The IP posting that stuff is the ref desk troll - an IP-hopping, Jew-hating, Nazi-loving banned user. He's trying to get TRM in trouble by posting stuff that TRM has complained about in the past - trying to make it look like TRM is editing while logged out.

This led to sexist comments by Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi User talk:Favonian/Archive 40#Troll.

Support as nom. 2A02:C7F:BE12:F800:2189:3B2:1BFD:424 (talk) 09:49, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Threaded discussion

Before making highly controversial proposals attacking established editors, I suggest you (1) register a Wikipedia account and (2) establish a solid editing and collaboration history of at least a year and 5,000 edits. You have no visible standing to forward such a proposal. Bugs, while this is a clear candidate for collapse or removal, I suggest you let someone else handle that for appearance's sake. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:22, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That section is a nice summary of the ref desk troll's various tactics. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:58, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• I said "oppose", so the cap-sized user must have confused me with Macon. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:25, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am unhatting this discussion for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Baseball Bugs has removed a number of comments made by Medeis claiming she is a banned user. Secondly, there have been a number of overnight developments in the ANI discussion about Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi. To avoid being blocked Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi gave this assurance:

As for me- I must say in advance that I won't be able to get that involved until later this afternoon (UTC), but just a quickie for now. Firstly and fulsomely an apology is definitely owed to the IP if they are not and have no connection with Vote X. This is not a non-apology I hasten to add- more of a placeholder...

Saturday afternoon came and went, and on Sunday evening the IP politely asked for the promised apology. This is the response he got:

Indeed; clearly, however since the previous conditions ceased to appertain, I was forced, as you will understand, to restructure the parametrical conditions of any subsequent reciprocation; viz. that an admin promulgated an unequivocal instruction and another, antiphonically yet disparately, acknowledged my contentment of the precedentally-required paradigm. Would you like to close this discussion or wait for it to archive? Cheers,

Insolent much? Apart from its obvious shortcomings it was a deliberate attempt to deceive the community. This deception was compounded by what he said next:

... An administrator told me: in which case you need to tell us now, or you owe the IP an apology (my emph.); I did the former. Following that, another administrator told me that my response seems more than adequate...

The first administrator's words were deliberately misquoted. What he said was:

Either you're seeing something the rest of us aren't seeing, in which case you need to tell us now, or you owe the IP an apology. (My emphasis)

The second administrator only told him his response was more than adequate because he had agreed to compose a fulsome apology later when he was more awake.

What is glaringly obvious is that both editors (Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi and the one who was blocked) and Baseball Bugs (who also contributed to the thread) don't have the faintest idea who the IPs are, but that doesn't stop them reverting their good faith edits and making disparaging comments about them. Here's a case of mistaken identity involving Baseball Bugs just a few hours old:

I doubt that Vote(X) himself has posted recently enough to make for a viable checkuser analysis. Vote(X) is usually reverted by admins who are experienced in recognizing his "tells" (the admins he trashed in one of his edits on the ref desk talk page). And, of course, this entire section (instigated by Macon) is a gigantic feast for the troll. ← Baseball Bugs → 16:19, 10 October 2017.

That's an admission that if "Vote(X) for change" has been posting (s)he hasn't done so since 18:40 on Monday night - another reason to restore the comments he deleted here yesterday lunchtime. Yet another editor has been driven away:

Wow. At first I wished I didn't click on the above link, but now glad I did. I don't know what I did to get the 'Troll' comments, but I don't need any of this. Please close down my account. I should have just kept to googlin' for article references without signing up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Six and 7 eighths (talk • contribs) 22:25, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The same goes for administrators. There is a rather voluminous project page Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Vote (X) for Change. It appears from the associated talk page that the community doesn't think there is any abuse. It also appears that anybody can add alleged sockpuppets without giving reasons. No SPIs are filed and no tags placed on the talk pages indicating that the editors are either confirmed or suspected sockpuppets. On 26 September Jayron32 blocked 92.8.220.234 and added it to the list. It had been editing constructively for two days. On 22 September he blocked 92.27.207.68 and added it to the list. It had been editing constructively for a month but its downfall seems to have been this good faith comment:

You may be interested in our article on Linguistic distance and the references therein. See also [14] for a visualization of one of possible quantifications of linguistic distance, exactly the thing Jayron32 claimed to be impossible.

