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orthomed

My reply yesterday was hot under the coller because I only read the OM article's dif on an old screen and read it as *commenting out* the entire second paragraph that you had formed instead of just the one sentence that you commented out. So my apologies in another hot zone where small communications errors could cause wider misunderstandings.--TheNautilus 18:59, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

No problem. MastCell 21:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Victor A. Marcial-Vega

Hi, I don't see why you're trying to eliminate the article about this person. He's achieved quite some notoriety in North America and elsewhere as well due to the Internet, particularly as regards his popularization of the blood pH theory. Are you asserting that I am promoting this theory by editing articles about him here? I assure you that I am not. But it is absolutely certain that he is a notable individual, if only from his publications and current notoriety. Badagnani 17:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not implying anything about your intentions. I'm saying that I don't see the evidence that this guy is notable according to Wikipedia's definition of the term. If he has truly acheived the notoriety, notability, etc you describe, then it should be straightforward to produce evidence of this, in the form of non-trivial coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. If such sources don't exist, then the article should be deleted. I notified you as a courtesy, instead of sending it directly to AfD, since you had created the article fairly recently and perhaps you just haven't had time to add such sources yet. MastCell Talk 17:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Parenzee

I don't feel strongly about the title, but there probably should be only one article. It may be simplest just to name it Andre Chad Parenzee, even though it will wind up mostly about the trial (it's easier than thinking of a title that makes sense ([[The Andre Chad Parenzee appeal trial]])). - Nunh-huh 18:22, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I made a start and moved your reference list there. Please revise/rewrite unmercifully. - Nunh-huh 18:59, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, an off-wiki recruitment. I await the drama :). The article could use, I think, a description of what the denialist groups anticipated from the trial ("HIV finally on Trial!" "AIDS theory on Trial!, Man challenging the existence of HIV in Court, Appeal for 'HIV murder' being argued on rethinker grounds, gaining media coverage etc.), but I can't quite bring myself to add it. Do you feel game? - Nunh-huh 22:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC) (The reason for the recruitment, BTW, is because Google has just "crawled" the article for the first time and made it more visible to the world outside Wikipedia). - Nunh-huh 22:11, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Getting my feet wet? More like just testing the water

Hi MastCell,

Thanks for the feedback. I am so far mostly lurking, trying to learn a bit about wiki before editing anything more than a talk page. Can you tell me anything about other wikis that "tap into" the wikipedia? Specifically, I note that the "AIDS wiki" which would more accurately be called the AIDS denial wiki, uses links to wikipedia for nearly all of its non-denialist content.

I went to metawiki and looked in wiki projects to see if it was listed as an official wiki project, and could not find anything.

user:Nocontroversytalk 19:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not "official" in the sense that it's related to Wikipedia in any way. But actually, there are lots of small wikis out there, unrelated to Wikipedia. With a little technical know-how and access to the software, pretty much anyone can set one up on the topic of their choice. As far as linking to Wikipedia, again, anyone is welcome to link here. The AIDSWiki makes use of Wikipedia links pretty heavily, as it was developed as a "fork" to avoid Wikipedia's requirements for neutrality, verifiability, and undue weight by an editor who used to be active here (and still edits from anon IP's from time to time). MastCell Talk 19:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

looking good

(knocks wood) -- Samir 07:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Regulations aka User:Reguboard

Though User:Regulations has commited sockpuppetry by creating the account User:Reguboard, he doesn't agree that he was a sock of Billy Ego. I'm aware that sockpuppetry is not acceptable, but what evidence is there that User:Reguboard is indeed a sock of User:Billy Ego. Sorry, I guess the post seemed convincing that he/she was right, but it appears that it was trolling afterall.--U. S. A. 20:42, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Please see my response at the RfA. In particular, the determination that Regulations was a Billy Ego sockpuppet was made by ArbCom, not by me. MastCell Talk 20:47, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
OK, sorry about that.--U. S. A. 20:52, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
No problem. MastCell Talk 20:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for catching my failure to add a talk header at Talk:Mifepristone/Archive 1. Also good luck on the RfA! :-) -Severa (!!!) 04:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

re: your suggestion

I read your suggestion that we should attempt to file a report to community sanction noticeboard about a continually abusive editor. Can you teach me about how to file such a report or what information i would have to post about the user. This has been ongoing for quite a while and we have been slowly picking up interested editors along the way but he is still being unreasonable and just reverting without cause. Any info about how i could proceed with this user would be most excellent. MrMacMan Talk 22:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I've answered on your talk page. MastCell Talk 22:44, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
I came to your talkpage with the same question as MrMacMan Talk  :-) Thanks for your help. noclador 22:50, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

thank you for your

kind comments about my use of DB - strangely I find it quite relaxing to "zap" things that shouldn't be here. --Fredrick day 19:56, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

dispute resolution

I am looking thorughout dispute resolution and can not find anything about listing a user's vulgar statements, from waht I can tell, Incivil comments are to be listed under the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. I guess i'm not quite sure now how to handle an administrator using profanity.--Zeeboid 21:12, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

