Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard

Note: The talk page should only be used for discussion about the way the noticeboard operates: what is appropriate to put on it, how to make people aware of it, who can post and why, etc. All general admin talk should go on the main page. Thanks.

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Choking on /3RR

>> This page is 381 kilobytes long. This may be longer than is preferable; see article size.

"May be longer than is preferable"? It takes 10 freaking seconds, on DSL, just to upload one preview (as section editing isn't always possible). This page is bigger than anybody should be expected to handle, just FYI. Femto 21:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

If there isn't a bot to handle this, there arguably ought to be. This sort of menial archival work is something users are too lazy to do, so pages grow and grow until it gets really bad. 3RR is so big that you can't keep more than a few days' worth before it balloons, but it's not like we really need more to begin with. JRM · Talk 21:16, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Why not Crypticbot or Werdnabot? Freddie _Message? 20:05, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I think I've done the last 10+ archives (you need to archive, and then modify the 3RR header to link it). Typically they get done once a week once the page gets to 100 reports. Arguably it should be done more often, and a bot sounds like a good idea. Anything more than 3 days old is stale, and people should *not* be discussing them on the 3RR page - they should do that on talk here. There is a fair amount of ill-discipline as people slang back-and-forth. Sometimes I delete discussion like that, if I'm feeling bored :-) William M. Connolley 14:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I just did an archive this morning. I noticed that Template:Administrators' noticeboard navbox all hadn't been updated in a while, so I updated that, too. Mangojuice^talk 16:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Ashkenazim

Dear Tbeatty:

You raise a very good point; we are being constrained by language. However, we are fated to write in English here, as it happens - and there is also a good reason why there is a single word for what sometimes seems to be separate concepts. The issue is that, according to some religions, one can be a member of a religion by virtue of one's birth or bloodlines. (In others, one's status may be determined shortly after birth, and changes may be very difficult; thus, for example, somebody baptized as a Roman Catholic would be seen as such by the Roman Catholic church even if he declared himself an atheist, or were to be excommunicated.) Many religions also state that membership in a religion is not simply a matter of belief, but also a matter of belonging to a clearly defined social body. There are secular Jewish nationalists nowadays - especially in Israel - who adhere strongly to the belief in a Jewish nation, with criteria of membership identical to those for the "holy people" defined by religion. An Israeli acquaintance of mine states matters in the following way: "Judaism is my religion, but I do not believe in it". Ethnicity is a different and much vaguer matter. Some inmigrants to the United States in the early twentieth century shared certain ill-defined cultural traits that persisted for a time even after some abandoned the religion. (Nowadays, many of the cultural traits have disappeared even among practitioners of the religion; thus, for example, very few people outside some very specific groupings speak Yiddish.) It sometimes makes sense to speak of a culture; however, if one is truly thinking of a culture, and not of something else, then it becomes very difficult to speak of membership; one can be a carrier of a culture to a greater or less extent, but it is not a binary issue. Part of the problem here is that people are projecting onto a living individual categories that may be descriptive elsewhere or at some other time, but not necessarily there and now. One hundred and fifty years ago, practitioners of Judaism in Eastern Europe did indeed speak Yiddish and live separately from their neighbours. This is no longer the case. When categories lose their descriptive value, they become a way to classify human beings in absolute ways that may be severely misleading as to their actual (and private!) backgrounds. The point is not that Perelman is a non-Jew, whatever that means; the issue is whether or not it is proper for an encyclopaedia - in particular, this one - to classify living individuals by blood, in ways that, furthermore, impose on them some particular religion. I would agree that, say, Marc Chagall had a Yiddish background (as much as that involves some radical simplifications; one could just as well say that he came from a small-town Belorussian background). As one moves to the present, reality becomes vaguer, and firm categories sometimes become acts of violence against the individual and against reality. Mind you, I, for one, have no objection to private persons' belief in such categories; rather, the question is whether such categories should form part of the general discourse. Perhaps we should all talk about the matter in the village pump? There seems very little here that is specific to Grigori Perelman. As far as I can see, he is simply a person who does mathematics, lives in Russia, and happens to have a typically Russian first name and a last name often found among descendants of Russian Jews. Some people in the press jump to conclusions from this last fact. So what? Bellbird 16:04, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Size