Sometimes he reverts editors and blocks them claiming they are "Vote(X) for change" only to restore their comments later. This apparent ignorance of policy has been picked up by the community:

Indeed, I was blocked for restoring some of (apparently) his posts to my talkpage which I felt were perfectly benign, and was declared by the blocking admin to be "proxying for a banned editor". Thankfully some common sense prevailed after 17 minutes...

In an ANI discussion shortly afterwards Guy Macon displays prejudice against IP editors:

... Given the apparent familiarity with Wikipedia policy, the ability to search for ancient MfDs,. the apparently deliberate multiple factually wrong claims, and the edit history (2 edits total), WP:DUCK tells me that 81.151.101.13 is a sockpuppet. The question is, is he a sockpuppet of a refd4esk regular or a sockpuppet of one of our IP-hopping refdesk trolls? My money is on the latter.

Some editors make up stories about constructive editing having been identified by administrators as sockpuppetry:

Also I'm still struggling to see where I apparently identified a sockpuppet and enforced an unjustified hatting... Did I pass an RFA in my sleep last night?

In the current ANI discussion alluded to above an editor points out that administrators will confidently proclaim sockpuppetry on the basis of no edits whatsoever. They will also (according to an ANI discussion last April) forge logs to conceal the lack of evidence:

At 09:15 on 16 July "Vote (Y) for Change" was created. It made four edits on a sandbox and its user talk page before it was blocked by Ian.thomson at 12:04. The reason given was "Block evasion:Vote (X) for Change." I would have thought that if an editor was creating an account to evade a block the last thing they would do would be choose a name which is so similar that it would arouse suspicion. Was checkuser employed to make the connection?

CheckUser isn't always needed - see WP:DUCK. Now... who are you?

Ivanvector, was the deleted content such that the WP:DUCK test would indicate that it was created by the editor Ian.thomson attributed it to? I'm sorry to have to say it, but there appears to be gross tool abuse here by Ian.thomson. His deletion log for the sandbox reads deleted page User talk:Vote (Y) for Change/sandbox (Mass deletion of pages added by Vote (Y) for Change). This is the first time in history that a deletion log has failed to include a deletion code and it relates to the deletion of a single page. The deletion log for "User talk:Vote (Y) for Change" is similar.

Another case of mistaken identity was reported in February:

... In addition, at the time this supposed ban evader "Vote (X) for Change" made the edit this morning I hadn't even left my house. I arrived at Finsbury Park station at 09:45 where the indicator board informed me that the 09:56 service to King's Cross was delayed and would leave at 10:05. Before leaving the train at Kings Cross the driver informed us that the delay was "caused by severe loss of power" (possibly connected to the fact that there is engineering work on the Cambridge line and trains are running no further than Welwyn Garden City). In any event, Finsbury Park is a very long way from west London.

In January, Baseball Bugs and Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi got into a barney with Kim Dent-Brown and an IP after they accused the IP of being "Vote(X) for change":

The above is just a typical tactic by the ref desk troll.

And Bugs, I disagree with your removal too. We can't ask other people to abide by our rulkes if we're not willing to do so.

It's a bogus complaint from an IP-hopper who cares nothing about any rules.

I'm Sorry? Which rule(s) have I not cared about?

For starters, that banned users are not allowed to edit.

I know nothing of this 'ref desk' of which you speak. Someone has added an allegation to Future Perfect's talk page that I am a LTA user, "Vote (X) for Change" (without evidence). If you check the Vote (X) history, you will see that it has become a convenient catch all for inconvenient IP editors. You might also note that Vote (X) has never used my ISP.

That "someone" was Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi.

In December, Primefac created the page Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Vote (X) for Change. The creation was logged at 15:16 on 10 December and the annotation was Creating deletion discussion page for Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Vote (X) for Change. Eleven minutes later Sro23 voted "Speedy Keep" and replaced Primefac's signature with the annotation "[Impersonation of other users by Vote (X) for Change removed]". Seven minutes later, on the strength of that one "keep" vote, Ian.thomson closed the discussion "The result was Speedy Keep". The kicker was this: Sro23's reasoning was

Um, speedy keep for obvious reasons. Socks don't get to nominate their own LTA for deletion.

