Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems. Before posting: Read these tips for dealing with incivility If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page Try dispute resolution Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight. When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)
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Wikistalkers by erstwhile administrators deserve severe sanctions

Note - copied from User_talk:Bkonrad#Wikistalkers_by_erstwhile_administrators_deserve_severe_sanction.. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I have been wikistalked by an administrator Hu12 and his coconspirator, Barek. The dispute arose because I had put in a link to a Central Michigan University timeline on lighthouses in Michigan in an article on Marquette, Michigan the link was perfectly appropriate, and was not a commercial site or spam. I received a note from Barek saying he had deleted the link on the Discussion page. I told him it was a perfectly fine link and that his action was ill-advised. The next thing I knew, Hu12 intervened. The two of them started Wikistalking me together, removing not just the link, but removing the link from every page where I had put it. Additionally, they started doing blind "Undos" and obliterating large portions of articles that I had contributed. There was no reason for any of this. When I protested their course of action, they suspended my editing privileges. This was done precipitously. BK Conrad has investigated this matter, and deems the blind edits to be 'unfortunate.'

I complained to BK Conrad, an administrator. He undid the suspension, but did not deal with my substantive complaint about this administrator. He suggested that I could contact you.

I would also add that Hu12 deleted my complaints to him from his talk page (I put them back), and has now (conveniently) archived the pages.

Additionally, one of my correspondents, Asher196, had noted in the history section of an article that the deletion was unwarranted. I contacted him and reported the Wikistalking.

Indeed, what you will uncover, should you choose to look, is that Hu12 and Barker were engaged in wholesale eradication of my contribution from articles, sometimes to the point where the article virtually disappeared. There was no excuse for this. It is the very definition of Wikistalking.

As I said, when I protested this, I was suspended.

I have done a whole lot of editing here. -- Many thousands of edits. I have never before been accused of spamming the system. I wasn't doing this here, either.

While I agree with BK that it would be best if I could just avoid these bullies, the matter is not so easily resolved. They sought me out. They attacked me. They abused their administrative privileges.

While I could turn a blind eye to this, it will only encourage this untoward behavior. When Czeckoslovakia falls, Poland can't be far behind. Someone needs to report this and stop this untoward and unspeakable behavior. Based on my reading of Hu12's talk page (before it disappeared), the man has attitude problems that have surfaced before.

Wikistalking by administrators will frustrate the contributors, and cause them to quit Wikipedia. They've already done that to me. Let there not be a repetition. The very lifeblood of your organization is at stake.

I have attacked copies of my correspondence to and from BK Conrad and Asher196.

If you need further information, please advise.

I will send this to Asher196 and BKConrad, so they are informed of my complaint. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 17:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

BK:

Thank you.

However, this has soured me, and I will cure myself of my wikiaholic behavior. I quit. They've achieved their victory, and Wiki will lose my modest contributions.

That being said, I think you should look close at what they edited, and come to your own conclusion. They gutted whole articles. This was WIKISTALKING and they went FAR beyond what they complained about. This was search and destroy, pure, simple and unvarnished. It was a clear abuse of power. I will not abide an abuse of power, and will not let this rest without their being brought to justice -- they are bullies, and this was wrong.

I for one would not stand silently and idly by while the Wehrmacht makes the Jews disappear into the railroad cars.

Moreover, their actions showed an intent (and attempt) to bully me into silence about their misconduct. It was a cover up.

Accountability in this system is important. Those who abuse their powers do not deserve to be trusted to hold the reins. They deserve the severest sanctions, and should be stripped of administrative privileges.

What they did here was very destructive of the goals of an organization that depends on the good will and volunteer efforts of contributors.

7&6=thirteen (talk) 10:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

Coincidentally, Hu12‎ chose this interregnum of completely delete (archive) his user talk. This is after he was unmaking history and deleting my accusations of misconduct, which I put back on his page This is a Watergate style cover up. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 10:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

I would just like to make a stand with 7&6=thirteen. I can't believe these "admins" treated him this way. He is a dedicated and prolific Wikipedia editor, and has done tremendous work on many articles. Trying to add a link which provides valuable information, he is labeled a spammer. Trying to defend his actions, he is blocked. What are we doing here if this is how the good guys are treated?----Asher196 (talk) 11:17, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I'm sorry about the situation. If you'd like to file a complaint about Hu12, the place to do that is Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Hu12's block of you was precipitous and the blind reverts unwarranted. However you did accuse him of being a sock puppet and make what could be interpreted as a vague threat. I might note that Hu12 consistently archives talk page messages -- although this is an annoying practice, it is not prohibited and it is not necessarily evidence that the user was trying to cover up anything. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, including editors with limited social skills. Unless their behavior clearly crosses the line and becomes disruptive, it is best to simply avoid engaging with such persons. older ≠ wiser 12:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

<---Outdent. I think the rollback performed by hu12 was a bit much. Especially since the link added was in reference to the lighthouses (and most of the articles the link was added to were Michigan Lighthouses). The bigger issue to me was the rollback wiped out a hell of a lot of information from Charity Island Lighthouse. Blind reverts should not be used period. Especially since 7&6 is a good editor that adds information to esoteric topics. I don't condone the wording used by 7&6 but for someone who doesn't interact with others much as they edit in very low traffic topics, seeing all their worked wiped out by two people that appear to be tag teaming would not provoke a positive reaction in most cases. spryde | talk 17:53, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Please Is this supposed to be reasoned discussion? Corvus cornix_talk 18:40, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

No it is not. However hu12 wiping it off the page without talking to him (and templating someone with more than a 6000 edits) is not a reasoned course either. spryde | talk 19:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Hu12 seems to make a habit of this sort of thing; I've butted heads with him over the same thing before (and the block I collected over it is one of the proudest moments of my WP career). I think the problem is one of instruction-creep: the people over at the Spam-fighting project seem to have made up their own definition of spam, which doesn't match any reasonable criteria, and go about enforcing it as if it were Divine Law. It seems to me that they've taken some signs which are indeed good indicators that something might be spam, and should be looked at closely, and have turned them into definitions of spam, so that when they find something that matches the pattern they feel no need to investigate any further, because by their definition it is spam, and the editor who added it is by their definition a spammer, all of whose edits are to be presumed invalid, and who is to be templated and hounded off Wikipedia, for the good of the project. That certainly saves the spam-hunters valuable time and effort, but it isn't right. They're not doing this with any malice in their hearts; they've just let their enthusiasm run away with them, and they've turned spam-hunting from a necessary chore in maintaining an encyclopaedia into an end in itself. But, malice or not, valuable contributions are being lost to WP, and people are getting their feelings hurt, and sooner or later something needs to be done about it. -- Zsero (talk) 19:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with User:Zsero's observations. The definition of "spam" seems to be drifting in the direction of being entirely disconnected from the content of the links in question - whereas content should be the criteria by which links are evaluated. If a link is to a site that is a quality site which is relevant to the subject of the article the link is posted on, then it's irrelevant who placed the link, and under what circumstances, because the link adds value to the encyclopedia, and that's supposedly what we're here for. If a good link is removed for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of the link, then the encyclopedia is poorer for that, and that action has harmed the project.

Spam fighters can certainly use the kinds of tools you're referring to, but they really must pay primary attention to the content of the links, and not disrupt the project by elevating technical means over our ultimate ends. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 10:57, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

List of the articles where improper editing is alleged

Lest you think it was only the Charity Island Light, here is a more complete list.

Extended content

This is from my Watchlist. * (diff) (hist) . . Manistee County, Michigan‎; 19:07 . . (+6) . . 24.231.235.202 (Talk) (→Townships) * (diff) (hist) . . User talk:Hu12‎; 18:50 . . (+302) . . Corvus cornix (Talk | contribs) ({{ANI-notice}}) * (diff) (hist) . . Paul Bunyan‎; 18:41 . . (+2) . . 74.75.55.40 (Talk) (→Tourist attractions) * (diff) (hist) . . Lumber‎; 18:25 . . (+431) . . Pradtke (Talk | contribs) (expanded "timber" definition) * (diff) (hist) . . Jackson, Michigan‎; 18:11 . . (0) . . 76.20.155.1 (Talk) (→External links) * (diff) (hist) . . User talk:Asher196‎; 17:39 . . (+6,011) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (complaint about wikistalkers) * (diff) (hist) . . User talk:Bkonrad‎; 17:38 . . (+6,011) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Wikistalkers complaint) * (diff) (hist) . . Yankee Air Museum‎; 17:36 . . (+5) . . 209.212.28.50 (Talk) (→Collection) * (diff) (hist) . . m User:Barek‎; 17:14 . . (+37) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (add link to edit counters) * (diff) (hist) . . Flint, Michigan‎; 17:08 . . (+4) . . 68.188.254.50 (Talk) (→Track and Field) * (diff) (hist) . . Michigan‎; 17:04 . . (0) . . Thomas Paine1776 (Talk | contribs) (→Important cities and townships) * (diff) (hist) . . m Charity Island Light‎; 17:03 . . (-29) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (add ref and cleanup text) * (diff) (hist) . . Talk:Huron Lightship‎; 16:22 . . (+50) . . Rodw (Talk | contribs) ({{WikiProject Museums}}) * (diff) (hist) . . N Talk:Carnegie Center -- Port Huron Museum‎; 16:22 . . (+49) . . Rodw (Talk | contribs) ({{WikiProject Museums}}) * (diff) (hist) . . m User talk:Barek‎; 15:59 . . (-5) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (fix link) * (diff) (hist) . . Battle Creek, Michigan‎; 15:08 . . (-44) . . Vertigo315 (Talk | contribs) (→High schools (private): removed bad links) * (diff) (hist) . . mb Flint/Tri-Cities‎; 14:22 . . (+52) . . DumZiBoT (Talk | contribs) (Bot: Converting bare references, see FAQ) * (diff) (hist) . . m Osceola County, Michigan‎; 12:59 . . (+32) . . Bkonrad (Talk | contribs) (update) * (diff) (hist) . . Port Huron, Michigan‎; 12:43 . . (-108) . . 76.112.80.246 (Talk) * (diff) (hist) . . b User talk:Carptrash‎; 12:28 . . (+1,423) . . BJBot (Talk | contribs) (BJBot, Image:SDG2.jpg is going to be deleted) * (diff) (hist) . . Talk:M (1931 film)‎; 10:14 . . (+716) . . Ex con87 (Talk | contribs) (→Film noir) * (diff) (hist) . . Latrine‎; 07:33 . . (+41) . . Debu ce buet (Talk | contribs) (add - →Reed Odourless Earth Closet (ROEC)) * (diff) (hist) . . m Escanaba, Michigan‎; 03:48 . . (-161) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (→External links: remove EL that's only marginally related to subject article) * (diff) (hist) . . m The Thumb‎; 03:47 . . (-161) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (→External links: link already exists in individual lighthouse articles, which is more appropriate location) * (diff) (hist) . . Talk:Clarence Darrow‎; 01:57 . . (+2) . . 75.75.104.223 (Talk) (→Intro Revision) * (diff) (hist) . . Salt‎; 01:41 . . (-25) . . 76.215.200.217 (Talk) (→Health effects) * (diff) (hist) . . Warren, Michigan‎; 00:41 . . (0) . . Machine24 (Talk | contribs) (→Demographics) * (diff) (hist) . . User:Hu12‎; 00:39 . . (0) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) * (diff) (hist) . . m Harbor Beach Light‎; 00:37 . . (+160) . . Asher196 (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408791 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . m Forty Mile Point Light‎; 00:32 . . (+161) . . Asher196 (Talk | contribs) (There is nothing wrong with this link. Why was it removed?) 27 March 2008 * (diff) (hist) . . Northern Michigan‎; 23:12 . . (+229) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201409711 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . Saginaw River Light‎; 23:11 . . (+1,851) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408810 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . Old Presque Isle Light‎; 23:09 . . (+550) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408862 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . Upper Peninsula of Michigan‎; 23:09 . . (+161) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201409722 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . South Manitou Island Light‎; 23:07 . . (+187) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408834 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . Nb Talk:Joseph H. Albers‎; 23:05 . . (+33) . . SoxBot (Talk | contribs) (Tagging (Plugin++) Added {{OH-Project}}. using AWB) * (diff) (hist) . . Point Betsie Light‎; 23:02 . . (-283) . . Beetstra (Talk | contribs) (no need for address .. WP:SOAPBOX) * (diff) (hist) . . Port Austin Lighthouse‎; 23:00 . . (+883) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408798 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . m Alpena, Michigan‎; 22:56 . . (-313) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201437354 by 7&6=thirteen (talk) linkspam) * (diff) (hist) . . Tawas Point Light‎; 22:55 . . (+1,258) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408850 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . Fort Gratiot Light‎; 22:54 . . (+1,109) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408785 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . b Talk:Toledo War‎; 22:54 . . (+34) . . SoxBot (Talk | contribs) (Tagging (Plugin++) Added {{OH-Project}}. using AWB) * (diff) (hist) . . Lighthouses in the United States‎; 22:52 . . (+792) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201409692 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . List of museums in Michigan‎; 22:51 . . (+412) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201409918 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . New Presque Isle Light‎; 22:48 . . (+392) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) * (diff) (hist) . . m Talk:Charity Island Light‎; 22:36 . . (-482) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (add project tag) * (diff) (hist) . . Leelanau County, Michigan‎; 21:40 . . (+50) . . 24.247.132.68 (Talk) * (diff) (hist) . . m Lake Huron‎; 21:12 . . (-20) . . VoABot II (Talk | contribs) (BOT - Reverted edits by 216.113.43.109 {possible vandalism} to last version by VoABot II.) * (diff) (hist) . . m Sturgeon Point Light Station‎; 20:59 . . (+161) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201412860 by Barek (talk) rv my own edit on this one) * (diff) (hist) . . m Southeast Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-232) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Cgord) * (diff) (hist) . . m Western Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-197) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Cgord) * (diff) (hist) . . m Grosse Ile Township, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Bkonrad) * (diff) (hist) . . m Monroe, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Les woodland) * (diff) (hist) . . m Traverse City, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Iulus Ascanius) * (diff) (hist) . . m Ludington, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Bkonrad) * (diff) (hist) . . m Muskegon, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-162) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Broadbot) * (diff) (hist) . . m Cheboygan, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-316) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Trekphiler) * (diff) (hist) . . m Rogers City, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by 216.216.101.146) * (diff) (hist) . . m Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by 199.67.140.154) * (diff) (hist) . . m Lower Peninsula of Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Cgord) * (diff) (hist) . . m Manistee, Michigan‎; 20:44 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by DumZiBoT) * (diff) (hist) . . m Charlevoix, Michigan‎; 20:44 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by 216.216.101.146) * (diff) (hist) . . m Frankfort, Michigan‎; 20:44 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by 216.216.101.146) * (diff) (hist) . . m Pentwater, Michigan‎; 20:43 . . (-847) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Zeagler) * (diff) (hist) . . m Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore‎; 20:41 . . (-161) . . Hu12

If there is a big number put in by me, it is because these gentlemen had taken it out. You can go to the article histories and see for yourselves. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 19:51, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

7&6, temper your language. I know you are upset but calling them 'goons' does not help anyone out here. The lighthouse articles was an appropriate place for them and possibly a few others. If there is a content dispute, you need to talk to them instead of reverting and readding. spryde | talk 20:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Luckilly, I have this page on my watchlist or I wouldn't have known I was being discussed. One thing that I would like to clarify; the initial complaint implies that I am an admin, which is incorrect. I am not an admin, nor have I ever claimed to be one on Wikipedia.

I would like to add a few facts to the discussion. I encountered 7&6=thirteen on the Marquette, Michigan article, where he had added a link documenting the years that lighthouses throughout the state of Michigan had been built or rebuilt; as I stated on that article's talk page, it's a valuable link in appropriate articles; I just didn't see where a brief mention of various cities justified linkspamming it to what appeared to me to be roughly 100 city/township articles (note: as I explained to 7&6=thirteen on that talk page, my use of the term "spam" refered to the behavior of inserting it to a large number of only marginally related articles, not that the link itself is spam). I informed him that I was reporting it to WP:WPSPAM (here's the link, this appears to be where Hu12 became involved) I also asked 7&6=thirteen to look at WP:NOT#REPOSITORY and WP:NOT#DIRECTORY to understand why I saw the link as inapropriate on city and township articles.

I was aware that Hu12 had removed the links from a large number of articles - although I did not know until now that he had used a blanket revert that appears to have reverted multiple edits by 7&6=thirteen on articles beyond just the link addition; nor did I know until now that 7&6=thirteen had been banned. As I was not involved in either of those actions, I will not comment other than to say that Hu12 likely should have asked for a 3rd party admin to get involved rather than applying the ban himself.

Afterwards, I also removed the link from a handful of additional city/township articles which I spotted via Special:Linksearch. Via that same tool, I also stumbled accross the Charity Island Light article that someone commented on above. I found it in a bit of a mess, and cleaned it up to its current state. I would like to point out that the link which initially started this chain of events still exists within that article, only I used it within a ref tag rather than listed as an EL.

If you have any additional questions or concerns on my actions in this issue, please let me know. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Personally, the only action I would fault you with is the report to the spam project. If it is a new contributor and the link is of dubious origin, I would have reported it. However, in the context used (all MI stuff, mostly coastal lighthouse areas) and the contributor has a extensive history of MI lighthouse/history work, I would have discussed it with him first. 7&6 can be interesting to work with to say the least. He does a lot of good things but personal interaction is not in his top ten :) spryde | talk 20:34, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Some good advice to people coming to this page to complain about other editors: Avoid over-labelling your adversaries and their behaviour. The more you refer to "goons" and "wikistalking", the less seriously people will take you. Comparing them to Nazis ("When Czeckoslovakia falls, Poland can't be far behind.") is right out. Bovlb (talk)

I added a collapsing box above for usability, and made this section a sub-section of the original. Bovlb (talk) 20:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Barek's explanation does not hold up. This is from the List of Museums in Michigan, which was deleted.

Go take a look for yourselves. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 20:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

Another collapsing box, and another fix to heading level. Bovlb (talk) 20:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

This is the first I've ever looked at that article, the edit history shows that I have never been involved with editing it. My comments above were to explain my actions, not those of yourself, Hu12, or anyone else for that matter. There is no contradiction to the explaination of my actions that I provided. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:39, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

• I'd say that list needs serious pruning. Wikipedia isn't a directory, it's fine to have redlinks for notable museums that don't yet have articles, but almost everything in that list is a redlink and the weblinks smell strongly to me of the fine comestibles purveyed by Messrs. Hormel Foods. Guy (Help!) 22:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

First, adding hundreds of links, without discussion fails WP:NOT#REPOSITORY, and Wikipedia isn't a directory. But it seems the multiple attemps at reasoned discussion by others to communicate this fact, resulted in some serious wholsale violations of WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, WP:NPA and WP:HARASS by 7&6=thirteen.

• "Wikistalker and sock puppet, Lay off. I will have recourse. You are not immune. "
• "Wikistalkers, I'm being wikistalked by Barek and HU12."
• "Hu12‎ and Barek engaged in a deliberate and willful concerted and personal attack on me"
• "Wikistalker and sock puppet, Lay off. I will have recourse. You are not immune"
• "Wikistalkers by erstwhile administrators deserve severe sanction"
• "I for one would not stand silently and idly by while the Wehrmacht makes the Jews disappear into the railroad cars."
• "...will not let this rest without their being brought to justice -- they are bullies..."
• "This was WIKISTALKING "
• "he was unmaking history and deleting my accusations of misconduct, which I put back on his page This is a Watergate style cover up."