This page is 255 kilobytes long. This may be longer than preferable; see article size. Why can't we just archive all of it and cleam up the whole mess? Freddie _Message? 00:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Because there's lots of active, ongoing discussions. You can't just archive something in the middle of an unresolved discussion. --Cyde↔Weys 03:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

See WP:ARCHIVE. Isopropyl 07:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Problem with Archive 19

JA: I am only getting the TOC for Archive 19, but Archives 18 and 20 work okay. Jon Awbrey 20:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC) Worked okay on my other browser, must've been some kinda refresh problem. Jon Awbrey 20:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

user:AdilBaguirov making attacks

I merely point something out on the discussion page and user:AdilBaguirov attacks me and my nationality. He then insults my country men as shown here [[1]]

I mention something for academic reasons on Talk:Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic and he decides to attack me and insult me by attacking my nationality. Iran's human rights records had nothing to do and no relavancy to the subject at hand. Basically he was telling me to shut up becuase he did not like what I had to say. Good thing I am not a blind nationalist, I am upset though becuase it was clearly a personal attack. I reacted calmly and told him to keep comments directed towards edits and not editors.

It must also be noted that this user has almost consistantly been the subject of conterversal behaviour including uncivil behaviour, disruption, and ongoing edit wars. Here is one example of what he has been up to recently [[2]].

He really needs to cool down and be handled by someone. If the information I have provided needs further clarification, please do not hesitate in contacting me. Thank you. 69.196.164.190

Fixed a mistake in this article

Someone accidently added this page to the category "fictonal charcters that can fly" It was not vandalsim it was just a mistake. It was also kind of funny.--Scott3 19:36, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Wonky heading

Something's gone wrong with the heading for the first section on the page- I don't know if that's a reason for the imperfect archiving or a consequence of it, and I won't try fixing it myself. But someone in the know might take a look. Henry^Flower 15:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

3RR Archives

Forgive me if this has already been suggested and I missed it, but is there a reason to keep archives of the 3RR page? WP:AIV and WP:PAIN, both similar pages, are not archived, as there seems to be little need to. If the question of 3RR is controversial rather than a clear-cut violation, it should be taken to somewhere else on the noticeboard (as is the case with AIV and PAIN)... so I'm not seeing any significant benefit to keep these archives. Tijuana Brass^¡Épa! 22:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

...or is it that 3RR is considered consistently controversial enough to archive regularly? Forgot to add that in. Tijuana Brass^¡Épa! 22:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

There does appear to be a good amount of discussion and information in there and, when compared with WP:AIV at least, 3RR violations are frequently established users as opposed to drive-by anon's. —Centrx→talk • 01:26, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I see from above that there was discussion of archiving; if desired, I can set EssayBot II to do it (see below about ANI) and put it on whatever schedule is desired. The bot works from latest timestamp in section, so it'll take off whatever is older than [specified whole number of days]. Ping my talk page if it's desired. Essjay (Talk) 10:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

EssjayBot II

Per the discussion at BRFA, EssjayBot II is taking over the archiving of ANI; the short version is that Werdnabot is both currently unsupervised and having difficulty with sections that have === subsections. EssjayBot II will archive the page each day at 0:05 UTC (a lot of other bots run on the hour, so this will be nice and offset), and will archive any thread where the latest timestamp is more than 24 hours old. It looks at sections as a whole, so sections with === subsections won't be separated, and == sections will stay on the page until the === sections grow old enough for archival. For those who are concerned, the feeling was that 24 hours was long enough, as the one-archiving-per-day would prevent most from being archived at exactly 24 hours since the last comment. Additionally, the archive number will be automatically increased each Sunday and Wednesday, to keep archive sizes at bay; if this needs to be adjusted, it can be. Comments, concerns, and stabbings should be directed to User talk:Essjay, please. A first-run will be conducted momentarily. Essjay (Talk) 10:28, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Cool, good to have an archivebot —Minun ^{Spiderman • Review Me} 15:44, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

