very fast, and I'd really suggest you try to see if it dies down first. it's much less pleasant to deal with once a fight breaks out. DGG (talk) 21:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Morgellons article needs unbiased helper

Work in progress; comments welcome

 – ongoing edit war; POV-pushing; stalled consensual process; good faith efforts by some of the editors -- situation is complicated, more editors welcome. Eventually there should be an RFC for the article.

The Morgellons article is unbearable and abusive to any editors who don't believe that Morgellons is DOP. Herd of Swine keep deleting cited material from the country's leading authority to further his own agenda. He abuses everyone who disagrees with him. It's a nightmare to try to make the Morgellons article have a neutral point of view. The editors gang up on anyone who does not assume that it is delusional -- despite the fact that the CDC has called it an debilitating, emerging public health concern which warrants a multi million dollar investigation. People are dying of this disease and efforts via wikipedia to trivialize the disease HURT SICK CHILDREN AND ADULTS. It is morally reprehensible, and incredibly distructive. Anyone who tries to make the article balance is abused -- there entries destroyed without discussion -- weasel words added. Herd and his cohorts are wiki-bullies. Someone needs to monitor that site or eliminate the whole article. Please intervene and have an unbiased arbitrator help!! People have begged for this over and over, and nothing has been done to correct the situation. Pez1103 19:23, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Please provide a link to the page where the problem is happening, and point out specific examples so we can find what you are asking us to look at. Thanks. --Parsifal _Hello 19:44, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Pez1103. I've had a look at the page, and it strikes me that all parties are pretty frustrated with the way things are going. I do find it positive that both sides are making extensive use of the talk page; it makes it much easier to assume good faith than if edits were unilateral and unexplained.

I must say that I find that User:Herd of Swine is making numerous attempts to try new leads, justify them, and invite debate over them. Your rejections of his proposals are, unfortunately, sometimes a little perfunctory (I speak especially of your response to his proposal here, where you say of his proposal only that "it's terrible" and that it "ignores the most significant facts in the article").

If you want to resolve the content dispute, I would advise any and all of the following courses of action:

• clearly articulate your objections to User:Herd of Swine's proposed leads
• start proposing alternative leads of your own. It seems pretty obvious that the lead you currently favour isn't going to achieve consensus, so start modifying it and proposing alternatives.
• make use of WP:RFC

It goes without saying that all parties should be extremely careful to adhere to WP:CIVIL, even if it means being unnaturally and obsequiously polite to one another.

I hope this has been helpful, and please let me know if you have any other questions or you wish to take exception to something I have said. Sarcasticidealist 07:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Male pregnancy

User keeps inserting large amounts of original research and musing at length about "possible methods" of male humans becoming pregnant. 20:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

This is not OR.This is speculation from experts.Everything is sourced.--88.82.46.208 21:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I confess that I'm having trouble following this, in no small part because none of the involved parties seem to have registered usernames. More over, from what I can tell User:88.82.46.208 seems to currently be engaged in removing large sections of material from the article (rightly or wrongly; I make no judgment), but the same IP seems to be defending the inclusion of the contentious material above.

From what I can tell, your bigger problem is a content dispute; what Wikiquette breaches there have been - some violation of WP:CIVIL, and behaviour coming dangerously close to revert-warring - have been secondary to the real problem, which is that there seems to be a fundamental different as to what content is worthy of inclusion in the article. I see that you made use of the WP:THIRD tool, which is good, but there didn't seem to be much attempt to build on what came from there. You might also try posting a WP:RFC, as was suggested on the talk page.

Basically - and this isn't going to come as news to you - you need to resolve your content dispute. From what I can tell, all concerned editors are (mostly) aiming for civility and discussing changes, so your problem doesn't strike me as being fundamentally one of Wikiquette (even the initial posting here complained of violations of WP:OR, which are content violations). If involved parties would consider it helpful, I'm prepared to do a deeper read of the content issues in the article and comment on the article's talk page as a third party.

Besides that, I'd strongly encourage all of you to register user names; it makes following these discussions so much easier. Sarcasticidealist 07:17, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Fansite Feud

Resolved

I watch the page Charlie Hunnam - i wrote the majority of the article. Every other day someone edits the external links they either delete one fansite and keep the other, add both or delete the one thats kept and put in the other. Its getting very annoying and i have no idea what to do about it. Sometimes its an IP address which changes, sometimes its an IP that i recognise and more recently its a username. Having the edits showing up on my watchlist every day or so is a pain and i actually had issues with both the webmasters in the past (not wiki related) and i know that its them doing the editing after i traced IPs and recognised usernames and because i've had issues with them in the past i don't want to personally get involved again but the continual editing of this page is so very annoying and i was kind of hoping someone could come in and help. I tried to do something about it but neither of them seem aware of the talk page etc. Just hoping this is the right place to ask for a little help. Princesskirsty 20:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

It looks to me like this might constitute a violation on the part of User:Charliefanuk of WP:EL ("Articles about any organization, person, web site, or other entity should link to the official site if any."). If he is the site's webmaster, that's likely also a WP:SPAM violation. I'll post a note on his talk page briefly explaining these policies and asking him to adhere to them. If the problems persist, we can look at other measures (possibly including page protection or partial protection?); in the meantime, though, I don't think it's reached the point that the amount of reversion required is totally unreasonable.

Let me say as well that I think you've handled this very well. Your edit summaries in the article are especially detailed, which I certainly appreciated as somebody who was visiting the article's history page for the first time. Sarcasticidealist 21:27, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem does seem to be continuing, but from anonymous users. I've deleted the fansite links and left a note on the talk page explaining this decision. I'm also now monitoring the page, so I'm happy to do necessary reversions quickly, and if any single user or IP is continually problematic, we can initiate action to rectify the problem. Sarcasticidealist 17:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Well i traced one IP address and i KNOW that its the webmaster of the site that ends .com.ar and the webmaster of the .org is the charliefanuk person. i know that they're friends and their edits are making absolutely no sense to me at all. But i am very greatful for your intervention because i know that if i would make too much of an impact they would go after me via their websites and emails like they've done in the past (and continue to do if they're in the mood). So thank you so much for watching the page, i really appreciate it. If you look at their contributions you'll see that they do similar edits to the pages that are related to Hunnam - his films and tv shows, its really getting out of hand. Thanks again!! Princesskirsty 17:54, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, as I said, I don't think the level of edits that these people are making has gotten totally out of hand yet, so I think that, sadly, we have to accept the kind of reverts that currently need to be done as the kind of regular maintenance that high-profile articles need. Hopefully, when they see that their edits are quickly reverted and that they're not getting a rise out of people, they'll get bored and go away. If they instead decide to ramp up their efforts, we'll have to look at either blocking their IPs or semi-protecting the page. As for the associated articles, if you want to provide me with a list of them I'd be happy to start watching them too. Sarcasticidealist 23:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure thing, there is Beast of Bataan, Green Street, Cold Mountain, Abandon, Undeclared, Young Americans, Queer as Folk, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? and Byker Grove. They even did it on his ex-wife's page Katharine Towne but i think someone watches it because it wasn't there for long and it was a while ago. I lost track and got really confused. Thanks again for helping out, this has been driving me up the wall. Princesskirsty 12:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The vandalism has increased in frequency enough that I can't revert it all and stay within WP:3RR, so I've requested partial protection. Hopefully it will be granted. Sarcasticidealist 15:29, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I see that it got protection, i hope this helps the issue. Maybe they'll get the point because i don't think they see it at all Princesskirsty 14:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Incivility on Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega

Resolved

 – The article has been deleted. --Darkwind (talk) 02:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Despite being asked to assume good faith, Kephera975 persists in making insinuations that I have a conflict of interest, when I have already disclosed that I do not. This is interfering with actually discussing the issues involved, as this user is using this rhetoric without actually discussing the current issues which I've brought up. IPSOS (talk) 14:35, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I have asked the editor in question to refrain from unsubstantiated COI accusations. I will continue to monitor the situation. Sarcasticidealist 23:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Can't sleep, clown will eat me

Resolved

This admin semi-protected the article Bat, after it was vandalised twice. I felt that this was perhaps a little inappropriate, so I left a comment on his talk page.[10] At first, he replies rationally, with the comment "There looked to be a possibly coordinated vandalism attack from two IP ranges, sorry." Then I pointed out that there were only two vandalism edits, and suddenly, instead of replying to my comment, he removed it as "trolling".[11] I was shocked by this, and reinstated the comment with a question on why he thought that I was a troll.[12] He reverted it without an explanation[13] (inappropriate use of admin rollback), and again when I asked him not to do so.[14] The next thing he did was leave a comment on my talk page, that I should have been "civil" in my message. Not knowing what I did wrong, I replied asking what part of my comment he deemed to be "uncivil", and he hasn't replied since.[15] Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 21:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

This appeared to be a coordinated IP attack at the time when it was protected, and has since been unprotected. Much ado about nothing, but I appreciate the concern. Thank you, Can't sleep, clown will eat me 21:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

If so, thank you, then it was a lot of a fuss about nothing. But if you appreciate the concern, why didn't you just reply to my comment instead of removing it as trolling? That would have solved the entire thing :-). Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 22:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

To the initiating user - perhaps this report would be taken more seriously if you hadn't reported the Administrator in question at as many noticeboards as you could? It really doesn't allow much hope for WP:AGF to be applied ~ Anthøny 22:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict), well I didn't really report him to "as many noticeboards as I could". I merely asked for the page to be unprotected, which isn't really reporting someone, and I didn't mean to file the 3RR report, as I thought that he would not rollback the comment about this WQA (it is required that you inform the editor whom the WQA concerns). Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 22:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Melsaran also nominated Wikimedia Commons for deletion today. I too am having difficulty lending good faith after considering his previous block log [16] and that he created a page just hours prior to this incident at User:Melsaran/My comments which explicitly states: "When I edit your talk page, you are free to delete my comments". If he genuinely has a problem with people deleting comments they don't like, he might want to retract that statement. RFerreira 02:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

(←) I concur with Can't sleep, clown will eat me: Much ado about nothing. Unless someone would like to post a serious description of a problem that is currently occuring, I would like to close this report and move on. If anyone does not agree, then please remove the resolved tag and list some diffs with focused complaints and a suggestion for how the situation could be improved.

Also, it would be important to avoid using the user name of Can't sleep, clown will eat me, because every time I see that name I can't stop laughing, and that makes it hard for me to do my work. --Parsifal _Hello 02:42, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

AfD noms by User:Southern Texas

Resolved

Possible bad faith AfD noms[17][18] of articles recently/regularly edited by Balloonman (talk · contribs) immediately after Balloonman nominated an article created by Southern Texas (talk · contribs) for deletion. Dbromage 04:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Note: This user has "retired" from wikipedia... thus, further action is probably not necessary at this point.Balloonman 05:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention. If issues continue to arise, please let us know. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 05:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I spoke too soon. He claims to have retired, but just recently made the following attack post on my talk page, "I don't care what you think you anti-semitic troll. Pro-Iran and Anti-Bloomberg, I think I make my point." All because I nominated an article for deletion and believe that another article of his has an extremely POV title, State terrorism by Iran. A quick review of his edits or glance at my talk page will show somebody who lacks civility. Balloonman 14:54, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Southern Texas (talk · contribs) has also made a personal attack in the AfD discussion.[19] Dbromage [Talk] 01:06, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I left a user warning (level 2 of 5) on Southern Texas's Talk page and also informed him of this WQA. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 01:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Dromage had already told him of the WQA, but he deletes things on his page when he doesn't like what it says. He had a 3rr issue last week.Balloonman 02:30, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I reposted the content of my exchange with SouthernTexas on my talk page regarding the 3RR note I put on his board (which he then removed.) I would refer to the "First Dispute" too but he backed down after I pointed out WP:Civil and he realized that I only made three edits, not four. JasonCNJ 02:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry to everyone involved in my incivilty on August 7, 2007. I am especially sorry to JasonCNJ for edit warring and not assuming good faith and to Balloonman for not assuming good faith and making personal attacks. I hope we can put this all behind us. I promise that I will remain calm and civil from now on.--Southern Texas 19:34, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate seeing that, Texas. Thank you. Balloonman, Dbromage and JasonCNJ, are you satisfied with this? If so, I'll be happy to mark this as resolved. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 19:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I am more than fine with that, and appreciated Southern's coming to my talk page to work this out as well.Balloonman 21:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

This is resolved as far as I can tell. I also appreciate SouthernTexas' efforts at resolution, too. JasonCNJ 21:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. I've gone ahead and closed this alert. :) Great job, guys. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 22:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Mildly inappropriate behavior by User:Jeroje

Resolved

The dispute stems around the use of the phrase "so called Bengali renaissance" in Oriya cuisine (which I just replaced to avoid conflict). He objected to the use of "so-called". As far as I know the only "renaissance" was an Italian one and in a totally unrelated article, being non-committal to the notioj of a Bengali renaissance is better.

Jeroje initiated a discussion in the | Oriya cuisine talk pages.

Twice he reverted edits by two other people (who share my opinion?). Here and Here.

What is the purpose of initiating a discussion when one is bent of having his way without supplying any argument?

Furthermore, I am the one supplying facts, only to invite comments such as (in italics):

Later part of the post I found really mis-directed.

(no justification supplied, except a blanket statement)

so you wanted to see actual "theater" in 17th century Bengal ?

(I fail to understand this)

so the article says that the recent political issues are because there were no renaissance ? I want to meet this person.

(his response to me citing a academician)

wow! "truely speaking ?" The only real renaissance happened in Europe. why do you think so because I have reference who doubts that? you seem to have read all the indian history textbooks .

(sarcasm, rudeness)

there is no counter argument to no argument

(what is the purpose of discussing, if one only provides blanket statements?)

it seems there is something disturbing you about bengal renaissance, I will suggest you make a new page which describes these counter arguments. It will be very valuable to wiki and to me in particular.

(again, contextless statement).

Now, this is only a minor issue. However, I am raising this issue here (i) to prevent further conflicts as it appears that he and I are going to contribute to similar topics, and (ii) since I made painstaking efforts to apply my reasoning behind my choice of words, supplying links, references etc., which I could have spent elsewhere if he insists on having his way from the beginning.

As a compromise, I have reworded that sentence.

Thanks.

SDas 21:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

We already have an article Bengal Renaissance that appears well-sourced and authoritative. I don't see why there is any need to use the phrase 'so-called' with the Bengali Renaissance. If you are questioning whether a Bengal Renaissance really occurred, perhaps you should be making that argument on a different Talk page that the one where this dispute is happening. EdJohnston 04:11, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree... I would be put off by somebody adding words such as "so called" to a historical fact that occured in an article I wrote. I wasn't sure from the above what the problem was.Balloonman 04:34, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

There are quite some peer-reviewed papers that use "so-called" for Bengali renaissance, which happens to be more of a Bengali claim (all the references in the article Bengali Renaissance are Bengali ones too). Nevertheless, I think I have a better understanding of the source of his anger now. The current wording avoids the use of the phrase "Bengali Renaissance" altogether, which should be kept as it is. I'll try to patch things up with him.