• Its called removing WP:HARASSment, "Wikistalker and sock puppet, Lay off. I will have recourse. You are not immune. ", "Wikistalker and sock puppet, Lay off. I will have recourse. You are not immune"

• "I want these peoples' administrative privileges removed "
• " have been wikistalked by an administrator Hu12 and his coconspirator, Barek"
• "It is the very definition of Wikistalking"
• "When Czeckoslovakia falls, Poland can't be far behind"
• "Here is a list of the articles these goons hatcheted"

...Wikistalking, ...sockpupptry, ...Watergate, ..."Goons", ...Nazis, ..."Jews disappearing into the railroad cars"?? is this reasoned discussion? --Hu12 (talk) 23:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh cry me a river. All that and all you can do is complain that he called you semi-uncivil names? Your actions are not justified by what he called you afterwards, and they're completely inexcusable. I'm losing faith in this place daily, how on Earth could such an editor become an admin to begin with? Krawndawg (talk) 00:08, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

You've been here less than a month (20 days ^[1]), perhaps reading WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, WP:NPA and WP:HARASS would familiarize you with how wikipedia operates. Hateful anti-semetic comments about nazi war crimes, and making baseless arguments and threats against other wikipedians is compleately unacceptaple and completely inexcusable. you should pay particular attention to WP:CIVIL. Also see What wikipedia is not--Hu12 (talk) 00:55, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I see you blocked for harassment and personal attacks, yet make no attempt to distinguish pre-block comments (the first four two) from post-block comments (the rest) in your diffs. That's pretty lame. You're obviously from the "attack is the best form of defense, so come out swinging" school, rather than the "let's get this sorted out on its merits" one. 86.44.23.66 (talk) 01:23, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Judge them for what they did

The accusation is wikistalking. There is no contrary evidence. There being none, judgment should be entered against the Defendants. Their argument ad hominem is not evidence. They have not answered the charges. They have not offered an explanation. Period. The hearsay of Barek does not establish the facts asserted by Hu12. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 23:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

Guy, the "contrary evidence" has already been listed above, and all that's happened is that a greater light has been shone on your own behavior. You've dug yourself a hole, and the First Law of Holes is that if you find yourself in one, stop digging. --Calton | Talk 23:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Fix yet another header. When adding to a section, please don't add new level-two headers. Consider not adding a new header at all, especially if it's going to be snarky. Bovlb (talk) 00:27, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not a trial. No one is a "defendant" of any sort. We're not here to pass "judgment" of any sort. I find your accusations of their posts being ad hominem attacks to be rather ironic if this is how you're treating the issue. In any case, please continue the discussion in a civil manner. Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 01:07, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia is not a courtroom, and the only judgement we recognise is the one where everybody tries in good faith to get along. This is all getting a bit silly. Orderinchaos 08:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Administrator Hu12 acted wrongly in posting this to my page: Removing warnings, whether for vandalism or other forms of prohibited/discouraged behavior, from one's talk page is considered vandalism WP:VAND --Hu12 22:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC) The above appears to be deliberate disinformation by Hu12 about Wikipedia policy. It was also a failure by Hu12 to WP:AGF when he chose to enter (why?) a discussion concerning inter alia WP:RPA.

Administrator Hu12 acted wrongly in editing Straw man see [[2]] This minor change of a heading "Examples" from singular to plural was meaningless at the time. That suggests a bad careless attitude to editing a Wikipedia article. (The mistake was handled after it was mentioned on both the Talk page and Hu12's own page, without any "help" from Hu12.) Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:30, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Cuddlyyable3 is right. It is not against any policy to remove warnings from one's talk page. Jtrainor (talk) 03:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Not if you're trying to hide evidence of misbehavior, as common sense ought to tell you. --Calton | Talk 04:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not against policy regardless of reason for removing 'em. Removing them does constitute evidence that the user has read the warnings in question, however. Jtrainor (talk) 06:26, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Really? Regardless of reason? An important exception is when an unblock request is declined. The decline notice should not be removed while the block is active, to prevent abuse of the unblock request system by continually re-adding new unblock requests. Another exception is suspected or confirmed sockpuppetry notices. That would be a "no". --Calton | Talk 12:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

And neither of those are warnings, so you're still wrong. Jtrainor (talk) 14:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Really? Neither of those count as warnings? My, you draw your distinctions very, very finely. --Calton | Talk 20:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with both Jtrainor and Calton, as common sense tells me that an ordinary editor cannot hide anything. A warning may be prompted by an editing action and it is the record of the action that is the source of evidence, not the warning.

Hu12 described his actions on my talk page as follows.

• 22:22, 21 August 2007 Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (13,610 bytes) (?Blocked: please stop attempting to hide warnings)

• 07:33, 23 August 2007 Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (7,640 bytes) (archiving obvious attempts to hide warnings)

I found the second accusation by Hu12 quite offensive. I state my policy at the top of my talk page.

Administrator Pascal Tesson has expressed a request which contains some logic(?). I should like to hear whether it represents policy:

• 18:56, 29 August 2007 Pascal.Tesson (Talk | contribs) (8,861 bytes) (revert. Please leave the block notice visible until the block has expired. This is valuable info for others.)

Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:00, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

August was a bad month for you. Chock full of harassment and Disruptive editing. You were activley removing fresh warnings durring blocks and in tandum durring ongoing disruptive behavior and edit warring. see your talk page history and your conflict with User:WikipedianProlific at Fuel injection, which spilled over as harassment on his unsuccessful RFA. This would indicate trying to hide evidence of misbehavior. I'll AGF but you wouldn't be attempting to suggest you were blocked because of those removals? (?Blocked: please stop attempting to hide warnings)^[3]. Altering the User talk summary history from [(→Blocked: please stop attempting to hide warnings) ] makes it appear to be so. Also not sure why you are brining up some non-issue, eight months later.--Hu12 (talk) 03:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hu12 please be aware that User:WikipedianProlific and I agreed to a mediation about a diagram for Fuel_injection, however you were not invited to the mediation. You are correct that WP's RfA was ruled Final(68/23/8)...No consensus to promote although you Hu12 voted Support.

I assume a block makes editing impossible by an ordinary user. I am therefore confused by Hu12's latest accusation "You were activley[sic] removing fresh warnings durring[sic] blocks...".Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:24, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

You disrupted User:WikipedianProlifics RFA and exploited it as a platform to harass him, and to push your adjenda... not to disimilar to what your attempting here. Wikipedia is not a place to import your eight month old grudge. Making personal battles out of Wikipedia discussions goes directly against our policies and goals. AN/I is not the Wikipedia complaints department.--Hu12 (talk) 16:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hu12, in that RfA 23 Wikipedians voted against your favoured candidate. He is free to apply again. Now please get over it.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 07:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• I was asked by Cuddlyable3 to comment here. I have to admit I don't understand what exactly the issue is. But I'll say this about my revert on the talk page: I do think it's a good idea to leave a block template for the duration of the block. Of course, that's not because it's a good way to humiliate the user and make sure he learns his lesson. But it does have the advantage of explaining how long the block is, for what reason, by which admin. Sure, all that info you can get by looking at a block log, looking at the contribs just prior to the block, looking at the talk page history and so on. But it's important to realize that only a small fraction of users know how to look up that information. As for the details of this particular block, it was back in August and I have no idea of the particular circumstances regarding that case. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 15:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Hanvanloon

User:Hanvanloon is a self-proclaimed expert published author in the field of Quality Management. Since joining Wikipedia two months ago he has been a major contributor to Quality management, PDCA, ISO 15504, Process capability. He has almost tripled the Quality management article [4], increased PDCA by almost 50% [5], ISO 15504 by about 50% [6], and Process capability by about 20% [7]. These diffs include some edits by other users, but most of the changes are by Hanvanloon.

As a relatively new user he has made mistakes, including lack of references, which gave the appearance of OR. I've been showing him how to add inline citations. One mistake he made was to add links to a product that he created. It is clear from context that this was not an attempt to promote his product, but because he thought it would be a useful addition to the article. Nonetheless it was an apparent conflict of interest and that is the reason he is in trouble today.

Hanvanloon is under an indef block for a username violation. There is, in fact, no problem with his username per se, and he has offered to change to a different username. Ordinarily with a username block, changing name would be the cure and he would be unblocked quickly. But the block is not due to a username problem, despite the message block on his talk page that says username is the problem. The real reason for the block is COI.

My connection is through WP:EAR. He asked for help and I've been trying to teach him our ways. I asked the blocking admin User:Rudget what action Hanvanloon might take to be unblocked. Rudget suggested that I take it to ANI.

I submit that Hanvanloon has made useful contributions, that his few edits that might have been COI were not efforts to promote his product, but were simply good faith attempts to improve the articles by adding what he thought was relevant information. It was a beginner mistake and he should not be bitten with an undef block.

Especially with beginning editors, I think we should make an attempt to clearly explain problems and cures on the user's talk page. The message that he was blocked for a username violation was misleading to me and I assume especially to him, a beginner. Because the real problem was COI, there was no explanation of what action he should take to be unblocked. Also for beginners we should start with short blocks, escalating if needed, not start out with an indef block.

I request that Hanvanloon be unblocked. I will continue as a semi-mentor to him. Sbowers3 (talk) 12:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, he's a self-proclaimed expert. Anyone else proclaiming him such? (genuine question, I don't know the guy). He also created an article on his methodology, STARS methodology (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Who's watching for insidious POV? Guy (Help!) 13:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

  Okay, he is a published author on the subject.

  More to the point - look at his edits. They are not promotional. And the STARS article he created was a typical newbie mistake. Sbowers3 (talk) 14:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I've just done a quick review of the contrib history... yours, not Hanvanloon - and if you are prepared to semi-mentor the editor I see no reason why the block should not be lifted; I'm certain you will be a good influence. I would raise a couple of points - NPOV is core to the building of the encyclopedia and COI is not something that fades during a block duration. The understanding of the risks of COI effecting POV and undertaking to minimise that risk is the requirement for the lifting of any block, and therefore an indef block (although seemingly harsh) was appropriate. I would also suggest that Hanvanloon does change their username, as there was obviously some concern in that regard. I would hope that Hanvanloon recognises the need for the actions taken and required. That said;

• Support unblock on basis of Sbowers3 (semi)mentoring editor. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:33, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
• Support unblock at this time. I am little inclined to endorse the above request by Sbowers3 (talk · contribs) to 'mentor him' as surely one contributor is better than none. Just make sure (to Sbowers3) to watch out for COI and NPOV violations as per the reasoning mentioned above by LHvU. I'd also suggest an extended period of time for the mentoring to take place, due to the limited understanding of the encyclopedia by Hanvanloon. I'd also ask him (if that is desired) to, before reposting the STARS methodology page, edit a sub-section at User:Rudget/STARS methodology to remove any promotional material and to fix the various grammar mistakes etc. Rudget. 17:27, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
• OK, unblocked then, taking all the above at face value. Guy (Help!) 18:53, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. I hope I don't regret taking on the extra workload. Sbowers3 (talk) 19:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Important facts that have been overlooked

One of the major weaknesses of Wikipedia is that editors rarely look beyond the last one or two edits before drawing conclusions. One really ought to carefully examine User:Hanvanloon's sustained behavior before making administrative decisions.

In particular, the claim that this is an inexperienced user who simply "made some mistakes" is not supported by User:Hanvanloon's editing history.

The claim	What the record shows
"As a relatively new user he has made mistakes"	Van Loon is in fact a long-time anonymous editor: The first edit that I can identify is a spamlink of his consulting company, http://www.lc-stars.com, into ISO 15504 in August of 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=next&oldid=20837043 ...despite his claim that "I only ever did that on pages in my initial editing 3 months ago."
"One mistake he made was to add links to a product that he created."	Van Loon is a consultant who runs the Switzerland-based LC Consulting. What User:Sbowers3 calls his "mistake" is really a three-year effort to promote his consulting business, as follows: Anonymously spamlinking his consulting company's website into various articles (note: this is only a subset and extends back as far as 2005 and 2006): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=21646211 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=57344960 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=107050644 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=107051909 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=125436108 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=153384237 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=prev&oldid=181853039 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=186646817 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=186644212&oldid=177106240 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=187784140&oldid=186648459 Continued spamlinking using User:Hanvanloon: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quality_management&diff=prev&oldid=190881834 Employing a shill or sockpuppet, User:Isabel de pablo, to create a sham articles (Stars methodology and STARS methodology) in an attempt to promote consulting and training services for his "STARS methodology" Within days of the purportedly "independent" actions by the shill, van Loon spamlinked the sham articles http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=189460958 (anonymously to hide WP:COI) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quality_management&diff=prev&oldid=190887717 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quality_management&diff=prev&oldid=196840624 (two links for greater visibility) And "corrected" the sham article (now deleted): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Hanvanloon&diff=next&oldid=201979342 Promoting his books for purchase: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=next&oldid=51243660 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=107051400 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quality_management&diff=prev&oldid=186644367 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Process_capability&diff=prev&oldid=192023030
"It is clear from context that this was not an attempt to promote his product, but because he thought it would be a useful addition to the article."	On the contrary, the edit in question, to PDCA, was lifted nearly intact from the sales pitch at http://www.lc-stars.com/problemswithpdca.html (note the web page <TITLE> became the title of the section added to the article). Van Loon then re-worded the sales pitch to avoid the WP:COPYVIO objection and to hide the deletion of the WP:OR objection.
"I submit that Hanvanloon has made useful contributions, that his few edits that might have been COI were not efforts to promote his product, but were simply good faith attempts to improve the articles by adding what he thought was relevant information."	The fact that he actively vandalizes legitimate content, to which he has admitted, should be proof enough that he is up to no good: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=187540759 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=187918407 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=187948561 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=188171693 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=188178812 Similarly, his changing stories as to why he felt obligated to "edit" anonymously: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:PDCA&diff=prev&oldid=189093738 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Hanvanloon&diff=prev&oldid=201979342 His persistent claims that publication in the American Society for Quality's (ASQ) Quality Progress somehow makes his efforts to inject his books for sale and "methodology" into Wikipedia non-commercial: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AHanvanloon&diff=189458913&oldid=189256600 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Helixweb&diff=next&oldid=199176772 ...despite having cited the not-for-profit professional association American Society for Quality's "selling services, courses, consultancy" as his justification for blanking legitimate links to the ASQ website (Note also that they do not sell consulting services as claimed: http://www.asq.org/store/index.html and that the link (http://www.asq.org/learn-about-quality/project-planning-tools/overview/pdsa-cycle.html) in the content he blanked does not sell anything at all) Finally, his continuing efforts to whitewash his past misdeeds: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Helixweb&diff=prev&oldid=199182930 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Helixweb&diff=prev&oldid=199203189 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Hanvanloon&diff=prev&oldid=191834708 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Hanvanloon&diff=next&oldid=198461671 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AHanvanloon&diff=199833671&oldid=199655789

-- DanielPenfield (talk) 22:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I will monitor every one of Hanvanloon's edits (and I suspect so will DanielPenfield). I will make clear to him (if it isn't already) what he may not do. I will teach him how to do things correctly. He is quite apparently knowledgable in these areas and can be a valuable contributor. If you want to assume bad faith, then the above show that he is a demented psychopath - or simply that he didn't know better. If you want to assume good faith, then the above are simply innocent mistakes. In any case, I will closely monitor his edits to ensure that he does not violate any of our policies or guidelines. And if he lets me down, I won't hesitate to call for a reblock. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

What SBowers3 said. I would add that it is far easier to remove COI/POV material, and block an account, than it is to conjure content out of nothing. By allowing the account to contribute we can then determine the legitimacy of the content. It is better than not having the content in the first place. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

1. You are confusing quantity for quality.
2. He has reverted removal of COI/POV material repeatedly despite repeated warnings.
3. His actions are not consistent with his claims of having read and understood Wikipedia policy.
4. It is beyond me how you can still assume "good faith" after his repeated vandalism, his concerted attempts to conceal COI, and his years of using Wikipedia as a free platform to promote his consulting business.

           -- DanielPenfield (talk) 12:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

"It is beyond me how you can still assume "good faith"..." - I simply adhere to the WP:5 pillars and ethos of Wikipedia. I sometimes practice in assuming good faith regarding six different things before breakfast. I am always reminding myself that there is a real human being, a person with emotionss and the ability to feel both elation and sadness, behind each computer screen. I try to act toward other contributors as I would prefer they act toward me - and sadly recognise that I often fail. I do not regard Wikipedia as a MMORG (or whatever the acronym is... I don't play MMORG's).

You will find all the guidelines you need among the very many excellent Wikipedia:xxx pages - including one about indenting responses for the benefit of other readers. Cheers. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

• You've completely changed my outlook. Spammers have feelings too, so therefore, I will join you in helping them promote their businesses and products! I will also do "whatever it takes" (viz., vandalism, concealment of COI via anonymous edits) to ensure those promotions stay in place--the spammers' feelings would be hurt otherwise! And that would be a terrible thing.

-- DanielPenfield (talk) 15:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

SPEEDY and USER-FICATION

This says it all about Electro-magnetic therapeutic system‎. I am the sole contributor and wish to userfy the page. However Arthur Robin doesn't agree and Thinks the AfD should runs it's course. --CyclePat (talk) 22:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Nothing to argue about here. Arthur is right that you may not move an existing article to your userspace. However, if you wish to copy the article to your userspace to work on it, for a valid reason, that is a different story. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking perhaps that articles should be move-protected as a matter of course while under AfD discussion. This is the first AfD I've been involved with where there was an attempt to make the AfD unworkable, although there was one where the article was moved twice during the AfD.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:53, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like it's rarely a problem, and therefore doesn't require another whole step in the process (getting an admin to move-protect every article on AfD) which is backlogged enough already. If this becomes a more common problem then we can reevaluate. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:55, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I am still worried. Yes I tried moving the page not once but twice and am having a disagreement. Thank you for addressing part of the issue, in that it should be addressed in AfD. There is still one important thing to consider. I am the primary author. There where I believe some other contributions however they where administrative, in the sence that they added PROD, SPEEDY, and DEL templates.... (simply administrative Wikipedia things). Again, In my view that means I am the author of this article. Which means I should be able to userfy and have it deleted by blanking the page and requesting Speedy under clause G7. I've noted this in the AFD and I hope this concept of userfying will not be underminded by future edits. Therefore I too, as with Arthur Robin, ask that the article be protected until further notice (or until we determine who the primary author is). --CyclePat (talk) 23:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

If the decision is to userfy, you'll have the full edit history to work with. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

You know, I'm just speaking for myself here - and this is not a fully formed thought, but a working theory and I'd like to hear what others think - but I personally don't have a problem with a Speedy (Author's Request) and userfy, even while it's in AfD. Can someone tell me why that would be a bad idea? - Philippe 00:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

← Wikipedia isn't a free web host. If the consensus is that the device is not notable, Pat can keep a copy of the source on his own server. And Pat? Calm down. You've gone off the deep end again. Guy (Help!) 16:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know how to download the page history and every edit and upload to your own server? --CyclePat (talk) 18:56, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

As he/she has now merged some of the article into a related article, we have further problems with deletion or userfication. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:59, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This is typical of Pat, I'm afraid. Some people get carried away very easily. I suspect Pat starts at carried away and runs on from there. Guy (Help!) 11:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've just closed this AfD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Electro-magnetic therapeutic system). As per the author's request, I'll userify to User:CyclePat/Rhumart. — Scientizzle 16:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Ming Dynasty

Two editors have come to me, asking for my intervention, regarding the Ming Dynasty article. I advised both to discuss edits on the talk page, establish a consensus, and pursue dispute resolution. They also mistook me for an admin, something which I am not. The discussion on my talk page started here. I've done informal mediation before, both on article talk pages, and for the Mediation Cabal, but I'm slightly unsure what to do here. What do admins think of this? Possibly, have the article full protected for 24 hours, so the dispute can be resolved on the talk page, rather than reverting/restoring without discussion. Thoughts? Steve Crossin (talk to me) 14:00, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

As a non-admin myself, I'll just give you my opinion. Fully protecting a page should probably be pursued after both users have been warned about edit warring/WP:3RR, but continue using the edit summaries for heated talking in lieu of the talk page. This is when it becomes massively disruptive. So, my advice would be to warn both users of that and then inform them that you wish to pursue a WP:RFC on the talk page. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 15:03, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I am User:PericlesofAthens, an editor who is involved in this dispute on Talk:Ming Dynasty. I heavily suspect that User:LaGrandefr is a sockpuppet, an account created just this March 28. Although he might have gained his experience in directing pages, uploading images, edit summaries, and creating tables such as this:

Extended content

History Date User Dispute Responce 09:53, 28 March 2008 User:Angelo De La Paz accuse to use unsourced new fake map I added the source in no time [8] 10:18, 28 March 2008 User:Angelo De La Paz not English version map I promised to make a English map. 13:28, 28 March 2008 User:PericlesofAthens no scholarly sources I cited dozens of sites, official or scholastic, Chinese or non-Chinese, pro-communist or anti-communist. 16:55, 28 March 2008 User:PericlesofAthens ".com" sites cannot be used For this point, I've never heard. 12:40, 28 March 2008 User:PericlesofAthens pester with TravelChinaGuide.com, the first site that I found by google dozens of sites cited 15:17, 28 March 2008 User:Angelo De La Paz claimed that I have had a brainwash education I cited wiki orders like Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:Patent nonsense. 15:59, 28 March 2008 User:PericlesofAthens accuse to do original research Up to now, I've never given my proper opinion and always persuade others not to stick to personal willing. 17:00, 28 March 2008 User:PericlesofAthens still stuck to TravelChinaGuide.com I cited History Atlas of China SinoMap Press, ISBN：7503103841 17:19, 28 March 2008 User:PericlesofAthens accepted the credible source with an ISBN and expressed a new map in English would be super. I made the new English map ming_1443.png in a whole night. 16:46, 30 March 2008 User:PericlesofAthens critics of the false political boundaries Same source, same map, where's difference? 21:44, 31 March 2008 User:PericlesofAthens conjecture of my background I'm not from China, I don't know Communists. 05:06, 1 April 2008 User:Balthazarduju ask for the link to the original map I offered immediately. 13:59, 1 April 2008 User:Yaan demand the existence of Choson and Annam They are not in Ming's territory in the original map, I cannot modify the map myself.

