Volunteer Marek has been acting up again.

Marek, Neutrality, Specifico, and Geogene are tag-team to remove links The Nation, Bloomberg, and Philadelphia Inquirer as "fake news" and "fringe" because the analysts quoted in these reports said the DNC leak was a leak and not a Russian hack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak

Marek, Kencf0618, and ArbCom member Doug Weller were scrubbing mentions of Antifa's violence from their page.

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/31/editors-on-wikipedia-seek-to-downplay-violence-and-ideology-of-antifa-movement/

Marek was casting aspersions on other editors at the pages for DACA and DREAM Act.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'noticeboard#Full_prot_for_E.2FW_and_discussion_needing_closure.28and_PS_about_Marek.29

After a short discussion in which Marek did little more than insult everybody who got in his way, GoldenRing gave Volunteer Marek a three-month topic ban for disruptive editing. Only In Death and NorthBySouthBaranof piled on the insults against the admins building the case against Marek. Fram unilaterally removed GoldenRing's sanction before being told by Izno and Future Perfect that he did not have that authority. Boing! said Zebedee and Winged Blades endorsed Fram's action. Neutrality, Black Kite, Chris Howard, Begoon, and Fortuna_Imperatrix_Mundi said they saw nothing wrong with Marek's actions and called for his topic ban to be removed. After outrage from other admins that the rules were being enforced on one of their friends, GoldenRing was pressured into reducing the block to a topic ban and then removing it entirely.

Drmies retaliated for GoldenRing's topic ban by blocking an IP for a week for disagreeing with Marek and reporting his behavior to Samsara, who had opened the AE thread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:170.178.156.22

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_Arrivals&diff=prev&oldid=798632603

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ASamsara&action=historysubmit&type=revision&diff=798986511&oldid=798883913

An IP jumped in to threaten to have GoldenRing's admin bit revoked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:GoldenRing&diff=prev&oldid=799191410

Once again we see a disruptive editor who is flagrantly pushing his own opinion and not trying to be cooperative, protected by two members of ArbCom and a herd of administrators. They all need to be banned.

>>331097

< there is a huge single-party PR ring embedded inside Wikipedia at the board level

That might have something to do with this behavior pattern that we keep seeing.

GoldenRing asks whether Wikipedia should be hosting pictures of naked children taken without their consent, not to discourage "people looking at naked boys" but because people might be embarrassed by having their childhood pictures on the Internet. Nil Einne responds with several other situations that people might find embarrassing and mentions the difficulty of trying to form a coherent standard to police this sort of thing, if you would even want to. GoldenRing responds:

> :I don't buy a lot of your argument above; if I could paraphrase briefly, it seems to amount to, "Some people will find anything embarrassing, while others aren't embarrassed by anything, so we should just throw our hands up and have no standards whatsoever."

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=801209605

Nil Einne is highly offended by this misinterpretation of his words. So highly offended.

> I'd planned to leave this discussion, but I need to reply since you made highly offensive comments about me. I never said anything remotely like "Some people will find anything embarrassing, while others aren't embarrassed by anything, so we should just throw our hands up and have no standards whatsoever". I explicitly noted that I am not saying so ("Note that I'm explicitly not saying we shouldn't make such judgements") precisely to avoid this but you ignored my comment and instead made offensive comments about me. Please do not make such highly offensive misleading statements about me ever again. I'm definitely done with this discussion now. Good luck ever getting anything changed when you make such highly offensive misleading claims about what people are saying…

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=801214253#Another_question

> This is one of the few times I've ever actually thought this (maybe only 1 or 2 other thimgs) since I'm much more generous than most other editors. You should not be an admin. Anyone who will completely ignore what someone actually said and make such highly offensive comments should never be. Nil Einne (talk) 10:44, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:GoldenRing#Highly_offensive_comments

BrightR found an unsourced section in the page Nude Swimming and tagged it as needing sourcing. Beyond My Ken edit-warred to remove the tag. After two weeks of waiting for other editors to add sources, BrightR removed the section.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nude_swimming&diff=795945429&oldid=795923584

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nude_swimming&diff=799566424&oldid=796213473

ClemRutter joined in on BMK's side with the strange message "Policies fine - just don't acually apply here."

