Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive188

Call to arms

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion is in need of people to look at articles and comment on their fate. Nearly one-quarter of discussions need to be relisted for an additional five days simply because only one or two people have looked at the articles and commented. It only takes a minute or so to look at an article and see if it should be kept or deleted. Any editors (not just admins) who have a few minutes to spare are urged to stop by and help. MBisanz ^talk 08:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I second that. The backlog on AfD is large and getting larger. Gigs (talk) 20:22, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for telling us, I already look at some of the articles and I posted my comments. Unfortunately, it's too late at night and I'm too tired to look thorough all of them. Thanks,--Michael (talk) 04:53, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Cimbri

Hi, I am somewhat concerned about behavior from an administrator named Berig over an edit I made a few months ago. First, he assumed bad faith, by claiming I was a vandal despite the fact that I was updating the article to reflect similar information in the Sulla article, to which I probably should have gone farther. (The Cimbri were an important Germanic tribe during the late Roman Republic, their article said they arrived in 1000, so I assumed that editor meant 1000 BC. They were certainly in northern Italy at an undisclosed time before 150 BC).

Then he accused me of attempting original research despite the fact that fact was in those other articles, which he did again, the second edit putting him dangerously close to 3RR.

I can't speak for Cimbrian language, but I can say with certainty that the Cimbrian people were in northern Italy sometime in BC or BCE (whatever formatting is preferred), or alot of other articles and historians are wrong. That's not really the point here, that can be addressed on talk pages.

What i'm concerned about is an administrator, a person who represents this website, has behaved so poorly in this. Administrators should be paragons of what Wikipedia is supposed to be in principles like Assuming Good Faith and not edit warring. If my editing on Cimbrian Language escalated this, please excuse me. That wasn't my intent, and I was under the assumption that this fact was made clear on Cimbri and not necessary to be taken to the talk pages. I apparently was wrong, so that's why i'm here to avoid any further conflict while hopefully obtaining an apology for Berig's poor behavior. Spinach Monster (talk) 11:09, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

It's clearly OR to add "BC(E)" after the year 1000[1][2]. It is preposterous to claim that the speakers of the High German dialect called "Cimbrian language" come from people that settled the region 1000 BC. Even if there were a connection between the 2nd c. BC Cimbri and the "Cimbrian language", claiming that they settled there in the Bronze Age is plain OR.--Berig (talk) 11:14, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't it have been best if those claims (both of them) were backed up with reliable sources? When they are not sure of what they see, people naturally start to assume things. Spinach Monster, I don't think Berig was assuming bad faith, but when you see BC being added to an year that was actually hundreds of years after that, you'd think that someone was messing with it. If someone sees something being changed that they know definitely to be correct, it wouldn't occur to them that the user was trying to help but would assume that it is an attempt to add false information. That's why sources are needed. And btw, we don't use Wikipedia as a source. If this is the case, then a reference should be added to the article about the year (and for some other important points too if possible, since the article currently has none) to avoid problems like this again. If it is actually BC, then again a source should be added for the same reason. It won't be any use arguing about something if both sides don't have anything to back up what they are saying. Chamal ^talk 12:56, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) Note: Spinach Monster opened this thread six minutes after about the same time Berig started a thread over on ANI, so there are duplicate threads. --64.85.214.78 (talk) 13:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC) Scratched part of comment, it's hard to say when a user actually started a thread, only when they hit "save". --64.85.214.78 (talk) 13:15, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Trying To Clarify The Points Here

• "1000"

The "1000" edit was made several years before I came to the article. I had nothing to do with this.

• "BC"

What I put in was that the Cimbri were there in Northern Italy (to my fault, they were also in southern Gaul), in BC. I do not have sourcing for or against 1000 BC, so I left that alone, but I knew 1000 AD was incorrect since all of those articled, as well as articles where it is sourced like Gaius Marius say that the Cimbri were already there in the 2nd Century BC, 1100 years before 1000 AD. We can put in referencing or not, but that's not the real issue here.

• Berig's Bad Faith

Despite all those other articles, despite the five seconds it would have taken to either change 1000 BC to the 2nd Century BC (I had completely forgotten about this, but Berig edits these articles often), or even just congenially asking me what the edit was about, he just plain assumed I was a vandal because the fact that the Cimbri were in this area before he wants to admit goes against his views. That's the real problem here, and once he apologizes, we can move forward very quickly here. Spinach Monster (talk) 21:40, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

And what makes you certain that the "Cimbrian language" arrived with the Cimbri. Do you have a reliable source for this information, or is it your own analysis based on similarity of names?--Berig (talk) 21:43, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd ask the same for you, but that isn't the point here. your poor behavior is. Please apologize so we can move forward. Spinach Monster (talk) 23:27, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather remind you of WP:NOR and WP:RS. If you heed WP policy there's less risk that you make mistakes that are so extreme that they are interpreted as vandalism, as you did in this case. As Dbachmann said: "...just changing a date by 2000 years with an edit summary of "bc" and no other explanation is clearly out of line"[3].--Berig (talk) 13:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

(undent) As an uninvolved, non-admin observer I'm trying to see where Berig breached WP:AGF. As far as I can see the accusation is that Berig created a section heading titled "Vandalism?" on Spinach Monster's talk page - that doesn't strike me as a breach of WP:AGF but rather a query. If Spinach Monster isn't happy with being asked whether their edits are vandalism - and that question seems reasonable when confronted with an edit summary of "bc" - then perhaps they need to rethink their editing style? Even assuming bad faith, surely there are other venues for this discussion - numerous talk pages, WP:WQA, etc - it's difficult to see why this merits admin attention, other than the tired "OMG an admin was rude to me!" which seems to migrate towards WP:AN for reasons I can't fathom. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 13:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Well as an uninvolved Admin (just to lay my cards on the table, not to use it as any claim to authority), I see the problem here as misuse of the term "original research" -- which can be taken the wrong way -- as well as a breakdown in communicating. What I believe happened was that Spinach Monster looked at this paragraph, found the date "1000" nonsensical, & reasoning that the original contributor meant "1000 BC" (which, to some people, would put it closer to the historical Cimbri), emended the passage. In that case, "bc" in the edit summary is an adequate explanation. Then Berig came along, believed that this was an error, but not understanding SM's reasons assumed he was trying to interject some idiosyncratic theory, & responded accordingly. Yet instead of explaining his reasoning clearly -- "Since the Cimbri had vanished by AD 1000, I assumed the original writer meant 1000 BC & made the correction" -- the matter quickly devolved into an argument over who had suffered the greater insult. (I assume that if he had, Berig would have then responded with some research to show that neither 1000 BC or AD 1000 really were tenable dates, & the discussion then would have focussed on how to improve the content.) All because someone tried to explain an edit as "original research", rather than a logical deduction that led to adding 3 characters to an article. -- llywrch (talk) 21:10, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes sense. So, wet slaps to both parties, and a suggestion that they take a step back and communicate better in future? Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 13:13, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Protected page request

Resolved

The title Pokemon Platinum is a fully protected double redirect. There's been a notice on the talk page for a while, but no one has noticed. Can someone fix it? Thanks. PhageRules1 (talk) 10:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Daniel has fixed the double redirect. Wikipedia:Requests for page protection can handle such requests in the future. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:52, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Synergy (talk · contribs)

Resolved

Legitimate accounts. MY stupidity never ceases to amaze me... ;)

I am somewhat concerend that Synergy (talk · contribs) has been creating several sockpuppets, Chaedeyjade (talk · contribs) , Alain2540 (talk · contribs), Jaszk (talk · contribs) and Brigade4 (talk · contribs) to name but a few. Can someone verify that these were user creation requests, or otherwise legitimate creations? Otherwise I am extremely concerened that WP:SOCK is being violated. Thanks, C.U.T.K.D ^{T | C} 15:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, I didn't realise this user was an account creator. C.U.T.K.D ^{T | C} 15:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

You sure you weren't Coached beforehand? ;) --64.85.214.236 (talk) 15:58, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

LOL! Pretty sure... ;) C.U.T.K.D ^{T | C} 08:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Synergy 18:34, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Articles created by socks of banned users

Just for clarification, what's the policy regarding articles created by socks of banned users? What do we do with them? If nothing, where's the deterrent? AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 23:13, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

If an article is good, keep it. Deleting good content only harms the encyclopedia? The fact that the user is an arse should not deter us from our goals.--Scott Mac (Doc) 23:17, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe {{db-banned}} should answer your question, particularly the bit that says the article has no other substantial edits by others. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 23:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Bobblehead. Hadn't seen that. Case closed. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 23:24, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

As ScottMacDonald said.. we really shouldn't be mechanical in deleting these things.. While some users are banned for reasons which might make it a good idea to delete the pages they've created.. (eg: known serial copyright violators, for whom CSD-G5 was created, and a small number of creepy stalker types), other articles should be evaluated based on what they contain. --Versageek 23:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Bear in mind that some banned users will make edits such as removing BLP violations, in the hope that other well-meaning editors will blindly revert and (potentially) be sanctioned. Remember you're responsible for every edit you make, even if it's a revert. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 00:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Some banned users do positive edits with a sock specifically so that they are reverted and the sock blocked so that they can then whine in other fora about how the Evil Cabal(tm) is persecuting good editors. The only solution, we found, is to be uniform in application of bans— if you are banned, then you may not edit regardless of what the edits is. — Coren ^(talk) 02:35, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Coren. Although on occasion I have informed the community and/or ArbCom in advance that a sitebanned editor I was mentoring had a positive contribution to make, and when no objection arose made that edit for the person. Editors in good standing who embark upon this take responsibility for the edit upon themselves, and the best way to do it is with proactive transparency. Durova^Charge! 03:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, edits by proxy (that is, an editor that proxies and not a technical proxy) are generally acceptable with the caveat that the editor that does the actual edit takes complete responsibility for it. Stating so in advance or through official channels (for instance, OTRS which sometimes performs important BLP fixes on behalf of otherwise banned editors) is the best way to avoid trouble. — Coren ^(talk) 03:33, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

An advantage of this approach (with a nod to Scott) is that it demonstrates the banned editor's willingness to work cooperatively toward the good of the project, and could foster their legitimate return to the project without drama. Durova^Charge! 04:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

That being said, there are a small number of users whose edits should be reverted regardless of merit, most notably because they use their editing (which may prima facie appear to be neutral or harmless) to intimidate or provoke the subject of the articles. Most administrators would be aware of at least one user who falls into this category, and all that's required is a private email to the user reverting to restore the banned users' edits explaining the situation and most issues are cleared up (in the end the banned users' edits tend to get oversighted anyways, to remove the intimidation opportunity for the banned user to point to the history of the article in their harassing emails). While this may seem like a random aside, I thought it was prudent to point out that there are a small number of exceptions to the above "rule". Regards, Daniel (talk) 09:46, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Those hardly seem like exceptions. All banned editors' edits may be reverted under policy. That goes doubly for dubious BLP edits. Durova^Charge! 16:51, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Criteria for summary deletion#Moved (speedy deletion boldly renamed)

A discussion is ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Criteria_for summary deletion#Moved regarding the recent bold move of WP:Criteria for speedy deletion to WP:Criteria for summary deletion. –xeno (talk) 14:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Getting rid of speedy deletion? What next? You bloody youngsters with no respect for the traditions of this place. Bring back VfD, that's all I want to say. It all went downhill from when they changed that.--Scott Mac (Doc) 14:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

In our WikiWiki days, young whelp, we did not have them fancy-shmancy deletions either! We had to make due with just blanking pages. Uphill both ways! — Coren ^(talk) 14:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Kids these days eh? They've never seen a real edit war like the kind we used to have on WikiWikiWeb. — Hex (❝?!❞) 16:52, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I fucking hate twinkle. Wait, what was the question? --Ali'i 14:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you like Twinkies? Hiding T 15:05, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

No, they're dangerous. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 15:11, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Call it what they will, we'll keep doing it. DGG (talk) 16:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Should this edit summary be deleted, and if so how do I do it?

Resolved

See [4] - do we just leave that or delete it, and if the latter can someone talk me through it? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 17:56, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Nah, it's not a big problem, people do it all the time. As long as it's reverted, it's fine. ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 18:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

No need to delete juvenile vandalism like this, but for the future reference, you would just delete the page, then restore it by checking all the revisions (invert selection) and unchecking the ones you want to leave off. (WP:Selective deletion). –xeno (talk) 18:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Biographies with 0 external links

So I ran a database query to find all articles in Category:Living people that aren't redirects and that contain 0 external links.

It came up with 6,928 results, available here.

Quite depressing. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

N.B. A lot of results are not included in this query due to "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit", etc. counting as external links. So the number of unreferenced biographies is likely quite a bit higher.

I don't want to belittle your point at all and I thank you for this list which should prove useful, but I feel the method you used is not ideal. Biographies can be referenced using books (and hence ISBNs) which probably aren't counted as external links. Why did you check for external links and not for <ref>s? Admittedly, there would be some false positives too, but external links don't strike me as a reliable indicator for references. guillom 08:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

There's no way to easily track <ref> usage in the database, as far as I'm aware. And, yes, while you're correct that there are plenty of other ways to cite things, a sample of 60 articles from the list had 9 sections that could be considered references (though this was interpreted broadly including things like "Further readings" sections). Extrapolating, you'd have about 5,800 unreferenced biographies. And these are just the trivially-easy-to-spot ones. Pretty awful for a site as popular as we are. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that you sort them by article size, and post them somewhere onwiki to be worked on. Someone else can filter the list to remove all items with <ref>, ISBN/ISSN, or other means of guessing that they have sources. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:25, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the number is indeed much higher, since the ones I have tagged are for 99% tagged as stubs, which all have such an "external" wikipedia link. I'm not even halfway through these stubs, so these 5,000 articles in your list must be added to some 20,000 to 30,000 other unsourced BLPs, plus an unknown number of unsourced biographies of living people which are not yet in the cat:living people... Luckily, in my experience, most of these biographies are just unsourced, not problematic, but they still are a category which could do with a lot more attention. As Guillom points out, these can not be automatically tagged, but such a list like MzMcBride made is useful for anyone wanting to increase his edit count tag the problem and/or source unsourced articles. Fram (talk) 09:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

This actually sounds like a bot task to me. A bot could go through, checking for external links and <ref>s, and tag BLPs that lack them as Unreferenced. — Jake Wartenberg 12:27, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

A bot that could tag a subset of articles that are truly about living people and truly unsourced (with a minimal number of errors) would be useful, but I haven't seen a list that catches most of these articles yet. Then again, no bot will ever be able to correctly assess article like this (one month old) Roger Leenhardt: no external links, no refs, no categories, but a (primary) sourced BLP nonetheless... Fram (talk) 13:45, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm making a list of the results and I'll post them somewhere on wiki sorta like what I did with the last set of results from MZMcbride. It will take me about 5 minutes to setup. —— nixeagle^{email me} 18:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

See the following lists, each has 1000 entries on a page, with 25 entries per section. Go ahead and blank each section as it gets done... or do whatever you like with the list.

• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. —— nixeagle^{email me} 19:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Only 7000? That's not so bad compared to the size of Wikipedia. We need to take care of them of course, but it doesn't seem impossible. --Apoc2400 (talk) 20:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Category:All unreferenced BLPs has grown from about 10,200 to 10,887 in the past 2 weeks. It certainly is not improving. Kevin (talk) 23:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I originally went in and deleted all unsourced materials, to cut down on the number of total unreferenced BLP's. But some people complained, so now I'm reduced to just tagging. What other option is there available to cut down on this, outside of deletions for slanderous/contentious materials? seicer | talk | contribs 00:43, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

"What other option"? Well we could strengthen (or dramatically change, depending on your point of view) the relevant policies. There's a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Editing policy for instance. Rd232 ^talk 01:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

What we need is a "slow burn" not a speedy delete. Suppose we tagged all BLPS which lacked references, which began with the letter A with "this article will be deleted in three months from now unless referenced - don't remove the tag unless referenced". Then, next week, we tag all articles beginning with B, then C. That way we give three months for people to reference things - and we don't create a mammoth deletion spree on one day. Yet, at the end of 26 weeks, we are deleting everything unreferenced after 3 months. If we can get the backlog down to zero, then we can shorten the three months at a later date. The idea would to create a system which slowly closes the noose on unreferenced BLPs, but, if managed correctly should not have any good article deleted.--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm note sure that'll fly with "deletion". Maybe with either "PRODding" or "tagging for speedy deletion as A7". That way pending deletions are flagged in more standard ways (in addition to the proposed tags), and the actual deletion follows standard procedure. Rd232 ^talk 01:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

That will not work. If you prod, there's nothing to stop people removing the tag without regard to the sources. Further, if we were to start prodding unreferenced BLPs it would only give people 5 days - which means either salvegable stuff gets deleted, or everything gets untagged. No "standard process" is not going to work here. We'd need a new process that gives a lot of time - but changes they acceptability of unreferenced BLPs.--Scott Mac (Doc) 01:39, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a lot slower than I would advocate, we delete unsourced images after only a week, and some of the articles have been unsourced for years. That said, it's a lot better than keeping them forever. An addition to WP:CSD would do the job. Kevin (talk) 02:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Although it would need work to cover all the loopholes that I'm sure would exist, I'd support in principle a new CSD category along the lines of "BLP articles that have been unsourced for X amount of time". Three months sounds like a decent and generous cutoff time. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 13:10, 27 March 2009 (UTC).

I'm not so sure I could support something so stringent as these proposals. They seem a little too unbending in their applicability. Hiding T 14:48, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• I've created a list of comics creators at User:Hiding/ComicsBLP0els for WP:COMICS to work on. Hiding T 14:43, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• I pinged WP:ANIME too, and they're in the loop. While we're talking solutions, I wanted to ask, is this something flagged revisions could help with? I mean, the feeling at both projects is that these are people for whom sources exist, and who are notable with their fields, and I was thinking, is it not possible that we can sort of have a stub presented to the public whilst behind the scenes we kind of work up what we can source and so on. I appreciate that puts us at odds with "anyone can edit", but then is there an option to go off the beaten track from the flagged revision. You know how like with software you get those, um, what are they, nightly builds or something? And anyway, can't being the encyclopedia anyone can edit also be taken to mean that hey, you want to edit this, feel free. Copy it to your place and edit away? You know, like how software forks? I think Webalizer has forked a few times now, and that's the same principle, isn't it, that's GFDL I think? Anyway, probably this is something I'm once again behind the curve on. Hiding T 20:28, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

"Ramblers" rather than "Ramblers' Association"

talk to me 21:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

 – Malcolmx15 to the rescue--Fabrictramp

I very much regret I have messed this up. I should have moved the article Ramblers' Association to "Ramblers", instead of redirecting it. Now it is in a mess. Can someone help? Just, to recap, the article should read "Ramblers" (without quotes). Reason: the Ramblers' Association has now rebranded to Ramblers. Very sorry about this. Do need help. Dieter Simon (talk) 00:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we are sorted now. Would you have a look and see if it is as you intended? --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 01:20, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's just as it should read, many thanks, Malcolmx15. Dieter Simon (talk) 01:49, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Persistent vandalism of Earwax article

The earwax article has been subjected to persistent vandalism for over 6 months from (probably one) user in and around Connecticut. This user is well aware that the material they re-insert into the article has a fake reference (see Talk:Earwax#Lip_Balm). Now resorts to defacing user pages as well. What can be done? This is causing a HUGE amount of work for editors.

Summary of disruptive edits

• 64.108.171.211 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Vandalism only account - persistent disruption of multiple articles
• 64.148.0.162 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Vandalism only account - persistent disruption of Earwax article
• 64.148.11.246 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Vandalism only account - persistent disruption of Earwax article
• 64.148.21.198 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Vandalism only account - persistent disruption of Earwax article, with further attacks on personal userpages
• 64.252.13.142 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Vandalism only account - persistent disruption of Earwax article
• 64.252.183.101 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Vandalism only account - persistent disruption of Earwax article and others
• 64.252.44.24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Vandalism only account - persistent disruption of Earwax article
• 64.252.68.133 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Vandalism only account - persistent disruption of Earwax article, with further attacks on personal userpages
• 76.254.194.203 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Vandalism only account - persistent disruption of Earwax article
• 76.254.196.167 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Vandalism only account - persistent disruption of Earwax article

Cheers, Gobeirne (talk) 19:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• Seems to have been set off by our refusal to recognize that earwax is/was sometimes used as a lip balm, so I implemented the reference I suggested some time ago. –xeno (talk) 20:06, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Your wording is good - hopefully that will fend them off! Cheers - Gobeirne (talk) 20:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Ewwww, (but sourced). April 1 DYK, anyone? Durova^Charge! 20:13, 27 March 2009 (UTC
    • I will also keep a closer eye on the article, and apply protection if necessary. Thanks for reminding me of this. –xeno (talk) 20:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Why We Are Here

I don't even know if posting this here is kosher but wasn't sure where else to put it and so I thought, hey, what the hell. I wrote a quasi-philosophical essay in user space called Why We Are Here (WP:WHYHERE!) and maybe some folks will find it worthy of a read. One of the advantages of this essay is that it has a nice list in the middle of it. Everyone likes a good list from time to time, and if you read the essay I think you'll say "hey, that's a good list!" when you're done (in fact I predict someone will make that comment on the essay talk page - don't make me a liar!).

Sometimes it's good to step back and take a longer view of what this place is about, which is I guess in part what I was trying to do. My apologies if it's inappropriate to float an essay on AN like this, and if it's a violation of board policies I could certainly move this somewhere else. However I wouldn't have put it here if I didn't think it was the kind of thing that helps make Wikipedia not suck, as they say.

Have a good day fellow Wikipedians.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 12:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Very interesting subpage. :) Master&Expert (Talk) 21:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks M&E, and thanks as well to any other editors who gave it a read. Peace, Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:56, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Syjytg‎ - removal of sockpuppet and block status from userpage

Resolved.

This User:Syjytg user is evading a block and continually creating sock puppets to remove a confirmed sock puppetry notice from his user page. Per the user page guidelines, these notices are exceptions to the guidelines regarding removing warnings.

Is it appropriate to semi-protect this page to stop the edit war, sock creation and time wasting on this user page? I've been involved in blocking quite a few of the sock puppets, so I thought I had better ask for a neutral administrator to decide if it was right. Camw (talk) 05:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Full protected. It is a confirmed case, and as the account is indef blocked there is no need to edit it. Since the account is a confirmed sock, the notice should be left on the page. Nice work. Keegan^talk 05:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

AIV backlog

Resolved

 – 'tis clear. BJ^Talk 09:01, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Can an admin take a look at WP:AIV? Thanks, cab (talk) 07:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

AIV backlog

Resolved

 – PhilKnight (talk) 16:13, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

There is a backlog at WP:AIV. Could someone have a look? Momusufan (talk) 15:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Slight backlog at SPI

We have many cases that are in need of attention here. Would a few admins please donate their time to blocking some socks, and leaving a note on the case please? Much appreciated. Synergy 19:34, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Bring back RFCU!! Much simpler in my opinion. :-) Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 19:41, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

We get that often. But what we really need, is more admin activity there. You don't need to learn how to file a case, to block for me. ;)Synergy 19:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem in some of these cases isn't addie blocks; it's CUs taking a while to check. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Cardmaker)} 19:45, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The majority of cases, are for admins to review and decide if they would block per behavior, editing patterns, etc. We have fewer cases for a cu request, than for non cu attention. Synergy 19:48, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

That's because they took much longer time to investigate, yet given the same credit for finishing one case. It's been like that before SSP and RFCU merged into SPI, and it will stay like this pretty much till eternity. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

WT:CSD. Stop the wholesale Deletion of the Usepages of Indefinitely Blocked Users

I have started a thread to Stop the wholesale Deletion of the Usepages of Indefinitely Blocked Users at WT:CSD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

User:South Bay

This user, whose talkpage shows some very strange edits, has recently been supporting an awful lot of RfAs (including my own) with unusual comments, despite not knowing myself or - as far as I know - any of the other editors concerned. He's also asked soppy questions on ANI and given random barnstars... would someone mind taking a peep? Thanks. ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 06:35, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how anything you've mentioned requires admin action. — neuro^{(talk)(review)} 22:39, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Watchlist notice for date formatting and linking poll

It's suggested at MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-details#Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll to have a watchlist notice for the upcoming Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll. As it's scheduled to begin at 00:00, 30 March 2009, we'd need opinions on this as soon as possible. Cenarium (talk) 22:38, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll now open

The date linking and formatting poll is now open. All users are invited to participate. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 23:00, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Right to vanish and user talk pages

There's a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Right to vanish#User talk regarding what to do with user talk pages when someone exercise their right to vanish. Comments, etc. welcome. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Juvenile Deletionist

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive524 § Disruptive AfDing by user Juvenile Deletionist, and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive525 § Suspicious AfD'er

i think User:Juvenile Deletionist was completely mishandled. so the guy has a provocative username. why not ask him to change it before banning him? and closing all his afds? if they are bad noms you would think they would get enough keep arguments to stay around anyway. never mind the fact that the way they're being handled is inconsistent. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/'92 Subaru (song) has one non sock puppet user argues to delete yet the afd is speedily closed. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/321 (song) has two delete arguments by non sock puppets and that one is kept open? that second keep argument really made all the difference didn't it?

and the supposition that new users can't do afds is absurd. look at me. my first edits as Misterdiscreet were afds. if User_talk:74.137.108.115 registered a new account should we just pretend as though the edits they made under their ip address don't count any more?

heck - i have multiple email accounts - one for spam, one for business related communications, one for family and friends, etc. if that's perfectly reasonable why is it unreasonable to have multiple wikipedia accounts? so long as you don't attempt to bolster positions advanced by your other accounts it shouldn't matter. i will grant that this user did try to do just that, but that doesn't mean all the points raised at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Juvenile Deletionist are valid. certainly not the ones by, for example, User:ThemFromSpace. Misterdiscreet (talk) 18:38, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• He was trolling. His AFDs were being done with total disregard for the actual article content - he nominated at least one Grammy-nominated song with the same argument as the others. Being pointy is not the way to get things done. Tony Fox (arf!) 19:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• What Tony said. When you create large amounts of AfDs in a short time without regard to how notable the subjects actually are, then trolling is the only way of looking at it. Certainly, many of his AfDs were correct, but since most of them were non-notable songs they could simply have been redirected to the relevant album. Meanwhile, a significant number of his AfDs were of clearly notable subjects. Black Kite 19:47, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• (e/c)Creating a second account not tied to your main account specifically to nominate articles for deletion en masse is not at all perfectly reasonable, its disruptive and a violation of WP:SOCK#SCRUTINY. The provocative username was just part of the disruption. How about creating another account after that to vote delete on the articles that he nominated, then lying about it when confronted? How is that reasonable? Mr.Z-man 19:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • the sockpuppetry is not ok - even i agree with that. i'm not saying that User:Juvenile Deletionist is a saint - certainly some discipline was due, be it a warning on his talk page or something - i just worried that excessive discipline may have taken place. that said i was not aware of his more contentious nominations (i did not look at all his nominations) although i'm not sure that would have made a difference to me. anyway, i don't have a lot of personal investment in the matter - i just thought that a little more scrutiny in the sockpuppet case might have been in order and i am now satisfied that there has been sufficient scrutiny. Misterdiscreet (talk) 20:19, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
    • It isn't a matter of discipline. We aren't meting out punishment. It is a matter of stopping disruption. This was obviously an account used to troll AfD. Indeffing the account and moving on is the right answer. Occasionally people get a wild hair in their ass and want to go on a POINTy tear about their favorite subjects. The "scrutiny" section of SOCK is written explicitly to prevent that. Protonk (talk) 21:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism that survived for 29 months

Yes, 29 months, and as described here.