...from a foreign language wikipedia, I heavily doubt this, since he displays all the common symptoms of a sockpuppet. I believe this quote from WP:SOCKUPPET describes him perfectly:

Not surprisingly, sock puppet accounts usually show much greater familiarity with Wikipedia and its editing process than most newcomers. They are more likely to use edit summaries, immediately join in existing edit wars, or participate vocally in procedures like Articles for deletion or Requests for adminship as part of their first few edits. They are also more likely to be brand new or a single purpose account when looking at their contributions summary.

No joke, check out his edit history. Since he has joined, he has done nothing but edit Ming Dynasty and its talk page, along with redirecting Mingshi to History of Ming and running immediately to Steve for help when 5 other editors (including me) have challenged his dubious map. I might also add that, as a supposed Frenchman, he sure is surprisingly zealous and tireless in pushing for a map that would historically legitimate China's rule over Tibet, despite the numerous scholars I have brought to the table to refute him.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Ignorance is the mother of suspicions. I started to edit English wikipedia recently because my mother language isn't English, I usually read English wiki but not edit. Is it authorized? I redirected Mingshi to History of Ming because History of Ming can be confused between history of Ming Dynasty and one of the 24 official Chinese historical works which is pronounced Mingshi in Mandarin Chinese. Is it authorized? Dude, you shouldn't doubt the acts of others but their arguments, but for this point, you are not able. It's not good.

Moreover, I don't know User:Steve Crossin at all in the beginning. It's your buddy, User:Angelo De La Paz reported me to Steve that I told him to stop the crazy acts and accept different opinions (although he said that I have been brainwashed earlier and I didn't care his words.) Thus I started to talk with Steve and ask for help to resolve this conflict. How can you give a false account of the facts? Incredible!--LaGrandefr (talk) 13:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous IP removing warnings

I'm sure that policy is that an anonymous IP can't remove warnings from their talk page, even though I can't find it. Apparently, a lot of other editors agree, because this edit war is getting ridiculous.Kww (talk) 16:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, everyone is allowed to remove warnings from their talk page. In any case, it's certainly not worth edit warring over. I do agree with not allowing them to remove the ISP template, but I don't see why the warnings themselves should be forced to remain. --Onorem♠Dil 16:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is what WP:USERPAGE states, but does an IP fall under WP:USERPAGE, it is not theirs, as they do not have an account. Tiptoety ^talk 16:49, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Why wouldn't they be able to remove warnings just like anyone else? If the IP is static, then they should be treated like a registered account, in that they are allowed to remove warnings after they've been read. If the IP isn't static, then the warnings are being forced to remain so that uninvolved editors have to see them. I don't see the point. --Onorem♠Dil 16:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that it is to make it easier for vandal fighters to address the appropriate warning level.Kww (talk) 16:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I remember reading somewhere, probably on this page, that IP editors are not allowed to blank talk pages because they do not own them. Of course, that calls into the question the wisdom of putting warnings on IP talk pages in the first place, but oh well. Redrocket (talk) 16:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

If the reason is based on making vandal fighting easier, then why can registered accounts remove current warnings? (Not questioning whether or not that's the reason...just asking because that would make even less sense to me.) --Onorem♠Dil 17:00, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The theory there is that a registered user is a single, discrete individual, and their removal of the warning constitutes their acknowledgement that they read (or at least became aware of) the warning. In the case of an IP, it is possible that one user was warned for shenanigans, and then a subsequent user was assigned that IP and removed the warnings. The warnings are supposed to remain as an indication of vandalism from an account for whom the user cannot be determined (the IP). In all cases, however, the warnings remain in the history - which is why my edit summaries when warning usually read something like "uw-blank1" or "vandalism warning (3)" or some such, so that - even if the warnings are removed - it's still clear when and how severely the ip or user was warned. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 17:06, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

IP's don't fall under Wikipedia:User page. While there is a person editing behind the IP and he/she deserves all the consideration and respect as any other user, however IP's are not given the same latitude under WP:USER. Blanking or trolling of a shared/dynamic/proxy/TOR/ect IP talk page is vandalism. A users page is devoted to exactly one person. An IP page refers to anyone using that IP, which may well be many people. Wikipedia offers wide latitude to "registered users" to manage their user space as they see fit such as delete warnings. However, even pages in user space still belong to the community, IP's are not considered userpages.--Hu12 (talk) 17:29, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Hu12. It's okay to blatantly harass IP editors, because they're not real people. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Um, I didn't think Hu12 was advocating blatantly harassing anyone. Or did I misunderstand the discussion? -- Why Not A Duck 21:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Brought this up at Village pump (policy), seems clarification may be needed - Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Wikipedia:User_page_and_IP.27s --Hu12 (talk) 17:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

1. Treat IPs with the same courtesy as other editors and let them remove warnings.
2. Review the page history before giving a vandalism warning.
3. When giving a vandalism warning leave a discriptive edit summary for the next person to see.
4. Stop bringing up the removal of IPs removing warnings.

Saves a whole lot of time and effort. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 17:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hate to do this, but flaws have to be pointed out

Copied from village pump

I do not think an IP should be allowed to remove warnings unless they are static and at the same time not shared (I.E. Company, School etc). This is because when a user warns an IP it is seen by all users on the network. When a user warns the IP, everyone on the network or who gets the IP sees the warning. The potential for another person other than the vandal to remove the warning is high so in the end the vandal could not get the chance to read the warning and think it a fluke. So the next time they receive a "You Have a Message" bar they will think it a fluke and ignore it. Those warnings are designed to stop the vandal in his/her tracks. So if they are not receiving the warnings because some one else removed it the warnings fail in their purpose. It really does not matter if they are remove after a block has been placed or the vandalism stops after a long period. Because you can check the history. But how long a period really depends. I think 3 days.Rgoodermote  18:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Rgoodermote  18:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Right, but if someone else on the same IP reads it, then the user who vandalised won't see the new messages bar at all. —Random832 (contribs) 18:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess I just do not really see the need for making a big deal out if it. If the user gets reported to AIV for actual vandalism (not removal of warnings) then hopefuly the admin knows what they are doing (they did pass RfA and all) and will check the talk page history. If they see they have been properly warned.....then what is the issue. And for recent change patrol guys, one thing I used to do is notice that if the talk page was a blue link there was something there before, and it was probably a warning, I would check the page history and give them the appropriate level of warning. Just takes a few extra seconds of time.... Tiptoety ^talk 18:49, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

That it is not a problem. We know the warning was there but the vandal won't also. Also they will get, a lot of vandals go to other pages afterwords thinking they got off scotch free. As soon as they go to another page and yellow bar appears they double back to see what it said. This is an observation I made when watching a group of kids vandalizing (while I reverted their edits and gave them the warning). Another thing is that the vandal at the same as the person who blanks the page gets the bar. Rgoodermote  22:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I am going to step away from this conversation. The same for the one at Village Pump. Just before some one tells me to get some tea. See Ya guys. Happy Editing. Rgoodermote  01:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

As someone that does some recent changes patrolling but is not an admin, and is new enough to remember having made the first few edits as an IP before considering it worth getting an account, I have a couple of opinions on this area, and I'll be different and say what they are:

1. IPs sometimes represent people, not vandals. If someone makes an IP edit, it may not be the same person as the last vandal that racked up 3 warnings and a final warning in 2 minutes -- 5 days ago.
2. IPs are sometimes newbies, who will make a mistake through lack of knowledge rather than deliberate mallace. Sometimes this will get caught by a recent changes patroller and a warning will be issued. Depending on the tool being used, this is quite likely to be an automatic warning issued by the tool, and the patroller isn't directly picking the warning level.
3. If that vandal 5 days ago got a final warning and moved on to a new IP, the newbie isn't even going to get warned for his error. He is going to get blocked, for an infraction past final warning.
4. I would suggest treating IPs as though there were actual people on the other end, and only some of those actual people are vandals. We let vandals remove warnings from their talk pages if they bother creating a throw-away account. We also let constructive users remove warnings for infractions from their pages, and it is considered to be acknoldgement that they have seen the warnings. (Not acknoledgement that they will heed the warnings, just that they have seen them.)
5. I would suggest two things: A) IPs, like real users, can remove warnings and other cruft on their talk pages. Because while they are logged in, it is their page, not some arbitrary shared page. It is only a shared page when nobody is actually connected by that IP address. B) There should be a bot to clean final warnings off IP talk pages within -- pick a number -- 1 hour after the warning is issued, so that it doesn't sit around stale and bite some other innocent person. Loren.wilton (talk) 03:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

IZAK not assuming good faith

Earlier today in an AfD IZAK left a post which very clearly violated WP:AGF and turned the AfD into a battleground in the most inappropriate place possible. He specifically wrote, "and it is upsetting to see that he does not wish to do things that will enhance contributions on Wikipedia rather than disgruntle editors."[9] I respectfully request that administrators review his behavior and intervene appropriately. Bstone (talk) 00:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Hi. No "battleground" of any kind was created at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Subconscious (band) and the hyperbole used here is ridiculous. Nothing that I stated or did goes against assuming good faith. The only thing that I have been consistently requesting of Bstone that I wish he would get instead of resisting, and he does not like it, see User talk:Bstone/Archives/03/2008#REQUEST x 3, again. and User talk:IZAK#Re: REQUEST x 3, again., is that when nominating articles for deletion that he please notify the appropriate deletion notice boards which would be a common courtesy that can only help Wikipedia and all Wikipedians. Anyone is free to read the discussions cited by Bstone above at [10] and see for themselves. Bstone is requested to kindly not read every request that is made of him as some sort of "violation" of AGF rules. His request to "administrators review his behavior and intervene appropriately" is totally out of proportion and is hard to fathom at this time. Administrators are requested to please see to it that he work to assume the same WP:AGF that he expects of others. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 04:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I await for the admins to review IZAK's uncivil and lack of AGF behavior and respond. Bstone (talk) 06:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

IZAK is using exterme GF in his editing. To level such an accuastion against IZAK is a good comic relief... Zeq (talk) 16:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I strongly second that. Though I don't agree with IZAK about everything, I always admire his civility and good faith assumptions. Is this perhaps an April Fools' Day joke?? Keyed In (talk) 18:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

This is absolutely not a joke of any sort. IZAK clearly assumes that I am here to do things which will harm Wikipedia. What else is the meaning of, "it is upsetting to see that he does not wish to do things that will enhance contributions on Wikipedia"? The meaning is plainly obvious- IZAK assumes I am on Wikipedia in bad faith. Furthermore when he writes, "rather than disgruntle editors". The meaning of this is obvious- IZAK believes I am here to upset editors and frustrate efforts. With a plain reading of everything, it is clear IZAK does not assume good faith. And no- this is not a joke. Unless, of course, IZAK is joking. Bstone (talk) 19:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think IZAK's behaviour is an exemplary case of assuming good faith. All he's saying is that he's upset because you repeatedly refused to make an effort to notify interested parties of AfDs, after he pointed out why he felt it was important, and even offered to do the drudge work for you. He has remained polite and respectful at all times despite your curt responses and apparent refusal to discuss the matter. Contrary to your accusation above, IZAK has made no statement about why you are here, just that he's upset about your position. If anyone here has violated WP:AGF, it's me. Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 14:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

IZAK's behavior is anything but exemplary and bringing up a Judaism related deletion debate in an AfD about a rock band is the most improper place possible. As fas as listing AfDs in the areas IZAK has demanded, administrator Keeper76 clearly stated I am not obligated to do so almost two months ago. I have the greatest enthusiasm for this project and for anyone to consider otherwise is wrong. For IZAK to state so and create a battleground clearly and plainly violates AGF. Bstone (talk) 16:43, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• Worth reviewing before forming an opinion is Wikipedia:Requests for comment/IZAK2. I haven't fully read it yet myself. GRBerry 16:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Having reviewed that, I am concerned that this appears to be another flare-up of an old dispute in which both editors were acting sub-optimally. Reviewing the history of this specific incident, it is clear that no wiki-stalking occurred. The two editors will encounter each other repeatedly if they both remain active, and need to learn to work together. I don't see how to make that happen, and this is really just a minor skirmish in the intentionally unresolved conflict between deletionism and inclusionism. I can't see any reason for any administrator to act here, so I won't be acting. GRBerry 17:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

administrator is abusen

The administrator User:ChrisO is abuse and covering his friends and there opinion to the Serbia article. He is gone so far to go in edit war.--Hipi Zhdripi (talk) 23:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a messy situation, Chris restored the map with the UN recognized borders while other users want to use Kosovo's declaration of independence as a source for another map, I would say this was RFC material but seeing the ammount of controversy that the declaration itself has produced AN/I is probably a better place for commnity consensus. - Caribbean~H.Q. 00:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo is no longer a part of Serbia. I favor the map that Hipi Zhdripi included in the article.--Uga Man (talk) UGA MAN FOR PRESIDENT 2008 00:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I wish it was as simple as that. The situation as it stands is that about 30 countries recognise Kosovo as an independent state, while the UN and the other 160 member states (including, of course, Serbia itself) regard it as still being part of Serbia. There is no agreement in the world at large about how to represent Kosovo's current status on a map - indeed, if you were to look at it as a matter of pure numbers, the great majority of states and international organisations would endorse the Serbian POV. This presents a difficult issue for us, obviously. I don't personally endorse either side's perspective but it's certainly not a good idea to make such a provocative change without any discussion. Hipi Zhdripi unfortunately doesn't discuss his edits and constantly accuses others of bad faith, which is a major reason why he got topic-banned in the first place. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

This seems like a fair summary of the situation, which I agree with. Orderinchaos 01:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Not commenting on Servia vs. Kosovo, but I’m not seeing abuse of the tools there. Semi-protecting the page against anonymous POV pushing (note: you can still edit, though I advise you to be careful – chances are if you say he’s edit warring, you’re probably doing the same) and reverting to a reliable source seems perfectly valid. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 00:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think I should point out that Hipi Zhdripi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a long-time problem user who was topic-banned from Kosovo-related articles for a year following Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kosovo. He's recently returned to Wikipedia following a long period of inactivity. Although he has been somewhat disruptive again, I've not taken any action against him on this occasion but I've left a reminder on his talk page concerning the general sanctions applied in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia. Separately, the article that he has been editing recently, Serbia, has been the subject of very frequent edit-warring and nationalist vandalism following the independence of Kosovo - I've just semi-protected it to cut down on the disruption. (This doesn't affect Hipi, as he's a long-established editor.) It would be helpful if other editors could watchlist the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that currently the article is in a badly vandalized state. In the first paragraph it links to the "Sucker River" and other inaccurate geographical features, this should be fixed but I don't know the name of the actual river or the other geographical features.--Uga Man (talk) UGA MAN FOR PRESIDENT 2008 00:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Now you see why I semi-protected it... Thanks for the heads-up; restored to a pre-vandalised version. I thought I'd caught it but evidently not. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The discussion over the map has been pretty light, so I don't see a particular need to jump past dispute resolution for the time being. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

If you look at Hipi's edits, he hasn't discussed it at all. Using article talk pages would seem to be a good start... -- ChrisO (talk) 00:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry ChrisO, but this is not the firs time that you are covering the group of Serbs and presenting me as "war maker". You have blocked me yes? I didnt have experience with Wikipedia rules. Every time wen it was edit war in Kosovo article you have protected the page in Serbian version. I'm my self administrator, and I know how it is. My friend you are covering a group of user´s. And I know that you are going to be involved in this problem.--Hipi Zhdripi (talk) 00:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've never blocked you (check your log) and I'm certainly not "covering" for anyone. The fact that I've been accused of being pro-Serbian by Albanians and pro-Albanian by Serbs suggests I must be getting something right. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You can come as new user in sq.Wiki I don´t have to block you, I need only to provoked you. The rest are going to do the other administrators.--Hipi Zhdripi (talk) 00:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There are 36 Stats that don´t accept this map. There are all English spooked countries that don´t accept this map. ChrisO, thanks your covering the Wikipedia in English is saying something else the government witch speak English as official language. You have a embassy (USA, GB etc) in Kosovo, and the people have right to know if they need VISA for traveling in Serbia and Kosovo. With that map you are given wrong information!!! --Hipi Zhdripi (talk) 00:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hallo Chris O. Who say A mos say B- to. You didn´t give me answer and you didn´t help me to find out the rules of English Wikipedia, only you have Warning me! Your job is to help people not only to Warn them. My question is: Wat should I do? And please not it, that I have asked how are the rules and right of user in keys of a conflict with administrator.--Hipi Zhdripi (talk) 01:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hipi Zhdripi and everybody else to whom it applies, keep your nationalist squabbles the hell out of Wikipedia. You've made these articles effectively uneditable for anyone who doesn't have the stomach for vicious partisan bickering. I realize this is blunt but I don't care. Something needs to be done about this crap, because it's turned a wide swath of Wikipedia into a war zone and has alienated too editors who could be making useful contributions there. Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Raymond. There are getting to be more and more articles where the well is just poisoned again and again. Maybe I'm just dumb but why doesn't someone just put both maps in the article? Sort of a "UN + these think this, these guys think this"? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, the controversy over these articles merely reflects the wider controversy in the world at large. We can't expect Wikipedia to solve the world's political disputes. All we can do is keep a lid on the POV-pushing, edit warring and general disruption that the disputes cause here. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The best is probably a 'Kashmiri' solution for the map, having one map which shows Kosovo borders with dotted line. Explaining the UN position vs 36 countries recognition in the image caption. --Soman (talk) 08:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Can't a compromise be reached and both maps be used. As the article is meant to be neutral doesn't it make sense for both sides of the issue to be given the same level of consideration? Does using both maps and labelling them appropriately violate some policy on here that I am not currently aware of? Jasynnash2 (talk) 08:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

---

Teh? --PaxEquilibrium (talk) 15:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I would just say... We follow the Taiwan/China example. ĞavinŤing 09:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

User using rollback tool to edit war

In particular, I'm worried about [11]. It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't edit warring against everyone else, but the fact that he used the tool in such a situation causes worry for me. The Evil Spartan (talk) 00:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

who? -- Naerii 00:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Only use of rollback I see is [12] by Giano II. Do you have other instances of him improperly using rollback? --Infophile ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Spartan, Giano reverted this edit, that while not really disruptive featured a edit summary that taunted the blocked user, we don't taunt blocked users, I have seen at least one crat issue warnings to editors in good standing for doing that. - Caribbean~H.Q. 00:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have typed this up more quickly. I wanted to type this text:

In particular, I'm worried about [13]. It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't edit warring against everyone else, but the fact that he used the tool in such a situation causes worry for me. He has also abused it at [14] [15] [16] and used it questionably elsewhere: [17] [18] [19] [20]. In short, a look through his contributions shows that he is using the tool incorrectly almost half of the time. In short, I hate dramaz as much as anyone, but Wikipedia:Rollback feature is quite clear, and I find it more than irritating when someone abuses a feature. The Evil Spartan (talk) 00:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this warrants removal of the rollback feature. Tiptoety ^talk 00:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I must say, rollback isn't meant for reverts like these. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this discussion could continue in approximately six hours when the editor involved is back online, it now being the wee hours of the morning in the UK, and Giano not having edited for several hours? Or perhaps, given that the example used is a week old, this could have been discussed with the user involved before a post at AN/I, so that those who "hate dramaz" might be able to avoid them in the first place? Or possibly the admin who issued rollback might have been contacted? (I believe that was Doc Glasgow, but I could be wrong - someone else can check the logs.) Risker (talk) 01:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone notice that accounts that make it their business to go after Giano are either the same old or the new never heard of? --Irpen 01:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

As for myself, I don't think that's true. I only wondered why Giano has been using rollback for non-vandal edits. Gwen Gale (talk) 01:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's now in the past but Giano should at least be warned not to do this in future or face rollback being removed. It doesn't matter who brounght this to ANI, just look at the diffs and they're clearly inappropriate uses of rollback to remove the comments of other respected editors, some on pages which are not his own. special, random, Merkinsmum 02:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I am looking through these edits and not seeing the problem. The first diff is a user blanking someone else's userpage. The edit summary lends weight to the very reasonable assumption that the edit being reverted was not in good faith. The talk page edits seem a perfectly good use of rollback since no edit summary is required in these cases; it is unclear to me what value is added by manually reverting these edits. For the rest, the edits being reverted included an edit making the first sentence of an article ungrammatical, and other generally unhelpful changes. It is common and widely accepted for edits, including good faith edits, to be reverted using automatic tools if the reversion is uncontroversial, and I do not believe any of the edits raised here could have been expected to be controversial. I don't see a problematic pattern here even if a couple of the edits are questionable. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Christopher, Irpen, Risker et al - very wise and perceptive comments. Have the rest of you nothing more productive to do with your time? Giano (talk) 07:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I see absolutely no problems here. The problem with rollback is that it leaves no comment. One is entitle to remove posts from one's own user page without comment. One of the edits rolled back is mine, and whilst it shows Giano's annoyance with my post, so what? One of the other edits cited has a clear good faith rationale (is that even rollback?), and another seems to be a frustrated response to someone else's poor use of rollback. This looks like a "Let's get Giano" thread. Now, Giano has plenty faults and may well get legitimate blocks under his civility parole, but the purpose of the parole is to allow him to edit normally whilst discouraging heat and drama. What is this thread doing, but poking a stick to cause drama? I'm finding it very hard to assume good faith here. Now, go back to work and let this be. I gave Giano rollback, I do not regret it, and if he abuses it I will have a quiet word with him (probably by e-mail) which is far more likely to be effective and undramatic than opening up a heated producing and disruptive thread on ANI. Enough.--Doc^g 07:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Excessive cabals

This debate has been moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Great Cabal Debate. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :)} 03:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Incivility by Redthoreau

Redthoreau (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been repeatedly incivil to Mattisse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). Both have been involved long-term in editing Che Guevara (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (Redthoreau since Dec. 2006(?) and Mattisse for considerably longer than that.) Mattisse seems at the point of being driven away from editing the article due to the incivilities. (Mattisse has from time to time stated an intention to stop editing the article due to the problematic atmosphere but so far has not actually stopped.) There may be WP:OWN issues. Mattisse seems intimidated and afraid to edit the article recently. Mattisse also felt intimidated by a message I posted to the user's talk page, for which I've apologized, and apparently didn't edit the article for a week because of that (although continued to participate on the talk page).