Thanks to both of you for this valuable feedback.

SDas 15:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Marking as resolved... unless we hear otherwise.Balloonman 04:29, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Wetman

Resolved

 – —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 22:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

An unpleasant altercation for both parties: Wetman incorrectly warned me not to make wholesale BCE>BC changes to an article, not realising that the article in question was using a mixture of dates and not a single convention and had merely been normalised by me. I told this editor that he had made a mistake but should use whichever convention he wished if he disliked my choice. He has called my edit "intrusion" and "interference". When he began selectively deleting my posts, I objected to the unfair impression given of my actions and responded by deleting my remaining comments from his user page in order to dissociate myself. Wetman has replaced this with a summary naming me as a "problem user"[20] and when I attempt to remove the personal attack it is reinstated and I am accused of harrassment. I know I'm not blameless in this, and I would like to see an end that is acceptable to both parties but Wetman refuses to discuss the matter. --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 23:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The talk page in question has now been archived. I left a brief comment on Wetmans talk page, which is now also archived. Before archiving, the word "problem" was removed, sort of. (I say "sort of", because it was then reused so that the original form remains plainly obvious. Since you were being a problem, Lu2o, you'd better live with it. At least it is archived. Clarification inserted, DQ, 05:59) In my view, you actually were being rather a problem there; and it was good of you to note that you are not blameless in the matter. Now that Wetman has archived the talk page and started the whole page afresh, I strongly recommend you consider the matter closed. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 05:24, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

"Problem" has indeed been deleted as requested by User:Duae Quartunciae. Not "sort of". Deleted. All the User's offensive posts at my userpage have been wisely withdrawn. My orginal post about not "correcting" BCE to BC that was quickly deleted by Lo2u read as follows: BC/AD is a convention always used in Wikipedia articles on specifically Christian subjects. In non-Christian subjects, changing BCE/CE to BC/AD is a discourtesy, rather like "correcting" spelling to American practice. I'm sure you understand that whatever convention is established in an article, we simply go with it. You'll notice that no one ever "corrects" BCE to BC: why do you suppose that is? My talkpage has been archived: readers may wish to consult it. --Wetman 05:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Duae. And Wetman I'm grateful to you for dropping the matter. For my part I will of course follow your wise lead and remove the post from my page. Although I didn't believe that any of my posts were overly hostile in content I accept that trying to remove them after they were put back was a very bad way of handling things. At least one third party user believes I was being a problem so I apologise for that unreservedly. I hope any future encounters can be more pleasant. --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 21:22, 10 August 2007 (UTC) BTW Wetman, I thought your advice about getting rid of fan cruft was truly brilliant.

Is Digital Command Control in breach of Wikipedia principles?

Resolved

Many of the links in the Digital Command Control page look on the face of it to be standard Wikipedia links but actually point to an external Wiki site www.dccwiki.com. Examples are the word Track in the intro and DCC decoder in the first section. This external site itself seems to be some unknown persons attempt to create there own DCC wiki. I'm not experienced enough with Wikipedia to quite know how it has been done, but it seems wrong to me and much of the material on this external site should be in Wikipedia itself. I would welcome opinions on whether this is a breach of Wikipedia principles and what should be done about it. --St1got 08:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

That's an interesting question but I don't have the answer. Those are inter-wiki links, similar to the ones we use to link to images on Commons and pages on Meta.

I suggest you post your question here: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

Someone there will either have the answer or be able to tell you the right place to find out. If you do find out about it, you might leave a note here to let us know what you learned, or post the link to your discussion at the Village Pump so we can follow-up. Thanks. --Parsifal _Hello 08:55, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I've done that and will let you know --St1got 09:08, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to thank Geni for cleaning up the page and removing the external prefix links. St1got 08:53, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Malicious irony by BillCJ

Resolved

BillCJ is responding to serious and honest discussions by me, on the matter of naming military aircraft articles consistently, with malicious irony. See Talk:JAS 39 Gripen. I don't believe that his comments promotes good faith, and he might need a reminder on how to be civil, even though he's been on wikipedia for a long time. I'm not a native English-speaker, so I may be oversensitive, or I may have misunderstood something. Is this kind of comments typical here? LarRan 09:59, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

After reading up on the discussion you linked to, I don't believe BillCJ broke any policies in his responses to you. He appeared to be trying to respond in a serious and civil manner to the conversation, though evidently his style of writing is significantly different from yours, and it appears you two have misunderstood each other. But BillCJ does appear to be focusing mostly on the content, as are you, and he pointed out that he doesn't understand why you took his comments personally. It certainly is easy to believe that one user's comments could be directed at you personally, and there are many cases where they are. But in this case, I don't see evidence of anything other than a simple misunderstanding here.

Here are some tips for you, LarRan:

• In addition to WP:AGF, I would recommend that you read "WP: Assume the assumption of good faith", a short essay that talks about how easy it is to fall into citing WP:AGF while at the same time assuming bad faith yourself. Also check out WP:POT - it touches on this issue as well.
• Also be sure you are familiar with Wikipedia's Consensus policies, which describe both what consensus is and how to go about reaching it. In this case, since you and BillCJ appear to be at opposite sides of the debate and there aren't very many other editors participating in the discussion, you are welcome to propose your move or merge and to continue discussion that way. You can also file a Request For Comment, which can attract more editors to discuss the situation. Getting an outside view is often very important in ensuring that everyone arrives at a conclusion they can live with. :)

I hope this helps. :) Please let me know if you have any questions. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanx KieferSkunk, it helped - eventually. I followed your links, and read some of the tips, and I realized that it's easy fall into that trap - not assuming AGF - however I wouldn't say (at least not with certainty) that this was the case here. There were some pages that are absolutely priceless, for example Wiki's 'Lamest Edit Wars'. I almost laughed my head off. Thanks again for taking your time and trouble. Consider the case closed. LarRan 19:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Not a problem. Just remember, keep your cool, and usually everything will work out on its own. :) Marking as resolved. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 19:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Editor review/Melsaran

Resolved

I made a comment here, which was reverted by the editor being reviewed [21], and then I added it back, because I felt my comments were appropriate. Then [22] it was removed again, perhaps by mistake, perhaps by intent, but I wonder if anything I said there was inappropriate. FrozenPurpleCube 02:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Since your comments have all been restored, it looks like any actual wikiquette issue is already resolved between you both. There may be residual negative feelings; but hey. Can't be helped. What we don't want is for it to spill over into other pages. Since you ask: I think your comments were legitimate. The removals were rather surreal, in this context. But I'm going to be presumptuous, and take the liberty of marking this as resolved already. If you think there is anything actually needing involvement of more editors, feel free to remove the "resolved" tag. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 04:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to mark it unresolved, since it seems there's something the editor wants done, but I'm not sure. I'm willing to accept a little re-ordering if the tools and questions are moved up, but I feel the comments should be kept together. Is this unreasonable to ask on my part? FrozenPurpleCube 21:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

What she wants is for you to let it go, and let her editor review go back to focussing upon her actual edits of pages. That is not unreasonable to ask on her part.