You may want to look at WP:CIVIL for suggestions. For what it's worth, no one is likely to be shocked by the use of the word "bloody"; it's generally considered at best mildly profane, and in the US almost quaint. If I could give you a word of advice, it's helpful to have a thick skin here, and I think you're making a moutain out of a molehill. That said, the steps listed in dispute resolution are quite useful. If you find that disengaging for a bit doesn't help, you could consider a request for comments, but before doing that I would think carefully about what you hope to accomplish by it, and whether this might be better handled by shrugging it off. MastCell Talk 22:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

List of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Schools in North America

I was hoping you had time to chime in here.--Travisthurston 18:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

User:LokiThread blocked

I have blocked User:LokiThread for 24 hours for repeated copyright infringments. Thank you for calling this to my attention. DES (talk) 07:20, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Indefinite for legal threats (although, indefinite is not infinite - when he stops ranting about taking us to court whilst trying to revoke the GFDL licensing, he can be unblocked). Cheers, Daniel 07:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you both. MastCell Talk 15:42, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
A bit late, but I did leave a message on Loki's talk page. -- Fyslee/talk 16:12, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I need help with something

Could you review Lloyd Youngblood to see if it can be speedy deleted? I think it's not notable, but I would like a second opinion. Thanks. Whstchy 20:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Replied on your talk page. MastCell Talk 21:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Alright, thanks for helping. As I said, I need a second opinion, and thanks for providing it (and reasons for not doing the speedy delete). Whstchy 21:06, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Also, per your recommendation, I did put an AFD tag on. Whstchy 21:24, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Vulgar, abusive, and persistent vandal

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:65.184.221.57 -- Fyslee/talk 18:42, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for 2 weeks. Let me know if he continues and it will be extended from there. MastCell Talk 21:00, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

About blocks and vandalism-only accounts

Hello. I have a question about blocking of vandalism-only accounts. You recently blocked Punjabi inkarperated (talk · contribs) (which I'd reported to AIV) for 24 hours. Now I don't want to criticize that decision but I'm really puzzled with regards to the different ways in which different admins treat vandalism-only accounts. Punjabi inkarperated's edits, as you saw, included systematic deletions of an article, deletion of warnings on his talk page and deletion of my user page and, flipping through the block log, I see that the overwhelming majority of these users are blocked indefinitely as VOAs. This isn't new to me of course and I've always found this to be both eminently reasonable and at the same time somewhat contrary to the blocking policy. Can you explain this to me? It's not that I want this account blocked indefinitely (since I'm confident he either won't return or be blocked again quickly) but I'm honestly puzzled by this lack of consistency among admins. Thanks, Pascal.Tesson 23:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Admins generally have a fair degree of latitude in those kind of things. I'm 90% sure that's a vandalism-only account, and considered blocking it indefinitely right off the bat. Given the relatively small number of edits, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. If I reviewed 100 accounts with that history, maybe I'd indefinitely block them 50% of the time, who knows. If it becomes a problem again feel free to let me know and I'll extend it to indefinite. MastCell Talk 04:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. Pascal.Tesson 04:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Main page FA

I've removed your protection from Ellis Paul. We never fully edit protect the main page featured article; please see Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection. Even though the policy is currently disputed, the dispute is whether or not semi-protection is appropriate. Full protection certainly is not. - auburnpilot talk 05:27, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, that's my bad. Apologies - I was looking for that page (the guideline on FA protection) and couldn't find it, and remembered incorrectly. Thanks for fixing my mistake. MastCell Talk 17:16, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

TFA

PLEASE semi-protect Ellis Paul - today's TFA! Someone removed your protection! HELP! Kmzundel 13:19, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I erred in protecting the page; I had misremembered the upshot of Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection and failed to double-check it before protecting the page. There will be lots of eyes on it to revert vandalism, but the guideline states that both full and semi-protection are "almost never" to be used. I'm sorry to have misguided you in the first place, but I'm still learning some of the ropes as well. MastCell Talk 17:19, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
OK. Thanks anyway. Boy, IMHO, if ever there was a no-brainer this is it. Folks who truly want to improve the article will whether it's semi-protected for a day or not. Kmzundel 19:29, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree... I've had an FA I worked very hard on (acute myeloid leukemia) up there for 24 hours, during which it was vandalized pretty hard. Sure, there are some constructive edits, but with the volume of vandalism it's very difficult to sort them out, and they often get bulk-reverted. But still, the guideline says what it says; I guess if I feel strongly I can go over there and lend my 2 cents to the discussion. MastCell Talk 19:33, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

thanks

hey thanks, I got your email :) I'm not around often these days, but I'll let you know if anything pops up. :) -- infinity0 15:39, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Atorvastatin