I became involved at Che Guevara on March 20 via the 3RR noticeboard where I was just starting to help. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive68#User:Redthoreau reported by User:Mattisse (Result: page protected). Since then I've been primarily in a mediator-like role attempting to keep things calm between Mattisse and Redthoreau, the only other editors who participate there much. The article is currently under featured article review.

Redthoreau has posted uncivil comments to Mattisse 20 March "he then from that impugns that I am attacking his mental state (which is not necessary, as the facts speak for themselves).", and "and in response to him calling me a sock puppet I called him “Insane”. An insult? Possibly, but also a medical diagnosis I believe (as I am not sure what else to call it)." and other uncivil comments in the same message. Redthoreau subsequently stated an intention to not discuss editors' behaviour and to work towards an amicable atmosphere.

However, Redthoreau more recently (06:26, 30 March 2008 UTC) said this (Note first sentence of the diff) to Mattisse. I suggested to Redthoreau that the user strike out some of the words, and subsequently the user deleted those words, though I don't remember seeing an apology, and Mattisse was not happy about the words being deleted rather than struck out, making Mattisse' reply seem out of context.

And then just in the past few hours, Redthoreau over-reacted to a good-faith edit to the article by Mattisse, calling it "sarcastic quasi-vandalism", "vandalism" and a "sarcastic tantrum". Mattisse, who remained commendably calm, asked me for help. I posted to Redthoreau's talk page in an attempt to persuade the user to calm down, apologize etc.

Redthoreau then responded to Mattisse on my talk page with this and this. Redthoreau is over-reacting to Mattisse' O.K. you can revert and put the incorrect material back in the article; Redthoreau apparently sees this as a libelous attack on the user's integrity. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with the title of this section, as I do with most of the summary. Me and Mattisse have been entangled in a month + long "feud" over a myriad of issues, which is not accurately encapsulated in this very brief summary of a few (out of context) post snippets. I believe that I have acted in good faith, and done my best to deal with him civilly, despite numerous attacks, and an overall combative tone, which I find nearly impossible to work with collaboratively. He has been seeking "higher ups" to attempt to silence me for some time now (and all have rightfully refused, sending him out to seek new "converts"). Recently in the last few days ironically, he was accusing Coppertwig of "taking my side" or being impartial to my viewpoint, until recently when he obviously saw that his arguments contained little merit, and thus he pretended to all of the sudden "want to behave in good faith", ... after rebuking the dozens of olive branches I have extended him in the past month. In my opinion his behavior is also an example of "crying wolf" as he has stated over 5 times that he is "leaving for good and not to speak to him", usually only to return (sometimes an hour later) and begin furiously editing again. There has never been justifiable reason for him to feel intimidated, or leave the article ... he simply uses this "threat to take his ball and go home" repeatedly to engender sympathy from any willing editor who will provide him an outlet for the ability to act as a defacto admin. This situation becomes more intractable by the day because of Mattisse’s peculiar penchant to either (accidentally or deliberately) misconstrue everything that happens and reframe the situation into some course of events that bears very little resemblance to reality. He has discovered that by doing this repeatedly and without repute, that it will occasionally frustrate me to the point of commenting on his sanity or penchant for lying, which he then holds up as justification for all of his previous harassment. Other editors have warned him of following me around Wikipedia and placing tags on the articles I am working on (to cause annoyance), just as other editors have warned him of falsely templating my page with false accusations of “attacking him” (which in reality is in anytime one disagrees with, or demands that he back up his declarations with actual sources). I am willing to work with anyone collaboratively and respectfully, but unfortunately Mattisse does not allow the formation of a situation in where this is possible. Redthoreau (talk TR 04:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

What admin action is needed here? I agree with your summary of this user's edits, but don't see anything for us to do here. It seems more like something for request for comment or even WP:RFC/U. Orderinchaos 04:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm disappointed to see this, as Redthoreau had behaved better for a couple of weeks, after a promise to do so, unfortunately slipping in the last couple of days. Any action taken should bear in mind that he has shown the ability to be civil, he's not a dead loss to be indef blocked or anything. special, random, Merkinsmum 11:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Orderinchaos and Merkinsmum, for your opinions and advice, which may be sufficient, although if anyone has any additional opinions/advice/help to add I would welcome it. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Merkinsmum, the period of time during which Redthoreau was behaving better was, I believe, approximately the period (04:24 20 March to 02:08 30 March) during which Mattisse was doing zero edits to the article although steadily participating via talk pages etc. Apparently Mattisse started feeling free to edit the article after I struck out some of my words which Mattisse apparently found threatening. About four hours after Mattisse started editing the article after the 10-day break, at 06:26 30 March (diff given above), Redthoreau posted an uncivil message. The next day, after Mattisse did a larger number of edits, the further uncivil messages described above occurred. I think it remains to be seen whether Redthoreau is able and willing to stick to civil behaviour during a period of time when Mattisse is editing the article. However, the past 18 hours (with activity in the most recent 7) seem to be a good start, particularly this edit where Redthoreau attempts to address the content concerns of Mattisse which led to the most recent conflict. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Tony1

Tony1 (talk · contribs) specializes in being rude on WT:MOS. He has made remarks over the last two months about And PS, you might like me sometimes, as you imply, but I don't ever like you (he took time for a spelling correction but not for second thoughts), poor, deluded fool, sabotage, dirty hands, andI treat your entries with contempt; all these are to different users. He has now declared, after saying Well, please don't use your own ignorance as a new benchmark for WP, that I have no compunction about being rude to you, Anderson.

Could someone supply him with some? It will have to be fairly strong compunction: the last time someone asked him to examine his behaviour, he responded: Dear Finell, I do examine my behaviour, every day — as I do my stools. Both are fine, thanks for asking. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeowch. That's nasty. Orderinchaos 05:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Who changed my punctuation in the last quote to a spaced em dash? It's not permitted by MOS. TONY (talk) 05:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's what's in the diff, Tony; pity you didn't catch it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't have anything particularly intelligent to say about Sept or Tony, per se, but I think it's useful to add that Sept's words and Tony's words can't be understood in isolation; they are a reflection of arguments that go on constantly, and loudly, in many contexts. There are ongoing efforts to attack the larger problem at WT:MoS, and that might (or might not) reduce tensions among the participants. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to determine if PMA is displaying an April Fools sense of humor, or if he honestly doesn't realize that his own needling of Tony1 and disruption and edit warring on the MoS pages, along with FAR and FAC pages, goes too far. I'll opt for the April Fools' joke for now. Joke or not, it's most unfortunate that PMA's extreme dislike of Wikipedia's manual of style is a constant issue at FAC, FAR and MOS. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I am as bemused by this as La Georgia and will, like her, assume good faith (or at least good humour). That said, the discussions at MOS are often a disgrace and I wouldn't like to point the finger of responsibility at any particular editor... --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Astounding that so much heat and so little light can surround a page that few people know exist and even fewer have read. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yep. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Come on, Mr Vickers, the Manual of Style is not that under-read. All serious editors know about it; it is simply a matter of whether their specialty requires its knowledge. Waltham, The Duke of 22:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I remember you, your Grace, and I remember your snub. If I may be so bold to say, your Most High, Noble and Potent Prince, His Grace Christopher, Duke of Waltham, but you are a scurrilous and pompous poltroon, Sirrah. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Roger, scurrilous edits are a large proportion of Tony's edits (I have by no means quoted all); if he behaved better, so would everyone else. Some appear to imitate him; others are provoked by him. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

No, they're not a large proportion but, like the stool remark, a flash in the pan. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• Your Grace, are you imitating me or provoked by me? Your most humble servant wishes to know. TONY (talk) 00:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • If you must know, I am imitating no one, for I am unique, and I am provoked by no one, for I am above such petty feelings. My name and title do often have a tendency to stand out, but I should not see why Mr Anderson would necessarily be referring to my person in his vague accusations. Damned be he, if he does, but this is by no means a certainty. Now, Tony, if you really are my humble servant, as you profess, do arrest Mr Vickers this instant for insulting me in this vulgar and despicable manner. Then call for my brougham; this affair has tired me and I should prefer to retire now. Waltham, The Duke of 01:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Mr Vickers, Sir? You provoke me! Tim Vickers (talk) 01:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
      • The provocation has not originated on my side, Dr Vickers. And you should know that scientists are not appreciated on Wikipedia at any rate, so I should not be too proud of the specific prefix if I were in your grimy shoes, Sir. Intense harassment awaits you, half of which will be on my orders. Brace for the worst, I advise you, and even for this warning you had better be grateful. Waltham, The Duke of 03:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
      • PS: A new definition of drama is what you are watching here unfold, ladies and gentlemen of the audience. Enjoy it while it lasts. Waltham, The Duke of
    • Mr Wallham, you are indeed too kind. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The last time the community made clear its displeasure with Tony's arrogance and incivility he left for a month or so and seemed to come back refreshed. Perhaps it would be helpful for him to do the same again. It would at least give the rest of us a pleasant break from the incivility which he is unable or unwilling to control: e.g. [21]). Christopher Parham (talk) 04:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

No, I suggest that Parham leave, for good. What a hide. TONY (talk) 05:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Tony1 is an excellent editor who sometimes gets very cranky and becomes uncivil. I have no wish to excuse his incivility, but it must be recognised that it generally occurs in isolated bursts, in response to provocation. Most of the time Tony1 gets along with others just fine, and does great work. The claim that "scurrilous edits are a large proportion of Tony's edits" is in my opinion a (scurrilous?) exaggeration. Hesperian 05:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll second the preceding; MOS can be a difficult place to argue and keep a cool head but things there are no worse than in other areas where people hold strong views. Tony can be blunt but that's fine as you get a clear idea of what is needed to be done. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't suppose anyone's noticed in this April Fool thing that you can't bring this kind of matter to this forum. See the rules at the top. TONY (talk) 07:03, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I can't see any admin intervention required or possible. Hesperian 07:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but Tony has too many isolated bursts to excuse. The fact that he is very intelligent and an outstanding writer does not excuse his persistent incivility and hostility, nor his attempt to WP:OWN the MoS. I wish I had time now to compile one or two dozen diffs, but expressions like "Go bag your head" and "Keep your dirty hands off" (the latter one he directed at the wrong editor) pepper his Talk page posts. He has directed many of his barbs at Christopher Parham, whose conduct is exemplary. Perhaps if a large number of admins evaluate and comment on Tony's behavior, Tony will accept their constructive criticism (even though he does not listen to mere mortals) and change his behavior to conform to Wikipedia's standards. At the end of the day, civility and collegiality are more important to Wikipedia's mission that the placement of punctuation. If that does not work, than perhaps barring him for one week from editing any part of the MoS or posting on any of their Talk pages might persuade him. Only if that doesn't work should sterner measures be considered. But his course of conduct should not be allowed to continue, despite his talents. Finell (Talk) 16:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

"Secret" pages

Looking up at #Excessive cabals got me thinking about "secret" pages. I will not discuss how truly horrible, immature and idiotic I find these - that's personal opinion. I'm just worried about the amount of time and energy spent on these pages, with valuable editing hours lost to going on easter egg hunts. It's fine for people who make encyclopedic contributions to kick back in userspace once in a while. However a vast majority of users who contribute to these pages are people who think this place is something of a social network, to be utilised for making friends and showing off fancy signatures.

I'll make a list of pros and cons:

Pros

1. Good for new users learning about markup
2. Good for new users wanting to make friends
3. Good for new users learning about things like Special:Prefixindex or parsing Special:Contributions

Cons

1. Waste of time
2. WP:NOT#MYSPACE
3. Waste of server resources
4. No encyclopedic merit
5. Encourages cliquish behaviour
6. Waste of donor money
7. Encourages waste-of-time ANI posts like these

There's a list of these here. Barring objections, I plan to get rid of these within the next 24 hours. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse This idea. MBisanz ^talk 05:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse: Great idea. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I hereby object. I see no good reason to remove these. The tax on server space/resources, donor money, and even editing time is negligible. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:30, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

Riana, the combined time you've spent formatting your userspace equals more of a drain on resources and editing time than any secret page ever could, if that can be considered a drain. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:33, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

It's cute, but I didn't do it. A vandal made it for me on another site. :) ~ Riana ⁂ 05:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Combined time. Its present state notwithstanding. This isn't the way it's always been... far from it. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:39, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

True. I have about 50000 other actions though. Few of these users do. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

So it's not a waste of resources, donor money, or editing time for you, but it is for them? That doesn't sound too convincing to me. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:49, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

It absolutely is, if that's all they're doing. Don't bother trying to make out that I'm wasting anyone's time here. My own, yes. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Riana, I think Equazcion's point was that server resources are server resources - the server doesn't care if a user page edit is made by a Stewart or a fresh account, it's the same amount of processor churn in the end. Heck, one could even make the argument that editors like you actually cause more server load, since a good portion of your edits attract readers to the articles. =P I actually agree that userspace should be edited sparingly (on an ideal Wiki, all the userpages would look exactly like mine), but the longer we keep trying to avoid calling a spade a spade (or a useless page a useless page), the sillier we all look. "Waste of server resources"? Yeah, I'm sure the farm is really being run down to its knees by Jimmy Junior's SsSsEeEcCcRrReEeTtT page. "Waste of time"? And who, exactly, are we to be telling people what they can and can not do on their free time? All of these "cons" could just as easily be applied to half of essay-space - the difference being that essay-space is funny to those who edit the encyclopedia, whereas pages like these are rather tedious. Since the goal of an encyclopedia is to further and spread human knowledge, it seems rather counter-productive to hide the Truth behind coy, flirtatious hand-waving. So, the only con with these experiments is that they're not particularly funny to those of us serious about the encyclopedia-side of things. If that were the argument offered for deletion, I would argue on the "delete" side, but this lack of transparancy is rather disheartening, and counter to a central value preached by this project. --Badger Drink (talk) 06:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... So you're entitled to waste your own time, and others aren't? Equazcion •✗/C • 07:03, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

And PS, good points all around, Badger. I don't think we need to be telling people what they should spend their time on, nor can we make the assumption that time not spent on finding/creating secret pages would otherwise be spent on editing. And yes, there's no way 160 "secret" pages is a drain on the servers. 1,000 pages wouldn't be either. Equazcion •✗/C • 07:17, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse Deletion. I should know I use to have one of these pages. They are a complete waste of time. --Chetblong (talk) 05:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse: The drain on resources is a minor point to me, my reason for agreeing is this is one of those things that leads people to not take the project seriously. Redrocket (talk) 05:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse: For most of the above reasons, including the original rationale. Orderinchaos 05:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I hold no particular POV over these pages since I have never spent my time trying to find one, but nevertheless can you clarify what is being defined as "cliquish behaviour" here? - Caribbean~H.Q. 05:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure. There's a sizeable group of newish editors who band together hunting for these pages, and doing little else. I could name names but it should be obvious enough to anyone having a look. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

By the way, if you want to hold a delete discussion, it should be done at MfD. ANI doesn't attract the best cross-section of editors for a discussion like this. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:42, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

Actually, MfD's attract MfD watchers, AN/I attracts a much wider cross-sample of the community. AN/I is indeed the place to resolve policy or management issues. Orderinchaos 05:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:Village pump (policy). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I should have worded that better. We're not trying to develop new policy here. I wouldn't even favour changing policy to ban secret pages. I think it's a bit of silliness which has gotten way out of hand, needs to be checked, and once it has been, whatever happens after that can be regarded separately to this. Orderinchaos 05:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec) K, personal opinions aside, this is a discussion to decide if a group of pages should be deleted. Ergo it is a deletion discussion. We have a place for that. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:46, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

WP:BURO. Orderinchaos 05:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: (edit conflict) These probably should be considered individually (that's what MfD is for, and they're usually happy to delete cruft). For example, User:The stuart/The Secret History of Wikipedia is harmless: three cuts-and-pastes of talkpage conversations. (Some of us would have used intermal links, but that's the learning aspect.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

  I would agree that filtering of the list linked above is needed to ensure pages that fall outside the parameters we are discussing do not get accidentally deleted - there's quite a few in the list. Orderinchaos 05:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, PMA, don't worry, I'm going to actually read the pages in the list (unhappy task though that seems!) ;) ~ Riana ⁂ 05:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• We're dealing with thousands of pages here, so it would be an undue strain on MFD to knock them off one by one. Plus, that page you linked to is completely harmless and is not being discussed here. :-) east.718 at 05:49, April 1, 2008

  Yes I have to agree, putting them through MFD would be a complete waste of time and a pain as everyone who had one would come out and say they are good, when in fact they are nothing but social networking. The only way to go about it is to bot delete them all. --Chetblong (talk) 05:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

  "Thousands"? Really? Waltham, The Duke of 20:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• I endorse this propsal. We are in the business of writing an encyclopedia here; camaraderie is important but it is always secondary. A disproportionate number of the editors who maintain these pages do little except play their petty userspace games complete with barnstars for finding pages, invite-only cabals and so on, wasting their own time and the time of the volunteers who have to clean up after them. These useless pages are anathema to our mission, and must go. I plan on bot-deleting thousands of these pages if a consensus to remove them is attained. east.718 at 05:49, April 1, 2008
• Endorse We are here to create an encyclopedia, not play games. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) 05:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Strong endorse → I was planning on expand MZ's list and mass MfD them, but no problem in deleting them right now. Absolutely. Also, I'd like to use this decision to delete pages not listed there in case we come across them. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 05:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• oppose It seems like the only difference between these "secret" pages and sub-user pages, is that they are named "secret page". The content of these pages are nothing you wouldn't find on a user page. Bytebear (talk) 05:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

No the difference is you have to spend sometimes an hour or more just to look for somewhere to sign your name, therefore reducing edits done by these users to actual articles. --Chetblong (talk) 06:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You don't have to do anything. People will either contribute or waste their time. many would say contributing is wasting time. Who are we to judge what one does with their time. Bytebear (talk) 06:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia was not meant to have a way to be able to waste your time, as in looking for secret pages, so if they weren't there then people would have to contribute instead of losing focus and messing around. --Chetblong (talk) 06:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a sweatshop. Get over it already. Bytebear (talk) 22:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Meh.. Does it matter one way or the other? --Carnildo (talk) 06:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Copied Riana's nomination to Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion#"Secret" pages. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:56, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose – However a vast majority of users who contribute to these pages are people who think this place is something of a social network ... {{fact}}. The most important issue here is that while we're not myspace, the reality is that de facto we're actually a hybrid of an encyclopedia and MySpace, and it's one of the primary reasons why we've achieved so much success. Unlike MySpace, Facebook, Britannica, and basically every Wiki out there not run by wm, we have our content totally open for people to steal and start their own site. However, it's obvious that that's not enough— especially given the various competing sites that pay experts to edit them, they still lack the success we enjoy.

That's because we have a community. We've got silly stuff like "Secret Pages" (which aren't at all secret due to Special:PrefixIndex), we've got pointless userboxes, categories, templates, essays, and all sorts of really extraneous stuff. Why? Because people like it, and because pointless barnstars are gateway drugs to actual barnstars. Personally, I learned how to find secret pages by wondering "how do you find secret pages" and then discovering Special:PrefixIndex.