If you check the revision history for Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Vote (X) for Change you will see that Primefac placed an AfD template on it at 15:15 on 10 December. Primefac had previously (at 15:10) created the page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Vote (X) for Change with the annotation this was somehow added to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tactical Edge, Inc.. Moving it to its own page. At 15:19 Primefac placed a CSD G7 notice on this page with the comment User put this nom on one I had made. I moved it here, then remembered it should have been MFD'd. New page is at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Vote (X) for Change and there's no reason to keep this one.

In November Baseball Bugs attempted to get the archives (which can be updated with fresh information) permanently protected:

The troll's attempt to insert his junk into the archive is an example of why the archives should be permanently protected.

Bugs, is your "attempt to insert his junk" a reference to this edit from the Special:Contributions link given by Viennese Waltz above? If so, then this appears to be a good faith effort to archive a section which scsbot was unable to handle as it was a hatted discussion which lacked a section header. They incorrectly archived it in the monthly index, but I have corrected that, creating the appropriate daily archive page and fixing the monthly index... - Thinking of England 14:39, 25 November 2016.

Also in November Nil Einne, admitting he had zero evidence to support the claim, said of "Vote(X) for Change":

... And even if in this specific instance they were trying to revert the Nazi/black people troll, other times I've seen them supporting that troll (no ref, both are active enough with the RD toll hopping enough that it's hard to find but I'm sure I've seen it before)... - Nil Einne 01:12, 1 November 2016.

Jayron32 (again without providing evidence) also considers the two have a common purpose:

The current consensus on our current two trolls (The Nazi and Vote X) is Damnatio memoriae...

Baseball Bugs makes the same argument:

86.136.230.88 is one of countless socks of the ref desk troll who has been blocked hundreds of times under different guises. His sole purpose here is neither to support nor to oppose TRM, but rather to cause trouble for anyone that he can.

Lack of evidence doesn't stop him:

One followup comment I was trying to post: "It's one of Vote(X)'s occasional tactics. Whether he's also the Nazi troll is hard to say for sure. But it's perhaps telling that the Nazi troll's latest IP got reverted and blocked a little while ago, and then this Wilson popped up, so they might indeed be the same guy."

I've not tracked this back more than a year, but further examples will no doubt be found in earlier archives. 2A00:23C1:E083:8201:69F8:C8CA:D630:D749 (talk) 10:57, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As the originator of this section (an IP from Scotland) said there was likely misidentification of "banned" users before last September I decided to check this out - I searched the rest of 2016 and my findings follow:

Identification doubts were raised in August 2015 and probably much earlier:

I take your point, but while I was sifting through the IP users contributions etc., I came across something even more disturbing. Unfortunately, I had to go to an urgent appointment so I had to leave it. The spotted problem was, that if the IP addreses are supposed to be the same editor hoping from location to location, he is doing it remarkably quickly indeed. 86.153.131.100 (located in Guildford made an edit to Prime meridian (Greenwich) at 12:33 on 19/8/15. 86.159.14.119 made an edit to Tennesse State Route 840 from North London at 12:49 on the same day. That is, he travelled the 45 miles between the two locations (as the crow flies - which I don't suppose he can) in just 16 minutes. he would have had to travel at 168 miles per hour assuming that the time interval is between [return] key presses and not taking account of the time taken to compose the edit etc. There are other examples of impossible journey timings, but that one is the best.

In December 2015 Baseball Bugs got into an argument with an administrator who claimed there was no need to use an edit summary when reverting. Cebr1979 described Baseball Bugs' claim as "rubbish":

Edit summaries are not required to revert ban users. The banning policy states the following: "Unless otherwise specified, a ban is a site ban. An editor who is site-banned is forbidden from making any edit, anywhere on Wikipedia, via any account or as an unregistered user, under any and all circumstances. The only exception is that editors with talk page access may appeal in accordance with the provisions below.".

Not saying I don't believe you but, can you link to this please? I'm not going to (nor should any editor ever be expected to) go search for non-linked policies. You wanna quote a policy, link to it. Otherwise, it's rubbish.

...

(ec)Banned users are not allowed to edit in any way, shape or form; and the edit summary I posted "WP:DENY" is sufficient explanation. You need to let the admin do his job, and not feed the troll by assuming bad faith on the part of the admin.

Ya... nothing about your response was a "sufficient explanation." I'm not going to (nor should any editor ever be expected to) go search for non-linked policies. You wanna quote a policy, link to it. Otherwise, it's rubbish.

