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User:HouseOfChange[edit]

User:HouseOfChange is making an accusation of COI against me at the end of Wikiquote:Village pump#Paid editing as he is particularly preoccupied by my editing of the George Galloway article. It might be worthwhile for (other) administrators to look at the edits of HoC of the Galloway article. On the Galloway talk page I point to two edits by HoC from last February which I do not consider to have been made in good faith. In fact, two key passages were deleted by this user, including the entirety of Galloway's speech to Saddam Hussein in 1994; in the UK, this is still the best known incident in Galloway's career. In an earlier A/N thread, HoC does make a case for a COI claim to be made against me (derived from Wikipedia in 2018), but no other administrator made a comment. It does appear this user/administrator is targeting me beyond anything which might be considered reasonable. Philip Cross (talk) 20:55, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

George Galloway is on my watchlist. I edited it once today (April 1) and before that my most recent edit was on March 6. This hardly seems like "targeting" or "preoccupation." I stand by my opinion that George Galloway's successful campaign to have Philip Cross blocked from editing en-wiki constitutes a "significant controversy or dispute" to quote w:WP:BLPCOI.
But I would welcome the opinion of more people to the current dispute at the article. Philip Cross has removed, twice, two of the very few somewhat-positive quotes about George Galloway. I added these on March 3, PC removed them on April 1 saying "first Deborah Ross quote unremarkable & thus non-notable, second quote now out of date (and I've no interest in quoting DR's updated opinion which is also unremarkable, non-notable & not especially funny): https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/deborah-ross-my-reproductive-system-would-like-to-join-the-rape-debate-8073573.html". I restored them on April 1 saying "undo removal of some of the very few quotes about Galloway that provided balance to the catalog already provided here of negativity", and PC undid my edit saying "Undo revision 3491803 by HouseOfChange (talk) "found good in Saddam" is not a commendation for the person who admired his "indefatigability"; the best known negative comment about Galloway is from his own mouth which someone tried to cut in its entirety the other month without leaving even the best known part (https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=George_Galloway&diff=prev&oldid=3468575)" Since it is one-versus-one, and I don't plan to edit war, I would welcome other opinions. HouseOfChange (talk) 02:05, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like George. I've no idea if the Telegraph's allegations against him are true or not. But I do hope not.
Some initial thoughts on this matter: the removal of quotes on the George Galloway page by both users appears to be in the wrong. Of the two quotes that Philip Cross removed (and HouseofChange restored), I would certainly keep the first, but maybe not the second (doesn't really strike me as all that memorable, or even relevant anymore). The removals of quotes by HouseofChange earlier from the page also seem to be overreach - I wouldn't necessarily keep all of it - the passages are a bit long - but I would keep the essence of them.