But Melsaran has not helped. She did not actually delete your comments; she placed them within a collapsible region. There is a small heading, and a button marked "show" or "hide". Here is an example:

Click on "show" to view this box
Click on "hide" to hide this box.
A box like this can be a very useful way to have a large amount of extra text on some supplementary matter, that will not be of interest to all readers. When "hidden", it is not distracting from the main part of the page. In Melsaran's case, she made some bad choices for markup; for example, requiring the width of the box to be 1100px. On some viewers, this will hide the show button completely. I can see it; but if you have a narrow page, it gets lost.

Melsaran was being very opaque in her exchange with you, merely saying that your text was not deleted (which was true) while not explaining what she was doing and why. She considers all the long exchange about the AfD to be distracting from review of her conduct as an editor. She would would like feedback on her editing of pages. She has allowed that you've given feedback that relates to past AfDs, but she would would prefer it not dominate the page. A combination of your being unwilling to let it go, and her being unclear about what she was doing, has led to a large distracting exchange in the review. Very unfortunate. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 21:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thank you for explaining that to me. I had no idea what was going on, or what she was trying to do till you explained it. I appreciate it. But I do wish I'd been asked, so I could have given my opinion, which would be a "no thank you, I don't like the idea of singling out comments for hiding" though I'm willing to move everything to the bottom, that's about it. The idea of hiding things bothers me though. And yes, it is unfortunate that such has occurred. FrozenPurpleCube 23:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Another perspective, from what I've seen she could have just as esily invoked a WQA against you. In some places, I found your responses to her to be questionable in regards to WP:CIVIL---you seemed to be egging her on. Which is disappointing because I generally have a very high regard for you. In our past dealings, I've been impressed by you and your contributions; but here, I found myself agreeing with Melsaran, "let it go." When I saw this, I thought for sure that I'd be on your side, but...Balloonman 21:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I hope you weren't thinking I was bringing up this against anybody, I was getting feedback on my conduct as such. Is there anything I could have done to address your concerns? Or could still do? I know I like to talk about things a lot. I'll happily discuss things for pages with no malice or incivility intended. Maybe I talk too much so it seems like badgering. FrozenPurpleCube 23:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I think this is resolved enough for now. Thanks for the input folks! FrozenPurpleCube 03:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

User:jebbrady (and puppet?) versus WP:SOCK, WP:OWN, WP:CIVIL, etc.

Stuck

Even without a specific example for each charge, this list of particulars is unfortunately long. However, this is at least the third attempt an editor has made to get an effective intervention in this situation before getting tired and moving on. A comprehensive intervention seems to be the only way the Herbert W. Armstrong biography will ever be permitted to contain basic biographical data for more than fifteen minutes. These are the problems with Jebbrady at Talk:Herbert_W._Armstrong and the article's history page:

• He may be in violation of WP:SOCK, as apparently one individual uses two identities, user:jebbrady and an anonymous identity located at 69.115.162.235. (This is being reported to Wiki's sockpuppet investigators).
• He has apparently been blocked for misbehavior regarding this article before, see User_talk:Jebbrady, but still has not conformed with Wikiquette in any of the discussions on the article's talk page. The Armstrong talk page also shows that someone sought the third-party opinion option, which has had no impact on him at all.
• He has violated WP:OWN by demonstrating vigorous ownership of Herbert W. Armstrong and related articles on Armstrong's associates and splinter churches. See the article's history page and then see the edit/contrib histories for both identities in the links given in the sockpuppet bullet above. He also asserts the right to control what sources editors are permitted to use: "As a history grad, I know how citations can and are abused. I'm not accepting the use of web sources--I'm sorry".
• He violates WP:NPOV when he repeatedly deletes even innocuous material (e.g., that HWA was married twice and had four children, cited to a mainstream source; that the divorce was a difficult one, cited to four sources, including TIME magazine). See the most recent example. He permits no material at all from sources of which he disapproves, ranging from mainstream news outlets to webpages or books critical of the subject of this biographical article. He refuses to allow even an internal wikilink to a fuller explanation of one of Armstrong's key beliefs, Anglo-Israelism, see diff. His determined censorship over a period of months deprives Wiki users of the most basic, routine family info about the biographical subject, much less the significant controversies and schisms in which Armstrong was involved.
• He violates WP:VERIFY by deleting sourced material without explanation, while failing to replace, augment, or contrast it with sourced material to the contrary.
• His violations of WP:NPA are too numerous to recite; please see anywhere on Talk:Herbert_W._Armstrong. Aside from imputing dire motives to everyone he's interacted with on the talk page, there's another problem. According to the NPA policy, "Attacks that are particularly offensive or disruptive (such as physical or legal threats) should not be ignored." His statement "If any Wikipedia editor cares to debate here the appropriatenes of relying on Time magazine when it comes to American religious groups (read "Christians"), the Bible, or social issues, they'll get their clock cleaned." in his response to Wiki admin Andre is almost certainly not meant as an actual physical threat. However, it demonstrates the level of perspective and maturity he brings to the discussion. The legal threats he makes re a church group suing for libel are apparently directed at Wikipedia itself rather than at individual editors, but are meant to silence and intimidate. See, e.g., here and here.
• More than once, he has violated WP:SKILL by asserting that other editors are incompetent, unscholarly (search the talk page for "sholarly" and "sholarship"), and unprofessional (search the talk page for "unprofessinal"), etc., because he disagrees with their choice of sources or their attempt to include any POV from any source not entirely congruent with his own. He repeatedly cites his undergraduate degree in history as the reason he knows best, and as the reason he has the expertise to overrule all other contributors.
• He routinely violates WP:EQ. He often fails to sign his Talk page comments, does not bother with the indentation protocols, and more than once, has put his entire lengthy comments in bold to dominate the discussion. He does not provide edit summaries on any of his edits.
• His violations of WP:GF are demonstrated by his attacks on every person who has responded to anything he has said on the Talk:Herbert_W._Armstrong page. Please note his declaration that courtesy is proof of bad faith. He made a similar accusation on that page in December of 2006 against User:RelHistBuff.
• He violates WP:CIVIL by being sarcastic, denigrating, overwhelmingly prolix and tangential, and sometimes perverse, as in his accusations that courtesy is a sly ruse. He responded this week to an admin's one-sentence affirmation of TIME Magazine as a mainstream source with a with a nine-line diatribe concluding with a threat.

I don't know how to resolve conflicts with someone with a multiple-incident record of conflict resolution failures and an abiding belief that the use of courtesy is a nefarious bad-faith strategy. Help. Lisasmall 13:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Just for completeness, the previous block that you can see a discussion of on User_talk:Jebbrady can be seen in the block log of a different IP account, 67.80.157.45 (talk · contribs · logs). There are also some warnings still visible in the Talk page of that IP. This account is in addition to the IP mentioned above, 69.115.162.235 (talk · contribs · logs). EdJohnston 05:54, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Update ten days after filing this WP:WQA:

• on the sockpuppet situation, see two admin interventions on User_talk:Jebbrady. The second intervention occurred after I told the admin handling the situation that Jebbrady had added yet another IP address, evading the block the admin put on one of the IP sockpuppets. Since I thought Jebbrady was making at least some effort towards identifying himself, I asked the admin if he could handle it informally instead of leveling additional formal charges, and the admin kindly did so.
• However, even after two warnings from the admin handling the sockpuppet report, Jebbrady still will not cooperate with the tilde signature protocol, and is manually typing in a "sig." While this cures the identity problem, it continues to aggravate the user history problem for anyone working on this WP:WQA by spreading his activity over multiple IP's plus his regular account named Jebbrady. He will not log in consistently, which would provide a comprehensive, coherent record of his contribs and deletions no matter what IP he is using.
• on the WP:EQ issue above, he's still having problems with signatures and still does not provide edit summaries (see Edit Summary Tool). However, he has agreed to use the colon-indentation protocol on talk pages, and to stop using bold for his entire posts. If he adheres to this agreement, it's improvement.
• on the WP:CIVIL issues, they seem to be staying the same or getting worse, still repeatedly engaging in WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT after an admin has told him, twice, that TIME magazine is a reliable source, and lapsing into Wikipedia:LAWYER more frequently than before. He continues to assume bad faith, use provocative and insulting language, and issue what he calls "challenges." Also, despite correction from EdJohnston and a request from me, he continues to try to spread the conflict to individual user pages instead of keeping it on the article page.