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nude_swimming&diff=800283295&oldid=800275126

BMK accused a wandering IP of sockpuppetry for taking BrightR's side.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nude_swimming&diff=800968317&oldid=800968169

Beyond My Ken took BrightR to ANI with an accusation of being disruptive and tendentious. BrightR pointed to five policies that he said BMK is violating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'noticeboard/IncidentArchive965#The.22In_popular_culture.22_wars_apparently_never_ended

The first admins to the scene, David Eppstein and John, supported BrightR's position. Then BrightR called for BMK to be placed under a 1RR restriction, and a WP:GANG arrived on the scene.

Clemrutter accused BrightR of "bulldozering his pet POV - without leaving sufficient time for anyone who is not permanently on line to make a comment." BrightR noted that by that time the other editors had a month to look for sources.

Nihlus Kryik threatened BrightR with a block and called his arguments "tenuous at best and incongruous at worst."

Black Kite threatened sanctions on BrightR for having participated in the edit war with BMK. Begoon concurred.

Baseball Bugs said "Bright needs to stop deleting stuff he doesn't like. This is just a glorified content dispute." By ignoring the clearly stated issues of policy, this is WP:IDHT.

MarnetteD accused BrightR of "trying to WP:GAME the system."

Certified Gangsta called this "clearly a political attempt for Bright to gain an upper hand in a content dispute."

Mendaliv called the request "vindictive gamesmanship" and threatened BrightR with sanctions.

Roxy the dog called the request "cynical gaming the system" and said John was wrong about the policy. When John asked for evidence, Roxy did not provide any.

Davey2010 called for BrightR to be indeffed.

Miles Edgeworth also accused BrightR of "trying to WP:GAME the system."

Greg Kohs sent a DMCA to the Gender Desk for using a screenshot of Wikipediocracy in a post about Wikipediocracy.

https://genderdesk.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/wikipediocracy-takes-no-prisoners-kohs-fires-off-dmca-against-gender-desk/ https://archive.is/HCBmw

It's time for some ancient Wikidrama.

From 2009: The Rush Limbaugh media lynch mob

https://web.archive.org/web/20091018180153/http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100013647/the-rush-limbaugh-media-lynch-mob/

https://web.archive.org/web/20091018063437/http://proteinwisdom.com:80/pub/?p=2963

>From CNN to MSNBC to ABC, it’s been put about that Limbaugh said this:

> > I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.

> It’s also been spread around that he said this, about the death of the man who assassinated Martin Luther King:

> > You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honour? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed.

> Here’s CNN’s Rick Sanchez baldly stating at the 1.14 point that Limbaugh made the slavery comment:

> Trouble is, he didn’t say either of these outrageous things. And it wasn’t difficult to check, as protein wisdom shows here. They originated from, er, Wikipedia and Wikiquotes.

These quotes were added to Wikiquote by an IP in 2005.

https://web.archive.org/web/20091018063437/http://proteinwisdom.com:80/pub/?p=2963

New user TheVidiot tried to remove the quotes in November-December 2008, seeking help from an admin and posting to the Village Pump twice.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User_talk:InvisibleSun#Need_Help_with_Enforcing_Guidelines

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Village_pump_archive_25#Single-sourced_Rush_Limbaugh_quotes

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Village_pump_archive_26#Rush_Limbaugh_Edit_War

So Cirt accused him of adding dubiously sourced quotes, blocked him, and indeffed him for using an IP to appeal the block and continue talk page arguments.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive/014#Blocked_User:TheVidiot

The "dubious" sources were Newsbusters and the Media Research Center quoting Limbaugh himself saying that the Wikiquote quotes were fake.