If something needs to be deleted because it's abusive, inflammatory, disharmonious to editing, or is overly resource consumptive, then mfd it. Otherwise, I'm of the belief that we should simply leave people to their own devices, instead of saying that we simply "don't like it because it's silly, so delete it." Of course, I could just be crazy, so feel free to ignore me :P --slakr^\ talk / 06:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Some of the user subpages are fantastic. They're clever and are done by hardworking editors who contribute productively the (Main) namespace. However, these "secret" pages fall far outside that category. People can claim, and they'd be right, that the server space and resources are negligible. However, the principle should stand. People donate to the Wikimedia Foundation because they feel that our goal of creating a free online encyclopedia is a noble one. If these editors were spending an equal amount of time contributing the article namespace as they were creating barnstars and signatures for themselves and one another, I'd have no issue. But that's not the reality.

The web is a very big place with literally thousands of venues for this kind of thing. A sense of community is great, and should be encouraged. On the other hand, there are entire sites devoted to social networking. Have some fun? Sure, absolutely. Waste time, energy, and resources for crap like this? No way. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There's also the element of mission creep. I have a long-standing problem with people whose primary contribution to the project is to play games in the sandbox or to play hide and seek with user pages; this seems to me to be straying a long way from the intended focus of the project. Guy (Help!) 10:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Everyone's aware of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Secret pages correct?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 07:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Delete, Wikipedia is not Bebo. With the proviso that individual pages can perhaps be exempted if a case for retaining them is justified. Elfits FOR GREAT JUSTICE (klat) 10:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

keep these pages, they're just a bit of fun. Wikipedians have a reputation for being anal, we don't have to conform to that stereotype at all times.:) special, random, Merkinsmum 12:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Pfft - back in the day we learnt markup by being beaten until syntax bled from our wounds and made friends by being one of the last few alive. This new generation is nothing but slackers. Really though there is a policy that says they should go (WP:NOT#MYSPACE). Unless the page is being used for effective collaboration with the aim of improving the encyclopedia I think it should go. Note I italicised "aim" because I doubt anyone made a secret page with the goal in mind that they could educate noobs on how to use the prefix lists. You! - Crank dat Soulja 12:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Don't care about "secret pages", oppose deleting all pages on the list above. Please make sure you don't delete pages that just happen to have the string "secret" in the title, for example as a substring of "secretary". If you want to delete the pages, I would suggest writing a nice explanatory note, give owners some time to complain and then delete them. Try to cause as little unnecessary tears over useless subpages as possible. Thank you, Kusma (talk) 12:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Partial oppose - At least one of those "secret" pages appears to have useful stuff - the user's to-do list. That was after just glancing at a couple of them. Others may be useful. Would normal procedure involve examining the contents of a page before deleting? In any case, it seems most reasonable to notify the creators of these pages and give them time to respond if appropriate. Waiting just 24 hours seems not long enough as many users don't edit as often as we regulars do. Sbowers3 (talk) 17:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment – A few points:
  • Many editors maintain guest-books, where other editors go and sign. Have these been discussed before? Although many editors keep both a guestbook and a secret page, it could be argued that for many editors the so-called "Secret Pages" actually function as guest-books.
  • Secret pages are subpages of editors, and they should be treated not only by examining the pages themselves but also by examining the contributions of their owners. It has been mentioned already, but I though I'd repeat it here. Useful contributors should be allowed more latitude if the "Secret page network" is to be pruned.
  • True, some people are abusing this Wikipedia meme, if I can call it that (it is obvious that it has become a phenomenon, or it would not be discussed here). However, many others just spend some free time looking for secret pages, and some others are drawn into editing by beginning in these backstage non-editing activities. I agree that we should not let this get out of hand, but a wholesale banning or massive deletion of secret pages is unacceptable, as it is bound to upset numerous users, including many useful editors, not to mention the many useful pages (whose existence has been noted) that might also perish.
  • True, most secret pages are not well hidden at all. However, many of them are, and this does help improve not only some of the skills of those looking for them, but also the skills of editors wishing to have their own secret pages. I do have one myself, so please allow me to use myself as an example. The page is mostly humorous, I spend no time in its maintenance, I am an active contributor, and I have tried hard to make the page unplottable (while still respecting some rudimentary etiquette). Only two people have found it in two months. It has a negative effect neither on me nor on others, and its being well hidden motivates other editors to refine their knowledge of Wikipedia's tools. I believe that my secret page, while not exactly beneficial, at least it is not detrimental to the project. And I believe that there are many pages like this. I find no reason to restrict the liberty of editors in good standing to engage in some extra-editing activity in their userspaces if they are not causing any real trouble in this way.
• Waltham, The Duke of 20:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• The autograph pages should also be removed, preferably with a blunt instrument. As far as improving "skills" is concerned, the only real skill needed is Special:Prefixindex. The time spent developing skills for looking for secret pages would better be spent developing skills for looking for encyclopedic sources. If someone found a source for the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Pence Automobile Company Building in downtown Minneapolis, for example, it would be much more of a benefit for the encyclopedia than someone finding User:Elkman/Super secret hidden page on wheels! --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 20:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Ah, but there is a trick for the Prefix index, and some have already discovered it, to most of the page seekers' dismay.
• In any case, your example about sources does not appeal to me one bit; I hate searching for sources. (I got the point, though, don't worry.)
• I'll state my basic argument more clearly: if one is lazy, not having secret pages to look for will not turn one to an industrious editor. On the other hand, they are a pleasant distraction for working editors for when they want to have a break. And we shouldn't really attack respectable and helpful editors for a harmless page they might have in their userspace. If they help, they should be allowed an extra toy or two (which are enjoyable because they enhance the sense of belonging to a community); in a sense, they've earned them. Waltham, The Duke of 23:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose per the necessity to look at them on a case by case basis. Though penciling in something in Userpage/Subpage policy pages redundancy of the creation of such pages wouldn't hurt.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 20:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse. Special:prefixindex anyone? And there's an undelete button if there is any salvageable content. —Crazytales (talk) 20:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
  • And how do you expect people to know what should be salvaged if most of them can no longer see it? Waltham, The Duke of 22:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose Next thing you know we'll be deleting autograph books, too. - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 21:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Your point? There are many who would like the autograph books to be deleted too. bibliomaniac15 Hey you! Stop lazing around and help fix this article instead! 22:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• WTF? We don't make these decisions in ANI. -- Ned Scott 02:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

keep the secret pages - I see nothing different between secret pages, user boxes, or actual user pages. They do no harm, they use a tiny tiny fraction of available resources - compare the size to that of 10 unrequired images. Also why alienate editors from wikipedia? someone is having fun with secret pages, they are logging into wikipedia on a regular basis to do so, who knows, when secret pages become boring for them , they might start editing. Sennen goroshi (talk) 03:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• Wrong forum In general, I think they are a very poor idea. But if we're going to have a new policy it should be discussed more widely by the general community. As for individual ones MfD is the place. DGG (talk) 07:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Advice to everyone who regularly edits this page

Stop engaging in wikidrama and start writing GAs. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 05:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

lolno Nakon 05:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

ilu bffz 4eva <333 Mike H. Fierce! 09:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• GAs are debased currency. Write XAs (the next level up form FAs). Guy (Help!) 09:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
  • What about a new, super FA? That's never off the main page? '''[[User:WBOSITG|<font color="darkblue">weburiedoursecrets</font>]][[User talk:WBOSITG|<font color="navy">inthegarden</font>]]''' (talk) 09:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • That is one messed up sig. — Athaenara ✉ 19:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• I took 33 or 34 pictures of properties on the National Register of Historic Places over the weekend, including stuff on the western and northwestern boundaries of Hennepin County. I'm hoping to get all the pictures for List of Registered Historic Places in Hennepin County, Minnesota complete. So there. I think I've gotten my share of the work done. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 20:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Revocation of GNU License

An editor Ldemery (talk · contribs) has issued a revocation of the GNU license on the discussion page Talk:List_of_town_tramway_systems_in_Japan. As I understand it, such comments are considered to be legal threats and Disruptive editing.

Background

• List of town tramway systems in Japan is one of several articles which were forked from List of town tramway systems.
• The forked articles were not individually sourced but readers were direct to the old List of town tramway systems should they need to find the sources.
• An editor DAJF (talk · contribs) add "requires source" tags to the forked articles.
• Ldemery removed the tags on his understanding that the articles were not really forks but "sub-lists".

I have not been involved in the editing of the articles, I bring it here because it was raised as a problem in WP:EAR and I think that any chance of an amicable resolution while editors are so vexed is unlikely. -- BpEps - t@lk 05:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The conniption fit continues: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of town tramway systems in Japan. --Calton | Talk 06:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hooray, a vexatious editor. Elfits FOR GREAT JUSTICE (klat) 10:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia, the free Pokémon encyclopedia

Someone must have hacked some main template. All pages seem to say: From Wikipedia, the free Pokémon encyclopedia just beneath the title.

Perhaps it is fixed already but I can see it everywhere.

(Hope this is the right place to notify someone)

/PER9000 (talk) 06:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

- See below. Elfits FOR GREAT JUSTICE (klat) 11:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Dude! "Wikipedia, the free Pokemon encyclopedia"!

Yep, I see it too! This is a BIG hack - a really BIG one. It must have happened sometime between 2 AM and 2:16 AM EST (US) because I was in the middle of browsing pages and was like, what the heck, the free POKEMON encyclopedia?! --Wykypydya (talk) 06:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Tagline&diff=202486744&oldid=202485919

Fixed it. Also, seems there was two other notices about it above as well. Lets keep the tomfoolery out of the mainspace guys :P. Use up the spirit on userspace or something...¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 06:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Damn, I was about to put "the free Klingon encyclopedia"... -^{(Doofallslya v^_^v)} Ékséj 06:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you one of the WP techs? Why "tomfoolery"? It was just my reaction. --Wykypydya (talk) 06:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Persian Poet Gal was referring to the Administrators messing around with the MediaWiki interface. They don't have to be developers to do so (unfortunately?). x42bn6 Talk Mess 06:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, the MediaWiki namespace contains quite of bit of content that's really a matter of local project needs and preferences. It would be kind of impossible for developers to maintain it in every project in every language. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I liked it. It's not so accurate any more though, since we only have several scores of Pokemon articles these days, as opposed to our previous myriad myriad. --erachima formerly tjstrf 06:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it was funny, and it didn't really hurt anything. Thanks to whomever, for brightening our days! :) SQL^{Query me!} 06:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Spambot, currently active

User:123.116.225.244. Reported on AIV - should the links be blacklisted? There's also probably related IP addresses like 123.115.151.72. x42bn6 Talk Mess 06:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Check other projects and list at either the enWP blacklist (mediawiki talk:spam-blacklist) or, if it's cross-wiki, the meta blacklist (m:talk:Spam blacklist). Guy (Help!) 09:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Though only for mainspace, here are some linkwatcher reports to aid (see the COIBot link):

• bjhjtc-tm.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• lanzhixiang.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• puda.com.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• cnviolin.com.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• hahfcf.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bjlingzhi.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• pxtkj.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• packing66.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bestepoxy.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• lanzhixiang.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bangongjiaju.net.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bjhfly.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bjkuya.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• dfmq68.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

I will crosspost to WT:WPSPAM. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

More 123.116.225.244 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

• lrda.com.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• fcfbi.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• ptgejianqiang.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• u-magnet.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• zhule.net: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• ciicbiz.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bestepoxy.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bjyszd.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• lcndt.net: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• china-cots.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bjklwd.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• mhdjsz.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• gwdnz.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• jinma388.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• cncesuo.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• xiaoxiaoxianhua.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• qkgd.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• shengdajh.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• fzqwl.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• zhongyuanlx.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• mhdjsz.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• kaili388.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

--Hu12 (talk) 12:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Problems between users with threats and possible uncivility

Clementguardian (talk · message · contribs · count · logs · email)

Megistias (talk · message · contribs · count · logs · email)

Okay, admittedly I have a big nose and don't know much about the main underlying issues but, User:Megistias and User:Clementguardian seem to be going at each other quite profusely. This includes "threats" of legal action, etc by User:Clementguardian. Is this something that can be looked at by others. I was going to step directly into the conversation and try to help resolve but, am truly at a loss for words and unsure how to approach. Was going to RfC but, apparently that policy would be difficult to follow as no other user has brought it up previously that I can see. Thanks for any comments in advance. Jasynnash2 (talk) 10:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked Clementguardian for making legal threats. Megistias has been generally unpleasant (and I have just warned him about civility) but in the absence of a prior warning or anything worth an immediate block, there's nothing else for me to do for now. Elfits FOR GREAT JUSTICE (klat) 11:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked SlimVirgin and Crum375 as sockpuppets

Resolved

 – Not really funny - you didn't even rickroll anyone. --Random832 (talk) 18:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence that has been provided on proving completely conclusively that SlimVirgin and Crum375 are sockpuppets and I have blocked both for 14 hours accordingly. The community can decide where to go with this one from here on. Evidence: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=17078 Viridae^Talk 11:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Not funny. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 11:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh go on it was quite funny! It had me going for about 30 seconds. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 11:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah why don't we Block Jimbo next for being a sock of Larry Sanger ..hehe..--Cometstyles 11:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. -- @#$! ^*#!@ 11:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is a linkl to a much more amusing fool's joke User:Barneca/Requests for Jimboship/Barneca, mfd'd of course int eh true spirit of this day. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Link it right! Or else you're next on the MFD chopping block! Lawrence § t/e 19:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User:SteveBaker

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Resolved

Since it is the April Fools' Day, I issued a false vandalism warning to User:SteveBaker to see what is his response [22], but I later removed the notice and explained the message [23]. He told me that I have done "horrible wrong". There are other processes going on to celebrate the day Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kmweber 2 which involve vital administrative process. Leaving someone a joke message is quote funny when I explain the cause behind the message. Will anyone care to this. Thanks. What are the best ways to celebrate the day. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 11:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You can't force people to have the same humour than you do... I fail to see what we are supposed to do here? -- @#$! ^*#!@ 11:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You are right here. I did not understand this. I apologize for this. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 12:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I don't know why this is tagged as archived and resolved without there being ANY discussion or account of my side of the story. I can only assume this is User:Otolemur crassicaudatus's attempt to head off a possible complaint from me. I do not consider this matter resolved until I get an apology for this user's ridiculous behavior in which at least a couple of Wikipedia policies were violated.

Sometime this morning User:Otolemur crassicaudatus (someone with whom I do not believe I've had any prior contact) dumps a vandal-4 template on my talk page. No explanation - nothing. The only thing I'd edited that might possibly warrant such a thing was a couple of comments on the front page discussion page - and after I checked to be sure I didn't accidentally do something horrible there (I hadn't) - I asked politely on his/her talk page to either explain the vandalism accusation or remove it if it's in error. I note from earlier remarks on his/her talk page that this person has misused the vandal-4 template at least once in the past.

I get a reply saying it's an April Fool joke...WTF? I complain in vigorous terms that these templates are not there for playing jokes and that someone's good standing could be seriously harmed by such a thing. Since removing vandalism tags from one's own talk page is frowned upon - I again request that it be removed - and this time I ask for an apology (in order that in future someone who finds a vandalism template in my talk history will understand what happened). After a second protest, this user does indeed remove the template - leaving behind an edit summary: "I have never seen such humourless person before". I certanly do not find being accused of vandalism (with a -4 tag no less) funny - particularly because it comes from someone with whom I have no prior history - friendly or otherwise. I've had several people award me barnstars specifically because of my widely appreciated humor (cite: My user page) - so this too in an unwarranted and insulting bite. Reputation is everything on Wikipedia - and as an editor in good standing with 10,000+ edits and two FA's to my name - I don't appreciate being accused of vandalism and then of having a lack of humor - on this or any other day. I have still not received an apology. User:Otolemur crassicaudatus should be sanctioned for two instances of WP:NPA (once for the vandal-4 tag and again for his bite in the final edit remark) and should arguably take a WP:VANDAL tag of his own because misuse of tags is itself considered vandalism. To quote from WP:NPA: "Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done."

This user needs to be made aware (in the strongest possible terms) that Vandal tags are not playthings.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Got to agree with SteveBaker there, there is no way this should have been resolved without allowing his input. This is flagrant abuse of the vandalism templates, not in any way funny, and I agree that something should be said to Otolemur crassicaudatus. This is out of order. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caissa's DeathAngel (talk • contribs) 18:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

This user needs to be made aware (in the strongest possible terms) that Vandal tags are not playthings. Nobody, and I mean nobody, cares about vandal tags. Most experienced editors and admins will tell you that a personal note, hand written for the situation, is much more effective and usefu then an impersonal, sometimes bite-y template.

Reputation is everything on Wikipedia - and as an editor in good standing with 10,000+ edits and two FA's to my name Wikipedia is not an RPG, you're not trying to level up your reputation, no one cares if someone slapped a vandal tag on you for April Fools day. Not funny? You're right, there was no thinking behind the humor, the joke is juvenile, obvious and unfunny. It's slapstick, and not really good slapstick. Remove it and forget about it. You're attitude seems to be implying that you're taking this much, much to seriously. Good lord. -M^ask? 01:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think Steve Baker deserves an apology from us. This was clearly not done maliciously, but it certainly offended him, and I can understand that. With April Fools Day pranks I usually restrict them to people I'm in direct communication with or who are clearly in the spirit of it all, I think people have a right not to participate or be involved. Orderinchaos 02:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that self-archiving with apology here would've been acceptable if it had been accompanied by an apology to SteveBaker. Instead, the last attempted communication I see is the removal of the "joke" section with an edit summary stating that OC has "never seen such humourless person before"

An apology to the user for the joke should be all that's needed to resolve this. Whether the problem was that the joke wasn't funny (it wasn't) or that the target overreacted (they did) isn't important. --Onorem♠Dil 02:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the 'only people im communicating with' part completely. and that the user who posted the warning should probably apologize. I don't do april fools jokes here anymore (haven't since 05 or 06 i think), but if you get caught in the crossfire, you dont come here demanding sanctions and warnings. It just isnt that important. We're not talking about mediawiki-space incidents, its user talkpage notes. That and the attitude displayed in his response post was just completely absurd. Thats really the main point i was addressing :) -M^ask? 02:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

It was my mistake. I did not understand that it will be inappropriate. I apologize for my edit summary. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 04:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

A new coaching program

There is a group of users out there who are Wikipedia legends. They make loads of edits, yet all get reverted shortly. And they sometimes get blocked, banned, or listed as a long term abuser.

We need to WP:AGF with this kind of user. Can you imagine how many edits we could get if we could teach these users properly?

I've started a coaching program to help this kind of user succeed on Wikipedia, and I'm looking for admins willing to coach. If you're interested, please take a look. Thanks! Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 11:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Unhelpful. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 11:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

What a noble endeavour. I'm happy to be the first to sign up to offer to share my limited experience. _{The public face of GB}^T/C 12:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Semi protection problem?