What's the right process for bringing things back when that makes sense? Should they be placed back on the page at the bottom, and deleted from the archive, or just placed back? or should we never do that but always start a new thread and give a link into the archive? ++Lar: t/c 15:17, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Jim Shapiro

It looks like almost half of this noticeboard is filled with the case of this Jim Shapiro article. Is it possible to move it to a separate subpage to prevent clogging? abakharev 23:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Template

Does anyone mind if I remove the advice on the template to add "reported by" and "result"? Reporting 3RR is already cumbersome and this just means more for people to type. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

As I've had no response, I'm going to remove it, as it seems unnecessary. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

How does it give anyone more to type as it's in the template automatically? I don't think having the user in the header is absolutely necessary but I don't follow your reason for removing it. Having the result in the header may be useful by making it easier to spot complaints that have been overlooked so I think it should remain. Fluffy the Cotton Fish 04:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean about it being in the template automatically. We now have to type who has made the report and the result. We didn't used to. So now there's more to type, and there was already a lot. Hence my desire to trim it back. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:03, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Refactoring eeping the AN readable

WP:AN and WP:AN/I are often difficult to read through due to the massive amounts of comments, many of which pertain to issues that aren't appropriate for either. Has anyone considered allowing for admins to refactor both, in a limited capacity, to improve readability? I don't have in mind any huge revisions, just moving misplaced comments to the appropriate areas when necessary. For example, if someone adds a note that a user is engaging in simple vandalism — which would be better listed at WP:AIV or elsewhere — then an admin can move the comment to the appropriate location and remove the section from the noticeboard.

It probably wouldn't result in a huge change, but it'd help — the noticeboards are such a free-for-all that any measure cleaning things up would make a difference. Tijuana Brass^¡Épa! 01:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

New incidents added at the top or at the bottom?

Unless I missed it (entirely possible!), the instructions at the top of the project page don't specify whether you'd like new incidents added at the top or at the bottom of the existing list. If this really isn't specified, can you (all) take a decision and edit the instructions portion of the project page?

Atlant 18:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a very good question, Atlant. As a matter of general practice, I would say that new subjects would go on the bottom of the page. Mostly, this is because the [+] tab at the top of the page ("Start a new discussion") will automatically append the new subject at the bottom. This would also mirror generally-accepted practice on talk and discussion pages as well. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 20:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me.

Atlant 00:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Change in template to WP:ANI page?

At the top of WP:ANI (and I believe other similar pages as well), there is a "see also" list of pages to refer to as potential alternatives to reporting matters at ANI. The first of these is Wikipedia:Policy_enforcement, which is described as "record user suspensions here." However, the Policy Enforcement page itself redirects to Wikipedia:Account suspensions, and that page says that it "is currently inactive and is kept primarily for historical purposes," and the content is months out of date. Should the cross-reference be deleted (or at least made significantly less prominent) here and on the other AN pages? Newyorkbrad 01:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Just posting again because no one's noticed this comment yet. I will flip a coin to decide whether to be WP:BOLD and fix it myself, or figure if no Admin cares it's not worth worry about. Newyorkbrad 15:05, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

3RR Noticeboard Format

I'm wondering why the Example is both at the top and bottom of the page but more importantly, nowhere on the page does it tell you to put new reports at the top or the bottom specifically. Right now they are going both place and its really confusing. Could someone fix this? pschemp | talk 14:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

This is the second such question in a week. The instructions say the template is on the bottom of the page and to place new entries on the bottom, but those instructions are admittedly unclear. I'm going to be bold and do the following to try to ease the confusion:

1. I'm going to remove the example from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRHeader, leaving the one on the bottom of the page.
2. Clarify the instructions a bit in the header to point to the right example.

