Talk:Right Back

The layout isn't really in keeping with most of the other album pages here. Which is moot, since it's been deleted. (rephrased)

Now, I've not been checking Wikipedia for the past few days 'cos of work, so I'm wondering if the page was changed since I last edited it, or was it just a case of deleting everything No-Fx wrote? I see "Michael" tagged on the deletion log, but I thought the main problem with Michael was posting gibberish, which was not the case for any edit of this page that I saw.

So, coming to my point, was this just a knee-jerk reaction, because No-Fx is more than likely Michael? Why wasn't this page listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, and left for a week? The article was only created 5 days ago. If the page had been changed into gibberish, why didn't someone just revert to my edit, and leave a note so I could put it on my todo list?

-- Jimregan 23:34 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Jim, Michael delights in adding these things. He doesn't know half the stuff he writes about and just makes stuff up. (Either that or else he lies deliberately.) He refuses to discuss things on talk pages, and flat-out deletes things he doesn't like, including things on talk pages pointing out his errors. He is one seriously sick puppy, and one major pain in the arse. The trouble with Michael's entres is that he hides his lies/monomaniacal mistakes (whichever they are) in amongst stuff that is actually correct, and no-one except an expert in that particular field can tell the difference. In 5 minutes flat, Michael can enter enough stuff to a series of articles that it would take you or me hours to go through it all, checking sources, and disentangle the truth from the lies. He has been banned from the 'pedia by the full official process and after many people went through hell bending over backwards trying to persade him to act reasonably. Look at the tortured edit history of Crass for just one example. (Go back 500 edits or so - this has been going on for months.) The only way to deal with Michael is to revert on sight: revert and/or delete everything Michael "contributes" because no-one has the time to comb through it trying to sort out the truth from the untruths, and if they do (for trust me this has been attempted time and time again) Michael and his Cast of 1000 Aliases mess it all right up again.

Don't be fooled by a contribution that just happens to be correct. Michael is the worst sort of vandal: with a good old fashioned "764987548754*^#&%$%(*^$(%#*FCFDFDFFFFFFFFfffjjj" or a "fUcK yUO taNNin!!!!" you can tell that it's junk at a glance. But in his case, the correct stuff is mainly there to hide the lies. You can't tell them apart without specialist knowledge, so the only safe thing to do is revert it on sight. Zoe is doing exactly the right thing, and I thank her for her vigilance. Tannin 00:14 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Okay. What's the procedure if I happen to get myself in this situation again, through editing a page Michael etc takes a shine to? Put a copy under my user namespace? I ask because my main interest here is in music, and there is some small overlap between Michael (etc)'s interests and my own. -- Jimregan 01:41 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Now that, Jim, is a really good question. Let me think about that for a minute. Tannin

There are several possibilities, I think, but they boil down to two main situations:

• (a) It is a pre-existing page with substantial content (which we assume is more-or-less correct), which Michael has added stuff to. You want to edit it and add more. Best to start from the last version before Michael's edits. (Usually, Michael's stuff is reverted promptly anyway, but it's wise to check anytime you are working on popular music & entertainment articles.) The main thing is not to mix up your stuff (which is, we presume, usually accurate), and the pre-existing stuff (which is also presumed usually accurate) with Michael's stuff (which is a devil's mixture of fact, nonsense, and foolishness, and must be presumed inaccurate). In short, revert Michael's nonsense, then carry on editing same as usual.

• (b) You see something of Michael's which you want to keep because it happens to be accurate and useful. (This happens sometimes, but always check where Michael is concerned - he is a zero-trust user, and gets his jollies from regularly slipping in made-up stuff in, hoping that no-one will notice.) If you vouch for the content, then no problem. Pop a note in your edit summary to say that you have checked this stuff out and it's OK. Anything Michael adds afterwards will get auto-reverted, same as usual, but the stuff that you vouch for remains.

It's not really a terribly satisfactory solution, but the alternative, leaving Michael's nonsense to fester, is much worse. Sooner or later, he will get bored and give it up. There are a lot more of us decent contributors than there are of Michael (thank goodness!) and eventually he will get tired of always being reverted and achieving nothing. He doesn't even really bug people anymore. People used to get really angry with his vandalism, but since everyone has taken to reverting his edits on sight, life is easier. No agonising, no need to waste hours and hours sorting out the facts and the lies, just click, type "revert to last edit by (genuine contributor X)", click, and the job's done.