As to the claims of a COI, there does seem to be at least the appearance of this by Philip Cross. I have seen much good editing by this user and do not feel that they should be severely punished, but perhaps the George Galloway page should be left alone after the changes I already mentioned. In fact, it might be best if both users refrained from editing the page once this occurs. ~ UDScott (talk) 11:21, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking a look at this, User:UDScott. I would be happy to comply with your suggestions, and to leave the article in its current state with the addition of the first of the two Deborah Ross quotations. There is indeed the "appearance" of COI for Philip Cross's editing anything related to George Galloway, a COI to which he has admitted, so I hope he will also comply with your suggestion to stop, to avoid further embarrassment to the Wikimedia project. HouseOfChange (talk) 00:36, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While waiting for any further resolution on this matter, I have made another edit to George Galloway that I think is typical of trying to turn it into a useful source of George Galloway quotes rather than an attack page. HouseOfChange (talk) 02:54, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A quote by a prominent journalist, like Tanya Gold, is likely to be superior to a mere news source. Part of the 2019 BBC News source HouseOfChange did not quote is also "very prejudicial" if one is so inclined: "But he [Galloway] was accused of being racist himself, including by Tottenham [Hotspur] itself.
In a statement, the club said: 'It's astounding in this day and age to read such blatant anti-Semitism published on a social platform by someone who is still afforded air time on a radio station on which he has previously broken broadcast impartiality rules."
On Monday morning, talkRADIO said it had cancelled Mr Galloway's show, adding: 'As a fair and balanced news provider, talkRADIO does not tolerate anti-Semitic views'" (change from double to single quotation marks in this citation). Given the issues with his politics, a "useful source of George Galloway quotes" will be dominated by negative comments, assuming editors keen to gloss over his flaws do not have an undue role. Wikiquote articles are not required to be balanced. Positive passages in reliable sources about this politician are scarce and those online are usually from (like myself) non-notable individuals, unlike very many of his critics. Philip Cross (talk) 06:51, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(restart indents) The BBC, unlike the Tanya Gold source, includes GG's explanation of his "Israel flag" remark. IMO, GG's own explanation is a useful service to our readers. The context is even clearer if we cite GG's actual tweet "Congratulations to the great people of #Liverpool to the memory of the socialist miner #BillShankley to the fallen #96 to those who fought for justice for them and to the Liverpool dockers. No #Israël flags on the Cup!" Commenters immediately criticized the last bit, e.g. "Its sport and your better than that final comment George?earning the immediate responses from GG "Why are they flying Israël flags if it’s “sport”. Second commenter "Tottenham has no Israeli affiliation but a strong JEWISH fanbase. You’re usually very concerned about not being labeled an antisemite. Please explain why this tweet is not antisemitic?" GG response "What are Israël flags if not affiliation with, er, Israël ?" GG is pro-Palestine, anti-Israel. He has repeatedly denied being antisemitic, although of course not one of those denials is among the quotes chosen by PC except for one instance, where a denial is mentioned and immediately denounced as hypocritical. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:47, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I only quoted the most important part from the BBC News item to demonstrate the Tanya Gold quote can be considered fair comment and to avoid the too long: didn't read meme. Galloway did not sue talkRADIO, or Tottenham football club, for libel/defamation over their comments, or his former employer for terminating his contract. Philip Cross (talk) 17:24, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Tanya Gold comment could not have been "considered fair comment" as the only representative of a very controversial remark by Galloway, a representation that omitted GG's own explanation -- unlike the BBC, the Jerusalem Post, and just about every other source describing the comment and its aftermath. How can you not see that? But this is exactly why you, PC, should not be editing articles where you have a strong COI, and according to ARBCOM that COI with accompanying bad editing choices extends well beyond George Galloway to a host of other British political figures that you either despise and seek to damage (Corbyn, Prince Andrew, etc. etc.) or cherish and choose to promote (The Times, Oliver Kamm, etc.) HouseOfChange (talk) 18:59, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
HouseOf Change highlights edits he disagrees with, rather than bad practice on this website, and seems to prefer political positions well outside the mainstream. A report by the UK statutory body, the Equality and Human Rights Commission report in October 2020 found the Labour Party under Corbyn was (according to The Guardian) "responsible for unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination over antisemitism"; Corbyn was removed from the Parliamentary Labour Party for effectively downplaying the validity of this conclusion. Can anyone see a pattern here? The quotes by Corbyn I removed from his article in the edit HoC cites (from as long ago as August 2022) date back more than 30 years to when Corbyn was a little known backbencher, and are long and obscure (unlike those quotes from Galloway's article HoC took exception to). In that edit to the Corbyn article, I added a short 2016 comment from a senior Labour backbencher, Margaret Hodge, as Corbyn's vote of confidence (which he heavily lost) was in progress at the time. Hodge's comment ("Make no mistake — unless we listen to our voters, our party faces political oblivion") proved insightful as Labour lost the next two UK general elections (the worst result since 1935 in the 2019 election). The Prince Andrew reference is actually to an edit to the article on Ghislaine Maxwell, a friend of his who is serving a 20 year imprisonment; the Prince is disgrace for his association with their mutual friend, Jeffrey Epstein. A twenty-year old photograph of the prince and Virginia Giufffre (then Roberts) with Maxwell in the background is notorious in the UK, so mentioning Prince Andrew in the introduction of her article is entirely justified.
I haven't worked on the Oliver Kamm Wikiquote article very much, I much prefer working on articles about prominent women. Kamm did write an article published in November 2018 concerning, what he termed, "credulous cranks" spreading conspiracy theories of direct relation to immediate issues. The left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article on the same subject six-months earlier.
The vast majority of my Wikiquote edits since August 2022 would not be admissible if the editing restrictions imposed on my Wikipedia account applied here, or indeed perhaps I should have been blocked here too some time ago as I was indefinitely barred from editing Wikipedia in late October 2022. HouseOfChange does not seem to be a dispassionate administrator in expecting fringe figures to be treated as though they are not fringe figures. Foreseeing a potential response from HoC, it is true Galloway recently won a parliamentary by-election in Northern England, but the website of his party states: "We defend the achievements of the USSR, China, Cuba etc." Very mainstream.
Having mentioned the tl:dr meme earlier, I have made an over-extended, if necessary, contribution myself. Philip Cross (talk) 20:58, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