In January 2016 Chillum explained how vandals are automatically assumed to be "Vote(X) for change":

What would you expect from a user named Bandersnatch? It isn't as such an offensive user name, but it has context, and you didn't block for an offensive username, but for vandalism.

I don't know what Bandersnatch means, but the "barnstars" being given out were meant to be insulting. It is probably a long term abuse case, possibly vote X for change(see the IP post directly above).

Chillum also read the Riot Act to Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi:

Look, could I recommend you pleaee start acting a bit like a serious user? Suggesting others to mail their colon is not particularly serious, nor is suggesting that anyone who reported your disruptive buddy be banned just because, well, because you want them to be banned. It becomes especially ridiculous when you want to ban users for a month just for having posted in an ANI discussion where you yourself has posted more frequently than some of them.

If you have investigated your case against FLCC and presented it as thoroughly as you presented that one, you'd be begging for an award of punishment :D you've randomly found a diff without having a clue about context. A word of advice: that way ^ the boomerangs fly :D ciao

Actually there is plenty of context. You have a very long pattern of dropping in silly comments in situations where they are not helpful and this is but one example out of many. I echo what Jeppiz says and ask you to stop making silly little comments everywhere, they add heat to situations without adding anything useful. I assure you that any boomerang will fly in an oddly straight direction in this situation.

In February Nil Einne confirmed that the identification of an editor as "Vote(X) for change" is pure guesswork:

... To give a random possibly WP:Beans example, I'm not sure if we have to worry about Vote X disruption Talk:My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and related articles any time soon... Is the editor who was using open proxies (or whatever) and was changing to South Korea and random other locations within minutes Vote X or someone else? ... Nil Einne 07:31, 12 February 2016.

In March Baseball Bugs admitted that his reverts were a violation of policy:

I don't need to "recognize" banned users. The admins need to. And they don't need to spill how they can tell, just to satisfy an OP who doesn't trust admins to know how to do their job.

Next day Elektrik Fanne confirmed what DieSwartzPunkt had discovered:

Vote (X) for Change's edit hstory shows that he exclusively edited Julian calender and Gregorian calender. Early IP edits principally targetted these articles, but by the time we get to IP(G), there is much edit history before an edit is made to one of the above articles whereupon, the SPI charge is made. This pattern continues (and there is evidence that many of the IPs are socks to each other and some are to Vote (X) for Change), though the link to the master is getting weaker by the report. By the time we get to IP(AZ), the pattern has gone completely (three unrelated edits to and entirely unrelated article Greenwich mean time - also some redacted edits where I can infer nothing but they were not to the articles named above).

What I find particularly concerning is that all the SPI cases are made by the same editor, Jc3s5h and no other. More or less a little before IP(AZ) all the way to IP(BW), this report, there is only one clear pattern. All reports are made when an IP just happens to edit an article that Jc3s5h happens to be editing and not agreeably as Jc3s5h alwys thinks he is right and the IP wrong (I make no comment as to the correctness of this belief). The case is that the IP has just happened to edit an article, or one related to it, that happens to have been edited by one of the long list of IPs in the archive (even if they have no relation to any edit by Vote (X) for Change or one of the earlier IPs that can be positivle linked).

I can pick virtually any case in the lower half of the archive and there is no history in common with Vote (X) for Change or any sock that can be positively linked to him. The other evidence almost universally used is that the IP geolocates to London. With a population in excess of 8+1⁄2 million, that is one hell of a stretch. This has all the appearance of some sort of vendetta where Jc3s5h is pursuing any shadow he perceives to be Vote (X) for Change. It also seems to me that the long term abuse case is most likely descended into a phantom zone of its own.

I am also somewhat concerned to note that this page has been protected such that any IP user accused by Jc3s5h is completely unable to defend himself. The irony being that the reason for the page protection is 'persistent sock puppetry'. -Elektrik Fanne (talk) 17:43, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

STOP PRESS: I have just been looking at a few more reports, and it seems that the evidence of being located in London is being stretched much furhter than that. It is London or anywhere within 60 miles of London (the furthest I found from London geolocates to 60 miles away). The population of this circle must be well over 10 million or well over one fifth of the total population of the UK! Someone is taking the mickey.