Please read this research paper http://www.mitoresearch.org/Mitomatters%202004-1.pdf —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.192.156.205 (talk)

Um... OK. MastCell Talk 17:24, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

What did you think of the Phillips paper? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.192.156.205 (talk)

I think myositis is among the significant potential side effects of statin use, and can occur without creatine kinase elevation. It would be nice to understand the mechanisms and risk groups more clearly. I think statins are an extremely important class of drugs which have proven over and over to prevent morbidity and mortality in at-risk patients. I'm wary of people who want to put statins in the water supply, make them over-the-counter, or otherwise overuse them - but I'm even more wary of people who are so convinced that statins are poison that they ignore the indisputable benefits of the drugs in the vast majority of people. Does that answer the question? MastCell Talk 21:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Technically, the word myositis is incorrect in relation to the Phillips paper. Did you mean myositis or myopathy or myalgia? Myositis refers to inflammation of muscle tissue, with possible associated pain. Myopathy refers to actual disease of the muscle, leading to muscle weakness and pain. Reference is the National Institute of Health Medical Definitions. Additionally, the word "prevent" is incorrect, your sentence should read ".. over and over to reduce the morbidity and mortality rates...". The scientific community concensus is that statin therapy, used effectively reduces CHD rates by ~ 30%.

I agree with you completely. Be fair and balanced. The family of statins have helped the vast majority of people at-risk. Myositis (really myopathy) without increased CPK is not widely rcognized by either the public or the medical profession, the large increase in triglcyerides as a marker to the reaction is also not recognized, and the myopathy not completely reversible. The adverse reaction needs to be diagnosed quickly to prevent permanent muscle damage. Since this information is in the scientific literature, shouldn't it be included in the Wikipedia articles, in order to help those who are having an adverse reaction and looking for helpful information? Thank you for taking the time to consider this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.192.156.205 (talk)

I disagree; I obviously can't speak for the medical profession as a whole, but I think there is a general awareness that statins can cause myositis without an elevated CK. The issue of hypertriglyceridemia as a risk factor is a preliminary finding at best. I think raising awareness of statin side effects is worthwhile (though perhaps Wikipedia is not the best venue to do so); I think the discussion of side effects in the statin article is adequate but could be improved. MastCell Talk 17:41, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

A survey of the physicians of the U.S. showed that they were unaware of "non-elevated CPK" statin-induced myopathy. This is partially due to the fact that all literature disseminated by commercial statin manufacturers, defines myopathy in a very specific manner, which happens to be different than the NIH definition. Statin induced myopathy, as defined by the commercial manufacturers, needs to include a 10x (ULN) increase in CPK; otherwise muscle soreness or pain is classified as uncomplicated myalgia. Reference - every statin manufacturer's package insert and on-line web page information for physicians.

Thus, physicians are generally aware of myalgia without a rise in CPK. They also diagnosed osteoarthritis as the most common condition for muscle pain without the CPK rise in patients on statin therapy. A contributing factor to this misdiagnosis is the fact that the major portion of the population taking statins are in the older age group, and osteoarthritis is common. The U.S. physician population is not as aware as you may believe.

Additionally, Phillips discusses the increase in triglycerides above baseline as a result of the adverse reaction. He presently has 400 such cases he is studying, they are all from his local area, San Diego Ca. - how do I know this (?), I discussed this with him. Please review the enclosed charts. They clarify Phillips point. It is a typical case of an adverse reaction event.