After deleting it, I noticed that some other challenged editor had been dicking around elsewhere in the article. I reverted that. Then I looked at his other edits: to only one other article, but that had been subjected to a long series of minor sillinesses at the hands of miscellaneous IPs, interrupted only by a bot.

But far be it from me to entertain the elitist thought that Wikipedia should not be the encyclopedia that anyone, of any mental age, should edit. -- Hoary (talk) 15:25, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

PS But then again it could be something entirely different. One of that first editor's deleted articles is "Omnigod", and it's actually rather well written. It starts: Omnigod is a fictional deity created as part of the fictional religion omnitheism. Both were created, with humorous intent, by Michael C. LaBossiere. Now, the latter is not only an eminently googlable name, it's also the name of the author of the person to whom that "plagiarized" material is attributed. And it doesn't end there; see this, in which "a philosopher" announces his intent to popularize the notion of "Omnigod" via Wikipedia. Which suggests to me that, like small children, a certain philosopher may have too much time on his hands. And autoplagiarism is still plagiarism, as any fule kno. -- Hoary (talk) 15:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, Wikipedia as the new choice for first publishing original work. -- Donald Albury 15:51, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Then how about a very much longer chunk that lasted over three years, and that was sporadically improved by various well intentioned people but which I have now deleted: British photography, from the suspiciously comprehensive and polished outset a mammoth rip-off of this book introduction. -- Hoary (talk) 16:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

We can't catch everything you know. (Also, there is no way to plagiarize (legally) your own work. If you own the copyright you can license it under the GFDL) Prodego ^talk 16:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd call it original research. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

OR maybe, but LaBossiere seems highly qualified and has a book out (published not by himself but by Continuum) in the area. Of course Omnigod is an insignificant neologism and his attempt to publicize it via Wikipedia was a waste of our time, but I have to say it's also a rather cool idea. May it thrive, together with the Flying Spaghetti Monster. -- Hoary (talk) 01:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, a lot is caught, by some excellent bot whose name eludes me. I believe that it takes unusually long new articles and googles for their content. Maybe it does this for unusually long additions as well. Whichever, it's very welcome. Do you happen to remember its name? I doubt that it was installed as early as 2005; perhaps some volunteer with great amounts of spare brainpower and time could develop a bot that looked through histories of older articles and googled for lengthy starts or major additions. -- Hoary (talk) 00:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

That'd be CorenSearchBot - it scans all new articles and lists them at Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations. Certainly keeps us busy - it's be useful if there were one which scanned existing articles, though. – Toon^(talk) 00:19, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

CorenSearchBot, that's it. I wonder if CorenSearchBot, or something like it, could also look at major additions of text to existing pages -- though I imagine that this would need a much more elaborate algorithm and bags of processing power. -- Hoary (talk) 01:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I think a bot scanning existing articles would be impossible, considering how many WP mirrors there are (as well as websites that plagiarize WP). Does CSB really not look at additions to existing articles, only new ones? That's interesting. I might throw together a bot based on CSB's source code to do that and see how much it catches and the false positive %age. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 01:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, there would be technical difficulties involved; I go into a bit more detail on my talk page where bbatsell was looking for its source. It might be coerced into being more useful for the task, if we find a way around the mirror problem.

Oh, and for the record, it can only look at new articles as a rule— mostly because of the very naive way in which it grabs the list of articles to check. — Coren ^(talk) 03:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be straight forward to generate an abuse log stream that logged edits larger than a specified size. Dragons flight (talk) 01:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I lack the skills to be able to contribute to any such effort, but I'm sure that it would be worthwhile and should like to be kept informed of any progress. -- Hoary (talk) 23:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

To respond to Hoary's original concern, viz. plagiarism that escaped notice for 29 months, let me recite the ancient dictum, which applies to Wikipedia: Ars longa, vita breva. -- llywrch (talk) 06:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Log checks for PRODs and CSDs

Resolved

 – Questions answered. hmwithτ 04:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

For my talk page histories I want to confirm that Diana Meszaros, Sessilee Lopez and Shana Zadrick are proper recreations of previously deleted work. I want to make sure I have properly marked the talk pages. I am not asking you to judge whether the new articles are notable although I believe they have all been created so as to withstand a notability challenge. I am simply asking for confirmation that the one line in the log that I can see is actually indicating that a previous incarnation of the page I have created once existed.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Since two articles were previously speedily-deleted and the other prodded, there's no problem with recreation, and your three articles do not have the same problems as the previous versions. Somno (talk) 03:47, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it your belief that these were the same persons as before though.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:51, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, all three. Somno (talk) 04:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

More title blacklist fuck-ups

.*[HНΉĤĦȞʰʱḢḤḦḨḪНҢӇӉΗἨἩἪἫἬἭἮἯῊЋΗᾘ\+-−ŧſⱧԋњһłƗ!]\s*([AΑÂĄĂÃÀĀΆẠẬẢẤẦẨẮẰẴẲẪẶḀǞǠȀᾼᾺᾈἉᾉἌᾌἊᾊἎᾎἍᾍἋᾋἏᾏÁÂÄÆÅǺ٩4]\s*)+[96]\s*[96].* <moveonly|errmsg=titleblacklist-custom-pagemove> #HA99ER 1

This line prevented a legitimate page-move as it matches the year 1469. The "\+-−" matches the number "1" because it is (and most other characters are) located somewhere between the plus sign and the en dash. But seriously there's no reason I should have to test each one of these to see which is creating a problem. This information needs to somehow be included in the error message. — CharlotteWebb 08:30, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

It's intentionally removed from the system message to prevent vandals and other evildoers from easily circumventing the blacklist. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:38, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

But mostly this makes careless mistakes more difficult for "good-doers" to fix. Be a good sport and remove the line since I took the trouble of finding it. I have to wonder what the hell we'll do if vandals suddenly decide to move pages to titles that are more eh… normal-looking… — CharlotteWebb 08:46, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Removed. --MZMcBride (talk) 09:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

For future reference, I've got a program that can test titles against the blacklist to see which rule is the problem, or test new rules to see how many false positives they'll generate (that one was generating a false positive every two weeks or so). --Carnildo (talk) 09:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm I'd suggest putting it somewhere the rest of us can download it but whether it would be more dangerous in the hands of Grawp or NawlinWiki is debatable. — CharlotteWebb 09:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The source code is available at User:Carnildo/wiki-regex-tester.pl (a version written in Perl) and User:Carnildo/wiki-regex-tester.c (a more accurate version written in C). I don't think making the testers available will be a problem: anyone wanting to bypass the blacklist already has a tester in the form of Wikipedia itself. --Carnildo (talk) 09:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Trying to get PCRE to compile will be more than half the fun I'm sure. Got binaries?™ — CharlotteWebb 10:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Got Linux? --Carnildo (talk) 22:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I've just thrown out a load of accidental character ranges, apparently people keep copying them around without much thinking. There's currently an awful amount of redundancy in the titleblacklist.
Changes there should really go through some review first. --Amalthea 01:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The way the blacklist works is that whenever a pagemove vandal comes up with a new naming pattern, NawlinWiki adds a blacklist regex that he thinks will stop it. At some point (usually eight to twelve hours later), I spot the addition in my watchlist and test it against the existing page titles. If it generates too many matches (between 1000 and 10,000, depending on what's matched) I revert his changes. This is far from ideal, but without his cooperation, there's nothing I can do about it. --Carnildo (talk) 04:49, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Questionable user page

Resolved

 – Userpage delete & user warned. hmwithτ 05:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Leighmason2003 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be using wikipedia for personal purposes. User page does not appear to have anything to do with wikipedia or this project. --Dual Freq (talk) 13:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, it should be deleted *but* no need to piss people off if it's simply a misunderstanding of wikipedia is for. How about we give him a few hours to copy it and then delete the page? or delete the page now and let him know that an admin will provide a copy? --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:24, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the user page must go but I didn't want to delete it without giving some warning, I've also left a note on the user's talk page. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

A likely sock

Resolved

 – Thanks gwen, sock blockedBali ultimate (talk) 20:00, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

New user Bildstit (talk · contribs) has jumped right into AfD's, with mad formatting skills for a "new" user (see his first ever edit [5]) and odd behavior. He nominated Henry Hübchen (an article i recently started) for deletion, despite the fellow having one the German equivalent of the academy awards. He then stripped out all the sourcing from the article, including citations to the New York Times and The New Yorker's David Denby. He then has gone around !voting "keep" on blatant advertising like this [6]. I would bet the farm this is not a new user, and eyes on would be helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bali ultimate (talk • contribs) 17:11, March 29, 2009

• Quack. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:11, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Almost 100% sure to be a sock. No rookie will find AfD on their first day. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:39, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
    • They will if their own contribution is nominated. Could be an action out of spite. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:10, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
      • It is spite. Gwen Gale (talk) 01:38, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
    • I found, and participated in, VfD long before I had an account. Always remember that it does not require an account to read Wikipedia, including reading its project and help pages. It's the bad faith actions that are revelatory here, not the fact that the person knew about deletion processes before the account was created. Uncle G (talk) 10:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It has to do with likelihoods, is all. Most new editors don't make a dozen edits to XfDs almost straight off, so when this happens it bears looking into. Doesn't always mean there has been sockpuppetry but most often does. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:25, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I read Wikipedia silently for five years, until I got some (unwelcome) free time to do some editing, that's when I created an account. It's very possible that this user has been a lurker like myself for a long time, and created an account because you have to have one to create AfD pages. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 23:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Hopiakuta

Resolved

 – I will mentor user. –xeno (talk) 02:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Hopiakuta (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) What does anyone else make of this users contributions and talk page. User just created this page. I noticed it and then stumbled onto this Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Wiki_editor_DonFphrnqTaub_Persina which presuambly was never transcluded into the actual AN page or there would have been a lot of head scratching. Talk page filled with loads of un-wiki related text and musings. Lots of nonsensical postings and wanton abuse of wiki syntax notably with the unecessary insertion of spaces around every double bracket and wikilink. Has been blocked before for disruptive editing and as a result of the gibberish. Mfield (Oi!) 04:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

What the... //roux   04:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Ha, that's pretty much where I was with it. Mfield (Oi!) 04:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not gibberish or vandalism. He has a disability as discussed here and here and generally does decent work here. There's nothing wrong with what he's doing. Assume good faith, folks. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, his page was never transcludated because his web reader cannot handle a page of this size. Is there an actual problem here? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Nope. It just happens every six months or so with this user since most aren't familiar. Marking resolved. Keegan^talk 04:26, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec) No one was not assuming good faith, hence asking the question to see if anyone could shed any light on it rather than warning the user for it. Maybe A some GF on that eh? There is nothing wrong other than the potential for the users contributions causing confusion and leading to these kind of questions getting, evidently repeatedly, asked. One of the previous discussion mentions that the user had "Please do respect my disability access need." on their userpage, but there is no sign of that now. You seem to be taking issue with the fact this editors actions have confused more than one person, and without any explanation that is only going to happen again and again. Now at least two more of us know. Mfield (Oi!) 04:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

My apologies. The tone was inappropriate. It's understandable. There are a couple of links to discussion at top of Wikipedia:administrators' noticeboard/Wiki editor DonFphrnqTaub Persina, which I hope people at a minimum would read next time. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

They aren't going to read it nor do they care. It's a shoot first, ask questions later mentality here, and primate groupthink dominates the discourse. This is what happens when children are allowed to have authority. Viriditas (talk) 01:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Slow down and steady on with who you are calling primates and children. I am not sure who you are referring to (and I can only assume, as you have replied here, that you are referring to comments above rather than below). I am neither a primate or a child, and I do care. I merely asked the question in the beginning as the user's edits raised some flags and their behaviour and contributions made no sense without this background that has since been provided. I did not see the links at the top of the subpage as the rest of it made no sense and it just seemed as though that box was part of it all. Whoeever added that box did a poor job if it was intended to be an attention grabbing device. This could probably all be avoided, along with consequent hassle to the editor in question, had someone ever thought to suggest putting a clear legible explanation on the top of the users talk page. In the absence of any such explanation, and on a faceless media with thousands of users, it is impossible to know or guess the users situation, something that is compounded by a history of blocks with summaries that leave no clue as to it either. Mfield (Oi!) 02:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with tagging the talk page, and I was just about to do it when the user was indefinitely blocked. At the time, I was looking at the templates in Category:WikiProject Accessibility and I was considering creating one that would fit into a "user talk" template style. But, do we already have these kinds of templates? Something like, "This user is legally blind and uses a screen reader that produces strange characters" or something like that? Viriditas (talk) 02:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Hopiakuta, Moved from ANI

Does Hopiakuta (talk · contribs) have any comprehensible, constructive edits? I haven't found any, and, to the extent I can read his comments, he has made no comments which do not violate WP:NPA. Should something be done? (I have not yet warned the editor, although I've reverted some of his clearly incorrect edits.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. But I still don't see a constructive edit. Even if his disability prevents him from understanding Wikipedia policies, he still doesn't understand follow them. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:40, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

He seems to be accusing a lot of people of stalking and vandalism. And why is he adding subpages to here, instead of to his User page? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 23:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment This editor is not productive. He just accused CapitalR of harboring terrorists because CapitalR disabled an editprotected tag. He does not make any useful edits, aside from creating a bunch of implausible redirects. Enigma^msg 00:46, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I've carefully reviewed this case, Hopiakuta's comments, and the other facts presented. Based on his edits, Hopiakuta is not contributing to the positive construction of an encyclopedia. Therefore, I have gone ahead and blocked him indefinitely. This block isn't because he has a disability, or because others are unwilling to work with him, or because he says things others disagree with, but because he has edited in a disruptive manner without redeeming contributions to the encyclopedia. MBisanz ^talk 00:56, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Noting further, revert wars such as [7], [8], [9] that are patently disruptive. MBisanz ^talk 01:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you. Also, should the WP:AN subpage(s) be deleted? Enigma^msg 01:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Pages to look at: [10], [11], [12], etc. Just look at his contributions to userspace and the Wikipedia namespace. Enigma^msg 01:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

No pages should be deleted, user should be unblocked, and other editors should be allowed to continue working with him. User felt provoked by multiple editors who were unable to understand his needs. I read the discussion on the talk page and understand why the user responded the way he did and recommend a cool down period and then an unblock. What you consider "productive" is highly debatable, and the user has been a Wikipedian in good standing for several years and deserves to be treated with more respect. The user has also brought the issue of what he calls handicappism to the attention of the site (a productive endeavor indeed) and this is something that needs to be looked into with more diligence. Viriditas (talk) 01:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I have to disagree there. This user was being disruptive. I don't think disruptive editors who don't contribute anything worthwhile should be given much leeway. Calling other editors vandals, liars, frauds, and stalkers and accusing administrators of "harboring terrorists" is unquestionably disruption. I support this block. Enigma^msg 02:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The user was reacting angrily on his own talk page to repeated comments about the effect of his screen reader, which most administrators are already familiar with given the archives. This is an expected human reaction and does not even come close to being defined as "disruptive", and given the users concerns with handicappism, the comments made by other users provoked the reaction in the first place. The user had every right to be angry after explaining this problem for three years with little help from actual administrators who either don't care or can't be bothered with the facts. Viriditas (talk) 02:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the user should be unblocked, although something should be done about the fact that other editors are put in a situation that they don't know, and can't know, the difficulties that this user faces on Wiki as a result of their disability. Everything should be done to accommodate the user, but something should also be done to make sure that other editors can know the reasons for the users unusual editing and make allowances accordingly. There perhaps needs to be a clear message at the top of the users talk page to explain the situation, not only to help other editors understand, but also to protect the editor himself from continual misunderstandings that result in unhappy situation such as this one. Mfield (Oi!) 02:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Before this user went on a long wikibreak, L'Aquatique (talk · contribs) was working with them. I would like to continue her work and have sought Mbisanz's blessing to unblock. –xeno (talk) 02:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll agree to the unblock as long as someone agrees to follow him around and clean up after his errors. If someone wants to be his babysitter, I'll not stand in the way, but if no one is willing to fix his mistakes on a long term basis, it is paramount to ensure the content is preserved. MBisanz ^talk 02:50, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks, –xeno (talk) 02:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Category:Proposed deletion as of 25 March 2009

Resolved

 – Backlog cleared. hmwithτ 04:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a heads up - there is a backlog of 144 articles at Category:Proposed deletion as of 25 March 2009. I've not been through all the PRODs but the ones I have have all expired, and need deleting. Cheers, GiantSnowman 23:39, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I have added the {{backlog}} template to the category; I hope this was the right thing to do. In other news the category went up to 148 (which is weird...) and then down to 133. Regards, GiantSnowman 00:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Working on clearing it right now... hmwithτ 03:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Much obliged! :) GiantSnowman 03:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This wiki has a problem

Resolved

 – User directed to village pump discussion. hmwithτ 02:48, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Just a heads-up, this is more of a technical than an admin issue, but just a few minutes ago, many pages were showing up with "this wiki has a problem". It would appear on some pages and not on others, and I attempted to log in during one of those problems. I changed my password as a precaution, and the problem appears to be fixed now. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 23:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#English_Wikipedia_brief_outage for more - in short, the database crashed, it's fixed, and there shouldn't be further problems arising from the same issue. — Gavia immer (talk) 23:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism that survived for 29 months

Yes, 29 months, and as described here.

After deleting it, I noticed that some other challenged editor had been dicking around elsewhere in the article. I reverted that. Then I looked at his other edits: to only one other article, but that had been subjected to a long series of minor sillinesses at the hands of miscellaneous IPs, interrupted only by a bot.

But far be it from me to entertain the elitist thought that Wikipedia should not be the encyclopedia that anyone, of any mental age, should edit. -- Hoary (talk) 15:25, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

PS But then again it could be something entirely different. One of that first editor's deleted articles is "Omnigod", and it's actually rather well written. It starts: Omnigod is a fictional deity created as part of the fictional religion omnitheism. Both were created, with humorous intent, by Michael C. LaBossiere. Now, the latter is not only an eminently googlable name, it's also the name of the author of the person to whom that "plagiarized" material is attributed. And it doesn't end there; see this, in which "a philosopher" announces his intent to popularize the notion of "Omnigod" via Wikipedia. Which suggests to me that, like small children, a certain philosopher may have too much time on his hands. And autoplagiarism is still plagiarism, as any fule kno. -- Hoary (talk) 15:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, Wikipedia as the new choice for first publishing original work. -- Donald Albury 15:51, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Then how about a very much longer chunk that lasted over three years, and that was sporadically improved by various well intentioned people but which I have now deleted: British photography, from the suspiciously comprehensive and polished outset a mammoth rip-off of this book introduction. -- Hoary (talk) 16:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

We can't catch everything you know. (Also, there is no way to plagiarize (legally) your own work. If you own the copyright you can license it under the GFDL) Prodego ^talk 16:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd call it original research. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

OR maybe, but LaBossiere seems highly qualified and has a book out (published not by himself but by Continuum) in the area. Of course Omnigod is an insignificant neologism and his attempt to publicize it via Wikipedia was a waste of our time, but I have to say it's also a rather cool idea. May it thrive, together with the Flying Spaghetti Monster. -- Hoary (talk) 01:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, a lot is caught, by some excellent bot whose name eludes me. I believe that it takes unusually long new articles and googles for their content. Maybe it does this for unusually long additions as well. Whichever, it's very welcome. Do you happen to remember its name? I doubt that it was installed as early as 2005; perhaps some volunteer with great amounts of spare brainpower and time could develop a bot that looked through histories of older articles and googled for lengthy starts or major additions. -- Hoary (talk) 00:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

That'd be CorenSearchBot - it scans all new articles and lists them at Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations. Certainly keeps us busy - it's be useful if there were one which scanned existing articles, though. – Toon^(talk) 00:19, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

CorenSearchBot, that's it. I wonder if CorenSearchBot, or something like it, could also look at major additions of text to existing pages -- though I imagine that this would need a much more elaborate algorithm and bags of processing power. -- Hoary (talk) 01:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I think a bot scanning existing articles would be impossible, considering how many WP mirrors there are (as well as websites that plagiarize WP). Does CSB really not look at additions to existing articles, only new ones? That's interesting. I might throw together a bot based on CSB's source code to do that and see how much it catches and the false positive %age. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 01:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, there would be technical difficulties involved; I go into a bit more detail on my talk page where bbatsell was looking for its source. It might be coerced into being more useful for the task, if we find a way around the mirror problem.