I'm not an admin, but I was in the neighborhood. Hope this helps. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 19:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Much better. pschemp | talk 02:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Charlesknight

(moved to Wikipedia:Administrator's Noticeboard) --Nscheffey^(T/C) 02:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Help plse

Dont know what to do, dont want to cause trouble but i would like to do Wikipedia. i am a student, not form US but study here and use computer laboratorry. Want to get acct i mean create account on this computer but everyone here says i will be called a sockpuppet right away, that menas i am someone else and not me right away. help plse. Many people use this computer and we all called sockpuppets. Help? Sorry if I put this on wrong place I mean no harm just new to all this. so plse dont be angry with me. The address we all share here is 71.242.164.228 (Talk) and i dont know what to do to create accout and not be called this name sockpuppet which is not a nice name i think. Thanks. Hope [[]] causes a link because i looked at other pages and saw it so hope it is ok. thanks. i am very sorry if i wrote to wrong person or wrong page if i did would you plse send message to 71.242.164.228 (Talk) so i know what to do. thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.242.164.228 (talk • contribs) .

This was also posted to AN/I. 71.242.164.228 is an address which has been used by User:MathStatWoman - see here for more info. - David Oberst 19:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Policy Change Proposal (moved from project page)

Conversation thread removed — it has nothing to do with the operation of this noticeboard and is a misuse of this talk page. Not to mention our time(!) So, instead of entering a single 1,000 word edit, I should split it into 100 edits to meet the threshold? I dare say we are being trolled. El_C 03:55, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Just sounds naiave to me. Not a troll. You have to be really familiar with WP to troll effectively.--Light current 21:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Based on the contributions of that user, they are familiar with Wikipedia, jumping into all sorts of policy, process, and deletion discussions only one or two days after "joining". The faux naivete of the proposals would be part of the trolling. —Centrx→talk • 03:34, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Various images and their provenance

As I see you're aware, there is some concern that you are not the copyright holder of various images, including Image:Woman Pearl Necklace.jpg, and others. I'd like to request that you upload a self-picture of yourself (clothed) holding a sign saying "I took this picture for WIkipedia." That should be sufficient to clear up the copyright issues, and avoid their deletion. Thanks in advance. Nandesuka

I assume that this was directed towards User:Publicgirluk? As you may have seen from the conversation on WP:AN/I, the concensus was that this is not a prefered method by the community. Asking someone to prove that they are who they say they are goes against all of our assume good faith policy. It is up to the foundation if they wish to take this any further now, so let's just let publicgirl get on with editing. Yours, Thε Halo ^Θ 13:53, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it was misfiled, and I've since placed the request on her talk page. While I understand that some users are uncomfortable asking for confirmation of ownership, I'm not. It is every administrator's (and arguably, every editor's) responsibility to make sure that all contributions to Wikipedia are appropriately licensed. Concerns about copyright are not at all theoretical, and it is not at all rude or assuming bad faith to ask a contributor to provide proof of claimed ownership. Nandesuka 14:51, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe then, if you've no objections, you could also place your request on the AN/I section so that all other editors involved so far in this discussion can also comment? It seems a good idea to keep this ongoing discussion in the same place. Thε Halo ^Θ 15:05, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there's no reason to waste your vauluable time, and there is no reason I can't do it myself ;) I'll get onto that now. Thε Halo ^Θ 15:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Non_Disclosure

Wikipedia:Non_Disclosure
This policy proposal was written to handle external hacker site links;
for instance one found on Assembly_language.
However, the link in question has been removed by someone months ago...
There might be similiar links on wikipedia.
The spelling may need improvement; it might be too aggressive.