If Wiki is not the proper venue to review and reference information like Phillips , then please suggest the appropiate venue. I was under the general belief that Wiki was an encylopeadia, generated by the public, for the public good. Am I incorrect? I also recognize that original research cannot be inserted into a Wiki article, so I have included these charts to clarify for you, what Phillips has stated - above baseline. Finally, I think you should seriously consider revising the Statin article. Other medical Editors and Administrators will respect you, since you are a Wiki Administrator and also a physician, who in practice has prescribed statin therapy. There is a lot of biased medical personnel in Wiki, not to mention the drug companies that monitor their product pages. The author need be someone who will support the Wiki Pilllar of Neutality. Statins are the most prescribed class of medicine in the world - 40 million people on medication for life. WIKI is now a standard source of information for most people. Therefore, shouldn't this article be a top priority for a quality article. It should be accurate, fair, unbiased and well referenced. (I don't like the practice that people invoke where they state "citation needed" and then editors let the material remain.) The article should contain mention of the Phillips research, the ongoing research by Dr. B. Golomb via a NIH grant for various side effects. And there are various other articles. Mastcell, I specifically picked you to start this entire private discussion between us, because of your reputation for being fair and objective, you have learned quickly on WIKI and I think that you will now understand the importance of having this article as a high quality one. Can an article on Stephen Barrett be more important? What do you personally want WIKI really to be, a good source of information for people, or just a huge sandbox? I am not being sarcastic, I am being very serious. I also made sure that we exchanged information and viewpoints on your user page, so that we are under the "radar" of many, until we decide what to do.Wiseoldowl 14:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. I agree with a lot of what you're saying: I think a good article on statins would be far more beneficial than a good article on Stephen Barrett. I came to this conclusion a little while back and have scaled back my involvement in those pages. At the same time, there are quite a few demands on my time, both in real life and on-wiki. I would like to comprehensively review and revise the statin article, but it's going to be a large investment of time and energy and to be frank, I haven't got around to it. I haven't found a large number of biased medical personnel on Wikipedia; on the contrary, I think most physicians who participate here are interested in improving the quality of medical articles (after all, I see patients who use Wikipedia as a source of health information, which drives home its importance) - but you have to understand that everyone with a pet theory comes to Wikipedia to espouse it, medicine is among the worst in terms of this problem, and fatigue sets in. I'm not putting you in this group, but trying to explain what may have seemed like snippishness from some medical editors. Anyhoo, I agree with some of your points about statin-related muscle problems, and definitely agree with you about the importance of the article. Hopefully soon I'll get around to working on it. MastCell Talk 16:12, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. You are a very qualified person to handle this. Post anything you wish to my User Talk page.Wiseoldowl 03:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Revert on Talk:Aspartame

Your recent reversion of a poster's comment on this talk page was itself vandalism, since you deleted a poster's remarks. The comment was correctly added (if singularly un-useful). Guidelines for editing other peoples' posts to a talk page are very different than editing a mainspace article. You may not delete someone else's remarks from an article talk page. --DrGaellon (talk | contribs) 04:52, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia defines vandalism as "any bad-faith effort to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia." So while I think the original post was vandalism, I don't see removing it as vandalism. The talk page guidelines note that while "editing others' comments is not allowed", that exceptions include removing incivility or personal attacks (and in fact, WP:CIVIL#Removing uncivil comments recommends doing just this). That said, if you want to restore the remarks, I won't stand in your way. I would just say that a) removing clearly hostile, non-constructive remarks from busy talk pages is a common practice under the guidelines I mentioned above, and b) even if you disagree, it's not vandalism and there's no need to refer to it as such. MastCell Talk 15:33, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


The next steps at Stephen Barrett

With the mediation halted, I have put together a compromise in the spirit of good faith here. I know there are other steps of WP:DR we can go through, including another attempt at mediation, but I am hoping we can all settle this amongst ourselves. I would appreciate your opinion on the compromise and/or your ideas of what the next steps may be. Thanks. -- Levine2112 discuss 18:58, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible article?

Is there any rule that forbids this from becoming a regular article/list?:

The title can be changed if necessary. Other encyclopedias have such galleries as a resource. Please reply on my talk page. -- Fyslee/talk 06:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

AKA Randy Bugger

Hello my real name is Moses Weintraub. The user name Randy Bugger has been put to rest due to potential breach of Wikipedias user name policy. Moses Weintraub 10:01, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