Oh, and for the record, it can only look at new articles as a rule— mostly because of the very naive way in which it grabs the list of articles to check. — Coren ^(talk) 03:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be straight forward to generate an abuse log stream that logged edits larger than a specified size. Dragons flight (talk) 01:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I lack the skills to be able to contribute to any such effort, but I'm sure that it would be worthwhile and should like to be kept informed of any progress. -- Hoary (talk) 23:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

To respond to Hoary's original concern, viz. plagiarism that escaped notice for 29 months, let me recite the ancient dictum, which applies to Wikipedia: Ars longa, vita breva. -- llywrch (talk) 06:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Log checks for PRODs and CSDs

Resolved

 – Questions answered. hmwithτ 04:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

For my talk page histories I want to confirm that Diana Meszaros, Sessilee Lopez and Shana Zadrick are proper recreations of previously deleted work. I want to make sure I have properly marked the talk pages. I am not asking you to judge whether the new articles are notable although I believe they have all been created so as to withstand a notability challenge. I am simply asking for confirmation that the one line in the log that I can see is actually indicating that a previous incarnation of the page I have created once existed.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Since two articles were previously speedily-deleted and the other prodded, there's no problem with recreation, and your three articles do not have the same problems as the previous versions. Somno (talk) 03:47, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it your belief that these were the same persons as before though.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:51, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, all three. Somno (talk) 04:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

More title blacklist fuck-ups

.*[HНΉĤĦȞʰʱḢḤḦḨḪНҢӇӉΗἨἩἪἫἬἭἮἯῊЋΗᾘ\+-−ŧſⱧԋњһłƗ!]\s*([AΑÂĄĂÃÀĀΆẠẬẢẤẦẨẮẰẴẲẪẶḀǞǠȀᾼᾺᾈἉᾉἌᾌἊᾊἎᾎἍᾍἋᾋἏᾏÁÂÄÆÅǺ٩4]\s*)+[96]\s*[96].* <moveonly|errmsg=titleblacklist-custom-pagemove> #HA99ER 1

This line prevented a legitimate page-move as it matches the year 1469. The "\+-−" matches the number "1" because it is (and most other characters are) located somewhere between the plus sign and the en dash. But seriously there's no reason I should have to test each one of these to see which is creating a problem. This information needs to somehow be included in the error message. — CharlotteWebb 08:30, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

It's intentionally removed from the system message to prevent vandals and other evildoers from easily circumventing the blacklist. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:38, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

But mostly this makes careless mistakes more difficult for "good-doers" to fix. Be a good sport and remove the line since I took the trouble of finding it. I have to wonder what the hell we'll do if vandals suddenly decide to move pages to titles that are more eh… normal-looking… — CharlotteWebb 08:46, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Removed. --MZMcBride (talk) 09:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

For future reference, I've got a program that can test titles against the blacklist to see which rule is the problem, or test new rules to see how many false positives they'll generate (that one was generating a false positive every two weeks or so). --Carnildo (talk) 09:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm I'd suggest putting it somewhere the rest of us can download it but whether it would be more dangerous in the hands of Grawp or NawlinWiki is debatable. — CharlotteWebb 09:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The source code is available at User:Carnildo/wiki-regex-tester.pl (a version written in Perl) and User:Carnildo/wiki-regex-tester.c (a more accurate version written in C). I don't think making the testers available will be a problem: anyone wanting to bypass the blacklist already has a tester in the form of Wikipedia itself. --Carnildo (talk) 09:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Trying to get PCRE to compile will be more than half the fun I'm sure. Got binaries?™ — CharlotteWebb 10:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Got Linux? --Carnildo (talk) 22:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I've just thrown out a load of accidental character ranges, apparently people keep copying them around without much thinking. There's currently an awful amount of redundancy in the titleblacklist.
Changes there should really go through some review first. --Amalthea 01:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The way the blacklist works is that whenever a pagemove vandal comes up with a new naming pattern, NawlinWiki adds a blacklist regex that he thinks will stop it. At some point (usually eight to twelve hours later), I spot the addition in my watchlist and test it against the existing page titles. If it generates too many matches (between 1000 and 10,000, depending on what's matched) I revert his changes. This is far from ideal, but without his cooperation, there's nothing I can do about it. --Carnildo (talk) 04:49, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Questionable user page

Resolved

 – Userpage delete & user warned. hmwithτ 05:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Leighmason2003 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be using wikipedia for personal purposes. User page does not appear to have anything to do with wikipedia or this project. --Dual Freq (talk) 13:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, it should be deleted *but* no need to piss people off if it's simply a misunderstanding of wikipedia is for. How about we give him a few hours to copy it and then delete the page? or delete the page now and let him know that an admin will provide a copy? --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:24, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the user page must go but I didn't want to delete it without giving some warning, I've also left a note on the user's talk page. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

A likely sock

Resolved

 – Thanks gwen, sock blockedBali ultimate (talk) 20:00, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

New user Bildstit (talk · contribs) has jumped right into AfD's, with mad formatting skills for a "new" user (see his first ever edit [13]) and odd behavior. He nominated Henry Hübchen (an article i recently started) for deletion, despite the fellow having one the German equivalent of the academy awards. He then stripped out all the sourcing from the article, including citations to the New York Times and The New Yorker's David Denby. He then has gone around !voting "keep" on blatant advertising like this [14]. I would bet the farm this is not a new user, and eyes on would be helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bali ultimate (talk • contribs) 17:11, March 29, 2009

• Quack. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:11, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Almost 100% sure to be a sock. No rookie will find AfD on their first day. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:39, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
    • They will if their own contribution is nominated. Could be an action out of spite. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:10, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
      • It is spite. Gwen Gale (talk) 01:38, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
    • I found, and participated in, VfD long before I had an account. Always remember that it does not require an account to read Wikipedia, including reading its project and help pages. It's the bad faith actions that are revelatory here, not the fact that the person knew about deletion processes before the account was created. Uncle G (talk) 10:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It has to do with likelihoods, is all. Most new editors don't make a dozen edits to XfDs almost straight off, so when this happens it bears looking into. Doesn't always mean there has been sockpuppetry but most often does. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:25, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I read Wikipedia silently for five years, until I got some (unwelcome) free time to do some editing, that's when I created an account. It's very possible that this user has been a lurker like myself for a long time, and created an account because you have to have one to create AfD pages. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 23:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Hopiakuta

Resolved

 – I will mentor user. –xeno (talk) 02:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Hopiakuta (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) What does anyone else make of this users contributions and talk page. User just created this page. I noticed it and then stumbled onto this Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Wiki_editor_DonFphrnqTaub_Persina which presuambly was never transcluded into the actual AN page or there would have been a lot of head scratching. Talk page filled with loads of un-wiki related text and musings. Lots of nonsensical postings and wanton abuse of wiki syntax notably with the unecessary insertion of spaces around every double bracket and wikilink. Has been blocked before for disruptive editing and as a result of the gibberish. Mfield (Oi!) 04:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

What the... //roux   04:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Ha, that's pretty much where I was with it. Mfield (Oi!) 04:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not gibberish or vandalism. He has a disability as discussed here and here and generally does decent work here. There's nothing wrong with what he's doing. Assume good faith, folks. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, his page was never transcludated because his web reader cannot handle a page of this size. Is there an actual problem here? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Nope. It just happens every six months or so with this user since most aren't familiar. Marking resolved. Keegan^talk 04:26, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec) No one was not assuming good faith, hence asking the question to see if anyone could shed any light on it rather than warning the user for it. Maybe A some GF on that eh? There is nothing wrong other than the potential for the users contributions causing confusion and leading to these kind of questions getting, evidently repeatedly, asked. One of the previous discussion mentions that the user had "Please do respect my disability access need." on their userpage, but there is no sign of that now. You seem to be taking issue with the fact this editors actions have confused more than one person, and without any explanation that is only going to happen again and again. Now at least two more of us know. Mfield (Oi!) 04:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

My apologies. The tone was inappropriate. It's understandable. There are a couple of links to discussion at top of Wikipedia:administrators' noticeboard/Wiki editor DonFphrnqTaub Persina, which I hope people at a minimum would read next time. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

They aren't going to read it nor do they care. It's a shoot first, ask questions later mentality here, and primate groupthink dominates the discourse. This is what happens when children are allowed to have authority. Viriditas (talk) 01:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Slow down and steady on with who you are calling primates and children. I am not sure who you are referring to (and I can only assume, as you have replied here, that you are referring to comments above rather than below). I am neither a primate or a child, and I do care. I merely asked the question in the beginning as the user's edits raised some flags and their behaviour and contributions made no sense without this background that has since been provided. I did not see the links at the top of the subpage as the rest of it made no sense and it just seemed as though that box was part of it all. Whoeever added that box did a poor job if it was intended to be an attention grabbing device. This could probably all be avoided, along with consequent hassle to the editor in question, had someone ever thought to suggest putting a clear legible explanation on the top of the users talk page. In the absence of any such explanation, and on a faceless media with thousands of users, it is impossible to know or guess the users situation, something that is compounded by a history of blocks with summaries that leave no clue as to it either. Mfield (Oi!) 02:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with tagging the talk page, and I was just about to do it when the user was indefinitely blocked. At the time, I was looking at the templates in Category:WikiProject Accessibility and I was considering creating one that would fit into a "user talk" template style. But, do we already have these kinds of templates? Something like, "This user is legally blind and uses a screen reader that produces strange characters" or something like that? Viriditas (talk) 02:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Hopiakuta, Moved from ANI

Does Hopiakuta (talk · contribs) have any comprehensible, constructive edits? I haven't found any, and, to the extent I can read his comments, he has made no comments which do not violate WP:NPA. Should something be done? (I have not yet warned the editor, although I've reverted some of his clearly incorrect edits.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. But I still don't see a constructive edit. Even if his disability prevents him from understanding Wikipedia policies, he still doesn't understand follow them. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:40, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

He seems to be accusing a lot of people of stalking and vandalism. And why is he adding subpages to here, instead of to his User page? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 23:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment This editor is not productive. He just accused CapitalR of harboring terrorists because CapitalR disabled an editprotected tag. He does not make any useful edits, aside from creating a bunch of implausible redirects. Enigma^msg 00:46, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I've carefully reviewed this case, Hopiakuta's comments, and the other facts presented. Based on his edits, Hopiakuta is not contributing to the positive construction of an encyclopedia. Therefore, I have gone ahead and blocked him indefinitely. This block isn't because he has a disability, or because others are unwilling to work with him, or because he says things others disagree with, but because he has edited in a disruptive manner without redeeming contributions to the encyclopedia. MBisanz ^talk 00:56, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Noting further, revert wars such as [15], [16], [17] that are patently disruptive. MBisanz ^talk 01:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you. Also, should the WP:AN subpage(s) be deleted? Enigma^msg 01:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Pages to look at: [18], [19], [20], etc. Just look at his contributions to userspace and the Wikipedia namespace. Enigma^msg 01:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

No pages should be deleted, user should be unblocked, and other editors should be allowed to continue working with him. User felt provoked by multiple editors who were unable to understand his needs. I read the discussion on the talk page and understand why the user responded the way he did and recommend a cool down period and then an unblock. What you consider "productive" is highly debatable, and the user has been a Wikipedian in good standing for several years and deserves to be treated with more respect. The user has also brought the issue of what he calls handicappism to the attention of the site (a productive endeavor indeed) and this is something that needs to be looked into with more diligence. Viriditas (talk) 01:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I have to disagree there. This user was being disruptive. I don't think disruptive editors who don't contribute anything worthwhile should be given much leeway. Calling other editors vandals, liars, frauds, and stalkers and accusing administrators of "harboring terrorists" is unquestionably disruption. I support this block. Enigma^msg 02:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The user was reacting angrily on his own talk page to repeated comments about the effect of his screen reader, which most administrators are already familiar with given the archives. This is an expected human reaction and does not even come close to being defined as "disruptive", and given the users concerns with handicappism, the comments made by other users provoked the reaction in the first place. The user had every right to be angry after explaining this problem for three years with little help from actual administrators who either don't care or can't be bothered with the facts. Viriditas (talk) 02:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the user should be unblocked, although something should be done about the fact that other editors are put in a situation that they don't know, and can't know, the difficulties that this user faces on Wiki as a result of their disability. Everything should be done to accommodate the user, but something should also be done to make sure that other editors can know the reasons for the users unusual editing and make allowances accordingly. There perhaps needs to be a clear message at the top of the users talk page to explain the situation, not only to help other editors understand, but also to protect the editor himself from continual misunderstandings that result in unhappy situation such as this one. Mfield (Oi!) 02:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Before this user went on a long wikibreak, L'Aquatique (talk · contribs) was working with them. I would like to continue her work and have sought Mbisanz's blessing to unblock. –xeno (talk) 02:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll agree to the unblock as long as someone agrees to follow him around and clean up after his errors. If someone wants to be his babysitter, I'll not stand in the way, but if no one is willing to fix his mistakes on a long term basis, it is paramount to ensure the content is preserved. MBisanz ^talk 02:50, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks, –xeno (talk) 02:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Category:Proposed deletion as of 25 March 2009

Resolved

 – Backlog cleared. hmwithτ 04:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a heads up - there is a backlog of 144 articles at Category:Proposed deletion as of 25 March 2009. I've not been through all the PRODs but the ones I have have all expired, and need deleting. Cheers, GiantSnowman 23:39, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I have added the {{backlog}} template to the category; I hope this was the right thing to do. In other news the category went up to 148 (which is weird...) and then down to 133. Regards, GiantSnowman 00:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Working on clearing it right now... hmwithτ 03:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Much obliged! :) GiantSnowman 03:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This wiki has a problem

Resolved

 – User directed to village pump discussion. hmwithτ 02:48, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Just a heads-up, this is more of a technical than an admin issue, but just a few minutes ago, many pages were showing up with "this wiki has a problem". It would appear on some pages and not on others, and I attempted to log in during one of those problems. I changed my password as a precaution, and the problem appears to be fixed now. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 23:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#English_Wikipedia_brief_outage for more - in short, the database crashed, it's fixed, and there shouldn't be further problems arising from the same issue. — Gavia immer (talk) 23:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I need some assistance

After recently dealing with DreamGuy in another page (and a fairly long and unpleasant history elsewhere in the wiki), I am coming here first. In Dan Schlund, the result of a few AfD's found first keep, and then no consensus. Despite this, a few editors (read: approximately two) have been trying to end-run the decision to keep by consistently redirecting the article to jet pack. Now, maybe I am mistaken - I often am - but I am not sure that people (even Californians) are jet packs. I am pretty sure that DreamGuy (and the other editor) are aware that humans aren't jetpacks, either. This has been pointed out within article discussion repeatedly, and yet DreamGuy (and another) keep redirecting the article. I have no real interest in the article (though the idea of flying a jetpack sounds pretty freakin' awesome), but I am concerned that two editors are taking it upon themselves to game the system to neutralize the effect of two different AfDs which decided to keep the article. I think that most redirects are done in good faith, but this one seeks to conceal the article in a nonsensical way.
Due to my often contentious contact with this editor, I would appreciate some guidance on how to approach this problem and this article, as any contact with this editor often devolves into being called a wiki-hound who "blind-reverts" and "OWNs" the article. I'd really like, just once, to have a conversation with him that doesn't turn into a rant by him. Help, please. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 15:16, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The essence of dispute resolution is getting input from the wider community. Archived AfD discussions are a good record of community consensus (or indeed lack of consensus). Although "delete & redirect" is always an option at AfD, the only editor I see suggesting that is the nominator at the second AfD, and there is certainly no consensus to do so. I can only suggest that all editors involved try further dispute resolution steps and try hard to assume good faith of others. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 15:34, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks like some WP:OWN issues to me. He redirected, you reverted. Fine that far. If he redirects again, he is being disruptive and he probably knows that (see WP:BRD). Seeing that the last AFD was without consensus, I'd suggest a RFC on the issue. SoWhy 15:49, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Sheffield, i should have noted that DG has redirected the article X times (before Philippe dispute-locked the article: 1, 2, 3 and after Phillipe removed the dispute-lock on the article: 4,5). I think I am not the only person who has found DG unwilling to work politely and professionally with others (which is why I have some history with him; I tend to react poorly to personal attacks). I am seeking a handle on how to interact with him that doesn't get him (or myself) in hot water; being under ArbCom civility parole, he has a lot more to lose than me. I personally don't like the guy, but I am not seeking his head on a pike. I just don't want to be relentlessly attacked again. I've left articles because of him, and know of at least two noobs who left the Project because of his tendentious behavior.

I am not sure that he will abide by the RfC, as he hasn't been willing to note the prior AfD's. If you folk genuinely feel this will work, I will try it, but I would like to confirm that this is the right approach. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 16:12, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth my experiences with Arcayne have shown him to be exceedingly difficult to deal with in any reasonable manner whatsoever. It doesn't surprise me that he has so many issues with so many editors. Erikeltic (talk) 17:03, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why so many people here assume that the person who reports an edit war is in the clear (not necessarily happening this time, but I've seen it in the past). Arcayne has a long history of edit warring and blind reverting -- in fact he has for years now following me to articles he's never looked at before solely to revert whatever I did. Arcayne not only has WP:OWN issues (he has pretty much single handedly blocked ALL edits I ever make to Jack the Ripper, regardless of how noncontroversial they are), he has WP:HOUND issues, and this report is just the latest in a long, long line of attempts to provoke controversy with me in the hopes that he can run off here to make a one-sided, deceptive complaint and get someone to take the bait and act upon it without checking into it first.

Current discussion on the talk page of Dan Schlund shows more people support a redirect that support keeping the article as is. The only reason it is currently an article at all is that some people who refused to accept that edit warred to have their way and happened to end up having that version there when the article was protected. I maintain that if there is no consensus that the version that should stay is the one that has MORE support, not the one that has less. This whole thing seems to be just a crass attempt to game the system to get their own way despite not having consensus and not having sources that meet WP:NOTABILITY standards. I specifically discussed the issue on the talk page and did not revert immediately after protection was lifted, but I wholly reject the article being held hostage by the people who do not even have simple majority, let alone consensus. DreamGuy (talk) 17:11, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. This is sorta what I was talking about. Note that precisely the sorts of comments I said would occur, are occurring. Again, the logic is inescapable: Dan Schlund is not in fact a jetpack. He has a single notation in the article being redirected to. Let me play it out for everyone, as I see the likely tactic here:

1. The editor sets a redirect for Dan Schlund to Jet Pack.
2. The editor would then remove the linking of the name in the Jet Pack article (calling it circular linking), thus removing the existence of the independent (and cited) article.
3. The editor then calls for yet another AfD, citing the fact that the article isn't being read (due to the redirect).

All in all, its a fairly simple and elegant plan, except for the fact that its one or two editors determining that they are smarter than the consensus (as created by two independent AfDs), and last time I checked, we don't work that way..

I have little desire to be drawn into responding to DG's inciting remarks. I've kinda said what I needed to. Unless DG is up to participate in an RfC, I don't really want to talk to him. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 17:43, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought I would note that I did not participate in either AfD; as I said, my involvement if only in regards to what seems a less than genuine tactic. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 19:06, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Wait, so you invent up this wild scenario in your head, have no evidence anyone plans on doing anything of the sort, no examples of me ever doing such a thing, and use that assumption of bad faith as an excuse to enter into an edit war with someone you have a long history of baiting and filing bogus reports on? Wow, just wow. DreamGuy (talk) 19:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The last AFD was a month ago. Nominate it again. Arguing that you think the first admin was wrong on the AFD and that the second no consensus should somehow total into a delete is ridiculous. I don't think it's notable at all but at least list it and get it over with. If the decision was wrong, nominate it again and get a clear consensus. It really shouldn't be that hard. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:18, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, everyone, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dan Schlund (3rd nomination) is there. Go for it. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:42, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I am hoping it curbs the behavior, but I have my doubts. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 19:57, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

A redirect is not the same as a delete. A no consensus vote in an AFD in no way means you can't redirect it, especially when more people are in favor of the redirect than opposed. But thanks for the relist if you'd rather participate there than on the talk page. DreamGuy (talk) 19:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not but you weren't merging all the information in the redirect, so there is a clear difference. An article on all people who use jet packs or something I'd be more sympathetic to but either way, an AFD should at least help settle things or just move on. It's not the worst article out there that's bizarrely survived AFD. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:28, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I have to say that DreamGuy's behavior in this matter is disruptive and uncivil. Compared to most of the BLPs I've checked out lately, this one is policy-compliant and no worse than harmless. Raising this big a stink because his view did not achieve consensus is detrimental to Wikipedia, and does more damage than allowing borderline-notable articles (if it is that bad) to stand. I find him very rude and uncivil. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you're aware of Arcayne and DreamGuy's long running conflicts. Arcayne has a habit of appointing himself law enforcement and neighborhood tattler over a number of editors. He's public asbout his actions in this regard to DG, and to me as well, and we're not the only ones. Arcayne finds things HE thinks are problems, provokes a bit more, gets something he can say was a reaction that concerns him, then runs to report it. Hilarity does not ensue, Drama slightly more so. Looks like the AfD should sort this out, and since it doesn't look like excessive edit reverting or any warring went on, it's just another scene in the drama. ThuranX (talk) 18:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if you had taken the chance to read the original post in this thread (canvassed as you likely were), but I had actually pointed this out quote clearly" "Due to my often contentious contact with this editor, I would appreciate some guidance on how to approach this problem and this article, as any contact with this editor often devolves into being called a wiki-hound who "blind-reverts" and "OWNs" the article. I'd really like, just once, to have a conversation with him that doesn't turn into a rant by him." Had you taken the time to read it a smidge closer, you'd have seen that I was asking for help in dealing with an editor with whom I've collided with before. Now, aside from having been blocked for your own actions at my reporting, do you actually have something substantial to add - I mean, aside from your own animosity? Frankly, for someone who's claimed to want to cross the street to avoid me, you seem to keep popping up. Hmmm. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 01:37, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

More to directly address this specific complaint, Hullaballoo Wolfowitz's actions on this AFD fall way short of WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF and include some statements that are simply outright false in an attempt to sway other editors' opinions. I don't know if he didn't bother to look into it beyond a quick glance or what exactly the cause is for the inaccurate claims, but he's certainly not in any position to complain about anyone else's behavior. DreamGuy (talk) 21:50, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe start a thread elsewhere about that. This isn't really addressing that. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 01:37, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

That sounds really familiar. It's comforting somehow to know that others have had to deal with this stuff from Arcayne too. Erikeltic (talk) 21:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Really? You've been called on something you've done wrong, too? Oh that's right, a sock/meat-puppetry investigation, and your own problems with incivility. Is there a reason you are stalking my edits, Erikeltic? Without a proven (ie, administrative) reason, that's fairly uncivil. You should go away. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 01:37, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, why am I not surprised by this latest bit of Obfuscation? The fact remains that you're a bully and you treat other editors like they're your subjects. You're very proud of your 20,000 edits and should be, but have you ever actually worked with anyone here and didn't get everything exactly the way you wanted without starting a huge blow out, opening up various investigations, abusing people verbally, etc.? My comments have nothing to do with me. They have to do with you and your smug and condescending attitude towards everyone you encounter. Erikeltic (talk) 12:16, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I am very sorry that you took offense at being looked down upon for gaming gthe system (ie, canvassing, meat/sock-puppetry). You might have noticed that this discussion wasn't about you. Re-read the actual initial post, and then kindly go away. I don't like you, you don't like me - the best solution is for you to go away. If you are the person I believe you to be, you will be blocked/banned soon enough. The converse it also true. Now, please go away; this discussion doesn't concern you. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 16:00, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

It has just occurred to me: you actually think I'm somebody you've dealt with in the past! Holy cow... no wonder you've been coming after me. All this time, I thought that this was just how you opperate. Fine then. I'm about to give you the benefit of the doubt here. Let's see what the SPI reveals, because I'm not afraid in the slightest. After that (when you see I'm no puppet) we'll continue our debate in Project Star Trek. Fair enough? Erikeltic (talk) 18:26, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't think you are someone I've dealt with before in another guise (it hadn't occur to me, either), and I am not "coming after you." You are an admitted meat-puppeteer, an uncivil editor who makes personal attacks, canvasses for causes and treats the wiki like a grudge match. My comment that begins "if you are the person I believe you to be" refers to this aforementioned behavior, and how it will lead you to an unhappy state. As for the sock-puppet investigation, awaiting the backlog is precisely what a number of editors are doing right now. until then, stop trying to reframe the question.

Now, assuming you will re-read the rest of my post, I don't see a real need for us to interact further. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 21:30, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Endemic issue?

(Undent!) Coming in from the AfD. Seems like an obvious keep to me. Regardless, it's not polite to blank and redirect a page during an active dispute. Especially if a AfD nomination has already failed (twice!). Dreamguy should get a slap on the wrist for this. LK (talk) 09:48, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

• There is a long history of slapping User:DreamGuy on the wrist which does not seem to have been effective. Please see WP:Requests for arbitration/DreamGuy 2 for some details of his past misbehaviour and the sanctions and blocks placed upon him. DreamGuy recently made a personal attack upon myself and another editor. I asked him to retract this incivility but he was defiant and repeated his attack. He recently reverted the article in question back several years, undoing numerous good faith edits and continues to edit-war in support of this disruption. This is not helpful to the other editors who are seeking consensus and compromise by reasoned discussion. Does this editor ever make constructive edits? Does he add value to the project? Colonel Warden (talk) 15:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I had originally just come here for some advice on how to best interact with this user, as I had previous difficulties editing in the same articles with him. From the above example, I am starting to see that simply applying the term ownership is putting it mildly. My God, DreamGuy just reverted out over a hundred thousand edits back to a previous version by himself?? It would be one thing if its just him and I (or him and a few others) having difficulties, or if the problem were occurring in one or two articles. However, this seems to be a recurrent theme with DreamGuy, and anyone who disagrees with him is subjected to scathing criticism, personal attacks and an utter lack of discussion and a complete refusal to follow consensus he disagrees with.

This would be bad enough with an average user, but DreamGuy is under ArbCom prohibition to not act in these sorts of uncivil ways and demonstrate a corrosive lack of cooperation. I think we are approaching critical mass with this particular user. thoughts? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 04:21, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't always agree with DreamGuy, but I tend to think of the user as a necessary evil/force for good and simply avoid all contact where possible. There's a number of users I adopt that approach with, and it tends to work out fine for everyone. I should imagine there's a number of users who do it to me. I think it's the second rule of dispute resolution. See if it works for you. Hiding T 13:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Reverting over a hundred thousand revisions of an article, back to one's own preferred version, goes a bit outside of 'necessary evil', I think. //roux   13:08, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Depends upon your point of view, doesn't it? Hiding T 13:16, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

← I decided to investigate the "hundred thousand edits" mention. I have no comment on the content or behavioral dispute. Relevant diffs:

• Undid revision 279580876 by DreamGuy (talk) revision 279580876 - revision 279465757 is 115119 revisions lost??!?!!?!!?
• 2 intermediate revisions not shown
• 4 intermediate revisions not shown
• 3451 intermediate revisions not shown

Flatscan (talk) 04:33, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• I'd cut some slack and assume someone thought you could subtract the revision numbers and the remainder would be the revisions "lost". Hiding T 11:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

  since this won't archive yet I'm willing to assume good faith on the mistake, but it really fails a sanity check – I wouldn't have bothered looking into it otherwise. Flatscan (talk) 23:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry, my reply didn't really convey the validity of your investigation, which dispelled an error and may be relevant for the future. Hiding T 11:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

So, what is the appropriate course of action here, considering that the issues tend to reoccur across a wide range of editors? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 20:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

• Have a read of Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, which contains the following relevant lines: The Administrators' Noticeboard is not the place to raise disputes over content, or reports of abusive behaviour. Administrators are not referees, and have limited authority to deal with abusive editors. Hope that helps. Hiding T 11:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Not so much, Hiding. I don't expect admins to serve as referees, or to take sides in content debates. In point of fact, I am not sure anyone brought any content issues to the fore here. Are you saying that reporting someone's behavior complaints should be sent to another board, like AN/I? Pardon me for getting a bit upset, but I fervently wish you folk would come up with a definitive difference between the two noticeboards and stick with it. At last request, I was told there was pretty much the same thing, except that AN/I was pretty much for more urgent issues. Now, its apparently something else.

One of the benefits of posting here is that admins tend to congregate and offer more cohesive insights into policy and how to help the human component of the wiki run more smoothly. I am having a lot of difficulty seeing those wise insights.

I initially asked for insight on how to deal with a troublesome editor. Then it evolves into a larger view of the DreamGuy's behavior as observed by a great many more folk who have the same problem with this very same editor. And yet nothing happens. Again. I mean, it almost seems like DG is protected from on high by the Prince of Darkness, or some people are unable/unwilling to see what appears to be rather clear problem, preferring to believe he is a poor, little lost lamb. Maybe that's an unfair assessment, but this has gone on for over a week, and I'm getting the impression that no one gives a damn. Which I find boggling.

If this is indeed the wrong forum, and AN/I is the right place, it should be ported over there, so that this gets no more stale than it already has. What I am not seeking is a referee. I am seeking someone (or several someones) to finally have that 'Eureka' moment and see that "hey, all this smoke? I think we have some fire going one". You can add the appropriate forehead slap if you wish.

