Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-11-03 Starwood Festival

Continued edit-warring when others attempt to remove linkspam, mislabeling removal of linkspam as "vandalism"

Now that he's back from being blocked for personal attacks, I decided to check what Hanuman Das (contribs) has been doing on some of the articles with Starwood linkspam. Tonight he's been reverting any attempts to remove the linkspam, and inappropriately summarizing these reverts as "rvv" (Reverting Vandalism):

• Michael Kraig diff

• Phyllis Curott diff

Note user also reverted request for citations on same article, removing request for cites so now article is unsourced except for, yup, links to the Starwood website.

• Sally Eaton diff

• Ellen Evert Hopman diff

• Tannin Schwarztein diff

And on this one he has added in as a "source" a personal profile/listing of services from WitchVox.

Troubling. --Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 04:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Arg. OK, I looked at the one for Ms. Hopman (I knew her about fifteen years ago), and saw that he had not simply added a reference to Starwood, but had deleted text that said she had appeared at many different events. If he'd added "including Starwood," I'd have been willing to give him a pass, but the change as I see it is unacceptable.

Good work in other cases doesn't buy a pass in this one, though.

Septegram 15:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The Commercial Nature of the ACE website

It wasn't immediately obvious (to me) from the discussions here exactly how commercial the A.C.E. website is. (I'm refusing to link to the site here as a matter of principle; I will not reward such behaviour.) There may be other, non-commercial, information on the site as well but the front page has this on it:

"Check out our new, greatly-expanded ACE Catalog, with hundreds of new items and more to come. Now with both credit card and Paypal capability!"

This front page has only six paragraphs of text on it and that is one of the paragraphs in toto. The conflict of interest and blatant self-promotional nature of Rosencomet's insertion of these links in myriad articles is really beyond the bounds of acceptable Wikipedia behaviour as I understand such things. I dipped into the 80 references (currently) on Wikipedia to the website and found Rosencomet behind all such insertions I looked at. These many additions of the same commercial website in so many places is undoubtedly against the policies of Wikipedia. --Pigman (talk • contribs) 05:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that catalog-plug paragraph is on the page twice. It's in the text as well as in a box over on the right. --Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 05:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I continue to have trouble viewing these numerous insertions of the ACE website as purely supporting documentation. While I haven't finished going through all of the WP entries containing the link, I've found at least a third of the entries containing the link to be candidates for deletion on non-notability grounds. Some have been so unnotable, I actually consider them candidates for speedy deletion, which is not a step to be taken lightly. In these, the entries almost seem solely created to provide a place to insert the link. --Pigman (talk • contribs) 20:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• First, there are a LOT of things on the ACE website. It's a big site, with a lot of information. But none of the external links were to the catalog or to the home page. In every case, they went directly to information verifying the statement made in the article, which is exactly what a citation is supposed to do. I can show you hundreds of websites with links to a Wikipedia article that have a catalog somewhere in the site, or an Amazon.com link, or an opportunity to buy tickets, services, or something else. You keep ignoring the fact that the supporting documentation was, indeed, where the link went, and keep focusing on your perceptions of my motives - which has nothing to do with the validity of the citations.

• Second, in some cases the response to your challenge to the notability of the subjects has been generally supported, and in some cases it hasn't. Personally, I wish I had had a chance to weigh in on Robert Lee "Skip" Ellison and Taylor Ellwood, since I consider them both worthy of articles. I guess I will have to wait until they publish another book or do something else notable before trying again; I feel confident they will. If not, I guess the decision was correct. George Harker's seems to have public support, as does Sally Eaton's (ironically, I happen to know that she'd just as soon have it taken down, as she prefers a low profile, but the ship has sailed on that one - you notice I did not weigh in on it). Tannin Schwartzstein may stay or not; we'll see. Actually, I think both Skip and Taylor are more notable than she; especially Skip, being the present ArchDruid of ADF AND the author of 4 books.

• Third, I consider most of what you have placed on this page to be a violation of AGF, and pretty nasty besides. It is this kind of behavior that makes this a "war". There has been no attempt by either you or Kathryn to find a compromise or improve anything, merely a crusade to wipe out the work I've done. You obviously don't want to stop with eliminating the external links, or even internal links, but you state you'd like to eliminate "at least a third of the entries". Is there any wonder this behavior is perceived as stalking and vandalism? The tone, the venom with which you two discuss this issue - in spite of my compliance with your desire to see the external links taken down (I have taken down many that you have not, Paul) - shows that this is a personal attack, not a case-by-case decision as to the encyclopedic value of the work I've done. I think this is a far bigger problem than whether a few links may not be as notable as you think they should be.Rosencomet 22:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)