Is that making any sense to you? Tannin 04:32 22 May 2003 (UTC)

I would add to Tannin's comments by saying that if an article you've worked on has been deleted, and you can vouch for the content (or want to use it as a base for research, etc) then pop a note on wikipedia:votes for undeletion and I'll undelete it for you. I don't know if this applies here.

Oh, I'll move all this over to user talk:Michael/ban sooner or later, so it's with the rest. Martin 09:27 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Many thanks to both of you - Tannin: yes, that was clear, and a good guide for dealing with banned users in general. I looked in Wikipedia:List of articles in the Wikipedia namespace but I didn't see anything about dealing with banned users. Martin: I wasn't aware that there was a votes for undeletion page, last I saw deletion seemed to be permanent. I learn something new every minute I spend here. As to this article, the contents were accurate, (as were many of the others I saw deleted) but the article was just a stub so no big deal. Thanks again, Jimregan 21:01 23 May 2003 (UTC)

meta:bans and meta:bans and blocks are bits I've written about the process, but they're very much from my perspective, which some would feel is a little skewed :)

I've just undeleted Right Back and added an accuracy disclaimer - if you want to review it to be sure that it said what you thought it said, and remove the disclaimer, I guess that'd be helpful :) Martin

The article is listed in Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion. User:anthere

Aha. I keep forgetting about meta:. This place is so huge, I'll have to keep a trail of breadcrumbs :) Thanks again. -- Jimregan

• Right Back - Originally deleted with comment (Michael). Content is accurate and has been verified by two other Wikipedians. See Talk:Right Back for discussion. Martin 18:32 25 May 2003 (UTC)
  • So what? It was created by Michael, and as such, is de facto to be deleted. If you want to recreate it under your own name, please be my guest. -- Zoe
    • Some wikipedians disagree with the de facto. I think what is important is the content of the edit, not the name of the editor. A good edit is a "good" edit, even made by a "bad" author. If you disagree with an article for whatever reasons, would you please list it in that page, for the content to be considered by other wikipedians, rather than deleting it without it being through the proper process of community decision making ? Thanks User:anthere
    • I disagree fundamentally. The policy is that a multiple banned user who has not contacted Jimbo to promise an improvement in their behaviour cannot contribute to wikipedia. Anything by them should be instantly deleted, irrespective of content. Allowing anything they contribute to remain while it is painstakingly examined for accuracy simply encourages them to believe that they can get away with things here. Today's article may be 100% accurate, tomorrow's might be 10%, the next day's 40%, etc and you would tie up valid users in a constant process editing and re-checking the word of a banned user who broke the rules to sneak on and create the page while prohibited from doing so. The policy with regard to anyone who is a multiple banned user, whether DW (who has reappeared as two new trolls and I see is as of tonight having everything they do undone automatically), Lir, Michael or anyone else, needs to be crystal clear. Nothing you write while banned will be allowed on wikipedia, no matter how accurate. You want to be allowed back to contribute? Contact Jimbo and get unbanned. So this page should go automatically, as should anything else by anyone else banned. If the content is OK, someone else can start from stratch and use the text. Appeasement of people like Michael, Lir, DW et al has been shown to fail and simply to encourage them to keep coming back, making a mockery of the ban. FearÉÍREANN 00:03 27 May 2003 (UTC)
    • Wouldn't recreating it under my own name be plagiarism? Martin 17:57 26 May 2003 (UTC)
      • Probably not. I think it is written somewhere an article is ideally multiauthored :-)
    • The deleted page has been edited by another user. This person has taken the pain to check the facts. Do you mean that even if a user take the time to check the facts, the page should be deleted regardless of the time spent on it ? Also, how would it possible to reuse the content of that page, if the content is OK, when the page is deleted ? Ant
    • Duh! Copy it onto a desktop before erasing! And yes, it should be deleted even then. If everytime Michael comes back he sees his original creation there it sends him the message 'see, I can get around this ban. It ain't worth s**t!' Only if 100% of what he touches is undone, removed, ditched will he at some stage get the message that he is wasting his time. Every minute he spends on wiki is a waste because everything he touches, without exception ends up in the bin, unopened, unread, no matter what the quality. That leaves him with two options. If he wants to contribute and have a contribution last rather than be not automatically dumped, he has to contact Jimbo and get the ban lifted. But if he is just screwing up wiki for the fun of it, eventually he will get bored when he sees the hours he spends are wasted by a scorched earth policy towards anything he touches, and go away. But that policy needs 100% application to work. Exceptions just give Michael hope that he can get away with it, lengthening the time until he finally gets the message, stops f*****g wiki around and f***s off. FearÉÍREANN 02:38 27 May 2003 (UTC)
    • Short version, the way I see it: keeping possibly worthwhile articles & edits, good for the articles; what JTD calls "scorched earth" (I love that game!), good for the Wikipedia. I know which I'll choose, if/when it comes down to it. -- John Owens 05:26 27 May 2003 (UTC)