This isn't DR, Hiding. This is some editors asking the admins for help with an editor who largely considers most of us to be far less intelligent than he is. DreamGuy is an unrepentantly uncivil personality. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 12:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

This is DR, Arcayne. You have a dispute with another editor. You need to resolve it using one of the methods indicated at dispute resolution. That page gives you a long list of appropriate venues and solutions. You need to pick one. This page isn't one of them. Reading your comments leads me to believe either disengaging, posting a report at Wikipedia:Wikiquette or going to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration are your best options. The arbitration committee are the body created to deal with behavioural issues, and you seem to indicate this is related to behaviour. You could also consider an rfc, but I've never found them to be of much use. Just to correct you on one thing, you quite clearly are asking for a referee, since you want someone to decide who is starting the fire. Speaking for myself, I can quite clearly declare I'm not interested in who started it, please work out a way to resolve it using the guidance we've compiled for such circumstances. Cheers, Hiding T 13:53, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

For Christ's sake, Hiding, this isn't about who started what. It's about the behavior of a single editor who thinks he knows more than every other one of us, and the utter failure of DR to work in the past. I mean, DreamGuy already has reached the apex of Dispute Resolution - he's under civility parole by ArbCom Enforcement, after at least two RfComments and Wikiquette Alerts failed to curb the same behavior being described here. He's been blocked at least twice under that ArbCom ruling; any other editor would have either left the project, been indef blocked from the project or would have learned how to deal with their fellow editors by now. None of this has happened.

This isn't about who started the fire - the fire has been raging for years now; it doesn't matter who started it. I am not the only editor who has problems with DreamGuy, so how his latest kerfuffle started is dilatory to the main problem. Continuing your fire metaphor, it appears that DG (judging from the reply below) is unwilling/incapable of seeing how his behavior isn't conducive to building articles - the point of the project.

So, if you are actually saying that this needs to go to AE, then say that, and I will address it there. Quite likely this is not too stale for them, and DG will dodge yet another bullet. The larger question here (and to continue the metaphor) is if there are so many bullets to dodge, maybe we should be looking at the reasons why dozens of established editors with years of experience are shooting in the first place.- Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 23:40, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not actually saying anything. <Now that's an open goal> The way I see it, it's your decision to make about how you want to resolve the situation. I'm simply stating that what you are looking for will not be found here. Apologies, Hiding T 11:36, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This thread is active again? Too bad nobody felt the need to inform me so I could defend myself against the latest ridiculous charges. Suffice it to say that Colonel Warden and Arcayne both have a long history of personal disputes with a great number of editors and making false accusations to try prevail in any dispute through gaming the system instead of actually working together. The revert of the Noah's Ark article was something initiated by another editor after several editors suggested it was the most reasonable step in the situation. The article had previously become a Featured Article but had slipped in quality over time so much that it became an article for pushing the POV of Biblical literalists, as agreed upon by a fair number of editors on the talk page and in the Featured Article review debate. Trying to portray this is some individual action of my own (with WP:OWNership accusations) against consensus is highly deceptive, and Colonel Warden certainly should know that, having participated in the talk page in question. Once it looked like the consensus changed I stopped reverting to that version. How this is supposed to be an example of problem behavior is beyond me... in fact it just goes to show the extent to which some editors will try to manufacture controversies. DreamGuy (talk) 12:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• I'll point you the same place I pointed Arcayne, Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. My first suggestion to Arcayne was to avoid all contact wherever possible, maybe you might want to consider that as best you can? Given, as I said to Arcayne, that I don't think this is the right place to bring a dispute, since we aren't referees, I doubt there is a need to defend yourself, again, because we aren't referees. But I'll probably follow my own advice and walk away now. Cheers, Hiding T 13:53, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Block my user

Resolved

Hello. Please block my user entirely from Wikipedia. I decided to leave this website. Nothing personally but I have to fight against my obsession. Please ban my account or I can't fight with my addict. Thanks. Big King (talk) 13:26, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I've deleted your userpage, as you have requested. Regarding the block, you may want to read Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/WikiBreak Enforcer. Greetings. --Tone 13:29, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, we don't block accounts on request, it just leads to trouble. You could try the Wikibreak Enforcer instead--Jac16888^Talk 13:30, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

odd, no ec--Jac16888^Talk 13:30, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I assume that you see no edit count when using a tool. If you check his contribs, you can see edits dating back to late 2008. I'm marking as resolved, as Big King's page has been deleted & he has been informed that we don't block accounts on request & provided links to manual blocking tools. hmwithτ 12:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

No sorry, I meant edit conflict, as in I didn't get one with Tone--Jac16888^Talk 12:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

userpage

is this user page okay User:Lauren_Kucera, I think that no--Musamies (talk) 15:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Any specific concerns? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 15:10, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

is it in wrong area, shall the text be in articel area, not in user area.--Musamies (talk) 15:22, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The user's been around for about 2 hours and has not even received a welcome message yet. Drop them a {{welcome}} and then a personal note pointing them to WP:USERPAGE. To the OP from the IP, AGF first. --64.85.215.213 (talk) 15:38, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Some users have a limited grasp of English. That doesn't mean we should go out of our way to confuse them with alphabet soup jargon. — CharlotteWebb 16:11, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Clarification: To the Original Poster from the Internet Protocol address, Assume Good Faith first. (Doesn't have the same punch to it.) --64.85.211.242 (talk) 06:03, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The userpage is fine for an active user. Lots of editors have their userpages set up like articles with an image. However, she has yet to make no contributions beyond her userpage, & Wikipedia isn't MySpace (as far as nonencyclopedic images in userspace go). Hopefully, she enjoys it friendly welcome notice and would enjoy editing to mainspace. hmwithτ 12:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Leland Yee

Resolved

 – Semiprotected & call for participation in this discussion attempted on talk page. hmwithτ 12:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

There has been a spat of edit warring going on at the Leland Yee article for a very long time. From the prior ANI discussion, it looks like a number of IP address are copying language directly from the State Senator's campaign bio and generally white-washing the article (even reverting clearly good edits like [21]). The talk page has indicated that these IP addresses are coming from the CA State Senate (although we cannot determine the exact office). As the article itself notes, this has been going on since September 2007. Could a checkuser confirm whether all the editing is coming from the same place and if so, any suggestions beyond semi-protection? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:48, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I semiprotected for a month. Someone may want to intervene with the parties to try and talk them out of the edit warring as well. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

How do you talk when one party has been using rotating IP addresses for over two years? Going back just three months, at least four editors (including myself) have been reverted those edits. Ah, well, I put a note at the latest's talk page, so let's see. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser request a little over 48 hours

Resolved

 – MZMcBride took care of it. hmwithτ 13:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I have requested for AWB and my request hasn't been answered by any admin 48 hours since. Can an admin process my request hereplease? Extremepro (talk) 06:43, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Which ones? --MZMcBride (talk) 06:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

AWB requests here. Extremepro (talk) 07:04, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Extremepro (talk) 08:11, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Name Change!

Resolved

 – Hatnote added. hmwithτ 13:02, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Can someone please edit the following page Baghdad College to change the name to "Baghdad College High School" to avoid conflict resulting from another higher institution for pharmacy studies also called Baghdad College. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.194.21.189 (talk) 08:25, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• Why? Baghdad College of Pharmacy is already at a different title. Uncle G (talk) 10:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I've added a hatnote to direct people to the right place. – Toon^(talk) 16:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the addition of a hatnote, as the pharmacy article is currently only one sentence, & there's no need to move anything. hmwithτ 13:02, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Star Pop 37

The user Star Pop 37 (talk page) is making all sorts of seemingly-random changes to article categorization. Sometimes he adds new categories (often inappropriate to the context of the article, or equivalent to the article title), other times he deletes categories without adequate explanation. The account was created today, so I'm not sure what to make of it. TheFeds 20:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I left another note on the talk page. I don't know if it's just confusion or deliberate vandalism. I think we've given the hint, so, if it continues, the regular warning procedure should go into effect. hmwithτ 13:07, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Error on news feed of main page

Resolved

 – Directed to proper venue. hmwithτ 13:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The "in the news" section has an entry that reads "The Pakistan Rangers and Elite Police retake a police academy in Lahore which had been seized by gunmen." It should say "that" not "which" - you use "which" after a comma or other pause-inducing punctuation, and "that" otherwise. Im.a.lumberjack (talk) 00:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a grammarian, but my understanding was "that" introduces an essential clause and "which" introduces a non-essential clause (which is what the clause at the end is). Guess I should go pull out my S&W. At any rate, this sort of discussion should be at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. Thanks! —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 00:56, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Error on preferences

I'm trying to change my preferences and it saying (401 Unauthorized) It is telling me that the request requires user authentication. The response MUST include a Authenticate header field (section 14.47).--Michael (talk) 01:50, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This is on Wikipedia? Section 14.47 of what?. John Reaves 06:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea. It looks like the problem has been fixed. I can change my preferences on Wikipedia.--Michael (talk) 06:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Odd. See WP:BUGZILLA if you'd like to make a report or search for similar issues. hmwithτ 13:11, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

A bit of a problem in Daybreak (Battlestar Galactica)

I thought I should come here seeking input about an admin I am encountering some odd behavior from. Were it any other user, I would simply wait it out in article discussion, however, I have had a prior bad experience with Edokter. Last summer, he blocked me after a disagreement in an article. While the block was resoundingly considered an extraordinarily bad move, and Edokter later reversed himself, I am concerned that we are again on opposite sides of an issue. Call it a case of 'once burned, twice shy'.
I removed some uncited information from an article, moving it to the discussion page in a section, noting that citation work needed to be done. Edokter has reverted this uncited material back into the article twice (1, 2) within the past twelve hours, and has already reached his 3RR limit (3) for the day.
Look, I am not looking for an edge in the discussion, and I certainly don't want anyone - myself or Edokter - to get blocked. I see an editor who happens to have the ability (though hopefully not the inclination) to block others when the convo becomes heated, and am concerned as I've been subjected to this before. I was hoping for some independent eyes on the article, please. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 03:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

While I think that most of this is content problems that could be dealt with elsewhere, the fact that Edokter has nominated the article for deletion because other editors won't include the outside references looks very pointy to me, and I'd certainly not be averse to a summary close on that. I'll weigh in on the talk page of the article with my comments on the rest. Tony Fox (arf!) 15:40, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I've closed the AFD, for the record. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate that, but I am finding Edokter's excuse for his pointy behavior and displays of extreme bad faith and ownership rather disturbing. He's an admin, and should absolutely know better. That is the second time I have seen this, and I've had very limited contact with him. I can only imagine what other wackiness lurks out there by him. Under what conditions do we de-sysopp an admin, since we aren't supposed to use the handle of the mop to roger those we disagree with. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 23:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, Edokter is still reverting in his preferred version (the one with the incited info). That, plus the dismissive tone of his posts in article discussion suggests that someone might want to step up and help remind Edokter that admins can get blocked, too. I came here because this seems a more apropos venue to discuss admin-caused issues, which rather means I need some assistance. I am nervous about dealing with an admin who fucked up a recent block, not wanting to have any of their inappropriate behavior splash on me. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 14:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

And you are still reverting AGAINST CONSENSUS! If there is any action going to take place, it should be you being blocked. — Edokter • Talk • 14:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

...and that is why I came here, as I knew a block threat from Edokter was forthcoming. There isn't a consensus for including uncited info - actually, how could there be? It's uncited.

As the edit-warring and uncivil behavior continued unabated, I've decided that the problem is more emergent than originally thought, and I have filed a complaint at AN/I. I've included a link to this discussion. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 15:10, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

And that is exactly what you intended, isn't it. Piss off someone long enough until he looses his cool, and you have won yet another battle. Why doesn't that strike me as suprising? — Edokter • Talk • 15:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

No, it really wasn't, E. It was expected that you would continue to use the article discussion, or seek out references for the uncited material you continued to add back in (and why you continued to do so instead of seeking out citations is anyone's guess). No one was trying to piss you off, and no one is treating this like a battleground but you. I didn't edit-war the article until I was at 3RR on two successive occasions. I didn't nominate the article for AfD because I didn;t get what I wanted out of the article. That was all you. And the bad faith stuff? Again, all you. Blaming someone else for your inability to behave is not consistent with the level of professionalism and courtesy one expects from an administrator.

This conversation should really take place only on the AN/I page, since discussion has been moved there. Therefore, this is my last comment on this subject here. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 16:10, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

FlaggedRevisions (sort of) poll has one day left

• Just FYI for those who hadn't already seen it (like me): Wikipedia_talk:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisions/Poll. The poll is set to close April 1. Not sure if that means 12:01AM April 01, but if so tomorrow is the last full day the poll is open for participation. Avruch ^T 21:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Lulz. Why is this closing on April fools? :) Protonk (talk) 22:25, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Aiyy, so that is what Conflicker is going to do, patrol revisions. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:28, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
    • It's timed to coincide with this. We haven't mentioned it before, but once the poll succeeds "flagged protection" will be renamed to "black flag protection, and will form part of an overall strategy of hastening the downfall of Western imperialism. Or am I a day early and a joke short for April fools? ;-) Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 16:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Brunodam...

Resolved

...was concluded yesterday, but the four socks have yet to be blocked. Could somebody have a look and do the necessary? Many thanks, AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 06:39, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Handled. MBisanz ^talk 08:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Much appreciated. Thanks :-) AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 15:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement or Sockpuppet investigations?

If I suspect that an ArbCom decision is being violated through the use of sockpuppets, where should I report it: Arbitration enforcement or Sockpuppet investigations? JFD (talk) 16:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest filing a CU request on WP:SPI and make note of that on WP:AE. -- Avi (talk) 16:49, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Concur. We'd need to review it, to determine if its in need of checkuser attention. If you need any help, drop by my talk page. Synergy 16:56, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

BEANS

Just a question for my own aggrandizement. Has the abuse filter lowered the incidence of page-move vandalism significantly (this is different from asking whether or not the filter has blocked a large number of attempted malicious page moves--I think I can look them up). I know we have a small # of admins who keep an eye out for this stuff, so I guess I'm looking more for anecdote than data. :) Protonk (talk) 20:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

From my experience, its hard to tell. For one, we don't actually know how effective measures like the title blacklist really are, since there's no log of what it stops. It could be 80% effective and we would never know because we only see what it doesn't catch. With the abuse filter, we actually see the hits and we can compare what it stops to what it misses. Also, pagemove vandalism tends to be irregular. Some times we might go a week with almost none, other times we might see 4 or 5 sleeper accounts in a day. So to summarize, I have no idea, and can't really offer much of an opinion :-) Mr.Z-man 21:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't each filter show how often it was triggered? I also guess that we could also wait a while and review the server dumps to see the proportion of edits which are reverts and how they change. Protonk (talk) 21:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

As a side note there seem to be several distinct move vandals. At least one seems to have engaged in probing activities and modified behavior to attempt to figure out the limits of the filters. But a subsequent attacker, with an otherwise similar MO, didn't employ the lessons that the first had clearly already learned. Dragons flight (talk) 19:28, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

1300 twitter.com links

Should we even have any of these in article space Other than the Twitter article)? --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Why not? Majorly talk 14:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

and Stephen Fry. Similar to official bands' myspace pages (in addition to the references) they can often be appropriate, so should be evaluated on an individual basis. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

What about articles using Twitter posts as references? Hermione1980 14:36, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Are they reliable sources? I think not. – ukexpat (talk) 14:42, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Even less reliable than are blogs. -- Avi (talk) 14:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Less likely to have proper research and sources, etc. It is more "stream of conciousness" posting than regular blogs, which may have links, research, and other information to help identify verifiability. -- Avi (talk) 19:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Why are they "less" reliable than blogs? That's all twitter is--a blogging service, albeit with a character limit of 140 characters per post. rootology (C)(T) 19:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Hold on, they are considered primary sources and if the account can be verified to be owned by the user, they can be used in conjunction with a secondary source. Example: Courtney Love is being sued by a fashion house for something she posted on twitter. Post the story + the link to the actual tweet and that would be a valid use. Like everything we do, there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to sources. spryde | talk 14:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be even better to have a secondary source saying that's what she said, although the link could be included. Unique situations like those would allow for them as references. hmwithτ 14:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

They should only be kept as external links in BLPs (not refs), and that's only if we're sure that they're official. We don't want any imposter Twitter accounts, just as we'd avoid imposter MySpace pages. hmwithτ 14:46, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Nah, I agree with spryde that at times they are going to be useful for sourcing in certain circumstances. Other than that, I agree they should be used only when it is verifiable that they are the official twitter account of the person to whom we are attributing them too. Hiding T 14:53, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I do agree with him that they should be used in certain, rare circumstances. However, if an artist says on his/her Twitter that their song reached #1, for example, we'd want to use a better source. hmwithτ 15:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Bingo. Twitter == Primary. It would need to meet verifiability + be included along with a secondary source (with the standard exceptions where we allow primary sources to be naked without secondary). spryde | talk 16:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Links:

• 48 in Wikipedia or Wikipedia talk space
• 420 in User or User talk space
• 65 in article talk space
• 20-ish links are in Twitter-related articles
• 3 in File space

That leaves almost 800 in our other articles.

<10% of our article links are to individual tweats such as this one. Most are to twitter feeds like this one.

If these are reportedly links to feeds or tweats belonging to the subjects of our articles, how do we authenticate that's what they really are?

Should we have some guidance for editors on their use? WP:RS, WP:EL and WP:V don't specifically address Twitter links and references. A quick check of Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk space turns up nothing in our formal policies or guidelines and just these few, brief discussions:

• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 29#Twitter.com?
• Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Twitter
• Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive51#John C. Dvorak
• Wikipedia talk:External links/Archive 24#Linking to Twitter pages

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:04, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The comment at Wikipedia talk:External links/Archive 24#Linking to Twitter pages looks like a pretty good guideline to adopt. The only example of a Twitter link that I think should be acceptable is the airplane crash item noted at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 29#Twitter.com?, but there might be others. --Orlady (talk) 18:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I've added a mention of twitter after mention of blogs at WP:V and WP:BLP. That should cover it, Hiding T 18:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

If we link to a subject's blog and personal website, why not Twitter? In particular for celebrities, their twitters ARE their blogs. There are almost weekly news articles of which celeb has what twitter for RS. rootology (C)(T) 18:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe we should just link to their personal website? If they can't be bothered to link to their own blog and twitter feed from there, oh well. I mean, we don't link to every section of a newspaper's website, do we? Hiding T 18:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Many don't have an official personal site, e.g. Ashton Kutcher, see here. His twitter is this. rootology (C)(T)

• Obviously if they only have one place to link, that's the place to link. But if they have five or six, where does it end? I don't think an external link to twitter should be automatic, but I think that's teh general consensus, no? Hiding T 19:33, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Rootology, I do agree. I think, in ELs for BLP, official Twitter pages should be treated the same way as their blogs and MySpace pages are. They're definitely relevant. hmwithτ 19:24, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

A "use common sense" rule should probably apply - if the nature of the article is such that an EL to the person's (in most cases) twitter site makes sense, so be it. If not, or if the person's twitter feed is mostly empty or unhelpful, then no. Twitter is still emerging - who knows if it will be ubiquitous, or just last year's fad. We may have to remove all those links a year from now if everyone's tweets go cold and stale. Wikidemon (talk) 19:29, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Note: I started an essay page (hopefully a future guideline page) for Twitter links at User:hmwith/Twitter. It needs many more eyes, & all of the help that it can get. Feel free to edit it! It's only in my userspace because it's hardly anything right now. I just created it as a central point for summarizing the consensus found here and on the other previous discussions linked on AN & that page. hmwithτ 19:49, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

User talk:Rbrim

Would someone be kind enough to step in and weigh in with an opinion on this? Seems like a good-faith account which has admitted from the get-go to sharing another account. The account is trying to add an article on some business software. The content is on his subpages and it looks (at least to me) to be OK with enough references. This one's a bit outside my pay grade.  :) Thanks ahead of time. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 22:56, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this proper for Wikipedia?

Resolved

 – Not an issue for WP:AN. JPG-GR (talk) 01:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I know this may be a bit ridiculous, but I just wanting to know if User:Mythdon/Signature, a subpage I recently made for myself is appropriate for Wikipedia in the eyes of users. It is a subpage to keep records of every signature I have ever used on Wikipedia. Thank you for your time. —Mythdon (talk) 01:45, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

DediBox range hardblocked (88.191.0.0/16)

DediBox is a cheap dedicated hosting solution operated by Proxad (France). I have hardblocked it since there are apparently some abused open proxies there. However, some bots operate from these servers and I expect some collateral. I have given IPBE to WP 1.0 bot (talk · contribs) and MystBot (talk · contribs). If an other operator complains, please give them the bit (don't forget to log it) and poke me so I can double check. -- lucasbfr ^talk 08:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest to block the range 0.0.0.0/0, since there are apparently some abused open proxies here. More seriously, you are hard blocking thousands of computers, just because there are a few OP in this range? What about all the legitimate users? Is it a standard procedure? 81.249.4.91 (talk) 19:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a range which only contains servers. There are few to no "legitimate users" in this range - the only way you'd end up editing from it would be if you were intentionally editing through a proxy, or if you were running a bot. Both of these can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Zetawoof_(ζ) 22:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I have been using wikipedia through a proxy on the dedibox network (with ssh authentification), and I don't see why one should make exceptions for legitimate users, instead of exceptions for open proxies. Each computer in this range has a fixed IP, so it should be fairly easy to hard block the few open proxies on a case-by-case basis. 81.249.4.91 (talk) 23:27, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm obliously not an admin, so I don't know much about blocks, but I read that on WP:RANGE: Administrators can block ranges of IP addresses (commonly called rangeblocking). Use careful judgement and make them as brief as possible; this can affect over sixty-five thousand IP addresses, potentially affecting millions of users. These should be reserved as an absolute last resort. Is it really an absolute last resort? 81.249.4.91 (talk) 00:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I guess that adding User:Lucasbfr/UKBlock-userbox on your userpage is the only answer I will get from you... At least it shows how much you care about the "Absolute last resort" policy 81.249.4.91 (talk) 01:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see your comments before now. I have seen hosting companies routinely blocked over the last year, and I think this is a good practice. I don't object to granting IPBE to people using closed proxies on these ranges. -- lucasbfr ^talk 13:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

AdSense Modules

Due to the continued slowness of donations, Jimmy Wales has asked me to test Google AdSense on a small number of WMF project pages. On the English Wikipedia this advertising will only appear on Today's Featured Article, initially. Most users of Wikipedia won't notice the change. Be advised, any administrator who interferes with the ad testing will temporarily lose their access. Thank you. Jehochman ^Talk 23:14, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I think this is worth 5.5 points. Perhaps the Romanian judge will be more generous. 203.213.2.194 (talk) 00:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Out of 100? :-) Hermione1980 00:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

What if the test fails? Paid membership? — Edokter • Talk • 00:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Please enter your credit card number here [________________] to edit this page. Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 00:41, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman, will the community get any say in this matter? A poll sounds good to me...matter of fact, lets start one! Tiptoety ^talk 00:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

$1 per edit sounds good to me... Jake Wartenberg :  Chat  00:51, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Teh Supportz Until It Sleeps :  Chat  00:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The joys of contextual advertising: User:Ameliorate!/ads

Nah, we need to charge $5.00 per edit. Remember, Wikipedia is srs biznus. J.delanoy :  Chat  00:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

~ Ameliorate! 00:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, there is a recession and all... :) seicer | talk | contribs 00:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• Add it too my userpage iMatthew :  Chat  00:58, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Outrageous! We can't have ads on Wikipedia!! However we can consider cost-saving ideas for Wikipedia, such as publishing it solely via Twitter. 140 characters per article would cut out an awful lot of waffle. OMG lolz my comment is over the limit... Rd232 ^talk 01:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Jeez, April Fool's Day is such a crock... – ukexpat (talk) 01:23, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Who's joking? Save tonnes of bandwidth, put all the photos at commons on photobucket. Gwen Gale (talk) 01:24, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes!! I love it! Can I put ads on my userpage and earn beaucoup bucks? Pretty please? I'd love to do it like a really bad, cliche-ridden radio ad. Oh, the fun! PMDrive1061 (talk) 01:38, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey, nice idea! We get paid for putting ads on our pages. We need more ads. Better still, we can replace userboxes with ads. Chamal ^talk 01:42, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Better yet, have ArbCom be able to give out fines for misbehavior; we'll only keep 20% for ourselves, so 80% goes to the Foundation! Incidentally, disagreeing with an ArbCom member is a finable offense. Just so you know. — Coren ^(talk) 01:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

No it's not. ~ Ameliorate! 03:11, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps admins could be paid to endorse products? I for one recommend Internet Explorer for editing, it is only three times more likely to crash than Firefox! Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:37, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Instead of charging per edit, we should just charge $29.95 for each page created. Then admins can come along and speedy the page for not correctly reflecting the pro-llama viewpoint (or anti-llama, if needed), and we can charge $29.95 to create the page again. However, if you get the premium article package, for just $99.95 (with a suitable portion going to the admin), not only will your article not get deleted, but it will be fully protected in your preferred version.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

This should be done quickly since Wikipedia, being "too big to fail," could be nationalized in a few months anyway. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:12, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Ha! This is the first thing here on Wikipedia to actually make me lol today! Kudos, Gwen! — Kralizec! (talk) 14:14, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Long-running problem with respect to New Rochelle area articles

Resolved

 – Nothing to do here.

— Coren ^(talk) 13:58, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Enough. Doncram, your willingness to assume copious amounts of good faith is commendable, but you have already been told by at least four different checkusers that the blocks are proper and warranted. This means they will not be overturned, nor will further enforcement of the ban be avoided. All of those accounts belong to the same editor or group of editors, are disruptive, and are banned. It was further agreed that Orlady is acting properly. There is nothing to be done because there is nothing wrong.

Now, a piece of advice to you: if you carefully read the responses below and in the previous thread, you will notice that the community's patience with your argumentation is beginning to fray. That you wish the best for those articles is obvious, but the manner in which you are doing so is disruptive. I would recommend strongly that you now step away from the horse carcass, drop the stick, and find something else to do. — Coren ^(talk) 13:58, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I stated a proposal on March 26 which was not much discussed, then closed on March 27 and archived at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive187#Proposal for unban, apology, amnesty for Jvolkblum and related others, and topic ban for Orlady. Perhaps my proposal was too complex, or there was some other problem with it, but the problem wasn't solved.