A week later a complaint of mistaken identity was lodged at ANI:

Yesterday, the following reverts were made of my IP, 31.54.205.159:

• 17:28, 29 March 2016 Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language by Future Perfect at Sunrise (rv, banned user)
• 17:20, 29 March 2016 Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous by Future Perfect at Sunrise (rm, banned user)
• 16:00, 29 March 2016 Owengallees by MarnetteD (rvt per WP:DENY-sock of VoteX)

So why didn't they revert

• 15:29, 29 March 2016 Corran, County Cavan
• 15:07, 29 March 2016 Corran, County Cavan
• 15:07, 29 March 2016 Corran, County Cavan
• 16:02, 28 March 2016 Camagh
• 14:56, 27 March 2016 86.150.12.196 Corran, County Cavan
• 14:55, 27 March 2016 86.150.12.196 Gorteen, Templeport
• 14:32, 26 March 2016 86.150.12.196 Killynaff
• 17:52, 25 March 2016 86.150.12.196 Altinure
• 15:56, 25 March 2016 86.150.12.196 Lecharrowahone
• 15:23, 25 March 2016 86.150.12.196 William Sheridan (Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh)
• 15:21, 25 March 2016 86.150.12.196 Corran, County Cavan
• 15:21, 25 March 2016 86.150.12.196 Patrick Sheridan
• 15:17, 25 March 2016 86.150.12.196 Corran, County Cavan
• 15:17, 25 March 2016 86.150.12.196 Corran, County Cavan

as well?

I am a long - standing, good faith anonymous editor. I object to my carefully researched edits being dismissed, without warning or explanation, as the work of a "sockpuppet".

There was a follow - up post shortly afterwards:

... Here is more of my history:

• 17:06, 1 December 2015 90.194.209.0 Altinure
• 16:55, 1 December 2015 90.194.209.0 Altinure
• 16:22, 1 December 2015 90.194.209.0 Cranaghan
• 16:18, 1 December 2015 90.194.209.0 Aghavoher
• 16:17, 1 December 2015 90.194.209.0 Berrymount
• 16:16, 1 December 2015 90.194.209.0 Annagh, County Cavan
• 16:10, 1 December 2015 90.194.209.0 Annagh, County Cavan
• 16:02, 1 December 2015 90.194.209.0 Aghavoher
• 15:50, 1 December 2015 90.194.209.0 Agharaskilly
• 15:42, 1 December 2015 90.194.209.0 Aughlim, County Cavan
• 15:33, 1 December 2015 90.194.209.0 Berrymount

As you can see, all carefully - researched, good - faith changes, never queried till now.

Baseball Bugs' raison d'être was explained the following week:

So after 12 or so years of the 'problem', you, and you alone have come up with the definitve answer, have you? You cant see that part of the attraction of the Rds is the Troll involvement, can you? If there were no trolls here, it would be a much less interesting place and dedicated troll hunters like BB and others would be rendered redundant. (After all this the only place BB ever posts). Sniff a troll; accuse a poster of being a troll; insult a suspected troll; detect a troll; report a troll; get a suspected troll banned: Success! Onto the next troll suspect. Reminds me a bit of foxhunting.Is that what you (and BB) really want?

The following week a number of unsubstantiated allegations were made against "Vote(X) for change":

Vote (X) for Change (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Populated account categories: confirmed · suspected

– This SPI case is open.

Suspected sockpuppets

• BethNaughty (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Velella on tyres (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• I'm Materialsceintist, I abuse Cleckuser (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Passengerpigeon on tyres (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
• Editor interaction utility

Created the usual attack pages with overly long titles. Passengerpigeon (talk) 11:46, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Four days later Ponyo read the Riot Act to Baseball Bugs and Jayron32's WP:CIR issues were highlighted:

This IP was blocked indefinitely as another ref-desk troll. Though the block was clearly justified, IP's are never blocked indefinitely (unless occasional Proxy IP servers). Usually Vote (X) for Change IP's first blocks are 36 hours. Can an admin take a look into this, please?

One of yours?

Um, no...? I just saw the block and was curious as to why it was indef-ed. My contributions are clearly not from the same user.

...

Bugs, stop poking. Helpful IP 2607, thank you for noting the discrepancy in the block length. I adjusted it to 48 hours assuming the indef was an unintentional error by Jayron32, one I've done myself a number of times.

...

The IPs observation of the block was completely valid, and a review of their edits show they were doing vandal patrolling prior to their edit here. Your comment ("one of yours?") was unhelpful, rude, showed bad faith, and served no purpose other than to cast aspersions on someone who was pointing out a likely error.