American Heart Association

Thanks for your input. I was wondering what you think of [1] "Vitamin C May Lower Heart Disease Risk, But Key Questions Unresolved" and if it should be noted in the article. Also, Journal Watch Women's Health, Vol. 1996, Issue 601, 2 June 1, 1996, "Dietary Antioxidant Vitamins and Death from Coronary Heart Disease in Postmenopausal Women" by Lawrence H. Kushi, Sc.D., Aaron R. Folsom, M.D., Ronald J. Prineas, M.B., B.S., Pamela J. Mink, M.P.H., Ying Wu, M.P.H., and Roberd M. Bostick, M.D. concludes: "In analyses adjusted for age and dietary energy intake, vitamin E consumption appeared to be inversely associated with the risk of death from coronary heart disease. " [Forgot to sign, signing now] Gekritzl 23:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure, and there have been a number of studies (mostly vitamin E, some folate) suggesting that vitamins have no effect on heart disease. A number of studies have, in fact, found an increased risk of mortality with vitamin supplement use, one reason perhaps that the AHA does not advocate their use (see PMID 15537682, for example). The last time the U.S. Preventive Task Force reviewed the medical evidence, they found "insufficient evidence" that any vitamin supplementation prevented heart disease. The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care recommended against Vitamin E for heart disease. I don't think this is a settled issue, but certainly many mainstream medical organizations aren't convinced yet. So I don't think the AHA is out in the vanguard suppressing supplements. In general, I think issues with specific vitamins are best dealt with in their respective articles, rather than the AHA article. But if you're asking what I think about vitamin supplements in general, I think in many ways the jury is still out, but so far I haven't seen anything compelling to suggest they're beneficial, and the Vitamin E evidence is a little worrisome that it may actually be harmful. Probably the only supplement worth taking based on the currently available evidence is fish oil. There's a lot of buzz about Vitamin D these days, but I think the jury is still out there. MastCell Talk 02:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks again for your input. You're right, recent studies found that evidence is "inadequate or conflicting." The USPSTF concluded that the evidence is insufficient to recommend for or against the use of supplements. It seems unfair to say (as you wrote) that the The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care recommended against Vitamin E for heart disease -- they concluded that there is insufficient evidence to recommend for or against the use of routine vitamin E for the primary prevention of CVD, and that there is good evidence to recommend against the use of vitamin E for the secondary prevention of CVD in patients with established CVD or risk factors for CVD. At any rate, it seems like a good article would be one that collects the formal studies in this area and shows the conflicting conclusions. It would be valuable to have many of them in one place on Wikipedia, with WP links to it from AHA, CVD, Vit. E & CVD, and other WP articles. Maybe I'll take a stab at it at some point, avoid OR, remain NPOV, and contact you for your input. Gekritzl 20:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Guilt

I probably shouldn't have done that. He has characteristic patterns of language-mangling; I've mentally cataloged them under that term, but should have filtered between brain and keyboard. I must admit that my mouth dropped when he disclosed his disciplinary specialization.[2] Raymond Arritt 03:52, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Chiropractic

Hi MastCell, would you please go to Talk:Chiropractic and see what is going on there? Go towards the bottom at the title NACM. The discussion (argument) about this and the conversations about Stephen Barrett does not belong there. I think someone should stop all of these off topic comments. This Barrett's lack of certification seems to be everywhere lately. I hope you can help stop what is going on there. One editor emailed me a good bye that he/she is leaving because of this negative behavior. I fear more will leave too. I hope you are well. ----CrohnieGalTalk/Contribs 20:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Mucoid plaque

Seems to be warming up again -- please make sure this stays on your radar. See e.g., [3]. Thanks. Raymond Arritt 20:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Civility

The problem is that the civility here is civility at a cost. The design of this site has collapsed from free contributing to some sort of bureacratic nightmare that encourages people to not contribute to the site. 208.16.91.240 18:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but the problem of how to maintain the site now that's it's grown to be huge, and attracted quite a bit of spamming and other nuisances, some degree of bureaucracy is unavoidable. In any case, civility isn't really negotiable. MastCell Talk 20:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

User:159.105.80.141

Hi, I notice that you threatened a block on this user, based on his talk-page trolling. I'd support this move, as he has a long record of edits to talk pages (only) designed to waste other editors time and promote his crackpot theories (Holocaust denial, 911 conspiracies, global warming crackpottery, AIDS weirdness, tobacco/cancer link denial). He seems to have bought the deluxe package of lunacy, and has previously contributed as:

as well as his current IP,

Can you block him?

Cheers, Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 11:33, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I've gone back and forth on this. He's clearly a talk-page troll and doesn't seem to get it. However, all of those IP's are from the Vermont Dept of Public Libraries. In order to block him effectively, I'd probably have to range-block all IP editing from the Vt Libraries, which would be a pretty drastic step. I resolved that I'd ignore and revert his trolling on sight, and if he's on a real roll from one particular IP I'll block that. In the meantime, I'll look at his most recent IP and consider blocking it; I'd encourage simply reverting his talk page edits with an edit summary describing the fact that they constitute trolling. You may find another admin with more balls willingness to range-block all of the IP's, but I'm not feeling like it's worth the potential tradeoff at this point. MastCell Talk 15:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I think he's limited to one IP at a time, because the block on 159.105.80.63 worked while it lasted. I don't think he is using a roomfull of public access computers. I'll keep an eye out anyway. His style is pretty easily recognisable. Cheers, Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 17:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Anon at Causes of Autism

I noticed the anon IP who put that synthesis section in the CoA page had a bunch of other similar looking edits, but I lack the time and knowledge to do anything about it. Thought you might want to come down like the hammer of God. That's what I'd do were I an admin. And the main reason I'm not...