The problem, simply, is that multiple persons have been unfairly caught up in a huge sockpuppet accusations sequence, and that wikipedia editorship community of New Rochelle-interested persons is unfairly and meanly repressed. One real person did apparently behave badly, and was banned. In my March 26 proposal, perhaps I should not have proposed unbanning that person. But some or all of the recent participants, during the last year or so, are not that person, I believe. Only one person was banned. Others have been denied due process and any fair treatment, and have had no recourse to long and vindictive-like campaigns against them.

A number of Checkuser administrators chimed in, mostly missing the point that their past checkuser investigations could have (and did, I believe strongly) lasso in different persons. The reasoning included in the sockpuppet accusations, which played into the checkuser determinations as well, has often been really poor...just noting that the editor showed interest in articles in the New Rochelle area has sufficed. A minimum standard for application of checkuser investigation powers should include some evidence of wrong-doing, which is not present in many of the accounts caught up in this.

Symptoms of the problem include a huge history of article deletion proposals, by Speedy, Prod, or AfD, led in recent times by User:Orlady. For example Orlady AfD-nominated Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Holy Sepulchre Cemetery (New Rochelle, New York) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neptune Island (Long Island Sound). It is abundantly clear and repeatedly acknowledged that the articles are wikipedia-notable topics. The deletion campaigns cause more work for everyone, including for future wikipedia editors who do not have access to previous discussion of references that were part of the deleted articles or discussed in their Talk pages or edit histories. In these two examples, my arguments against deletion prevailed.

Symptoms include mean-spirited reporting of any practically any new account that touches New Rochelle area articles, to be checkuser-investigated, with no evidence of wrong-doing on the part of the account. Orlady has, in discussion, previously proffered that "Jvolkblum" could at any time start over in a new account and would not be banned if not abusing. Orlady has most recently reported a new user Umbarella, at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jvolkblum. The 3 contributions of that editor are fine. I am particularly troubled by the banning of User:Erin_cali70, which was an account never used inappropriately, and which I suspect was the attempt of one person previously caught up in the mess to do just as Orlady suggested. However, that account was caught up in the mess as well.

Symptoms include that, in at least one case, an editor that Orlady had disagreements with elsewhere came and edited a few New Rochelle area articles, and was immediately accused of being a sockpuppet of Jvolkblum as well. There is a wide circle of hatred involved here.

The main enforcing person involved is User:Orlady. Orlady tacitly acknowledges that she recognizes that more than one person is involved. Her enforcement-type actions show reckless disregard for fairness, in my view. In general, I think that the mess is the result of well-intentioned persons doing their best, but somehow it all not coordinating well. However, I take exception with Orlady's behavior in particular, and I do blame her actions as extending and expanding this mess.

Orlady, would you please respond to this question: Do you honestly believe that there is just one person behind all the accounts that have been tied by checkuser investigation to the Jvolkblum case? Specifically, do you not see at least two personalities involved, one behind Erin_cali70 and one behind the Flannery family name account?

Checkusers, would you please comment specifically on whether all accounts linked to this case are in fact the same person as the original Person A account. Also, specifically, can you please investigate and show links between Erin_cali70 and the Flannery ones.

I would welcome other statements, evidence on the general problem, if not the particular solution yet. Sincerely, doncram (talk) 02:24, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

"Not much discussed"? I count between 15-20 people in the discussion, most of whom got a nice laugh. You managed to get comment from multiple checkusers answering your questions and concerns. Have you chosen to ignore them? Not the answers you wanted to hear? How about everyone stop wasting time with this matter and pay more attention to keeping good people than coddling banned sockpuppets? —Wknight94 (talk) 03:00, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Thoroughly discussed previously with little support for Doncram's views. I don't see anything new to discuss. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, there was some support in the previous discussion for the idea that there is a problem here. For a start there is need to acknowledge that more than one different person has been caught up in this. One difference here is that I explicitly ask Orlady to comment--publicly this time--on whether or not she recognizes that there are more than one persons caught up in this. I think that is a key fact, meaning that some caught up in this have NOT been banned, yet their actions are criminalized. doncram (talk) 04:00, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Give it a rest, Doncram. It's OK for you to dislike me, but the vehemence with which you are continuing to pursue me is unbecoming to your online persona.

As for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Holy Sepulchre Cemetery (New Rochelle, New York) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neptune Island (Long Island Sound), those articles survived AFD because they were rewritten by other users in good standing, not because of your arguments against deletion.

I don't actually know how many distinct human beings are behind the "Jvolkblum" socks, but whether they are meatpuppets or sockpuppets is immaterial -- both violate Wikipedia policy. Not all of the 300 or so socks have shown the same behavior patterns, but there are plenty of similarities, and the associations have been confirmed by numerous checkuser processes.

You say that "Orlady has, in discussion, previously proffered that "Jvolkblum" could at any time start over in a new account and would not be banned if not abusing." My point was that if this person was truly interested in becoming a responsible Wikipedia contributor (including abiding by all policies and guidelines), s/he is clever enough to be able to do so without being detected. I did not mean to suggest that Jvolkblum should do so. --Orlady (talk) 04:19, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

First of all, I really don't dislike you, Orlady. I've thot you and i are getting along fine, after having some discussions about communication styles and all that. I do think you have been bullying the New Rochelle area users, and that is a bigger problem than any disagreements between you and me.

To clarify, could you please answer the question. Do you think this is one person or multiple persons? Do you think FlannerFamily is the same person as Erin_cali70, or not? If you do not answer more straightforwardly, I would ask for everyone following this to understand that you know there are more than one person caught up in this.

Also, I don't see how anyone, clever or not, could get around your watchlisting all New Rochelle area articles. doncram (talk) 04:27, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

In the original ANI thread, you showed what unfortunately stuck some users as a need for considerably more WP:CLUE. In this thread, you unfortunately add to that. The statement of "not much discussed" (above) is blatantly inaccurate. Your post was in fact considerably discussed, and the fairly clear consensus by a range of editors was that it was misinformed, and (sorry to use the term) even somewhat laughable. Your response is to ignore that, and this post is largely a rehash; the answers are therefore the same as those provided last time.

For example, Checkusers did not "miss" the point you mentioned. Instead, they are highly experienced and routinely take such issues into account in making their decisions, as clearly explained there.

Regarding the one account you highlight, Erin_cali70 is a clear sock of this banned user, and not some "different" person who happens to be confused with them. Rechecking I find there is a direct and exact fit between between Erin_cali70 and not just one, but multiple Jvolkblum socks. Technical data to verify this will be provided to any checkuser upon their request (I've provided it to one checkuser already for transparency, to comment as they see fit, see below). You were told this was the case about these socks in the original thread.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:28, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I confirm what FT2 has said about checkuser data. The data is sufficient to block for sockpuppetry. --Deskana, Champion of the Frozen Wastes 04:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

If a proposal is closed the next day, I would call that "not much discussed", either. Why was that discussion kept so short? Is there any reason to hide this discussion from the community of Wikipedia editors? I hope not.

I have followed the underlying discussion (or "case", as some like to call it) to a pretty good degree and I am also of the opinion that block/bans of certain user acounts (e.g.User:Umbarella) were applied without any disruptive activities emerging from these accounts. There are only three edits that are availabe to regular editors and the "deleted edits" (if there are any) are only available to administrators. Every user account should be judged by the edits that are made from it, whichever IP address they are made from. As far as I could follow this obscure "case", which is spread over different user talk pages and article talk pages, there is an origin to find, which seems to be User:Jvolkblum and maybe a few other users related to that same IP address. Their behaviour was disruptive to Wikipedia and they were blocked/banned for a good reason. However, in the recent past registered user accounts were banned/blocked from editing for no good reason, but just for sharing an IP address. I have read comments by checkusers or admins who recommended to just move on and not care about a single user. These admins and checkusers should be stripped of their priviledges due to misuse of their position.

Excluding an account with no evidence of wrongdoing is not what Wikipedia stands for. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that eveyone can edit. There is no reason at all to propose a block/ban for an account because someone has had a controversy with that user that they could not solve in a civil way by use of reasoning. Those editors or admins/checkusers who had nothing but a laugh at the topic disqualify themselves. I have read the comments and was astonished about the lack of depth in the remarks. Maybe it is due time to re-think and re-organize the whole system on Wikipedia that is responsible and able to block/ban users from editing, because the people in charge do lack the clear judgement and overview to complete the task. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that everyone can edit (I never get tired to mention this) and - in my opinion - there is no room and no purpose for people who like to play the secret police to feel "in charge" of something.

If there is a good reason to exclude an editor from editing, that reason should be made public for the community to decide, including all facts. If nothing bad has emerged from an account, there should not be random bans, that is against Wikipedia policy and that would encourage secret clubs to make their decisions only with some sort of internal consensus amongst themselves. I would not go so far to promote a topical ban for User:Orlady on the sockpuppet case mentioned above, but I would support a proposal to suggest to User:Orlady that she might stay out of this case indefinitely. I would also support that certain users unfairly banned or blocked in this case be unbanned/unblocked as suggested by User:Doncram.

User:Wknight94, I do not think that your comment above is very helpful. It is not you who decides who is good and who is bad, it is the community making this decision, and that is more than a few checkuser self declared Wiki-police helpers. Your mistake is to confuse a majority of opinions with a consensus. The difference is that in a consensus the quality of arguments is important, in a vote, the quantity of arguments is what counts. There are certain topics that can not be voted on but the best arguments win the race. Have you ever watched a cloud of flies landing on a piece of dog feces? Just because hundreds of flies eat from that pile would not convince you that this is a good food, right? And a million flies would not convince you more, right? Just one well formulated argument about all the bad stuff in there should be enough to keep you from even trying it. There we get closer to what the difference between the vote (quantity, millions of flies love it) and the consensus (quality, one expert has a good argument against the consuption and we all agree) is. So the number of 15-20 editors who had a laugh should not be mistaken as consensus.

In my opinion your comment above is not helpful at all. Sometimes I use sarcasm also, to draw attention to the topic. On occasion, that does not yield the fruits I hoped it would. But after drawing attention with sarcasm, I let useful arguments follow. Your above comment is just comprised of sarcasm and does not contain any useful argument. To use your own words, your above comment is "wasting time" for everyone as you seem to prefer hollow phrases over arguments in this discussion. doxTxob \ ^talk 04:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is it that so many of User:Orlady's statements start with "I don't know"? doxTxob \ ^talk 04:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

If multiple checkusers say that the users in question are socks, then there's really nothing to be discussed here - there's abusive socking going on, end of story. Jvolkblum is effectively community banned, and no amount of sockpuppetry is going to change that. I don't know why we're back at this again. Tony Fox (arf!) 04:58, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is this stupid discussion coming up again? As I said last time: Anyone who writes an article about New Rochelle, unless they're clearly an experienced Wikipedia editor with a proven track record, should be considered a sockpuppet of banned user Jvolkblum (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). It's a simple duck test. As an example, suppose I finally got banned from Wikipedia for being a bad editor and for having been a bad admin back in January. A week or two later, someone brand new comes along and starts writing articles about obscure buildings in Minnesota listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The mystery editor isn't Jonathunder (talk · contribs) or Appraiser (talk · contribs), but the mystery editor sure seems to know too much about Wikipedia policy and about how to put together an NRHP infobox. One could reasonably conclude that I was editing in violation of WP:BAN.

I'll say it again: There is no reason we need to have more articles about New Rochelle unless they are written by established editors who have no resemblance to being a sockpuppet. In fact, as I mentioned last time, is the encyclopedia really missing something by not having the articles about New Rochelle? It isn't missing anything by not having the NRHP pictures from Isanti County or Kanabec County posted, and in all likelihood, I'll probably never get the urge to post all those stupid photos that I took three weeks ago. Unlike Jvolkblum, who can't keep his filthy mitts off this site, I've lost interest. (But I don't qualify under that "keeping good editors" qualification, for reasons that became obvious in mid-January.) --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 05:01, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Anyone who writes an article about New Rochelle or any other topic should be a welcome contributor. You guys get the purpose of Wikipedia wrong and try to ban users just by the choice of their favorite topic. Wow! That is random discrimination for no reason. Elkman, you disqualify yourself with that comment. A discussion is not just stupid because you do not understand what it is about, by the way. doxTxob \ ^talk 05:06, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

PS - No, Elkman, Wikipedia depends on every information and to exclude New Rochelle violates the rules, that is like deleting your comments from the discussion. They lack usefulness but they still have a right to be heard. doxTxob \ ^talk 05:11, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The user name is "Elkman" Elkman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) -- Elkspeak is jus t a link to my talk page. And if I've disqualified myself with this comment, and if I've said something stupid and wrong, then just talk to your friendly neighborhood admin and have me blocked for it. I'm sure you'll find several admins right here on this board. Oh, and by the way, I, personally, have been ruled an unwelcome contributor. Just ask Wikipedia:WikiProject Professional Wrestling. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 05:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have seen my mistake and corrected your name. Very sorry for that. You see, that is how democracy works, you are unwelcome but still have the right to be heard.

Wow, a ton of comments in a few minutes, that is why I mentioned the fly metaphor above, just like that. doxTxob \ ^talk 05:14, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you disqualified yourself by calling (Changed my words: It is not helpful to call ...) a reasonable discussion "stupid", that is not how discussions work. discussions are an exchange of arguments to reach a solution for a defined problem. The problem has been well defined by User:Doncram but the responses lack substance. Your response to call the discussion "stupid" does not help at all to come to a solution. The number of opposing opinions has nothing to do with the quality of the discussion, please refer to my above comment about the flies. doxTxob \ ^talk 05:21, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I've stricken out the part of my comments that were stupid, unreasonable, disruptive, and just generally stupid. Since I'm generally disqualified from this discussion because I said something stupid, maybe I should just shut the hell up and mind my own business. In fact, since I'm a generally stupid person, clearly I have no right to participate in any sort of Wikipedia policy discussions at all. How's that? --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 05:32, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The quantity of comments has to do with the fact that i provided a courtesy notice to the Talk pages of commenters in the previous discussion.

To Elkman: I don't agree with that; I value your opinions elsewhere and here, now. I may disagree, however I do want you to participate.

I was writing to Elkman, that he must be kidding, right, that "As I said last time: Anyone who writes an article about New Rochelle, unless they're clearly an experienced Wikipedia editor with a proven track record, should be considered a sockpuppet of banned user Jvolkblum (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). It's a simple duck test." Unfortunately that does seems to be descriptive of what is going on, it is pretty much the attitude of Orlady and some others. Can some other people please say that is wrong? (To be clear: Elkman since struck out part or all of this, but the expression of that attitude is still pretty descriptive.)

Further to Elkman, you've made the point previously, that we don't really need articles about New Rochelle area's NRHP historic sites or otherwise, and that it would be easier to delete what's there and start over. I used to agree with that perspective, but it doesn't address what to do about the local or otherwise-interested users, who are sincerely just trying to create articles and get started in wikipedia. If it was just a job for u and me, far away, to create some coverage of New Rochelle historic sites and otherwise, I agree it would be simpler to start over. But it simply is not understood there, whatever is going on with the wikipedia administration over the New Rochelle area, and it is not possible to explain, because there is no defensible reason for what wikipedia administration (broadly, meaning us) have done. After we delete and restart all the articles, how then do we respond to their beginning to add useful-in-their-view additional pieces of information? Then what? Delete and ban? My point is it is not a solution to delete and start over, it doesn't solve the problem.

I find it painful sometimes to watch the local users somewhat naively-seeming, recreate the pages, and show that they were saving copies, and go through machinations to restart them. They have the right to do that, and should be allowed to do so, but they get swatted down. This is the ONLY area of dispute in all the 30,000 or so NRHP articles U.S. nation-wide, as far as I know. It is everywhere else agreed/accepted that articles can be created about local historic sites, etc., and a good deal of toleration for local new users learning the ropes about reliable sources and all that. It is only here that articles are repeatedly deleted, any edits not meeting Featured Article standards gets deleted, and anyone editing them gets blocked. The problem is no longer the original Person A; the problem is the continued enforcement, probably no longer having any effect on that person, who I suspect is long gone. doncram (talk) 05:49, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) To User:FT2 and User:Deskana: Thank you for revisiting this and commenting. I think you are well-meaning but I don't think your private re-investigation actually addresses the substance at stake here. Yes, I understand that, while one checkuser at first cleared the Erin_cali70 account, then you and/or another checkuser did find links. But links to what? To several accounts previously linked into the Jvolkblum mess. It is apparent to me that more than one real person has been caught up in this, including that person previously. So there is indeed a set of accounts associated with that person. Also, the recent IP editor who posted at my talk page, and who Orlady recognizes as being similar to the FlanneryFamily account editor, will have links to several accounts, but I think that will be a different set of accounts than the Erin_Cali set. And whatever your current analysis is, I don't believe it shows links to the original Jvolkblum who was banned. One person was banned. There are at least two people operating. At least one was not banned, and is being unfairly persecuted.

Deskana confirms, above, "The data is sufficient to block for sockpuppetry". Yes, I believe you could see evidence of link to previously blocked accounts. That is NOT sockpuppetry. Please show me diffs that show that Erin_cali70 engaged in disruptive editing, in sockpuppetry. Or, are you using the term very loosely, to mean something other than its strict definition?

I don't disagree that the combination of Orlady plus various checkusers have the power to run checks and to block; you clearly do have the power; I think it has been misapplied in ways that are perhaps strictly legal, but have the effect of being unjust.

Also, I think FT2's accusations about wp:CLUEness are unnecessary and uncalled for. doncram (talk) 06:06, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Elkman, I have stricken part of my comments that now I see I could have formulated better. Sorry, I did not want to hurt you personally. If your opinion can contribute to solve the problem it is always welcome on Wikipedia, your opinion as well as the opinion of any other editor. That is my view of this project. That is what discussions are about: the best arguments convice, but you need to have a bundle of arguments in an ideal case for the reader to make up their own mind. It is not about who shouts loudest. I did not call you stupid or not welcome. It was you who called the valid arguments brought up by User:Doncram and the whole discussion stupid, that was what I criticized because it hurts others who bring arguments and it does not help to solve the issue. That is why I said that you disqualified yourself, at this point in time, at this discussion, about this topic. I never meant to have this remark understood as a disqualification of your person or your contributions to Wikipedia. Sorry for that. I would rather rephrase my words now and say that by calling the discussion "stupid" you did not contribute to the solution.

You mentioned in your comment that no one would miss anything if articles about New Rochelle were deleted. And there, I am convinced you are wrong, there are many minor topics covered by articles that will never be much longer and will not attract many readers but they still have a right to exist on Wikipedia. Maybe just for very few people, maybe just for one reader, a certain article about New Rochelle or some f***ing small town might be of value. Who knows? If someone likes to write about it, I consider that a valuable addition to Wikipedia. I have written a few articles about very small and insignificant places myself.

User:Doncram is an editor who has contributed many useful additions to Wikipedia, just like you, Elkman. I found it unfair to just not listen and digest his arguments in this issue which he delived in a very matter-of-fact manner and to the point, in my opinion. He has a right to be listened to and be taken seriously just as you or myself and any other valuable edior of this project. Damn, we are all working on the same goal here and fighting does not bring us forward, it brings the system to a halt and that can not be what we want to achive here. doxTxob \ ^talk 06:19, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Doncram has been singing this same song for months now. Rehashing the same argument over and over is disruptive. Disruption is grounds for a block. I recommend blocks be handed out if it continues and nothing new is added. Jvolkblum can ask for his own unbanning. —Wknight94 (talk) 11:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with Doncram's specific proposals, or his excess verbosity, but I do see what is perhaps getting him perturbed about this whole thing; some others' comments in these threads (such as the ones that have fortunately been self-stricken above) are rather disquieting, claiming that merely showing an interest in a particular subject should be grounds for summary banning. Attitudes like this have caused problems before... anybody remember the whole Naked short selling fiasco? I've long opposed people who regard the War On Trolls, Sockpuppets, and Banned Users as a holy war that takes precedence over all else, no matter how many innocent victims may be caught in the crossfire, and the pileons that occur on this noticeboard against anybody who suggests this are another disquieting thing about Wikipedia's social atmosphere. It's April Fool's Day, but I'm serious about this. *Dan T.* (talk) 11:49, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Dtobias: The new user accounts that get reported as suspected Jvolkblum sockpuppets are not typical newbies who just happen to be interested in New Rochelle. These are, for example, new user accounts that create 3 fully formatted articles (including not only inline reference callouts and the Jvolkblum-created New Rochelle template, but also infoboxes and other features that are intimidating to most newbies) about obscure New Rochelle topics within one hour after registering, using titles ever-so-slightly different from titles of previously-deleted articles about those same topics, and with content that looks "remarkably" like the previously deleted articles (to the extent that I remember those articles). Other new accounts show up to make small improvements (which I often refer to as "tweaks," but I now see that Doncram considers my use of the term to be a criticism of the edits) to a new article on an obscure New Rochelle topic within just a few hours of the article's creation. Additionally, many of these newly registered accounts show minor idiosyncrasies (for example, unusual patterns in the use of upper-case vs. lower-case letters) that are identical to the minor idiosyncrasies of accounts previously identified as Jvolkblum socks. I could go on and on, but the point is that these users are doing far more than showing a common interest in a particular subject. --Orlady (talk) 13:02, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Doncram is wasting time and causing trouble with this stuff. My interaction with New Rochelle came precisely once, when i stubified a misleading, uncited article recently created by another sock of the banned user. I asked him again why in his last thread he was lobbying for the unbanning of a user with over 200 CU confirmed socks. I ask him again.`Bali ultimate (talk) 12:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, since the neptune island thing came up; i was the guy who stubbed it and saved it from deletion. It was attrocious when it went to AfD and was filled with false claims (most glaringly that it "is" an island; in fact it "was" an island and hasn't been an island for 100 years). I spent over an hour going through the citations (generally miselading and false) looking for other material etc... all to yield a one sentence stub that probably isn't needed.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:11, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Conficker needs Full protection

talk to me 14:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

 – SoWhy has it spot on. If autoconfirmed users are vandalizing, AIV is the right venue.--Fabrictramp

I think Conficker needs Full protection (immediately), For at least 5 days or so. The article already has Semi-protection, but the page is still having problems. Thank You.--Michael (talk) 07:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Please use WP:RFPP for such requests in future. In this case I see no reason for full protection at the moment, there is no edit-warring to stop with it. Regards Why oh Why? 07:51, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

BLP category for new pages

Have been going through a whole batch of unmarked BLPs (lots more help needed, see User:Nixeagle/BLPPotential and grab a section to help out with). While doing so I came across edits that removed Category:Living people, but seem to have been missed somehow.

• (1) Can the removal of Category:Living people (or the removal of any template that contains this category) from any article be flagged up on some sort of filter?
• (2) Can someone drop a note at WP:NPP (or somehow alert those doing new page patrol) that checking for Category:Living people and adding it if it is missing, is a vital part of patrolling?
• (3) Can someone look through Special:Contributions/BenjaminBelgium (a new user) and (politely) explain some things?