Two days later Passengerpigeon admitted he didn't have a clue:

On the 11th of April, I found a group of accounts that were impersonating other users with accounts such as Passengerpigeon on tyres (talk · contribs) and creating attack pages. According to a talk page watcher on User talk:Materialscientist, they were sockpuppets of User:Vote (X) for Change, so I reported them to his sockpuppet investigation page. However, Favonian said that they were puppets of Willy on Wheels, not Vote (X). This perplexed me, because I thought the original Willy on Wheels vanished in 2005 or so. However, I have since run across another sockpuppeteer, NSMutte, who seems to display a similar pattern of abuse. Since you have experience dealing with NSMutte, could you please tell me whether you think the socks I reported are actually NSMutte's? Thankyou,

The OP left a space between his comment and his signature which Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi used to confirm that he (Fortuna) was the informant.

There's apparently no limit to the lies some editors will tell about "Vote(X) for change". Banned from Jimbo's talk page Tarage decided to make trouble at ANI:

It isn't vandalism.

How do you figure? The IP is Vote (X) for Change, a globally banned editor. The only reason I didn't flat out delete this section was so he could be blocked.

Peter James told him:

There's a list of globally banned users; Vote (X) for Change isn't listed there and the account isn't globally blocked.

In May The Quixotic Potato (now blocked for making false allegations against "Vote(X) for change") admitted that he didn't care if his allegations were false:

The OP here originally brought it up on the ref desk talk page and was told to bring it here.

I wasn't planning on commenting here again but Future Perfect at Sunrise blocked 151.226.217.27 because it is LTA User:Vote (X) for Change, which confirms my suspicions. 68.48.241.158 will be blocked again soon, probably for being disruptive and exhausting everyone's patience. I don't know if they are the same person.

nope, not same person, obviously..but that's who you engaged inappropriately with in that thread (and which I properly tried to collapse) whereby you again and again and again in bad faith uncollapsed

Please read WP:INDENT. It doesn't really matter if you are the same person as 151.226.217.27 or not, the end result is the same. If you continue behaving like this you will keep getting blocked. It is 6 AM right now in the place your IP geolocates to. Are you in Ann Arbor? Are you using a proxy?

Another case of mistaken identity surfaced two weeks later:

Hi. The deletion is not a big deal. But who or what is a VoteX?

It appears to be several of my contributions which have been deleted: I have never used VoteX as a user name, and have no idea why you should choose to remove a string of my contributions. I don't think they were offensive or irrelevant, and would appreciate an explanation.

Please don't delete other people's contribution on the refdesk, or accuse them of being a sockpuppet without a shred of evidence. I've restored my contribution. EDIT: I see this user has done this before. Ideologically motivated, it seems. Please stop doing this or you will have to be reported.

So over to the Kangaroo Court, a.k.a. ANI:

86.28.195.109 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). See Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Vote (X) for Change. Could someone do the honours? Thanks. Incidentally, is ANI the best place for this sort of report? It's not obvious vandalism, so AIV seems inappropriate.

What does this person do? Change calendar related stuff?

On the reference desks, formal trolling in the old USENET sense - that is, posting deliberately provocative and inaccurate material with the intention of causing a disturbance.

I was answering the question. I believe that's the point of the refdesk? I can't help you don't like the answer.

Will someone actually do an IP check?! I am not a sock. Just because the reported presumably disagrees ideologically with me, is not reason for a block.

That nice line in poetry didn't do the IP any good because NeilN closed the case without a word as to the rights and wrongs of the matter.

The same day another IP editor found a mystery template on his talk page:

Template:IPsock

No idea who put this here or what this means, but I'm me, and no one else. 86.28.195.109 (talk) 16:51, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Baseball Bugs' obsession with banned editors was commented on the following month:

So how is one to know an editor is banned? If she/he is "banned" why is he/she able to post on this page? Why don't you ever do enything more useful than pick at minute procedural transgrssions and rarely offer up meaningful information.

Another misattribution was recorded later in July:

Favonian reverted these requests claiming they were made by a sockpuppet. The IP geolocates to Guildford - the same place from which it was claimed a sockpuppet travelled at this time on a Sunday to north London, where (s)he made an edit (not allowing for time taken to compose and save) just sixteen minutes later [15]. I'm in north London (to prove it I logged trains departing from Wood Green station at 13:25 for Arnos Grove (with the indicator board showing Cockfosters) and Heathrow terminals 4, 1, 2 and 3). So if someone blocks me as a sockpuppet the obvious next destination is ANI, with a connection toArbCom if needed. - 80.194.231.224 13:27, 24 July 2016.