Thanks for giving my misgivings a name (and a policy!)

WLU 11:33, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I left a lengthy summary of my concerns on the article talk page, and a note on the IP's talk page asking him/her to discuss first, instead of trying to force the content in.
I find it frustrating at times dealing with editors who are dedicated to advancing a pet fringe theory on Wikipedia (a major problem in medical articles, and triply so on autism-related ones), but it would be inappropriate of me to use the administrative tools here, since I'm involved in a content dispute. Using the admin buttons against an editor one is involved in a content dispute with is probably the number-one admin abuse that occurs, and the one that pisses everyone off the most. So I try to avoid it - not that my fingers don't get itchy around the block button at times.
Thanks for keeping an eye on that and other articles. I'd like, at some point, to go through some of the autism-related articles and bring them into line with Wikipedia's policies (WP:WEIGHT and WP:SYN in particular), but that's a major undertaking which will undoubtedly involve quite a bit of blood, sweat, and tears, so I'm putting it off. Thanks for keeping an eye out. MastCell Talk 16:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Not a problem, but I'm also facing time shortages these days. Hopefully some other users can help out too. I fear attempting to work over the autism articles, they're usually huge and emotionally loaded. WLU 17:33, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion favour?

No, it's not Causes of autism. Could you delete User talk:WLU/Me-Mystar conflict for me? I've combined the contents into a single archive (User talk:WLU/arbitration). Thanks! WLU 18:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

No problem. For future reference, you can also put {{db-userreq}} on a page you created if you want to flag an admin to delete it. MastCell Talk 18:16, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, THAT is the tag is. I briefly looked for it then figured this was quicker. I'm lazy. Thanks! WLU 18:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Huge Problem

I stumbled on the article Pakistan Army and it is a 98% copy of this: http://www.defence.pk/Pakistan_Army/ (have a look at some paragraphs headlines and compare them to the same paragraphs (same headline too) in the www.defence.pk article- they have been copied 1:1) I'm a bit at a loss here... It is clearly copyright infringement, but I'm unsure if I should directly report it to a Wikipedia notice board or post a request on the talk page asking the articles uploaders to get permission from the copyright holder within a certain time. What course of action do you propose? --noclador 19:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

That's a tough one. It looks, from a cursory glance, like the potential copyvios may have been introduced by User:Mercenary2k as far back as March 2006. I'd suggest starting with a note on the article talk page - in some of these cases, it turns out that the copyrighted source actually copied material from Wikipedia, rather than vice versa. Wikipedia:Copyright problems recommends either talk page discussion or blanking the page and replacing it with a warning. I'd lean towards bringing it up on the talk page, and possibly User Talk:Mercenary2k as well. MastCell Talk 21:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I posted a notice on the talkpage of the article, informed User Talk:Mercenary2k too, furthermore I left a copyright infringement notice on the article page itself: Pakistan Army and posted a notice on the Wikipedia:Copyright problems board. So, I hope that spurs some action. --noclador 21:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
According to User:Mercenary2k http://www.defence.pk/Pakistan_Army/ are the copyright violators. According to him they copied from wikipedia (which is possible as www.defence.pk states that the article was written May 16th, 2006 while User:Mercenary2k edits were mostly done in April 2006. As www.defence.pk does not give wikipedia credit (which is a violation of GNU Free Documentation License) I suggested to User:Mercenary2k to write to www.defence.pk to inform them that they need to acknowledge wikipedias contributions. I suggested using the letter: Letter for website that does not acknowledge Wikipedia as a source. If he doesn't do it I will do it. Thanks for your help in figuring out a course of action here, --noclador 08:55, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
No problem; good pickup. It's scary how much duplication there is, and this is a good example of how it's not always Wikipedia violating copyright, but sometimes copyrighted sites using Wikipedia's content in violation of the GFDL. If you look around, every now and then you'll see a press release or even a newspaper article cribbed entirely from Wikipedia. Thanks for following up on this. MastCell Talk 16:42, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Nope, I didn't know... I was mostly offline today (the weather was much too nice to be inside slaving away on the 'pedia). Thanks for the heads up.--Isotope23 00:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