The relevant diffs: patrolled page with the 'living people' category missing (I've now added it, someone could remind the editor who patrolled that page to check for category living people); edit that removed the categories and other things (I've restored the categories); another edit that removed the categories (here, I think the "unsourced blp" tag ensured the category remained there). A fair bit of tidying up needed as well. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 15:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I also thought of monitoring removals of Category:Living people, and we can do this using the abuse filter. I created Filter 117 for this, but it needs some modifications visibly. Shouldn't BLPs always directly contain the category ? Cenarium (talk) 15:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not that simple because people like to use replace the birth-year category and "living people" (or the death year category) with Template:Lifetime (see documentation) and a couple of similar ones I can't recall at the moment. Overall reducing clutter is a noble effort with which I sympathize, but in this case it impairs the machine-readability of the category data within the wiki-text itself. The only realistic solution to that would be to use named parameters instead of numbered ones. — CharlotteWebb 15:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

In this case, it should probably be restricted to unconfirmed users, as is the case for most filters, with the assumption that autoconfirmed users know what they're doing. Cenarium (talk) 16:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

We could also use the filter to detect death announcements, and possibly rewrite it in this sense (one filter had already been created for that, then deleted due to performance, but we're more experienced in handling perf now). For example, it picked up [22] (confirmed). The log is here. Cenarium (talk) 22:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

No, now you're talking nonsense. Semi-protecting everything and then forgetting about it would do some net good if autoconfirmed actually meant anything, but it doesn't. Users aren't going to magically "know what they're doing" after four days and ten edits. — CharlotteWebb 02:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I meant set the filter so that it only logs edits bu user who are not autoconfirmed. Cenarium (talk) 16:09, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, the only thing that might be a concern with the NPP patrol bit is that adding Category:Living people to an otherwise uncategorised article can be a bit counter-productive. Certainly, I'll now look out for it, and my bot ran only yesterday to make sure all members of Category:Year of birth missing (living people) were also members of the category. As for the removing the category, logging via the WP:Abuse Filter would be easy (though possibly a bit of a drain on resources). - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 15:47, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

If the article is in fact about a living person how would adding the category be counter-productive? Obviously you'd want to add as many categories as are appropriate but if you try to do too much at once you run the risk of getting sidetracked and not actually accomplishing anything. Or at least I do… — CharlotteWebb 15:59, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

1. Not with current software. Relatedchanges only shows edits to pages currently in the category. It's on bugzilla somewhere but damned if I can get the search feature to work. 2. Good luck not annoying the hell out of people who already know how to use this category, but I guess I can't stop you from crap-flooding MediaWiki:Newpages-summary which appears at the top of Special:Newpages. 3. Benjamin did not mark any pages as patrolled. Only one article edited by him was marked as patrolled and that was by Dragonfly6-7 (see patrol log, version then current). — CharlotteWebb 15:48, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

(1) is unfortunate. (2) I don't understand your reply - are you proposing to change the wording of the notice at the top of Special:Newpages, and does that count as "crap-flooding"?. (3) I'm aware that it was DF67 who marked that page as patrolled. I never said it was Benjamin. I was saying that marking a page about a living person as patrolled when it doesn't have Category:Living people isn't a good idea, and that the editor who did that (it is a bit annoying you have to click several more buttons to get to the patrol log) should be told about this. And other editors if it is common to let things like this slip through NPP (or even recent changes where the removal of those categories was obviously missed). But let's not get distracted by this - how can the process be improved? Is there a central place where all BLP-related stuff is documented (bots, filters, NPP, AfDs, noticeboard, and so on), so people don't keep reinventing the same wheel? Carcharoth (talk) 16:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not proposing anything, just showing you where to put the big pink-and-orange boxes if you feel so inclined and think it will do any good (I suppose I do more aiding and abetting than anything). At least I won't be looking at it any time soon. I honestly don't know what you mean by "all BLP-related stuff". — CharlotteWebb 16:26, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I prefer green-and-blue boxes myself... By "all BLP-related stuff", I'm talking about WP:BLP (biographies of living people). Sorry for the alphabet jargon there. As for what the stuff is, see the project management section of an November 2008 proposal here. I said there "If people could also help with a central listing of the most relevant BLP pages, that would be good as well - any suggestions for where to record the list?" I then made such a list below that. See here. But nothing happened. I periodically point this out to people, but still nothing happens. I guess I'm asking the wrong people. I also made a bot request here and nothing happened. I'm currently touting this and this in various places (you probably saw it on the wiki-en-l mailing list). But again, not much response. I'm either going to have to try and do stuff myself (which is unlikely to work) or break it down into small manageable bits. Though I expect everyone to be playing with the abuse filter and the Flagged protection and patrolled revisions stuff for the foreseeable future. Which might be better in the long run, as there is already a head of steam there, and it is easier to harness that than try and whip up enthusiasm for something from scratch. Carcharoth (talk) 17:29, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

You really think I didn't know what BLP stands for? No, this is the one Wikipedia policy that has probably gotten enough attention (positive and negative) to warrant a lengthy main-space article about it. I see now that you meant you want a list of discussions related to BLP, which differs from what you originally said about bots and filters and existing mechanisms for "enforcing" BLP (most of which are general-purpose tools that can be used for potentially anything—you can eat peas with a knife and most of us won't try to stop you). Just curious, did you plan to add some kind of "make sure living people are categorized as such" note at the top of the newpages screen or were you just being facetious? — CharlotteWebb 19:01, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I did expect that you knew what BLP means, but this is a public noticeboard, and per your comment here (which I had just read, hence the reference to alphabet jargon), I thought I should expand BLP in full. More for any new editors reading, than for you. Discussion, tools, processes, all should be documented or linked from one centralised place. As for the NPP notice, I was intending to add it, but wanted some idea of whether this would be justified or not. The only response I got was you saying something about "crap-flooding", which frankly put me off. I'm still trying to work out what crap-flooding means in this context. But this is what I meant about distraction. We should all be working together on this instead of nitpicking (something I do as well). Carcharoth (talk) 19:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm saying I hope you don't get carried away with the interface bloat as has been done here [23] [24] [25]. Basically the more you write the less of it people will read, especially if any part is banner-shaped. — CharlotteWebb 02:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Er, is MediaWiki talk:Newpages-summary the right place to suggest changing the text of MediaWiki:Newpages-summary? (Can you tell I rarely edit the Mediawiki namespace?). Carcharoth (talk) 19:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

That approach would work if you don't mind waiting months, possibly years for a reply. A more productive one would be to make the edit and see who reverts it and with how much prejudice. — CharlotteWebb 02:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Deletion request

Resolved

 – Duplicate deleted. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
And I have restored the image. --David Göthberg (talk) 17:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Could an admin delete the local copy of File:User-info.svg? It looks like its identical to the Commons image of the same name (commons:File:User-info.svg), which is also protected, so I don't really see a reason to have a local file when the one on Commons could be used. If the Commons version wasn't protected, I'd understand the need for a local, protected copy, but it seems kind of redundant with the Commons image also being protected. –Drilnoth (T • C) 15:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Y Done — Hex (❝?!❞) 19:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Next time, it would be easier to simply place a speedy deletion tag on the image, as it meets criteria F8. hmwithτ 20:02, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I know about that, but the page was protected. Anyway, Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C) 20:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't delete the system images

Don't delete protected images. I have restored the image. I have already explained to Drilnoth and Hex. But for the rest of you, since unknowing admins delete these images all the time: Protected images are usually locally uploaded and protected here since they are used in a system message or a widely used template. And File:User-info.svg indeed is such an image. If they are deleted then among other things that leaves the local image name open and unprotected, and thus a vandal can upload a rude image instead. There is much more to this, see more details at User talk:Hex#Don't delete protected images.

--David Göthberg (talk) 17:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed! — Hex (❝?!❞) 18:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

"April Fools Day" main page. I have a problem

This is quite serious. It should be put on the main page to inform people of this tragedy. Not to do so is disrespectful to the people and the families involved. I mean Wikipedia's has had its April Fool's Day, fair enough, but I think that in light of this tragic accident in which 16 people are reported dead (latest figures, BBC has not been updated), the fun should be over.--Wittlewott (talk) 17:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

We should also have an article about the crash. April 2009 North Sea helicopter crash. I'll begin writing.--Wittlewott (talk) 17:06, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, with a good article we can put it up tomorrow. Today I don't feel it would be appropriate with the rest of the content. Remember, nominate it at WP:ITN/C. --Tone 17:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

As a side I fail to see how it would be disrespectful not to announce the deaths on Wikipedia. If anything it's respectful to. (also note that I am Aberdonian myself and feel nothing but sympathy for all involved, but still.)  NEDRAG  21:32, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

This is April Fools' Day. It's one day of the year when we can all let our hair down and concentrate on things which are funnier; there are 364 days to think about serious things. Yes, it's bad luck that this crash happened today so we can't feature it, but then it's bad luck to be killed in a helicopter accident anyway, to be honest. Disrespect doesn't enter into it; there's a tradition associated with today, and I concur with Garden's statement above. ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢

I'm not sure I see the harm in waiting until 00:01 on April 2 to put it onto the main page. People (should!) have other sources of news than Wikipedia, and a few hours delay gives us time to write a quality article.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 21:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I may be a middle-aged curmudgeon but my view on this April Fool's Day nonsense is take it to Fark.com or some other similarly light-hearted site. Here, it just leaves a big mess that folks have to waste time cleaning up. – ukexpat (talk) 21:51, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

User:D6

Resolved

 – Bot performing an invisible, but necessary change. Discussion regarding the name, approval of the bot continues at WP:BON#Bot name. –xeno (talk) 20:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't figure out exactly what D6 (talk · contribs) is doing. The editor has made very minor edits to a number of articles all using the edit summary of fmt.[26][27][28][29] But I can't tell exactly what is going on or what is being change. The user page states that it is a bot, but it's not using the bot flag nor are the edits in line with the bot's approved purpose (as explained on the userpage). --Farix (Talk) 18:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:BON#Bot name –xeno (talk) 18:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

See User_talk:D6#Puzzling_diff. and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Check_Wikipedia#Template_with_Unicode_control_characters. -- User:Docu

1. Was the bot approved to make this type of edit? 2. A more descriptive edit summary would have greatly helped as to what was going on. fmt doesn't say anything about what, on the surface, appeared to be a vandalistic edit. Especially given that it is April Fools Day. 3. Why are the bot's edits not using the bot flag? --Farix (Talk) 20:02, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes the edit summary could have been better but does a single run to fix broken templates really need approval? BJ^Talk 20:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Probably not for this (IAR), but the bot should receive a more formal approval for the coord task. –xeno (talk) 20:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Backlog

I just went through and cleared out Category:Requests to undelete images. There was a 4 month backlog for a task that took all of five minutes. And Category:Requested edits has a perennial backlog of 3-6 months that really needs people to address it. MBisanz ^talk 04:03, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I will take another look tomorrow, but most of the category involves some pretty complicated tasks. I, for one, can't rewrite articles that may potentially have COI issues. Enigma^msg 04:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This is true. Also, many of the edits that I've seen are on controversial articles where I'd have to get an idea of the history before making the change. I'll take a look, but I do see why these specific backlogs build up & admins are hesitant to tackle them. hmwithτ 13:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I had a bash at Cotton and Talk:Cotton. Hadn't realised there were lobbyists about these days. Basically, I turned down almost all of the requests because of WP:NPOV. Hiding T 13:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• A lot of these requests seem to be made on 9th March. Odd. I'm looking at Talk:Health effects arising from the September 11 attacks at the minute, admit to being a bit baffled. I think the New Yorker article referred to is this one, but I'm not sure how to resolve the issue, I think James Zadroga would also need work. Looks like this one might need a few of us to knock our heads together, anyone know anyone who would be useful here? Hiding T 13:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Anything involving 9/11 is controversial by nature. Many reliable sources seem to say it was & wasn't caused by 9/11. I don't know much about it. Let me go over the articles & talk pages & get back to you. hmwithτ 13:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I started out doing a few things, then my head almost exploded, & I had to close out of the editing window. This is rigorous. hmwithτ 14:45, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm wondering if we need to either start from scratch or something like that. Certainly I think we need a team of solid editors getting together. I had the same situation as you, it's trying to sift the information and work out what's in keeping with NPOV. A lot of these requests are basically POV advancing of some form, although there is validity in that, in that they may be addressing bias already in the article. Hiding T 14:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

At least less pages are in the category now. :) Enigma^msg 06:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Be careful with your jokes today

I'm seeing weird noms in afd and WP:ANI so I'm giving you a reminder this cheerful Conficker ridden season. Just be careful with your jokes this April 1. Some admins got blocked for real last year because they seemed to pushed their jokes too far.--Lenticel ^(talk) 05:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

And keep them out of article namespace space, [30]. Not only not funny but potentially confusing to normal readers. RxS (talk) 05:13, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I must protest about the blatant violation of our rules... Everything (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) wasn't expanded fivefold. :P Sceptre ^(talk) 11:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe off-topic, but everyone had the same signature yesterday (used to be today just 30 mins ago)! Take a look at User:Acalamari's userpage (before it gets reverted)! ~AH1^(TCU) 00:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Question about where and how to correct a problem with administrative process

I'm still learning this system, but it has come to my attention that several editors have been blocked as a result of their asking for help regarding uncivil attacks against themselves. Since hushing up the victim is not a way to make a problem go away, these requests have escalated to the point that the individual editors have been silenced (apparently because they complained about not getting help).

I don't fault the administrators individually, since this appears to be a process problem on Wikipedia -- but I don't know how to go about working on a solution to the process.

How do I begin? So far the two editors I know of who are experiencing this problem are LoveMonkey and Alastair Haines. I'm sure there are others, and it has to be frustrating for the administrators caught in this problem as much as the editors they are inadvertently helping to victimize.

Thanks. SkyWriter (Tim) (talk) 13:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

You mean the block of Alastair Haines for legal threats that is now being discussed and quite clearly endorsed here? I did not block him for complaining, so your forum shopping post is not really painting an accurate picture. However, you are free to come to the existing discussion and present your version of the facts there. Fram (talk) 13:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Fram -- the other forum IS the problem. This is a problem of PROCESS that I'm investigating. If the process isn't fixable then so be it -- but I'd like to see if it is. As for the legal threats... Alastair has been shopping for an apology from another editor, or to get administrative help in getting a simple apology. The legal threats, as far as I can tell, extended to asking for a simple apology -- with NO damages. If not within Wikipedia, then without it. I personally don't think that this is possible in the existing process, and either the process needs to be changed or we just need to be upfront about its limitations. Personally I think that it can't be changed and we just need to be aware of the limitations. That's probably not far from your own assumption -- we only differ in that I'm not assuming it, but inquiring about it first. Now, to my specific question of an investigation of the process ITSELF, could you answer my question? Thanks.SkyWriter (Tim) (talk) 15:02, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Threatening legal action if one doesn't receive an apology is not in the least different to threatening legal action if one doesn't receive monetary compensation, and is just as completely unacceptable. And, again, as the basis for your complaint appears to be, shall we say, not strongly fact-based, then trying to frame it as a question of process doesn't make it any less irrelevant and unhelpful. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 16:16, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Alastair isn't the only person with this problem. LoveMonkey is too -- and I'm sure there are others. Surely you don't believe that Wikipedia process is omnipotent and infallible, do you? Well, then, I'm simply asking how one goes about reviewing it to see if it can be improved. My personal opinion is that it probably can't, but it would be irresponsible for me to assume as much, just as it would be irresponsible for an administrator to try to obfuscate the question here. I am not questioning Alastair, nor the justness of what he is experiencing. I am merely questioning HOW one QUESTIONS process. Your lack of an answer isn't helpful in the least, but I do invite you to try again, now that you know that this is a question about process, and Alastair is merely one of two possible reasons prompting me to ask. Further, as far as I can tell he hasn't threatened anything more than externally requesting the apology he was silenced for internally requesting. Well, you don't think you are just gagging bits in the cyberstream do you? There are real people behind those keyboards, and if you won't let them ask one way they'll still keep asking -- just as I am asking a question about a somewhat tangental issue here: i.e. since one can't actually gag a real person without creating a bigger problem, can we review the issue of the gagging process itself to see if it either 1) can be improved or 2) can't be improved. I don't think it can. You obviously don't think it can. But neither you nor I can change the reality by our mere opinion-- and even thought we SHARE that opinion toward the second conclusion, I differ with you on the idea that my own opinion can't itself be corrected. Please try to answer my question this time. I know you can. SkyWriter (Tim) (talk) 17:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I think I've found an administrator who is answering my questions, and they seem to be very good answers. You guys should follow their lead, because there was no need for the stonewalling here. Best. SkyWriter (Tim) (talk) 17:46, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Deploying arguments from incredulity--as you do in your first sentence--I tend to find less than convincing--indeed, even somewhat insulting--and when a complaint about a failure of process is based upon a false, misleading, or misunderstood claim about a specific, correctly followed and concluded process, I find that it's best to ignore the argument. If you'd complained about an actual problem, perhaps you might have received the attention you desired, but under the circumstances I can see why few people thought your claims worth commenting. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 00:20, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

And the few -- being the one -- Calil -- would be correct. Assuming good faith and being helpful and courteous are requirements on all Wikipedians, including admins. Please try again. I'm now PRESUMING good faith, but I'm running out of cheeks to get slapped. I asked a straight question. Please try to answer the question, with civility and an assumption of good faith. Other editors and admins are watching.SkyWriter (Tim) (talk) 11:08, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

User:ルーファス ?

Probably nothing, but anyone read whichever language ルーファス (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is written in? Since creating their userpage a couple days ago, this users only edits have been to change the characters displayed on their page multiple times a minute. I'm wondering if they're using their userpage for spam? Syrthiss (talk) 19:02, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I ran a quick Google translate (it's Japanese):

Authority of the teacher of biochemistry at Hongo. TAZUSAWAっwas modified to study in humans were abducted shocker, I know the purpose of the organization, was rescued from the brink of Hongo brain remodeling. In the face of a weak mind, and beholden to the recommendation to the body under test, Hongo, had been lost out of fear for the defiance of the shocker. Would be assassinated in the middle of the row spider man escape. In the drama is not clearly drawn, the setting is a key figure in developing a Rider.

Copyvio perhaps, but not spam (in its current version at least). - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 19:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The Japanese text matches a ja:wiki article, which I think is their version of Kamen Rider Series. Possibly developing a local translation. --Rodhullandemu 19:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I read Japanese. , and I don't think it's soapboxing or complaining (above comment was changed, so no longer relevant; sorry for any confusion.) I can give you an accurate translation of the whole thing if you want, but it looks like a character description/summary from some Kamen Rider (Japanese TV show) series - Kamen Rider is mentioned in the last sentence, and the rest of it reads like a sci-fi plot summary. This user may be working on a translation or something... Maybe he/she just needs a new user welcome? FYI, the user's name in English would be "Rufus". silverneko (talk) 19:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I keep looking at their page, and it's Japanese (I can read Japanese.) Seems to be being taken from a ja:wiki article for some reason. They're not causing any problems, and no copyvios that I've discovered, so I've just left them alone for now. Canterbury Tail talk 19:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, now the page has been deleted by User:Ryulong with the edit summary "User is misusing page". Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 09:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC).

832 edits in what 3 days, maybe there was cause to do so from a server resource standpoint. All they were doing was pasting then blanking, repeatedly. Canterbury Tail talk 12:52, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Main Page bickering

There's been ongoing arguments over the acceptability of the image accompanying TFA. These have now resulted in the image being removed from the article and then from Main Page. There's now some to-ing and fro-ing over what image, if any, appears.

It's all getting a little silly. I'd appreciate some admins stepping in at Talk:Main Page and quickly resolving the dispute. Whatever the opposers think about the original image, I think the wavering actually does us more of a disservice. --Dweller (talk) 12:48, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

User: Ciaran UK

Resolved

 – Indef blocked, Tiptoety ^talk 21:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I was hoping an admin could take a look at the edit history for Ciaran UK (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Some of this user's recent edits look... suspicious. Stuff like placing {{indef}} tags. They're also placing needless redirects on user pages. I've suspected they're a vandal in disguise since they contacted me out of the blue. If someone could advise, it would be much appreciated.Monkey Bounce (talk) 21:11, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• Some of those tags seem to be accurate. Not sure what is up w/ the redirects or other edits, but the most recent indef taggins have been placed on accounts which were indefinitely blocked. Protonk (talk) 21:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• IMO, just engage w/ them on their talk page. See what's up and try to figure out why they are doing it. Tagging indeffed accounts strikes me as totally unnecessary, but if he gets his kicks out of it, I guess it doesn't hurt anyone. Protonk (talk) 21:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I left a message yesterday. No response. Just to clarify, I was under the impression that things like redirects on user pages were considered impolite. What's your take on it? Monkey Bounce (talk) 21:31, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I share the suspicions of User:Monkey Bounce. I've notified Ciaran UK of this discussion. His account was created 27 March, and he has been adopted by Dylan620. His edits look eccentric, because he is messing around with things that don't need any improvement, and they suggest a lot of wiki experience. Why would a person who knows all about wiki templates ask for adoption on his first edit? Mocking the system, perhaps. This edit makes you wonder if a checkuser should find out whether he is Grawp. EdJohnston (talk) 02:45, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I hope I don't get blocked. Ciaran UK ^{rush jump} 06:57, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, that answer, together with yet another request for rollback rights makes up my mind for me. A checkuser might be very educational at this point.Monkey Bounce (talk) 07:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

This editor's behavior definitely isn't that of a genuinely new editor. Nick-D (talk) 07:48, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Dylan620 (Ciaran's adopter) here. I suspected him of being a sock at first (not Grawp, sorry), but decided to assume good faith and adopt him. However, now that the community's brought it up, I'll explain why I thought he was a sock, and why I suspect that the sockpuppeteer is banned user Fila3466757 (talk · contribs).

• Except for Telephonedennis (talk · contribs), Fila's socks from 2009 have attractive, colorful signatures that contain one link each to the account's user page, talk page, and contribution log. (Filper01, Okay15, Ciaran1534 (note the similarity to "Ciaran UK"), 45ODY) Almost all of these accounts used their signatures within their first few edits. This was the same for Ciaran UK.
• Ed's evidence above.

Dylan620 :  Chat  18:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Per Dylan620's comment, I've added Ciaran UK's name at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Fila3466757 and requested a checkuser. EdJohnston (talk) 21:20, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Per the above SPI case, I have indef blocked Ciaran UK (talk · contribs). Tiptoety ^talk 21:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Death threats, etc..., by Domisimone

Resolved

 – Indef blocked by Bbatsell. Chamal :  Chat  01:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Domisimone (talk · contribs). For example [31]. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:42, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Seems like a nutty vandal. These are the kind of threats we get all the time (F*** you! and stuff like that) from these wannabes. Give him sufficient warnings and if he doesn't stop, report to WP:AIV. Looks like he's gone too far already. Chamal :  Chat  01:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Indefblocked. Normally I'd wait for the full ration of warnings, but those edits were beyond the pale imo. Don't see a sliver of evidence of even marginally good faith. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 01:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Possible compromised account, but so few edits that it doesn't really matter. Looie496 (talk) 18:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Slowish edit war w/ BLP undertones at Quinten Hann

Resolved

The subject snooker player's bio has been receiving a fair bit of attention from at least two editors (there may be some socking concerns as well). I recently declined page protection, but a few uninvolved eyes may help. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 13:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks like it has stopped for now. I have added the article to my watchlist and will block if they start up again. Tiptoety ^talk 19:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for admin closure of the straw poll at Talk:Greece

Implementation or rejection of this proposal requires admin intervention. A lot was written about it both on the talk page and WP:ANI, and any final decision will certainly result in complaints and drama. I suggest that more than one admin provide their opinion on how they would close the straw poll so that there can be an actual consensus among admins, thus minimizing any grounds for the final decision to be disputed endlessly. Thanks. Húsönd 06:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Request

I have made a request that somebody claimed requires discussion first. It is at Template_talk:Asbox#External_link_icon_on_internal_link. -- IRP ☎ 02:42, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Worm activation

ProcseeBot recently went off the chart in the number of blocks it's been making. It appears that a worm of some sort activated on April 1st most visibly starting at UTC -7 (towards the bottom), which corresponds to the arrival of April 1st 00:00 in the United States. The worm looks like it opens a socks4 proxy on port 1080. and the infected machines are almost certainly normal end users on dynamic ips as opposed to mis-configured servers.

As a result, I've slashed the block expiry of all of the blocks the bot is now making to 2 months, and instead of flooding the block log to switch the expiry of the blocks, I've set an alarm for myself to explicitly batch re-scan and either leave blocked or unblock everything within the window. Since I also anticipate a lot of users eventually clearing the virus (as their definitions update and/or providers block the port), if you run across an unblock request for a recent block on port 1080 by procseebot and the ip's WHOIS/reverse looks dynamic, it'll likely suffice to simply check if the port's open, and if you get connection refused/connection timeouts messages, it's likely safe to unblock. A quick/easy way is to telnet ip 1080 and if it connects, you don't have to worry about actually checking to see if it's open, as it likely still is, so you can just leave the block as is. If you can't connect, on the other hand, then there's a decent chance the user removed the virus or it's a different user.

My guess is the worm in question is either the Conficker worm or something related to it, but I have no clue and don't really care. If someone wants to report it to symantec or something, feel free, but seeing as most of those types of companies still haven't implemented my proposed Hotline for Smart People Who Actually Have Something Interesting to Show Them, I really can't be arsed to deal with it. :P --slakr^\ talk / 05:14, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Let me be the first to chime in with the usual conspiracy rantings about how actually preventing infections is not in those companies' self-interest and how their behavior is consistent with that.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 13:50, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Abd

Abd has started Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG3. It's a rehash of the multiple complaints made here, at ANI, at the blacklist pages, the whitelist pages, WP:RFAR, pages around Cold fusion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), in several pages in his userspace, all of which have been discussed before and have failed to gain traction. His behaviour is, to me, inexplicably obsessive, and his steadfast refusal to accept any answer he does not like is vexatious in the extreme. I have left a comment on the RfC but do not intend to watchlist it or participate further because there is nothing new there which has not already been discussed, and the discussion has in just about every case come out against Abd. He seems to have decided to crusade on behalf of Jed Rothwell, whose topic ban from cold fusion was said by at least one arbitrator to e so obvious as to call into question why I even bothered to ask them to review it, and his website, which has material of unknown copyright status, has been used to falsify sources and is in sundry ways not a reliable source, quite apart from its having been abused by POV-pushers (including Rothwell) in the descent of Cold fusion from FA to arbitration subject.

Abd's obsession is sufficient that I wonder if a topic ban might be appropriate. I'd also invite admins to check his user space, Special:PrefixIndex/User:Abd - there are numerous pages there which amount to "why Abd is right and everybody else is wrong in x dispute", including numerous pages which make statements about individual editors which I do not think are an appropriate use of user space. He shows a long history of restating his side of the story as if it were fact and accepting no consensus which goes against him (see for example User:Abd/RfC/8.11.08 block). I'm not dealing with this because I try to disengage form those whoa re determined to pick a fight with me. Abd does not want to be disengaged, it seems.

It looks to me as if what he really wants is Jed Rothwell's topic ban lifted and his site removed from the blacklist, so Rothwell can continue trying to reshape the Wikipedia article on cold fusion to reflect the world as he, Rothwell, wishes it to be rather than as it is. This is directly related to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion, Pcarbonn and Jed Rothwell are co-authors of a Google Knol which restates the pro-CF case in exactly the way the arbitration case found problematic. If anything Rothwell is the worse of the two, he has a longer involvement and there is much more polemical material out there by Rothwell denouncing the scentific establishment for failing to take cold fusion seriously enough. And let's be clear here, this is not about whether he is right or wrong, it's about Wikipedia's core policy of reflecting the world as it is, not as the hard-done-by would wish it to be. If Rothwell's ban is lifted and his site removed form the blacklist two things will happen: Rothwell will continue to try to skew content away from the mainstream, and links to Rothwell's site will continue to have to be scrutinised for bias, copyright issues and the like. WP:C does not make an exception for "convenience" copies, you have to prove that the site has copyright release. There is material there which is copyright Reed Elsevier (to name one at random); Reed Elsevier typically do not grant copyright release for full text of articles. I know, I have asked, and so have co-authors of papers who are contributors to sites in which I am involved. I am sceptical of Rothwell's claims to copyright release.