Can someone reconcile this and this - NSFW? Did I do something wrongly, or is the protection not working? Black Kite 12:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You deleted your talk page the day after, which unfortunately removes protection from it. (That's pretty nasty vandalism by the way...) Majorly (talk) 12:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There's got to be a barnstar for the impressive amount of irony inherent in calling that 'pretty nasty vandalism' whilst simultaneously deleting 99% of the contents of this page! ;-) _{The public face of GB}^T/C —Preceding comment was added at 12:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

My talk page awaits ;p It was an accident. Majorly (talk) 12:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Aaaah ... of course. I deleted it to remove diffs very much like those (per WP:DENY) - which I'm about to do again, so let's see if I remember this time :) Black Kite 12:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

MFD

I'm not sure if it was an actual nomination or not, but I've closed the MFD on MFD. Sanity check me. :) Regards, NonvocalScream (talk) 12:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've sent it to DRV. Black Kite 12:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Attempts to push nationalist agenda on Dmitry Bortniansky

Someone constantly changes the name of the composer to it's Ukrainian way. I remind you that Dmitry Bortiansky lived mostly in Saint Petersburg, where he also died, and spoke mostly Russian. Not only that, but when his music was released in the Germanic-language countries, his name was spelled in the Russian way, Dmitri. I dont see any logic to the attempts to change his name into the Ukrainian formulation but pushing nationalistic agenda. I was offered a "concensus", but i didnt seem to see what concensus could come here. Shpakovich (talk) 12:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I rarely comment on content disputes on ANI, but -- seriously now -- Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartók, Rachmaninoff, to name a few, lived, worked, and died in the United States, and no one in their right mind would call them "American" composers. There is a nationalist agenda being pushed on this article, Shpakovich, but it's not the one you think; Bortniansky was a Ukrainian composer: probably the most famous one who ever lived. I'll put this on the talk page too. Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 13:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

And most importantly, he also composed the Star Fleet official march. Apparently. Guy (Help!) 23:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Tagline edit warring

Edit warring is taking place at MediaWiki:Tagline to insert and remove April Fools jokes. MediWiki is only editable by admins, and I don't think the page can be protected. User:David Levy has blocked two admins (User:Viridae and User:Omegatron) over this (and they have since been unblocked). I support David's actions, and am repeating here my post at his talk page: "The only other way to stop the edit warring at MediaWiki:Tagline (or any other MediaWiki page) is to seek emergency desysopping and/or an arbitration case. If someone gets desysopped over using admin tools to play April Fools jokes, then that should put an end to it next year. David, I would make a statement like this at arbitration if you chose to take it there." But before things get out of hand, let's try an ANI thread and see what the wider admin community think. Carcharoth (talk) 13:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The only people who are forcing this situation out of hand is you and David. Jokes got made, people got blocked and unblocked and it's over now - just move on from it. There's no need to start discussing emergency desysoppings and arbcom. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's see what people think, shall we? Are you prepared to defend Viridae's edits to the watchlist notice and the tagline? Enough is enough. This happens every year and David is right. We can do humourous things without being irresponsible. Carcharoth (talk) 13:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

One more thing. I had noticed, but forgot at the time of writing the above reply, that Ryan engaged in a joke himself. Namely a change to MediaWiki:Deletedtext, resulting in this version. Relatively harmless, but Ryan should have stated this when giving his opinion above, as he has an obvious interest in brushing off complaints about April Fools jokes when he has done one himself. Carcharoth (talk) 15:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC) Oops. That's terribly embarassing. That was RyanGerbil, not RyanPostlethwaite. I didn't notice until he (RyanP) pointed it out. Many apologies! Carcharoth (talk) 15:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Ryan, I don't mind a few pranks in project space, but main space is a bit more sensitive, and this edit was not only Viridae's third "prank" of the day but it is pretty inappropriate. Agreed that we can leave Arbcom and desysopping out of it but a time out was clearly in order. Thatcher 13:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh a time out was probably in order. The mediawiki edits were a little off I've got to admit. I just don't like the fact that Carcharoth started talking about desysoppings over this - it's uneeded escalation. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I like humour, and I like organizations that can take a lighter view. If it's good enough for Google, why not? I'm glad we now can have some fun with the Main Page within bounds (I note David Levy used to not have much levity in this regard, but I think he's seen the light about lightness) However, the third edit to the tagline by Viridae probably was going a bit too far, so color me undecided about the block. But an emergency desysopping? Seems like a definite overreaction to me. ++Lar: t/c 14:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. Or, if you can't not worry about it, then follow John Reaves's advice here. Mike R (talk) 13:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Please note that John Reaves has apologized to me for misunderstanding the situation. —David Levy 14:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a joke, folks. Deal with it maturely :( Elfits FOR GREAT JUSTICE (klat) 14:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Let it slide for a day, this is the one day we get to have some fun. Then it is back to business as usual. Rgoodermote  14:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Please direct my attention to the policy that designates 1 April as "the one day we get to have some fun" [via nonsensical and vulgar alterations to millions of pages]. —David Levy 14:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that we shouldn't go too far, Ryan, and I'd be interested in reading your advice for how to address this repeated vandalism of millions of pages. To me, blocking seems like the correct solution, but it's rendered ineffective by administrators who believe that a particular date on the calendar grants unconditional immunity and the right to violate policy by unilaterally unblocking without discussion.

I will note, however, that the sysop who unblocked Omegatron has apologized to me for misunderstanding the situation. —David Levy 14:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(unindent, responding to Rgoodermote, but addressing other points as well) "this is the one day we get to have some fun" What? Like changing the "delete" tab that admins can see to "nuke this page"? That is a no harm, no foul example of April Foolsry (as only admins can see it). Similarly, Stifle reversing his sig is confusing, but funny once you have worked it out. But changing a tagline that appears in mainspace is far less acceptable (I would say just plain unacceptable). Or it should be. And to respond to what others have said about emergency desysoppings, I only suggested that because it seems the only way to stop edit warring (and partly as a way to bring some people to their senses). Imagine a situation where the tagline changed every five minutes as people thought up new jokes. How would you stop that? I would suggest protecting the page in question, but obviously administrators have been mature enough (mostly) to avoid the need to protect pages from admins editing them. Need I remind people that many people probably read, in the minute it was up there, "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia administer by people with a stick up their lavender passageway" - now whether you think that is true or not, or funny or not, is not the point. It should never have been up there in the first place. Carcharoth (talk) 14:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I noticed this comment elsewhere: "Given the users who acted up this time also did so last year, I certainly saw basis in your blocks." This does happen every year, and every year people go over the line that should be drawn between relatively harmless jokes in project/other namespaces, and the irresponsible editing of mainspace or pages that affect mainspace. Have we reached the stage where we need to actually write up a page saying what is off-limits, or would that only encourage the acceptable (but annoying to some) tomfoolry that currently takes place mostly "out-of-sight"? There may be a bit of the repressed vandal in all of us, but if you allow a free-for-all, people will try and outdo each other and/or do things in poor taste. Can the community handle this? I'm not so sure, as things will go quiet and then we will have the same arguments again next year. Carcharoth (talk) 14:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

He has a point. How many printouts of articles with that tag line were made, I wonder? Now, if it were altered to add something clearly, well, goofy, that no one could really reasonably take exception to (wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit - only $4999.95 at your nearest bookstore), that would be different. But that particular line could be seen as a bit of an attack on the rest of us, which would be unacceptable. I'm not sure it would require permanent sanction, but I could see maybe potentially desysopping someone for the day in question if it were to happen again. John Carter (talk) 14:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd just like to underline something, putting up "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia administer by people with a stick up their lavender passageway" is wildly wildly unacceptable. I wouldn't spend a minute in regret if a desysop came of it. Unbelievable. RxS (talk) 14:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

My bad for not reading the diff, lack of sleep makes a lack of common sense. But the lavender joke is kind of funny. Though is defiantly inappropriate. Though I think some lighting up would be necessary. That again could be the lack of sleep and increase input of caffeine. Rgoodermote  15:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

In addition to being inappropriate, I don't see any humor in Viridae's vulgar personal attack against sysops who reverted vandalism. Note that Viridae also retaliated by vandalising one of their user pages. —David Levy 15:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

And yet, my block of Viridae for the remainder of the day (which amounted to only twelve hours) was lifted without discussion (in violation of policy) by Riana, who deemed it "baseless" and said that it was "discourteous" of me to apply the block after Viridae had been warned only once (as though an administrator needs to be warned against vandalising millions of pages with a vulgar personal attack). —David Levy 15:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The limit, in my view should be kept for internal processes, such as RfA, MfD etc. Anything that affects articles, or general system messages that our readers see should not be fiddled with. Additional block reasons, such as "per IRC" that Krimpet added are perfectly fine also as only admins can see them. We're allowed a bit of fun... just not too much fun so that our encyclopedia's reputation is worsened because of silly jokes to articles - which are, after all, what our readers and most people care about. Majorly (talk) 15:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you're right, Majorly, that (nothing that the readership in general will see) seems a good line to me, with the singular exception of the main page itself (the page itself only, not the things around it like messages, the side bar, disclaimer links, etc). It's at least a 3 year tradition now that the main page gets stuff on it that is 100% within our guidelines but which has been deliberately presented to seem untrue at first read (the Queen of England was an ambulance driver? Patented flying saucers? Spoo? ... all true). Doing this is actually pretty hard work and takes weeks or months of pre-planning (Ima Hogg made FA in 3 weeks not by bending the rules, but by dint of a lot of concerted effort by a lot folk who are among our best contributors. And it's really a great article!)... We used to have out and out vandalism of the main page, but I think this channeled is far better. It is also far cleverer to write a whole page this way than to tweak a system message to be insulting. See my blog for more. ++Lar: t/c 15:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I stepped into this late and messed up so I am sorry. Have a good one and happy editing. Rgoodermote  15:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Please take whatever steps are necessary to put a halt to this tomfoolery. Chastisement, blocks, permanent bannination, public beatings, etc. There is no punishment too extreme for this irresponsible and reckless horseplay. Wikipedia is Serious Business, and I won't stand for this.

Just because some childish low-visibility sites like Google, YouTube, and ESPN think it appropriate to make jokes at the expense of their readers, that doesn't mean we should abandon our academic credibility by polluting our project with self-deprecating, harmless jokes that in no way affect the accuracy of our educational content. Internet users perceive Wikipedia editors as angry, uptight, humorless, bureaucratic snobs, and we should do all that we can to keep it that way. — Omegatron 15:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

We can all agree that it's perfectly acceptable in the english-speaking world for a respectable website to make April Fools jokes with fake stories, etc. However, since Wikipedia is not a respectable website, we shouldn't be doing so. —Random832 (contribs) 16:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Heh! I thought that tagline was absofu**inglutley hysterical. No one needs to be de-sysoped for it. It's April Fools - have a sense of humor!! KoshVorlon....Straight outta Vorlon Space !!!! ' 16:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The distinction being made here is between stories on the front page that are April Fools day themed (which take work as Lar has pointed out, and are funny) or other, hidden metastuff, and a single editor putting up a statement that admins have sticks up their ass on the front page. One is acceptable and done by many web sites, the other is a vulgar joke that not one of the web sites listed above would tolerate. We can have fun without making Wikipedia like a (bad) high school newsletter. Perhaps that's too much to ask though. RxS (talk) 16:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

As is pointed out every year, those sites lack credibility issues. When people see their April Fools' Day pranks, they perceive them as isolated aberrations (which they are). No one, for example, wonders whether they can trust Google's search results for this reason.

This is not so with Wikipedia. People already question our reliability. They know that unlike those other sites, we have no employees by whom all changes must be approved. They realize that this is a site that "anyone can edit" and perceive administrators as the people responsible for keeping the process in check when all else fails. When these administrators turn their backs on this duty by perpetrating nonsense themselves, it leads the public to believe that none of our content—not even that which can be edited only by administrators—can be trusted. And the saddest part is that they're absolutely right. —David Levy 16:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Nod. Which is why I love the main page work! People come to WP today expecting something silly, something untrue, some prank... and they are presented with a page that superficially actually fits their expectations! But it's not untrue at all, and thus the joke is on them, but in a good way... because it reminds them, if they think about it, that we have a cadre of hard working, yet fun loving, editors at work writing good or even great articles. ++Lar: t/c 16:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Guys vandalizing the tagline is equivalent to being abusive with the Main Page as an administrator. The blocks seem a bit harsh to me but at the same time, if admins are unwilling to behave themselves they leave themselves open to suffer the consequences. Admins at the end of the day, cannot receive preferential treatment when they are editing disruptively despite being cautioned not to.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 17:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

new rule: block for anything that isn't funny enoughDGG (talk) 17:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Endorse the above. I thought Viridae's edit was inappropriate (and my standard for appropriateness on April 1 is very low), but I don't think it was profoundly damaging. When people see Wikipedia going nuts on April Fool's Day, they're going to realize why it is; I can't see any harm coming to the project's credibility because of MediaWiki vandalism on April 1. Mainspace vandalism would actually be much more serious, I think. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 17:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Mainspace vandalism affects one article and can be performed by anyone. Viridae added a vulgar personal attack to every article via a method available only to our most trusted users. —David Levy 18:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I would say that the rule of thumb should be as follows: if someone is offended enough by an April Fools' Day prank to go to the trouble of reverting it, then it was probably inappropriate. There should certainly never be an edit war to reintroduce a joke edit. Walton^One 18:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Messing around with the MediaWiki namespace simply shouldn't be done, regardless of the day of the year. David Levy's blocks seem reasonable to me; the idea that we would need to warn sysops not to do these things isn't. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Ditto. That was appallingly unfunny and childish behavior on their parts. It's like the janitor smeared feces over the library door, but "promised to clean it up tomorrow". Depressing and disappointing. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

If some anon IP made edits like that to some high-profile page (like Hillary Rodham Clinton) they would be blocked as a matter of course, regardless of the date. There are only two differences here: many more pages were affected; and the vandals were people supposedly determined by the community to be trustworthy. This is not something to be proud of. I see that someone's messing with the Go/Search buttons now. Desysopping is a harsh remedy, but I see no sign of remorse here, and nothing to discourage others from doing the same thing next year. Bovlb (talk) 22:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The flip side of "wide range of discretion" is always "good judgement". A person needs to have a clue that the tagline message described wasn't appropriate at all, but also, over reaction isn't useful either. A simple understanding by Viridae that he knows that he went too far in the eyes of others and has adjusted his own perspective for on-wiki actions in response and as a result, would be fine by me.

On a side, do we want to announce on AN, around end of March next year, "Please do not make jokes that will cause wide offence or misperceptions of Wikipedia amongst the general public"? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It beggars belief that it should be necessary to warn administrators that vandalism may lead to blocking, but that does seem to be what people are asking for. I'm surprised no-one's asking about compromised admin accounts. Bovlb (talk) 23:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Some dev pullling a prank?

Resolved

The the THE teh The TEH the.... — Edokter • Talk • 14:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Care to add some context? What are you talking about? --Onorem♠Dil 14:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Check the date. Rgoodermote  14:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Just search this page for "teh"... there are an awfull lot of them. — Edokter • Talk • 14:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Is you maken fin of thoze of uz woo can't smell too gud? John Carter (talk) 14:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but how's that funny? Or an April Fool? '''[[User:WBOSITG|<font color="darkblue">weburiedoursecrets</font>]][[User talk:WBOSITG|<font color="navy">inthegarden</font>]]''' (talk) 14:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[24] - Rjd0060 (talk) 14:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Now fixed by David Levy. Thank goodness for the "undo" feature! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 15:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

"Nuke this page"

Ha ha, April fool and all that, but it wouldn't take long to think of people that might find the "Nuke this page" tab (that's replaced "Delete") not altogether hilarious. --Dweller (talk) 14:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Nuked. Ryan Postlethwaite 14:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I liked "Baleete" better :) — Edokter • Talk • 14:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Ryan. --Dweller (talk) 14:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Grr. I really wanted to click "nuke this page." I'll just have to JavaScript it in for the day >:-( … Nihiltres^{t.l} 14:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I have some JS on my monobook.js that'll do the trick for anyone with a sense of humour ;) Nihiltres^{t.l} 14:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User:NewAtThis at AfD

Resolved

 – May or may not be a sock, but is being watched

NewAtThis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has had a rather rough run at AfD lately with a number of his nominations attracting some attention because they're clearly notable:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel J. Terra
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beanie Buddy
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Homer Ezzell: speedy closed, nom rationale worth reading
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Taourirt
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jason Wishnow

or due to his choice of words in the nom: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jovan Smith This one has some interesting history with a number of *socks.

There are also some dubious page moves. I don't think it's bad faith on the user's part, or I'd like to hope so, but messages on his/her talk haven't had much effect. Perhaps needs to be taken under someone's wing before it gets even more out of hand? TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 14:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

no bad faith at all. i'm just very frustrated by how i keep getting told what to do. oftentimes it contradicts itself. i only nominated articles that i thought should be deleted since they were not sources and they were on topics that weren't of enough note. a few of them have been deleted. and when it's been pointed out to me that something was indeed notable but it was just not at all sourced, i stepped back and took down the deletion.NewAtThis (talk) 15:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to get into semantics, but "a few of them have been deleted"? The results have been: speedy keep as you claimed it to be a hoax when it wasn't, undecided, but leaning towards keep since you claimed it as a hoax, this one may be deleted, but again you implied it was a hoax when it wasn't, still in progress, nom withdrawn after again claiming a hoax, still in progress but again claiming a hoax, still in progress but leaning towards keep, still in progress but leaning towards keep, still in progress leaning towards speedy keep after false claim of original research, still in progress without leaning either way, but you did make a somewhat uncivil response to someone trying to tell you the proper process, still in progress leaning towards keep with another false claim of original research, still in progress leaning towards keep with yet another false claim of OR, another still in progress with more false hoax claims and OR claims, and another still in progress with another claim of OR. --Smashville^BONK! 15:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Also note that these are all in the last 5 days for a user who registered 13 days ago. --Smashville^BONK! 15:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention wholly odd Afd!votes such as this, in which he cites his own tenuous article (at AfD itself) TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 16:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Note: User:NewAtThis seems to have gotten upset by the Afd Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gayelle (lesbian), and seems to be losing her cool a bit [25], [26]. The AfDs mentioned above may be a WP:POINT reaction to the Gayelle AfD. I'm not sure what the best tack is to calm her down, but if someone does... Pete.Hurd (talk) 16:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've speedily closed the J Stalin nomination as being redundant and in bad faith. If the editor persists in abusing AfD process they should be blocked. This is also suspiciously sock-puppetish, and reminds me of the User:Boomgaylove fiasco. Wikidemo (talk) 16:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, that's why I linked the check user since once I saw CA rapper, something rang a bell. Not saying he is, and it's not enough for a check user but something smells fishy, albeit not quite ducky TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 17:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You don't think a new user who's first (and almost only edits to date) are commenting in or nominating articles for deletion isn't weird enough to warrant a checkuser? HalfShadow (talk) 17:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've seen some turned down as fishing for far less, and it's only the one that's super suspicious, others are just, questionable. I'm willing to try if it's not going to be a pointless listing. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 17:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not fishing - it has all the hallmarks of a boomgaylove sockpuppet. Incivility, accuses others of harassment and stalking, quick (and often imperfectly formed) nomination of articles for deletion, article moves, interest in Bay Area and gay articles, obsession (yet again) with the J Stalin article. Someone has already claimed this is the same editor as an anonymous IP. A he claiming to be a she. But no hurry. If he/she has decided to launch a new round of sockpuppets we'll have plenty of time to find and clean them up - just block if they become abusive.Wikidemo (talk) 17:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Add to the similarities - same AfD arguments and tactics as Boomgaylove liked to use: citing the WP:LOCAL essay, claiming (utterly falsely) that coverage in sources is not substantial, denigrating weekly free newspapers as "trash" and not "legitimate" by way of saying they are not RS, claiming sourced negative information is a "libel" concern, throwing around policy terms without understanding what they mean. The editor's AfD arguments at J Stalin are a rehash of the unsuccessful arguments the sockpuppets made the last +/- four AfD attempts on this article. Wikidemo (talk) 23:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent for legibility}, RFCU filed: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/NewAtThis. We'll see what happens TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 17:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jason_Jessee and Arbetarbladet for apparent evidence of posting as both NewAtThis and 68.27.12.1. Most damningly, Arbetarbladet had the AfD tag added by 68.27.12.1 but the actual nomination is written up by NewAtThis. - Dravecky (talk!) 01:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Added to the Request for Check User, which is getting more obvious. I didn't have too much interaction with Boomgaylove but knew of the user TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 01:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• ETA, he was notified of this dicussion but it appears to have been removed, albeit not by him. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 17:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• I have been canvassed by User:NewAtThis on my talk page to reconsider my deletion endorsement of Gayelle. The replies in the AfD to deletion endorsements have progressively gotten more shrill and uncivil, to the point of calling other editors witch hunters. The tone of the AfD noms subsequently made make it difficult in light of the evidence to assume good faith. DarkAudit (talk) 17:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• User:NewAtThis has nominated a fresh batch of clearly notable articles for deletion today:
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Atle Antonsen‎
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tompall Glaser‎
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hannu Karpo‎
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Clemens von Baumgarten

--Canley (talk) 01:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• In the interest of being completely fair, NewAtThis has already withdrawn the Tompall Glaser nomination after a WP:HEY (there is at least one more example of the editor doing this). But such easily-cleaned-up articles should really never be nominated in the first place (AFD not being cleanup &c.). --Dhartung | Talk 01:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• NewAtThis has also relisted the Gayelle AFD xerself. Like many of this editor's actions, by itself this may not be strictly out of bounds, but it's one more example of flailing about to the point of being borderline disruptive. --Dhartung | Talk 01:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
• As a frequent visitor to AfD, and as the user who did a WP:HEY job on Tompall Glaser (see above), I've seen NewAtThis around about. Even though Tompall meets multiple criteria of WP:MUSIC quite easily, this user still told me that they don't think he is notable. Said user also suggested on my talk page that I "take a look" at J Stalin, an article which was AfD'ed twice in February by two (now indef-blocked) socks and clearly appears notable. I politely informed NewAtThis that even more than a month later, placing a third AfD would be disruptive. In short, I think that, despite the flurry of questionable AfDs, this user is indeed new at this and simply needs to learn a few more things about Wikipedia policy. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 01:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• I spoke too soon. This is clearly disruption per all the evidence, and we may have a sock on our hands here again (esp. given the obsession with J Stalin). I wasn't aware of all the other evidence before just now. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 04:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• I think the data already in this thread adds up to a verdict of disruption. The editor himself gave a clearly unsatisfactory response above. My count is that NewAtThis submitted 8 AfD nominations on April 1st alone. (There is not even a semi-plausible program explaining why such a campaign is needed). Using up the community's resources with unnecessary AfD debates should be considered bad faith editing. We could request that NewAtThis not open any new AfDs until some of the existing ones close with Delete. If he does not immediately agree then I think we're already in block territory. EdJohnston (talk) 01:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what at the fuss is about. The people at this project seem too sensitive and unwilling to deal with someone who doesn't know everything. Everyone's tone comes off as very condescending. Maybe I should just leave, I hope that makes you all happy that I won't be "disrupting" anymore. *frown*.NewAtThis (talk) 02:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think in my defense its worth mentioning that i don't know how an article could possibly not be original research if there are not sources at all in it. And I still think some articles are not notable, is that a crime..to have an opinion? or am i forced to say, yes sir, it is notable?NewAtThis (talk) 02:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