JessX is an advertisement

The article JessX has been speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article seems to be blatant advertising which only promotes a company, product, group or service and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become an encyclopedia article. Please read the general criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 11, as well as the guidelines on spam. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. MastCell Talk 21:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello MastCell - JessX is an opensource application made for advanced research and education purposes by a university (in france so unlike a US university, its a real non-profit). It is freely downloadable on Sourceforge and other advertisement-free websites. Much less than Mozilla Firefox or open office which have been initiated by private companies and have nonetheless an article on WP. If you suppress the JessX article on the ground that it is just 'blatant advertising spam' there is a wide series of other articles about new Educational technology tools and Free software you should suppress too, (claroline, PSPP to name but a few). Note there is also a recent Nobel prize awarded to that line of research so it's not unimportant or marginal --Ofol 19:43, 16 June 2007 (UTC).
Perhaps "promotional" would be a better word than "advertisement" or "spam". Regardless of whether the application is proprietary or open-source, promotional material is promotional material. In order for the product to meet the notability bar, it should be referenced in independent, reliable secondary sources - see WP:WEB and WP:CORP for some of the notability guidelines. The article could be recreated, but it should be written more encyclopedically, with a dependence on those independent sources rather than promotional material from the producers of JessX. MastCell Talk 15:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Hello MastCell, well it's hard indeed to refute your argument that "promotional material is promotional material". Now I'm afraid there is nothing "promotional" in it in the first place: e.g. Information asymetry testing is a feature no more no less.. as it turns out no program can do what JessX does today but I do not remember it was actually stated on the so-called "promotional" article. One more thing: considering this is an innovative non-profit, opensource program for the advancment of knowledge and education, please let me tell you I do resent your wiping out mention of it as 'blatant advertising spam' ... and if you really want the article to be written "more encyclopedically", you might simply improve it, wiping it out might not the best idea to have any chance to get this done --Ofol 23:37, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
You're welcome to recreate it using independent, reliable secondary sources so that it's encyclopedic and meets notability requirements. If you'd like to work on it in peace for a while, you can work on it in your userspace (e.g. by creating a page at User:Ofol/JessX) until you think it's ready. I wish I had the time and energy to adequately source or rewrite all the articles that fall under the "promotional" category, but as I don't, we have to ask that the person creating the article ensure that it comply with the requisite guidelines. MastCell Talk 17:02, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Gon4z - 2nd sock puppet

user:Gon4z has created a new sock puppet: User:Naco-Taco. The user account was created June 17th, 2007 and the first edit he made was to upload the same copyvio image Gon4z uploaded Image:type-77.jpg. Afterwards he started to "edit" and did so only on articles Gon4z has inserted his unsourced edits too. And his edits consisted in solely reverting the articles to the last version of Gon4z or Gon4z's other sock puppet 82.35.34.170. some examples: 82.35.34.170 Version - Naco-Taco Version
82.35.34.170 Version - Naco -Taco Version
The same applies to T-55, BTR-50 and BRDM-2. He also added unsourced material to 9K38 Igla and made Albania a MIM-23 Hawk user- something that was completely unknown until now! After he headed to the Albanian Land Forces Command article, quadrupled the number of nortars to 600 and gave as reason: "I was looking at the source and the MORTAR article in wikipedia and it says heavy mortars are from 120mm to 240mm Albania seems to also have 160mm MORTARS so I have added those to" 28 minutes before he himself had changed the article 160mm Mortar M1943 to this unsourced number and now he uses this as his source! He than headed to his other sock puppet 82.35.34.170 (what a coincidence he knows about this) and inserted a indefblockeduser notice on this page!! He proceeded to triple the number of Albanian dead on the List of wars and disasters by death toll because the "Kosovar article states that there were more than 15,000 -25,000 causelties from both sides both civiliana and military" - which it doesn't... but the most annoying part is his "contribution" to the Talk:Albanian Land Forces Command: "LoL, this article has big a big battle field for some months, by the looks of it well since one of the users has been banned maybe now it can get back to how it’s supposed to be." "it can get back to how it’s supposed to be" and what he means by that, we all know. What can be done now to stop this/him? --noclador 08:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I've indef-blocked the account as a fairly obvious sockpuppet of User:Gon4z. There are a couple of options; first, just report any new sockpuppets to me or at WP:AN/I and revert their contributions. Second, a request for checkuser can be placed to identify and block the underlying IP addresses which Gon4z is using (this is generally appropriate only for long-term abuse). Third, if this becomes an ongoing issue, the favorite target articles of Gon4z can be semi-protected, which would disable editing by IP's and newly registered accounts. Not an ideal solution, but it can stem the tide if this becomes an ongoing problem. For now, I'd use the first approach, and let's see how many more socks pop up. MastCell Talk 15:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