https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Rush_Limbaugh&diff=1024304&oldid=1024279

https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Rush_Limbaugh&diff=1024309&oldid=1024306

Proabivouac caught my attention with this claim:

https://wikirev.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1932&start=10

> I am still not clear on what this gamergate thing is about, other than that it means a great deal to Molly White and Emily Temple-Whatever who are paid editors on the committee

A search on this username turned up some drama from 2009:

> Indef blocked. Account was SPA, with only purpose of trolling respected admin, Kalki (talk · contributions). Note: Please see also prior history of indef block at its en.wikipedia account, [1]. Cirt (talk) 08:54, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User_talk:Proabivouac

> Since User:Proabivouac turned out to be correct maybe an unblock is in order? JoshuaZ 00:53, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User_talk:Cirt/Archive_1

Proabivouac accused attorneys Greg Prickett (GregJackP) and Natalie Malonis (Minor4th) of meatpuppetry. Their response? "Natalie Malonis claims she is being intimidated and harassed!"

http://www.yeoldejournalist.com/natalie-malonis-claims-she-is-being-intimidated-and-harassed/ https://archive.is/4mKej

Cathry was site-banned by Cyberpower678. This is the backstory.

Zefr reported Cathry to 3RR for once reverting one edit of Zefr's and opened the discussion by claiming without any evidence that Cathry "is a repeat vandal and disruptive editor on numerous articles." A dynamic IP accused Zefr of tag-teaming with Jytdog to get around 3RR. Kingofaces43 posted a list of recent edits by Cathry and falsely described them as "problematic," "ranting," and "actively flouting WP:EW." Ymblanter blocked Cathry for a week. When the IP complained that Cathry had done nothing to deserve a block, WJBscribe extended the length of Cathry's block.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RRArchive351#User:Cathry_reported_by_User:Zefr_.28Result:Blocked_1_week.29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cathry

Cathry recognized Ymblanter from Russian Wikipedia and accused him of being canvassed offsite. Ymblanter denied this, denied any connection to the Russian Wikipedia, and reported Cathry to ANI for personal attacks. Ymblanter got support from Tryptofish who Cathry had attacked for rejecting a review article on Glyphosate because it cited Seralini for the information that Cathry had tried to add to Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Glyphosate

After the IP posted links showing that Ymblanter was active in Russian Wikipedia community efforts, Black Kite blocked the IP for personal attacks. This was upheld by Huon who described the IP's posting of evidence as "harassment." Boing! said Zebedee rejected another appeal by the IP and revoked talk page access.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:120.17.117.112

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:120.18.96.198

Ymblanter had twice before called for Cathry to be banned for using the wrong reliable sources.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:2_May_2014_Odessa_clashes&diff=607621037&oldid=607618104#Protected_edit_request_on_7_May_2014

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Ymblanter&diff=next&oldid=689818306

Tryptofish called for a site ban of Cathry. This was supported by RickinBaltimore, Jytdog, Legacypac, Kingofaces43, Ivanvector, Geogene, Rhinopias, and My_name_continues_to_not_be_dave. Softlavendar opposed, noting that the requirements for the banning policy had not been met. Cyberpower678 upheld the majority vote and issued a site ban. RickinBaltimore then removed a list of MEDRS sources from Cathry's talk page.

Cathry was combative and quick to make accusations without evidence, but the same can be said for several of the other players involved in this.

Side drama: Back in July 2016, Only In Death and Alexbrn accused David Tornheim of being "extremely problematic, time-consuming and pov-pushing" and causing "prolonged friction in the community."

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=732061891&oldid=732060770

In other drama, Arthur Rubin lost his admin rights for refusing to back up his accusations against The Rambling Man with diffs. Asking for diffs usually gets you blocked for "battleground" behavior, but TRM must have more protection than Arthur Rubin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arthur_Rubin#Preliminary_statements

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arthur_Rubin/Evidence