This situation is not resolved yet, but EdJohnston has been working on it, and other Wikipedians have contributed too; thank you, please keep trying. This case is still active and should not be archived yet. -- Lisasmall 02:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I would like to additional comments to this Wikiquette alert. I have had horrendous problems with this user. I originally had a fairly neutral version of this article which I was working on in October 2006. User jebbrady started editing it at the end of that month. I tried to reason with him but he could only bring in his POV, continuing to revert all my suggested changes. In December, as seen in the article's talk page, I asked for a third opinion to resolve the dispute amicably. Even with the support of the third opinion, User:Amatulic (see the diff here), jebbrady refused to cooperate. I decided to not take it up any further and let him keep the article in its current degenerate state. This is a terrible weakness in Wikipedia. A controversial article on a well known topic has the possibility of getting something resolved. Something less well known is left in a terrible state in the hands of a POV warrior who has a lot of free time on his hands. I would like to get this article out of the "ownership" of jebbrady and back under the control of Wikipedia editors in general. Some kind of intervention is requested. --RelHistBuff 08:25, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Update after 10 more days: WP:CIVIL is still a major issue. Editors who provided cited material were chided for not citing existing text (that he put in) instead. When an editor condensed his references to multiple points in the same chapter to a single <ref name> tag followed by other references to the same, he accused him of deleting his cited material. He repeatedly puts down a user who has chosen not to sign up for an account, calling him a "masked marauder" on one occasion. Also, I'm not "allowed" to summarize his multi-screen screeds into something that's actually readable: he reverted me twice, taking out parts of someone else's comment in the process, before he was told by EdJohnston that I could summarize if I wanted to.

As far as formatting issues go, he'll put in a pretty-much-random number of comments to indent his text, and he signs at the top and bottom. If he signs as an anon, he may come back days later and re-sign as Jebbrady, changing the timestamp radically. He recently moved a talk page section that he felt had gotten lost in the middle of the page, and changed the timestamps on it.

I have asked him to set the preference that reminds him about missing edit summaries: he apparently hasn't bothered, and he doesn't seem to be using the preview button, either, which leads to long chunks of Jebbrady (or one of his IPs) in the edit history.

This is starting to look like RFC territory to me.--SarekOfVulcan 13:52, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Add to that the fact that he's still using two different IP addresses, 69.115.162.235 (talk · contribs) and 208.253.158.36 (talk · contribs), in addition to his registered account. 24.6.65.83 14:09, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Update:

And another thing is his constant mentioning of Raising the Ruins, and his insinuations that there must be something wrong with us for not using it as a reference. For example,

(Concerning Raising the Ruins, there’s still no comments on this discussion page after six months about this treasure trove of fist rate source material). Kind of amazing. It definitely is a sad commentary on the level of professional sincerity among the editors of this article, and it will be brought to the attention of Wikipedia Staff if need be—all the way to the top if necessary)

That's a post from June in Worldwide Church of God -- today, he posted again to Talk:Worldwide Church of God, asking an anon if they were familiar with this book, a reference of his to which was copied to the same talk page on August 3. I asked him several days ago to please stop bringing it up at every turn, but to no avail, apparently.--SarekOfVulcan 19:54, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

This is very interesting to me...He likes brusqness, does he? I'd like to try and learn some more about him. Perhaps if I just ask him directly, in the fashion that he demands, I can hold a conversation with him. Even with the most unusual people, there is always a way to relate. Surrogate Spook 00:49, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, please do. He seems to demand a kind of interaction that I'm unwilling/unable to provide myself. If you can connect with him and get him to understand what we're about here, that would be incredibly useful. Thanks!--SarekOfVulcan 02:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Further update:
I have taken the above discussion as a mandate for restoring factual details to the Herbert W. Armstrong article that have disappeared from the article between 15 April and 12 August. If you have opinions on that point, feel free to comment at Talk:Herbert W. Armstrong.

There may still be a need to add a Criticism section, and I believe that someone could create a draft of such a section in their user space. It could be reviewed on the Talk page before adding it to the article. EdJohnston 16:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Update August 17, 2007 by original complainant Although I've taken a voluntary step-back from the article for over two weeks, problems continue:

• WP:ICA (a new problem) In courtesy, when Jebbrady said he wanted a few weeks to do a rewrite on the article, I told him I would step aside so he could do so without me complicating the process. That was the last week of July. I have not read, edited, or done anything with the article since for two weeks, voluntarily stepping out of his way contributing to other articles not related to the contested article in any way. Today, I was made aware that despite my absence he recently accused me of creating a sockpuppet to WP:RFD the contested article, see here. Any comparison of the person who allegedly made the RFD and I makes it obvious we are two different people with vastly different approaches to spelling, syntax, and contributions. To make the unfounded accusation adds a WP:ICA violation to the ongoing WP:CIVIL problem he has. He was also uncivil to the admin who pointed out the WP:RFD source was not likely to be me, "yeah right."

• WP:NPOV He asserts a personal animus and vendetta against himself or Herbert W. Armstrong that just isn't there, and inflicts that attitude not just on me, but on every editor who... well, on every editor. Here: "there is going to be a major debate, and those who take up that side [the non-Jebbrady side] in it are going to get creamed." He wants that article written with only his sources, only his words, and only his POV, and anyone who varies from that one iota is gets dumped on, something he threatens/promises to do quite openly. I glanced today at the contested article's talk page and found that in the two weeks+ that I've been away, Jebbrady has continued, almost without exception, to denigrate editors and admins who try to interact with him.

• WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT The glance at the article talk page shows he's still denying the use of TIME magazine and other mainstream news sources, although administrators have told him more than once that they are acceptable.

• WP:MEAT This is not an accusation; it's an invitation to draw your own conclusions. Checking Jebbrady's userpage today to see if there had been additional attempts to work with him there re the ICA or earlier SOCKS & CIVIL violations, I found a barnstar apparently related to this article dispute from an unusual new user. It might be a meatpuppet, it might be a sockpuppet, it might be entirely innocent. It might be one of those remarkable situations in which a brand-new account on Wikipedia has an editor who knows what a barnstar is, knows how to give them out, and goes immediately to grant one to some deserving individual -- and makes no other contribs at all.

• WP:SOCK and/or WP:GF: Jebbrady continues to engage in a form of sockpuppetry which has been explained to him more than once. He still won't sign in. By itself, that might not be a violation of WP, but there's more to it in these circumstances. See Forbidden uses of sock puppets:Avoiding scrutiny from other editors.

He uses IP addresses and then merely types in "jebbrady" rather than using the tilde sig which would produce user:jebbrady. This superficially gets him past questions about his intent to deceive people who can observe the manually typed signature, but it does not resolve what is actually a very serious problem in conflict resolution, where it's important to use article history pages and user contribs pages to know who changed what when, and to see what a particular user has done.