In this particular instance, by deleting the article we are also deleting the work of a bona fide contributor. If Michael's goal is to screw up wikipedia, then this kind of collateral damage (for want of a phrase) helps, not hinders, his goal. Martin

Bottom line is (at least as I see it) that if you see something you want to keep, then you have to take responsibility for it. On the whole, I think it would be best to delete and recreate the article first (to exclude the vandal completely), and I'm happy to assist anyone who wants help with that task (just pop a note on my talk page - or Martin's, I'm sure he would do the same), but so long as someone (a real someone, not a Michael alias) is prepared to take the responsibility for a page being decently accurate, then simple practicality may not allow for this. Just remember, if you are starting from a Michael stub, you need to check everything. Michael delights in doing subtle stuff like putting "1973" in where the correct date is 1975. Watch out for that - and happy editing! Tannin 15:37 27 May 2003 (UTC)

FWIW, I did check the release date - I initially thought Michael had been inaccurate, but then I realised that I was looking at the date of a rerelease, not of the original release. Martin

I agree with Tannin. Re collateral damage, yeah it is unfortunate. (Doublely unfortunate, the bone fide contributor is Irish! We Irish must stick together!!!) But Michael doesn't care about such stuff. He only cares that his stuff with his name attached is there. A Michael article should only survive if all references to him are deleted (so that he cannot in any way claim credit for it) and if possible it is renamed so that it can justifiably be said not to be his in any sense. Keeping anything that was created by him and still includes anything associated with him would be a collosal blunder. If this article is worth keeping, it needs deleting and recreation under someone else's name, preferrably if possible with a changed name so that as far as possible no mention survives of Michael or his various personæ. As long as any mention exists in any of his post-ban articles of Michael, we are simply encouraging him to keep coming back and pretending to be a bone fide contributor when he is nothing of the sort. FearÉIREANN 00:07 28 May 2003 (UTC) (paraphrased)

I paraphrased you slightly Jtdirl, because I'm not sure I can applaud the wisdom of insulting banned users.

I find much to agree with in what Jtdirl and Tannin are saying, but I sadly can't support the idea of deleting the article and recreating it under someone else's name. Michael's name is, after all, in the edit histories of other articles, such as 2003 in music, and it seems overzealous to attempt to remove even this. Martin

That's because Michael contributed to those articles before his ban. Anything created by him under other names is being automatically deleted. -- Zoe

It's been reverted, but it's not been deleted from the page history, as has been suggested for this article. Martin 08:33 28 May 2003 (UTC)

I will not be giving any arguments for or against deletion, but if we do keep, I would propose to move this page to Long Beach Dub Allstars, and edit the page accordingly - I find it very illogical to have an article on the record but not on the band. Andre Engels 09:07 28 May 2003 (UTC)

That's because Zoe deleted the article on Long Beach folk. I've undeleted it, added an accuracy warning, and listed it on VfD alongside this one... Martin

I should add that I don't criticise Zoe for deleting the Long Beach article, and my undeletions should not be read as such criticism. It is obviously quicker to delete an article than to fix it and verify it, and that was an important criterion when Zoe performed the deletions. Indeed, it is Zoe's prompt deletion policy that allow me to wander back undeleting and fixing articles in this lazy, sporadic manner. Martin

Now that Conflict (band) has been kept (see user talk:Michael/ban), would it be reasonable to remove this article from VfD? Martin

Who says it has been kept? It is still on the deletion page. FearÉIREANN 18:40 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hmm, I can't see it there... :-/ Martin

Kingturtle deleted the article (saying undelete if you disagree), so I've undeleted it (again), because I put some work into verifying this, and I'm damned if my hard work is going to be for nothing because people want to swathe Wikipedia in industrial cleanser. Martin 16:24 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)