You might try to do a little research before you nominate articles for deletion. Deor (talk) 03:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

(editconflict) If sources can't be found, then it may be original research. While Google doesn't have the answer to everything, it has established the notability and sources for many articles you sent to AfD. Just because sources aren't present doesn't mean they don't exist. If nothing else, a google search may prove an article you find is indeed verifiable, and you can go from there. There are also a number of tags, including {{unreferenced}} and {{notability}} which you can use to mark articles where notability isn't clear or you can't find sources. There are other tags, I hope someone will give you a link because I can't find the list. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 03:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• and now we've moved on to creating nonsense, therefore creating more work, as EdJohnston stated above. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 03:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The operative term you're looking for here is 'taking the piss'. I think enough time and good faith has been wasted here. HalfShadow (talk) 03:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I'm cranky and it's getting really old. Trying to hold back snark in two of his AfDs. Can you be 'taking the piss' if it's not remotely funny? I know the phrase from my time living in Australia but it's not that common here in the US so I'm not intricately familiar with its use. More moves in the last two min TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 03:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

(Only since you asked) taking the piss can mean either to poke fun at or to take liberties, an employee turning up half an hour late every day could be described as taking the piss, and nobody's smiling. Someoneanother 07:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Got it, thanks TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 14:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Boomgaylove notes those socks nit-picking about accents on Spanish-language words, see NewAtThis' edits: [27] [28]. quack quack Pete.Hurd (talk) 06:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

and defending what is quite likely his/her own article TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 14:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice if someone could block this user for disruption and/or sockpuppetry. Two more AfDs in the last few hours (I did a nonadmin speedy closure on both). Every hour this account is active wastes several hours of other wikipedians' productive time. Wikidemo (talk) 14:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I gave final notice. Any further violations will result in a lengthy block. Moving on, what about Alchemy12 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)? seicer | talk | contribs 14:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks, Seicer. Ugh, what a mess. I've been cleaning up after NAT all morning, might as well move on to this one now. Never a dull moment in WikiWorld, huh? TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 15:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• Actually, Alchemy12's seem to be fairly harmless, or am I missing something? TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 15:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Never mind. I was reading far too much into it. seicer | talk | contribs 15:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Block Evasion, Moved from WP:AIV (where it belonged), to here (where it doesn't), on request

• 70.108.103.64 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)Evading block on 70.108.82.109. Whether the particular edits are vandalism or not is immaterial ... he's evading a block.Kww (talk) 16:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Note: User is in the category: Shared IP addresses. HBC AIV helperbot5 (talk) 16:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User has been incorrectly or insufficiently warned. Re-report if the user resumes vandalising after being warned sufficiently. Steve Crossin (talk to me) 16:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

This noticeboard is for obvious vandals and spammers only. Consider taking this report to Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. does appear to be a block-evading IP. Toddst1 (talk) 16:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Note: A WHOIS shows the IP is from a rather large range, an IP range block here may be impractical. Just my opinion here, its up to an admin here, but seems a large range to block. Steve Crossin (talk to me) 17:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Note: A range block here would not be permissible, CIDR suffix of 70.104.0.0/13, rangeblocking would whack out 524,288 addresses. Steve Crossin (talk to me) 17:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Fresh comment: this is clear block evasion, carrying on the edit war that the original anonymous IP was blocked for. To my knowledge, one does not warn a block-evader ... one simply extends and expands the block.Kww (talk) 17:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Except all of his edits are to talk pages... Isn't the idea to use a talk page? That IP is not actually currently edit warring... He has not edited the article the other IP was blocked for, so what is the need to currently block, since blocks aren't to punish a person, only to stop behavior, and the mainspace edit war HAS stopped...--Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Look more closely ... the edit war is actually over a Talk:Cassie (singer). One editor has redacted a number of BLP violations in comments, and the IP is putting the originals back in, in the name of being against "sensorship". Aside from that, isn't block evasion a bright-line offense? No excuses?Kww (talk) 17:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There may be some blatant things that are being correctly removed, but at quick glance...this is probably the most strict enforcement of BLP I've seen outside DM's page. Some of these comments clearly don't need to be blanked. --Onorem♠Dil 17:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure I just declined this user's unblock request at User_talk:70.108.82.109. Does smell a LOT like block evasion. SQL^{Query me!} 17:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree that Mdsummersw was pretty stringent in her application of BLP ... perhaps overly so. That doesn't justify edit warring and block evasion.Kww (talk) 17:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm willing to re-block, but, there's really only 20 mins left in the original block right now. SQL^{Query me!} 17:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

NM, looks like they were re-blocked for 48h for disruption. [29] SQL^{Query me!} 17:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There was a report on RFPP to protect a page this user was editing - another IP was doing the same thing yesterday, so I'm quite certain this was block evasion. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 17:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Probable this is the same user as 70.108.115.143 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and 70.108.92.126 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) along with many others in this range, with a history of tendentious editing, personal attacks and block evasion by IP-hopping. Thatcher 18:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Immediately hopped to User:70.108.133.81. Doesn't even attempt to deny that it's the same user.Kww (talk) 18:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've semi-protected the page (and promptly got shouted at by the IP), however if the disruption continues, a rangeblock of 70.108.0.0/16 may be in order. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• So far I've blocked 70.108.128.0/18 and 70.108.64.0/18 anon only. If he creates an account presumably he will be recognizable. There are a very few good editors on that range. Thatcher 18:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I was going to comment, but it looks like all the bases are being covered. Again, to reiterate what started this whole mess is my block of User:70.108.82.109 for edit warring (3RR vio) on a talk page. See the block log for more information. - Rjd0060 (talk) 19:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User:RJ_CG

This user "has engaged in sustained edit-warring as well as incivility, personal attacks, and assumptions of bad faith" according to ArbCom ruling [30]. He was warned about general restrictions resulting from this ruling [31]. He was many times blocked, last time for two weeks. I believe he is now engaged in WP:DE style editing, making numerous reverts in Alexander Litvinenko article [32], [33], [34], while I was working toward a compromise and included everything he wanted to be included. Note that he deleted three times today sourced and relevant views, which is against WP:NPOV policy, but the real problem I think is his WP:DE editing. Should anything be done about that? Thank you.Biophys (talk) 18:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

And both of you have been edit warring. Either both of you take it to the talk page and work it out through consensus, or there will be sanctions. No need for this pointless crap. seicer | talk | contribs 20:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Kuntan sock

Possible Kuntan sock Special:Contributions/Sivadasabhoshan. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 18:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Blocked.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 18:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Denial of AG

Qwl is being disruptive and now is adding and inserting false information into articles, especially on Denial of the Armenian Genocide, he is adding images from a Turkish denialist page, images are absurd also. --Namsos (talk) 20:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I have protected (full admin protect) the page for 48 hours to allow discussion on the recent additions by User:Qwl. I would also comment, without prejudice, that I have noted that the images that Qwl has been attempting to introduce into the DotAG article have been reported to User talk:Qwl by STBot1 and BJBot as being orphaned. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. --Namsos (talk) 21:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

why you block the deniers arguments?? You break NPOV. i have sources that WP:Verifiability WP:No original research. i try to make WP:Neutral point of view --Qwl (talk) 22:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Children's rights

Would someone please have a look at the above article and see what needs to be done. There has been constant edit warring since 30th March, initially between an IP user 74.14.6.207 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) and Freechild (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) but now also involving a new user, S-MorrisVP (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) who it would seem is the same person as the IP user, and who might have a conflict of interest. Edit sumaries have been used to accuse vandalism. I tried to stop the edit war by restoring the article to what appeared to be the last good version before all this started back on 30th March. However, User:S-MorrisVP has kept reverting my edit to the last good version without it would seem understanding why it was being done, even though I have explained on the articles talk page and appealed to those involved to sort out the dispute. As it is clear that S-MorrisVP will not accept the article being restored back to the last good version until the content dispute is resolved between them, perhaps an Admin could step in please? Thank you.♦Tangerines♦·Talk 21:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Try WP:RPP. Protecting it might force them to work it out on the talk page. It also seems like they're close to violating 3RR, drop them a warning and report if it continues. There's not much more that admins can do that don't involve blocking. If it continues for too long try dispute resolution. P.S. You yourself are guilty of edit warring here, no matter what your intentions were. -- Naerii 22:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've already protected it for one day and gave notice to both editors. seicer | talk | contribs 22:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Block of User:AzaToth

I've blocked User:AzaToth for 24 hours for vandalizing two pages in the MediaWiki namespace. He changed the 'Go' and 'Search' buttons (in the sidebar) to read 'Wacky Search' and 'I'm Feeling lucky', respectively. This is simply unacceptable behavior. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Please unblock. Check your calendar, it's April Fools' Day. You blocked him without any warning. Maxim_(talk) 22:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a bit sad that admins need to be warned not to vandalise the MediaWiki space. -- Naerii

• Something per Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Barneca/Requests for Jimboship/Barneca. Lawrence § t/e 22:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that an unblock before 24h is probably warranted, but I don't think that we need to explictly warn anyone not to make the Search button say "I'm feeling lucky". Also see the section above on Mediawiki:Tagline for a similar situation earlier. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Please unblock. A simple "please don't do it again" would suffice, as I see no indication AzaToth would have continued if asked to stop. - auburnpilot talk 22:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Naerii, it's April Fools'. Lighten up. Did fiddling with the search box cause real harm? I don't think so. What MZMcBride should have done is to tell AzaToth to stop and he'll stop, he's sensible enough to be chosen an admin, I don't see why he wouldn't stop. Maxim_(talk) 22:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It'd be okay if it actually was funny, but these crap attempts at being humorous are making my head hurt. And of course they go against the tradition of April Fool's anyway, where the point is to trick people into believing something false - not to go around endlessly crapspamming gibberish and memes from ten years ago (which seems to be the Wikipedian approach to humour). -- Naerii 22:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Endorse, admins shouldn't need warning about vandalizing MediaWiki space. This needs to stop. RxS (talk) 22:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I just realized that this is an actual block and not a joke. Please unblock. Lawrence § t/e 22:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for April Fools not going into mediawiki space, but c'mon... a block? - Philippe 22:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Where are these edits in his contributions? I'm not seeing them.[35] Lawrence § t/e 22:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

They're in his deleted contributions. —Animum (talk) 22:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(reply originally intended for my talk page) While I have little tolerance for those who joke around in the MediaWiki: namespace (I learned my lesson in mid-September), I agree with the people who commented before me:

• 1) Blocks are preventative, not punitive; I can't imagine that he would continue to joke after being asked to stop.
• 2) It was one edit.

—Animum (talk) 22:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

They were deleted, Lawrence. Is it smart to delete MediaWiki: pages? I really don't think so... Maxim_(talk) 22:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, overkill? Why weren't they just rv'd? Lawrence § t/e 22:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

They get filled in automatically by the software if they don't exist, and these ones are currently set to the defaults anyway. The edits are here and here, for the curious. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Blocking admins in good standing for a couple of April Fools' jokes is unnecessary and just plain over the top. While editing MediaWiki namespace for fun is both (1) stupid and (2) dangerous, I don't think blocking is warranted unless somebody goes on a spree and ignores a succession of polite messages, friendly nudges, and stern warnings. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 22:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've unblocked; I don't expect Aza is going to pull that stunt again. — Coren ^(talk) 22:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Unblock is probably fine, but when will admins realize that Wikipedia isn't their private playground?. RxS (talk) 22:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with unblocking, a friendly note on his talkpage would have been far more appropriate. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• I think screwing around with mediawiki space is lame. Jokes, yes, fine, but screwing with the interface is going to confuse people. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. I don't think anyone could accuse me of lacking a sense of humour, but we have over 1,000 admins - if every one decides to perpetrate some joke in the interface then the whole thing will break. Next year, I suggest some firm guidance up front as to the kind of things not to do, and if people then do stuff beans up their noses then we should take a very dim view of it. In all seriousness, it really isn't a good idea at all. Warning? Pah. we shouldn't have to warn people not to screw around with the interface. Guy (Help!) 22:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Marked as resolved, no need for any wiki-drama to un-fold. Now back to editing. Tiptoety ^talk 22:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree with the unblock, he shouldn't be feeling "lucky" anymore... - Caribbean~H.Q. 22:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Can someone delete all those April Fools' pages now that it's over? I moved the rupture in spacetime to is not exist because is not exist. SOmeone help delete these and close that Blocking policy deletion as speedy keep? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 00:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Ok thanks. Now what is WP:NQS supposed to mean. Did you mean WP:NAS and if so for what reason? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 00:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Blocks of Scientizzle and Random832

By the same virtue of the unblock of AzaToth (talk · contribs), I have unblocked Scientizzle and Random832 (who were blocked well after they each made one joke edit). I believe that brings the total to 7 admins who have been blocked today over April Fools jokes, so I hope we've learned our lesson. - auburnpilot talk 23:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Kwsn (talk · contribs) also got blocked... Maxim_(talk) 23:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe the April Fools Seven are User:Random832, User:Scientizzle, User:Viridae, User:RyanGerbil10, User:Kwsn, User:AzaToth, and User:Omegatron. - auburnpilot talk 23:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

To the stocks with the lot of 'em. Second offense for User:Scientizzle. Ronnotel (talk) 03:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I always knew those seven were bad news... Equazcion •✗/C • 07:55, 2 Apr 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedians always find ways to create strife when there is none. MZMcBride, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Sean William @ 12:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I find that comment excessively harsh. The seven blocks were made by three different admins, not only MZMcBride. Quite a few other admins have expressed what seems to be agreement with the spirit of the blocks, which is that edits to MediaWiki: pages cross the line of acceptable humor. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think dividing it up by namespace is productive. Someone put a new messages notice on the top of this noticeboard, does that mean that "edits to Wikipedia: pages cross the line of acceptable humor."? What if Viridae's edit to Mediawiki:Watchdetails had instead been made to Template:Watchlist-notice? And on the other hand, the text of the delete tab is not visible to ordinary readers at all, and the effects of my own edit to Mediawiki:Ipboptions is only visible to non-admins on block logs - which aren't really something ordinary readers are going to spend time looking at. --Random832 (contribs) 15:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Ii seems that Sean is the one creating drama here. I think that blocks prevented some other admins from doing similar things, so they were preventative, and I also think that admins don't need to be warned not to do such things. —AlexSm 15:51, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

If I were to block an edit warrior far after he had committed the offense, would the block still be preventative because other edit warriors would be dissuaded? Any block of such kind would be swiftly shot down by the community for being punitive. Why wasn't the same action done in this case? In addition, when it comes to tinkering with the MediaWiki namespace, there is no precedent whatsoever, especially during April Fools' Day. (I recall that Cyde was blocked in 2006 by Essjay for a long string of MediaWiki incidents, but the difference here was that he was warned by a lot of people.) One of the people who blocked administrators yesterday himself took part in some AFD madness a while back, and nobody seemed to care. [36] Sean William @ 16:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

User talk protection

Unresolved

Does anyone else have a problem with this, would leave him a message, but... Tiptoety ^talk 22:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've unprotected - he's only a new admin so probably didn't realise. I've left him a little note to explain. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but I think the "new admin" excuses is being overused in his case, take a look here. Tiptoety ^talk 22:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It does unfortunately look like he's got some quick learning to do. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It appears we have a problem with blocking as well. Maybe one of his old Admin Coaches could leave him a message, or offer a little more coaching? Tiptoety ^talk 01:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, these seem to be singular transgressions, and fairly good-faith mistakes at this point. I don't see where this is a problem until he shows further issues. Sometimes the mop is a bit clumsy to use at the beginning... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I feel that when I do try and communicate my concerns to him he blanks his talk page and leaves, returning without continuing it. Tiptoety ^talk 04:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, this is concerning. April Fools perhaps, but I think this use of the admin tools is probably a bit too far. 87/3/3 reminds me of someone else recent, but hopefully this won't turn anywhere near the same way that one did (not least because I supported this one, and that one, and I don't want to get suckered again!). dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 10:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh I sure hope that is not the case. And I can assure you that all those blocks and out of process deletions/protections where not because of April Fools. Anyways, it appears that he learned from his mistake? Tiptoety ^talk 14:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Alison and User:SirFozzie

Resolved

 – Nevvagonna Give You Up .... - Alison ^❤ 03:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Could someone with some technical knowledge check these two User and Talk pages? There seems to be a Pop-Up sort of overlay of an article on each page, put there, it would seem by many users. I certainly can't work it out, but I doubt it is something either one of them would want. ៛ Bielle (talk) 23:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I got RickRolled by Krimpet. It's cool :) I plan a deadly revenge yet before the day is out :) - Alison ^❤ 23:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Too clever for me. I am glad it is not a problem. ៛ Bielle (talk) 23:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

hee hee hee. sorry, my prank is self-inflicted. I will take it down in 12 minutes when UTC 4/1/08 is over :) SirFozzie (talk) 23:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Betacommand and SVGs

(Moved to AN/B --Random832 (contribs))

Role account

BIOEE278WIM2008 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) recently created their userpage with the statement "Hi all, we're an evolutionary biology class at Cornell University with a special mission in mind: fill gaps of knowledge about evolution!" Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#'Role' accounts says other than when used by the Foundation, the account is likely to be blocked. FYI, please block or disregard as appropriate. --12 Noon ^2¢ 00:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think a friendly word suggesting invdivdual accounts with user pages identifying as class project participants would be a good idea. Prior to blocking, give them a chance to do it the WP way. Pete.Hurd (talk) 00:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll leave a nice note. Cheers, --Bfigura ^(talk) 00:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to help as well, best foot forwards. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Willy on Wheels

Hi, I recently blocked User talk:Mr. Wheely Willy Guy as a probable WoW sock and for violating the username policy. He is now requesting unblock, I'd like some review of this. I would think it a safe bet that someone who knew nothing about Wikipedia wouldn't choose that as their username. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 00:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

More likely is an imposter.--MONGO 01:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Well judging by the fact that his unblock request was denied, and then his talk page deleted and SALTed I would say that people agree with your block. Tiptoety ^talk 01:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict}Hi. (I'm not an admin)Why did Ryulong just delete the userpage as non-controversial cleanup? In fact, it is possible that he knew nothing about Wikipedia, see Wheely Willy. He also requested a username change. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Astro. His edit history was just playing in the sandbox, a legitimate removal of an adjective, and correcting some vandalism. I thought the policy was clearly that we block on edits, not on the names that people choose. Saying that someone picks a name that is similar to that of a vandal and thus should be blocked forever is a very good way to drive off editors. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I have undeleted the talk page, and it is no longer protected. It appears he was attempting to use {{unblock-un}}. --Random832 (talk) 03:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

And, I'd just like to note... THIS IS WHY WE HAVE WP:BITE AND WP:AGF. That is all. --Random832 (talk) 03:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, wow. Wheely Willy is a popular book series! This user did absolutely nothing wrong, and when he asked why he'd been blocked, he was told that he'd registered a "blatantly inappropriate username, and [was] well aware of this." At this point, many users would have simply given up and left Wikipedia, but this one requested a new username. And what happened next? The user's talk page was deleted (purportedly "housekeeping and routine (non-controversial) cleanup") and protected against re-creation! When it was restored, two administrators asked the editor to specify a new username (so that the request could be fulfilled), and then another came along and declined it, indicating that "we have no reason to suspect [he is] not [Willy on Wheels]" and that "there are no positive edits from [his] account" (which is patently false).
This is one of the worst failures to assume good faith that I've ever seen on this site. Utterly shameful and embarrassing. —David Levy 04:09/04:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I feel bad for Mr. Wheely Willy Guy, just bad luck in picking a username combined with someone's quick trigger. I hope he doesn't leave Wikipedia. Useight (talk) 04:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. I will publicly say that I am sorry for declining his unblock request. I clearly was wrong on that one, and have no excuse for it. I will go unblock him now. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks like someone got to it first. Still, I am quite sorry about the whole mess I am uniquely and solely responsible for in this case. This was entirely my bad for declining the unblock request. In the future I will try to be more conscientious about these unblock requests... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

He'd already been unblocked. The template remained in place because two previous sysops requested that he fill in the requested username.