NeilN got his comeuppance in August:

Reading the UTRS, I see the user has given up on Wikipedia and has told his friends and colleagues they should never edit here as it is too cliquey and impossible to do anything as an outsider. This is an extremely damaging thing to have done; not only do we have a reduced workforce, we are working against more people who hate us. I am usually a nice guy and accommodating to anyone who wants to help, and if I ever shout or get aggressive with people, it is always established editors who are punching above their station seemingly without realising. Let me reiterate : your actions cost us 4-5 editors...

... Please explain how you backtracked a post from Vote (X) for Change and determined the root cause was my actions on Lydia Cornell ... I'm doing the same thing as I do with all banned editors - WP:RBI. I disagree with your characterizations of censorship, especially as you seem to be unfamiliar with Vote (X) for Change, but I've stopped reverting banned/blocked users on your talk page.

More insight into Baseball Bugs' character was provided on 9 September:

It is part of Baseball Bugs' belief system that any user anywhere on the planet who criticises him is the same person. The editor he has an obsession with, "Exchange for Vote", is an abusive editor [16], [17]. That's not me.

He showed his colours again later in the month:

Baseball Bugs says "Vote x" is a Nazi troll who geolocates to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Tevildo says it can be identified by its rants on the failings of the National Health Service - then deletes helpful Reference desk answers that are nothing to do with the National Health Service. Jayron32 says it posts trolling questions to the Reference desk - then also deletes helpful answers.

At 15:16 on 10 December 2016 Primefac placed a notice on User talk:Elockid about the proposed deletion of Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Vote (X) for Change. A few hours later the strange way in which Ian.thomson thwarted the proposal by an uninvolved editor to delete this page was raised at ANI:

[Impersonation of other users by Vote (X) for Change removed]

• Um, speedy keep for obvious reasons. Socks don't get to nominate their own LTA for deletion. Sro23 (talk) 15:27, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The allegation that an editor has impersonated a member of the Arbitration Committee is yet another example of criminal harassment. How can a post signed by an IP be "impersonation of other users"? It can't, obviously, and equally obviously Ian.thomson removed Doug's post because it supported deletion. The "speedy keep" is a bad faith close - taking the matter to ANI for review. 86.141.140.220 (talk) 18:14, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you're Jewish and you're pleased with the result you'll have added incentive to celebrate the Rejoicing of the law in the synagogue this morning. Shalom. 31.52.216.16 (talk) 08:13, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Friday the thirteenth has come and gone but the problems remain. Baseball Bugs' removals are far more disruptive than Medeis'. He claims the following post is "trolling":

*Jiangsu and Wuhan are not languages. Jiangsu is a province, Wuhan is a capital city. That's like saying "I speak Virgina", "I speak Nashville". This is very disrespectul since you just picked random places, don't know what they really are and obviously don't care what is actually spoken there. Please use the terms "Jianghuai Mandarin" (or "Wu" if southern Jiangsu) and "Wuhan dialect". Jianghuai Mandarin is not homogeneous in itself, you should have provided a specific city. Overall, your example is seriously flawed. Next time, pick something you are more acquainted with. Moreover, you should have stuck to one example. Every case is unique and has its own research. Now, this discussion is just a whole mess and no one really knows what you were asking for. --

If he can't see that it is a good faith comment he should leave the Reference desk voluntarily. He claims that StuRat does not understand policy:

And you're notorious for restoring threads initiated by banned users. Stop it!

Restoring threads initiated by "banned users" is perfectly within policy. 213.123.216.179 (talk) 20:22, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)x2 The consensus here is that the comment is not obvious trolling. That's why Baseball Bugs deleting it with the one - word edit summary "trolling" was not good enough - he should have followed the Reference desk guidelines and sought consensus for his action here beforehand. Also he is being deceptive. He omitted to mention that he made his "trolling" allegation at AIV. Eighteen minutes later an administrator commented "Having an opinion on a talk page is not vandalism." One hour later this was expanded [18]:

I don't see that any of the edits are either vandalism or trolling. Please see the note at the top of this page "The edits of the reported user must be obvious vandalism or obvious spam. If it is vandalism then it isn't obvious vandalism, and explanation is needed, so ANI is the pace [sic], not here.