Anyway, I do not have enough hours in the day to take this to any further dispute resolution, and in any case I think it's best resolved by my continuing to ignore Abd's continual retelling of his (generally rejected) side of the story. He writes thousands of words but appears to read very few written in return, or if he does read them he simply ignores the ones he does not like and acts as if they were never written. I don't have the time or the patience to deal with this foolishness. Ideally I would dig out all the past discussions and note that the complaints are all previously aired, addressed and rejected, but I don't have the time or the energy - frankly it reads to me as plain old-fashioned trolling and I have had more than enough of that. I think my views on civil POV-pushing and the danger of obsessive editors who simply will not take no for an answer, continuing until all others have left or been burned out due to sheer frustration, are well enough known that I can't add much in this particular instance. Guy (Help!) 08:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I can understand your frustration based on my own initial experience with Abd, which is the subject of several of his subpages. I have asked him many times to take the time to compress his thoughts down, but he says that he finds it difficult for a variety of reasons. I'll have a look at the RfC, but it's probably for the best that you've decided to disengage. Fritzpoll (talk) 09:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The most frustrating part is that I did that a long time back, but he continues to flog the dead horse. The guy has a bad case of WP:STICK. Guy (Help!) 13:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

At present, that seems reflected in the responses to the RfC. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:40, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Permanently blocked editor threatens repeated edit warring

Hi. We've been having lots of problems at Spanish Empire and a few other Spanish history related pages with User:Cosialscastells who was permanently blocked for abuse of an editor, and who has been leveraging sock puppets and anon IPs [32] to continue his edit warring. Today he has made his intentions plain to continue his actions [33].

If I request page protection, it will get refused on the grounds that there has not been enough "recent" activity to warrant it (he crops up once every 24-48 hours). An IP block is difficult because Telefonica de Espana, his IP, appears to have several ranges and I presume admins won't want to block a whole swathe of IPs for this one issue.

What can we do? Ideally, I hope that an admin might be able to indefinitely semi-protect Spanish Empire. Thanks. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 22:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

We sit and wait. If he starts up again, we file a WP:SPI case, get a few IP blocks issued, and possibly protect the article depending on how hard it was hit. Just because he threatens disruption does not mean he is going to carry it out, and certainly does not justify protection. Tiptoety ^talk 22:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Quick question

Resolved

 – Blocked, Tiptoety ^talk 23:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Haven't been active as admin in months, so I will just point it out here: Tom Lennox (talk · contribs) has redirected his user and talk page to User:L3nn0x a couple of weeks ago, so he doesn't receive warnings anymore. However, the real issue is that he looks like a sock of Pé de Chinelo (talk · contribs), who is permanent blocked. What are the chances of two users editing the same articles, always trying to categorize them (like discussing if a game is a fighting or party game, if a movie is a thriller or horror movie, etc). I question the stability of the user. As Pé de Chinelo first stated The Dark Knight is a crime movie, a month later he states it is not, he first says Smash Bros is not a fighting game, then he says it is. As Tom Lennox, though, he first mentioned The Dark Knight is not an action film, but a few hours later he says it is not crime, it is action.

Check User cannot be used because Pé de Chinelo was blocked over three months ago. It looks like they are the same person, or several persons sharing the same account. I would have blocked it as sockpuppet, but I haven't been active as admin in months and would prefer someone who has not discussed or reverted him before. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 22:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I should add that I have always despised the way Wikipedia "punishes" editors trying to report a 3RR or a sockpuppet, and that I try to prevent those report pages whenever possible. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 22:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I moved the user and usertalk pages back, and am looking into this further. Tiptoety ^talk 23:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

After looking over both of the users contributions it is rather apparent based upon their distinctive editing styles that they are in fact the same person. As such, I have indef blocked Tom Lennox (talk · contribs) as a sock of Pé de Chinelo (talk · contribs). Tiptoety ^talk 23:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

File:Roces 1.jpg

Resolved

 – Chamal ^talk 02:19, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is there no Edit link on File:Roces 1.jpg? I wanted to nominate it for speedy deletion as an ad. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 02:05, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The edit link appears fine for me. Chamal ^talk 02:10, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Because it is hosted on Wikimedia commons. [34]. Tiptoety ^talk 02:10, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, duh. Thanks. Now I feel like a fool.  :) Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 02:14, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Then how come I get it? :S Chamal ^talk 02:16, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Trying clicking on it, there is nothing there. ;-) Tiptoety ^talk 02:17, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

My turn to feel like a fool... :D Chamal ^talk 02:19, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Administrator complaint: Tiptoety

Resolved

 – Reasonable people acting reasonable. Chillum 06:29, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Formal complaint about Tiptoety

I have received an edit warring warning from an administrator called Tiptoety:User_talk:Betty_Logan#April_2009. The Quinten Hann article has been having large chunks of referenced information deleted and replaced with unreferenced material:[35]. This has been going on all month: [36]

Collapse lengthy blow by blow history/diffs of the Quinten Hann dispute for ease of reading
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The edits were first made by Davidmorris666. He has multiple warnings on his talk page regarding his edits, and he violated 3RR on several occasions: 2009-03-03 15:35 - [37] 15:49 - [38] 16:05 - [39] 16:30 - [40] 2009-03-04 15:22 - [41] 16:01 - [42] 23:42 - [43] 2009-03-05 00:49 - [44] At this point I warned Davidmorris666 that his had violated 3RR: [45]. As a result of this warning Davidmorriss666 stopped editing, and an anonymous editor User:123.2.149.117 started making the EXACT same edits: [46] 2009-03-06 (now by User:123.2.149.117) 01:36 - [47] 10:06 - [48] I tried getting him to discuss the edits on the talk page, but he kept saying the referenced information was wrong and made no attempt to find references backing up his claims: [49] and [50]. I tried to find some references for what he was saying and was only able to validate one or two statistical facts and made these additions to the article on 2009-03-8: [51]. The edits seemed to placate him for a while, and then the vandalism started again last week: 2009-03-24 (still as User:123.2.149.117) 08:38 - [52] 2009-03-25 14:10 - [53] 2009-03-30 15:17 - [54] 16:02 - [55] After warning him a couple more times ([56]), a new user called Jamesworthy started making the exact same edits as the anonymous editor:[57]. 2009-03-30 (now by Jamesworthy) 17:03 - [58] 2009-03-31 04:29 - [59] Since Jamesworthy was a new editor making the exact same edits, I firmly believed he was the same editor as User:123.2.149.117 and Davidmorris666. I reported him for what I believed was a 3RR violation and Jamesworthy was accordingly blocked for 24 hours: [60] Once the block was up, hoever the reverts started up again: 2009-04-01 19:26 (User:123.2.149.117) - [61] 2009-04-02 03:48 (Jamesworthy) - [62] At this point I applied for semi-protection for the page since I believed it to be in the best interests of the article, but the request was declined on the basis there wasn't enough recent dispruption: [63]. I was told to file a sockpuppet case since the edits of all the three editors were limited to jus this one article. I decided not to bother because by then I was tired of filing complaints and no support being given to me. The reverts continued. 2009-04-02 12:49 (Jamesworthy) - [64]

On 2009-04-03 I yet again restored deleted referenced information, and this is when an administrator, Tiptoety acted inappropriately in my view. He left me a message on my talk page warning me about edit warring and threatening to ban me: User_talk:Betty_Logan#April_2009. There are several reasons why I find this insulting:

1. I was restoring REFERENCED information which was being removed by THREE editors with no edit history outside of the Quinten Hann article and replaced with UNREFERENCED information. To me this is a clear case of vandalism, and I am justified in restoring the material.
2. The warning was one-sided. I received a warning despite not violating 3RR, while the other editor who has received a 24-hour ban did not.
3. I have made reasonable attempts to avert the edit warning. These including disccsuion on the talk page which resulted in ME TRACKING DOWN REFERENCES FOR THE OTHER EDITOR'S CLAIMS. Just so I could put a stop to the reverts. I have also taken the issue to the edit warring board which result in Jamesworthy's ban, and to the semi-protection board.

When I took these claims to Tiptoety, I met with an obnoxious response that I had to "follow the same rules", and while neither of us had "violated 3RR" we both engaged in edit warring. I take exception to this. If we both had broken the rules why didn't the other party get warned too? Tiptoety clearly hadn't done his homework because the other party clearly had violated 3RR since he received a ban. And am I really engaing in edit warring if I am restoring REFERENCED information, which had been deleted and replaced with UNREFERENCED information? This isn't a difference in point of view. One editor wants to use sourced facts, the other doesn't! Clearly that is a case of vandalism and I am in my right to revert that?

The article is clearly being vandalised, but yet I am given no support whenever I do ask for help, and end up being censured by an ignorant administrator who can't even be bothered to get his facts right, let alone help to resolve the issue. It very much seems I will be banned if I continue restoring the referenced information, so from now on I will not be making any more reverts, and I will just let the other editor gut the article of its referenced facts and replace them with inaccurate and unreferenced material. There's not much else I can do is there? Tiptoety can't be bothered to do his job properly, he just wants to go around articles throwing his weight around and targetting people who are trying to stop an article being vandalised. Since he's an admin I very much doubt nayone will come out on my side in all of this, but the ball is in your court now. If you want a naff article full of made -up and unsoruced facts then you're welcome to it. Betty Logan (talk) 01:04, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• User notified about this thread off-wiki.  iMatthew :  Chat  01:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• The warring users mentioned are a clear case of multiple account abuse, I am going to block them indefinitely and the IP for while as still active today. Mfield (Oi!) 01:16, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• So, what exactly did Tiptoety do wrong? Grsz¹¹ 02:33, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• Agreed that the other users who are now blocked were acting incredibly disruptively, not engaging in any talk, and sock puppeting to get around 3RR. I can't answer for why you received a warning and the other editors did not all receive the same warning. It is probably largely since the the sockpuppetry was obfuscating what was happening. I don't think that you having to "follow the same rules" is an obnoxious response, in fact edit warring is always treated the same on all sides, 3RR is a hard and fast rule except for a few exceptions like the reversion of obvious vandalism. Your 3RR warning was a standard templated warning, not a personalised censuring. Admins don't take sides over 3RR, and you reverts were plain and simple reverts with no edit summaries to specify that sourced material was being removed or that you were labelling their edits as vandalism. Your efforts to protect the content of the article are appreciated. As a bit of advice on these situations, next time it is best to disengage from the edit war and seek help somewhere else rather then getting dragged into the revert game, as someone who is prepared to abuse multiple accounts will win in the short term. The other editors are now blocked, I will watch the article. If new editors or IPs return to the same pattern and refuse to discuss then give them standard warnings for content deletion or vandalism and seek help rather than let yourself get drawn in. Mfield (Oi!) 02:42, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• Just as a side note, the other editor was already given quite a few earlier warnings and had he continued to revert at all he would have immediately been met with a block. I went out of my way to issue the above editor a warning, when I could have easily blocked. Tiptoety ^talk 02:51, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Well I sure appreciate the 30 seconds you took to slap a template on my talk page rather than just banning me outright. For the record, I had left plenty of warnings on the other editor's discussion pages, and reported him on two other boards. If Tiptoety had been even handed in this and decided to warn all parties involved (as surely he would do if he wasn't taking a side) then he would have seen the other messages, and the 24 hour ban the other editor had received, and the effort I had made to try and get the vandal to come to the discussion page to talk about it. A quick look at the edit history of the article and he might have noticed that bots and other editors had also participated in reverting the article to its proper state. Since I've only made one revert over the last couple of days since I was holding back to see if the reports I'd made through the proper channels would have any effect, then I would like to see how TipToety would justify banning me, just for one revert.

So I have several questions:

1. If the rules apply to everyone, why was only I reprimanded? Why didn't Tiptoety reprimand the other editor? Is there anyone here who doesn't think he took a one-sided approach to this edit conflict, and that is appropriate?
2. Looking at the history of the conflict does anyone think I didn't do enough to avoid the edit conflict i.e. leaving warnings on the editor's talk page, try to discuss it with them on the article talk page, look for references for what they claim even though that's their responsibility if they want to make an addition to the article, and bring the problem up on two report boards. Is this what you call "don't allow yourself to be drawn into an edit war". What is one to do other than revert the changes?

Tiptoety's defence is that my reverts weren't appropriately commented. Fair enough. But when I contacted him about the issue outlining the problem, did he make any attempt to address the situation? Did he then go and leave messages on the other editor's page. Did he remove the template on my page and simply leave a request to comment my reverts and offer assistance if the vandalism should continue. No of course not, he's not interested, he's got to issue his warning and that's it as far as he's concerned, I'm just as guilty as the other party possibly more since I got the warning. I'm sorry, I think it's a poor show by an admin. I was acting in the best interests of the article and he simply wasn't interested, as far as he was concerned it was nothing to do with him once he'd laid down the law. If this is the type of person you want for admin then best of luck. Betty Logan (talk) 03:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Firstly that is not Tiptoety's defence (that your reverts weren't appropriately commented), that was a comment that I made from looking at the article history, your reverts were straight reverts with no comments. I am not in a position to know how much time Tiptoety spent looking through all of the edits, I am explaining how the situation will appear to someone faced with an ongoing edit war. The first port of call is the article history and if there is a rash of revert, revert, reverts with no commentary, there is nothing to distinguish one editor's actions from the others. Templated warnings are standard practice in these situations, to attempt to prevent the situation continuing. As the other editor was prepared to sock to get around the 3RR issue, you weren't going to be able to keep reverting them. As for not getting drawn in, there are no real emergencies in these situations, everything is revertable here, so just warn the other editors, revert as often as you can and, if it is getting out of hand, let the other editor have their way for a while and wait for help to arrive. It can always be fixed after the fact. It is not worth the stress caused to yourself by letting yourself get dragged in and try and fight it alone. I am sorry that you did not get a response from the avenues you pursued, the page protection request would have been judged by the admin based on what they could see happening right at that moment. It was a shame that you decided not to file the SSP case you were recommended to, as that was an obvious case that would have resulted in the blocks that are now in place being put in place much earlier. Mfield (Oi!) 04:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• I'm sorry Betty, but when you make reverts like this which restore a spelling error among reverting other things, I find it hard to believe that you were acting completely appropriately. Be far more careful when you start reverting. Otherwise, it undermines the rest of your actions. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:12, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

If you look at little closer, then you will see that is part of a bigger revert. I could not revert the vandalism without doing it. If you look at my very next edit that spelling error is not there. I think it's unfair to say I don't have the best interests of the article at heart, I didn't write it I just restored referenced material that was being removed and replaced with unreferenced material. I tried several different approaches to resolve the situation. I cut down my reverts to one a day. And yet I'm still in the wrong because I'm accusing an admin of acting inappropriately. If you want to close ranks fair enough, he's one of the boys I get that, and I appreciate the action taken to secure the article this evening, but i think it's unfair to say I don't have the best interests of the article at heart since all I've done is tried to maintain the referenced version. Betty Logan (talk) 04:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Hold on, you're getting confused here. AGF a bit. Tiptoety makes it very clear in the comment above yours that the other editor had been given enough warnings already and there was no need for more. It indicates that if there would have been any more reverts from him, he'd have been blocked. You on the other hand, have received a fair warning. How do we know whether you're acting in good faith or not unless we notify you about it? What you have to do then is explain what you have done and why. It's true you haven't violated 3RR, but it still looks like edit warring at first glance (as Ottava's example shows) and the history shows a load of reverts. Chamal ^talk 04:24, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I reverted the spelling correction (the spelling error introduced by the vandal I may add!) so I could revert the vandalism. It wouldn't let me do it otherwise because. If Tiptoety didn't warn the other editor becasue he already had multiple warnings from different editors, then maybe he should have considered his actions a bit more. This is what I expected though, no-one has come out and said it was a poor show from Tiptoety even though if he had been even handed then he would have quickly realised this was a case of vandalism (which the 3RR rule doesn't apply to I might add!). There is a clear line between editorial conflict and vandalism. And yet I get the stick for being involved in an 'edit war' even though I dispute it was one and being 'drawn' into it (in actual fact I tried everything to stop it and that just included returning the article to its unvandalised state), and for not commenting my reverts (which is a fair point, but a weak one beacuse it's actually moot when you consider the fact that anti-vandalism bots a few edits down have performed the same reverts so you've got to wonder right?). If I hadn't reverted at all then it would have been in an erroneous state for a month now. The bottom line is I took all reasonable courses of action, and I think I was dealing with it pretty well actually, trying lots of different things, cutting my reverts down to one a day, and I don't think I was treated particularly well by Tiptoety, and a reasonable admin would have looked into it when I brought it to his attention rather than simply me the "rules apply to me as well". We all know that is a brush off comment, and while all the same rules apply to all of us I don't necessarily agree that the same rules are always applicable to both parties in a particular situation, and someone who doesn't understand that shouldn't be an admin. Betty Logan (talk) 03:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

But the rules do apply to you as well. I am not sure how, by me stating that you are not exempt from the rules, I have done something wrong. Tiptoety ^talk 04:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

But I would say the rule you tried to apply was not applicable. You accused me of edit warring. The 3RR rule does not apply to clear cut cases of vandalsim, and surely excising large chunks of referenced material and replacing them with unsourced facts constitutes vandalism? I would think so under most interpretations. This was not a conflict over editorial control. It was a clear cut case of removing vandalism. Fair enough, that might not have been clear from looking at the article history, although bot reverts are a clear indication, but none of this is the point. I brought it up with you and you didn't even bother to look into it. Either I was legit and was doing the right things in which case you could have offered support, or I was doing it wrong and you could have offered guidance. Instead I got a slap in the face and told I was half of the problem and all I was trying to do was make sure the article stayed referenced. I take issue with the response I got. Betty Logan (talk) 04:48, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Betty - reread WP:3RR. You will see that "3RR is not a right". You do not get three reverts a day. It is just a line but edit warring is not simply "3RR". Edit warring is the process of reverting with another user without discussion and applies to both sides. Just don't put yourself into those positions. Its not worth it. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:43, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

On closer inspection, I don't think that Betty Logan was edit-warring, but the lack of substantive edit summary did give an impression of it. The warning was a mistake, but I don't think there is much constructive to do at this stage than to simply say the warning was a mistake and was regrettable, to urge Tiptoey to be more careful in his warnings, and to urge Betty Logan to employ better edit summaries. —kurykh 04:57, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think betty was edit warring either. I think the warning was an honest error. Disruptive edits by single purpose accounts/obvious sockpuppets do need to be reverted after all. Better edit summaries may have helped avoid this misunderstanding, it is hard to tell. I don't think there was any ill motives by any of the parties here so hopefully this can be put to rest without any hard feelings? Chillum 05:00, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Defiantly no ill motives or hard feelings here. Tiptoety ^talk 05:09, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Well I was probably more angry with Tiptoety than was warranted, but I was angry mainly because I had actually taken substantial steps to make the article stable. I could accept that Tiptoety hadn't apreciated the context which is why I did contact him, but it was the response I got that made me mad. Anyway, I will certainly make sure that my reverts are better commented in the future and hopefully it will prevent something like this. The main thing is that the situation with the article has actualy been resolved, so Tiptoety has actually done me a favour this evening. Betty Logan (talk) 05:48, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Serious Spam and Erasure of criticism sections etc...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Envision_EMI,_LLC&diff=prev&oldid=281289135

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_Youth_Leadership_Forum&diff=next&oldid=261286708

Thank god for wikipedia, I almost signed registered my brother before clicking on the History tab of the article. I suggest to semi-protect both pages until April 25th, as that is the last day to sign up for their Nonprofit forum. The company spent 40% of its budget contracting to a for-profit company, EMI, which is definitely Notable, and the source was irs.gov, definitely verifiable. This kind of spamming represents the most serious kind of spam to wikipedia, we're talking $2500 not including airfare, and based on quadruple occupancy for 10 days.

Thanks, and you have earned yourself a new, volunteer editor! JameKelly (talk) 05:43, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted and warned Smohabeer (talk · contribs) about using Envision EMI, LLC (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) for advertising. I can't see the problem with National Youth Leadership Forum (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), but if there is one, you are free to edit the article yourself to remedy it.  Sandstein  06:16, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Ludvikus requesting an unblock

Resolved

 – No consensus to reduce block length

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

The above user, who has served 11 months of a 2-year sentance, is requesting time off for good behavior. I have no preference in the matter, or any knowledge of the case, but am starting a discussion here to see if there is support at this time for an unblock. I will be contacting the blocking admin as well for his input. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 01:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• I am pretty new here but have been doing a lot of reading on policy and block issues. I think that Ludvikus is sincere in his desire to be unblocked and return to editing. It seems to me that in return for getting "early release" he would have to be adopted or undergo some sort of mentoring. I think that could work pretty well and allow for an enthusiastic editor to return! Basket of Puppies 05:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

No freaking way. For the reasons behind the present block, please see:

• User:FT2/Evidence pages/Philosophy
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Community sanction/Archive1#Community action review on Ludvikus
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive418#User:Ludvikus
• and several other entries in this list: [65]

There is a solid consensus that the problems with this user are a deep-grained personality issue. "Sincere in his desire to be unblocked" is certainly true, but if a person has a deep-seated inability to work constructively with others, that's simply not enough. I see no evidence that this user has changed their attittude towards cooperation, and frankly, I can't even imagine how he could do that even if he wanted to. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

How about asking the user to work on an article in their own userspace and see if they can produce something that complies with policy? Their acceptable work could then be copied into mainspace and perhaps editing restrictions could be eased, keeping a topic ban from the area where they got into trouble originally. People do sometimes change. Jehochman ^Talk 06:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposing content edits is something that he seems to have been doing in his user space all the time. No problem with that. But the problem always was about interacting with other editors in disputes. There's no way you can "test" that ability without letting him loose on mainspace again, and as far as I am concerned I'm not going to risk the aggravation to fellow editors that such a test run would most likely cause again. Note that he doesn't seem to have ever shown any sign of understanding what the problem was with his prior behaviour. I can see no reason to assume he'd behave differently now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:31, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

What if he were to request permission to edit a few specific articles (or create new articles) where no other editors were active? I worked on Gamma-ray burst virtually alone for nearly a year. There are many such articles on Wikipedia. Jehochman ^Talk 06:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why we should even start considering how far to bend backwards for his sake. I just went through some of his latest article talk contributions from before his block, and I can only say: good riddance. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:40, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

This actually doesn't sound like a bad idea to me, with the proviso that the first time he breaks the conditions he's back on his block. Is there any evidence that he has socked or otherwise misbehaved while blocked? Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 09:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC).

The question is, what happens if he makes an edit and some other user disagrees with it? Will that other user than have to face the aggravation of debating Ludvikus? Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Then, unless the other user is being patently unreasonable, Ludivkus gets re-blocked for another two years. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC).

At what point in that process do we re-block? When the other user is driven off the project by frustration? Or slightly earlier? Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:14, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

This editor was given lots of chances and warnings before being blocked for two years, including several previous blocks of short durations leading to a six month block. As such, the two year block is appropriate and I see no reason to unblock them given the near-certainty that they will re-offend. Nick-D (talk) 09:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

So, wait, the argument for unblocking him would be "good behavior" in that, what, he hasn't been socking and trying to get around the block? He was given two years. He should serve the entire length. Looking at his talk page, I see someone who has aggravated a lot of people and besides, it was barely a month ago that he thought he was "still being un-reasonable blocked for two years". Saying it's no longer necessary is not the same as being sorry for the headaches you caused. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't really look like he's been away --Dweller (talk) 12:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• Good God, no. This user was a nightmare. He was blocked for two years and there was a bloody good reason for it. --Folantin (talk) 08:54, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Mor lam

Resolved

 – Directed to proper venue. hmwithτ 18:16, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Wikipedia's use of a sans-serif font, it's very hard for someone coming to this article to figure out whether this is "Mor Iam" or "Mor lam". Couldn't we use a seriffed font that makes such things unambiguous, or capitalise both words in the title header? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 22:36, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps, but this isn't the venue for that discussion. 68.76.146.74 (talk) 23:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

See WP:Village pump (proposals) if you'd like to make this suggestion, since it's the place for discussing new ideas and proposals. The administator's noticeboard is for things that need admin attention. hmwithτ 18:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deleting where there is no template - forbidden?

Here [71] I've been accused of G4 speedying an article after the template was removed (the article's recreator thinks I must have seen a non-existent edit conflict). That's not what happened, when I initiated the delete it had the tag, which was removed at virtually the same time. But isn't that irrelevant? Where does it say that an article must be tagged for it to be deleted if it meets the criteria for speedy delete? I know that I have a few times tagged articles when I wasn't convinced, and I don't recall having speedied any untagged articles, but if I came across a page that was a blatant attack page, clear gibberish (an oxymoron I guess, sorry), am I really supposed to tag it and let it stay until another Admin finds it? That's not my understanding of the guidelines. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 07:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I speedy delete untagged pages all the time. It makes no sense to tag a page that says something like "X is a sad loser" when you can instantly delete it. Of course, when there is some doubt, tagging is better. Fram (talk) 07:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I looked into this when I first became and admin, and there's no requirement to first tag articles which meet the speedy deletion criteria. I also regularly speedy delete articles without tagging them - my understanding is that's what the speedy deletion criteria are for. Nick-D (talk) 07:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, Tagging is for instances where you can't delete or you want a second pair of eyes. Pages meeting a speedy criterion can be deleted at any time. -- lucasbfr ^talk 08:45, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Speedy deletion: Administrators can delete such pages on sight, even if contested as below. Ruslik (talk) 08:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Tags are for non-admins to request admin action. (or for admins to request a second pair of eyes, like ruslik says) --Enric Naval (talk) 08:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That's always been my understanding, but I was starting to think maybe I'd misunderstood it. Dougweller (talk) 09:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I never tag- I either delete outright, or, if I'm not sure, I go for AfD/prodding. J Milburn (talk) 19:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I almost always tag, and almost never delete on sight. (what I will do is change an existing tag to a more appropriate reason, & then delete.) I would like to think I'm perfect, of course, but I've learned otherwise. If I'm 95% right that's not good enough, at least by my standards of dealing with newcomers. I'd in fact urge that single-handed deletes for most reasons be flatly forbidden. That people are defending this practice here gives reason to renew that proposal, and I shall. DGG (talk) 15:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm more deletionist than DGG, but like him I often tag rather than going for a straight immediate deletion, to get a second set of eyes. The most glaring exceptions are the shamelessly spammy, and the obvious vandalism or attack page. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

and I must admit in turn that when i see such garbage that I get really impatient, i have been known to just go ahead. OM and I, in fact, seem to have have acquired the habit of reviewing each other. DGG (talk) 01:13, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the link you will see that it is a hotly contested AfD. Unomi (talk) 18:42, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The only ones I delete on sight are obvious attack pages ("Joe is a loser and ugly") or excruciatingly blatant A7's ("Jenna is a pretty girl at our school and I hope she likes me"). The rest can always benefit from a second pair of eyes, if only because when an editor comes back to complain we can say it wasn't a unilateral decision.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

This is about my approach. If it's obvious garbage, I nuke it; if it's something where I'm hesitant, I'll always tag it and get someone else to look at it that way. Tony Fox (arf!) 19:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:ROUGE

So is it rəʊɡ or ruːʒ? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 18:09, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• Definitely the latter.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• Its both. Synergy 18:38, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• This doesn't require admin attention. hmwithτ 19:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• Yes. Uncle G (talk) 02:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
• I've always pronounced it roʊg'. Xclamation point 04:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
• Always written, never spoken of aloud. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Administrative help needed in stopping racist propaganda and vandalism

Resolved

 – Blocks administered by DGG. Malinaccier (talk) 03:45, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

89.186.103.138 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and 89.186.107.119 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) have apparently decided to use Wikipedia as a soapbox for an anti-Gypsy campaign. While some of this user's edits constitute overt and easily recognizable racist vandalism [72], other edits are problematic in a more subtle way. For instance, he seems particularly fond of vandalizing quotations to directly misrepresent the words of the original authors: in [73], he maliciously modifies a quotation from [74]. In the same edit, this user also injects racist soapboxing into the article. While this troublesome user seems to have access to a range of dynamic IP addresses, it seems worthwhile to semi-protect Antiziganism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), with which he seems obsessed, and the BLP Viktória Mohácsi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which he has also targeted for his vitriol [75]. Declaring this user banned would also be helpful, so that he could be quickly reverted as many times as needed without examining each particular edit to determine whether it meets the technical criteria of vandalism. Erik9 (talk) 22:07, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

We can't ban an ip address, but we can block it. The edits are sufficiently outrageous that i see no need of further warnings; I've blocked each for 1 month to stop further disruption. If it repeatsafter that we can block for longer. I've also semipotected the two articles for a week. If longer is needed, let us know. DGG (talk) 03:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deleting where there is no template - forbidden?