((restart indents)) When PC first embarrassed Wikipedia in 2018, many admins were reluctant to restrict even his editing of the GG article, where he had a self-declared COI, a history of publicly taunting GG on Twitter starting in 2012, and a history of nearly 2000 edits, some at least quite tendentious. Hoping to let PC continue to edit on subjects where he was less tendentious, ARBCOM offered a topic ban for British politics. Unfortunately, PC was in 2022 kicked off Wikipedia entirely for repeatedly gaming the topic ban. His 180 (that's a lot!) edits to the George Galloway WQ article are every one of them in clear defiance of BLPCOI, which is policy. Occam's razor doesn't require me to have loony fringe political views in order to be concerned about PC's policy violations and the potential for renewed public embarrassment to the wiki project. HouseOfChange (talk) 03:10, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike Wikipedia, media coverage of Wikiquote is negligible to non-existent. HoC's comment about "renewed public embarrassment" reads like a threat. Surely not. Philip Cross (talk) 08:11, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The only "threat" here is PC's continued IDIDNTHEARTHAT about policy violation. What drew press coverage of PC's previous antics wasn't press attention to Wikipedia in general but loud public complaints by people whose articles he savaged. And if such complaints get made about WQ articles, the more familiar word "Wikipedia" will appear front and center in any resulting stories. HouseOfChange (talk) 11:57, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The "press attention" gained was largely from the Russian English-language media, upset supporters of Vladimir Putin and Bashir al-Assad on twitter and bloggers rather than any any outlet which might be considered a reliable source. It was thought I must be working for the CIA or the British security services. Philip Cross (talk) 13:20, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If only it had stayed there, rather than being amplified by various blogs, critics of Wikipedia, the BBC, Wired, etc. HouseOfChange (talk) 18:19, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Only the BBC and Wired (openly available archive version) are reliable sources and might be considered "press attention". Craig Murray states (second paragraph) "this looks like the behaviour of a deranged psychotic" and in the next paragraph suggests my wiki account is "a false persona disguising a paid operation to control wikipedia content, or is a real front person for such an operation in his name" and then describes me as a "sad obsessive no friends nutter". Fivefilters, in the main, criticised my edits to articles about individual Assadists, Putinists and others on the political fringe who tend to find reliable sources objectionable. On my Galloway edits, the BBC page says: "But it's difficult to get an overall sense of whether those changes were solely motivated by any particular political bias on behalf of the person behind the account. For example, a sentence where Galloway criticised the Labour Party as 'Tony Blair's lie machine' was removed, with Cross citing 'partial repetition, poor source'. In another case, Cross removed links to lurid tabloid headlines about Galloway's private life. In addition, many of the edits were simply grammatical or stylistic. At one point Cross noted: 'It helps the article if each sentence or paragraph does not begin with 'Galloway' or 'He'.'" Is this the best HouseOfChange can do? Philip Cross (talk) 19:15, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The BBC and Wired are "press attention." Have you useful thoughts to share about your COI editing of George Galloway? HouseOfChange (talk) 20:38, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For all the assertions you make above, its very limited "press attention" which you attempted to bulk-up with self-published material. Philip Cross (talk) 20:49, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My attempt was to show the progression from self-published material (a very small sampling linked) to wider embarrassment. Have you useful thoughts to share about your COI editing of George Galloway? HouseOfChange (talk) 23:09, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the Galloway issue, @UDScott wrote above: "As to the claims of a COI, there does seem to be at least the appearance of this by Philip Cross." So not quite definitive from an uninvolved administrator. UDS commented in their 2 April post that "it might be best if both users refrained from editing the page." I have not edited either the article itself or the discussion page since the day before, unlike HouseOfChange. The "progression from self-published material (a very small sampling linked) to wider embarrassment" was an avalanche of conspiracy theorists on social media. Why does HouseOfChange appear to identify with them? Philip Cross (talk) 05:51, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain why WQ should ignore the multiply declared COI that should preclude PC from editing George Galloway. HouseOfChange (talk) 12:37, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Philip Cross@HouseOfChange I'm calling @BD2412 if possible to stop such quarreling. It's going to nowhere instead of messy fight now... -‎Lemonaka‎ 13:56, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Lemonaka I regret if I was too wordy responding to PC's attacks and innuendo. I hope other admins will not ignore my policy concern here. HouseOfChange (talk) 14:08, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure where to begin here, but I do think it would be best for both editors involved in this dispute to refrain from editing the article. BD2412 T 03:54, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Checkuser reqeust[edit]

Hello, I'm requesting a checkuser for following list of users, since their editing pattern has matched previous LTA on this project.
For group one, they are

  1. NASB2fan2024 (talk · contributions)
  2. NASBMaster2022 (talk · contributions)
  3. Are You Smarter than a Wallaby (talk · contributions)

For creating strange RFA nomination and similar editing patterns as group one, I'd like to add the following group for checking.
Group two are

  1. Robotquote1 (talk · contributions)
  2. Robotquote2 (talk · contributions)
  3. Robotquote3 (talk · contributions)
  4. Robotquote4 (talk · contributions)

-‎Lemonaka‎ 12:45, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@UDScott @BD2412 and @Koavf, if possible, I will request a check for them. -‎Lemonaka‎ 10:00, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I recall, there are no checkusers on this project, and checkuser requests go to Meta:Requests for CheckUser information. I don't think we actually need them in these cases. They are pretty obvious, and don't pass the duck test. BD2412 T 14:55, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Since we don't have local CUs, this will have to go to m:. I support you posting there and I also support just blocked all indefinitely per w:en:WP:DUCK. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:10, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I will just block them. Since group one is so obvious per editing pattern, and group two is also a kind of illegitimate use of multiple accounts. -‎Lemonaka‎ 17:33, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User:MusenInvincible[edit]

Seems to be pushing some heavily anti-semitic POV. Would very much recommend perma-ban!

Am I in the right place here? Biohistorian15 (talk) 11:13, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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