Anyone trying to review this user's conduct has to check several "contribs" pages, and of course can't use the article history page at all, because his typed signature doesn't appear there -- only a series of different IP's which he's used. It gives the impression of, say, four editors making eight edits apiece, instead of one editor making 32 edits all alone. (That's a hypothetical illustration; I haven't gone back and counted.) Furthermore, he's been warned so many times by so many people in such detail that at this point, even the most generous reviewer allowing for the maximum of innocent ignorance has got to consider that he's doing it on purpose to dilute and disperse his record.

Since he's typing in his name manually, refusing to sign in and use the tildes, he is effectively (and possibly intentionally) concealing his own contributions on article history pages, article talk pages, and all the contribs pages for his multiple identities. Clearly the article is headed towards mediation or arbitration, and the user may be headed for WP:BAN. His continuing use of multiple IP's as well as the user:jebbrady account is going to make reviewing his behavior very hard on the admins who adjudicate the mediation/arbitration and/or ban.

In the heading above labeled update after 10 more days, 24.6.65.83 listed two of Jebbrady's IP aliases which he uses in addition to User:Jebbrady. This illustrates what I mean by Jebbrady's dispersal of his activity record. Not logging in is not itself a violation of WP as far as I know, but refusing to do so when repeatedly requested to do so to help keep the record clear for conflict resolution is a clear violation of WP:SOCK's "avoiding scrutiny" provision.

• WP:RFC Updating the heading above labeled update after 10 more days by Sarek, the article's talk page now has a an RFC. This is not the first time that Jebbrady's behavior on this article has gone to RFC. It didn't work before and I don't expect it to work this time.

This situation is taking up hugely unreasonable amounts of time from numerous good editors and admins. A long-term solution needs to be found. Using article talk pages to indulge Jebbrady's desire for midnight-in-the-dorm-type discussions of the "thought-provoking questions" he wants us to discuss, or worse, "debate," isn't it. The article talk page isn't a chat room. Neither the talk page nor an article itself should be propaganda or proselytization. Wikipedia isn't Conservapedia or Jeb-apedia. Jebbrady's history at Wikipedia in the past ten months is limited to editing a narrow range of religious articles to launder or smear certain figures and sects, and bloviating at, and reverting, anyone who changes a word. Kind words and coaching haven't helped. Formal RFC's, THIRDs, WQA's, SOCK warnings, and even suspensions, haven't helped. Good editors have exhausted themselves and moved on, and the article remains a puff piece with a guardian zealot. Enough. I'm not an admin; will some admin please take the next step, or tell me what it is so that I can initiate it? -- Lisasmall 06:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

He was also uncivil to the admin who pointed out the WP:RFD source was not likely to be me, "yeah right."

Two mistakes here: I'm not an admin, and the full quote was something to the effect of "Yes, I already knew that (yeah right)". Jeb misrepresents us often enough: let's not return the favor.—Preceding unsigned comment added by SarekOfVulcan (talk • contribs) 13:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, Sarek, I'm sorry, I thought you were an admin because of how you became involved. I assumed or misremembered that everyone at Editor Assistance was/is an admin; my mistake. I'm new at conflict resolution. As to the incivility, I still think my interpretation is the correct one, but it's good you pointed out there is another way to look at it. Even if I am correct, it is the least of his incivilities, so I don't mind dropping it. Anyone who wants to see it themselves can find it here. -- Lisasmall 17:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I filed a request for arbitration.--SarekOfVulcan 17:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I filed a new sockpuppet/meatpuppet report yesterday to try to get compliance with the audit-trail creation referenced in 2.2 of WP:SOCK to help support the arbitration and clarify authorship of future edits by Jebbrady. -- Lisasmall | Talk 12:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

As we seem to have exhausted the possibilities of this WP:WQA, and we are now moving to arbitration, unless anyone objects, I will close this WQA with a "stuck" notice in the next day or so. The record would not be complete without noting that Surrogate Spook did attempt to provide a newcomer's input as he said he would, and it had no effect on Jebbrady's conduct. -- Lisasmall | Talk 12:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I've placed the "stuck" template. The request for arbitration is open for comments here. Thanks to all the editors who stepped in to ASSIST, THIRD, or RFC, or who joined in after working on the SOCKs. -- Lisasmall | Talk 13:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Alleged article ownership and personal attacks by User:Chrisjnelson as posted by User:Jmfangio

Stuck

 – Recommend posting an WP:RFC (Request for Comments) - see notes below

User has failed to respect the desire to discuss. He has engaged in personal attacks here and on Template talk:Infobox NFLactive. He has also aserted WP:OWN on throughout the Infobox talk page. Repeated requests for polite discussion have been ignored even with fair warning that the behavior is doing nothing but aggrivating me. The majority of the content is at the infobox talk page. Most of it is in sequential order. Both user's talk pages (that is mine and his) show signs of this as well. Jmfangio| ►Chat  04:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I probably did make some things that would be considered personal attacks a few days back (where the profanity is). I was pretty pissed. If I have to be reprimanded for that, I'll completely understand. As for this business about ownership, I've done nothing of the kind. Given those kind of unsubstantiated claims, as well as the fact that Jmfangio was told he violated WP:3RR by an admin and still claims he did not, I question his knowledge of Wikipedia policy. And when it comes to "refusal to discuss", that's simply not true. Without dragging you into the specifics, which you can see for yourself on the infobox's talk page if you're interested, I'll tell you that Jmfangio is simply mistaken on one subject. I have proven myself and my related edits to be factually correct, and have since said I will not discuss the issue further because of this. I have done all the discussing on the issue that is necessary, and it's not my fault if he has failed to grasp it.

Like I said earlier, I'll definitely understand if I'm reprimanded for any personal attacks a few days back. I shouldn't have said some of those things and let the emotions get the best of me. That stuff is pretty much over and won't happen again, but if you want me to take some time off I can do that.►Chris Nelson 04:54, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Neither editor has bathed himself in glory on this matter. I have tried to provide perspective as a WP:3O and have witnessed enough intransigence to suggest that at minimum both individuals need to take a break as they have dug in their respective heels and hardened their positions. In no particular order, there have been violations relating to incivility, edit warring, personal attacks, and article ownership. The editors have effectively trammeled over informal 3rd party efforts to assist and a recent RFM was not accepted by one of the parties. Jddphd 12:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE Would someone who is willing to take action please get involved. This is spiraling out of control. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  02:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

←Jmfangio, after reviewing the discussions, and considering that the efforts of Jddphd and WP:3O were not well received, it does not look like we can be of assistance here with any kind of direct intervention. It's up to you and the others to stop taking things personally and discuss the content, not the editors.If the editors continue to engage each other on personal issues, no progress can be made. Chris Nelson has already apologized and that's a good start, it would be good to see an apology from you as well. Try to be extra polite to each other - beyond the politeness you would normally need, so that way, it's really clear to everyone that the discussions are done with mutual respect.

Also, it seems like there might not be enough editors working on this to form a consensus that can get past the edit warring. When there are more editors, it's easier to make a consensus because you don't have to convince any one person to change their minds, all you need is to read and follow WP:CONSENSUS.

My suggestion is to file an WP:RFC to attract more editors and seek consensus. Carefully format a description of what the dispute is about, on the template talk page, then post the link at WP:RFC (more on that follows). You could also invite editors on the talk pages of related Wikiprojects. What you need is enough editors discussing the particular question, in an organized fashion, so you can develop a clear consensus. Then ask the administrator that protected the page to review the RFC consensus and unprotect the page so the edits can be made in accordance with that consensus.