This is a policy proposal for a policy, which takes charge only of a tiny minority of articles. User:Yy-bo 19:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems an entirely needless policy; Wikipedia itself is under no obligation to honor NDA contracts to which it is not a party. *Dan T.* 20:28, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps, but there still could be a liability issue in Wikipedia providing a link to information that a third party has made available in violation of an NDA. It could be seen as "doing harm", or at least perpetuating the harm, to whatever entity "owns" the intellectual property. Crockspot 14:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

User *Dan T.*, probably you have not seen the particiualar page which was linked to from an article. If so, i assume you would agree removal of the link. Anyway, someone else has already removed the link. Usually, violations of NDA go together with usage of rude lanaguage, criminal information, hacker scene etc. I have not written the proposal for the sake of it, or to create something needless. User:Yy-bo 20:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy should describe existing behaviour as much as prescribe methods of dealing with situations. Can you give clear examples of occasions when this policy or similar circumstances have been used? If not the proposal is pure instruction creep and should be banished. The Land 15:19, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not want to link to an external hacker site, which uses poor communication (i.e. sexual jokes). I do not want to become personally. If the proposal looks a bit instruction creep, then it needs to be respelled. However, NDA's are substancial to the business world. If people use data, which has leaked out (by breaking an NDA), i do not think this is good for their future, gets them any job etc. Particiualary i am stating SEGA. They have stamped their manuals (for how to program television consoles) confidential. Nintendo recently has even has taken action against hacker sites. Such information, or links to it, can not be on wikipedia! If you ask why: It is violation of applicable law! Wikipedia is doing better to at least to know the law.

I am sorry if the proposal is too aggressive, too much instruction creep. Probably it is possible to spell it better. Have you read Non_disclosure_agreement?

In addition, i can write that some sites are definetively questionable, and the documentation tends to be quite incomplete (Sega genesis, playstation 1, Sega saturn). The only source (for programming knowledge) can be manuals released to the public (example Intel Pentium programming references). From what i know SEGA etc. don't want to continue developement for their 80's systems. Guess there are more cases of similiar NDA's. If the manufacturers one day decide to release an official documentation, then it can be included! For instance this applies to Amiga consoles, their documentation is not protected by NDA. User:Yy-bo 18:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Was

Was this appropriate? WAS 4.250 14:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The original comment would have been better on WP:ANI. The Land 15:16, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Make clearer that posts removed after 24 hours

I have posted here a few times, and I'm always annoyed when I come back and find that a post has been archived after 24 hours even when there has been no response. At the very least, it would be courteous to make clear at the top of the page that threads are likely to be removed after 24 hours even if there has been no response. I know that this is a very busy area, and that admins are overloaded, but there is a vicious circle operating here where failure to do things properly and courteously can increase overall workload later on when problems resurface. The particular case can be seen here. Thanks. Carcharoth 11:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. Let me guess. The Noticeboard has so much traffic that the talk page gets ignored? (No, I don't mean this seriously, just commenting while I patiently wait). Carcharoth 00:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

The problem is, it doesn't just have to be seen: it has to be seen by someone who knows the answer. I suggest contacting the individuals you were discussing this with and seeing if one of them knows. - Jmabel | Talk 05:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. I've done that. Do you have any opinion on/solution to the general frustration encountered by those who don't realise straight away that their posts to the administrator's noticeboard will be removed to an archive after 24 hours? Carcharoth 09:18, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Not really. This is probably the single most likely way to get an admin's attention, but in general once you've done that, it's best to move the matter elsewhere. If you propose where else to move it, yourself, you won't be at a loss as to where it was moved. - Jmabel | Talk 01:05, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

See above

Dear Tbeatty: I just made a lengthy post to your talk page - by mistake, I placed it towards the middle of the page, rather than here. Mind scrolling up to see it? Bellbird 16:05, 4 September 2006 (UTC)