For the comment on my editor review. It always bothers me when I see someone start to get their back up over something minor, and trying to lower the anger level while educating on the proper process is something I really try to do in situations like that. Hopefully, it helps in the long run. Again, thanks - I appreciate the comment! Tony Fox (arf!) review? 20:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

3rr

you have violated 3RR on [steven_milloy] Peroxisome 23:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I have; I've reverted your removal of sourced material 3 times, though if I've miscounted please explain with diffs, and I'll be happy to revert myself to avoid breaching the rule. Of course, even 3 reverts on my part is two too many. However, given that your edits remove large chunks of previously stable, well-sourced text, the fact that you're reverting me with popups, and the fact that you've refused to engage in any discussion about your edits on the talk page and blanked my polite request to use the talk page, it's hard to see you occupying the moral high ground here. MastCell Talk 23:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Heads Up

I think there is another one of Billy Ego's recent sockpuppets hanging out in the Benjamin Tucker and Collectivist anarchism templates. Some new user User:Illegal editor who seems to share the same ideology (anarcho-capitalism) and the same obsessions (individualist anarchism, Benjamin Tucker, the obsession with trying to prove that collectivist anarchism believes in markets which was one of user Anarcho-capitalism's later obsessions). Does he check out? Full Shunyata 02:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that editor showed up on my radar as a brand-new account jumping in to Billy Ego's typical haunts, with his typical insistent and persistent hair-splitting. The name is suggestive, and clearly it's a sock of someone, given the immediate familiarity with Wikipedia. I sent it to checkuser (see here), but it was IP-unrelated. I think there's still a ~80% chance that user is a Billy Ego sock, but given my history with him I decided not to act on the borderline cases. You could list him at WP:SSP to get a fresh set of eyes, though the negative checkuser result will be a major factor. I'd suggest just watching that editor, and if he displays the same problematic characteristics as Billy Ego, having a low threshold for pursuing WP:RfC or other intervention. MastCell Talk 05:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
It's been a couple of days and he's up to Billy Ego's exact same tactics. Mental gymnastics and historical revisionism with no references or flimsy ones, obessions of right-wing libertarian bugaboos, the same ideology, etc. Now he's trying to say that Collectivist anarchism is a form of mutualism (even though Bakunin was never a mutualist). It seems his goal is to prove that all forms of anarchism are some variation of "market anarchism" and thus have a connection to anarcho-capitalism (since he considers mutualism to be "misguided" LTV-beliving precursor to anarcho-capitalism) except for anarcho-communism. He's trying to paint anarchism as "market anarchism vs. anarcho-communism and sydncialism which stand by themselves and are unrelated to any other branch". If you look in the history of the anarcho-communism article, he recently edited the Anarcho-communism article to reword a paragraph under the Kropotkin section to make it say that Kropotkin believed in community ownership of personal possessions (particularly personal land and tools) when he only believed in community ownership of the means of production. If nothing else, he should be banned for disruptive editing, not citing references, selectively ignoring inconvenient facts and information brought up in discussion sections, and original research. It's very obvious this guy is a Billy Ego clone even though the IP doesn't match. I remember one incarnation of Billy Ego laughed when he was banned and claimed that he found a way to bypass IP checks by doing something to change the IP on his computer. He may have put this into practice. The fact that Vision Thing immediately rushed over to help him edit should be a sign. Full Shunyata 23:31, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think it's highly suspicious. Or he could be the blocked User:Hogeye, as the tag on his page suggests. At this point, I'd suggest opening a case at suspected sock puppets. Vision Thing does not seem to be a Billy Ego sock, though I've certainly been suspicious in the past and anything is possible. MastCell Talk 23:35, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I definitely think I should. How do I open a case? (sorry, I'm not familiar with the procedure) Full Shunyata 23:36, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, this user User:Purrny gotobed is a straight-up troll. The first edit he made on Wikipedia was to my user talk where he claimed he knows me from another website (which I've never actually been to) and is here to antagonize me. He's made several edits to articles just for the sake of contradicting me with no other explanation than "reverting nonsense by Purnata". Even his name "Purny [short for "Purnata") go to bed" is evidence of this. Check out his comments on my user page and you can see for yourself. Full Shunyata 23:36, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

There are instruction at the WP:SSP page, but the main thing is to provide diffs (edits) made by the account to support the case. There are instructions on how to create a diff at WP:DIFF, if you need them. MastCell Talk 23:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I've reviewed User:Illegal editor's contributions in more depth, and I'm now confident that this is a fairly clear-cut Billy Ego sockpuppet. As such, I've blocked them indefinitely. I've submitted the block for outside review and commentary here. MastCell Talk 05:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
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