Go to WP:RFC and look at how other requests are formatted. Some are messy and some are well-done. Look for good examples and copy the way they are set up. Make sure to have separate sections for the involved editors to make their initial statements, a section for supporting references, per WP:V, and provide sub-sections for uninvolved editors to enter their comments after they review the situation. Make the link on the WP:RFC page go directly to the correct section of the talk page so visiting editors don't get distracted by all the other discussions. And, most important: when you set up the WP:RFC - absolutely avoid any discussion of editors' behavior. The Request for Comments is about the content of the template, not about the way the editors are interacting. If you go off into that stuff, it will just get messy again and you won't find the results you want. Focus on the content, don't talk about editors, be extra polite, format a clear RFC,... invite other editors to bring their comments, and then - respect and implement the consensus decision. Good luck! --Parsifal _Hello 05:39, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Belligerent behaviour from User:Gilabrand

Resolved

 – —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 06:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

In this edit, User:Gilabrand reverted an edit of mine, and in the comment chose to claim that I had "no authority" to make edits to that particular page. I'm a relative newbie but I'm pretty sure this isn't acceptable behaviour, or an acceptable view point for Wikipedia. Is there any kind of censuring procedure for editors who behave like this? Robert Ham 21:59, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Only if there is a lot more than this, I think. In this case, the most relevant guideline is probably WP:COOL. In other words, you're best to relax a bit and try to settle by example rather than by trying to get a beat up of other editors. After all, you are editing Jerusalem. You are removing it from the category Cities in Israel, for reasons mentioned in the talk page but not with any consensus. Given the lack of consensus for your changes, there is likely to be a bit of irritation expressed when you get reverted; as you undoubtedly will. The edit comment replacing it was not really appropriate, but not worth getting upset about. Relax, carry on calmly. Trying to get an official censure will make matters worse, I suspect. What you need is consensus for the changes. Just my feeling on the matter... —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 22:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought I did have consensus. Evidently not. Robert Ham 09:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Filll, User:Orangemarlin, User:Jim62sch

Stale

 – No comments have been added in the past week. EdJohnston 15:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I feel that I have been grossly insulted by a group of editors. My attempts to resolve an issue that Orangemarlin had with a new editor resulted in a series of personal attack by three editors, another has joined the chorus. The worst of it was wikilinking part of my comment to holocaust denial. This sort of thuggery should not to be allowed to continue. I am requesting that someone attempt to resolve the situation, I have no wish to continue contributing until it is. Should I supply diffs for this? Fred ☻ 12:43, 11 August 2007 (UTC) added another Fred ☻ 12:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

And in the meantime you're vandalising other editor's user talk pages by removing content, assuming personal attacks where there are none, and being utterly tendentious. Of course, we can all supply diffs to take this to another level: Wikiquette is hardly the big issue here. Cheers. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 14:11, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I gladly and without reservation produced a long detailed copious apology on your page and on my page, which you promptly deleted. I am stunned at this continuing behavior. I do not understand...I am missing something here. Was my apology not long enough? I would be pleased to produce a much longer apology in a further attempt to placate you.--Filll 14:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Amended heading. Fred ☻ 14:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

If no diffs are supplied there is nothing to investigate. EdJohnston 15:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Even with diffs I suspect you'd find this is a storm in a teacup, I think frede shouldn't be so quick to take offense. ornis (t) 15:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Sufficient indication of incivility is on the talk pages of those above. Some delving into the history may be required, User:Filll has revised many comments in the meantime. User:Orangemarlin has changed my comment to insinuate that I deny the holocaust. My simple questions have been answered with aggressive statements denying there was ever a problem. The supposed apology is the history of my talk page, the much preened, but no less sarcstic, version is on his page. I would remind ConfuciusOrnis that to malign an individual, on the basis of his nationality, is bigotry. If diffs are still required after a cursory glance at the situation, I will supply them. Fred ☻ 16:02, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

And obviously, the burden of proof if on the accuser, so feel free to provide diffs.

In fact, I demand that the diffs of the alledged offences and the diffs of the explanations to Fred be provided post haste. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 16:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

to malign an individual, on the basis of his nationality, is bigotry. Eh? Now you're just making stuff up. ornis (t) 16:27, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I apologise, if your reference to an australian, a thug, was coincidental. I made an assuption, something we should avoid. I do not make things up. Can an uninvolved party have a look at this, thanks. If there is no insults, then it is as [they] say, and I will retire. Fred ☻ 16:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC) & [insert] Fred ☻ 16:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

He's a kiwi actually. ornis (t) 17:00, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Glad people know that, makes me less embarrassed to be australian. :) Fred ☻ 17:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Huh? I am not allowed to correct posts I made myself on my page for grammatical mistakes? To clarify my points? There is no secret conspiracy here. If I find my wording was unclear, I modify it, on main pages, on talk pages, and wherever. This is now inappropriate? I am not allowed to correct my own mistakes? And you do not feel my apology was appropriate? Not heartfelt enough? Would you like it longer or shorter? Would you like me to just leave Wikipedia to make you feel better? I do not think this is an appropriate response for the good of the project, given our relative contribution levels. If you prefer, you can write the apology yourself that you would like to receive from me and I will copy and post it under my name. Fair enough? How far do I have to go to make you feel better? I really am sorry. I had NO idea that me wikilinking a username in your post on Orangemarlin's page would upset you so much. I really did not intend to upset you or anyone else with this. How can I explain this?--Filll 16:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

The alledged offences were those of inference, not of implication. Jumping to contusions is always a very risky practice -- for the jumper at least; it is a nuisance to the rest of us.

At the same time, true offences and violations of WP:VAND are being cast aside in the interests of placating someone who wilfully inferred argumenta ad hominem when there were none. Quite the waste of our time and bytes. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 18:04, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay everyone, step back. There is obviously quite a dispute going on here between all of you, so I would strongly suggest that you all disengage right now and cool off. Please go read WP:COOL, WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA and make sure that you're familiar with them, and in the meantime, please let the WQA mediators (whether myself or another person) spend a bit of time to catch up on the issue so that we may provide guidance. Thanks. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Acually, the dispute is pretty one-sided. Also, one could easily debate the civility of this apparent fiat, "so I would strongly suggest that you all disengage right now and cool off." I'm quite cool, gelid in fact, however I have little tolerance for nonsense. Cheers. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 18:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

My point is that this thread went very quickly from an initial complaint to a full-blown argument here on WQA, before anyone helping out with WQAs had had a chance to respond and investigate. Trust me, we'll be able to piece together the history and provide guidance, but having an active argument continuing in WQA only hinders our ability to help. That's why I said everyone involved needs to disengage - it doesn't matter how one-sided the argument is. The fact that there's an unmediated argument going on here makes it more difficult to resolve the matter. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

My edit conflicted. Having read the above, I will withold my comment. I look forward to resolving the matter to everyone's satisfaction. Fred ☻ 18:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Fred, I'm afraid it's unrealistic to demand as much original research ("Some delving into the history" is putting it rather mildly) of uninvolved editors as you're doing. If providing examples and evidence of your enigmatic accusations is a problem, please see Wikipedia:Simple diff and link guide or Wikipedia:Simplest diff guide. Hope this helps. Bishonen | talk 19:08, 11 August 2007 (UTC).