The trolling seems to come from Baseball Bugs. For instance, at ANI on 13 September an editor reported an editor who wrote an edit summary wishing users will get cancer. Baseball Bugs jumped in with the comment "How would an edit summary get cancer?" Also in my book it's trolling when the editor won't drop the stick. Baseball Bugs went back to AIV the following morning with the exact same complaint and got the exact same answer, this time from an Arbitrator. 82.14.24.95 (talk) 17:41, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WP:META is a disambiguation page. WP:DENY says (among other things):

If you see information pages about vandals or vandalism that you think have no practical purpose,

• If this page is pure vandalism, tag it with ((Db-g3));
• If this page is created by banned or blocked users after the ban or block, tag it with ((Db-g5));
• If this page is an obvious personal attack, tag it with ((Db-g10));
• Otherwise, list them as miscellany for deletion (if you see a group of similar pages, make a group nomination).

So this policy is concerned solely with tagging pages for deletion. It is also concerned solely with vandalism - and the Arbitration Committee says the post is not vandalism. In other words, it has bubkis to do with the matter in hand. Baseball Bugs has a lengthy block log for "personal attacks", "harassment", "disruptive editing" and "clearly not here to build an encyclopedia". He is also eager to delete criticism of himself. The same goes for Medeis. Her blocks centre on "disruptive editing" and "edit warring". Both editors have been banned in the course of their careers.

Not everyone has a degree in linguistics. If Medeis has an argument she should formulate it in a way ordinary editors can understand. 31.54.203.125 (talk) 06:45, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are too many editors citing irrelevant essays who are either cocking a snook at community agreed procedures or simply have WP:CIR issues. WP:DENY is trotted out regularly but it has nothing whatever to do with talk page discussions. Baseball Bugs, Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi and Guy Macon are names that stand out. 31.54.203.125 (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What a liar Baseball Bugs is (no, this is not a personal attack, here are the diffs):

He posted this on ANI after the discussion had been closed:

We have at least one admin who's an expert at spotting Vote(X)'s garbage, and I've asked him to look into this.

Here are his contributions either side of that comment: [19], [20], [21]. 2A02:C7F:BE12:F800:2189:3B2:1BFD:424 (talk) 09:49, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If one looks at the general tone of the RD talk pages about ten years ago, and compares it with the current tone, what differences are there? I see no differences; in that the same few people (the first set) are trying to score points off another set of a few people (the second set) and to punish (by blocking, banning etc) the second set for saying things the first set dont agree with. Im not sure how this helps the pedia. If people just want an argument, why dont we just float this RD talk off into another universe where it will not bother people who just want simple answers to simple questions via the reference desk facility? --213.205.252.246 (talk) 23:08, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Which universe would you suggest? Bus stop (talk) 23:15, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. The good guys can score fatality points with "heroic brutality" in that one, and the bad guys can still kill the good guys, but with less gore than usual. Everyone wins (if they can remember which buttons to press). InedibleHulk (talk) 23:45, October 13, 2017 (UTC)

I like the solution in the original Star Trek episode The Alternative Factor, where the two opposing foes end up at each other's throats for all eternity, trapped between two universes: [22] (note that this episode featured all the special effects they could manage, both using negatives and rotating the camera, at the same time !). StuRat (talk) 01:46, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The obvious solution is to bring a controversial action here and discuss it. That's what the talk page is for, and how it used to go here, until Macon said we shouldn't talk about other editors here - unless, apparently, it was he himself that wanted to talk about other editors here. This bogus "straw poll" should be closed, and we should use the talk page for reaching consensus on actions, rather than trying to ban editors who Macon doesn't like. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:28, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strangely, the only (semi) serious response is actually from one of the most prolific contributors to RD talk. Although I notice that he/she cannot resist bringing forward an existing gripe he/she has of which I am unaware and couldnt care less. This is my point: stop fkg attacking each other to score points. Please lets all grow up. That includes you Bugs..--213.205.252.246 (talk) 22:04, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Fkg"?--WaltCip (talk) 13:12, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fucking. Somehow less offensive if you abbreviate. Or, maybe a simple time-saver, like lol. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:14, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• The irony here is so great you can watch it rust... --Jayron32 23:51, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So why not remove the oxygen?--213.205.252.246 (talk) 01:11, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Touché. --Jayron32 01:15, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]