And hey, don't beat yourself up over this. It was an honest mistake, and you've obviously learned from it. I hope that the other sysops responsible for this unfortunate chain of events (for which you certainly aren't solely to blame) also learned from it. —David Levy 04:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I do too, and I've left an apology (on behalf of the community) on his talk page. —David Levy 04:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Given that the first book was written in 1998, maybe the original page move vandal was inspired by the same thing? That would be ironic, wouldn't it? Carcharoth (talk) 10:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

That's possible, but I subscribe to this theory. —David Levy 15:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• FREE PICTURE REQUEST. I can't remember where the page for this is. See here. Willy's calendar of appearances is here. Anyone available to go and take a freely licensed picture, or failing that to write to the owner and ask if we can have a freely-licensed picture (or two) for the article? Preferably one of the dog in its K9-cart. The first book cover may still be justifiable if no pictures are available of the helium balloons incident. Carcharoth (talk) 10:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

David Shankbone/Michael Lucas stalker

Hey everybody - I know you guys softblocked the stalker IP range - thank you again - but can someone e-mail me privately and let me know when the softblock of the range is expected to end? Although things have been quiet on here, Commons and Wikinews, the range is still quite active on the foreign Wikipedias, such as you can see here on the German (situation is the same on the French, Spanish...) --David Shankbone 02:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

All wrapped up. east.718 at 03:09, April 2, 2008

Does this vandal have any understanding of GFDL? Or that basic 'this work may be reproduced etc etc so long as credit to the artist is given' type language is a standard for most fair use things? Thus all DS' titles are simply making that part easier. Really, this vandal/stalker's just looking stupider and stupider. what's his point? ThuranX (talk) 04:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The thing is that I personally just liked to see how people off-wiki use my work, and they often don't credit but just upload from the Commons or Wikipedia. As it relates to what I do on Wikipedia--I have no offsite webistes, I never direct people to davidshankbone.com where they can purchase my work, and I release the largest size possible--I could stop putting my User name in the file names. Seriously, that's not such a big deal. But I'm not going to do it now just because I don't want this person to think they are going to get me to do what they want. It's also a false issue. Their real problem, they made clear, had nothing to do with my work. I don't know this guy; they are unable to say one thing about me outside of what I myself have revealed. --David Shankbone 12:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• Okay, so can I ask for the range to be re-blocked and have the block time extended? Per this. Thanks. --David Shankbone 14:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • The ranges are still blocked at the moment. This is an extension of one of the ranges, and I have blocked this too. They can be extended as necessary. Black Kite 17:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
    • I've reset all the rangeblocks from East718's block log for an additional 1 month. Mr.Z-man 17:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
      • And I've done the same with this latest one. Black Kite 17:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

User talk:EBDCM unblock review

This user has been requesting unblock for several days without a response. I declined that request as a pragmatic judgement that apparently it wasn't going to be granted. However, I would like to see some discussion of the situation. Mangojuice^talk 03:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive388#EBDCM for a previous discussion and also Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/EBDCM Mangojuice^talk 03:43, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The checkuser in question is pretty weak; however EBDCM is quite vociferous in his edit warring at articles relating to chiropracty. I would support an unblock in contingent on that unblock was a topic ban against editing ANY articles relating to chiropracty at all. If he agrees to stay away from the articles he edit wars over, then I see no need to keep him blocked. What says everyone? Would a topic ban be a reasonable solution to lifting the block? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Is a full topic ban necessary? What about a 0RR restriction? Mangojuice^talk 04:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

It is very clear that he wishes to return to constructive editing. Please remove the indef block. Bstone (talk) 04:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Having been an editor on Chiropractic, can someone point me in the direction of the edit war that he was allegedly a part of? I thought EBDCM was banned for evading a block (based on a weak CU). Is this incorrect? I have seen some excellent contributions by EBDCM towards Chiropractic and it would be a shame to see him topic banned. Especially in the light of his work over at Chiropractic_Canada (which he basically authored) and Kinesiology. DigitalC (talk) 04:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Having looked into this a bit more, the question is whether EBDCM was editing as User:64.25.184.27. That user reverted repeatedly over a particular change, and EBDCM reinstated that change after the IP was blocked for edit warring. A checkuser on the two came back as "plausible" -- they share an IP range. Also, the IP editor was active during relatively tight holes in EBDCM's edit pattern. So there are lots of things that link the two together. It seems to me that whether or not the sockpuppetry allegation is true, it's probably time to unblock. After all, EBDCM has remained blocked for almost 2 weeks now without apparently evading the block. And logging out to edit isn't exactly as abusive as registering new accounts. Furthermore, the abuse caused by the IP's edits (and whatever minimal disruption was caused by EBDCM's single revert) is (1) not that big of a deal, and (2) no longer a current concern in any case. The rest of this case would come down to EBDCM's behavior once he was blocked... which also really hasn't been that bad. Mangojuice^talk 06:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

So is he unblocked or not? Bstone (talk) 06:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I made the indef block based on the previous consensus at ANI.[37] Before reaching a consensus to unblock, please keep in mind that the question is not limited to "whether EBDCM was editing as User:64.25.184.27" but also "general disruptive editing" as User:Moreschi noted in the original thread, including unfounded accusations against other users. If someone wants to unblock I won't wheel-war over it but I don't think unblocking would be a benefit to Wikipedia. Raymond Arritt (talk) 07:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Keeping this block in place will harm Wikipedia by preventing a good editor from contributing. Bstone (talk) 07:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I guess the question is whether he's a "good editor." A lot of people have made rather convincing arguments that his content contributions don't outweigh his disruptive behavior. See the original thread ANI thread as linked above. Raymond Arritt (talk) 07:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC) Addendum: This recent tirade by EBDCM ("you guys can keep blowing each other on the sidelines" is one of the more pleasant remarks) doesn't exactly lead me to entertain unblocking. Raymond Arritt (talk) 07:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Guess I see hope where you see none. His contributions have been useful thus far and I for one appreciate them. Bstone (talk) 07:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Endorse block. Useful contributions or not, rampant poor behavior is never warranted and his clear disregard for other editors leads me to believe that he just doesn't work well with others. Too bad. seicer | talk | contribs 12:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Admittedly, my assessment above was not taking the incivility issue into account. However, when I looked around, I got the idea, mostly, that all the incivility occurred in response to being blocked. Can someone point out some evidence of incivility before the blocks? Or some solid evidence of disruption at Chiropractic? EBDCM has repeatedly demanded to have an explanation for the conclusion that he has edited disruptively... I for one would like to see some that doesn't depend on the sockpuppetry allegation being true. Mangojuice^talk 12:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I should have used "poor behavior" in lieu of the vague terms that I had previously used. We have blocked indef. on much less than what EBDCM has done. He has been given a chance previously to demonstrate that he edits in good faith, that he respects other user's viewpoints, however, he has consistently shown little regard for other editors. And judging from his latest tirade, he hasn't calmed down one bit. Perhaps time off can force him to realize that his editing practices are unsustainable for Wikipedia, and move on. seicer | talk | contribs 13:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not think this block should be overturned. Has the fellow actually come up with a coherent explanation, or even an apology, about how an IP that geolocated to an area very close to him came to edit-war vociferously for him, to help him evade 3RR and general scrutiny? He does have a history of disruptive editing, and there is no doubt in my mind that the evidence for abusive sockpuppetry is strong. Go back over the ANI thread, please. Moreschi (talk) 15:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Corticopia and User:Jcmenal

It appears that these two users are edit warring across a wide number of articles all having to do with North America. (The outlines of the range of the feuding can be seen most clearly on Corticopia's contribs page, where practically every entry is a revert of a post by the other user.) Also, from the similarity of their edit summaries, it appears likely that User:Supaman89 and User:Jcmenal may be the same person (see their edit summaries here and here), while User:69.158.152.173 and User:Corticopia may be the same (note the unusual use of "parasite" here and here.) Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 04:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I've placed notices of this report on the user pages of the three users and one IP I mentioned above. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 04:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'll just say that Corticopa has been doing this for a very long time. See the first June 2007 discussion and then following the November 2007 ANI notice, I put this comment on his page. From what I can tell, he never responds, reverts once a day for months at a time and then moves on to another article and does the same thing. Look at the silliness going on at the history of Geography of Mexico and at Northern America (disambiguation) from November to January (one revert a day, back and forth month at a time and the only discussion is from a single sentence he made 3 months earlier of his opinion). I'd say it's approaching the point for a topic ban or something. -- 05:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

(undent) FYI, the comment that started all this edit warring from Corticopia was from Talk:Geography_of_Mexico#Middle_America.3F.3F in October. All his edits are around the basis of the existence of a "Middle America" that he is putting in the articles. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Corticopa is clearly trying to game the system by moving slow enough to avoid 3RR. I suggest that we put him on revert probation and threaten to block him for being disruptive if he effects the same revert again. This is clear edit warring regardless of how fast he moves to do it. Lets ask him to stop and see where that goes... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I should mention that I've had conflict with Corticopia once in the past, over the article Continental United States which resulted in his being blocked for 3RR violations, and that what started me looking into his edits again was that User:69.158.152.173 reverted that article back to a version favored by Corticopia from some months ago, ignoring all the work that had been put into the article in the meantime. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 05:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I've tried dealing with him myself and I'm almost at the "he's too much of a nuisance for any use" here routine. I mean, seriously, six months of reverting the article the exact same way one day at a time, all the while refusing to talk and refusing to acknowledge any of the ANI discussions? I'd just say a block for being disruptive, regardless of the technical 3RR violation (which is a limit, not a right). Personally, I'm too involved but open to someone else's view. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd favor revert parole or a topic ban. He's already been blocked for as long as one month and has eight unique blocks, so I don't imagine any further block short of indef would have much effect. ANI has seen previous discussions of Corticopia's editing here in June 2007 and here in November 2007. EdJohnston (talk) 15:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo fun

I removed a discussion from this talk page that was titled something like "So and so is a troll" and had developed into a very heated and substantially developed (in terms of length) argument over the last 12 hours. If some admins could take a look at it and help difuse atleast a bit of the situation. Grsz 11 06:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Since I was the person named in the "so and so was is a troll" section heading, and you chose to orphan that headline, which now acts as a personal attack-cum-anonymous billboard, and since you removed a lot of ontopic discussion which just happened to be amongst that discussion, what punishment do you suggest we should levy on you? Wouldn't it have been consistent to remove the headline as well? Why have you not answered my query about this on your talk page? What sort of removing of personal attacks is that? And how exactly are you diffusing the situation by calling for dishing out punishment? Blocking is a preventive measure meant to protect Wikipedia, and you need to rethink what it means to remove personal attacks effectively, without hacking away at meritorious content, or enshrining/orphaning personal attacks without attribution. --Mareklug ^talk 07:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Scarez

We seem to have a problem with this user and the only reason I'm here is because of a well-meaning user who's policing the AIV page. In any event, User:Scarez seems to be a bored little kid who has made all of four edits in more than two years and whose last edit was pure nonsense and reported as such. It has been suggested that I report it here. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 08:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• Never mind; we seem to have put an end to it. The nonsense is gone and I'm pretty sure the user's been scared off, at least for now. Later, all.  :) --PMDrive1061 (talk) 08:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Scaring off of users is rarely a good thing. The aim here is to tap users with a cluestick to get them to become productive, rather than scaring them off. ➨ REDVEЯS paints a vulgar picture 08:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it was intended to be a bad joke on his username. Orderinchaos 15:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skampoe

Resolved

 – Afd closed, article deleted and protected.--Tikiwont (talk) 10:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Can an admin please take a look at this AfD and associated article. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skampoe and Skampoe. There's a clear case for snow and I'm asking for someone to look into an early close because the article has started to get ridiculous with strange off-wiki picture links. I'm guessing some of this strangeness is related to this [38] and I think the sooner it's gone the better. I mean, really, "The exact location of The Notorious Skampoe has never been found although many claim to see him over the horizon every time he exhales. He often leaves clues to his whereabouts in the form of I BE WHERE IM @ This phrased has puzzled scientists from across the globe for years." It serves no purpose to leave the AfD open at this juncture.--Torchwood Who? (talk) 09:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

If it han't made it into AfD I'd have been inclined to go by speedy delete with {{db-bio}} or {{db-band}} or {{db-nonsense}} or maybe even {{db-vandal}}. Probably too late for that now though. Loren.wilton (talk) 10:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe not. There's nothing that says you can't apply an appropriate tag while an article is at AfD. I'm going to place a g3 on it and see what happens.--Torchwood Who? (talk) 10:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Too late, someone already closed the debate while I was tagging. The article is gone.--Torchwood Who? (talk) 10:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

EricBarbour

• EricBarbour (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I've just blocked EricBarbour indef for outing Coredesat on WR. I'm actually a little shocked it hadn't already been done, but this sort of off site behaviour is exactly what we shouldn't tolerate. A quick review would be much appreciated. Ryan Postlethwaite 11:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse. Unforgivable. Guy (Help!) 11:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse, agreed. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 11:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse. Such behaviour is, of course, completely unacceptable and we need to send out a strong message that such users are no longer welcome at Wikipedia. Nick (talk) 11:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse One of the worst threads I've ever seen there. Completely and utterly pointless. Majorly (talk) 11:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
• Just curious what is "WR"? Jasynnash2 (talk) 11:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia Review, a Wikipedia criticism site. Majorly (talk) 11:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
    • thanks for that Majorly. Probably a page I won't be visiting :o) Jasynnash2 (talk) 13:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
• I went to the thread, and it says "How's that? Name's xxx, lives in xxxxx, went to xxxxx." - x's in original text. (I'm sure it originally had the name, or it would just be silly, but he seems to want to take it back) -- And WR user "One" says that it's on his homepage. Is it really outing when someone uses their real name and the nickname in combination everywhere else on the internet except Wikipedia? From WP:OUTING: Posting another person's personal information [...] is harassment, unless that editor voluntarily provides or links to such information himself or herself. I don't see how his open usage of the name on other forums and on Usenet doesn't qualify as "voluntarily provides". -- I'll also note, for the record, that User:Newyorkbrad, an arbitrator, and User:Lar, a checkuser, were aware of the thread, and could have taken action if they felt it was merited. --Random832 13:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Endorse, not because of the outing per se, but because he's obviously out to troll people. -- Naerii 13:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Now, this i can get behind. Besides, looking at his userpage, he clearly doesn't want to come back to help build an encyclopedia. endorsedon'treallygiveacrap - but, again, not on grounds of outing. --Random832 (contribs) 13:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Hungarian names

There seems to be a user, user:Rembaoud, who finds it necessary remove Slovak names from articles and replace them all with Hungarian names. see [39], or [40], and see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Slovakia#This is really bad, according to the folks there, this person (or people) have been doing this for a while, and I think this needs administrative actions. The Dominator (talk) 13:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there a guideline something like WP:ENGVAR for languages? Orderinchaos 15:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

There is WP:NCGN, according to which the same name as in the title of the main article about the place in question should be used in Wikipedia's articles. This default rule has been repeatedly broken by user:Rembaoud despite a warning on his/her talk page. If there is a name consistently used by English sources to refer to a place in a historical context (such as Constantinople), this name can be used too. WP:NCGN also says how precisely we can identify such a name. In the case of user:Rembaoud's edits, no attempt to identify English historical names has been made despite encouragement on his/her talk page. Instead he/she simply replaced default official names by their Hungarian version. In the edit summaries, he/she claimed that reverting his/her edit to a version compliant with WP:NCGN would be "vandalism". Tankred (talk) 15:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Please read the sections Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Application of WP:NCGN and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Names in the lead before dealing with this. Maybe should try dispute resolution as suggested by someone at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Slovakia#This is really bad. Longstanding issue. Thank you. Squash Racket (talk) 17:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Removal of comments

Resolved

I wanted to go thru and restore these comments that were removed by Orderinchaos. They appeared neutral and are on wiki (transparent), so any removal appears disruptive. Especially since the editor removing the comments has already been engaged regarding this. For clarity I'm talking about the edits like this. I won't restore them unless there is a consensus here to restore them, I do not wish to war on them. Regards, NonvocalScream (talk) 14:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

They were canvassing - it was a clear case of sample bias, as was/is being discussed at the page where the discussion was taking place. 22 users were canvassed who had supported one side of the debate at some point in the last two weeks, to contribute to a "survey" whose questions were faulty and loaded, while at least 9 users who had expressed contrary opinions were not contacted. WP:CANVASS clearly says, under "Votestacking" - Votestacking is sending mass talk messages only to editors who are on the record with a specific opinion (such as via a userbox or other user categorization) and informing them of a current or upcoming vote.. This is almost a textbook case. There is no mention anywhere of neutral wording mitigating this.

That being said, I did overreact by getting into an edit war over it. It is not much of a basis of an apology to say for offline reasons I was having a bad night, but being told "please read up on what canvassing is" in an edit summary where I was reverted without even so much as a talk page notice by a fellow admin, especially when they had replied to a page where I had just quoted part of the guideline directly, really did push me past my tolerance point. In retrospect I would have taken two deep breaths, walked away from the computer, posted a strongly worded notice to the aforementioned admin's talk page and left it at that. Needless to say, I do feel a little silly having just done what I tell people I mentor never to do - should probably follow my own advice next time. Orderinchaos 14:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

This makes sense, and I think the best thing to do is for me not to champion for the reinsertion of those comments. Additionally I don't think this will happen again. Order, thank you for responding. NonvocalScream (talk) 14:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed - I've learned from it as well. (I did notice another section way down on the guideline which pretty much precludes what I did, I know now for next time. :/ ) I do apologise to anyone I offended with my actions this evening. Orderinchaos 15:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Dotsod1

Why no one welcomed this user? Special:Contributions/Dotsod1. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 16:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Because it is a tedious task. Why didn't you do it? Useight (talk) 16:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, he's not a new user given that his only action has been to file some AFDs... Don't recognize him yet, but I have watchlisted his talk page. Oh, and I welcomed him as well. I mean, AGF requires at this point that we don't take any action since he has done nothing wrong per se, but he doesn't look like a new user. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Incivility block - review requested, if you please

I know blocks for incivility can be a little controversial, so please review this one. See also here for more details. Moreschi (talk) 16:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

endorse. User was warned. User ignored warning and persisted in personal attacks. Seems like a good block to me.--Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Endorse. To be honest, I would have blocked him for the first one, which is far worse IMO. Black Kite 16:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, [41] is disgusting. -- Naerii 17:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that's nasty. Endorse, and ensure that he knows if he does something like that again he's out of here, I'd say. Racist statements like that are really beyond the pale. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Gruntlord socks

Resolved

 – most are already blocked, I blocked 6e and 6g

. NawlinWiki (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Compare Gruntlord6d (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Gruntlord6e (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). They appear similar. Gruntlord6d has been blocked, so if not already, please block Gruntlord6e. I notified Kralizec! about the vandal, but I haven't checked if anything had been done yet. Could someone either warn the vandal or block indefinately? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 17:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Also please look at Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Gruntlord6, they appear very similar, anyone want to file a checkuser/suspected sockpuppets report?. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 17:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism from Wikimedia Foundation IP address

Resolved

I reverted some vandalism just now from User:208.80.152.185, and was surprised to see that WHOIS shows this address as registered to the Wikimedia Foundation. Is there anyone specific that I should report this to? NawlinWiki (talk) 17:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• LIke this? That's the IP that shows when you make an anonymous edit through the secure server. 208.80.152.185 (talk) 17:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Am I the only one who sees a fundamental problem with that? So the secure server is basically an open proxy? EconomicsGuy (talk) 17:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • We're in the process of renumbering our IP space. I've added the new IP to the internal proxy whitelist, so the forward headers should now be properly processed. --brion (talk) 17:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

User:JeanLatore

Please keep an eye on "new" editor JeanLatore (talk · contribs). Comments such as [42], [43], [44] and [45] should not be tolerated. I've given him a WP:CIVIL warning on his Talk page, but the ease with which he roams throughout Wikipedia indicates that he's probably not really a new user. Corvus cornix_talk 17:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Notice of general interest

I have thought about doing this for along time, but the events of the past 24 hours have really put this into perspective for me. This is not the Wikipedia I joined four years ago. For a full list of reasons, please e-mail me, but otherwise...

• I quit

Do whatever there is consensus to do, whether that be protect/blank my user and user talk pages, desysop me or whatever. I gave my time and my edits and got nothing in return, not even respect. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the Dishpan!) 17:43, 2 April 2008 (UTC)