In the absence of diffs, I can only guess at the reason for the dispute, but if anyone is desperate to figure this out without help from the submitter, you can check out User_talk:Orangemarlin#discourse, User_talk:Macdonald-ross#Confession, or even possible complaint about Jim62sch?. This is a very esoteric complaint, and if we could just stamp 'Rejected' on it in big red letters I'd be tempted to do so. EdJohnston 20:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I must agree - it's very difficult right now to see what any root causes of this issue might have been. At this point, I'd say let's give Fred some time to more clearly explain his complaint, with diffs or stronger pointers to discussions where he feels the issue has gotten out of hand. Right now, we're not in a position to help much, except to tell everyone to keep their cool (which I already did above). — KieferSkunk (talk) — 22:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say - this is all very confusing and it's not the job of WQA volunteers to do intensive investigations to figure out what the problem is. Therefore, I suggest we consider this alert on hold, until someone provides us with specific diffs, showing a specific example of what they consider to be a problem. We can't help if we don't know what the problem is. --Parsifal _Hello 23:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

please restate the problem, if it still is active

Please let us know if you consider your dispute resolved or not. It seems there has been an apology, so I'm a bit confused about why it's still a problem.

If it is still a problem, we're willing to help. But we can't take the time to be detectives. We need a clear and concise problem description, with specific diffs, showing where and how the problem is happening. (If needed, refer to Wikipedia:Simple diff and link guide).

If more than one of you wants to make a statement and provide example diffs, that's fine, you're welcome to do so. But please refrain from using this page as a place to argue about it further.

Help us to understand the situation, that way we can help you resolve it. Thanks. --Parsifal _Hello 23:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for any confusion. I followed the instructions above to avoid turning this into a court. If evidence is required:

• I made an enquiry of Orangemarlin here: (section) He made bad faith comments on another (Mcdonald Ross) ending at my talk with "As for keeping him around, he's ruined several articles because he's pigheaded. Not sure I want him." I removed his initial posting and replaced it with a permanent link here
• Filll changed my comment on that page, wikilinking the users name (MRs). As I deliberately avoided that, I expressed my feelings and asked a question: here up to here where my edit comment thanked a third party's post, namely "Filll, my friend, you should not have said the first sentence of the above paragraph ... Consider this a serious warning for NPA." His next few posts were to give me his "apology", as he has misrepresented it.
• This does not constitute an apology [23]. His satisfaction, with his stream of sarcasm, prompted him to post it to all concerned - presumably to intimidate others. [24] and four more to polish his prose. This is his MO, I have since been informed. He was preening this comment for sometime, delighting in his own talent for dramatic irony.
• Not wanting to miss the fun, Jim62sch joined in with, given above and, later, possible pathology ":I surmise that you detect the odoriferous smegma of putrefaction emanating from the patient's corpus collosum."
• OM decided to have another say. Various edits by them followed.
• I demanded (pretty annoyed by this stage) that Jim62sc remove his insult. His response was "Insult? Insult You've yet to see a true insult. In fact, you see them where there are none. There's a medical name for that, y'know, starts with a p."

The users did not leave it there, it was Jim62sc last post and his next post after logging back on. Please let me know if more diffs are required, or I can create a sub page and lay the whole thing out flat. They seem to act with an assumption of impunity, I am continuing with this because it will very likely happen again. My efforts will make the next editor's defence a little easier. Fred ☻ 01:52, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

This is sadly and completely biased. I am very sorry that Fred.e has decided to continue to push this. I am totally astounded that he wants to waste so much time and energy in this exercise. We will have to respond with one or more versions of diffs with other sides of the story.--Filll 03:00, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about providing more diffs. We have enough information now. Those diffs show all the sides because it's all connected.

If you have diffs you feel will make a difference in case we didn't notice everything, OK, go ahead and add them, but I don't think it's needed.

I don't have time to reply right now -- I or another editor will post a reply in the next day or so. In the meantime, please avoid posting on each other's talk pages or doing anything else that might escalate your conflict further. --Parsifal _Hello 05:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved editor. This is feedback from someone who doesn't know any of you. If anyone doesn't agree with my comments, you're welcome to explain what you feel I missed. If you do, please be specific, with diffs.

• Fred's WQA report appears to be accurate. The others described him as uncivil but I did not see that. His actions were not perfect, but overall, he stayed polite even as the situation escalated.
• On the other hand, Fred's removing Orangemarlin's comment from Macdonald-ross's user page was inappropriate. He did it in good faith, in that he saw the comment as a personal attack, but it almost always works out better not to edit or remove the comments of others, except in extreme cases.
• There were a variety of inflammatory and uncivil comments from Filll and Orangemarlin, including outright insults, and some especially "colorful" language from Jim62sh.
• It was inappropriate for Filll to edit Fred's comment to add the wikilink; not a big deal, but modifying others' comments is generally a bad idea on talk pages. Fred responded with a polite question that Filll later described as a "demand".
• Filll's response to that question earned him a serious warning for NPA from an administrator.
• Filll's "apology" was a sarcastic provocation. If it had been a real apology, the story would have ended there, but it was not even close.
• Orangemarlin's creative wikilinking of Fred's initial comments, especially to "holocaust denial" is clearly a personal attack, even though Orangemarlin calls it being "passive agressive".

That's what I saw. If any of the involved parties provide diffs showing I am wrong, I am willing to retract anything that is not accurate.

So - what next?

• Just drop it; let it go. Pretend it never happened.
• Get back to editing articles. Talk about content, not editors.
• Anyone who currently has on their talk pages a personal attack comment regarding another editor should remove them. If you choose to keep them, you will be displaying for anyone who visits your page that you are a person who maintains attack comments on display. If that's how you want to be perceived, well go right ahead and leave them there, you're only damaging your own reputation, not the reputation of the one you're attacking.
• If someone has an attack comment about you on their page, just ignore it. If they post an attack comment on your page, remove it, or use strike-through markup. If you reply, just make your reply a polite request that no uncivil comments be posted on your page.
• If an attack comment is posted on an article talk page, don't let it get to you, don't take it personally, just respond with extra politeness and request that uncivil comments be retracted and omitted in the future. Or just point out that it was uncivil and move on. Don't argue about it. Don't reply in kind. Don't punch the tar baby.

That's about it. Just let it go. If the situation continues, then additional dispute resolution procedures may be needed. Those are all a big hassle, so I hope you can avoid them. If it gets to that point, let us know here, and we'll suggest the next option. --Parsifal _Hello 09:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

My language is always colourful.  ;) In any case, as this entire "dispute" was blown out of all proportion it's best if everything is dropped. Filll's non-apology was exactly what was merited as there was nothing for which to apologise; my comments, while "colourful", were certainly appropriate given the conext that an editor saw insults were there were none, and seemed quite intent on stirring up trouble for the hell of it; OM was clearly disgusted that his edits had been assumed to have some sinister aspect (so much for AGF), when they clearly did not. Quite frankly, this is a waste of everyone's time.

As for my "reputation", I have three FA's and a larger number of GA's to my credit, and it is well-known that I do not suffer fools -- the same basic modus operandi I follow IRL: I get my job done quickly, superbly and to the satifaction of everyone involved, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to look kindly on the intransigence and wilfull ignorance of others. Obviously, in Wikiland this latter aspect might be seen as a negative (and a bit arrogant) but so be it.

In any case, I don't expect to cross paths with Fred.e again, so as far as I'm concerned this matter is closed. Cheers. 13:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

My only comments: 1. What a waste of the project's time. 2. Fred.e should apologize to everyone for wasting their time. 3. I won't even dignify some of his sad accusations with a reponse. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 13:28, 12 August 2007 (UTC)