Here [76] I've been accused of G4 speedying an article after the template was removed (the article's recreator thinks I must have seen a non-existent edit conflict). That's not what happened, when I initiated the delete it had the tag, which was removed at virtually the same time. But isn't that irrelevant? Where does it say that an article must be tagged for it to be deleted if it meets the criteria for speedy delete? I know that I have a few times tagged articles when I wasn't convinced, and I don't recall having speedied any untagged articles, but if I came across a page that was a blatant attack page, clear gibberish (an oxymoron I guess, sorry), am I really supposed to tag it and let it stay until another Admin finds it? That's not my understanding of the guidelines. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 07:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I speedy delete untagged pages all the time. It makes no sense to tag a page that says something like "X is a sad loser" when you can instantly delete it. Of course, when there is some doubt, tagging is better. Fram (talk) 07:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I looked into this when I first became and admin, and there's no requirement to first tag articles which meet the speedy deletion criteria. I also regularly speedy delete articles without tagging them - my understanding is that's what the speedy deletion criteria are for. Nick-D (talk) 07:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, Tagging is for instances where you can't delete or you want a second pair of eyes. Pages meeting a speedy criterion can be deleted at any time. -- lucasbfr ^talk 08:45, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Speedy deletion: Administrators can delete such pages on sight, even if contested as below. Ruslik (talk) 08:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Tags are for non-admins to request admin action. (or for admins to request a second pair of eyes, like ruslik says) --Enric Naval (talk) 08:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That's always been my understanding, but I was starting to think maybe I'd misunderstood it. Dougweller (talk) 09:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I never tag- I either delete outright, or, if I'm not sure, I go for AfD/prodding. J Milburn (talk) 19:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I almost always tag, and almost never delete on sight. (what I will do is change an existing tag to a more appropriate reason, & then delete.) I would like to think I'm perfect, of course, but I've learned otherwise. If I'm 95% right that's not good enough, at least by my standards of dealing with newcomers. I'd in fact urge that single-handed deletes for most reasons be flatly forbidden. That people are defending this practice here gives reason to renew that proposal, and I shall. DGG (talk) 15:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm more deletionist than DGG, but like him I often tag rather than going for a straight immediate deletion, to get a second set of eyes. The most glaring exceptions are the shamelessly spammy, and the obvious vandalism or attack page. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

and I must admit in turn that when i see such garbage that I get really impatient, i have been known to just go ahead. OM and I, in fact, seem to have have acquired the habit of reviewing each other. DGG (talk) 01:13, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the link you will see that it is a hotly contested AfD. Unomi (talk) 18:42, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The only ones I delete on sight are obvious attack pages ("Joe is a loser and ugly") or excruciatingly blatant A7's ("Jenna is a pretty girl at our school and I hope she likes me"). The rest can always benefit from a second pair of eyes, if only because when an editor comes back to complain we can say it wasn't a unilateral decision.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

This is about my approach. If it's obvious garbage, I nuke it; if it's something where I'm hesitant, I'll always tag it and get someone else to look at it that way. Tony Fox (arf!) 19:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:ROUGE

So is it rəʊɡ or ruːʒ? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 18:09, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• Definitely the latter.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• Its both. Synergy 18:38, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• This doesn't require admin attention. hmwithτ 19:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• Yes. Uncle G (talk) 02:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
• I've always pronounced it roʊg'. Xclamation point 04:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
• Always written, never spoken of aloud. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Administrative help needed in stopping racist propaganda and vandalism

Resolved

 – Blocks administered by DGG. Malinaccier (talk) 03:45, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

89.186.103.138 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and 89.186.107.119 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) have apparently decided to use Wikipedia as a soapbox for an anti-Gypsy campaign. While some of this user's edits constitute overt and easily recognizable racist vandalism [77], other edits are problematic in a more subtle way. For instance, he seems particularly fond of vandalizing quotations to directly misrepresent the words of the original authors: in [78], he maliciously modifies a quotation from [79]. In the same edit, this user also injects racist soapboxing into the article. While this troublesome user seems to have access to a range of dynamic IP addresses, it seems worthwhile to semi-protect Antiziganism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), with which he seems obsessed, and the BLP Viktória Mohácsi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which he has also targeted for his vitriol [80]. Declaring this user banned would also be helpful, so that he could be quickly reverted as many times as needed without examining each particular edit to determine whether it meets the technical criteria of vandalism. Erik9 (talk) 22:07, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

We can't ban an ip address, but we can block it. The edits are sufficiently outrageous that i see no need of further warnings; I've blocked each for 1 month to stop further disruption. If it repeatsafter that we can block for longer. I've also semipotected the two articles for a week. If longer is needed, let us know. DGG (talk) 03:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Deceased actors and their characters: Andy Hallett and Lorne (Angel)

A series of IPs have been reverting me to add "the late" to the Lorne (Angel) article indicate that Andy Hallett has died. I do not see the point in adding "the late" to a fictional character bio: info that the actor has died is contained in the actor's article, and is pretty much irrelevent to the character.

Yet I see, based on an anecdotal and not particularly scientific poll, that we're pretty much inconsistent in how we deal with this. Actually, we are consistent: actors who've died recently or are associated with movements that have fandoms tend to be referred to as "the late" in their signature character articles: Examples G'Kar, Stephen Franklin, Allen Francis Doyle.

Older characters, or actors who've died before Wikipedia, seem to not get the appellation: Charlton Heston as Moses, Lorne Green as Adama

Nor are tables of actors generally updated when cast members die: Carlin and Newman in Cars aren't updated in the table, but their deaths are discussed (appropriately,IMHO) as impacting the sequel.

Unimportant characters don't seem to get the treatment: Sam Kinnison in Back to School,

Musicians don't get tagged as "the late" in the articles of films that feature them: John Bonham, John Lennon

• Has this been brought up and decided before?
• If not, what do folks think? Should this go to RfC, or is there a principle or existing decision involved which makes that moot? Jclemens (talk) 16:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Not sure this is really a Admin Noticeboard issue, but no, there isn't any reason for "the late" to be added to fictional character pages. They are portrayed by the actor, or they were; I had similar issues with Ricardo Montalban on Khan Noonien Singh. Just revert it, they'll stop after a while. --Der Wohltempierte Fuchs ^(talk) 16:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I've always taken it that fictional characters never die; Sherlock Holmes, for example, was presumed dead at the Reichenbach Falls but was resurrected due to popular demand; although it was clear that he lived in Victorian times, it's pure nonsense to describe him as "deceased", because he never existed in the first place. It's even more bollocks to describe a character as "deceased" simply because the actor who played him/her has died; that's just a simple confusion between the fictional universe and the real world. --Rodhullandemu 23:29, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

That's a dangerous generalization. I think it's safe to assume Joe Gillis didn't fake his death & could someday reveal himself in a sequel. -- llywrch (talk) 07:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, while I haven't looked into it, I would assume that the OP meant that editors were changing it to say that the fictional character was played by "the late" Andy Hallett. Anyway. Having run across an IP editor adding "the late" in front of the name of a deceased person recently, I looked through the MOS, and couldn't find anything on it. I would have though that "the late" was not a very encyclopedic-toned expression period, for actors, authors, or even zookeepers, especially on a wiki, where there's decent odds that there's a link to that person, which would of course indicate that they are deceased. That, and where does one stop? (Yes, it's a "slippery slope" argument, but still.) Just my (non-admin) $0.02. umrguy42 02:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

IU don;t think the question is whether to say that a fictional character has died, in that or in another fiction. If he clearly does, it's certainly relevant to the discussion of the character's role in the action. If it's left open, it's all the more discussable. The question is whether to add the information about the actor to all articles or mentions about characters whom the actor played. I think doing so is ridiculous. It's like changing every mention of a political figure when he dies. Wikipedia needs upkeep, and we should concentrate on things that really need it, such as the articles on the actors themselves. DGG (talk) 01:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Appeal from merger of "Serratio peptidase" into "Serratiopeptidase"

The merger (which took place over protests in the "talk page" for the article "Serratio peptidase") involved deletion of almost all the content of the article "Serratio peptidase", despite the content deleted being greater that the content in the other article retained. The article retained was poorly written and cited only irrelevant references which did not support that author's thesis. The material deleted from the other article, on the contrary, was cogently written and cited pertinent references which strongly supported the other author's thesis. We request uninvolved editors' action on this matter, to obviate an edit war.0XQ (talk) 20:44, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

You'll probably want to go to WP:DR, the deletion review board, and file an appeal there. ThuranX (talk) 20:49, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

It was a POV fork and was simply redirected, there was no deletion and nothing in this case to merge. It has been discussed on the Talk:Serratiopeptidase. The fork even had the same name! OXQ can propose adding any material to the Serratiopeptidase article on the talk page. There really is nothing to see here. Verbal chat 21:04, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

It's also I think a bit tendentious. We have Serrapeptase and Serratiopeptidase and Serratio peptidase with one editor insisting on separate articles because "Any merger is likely to result in an "edit war" ". Dougweller (talk) 06:50, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Trying to merge 2 articles

Resolved

 – Directed on talkpage to WP:MERGE. ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 06:50, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure of the procedure, but i'm trying to merge two articles. The articles are Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo and Haití Español. As of now, they deal with the same subject, although Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo is written from an extreme point of view. Also I would like to change the name of Haití Español to Spanish Haiti since this is the English Wikipedia. The same way that Brazil is known as Brasil when written in Portuguese, but in the English Article it is known as Brazil. Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil). Any help would be appreciated. SenorDonGuapo (talk) 06:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a note, "Spanish Haiti" redirects to Haití Español. Master&Expert (Talk) 06:59, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes i know, i think its better to be one single article. Spanish Haiti. Can someone help me with this merge. i'm not good at this at all. SenorDonGuapo (talk) 07:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Repeated Copyright fraud

User:Universal Hero has uploaded a number of images that he claims to own the copyright of, however this appears not to be the case.

Examples.

• File:Ajithaegan.jpg appears here before being loaded to wikipedia.
• File:Shriya_Saran.jpg this appears to be taken by the same photographer as this copyrighted image.
• the now deleted Image:AVMstudios.jpg was a copyright violation from here , again he claimed ownership of this image. I warned regarding this at the time , the discussion can be seen here User_talk:GameKeeper/Archive_1#Apologies . This was left in the state of either he was lying or another user was lying (as can be seen in the linked talk). I did not persue the matter further as I thought the problem had been removed, the image was gone.

The above images should be deleted, and I can request that via the normal process. What concerns me is that some of this user's uploaded images have now moved to commons, making them harder to track down , secondly it is difficult to locate the original to prove copyright fraud. I can watch this users uploads and check them but some will slip through my net and I do take breaks from wikipedia, if this is the same user who was banned for sockpuppetry previously (see below) he knows how to creat sockpuppets to evade this if he desired.

Otherwise this user makes a huge contribution to the Tamil cinema articles of wikipedia, the only problem I have is this apparent copyright fraud.

For background info:-

I strongly suspect this user is the returned User:Prin/User:Prince Godfather and have been involved in 2 Sockpuppet reports against him. Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Universal Hero & Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Universal Hero/Archive. The original user was banned for copyright fraud related incidents. I notived these new copyvios due to checking his images again because of the second case.

GameKeeper (talk) 18:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

More evidence is needed, in my opinion. Universal Hero's upload log shows only two images uploaded so far in 2009. Neither of these has an obvious problem. From his Talk page, one gets the impression that he could have had copyright difficulties in the past. But he does have 18,000 edits and has worked on a lot of articles, so the volume of his work may expose him to more borderline situations. The upload log of User:Prin (who is blocked since 2006) shows many nonsensical uploads, so he seems to be a horse of a different color. The two sock cases listed above closed with no action against Universal Hero, the last case only yesterday. EdJohnston (talk) 16:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

There is evidence of multiple cases of copyright fraud. I linked the sockpuppetry cases because I wanted to fully disclose my relationship with this user, sockpuppetry is just an internal rule, copyright fraud can have external legal consequences.

The issue I am raising is the copyright fraud, there are 3 clear cases of copyright fraud above and the user's uploads probably contain more. And the fraud continues, In my chat after I raised this case Universal Hero STILL claims copyright to File:Shriya_Saran.jpg despite the evidence I presented, claiming to have personnally taken the photo at an event, but this is not true. I did a bit more checking File:Shriya_Saran.jpg is not from the event as claimed. Here it is from a blog predating the wikipedia upload and was not from the event as started in the file description. Here is the image, here is the context (4th image down). Some of the uploads don't appear in the upload log because they have been moved to commons (as public domain!). I am asking here because I don't know how to proceed, should I track down and check all of this user's uploaded images? Some will not have such easily locatable evidence of fraud. I don't know what the solution is to suggest one, I was hoping that similar issues would have been succesfully dealt with here before. GameKeeper (talk) 00:38, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Um, isn't File:Shriya_Saran.jpg at Commons? So, provide your information there (probably at Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Shriya Saran.jpg which needs to be created and go on. We don't deal with Commons here. The image wasn't even edited here by him. Second, what here clarifies anything? You keep saying it was copyright fraud, he asks why you keep bothering him, and that he took the picture, what evidence do you have exactly? List the image at FfD if it's here, list it at Commons deletion if you want. If you want to, try Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. They may be more familiar with this sort of thing. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:42, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Universal Hero seems to have taken this image straight from tamilmegatube.com. In two instances, he admits here and here to have taken a image from a fan blog. In another instance, he initially claims that the image was taken from a official website of the film. Later, he claims to have taken the image from chennai365.com. And here, he admits to have taken the image from photobucket.com. Anwar (talk) 19:56, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

There are now 1,077 pages categorised as Tamil film with images similarly uploaded from blogs and websites carrying unverifiable licence information.Anwar (talk) 20:18, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

No evidence of permission from concerned producers of these 8 forthcoming films in particular. I have tagged 8 such images (which he removed) last week and retagged them again now. Is it acceptable to do a Google Search and download a movie poster from a website for reupload back onto Wikipedia?Anwar (talk) 19:48, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

None of the images seems to be copyright violation, Please clarify. one image is referenced to a different image! So "Repeated Copyright fraud" is a misleading and inappropriate title for this section.

As for the accounts, these are old accounts used two years ago. Back in time when he was reported, no evidence was found he was a sockpuppet and was cleared of the accusations. This time someone requested an odd renewed check on these two-year accounts and he again went out clear. Can't see why exactly this is being done. Did I say something wrong? Shahid • ^Talk2me 20:02, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Taylor Corp. (Taylor Corporation) page very likely controlled by Taylor Corporation

See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Taylor Corp. (Taylor Corporation) page very likely controlled by Taylor Corporation. This is a general editor matter, not an administrator matter. Uncle G (talk) 12:25, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

user: Gwen Gale

This user has repeatedly blocked me for simple not choosing not to have an account and has reverted my contributions to talkpages and my complaint on wikiquette http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AWikiquette_alerts&diff=281888750&oldid=281888678 This is prejudice and incompatible with wikipedia's open policy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.180.250 (talk) 13:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

PLEASE HELP this user is continually blocking me, reverting my complaint about her, and removing my comment from talkpages! This is essentially harassment of people who choose just to focus on editing and not get involved with the "wikipedia community" aspect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.182.108 (talk) 13:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Clearly a headstrong sock on a dynamic IP. Not much to do until it settles down, I guess. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

just because someone chooses not to have an account you call them a sock? isn't that Bad Faith? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.182.108 (talk) 13:36, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

she has now reverted my comments from a talkpage and locked the page, this is clear prejudice, please act. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.182.108 (talk) 15:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#Anon_86.25.18.2A..2A_contentious_editing_and_misleading_edit_summaries_at_History_of_Terrorism. Anon user also raised points against me an another editor at Wikiquette_alerts, where he didn't sign posts either. This is clearly a disruptive sock, and I am raising the case since no third party action has risen after weeks of asking. --Cerejota (talk) 19:05, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

You're calling me a sock because i chose to conform to your rules? isn't that bad faith? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.181.127 (talk) 20:10, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mcenroeucsb, suspected WP:GHBH.--Cerejota (talk) 20:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

As if calling legitimate edits "vandalism" is such an example of good faith, as is edit warring long-standing admins. Please, stop being disruptive. --Cerejota (talk) 20:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Page move over redirect

Resolved

Can someone move South Towns to Southtowns?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 01:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. Is there a reason I could and you couldn't, as I'm no admin. Grsz¹¹ 01:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I did not try. I thought there was a problem moving over a redirect. Now, that I think about it though, I think I remember seeing something about this being fixed in a Signpost. I apologize.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 01:38, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Designated drafting arbitrators

To assist with managing case workflow, and to provide a default point of contact for case matters, the initials of the designated drafting arbitrator(s) for each case will now be displayed on {{ArbComOpenTasks}} next to those of the designated clerk(s) for that case.

This proposal was approved by a 10/0 vote, with no abstentions:

• Support: Carcharoth, Coren, FayssalF, FloNight, John Vandenberg, Kirill Lokshin, Rlevse, Roger Davies, Vassyana, Wizardman
• Oppose: None
• Abstain: None
• Not voting: Casliber, Cool Hand Luke, Newyorkbrad, Risker, Sam Blacketer, Stephen Bain

Discuss this

Cross-posted on behalf of the Arbitration Committee, hmwithτ 02:03, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Greer Honeywill entry

Resolved

 – No admin attention required

I have created a page for Greer Honeywill (artist) but when I type Greer Honeywill in the search box, it doesn't show. I therefore need a Greer Honeywill page that redirects to Greer Honeywill (artist); OR I need to remove the word (artist) from the heading. Please help.

I have created the page for you. Happy editing! Firestorm ^Talk 02:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Indefinitely semi-protected user talk pages

See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Indefinitely semi-protected user talk pages: should policy require an unprotected subpage? –xeno (talk) 02:14, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Ban enforcement request: User:BobaFett85 (latest sockpuppet of banned User:Top Gun)

Resolved

"A user may be blocked when his or her conduct severely disrupts the project; that is, when his or her conduct is inconsistent with a civil, collegial atmosphere and interferes with the process of editors working together harmoniously to create an encyclopedia. A block for disruption may be necessary in response to: ... persistent gross incivility; ... edit warring or revert warring; ... breaching the sock puppetry policy; ... persistently violating other policies or guidelines." [81]

Dear administrators,

After having noticed numerous exhaustive attempts by editors[82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97] to get a particularly disruptive editor to respect basic Wikipedia principles such as WP:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, WP:No original research, WP:Verifiability, and WP:Disruptive editing, I would like to request/suggest an indefinite block/ban on User:BobaFett85 on the basis of unrelenting disruption, enforcing bans, and evasion of blocks.

History/diffs collapsed for ease of reading
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
For blocking on the basis of disruption: He regularly engages in incivility, sometimes outright, most often thinly veiled. A few examples with his latest sockpuppet reincarnation can be seen in this recent Wikiquette alert, and in this particular diatribe with his primary account, User:Top Gun, that is community-banned. He regularly and frequently engages in revert warring and edit warring, including as his latest sockpuppet reincarnation, User:BobaFett85[98][99][100][101] and as his primary account User:Top Gun [102][103][104][105][106], and he has previously been blocked for violating the three-revert rule[107] and blocked for edit warring [108]. He actually boasts about having carried out dozens of edit wars, claiming: "If anything I have learned in my two and a half years of working on Wikipedia how to deal with POV pushers, and that is you. I have had edit wars with at least a dozen POV pushers who tried to push their own agendas, I won every last one of those debates."[109] He is constantly and flagrantly breaching the sock puppetry policy as outlined in detail below. He is regularly and frequently violating core Wikipedia policies and guidelines, namely WP:Neutral point of view, WP:No original research, WP:Verifiability, WP:Copyright violation, WP:Content forking, WP:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, WP:Disruptive editing, etc. Examples abound from the numerous WP:Afd's and discussions that his violations have generated: WP:Articles for deletion/War on Terrorism: Allies, WP:Articles for deletion/List of insurgents killed in Iraq, WP:Articles for deletion/Kosovo Forces fatalities, WP:Articles for deletion/Coalition casualties in the war in Afghanistan, WP:Articles for deletion/American Forces casualties in the war in Afghanistan, and too many other discussions [110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125], etc. He regularly and frequently engages inappropriate WP:Canvassing, namely WP:Campaigning and WP:Votestacking, to circumvent and compromise the consensus building purpose of article discussion pages[126][127][128][129][130]. As stated by WP:Canvassing: "Messages that are written to influence the outcome rather than to improve the quality of a discussion compromise the consensus building process and may be considered disruptive." He has been blocked at least 13 times in the past [131][132][133][134], including 3 times on an indefinite basis, and is a community-banned user that has no respect for Wikipedia sanctions. For blocking on the basis of breaching the sock puppetry policy, evasion of blocks, and enforcing bans: User:BobaFett85 is the latest incarnation / sockpuppet of User:Top Gun who has been indefinitely blocked many times and is a community-banned user. List of user accounts: User:Top Gun User:Guyver85 User:BobaFett85 User:89.216.229.112 Serbia and Montenegro - IP range for cable modem customers User:89.216.235.26 Serbia and Montenegro - IP range for cable modem customers User:89.216.236.45 Serbia and Montenegro - IP range for cable modem customers User:89.216.234.131 Serbia and Montenegro - IP range for cable modem customers User:87.116.171.227 Serbia and Montenegro - IP range for cable modem customers User:87.116.170.203 Serbia and Montenegro - IP range for cable modem customers User:Guyver85, User:89.216.235.26, User:89.216.229.112, and User:87.116.171.227 have previously been offically confirmed to be User:Top Gun. Now as his latest incarnation, User:BobaFett85, he has twice admitted to using numerous user names. On Febuary 13, 2009, he announced" "I was using another username two years ago. I change my username every few months because I get bored with them. I forgot which username I used back then."[135] On March 18, 2008, on the talk page for Coalition casualties in Afghanistan, he boasted/admitted that "Hehehe, listen buddy don't try being all high and mighty on me, I have been editing under the username BobaFett85 since late December, BUT have been editing here on Wikipedia under numereous other usernames since July 2006 ... I change my Username every six months or so because I get bored with the old one."[136] User:BobaFett85's own boast/admission of editing under numerous other usernames since July 2006 is accurate as he began editing as User:Top Gun from July 24, 2006 [137] to August 15, 2008 [138]. He was blocked 9 times as User:Top Gun in January 2007, February 2007, November 2007, and August 2008.[139] BobaFett85 also edited interchangeably as User:89.216.229.112 from December 6, 2006[140] to 02:30 December 9, 2006.[141] BobaFett85 then edited interchangeably as User:87.116.171.227 from 05:27 December 9, 2006 [142] to August 4, 2007 [143]. As User:87.116.171.227, he was blocked twice in February 2007 for block evasion.[144] BobaFett85 then edited interchangeably as User:87.116.170.203 from October 27, 2007 to May 6, 2008 [145] Here, in irrefutable evidence, he communicated in Serbian with User:TheFEARGod as User:87.116.170.203 while signing his message as User:Top Gun. As that same User:87.116.170.203, BobaFett85 / Top Gun edited article Bio Booster Armor Guyver in April and May of 2008 [146][147][148], from which character he took his next sockpuppet name just several weeks later: After being blocked a 9th time as User:Top Gun[149] and last editing as User:Top Gun on August 15, 2008[150], eight days later BobaFett85 created sockpuppet User:Guyver85 to evade that indefinite block, and edited as that sockpuppet from August 23, 2008 [151] to October 3, 2008 [152] As User:Guyver85, BobaFett85 / Top Gun admitted to editing interchangeably as User:Guyver85 and User:89.216.235.26: "Yes I am 89.216.235.26. I occasionaly make an edit without signing in because I forget sometime so my edit is registered as being made by 89.216.235.26. ... if you have to know user Top Gun is a friend of mine, and after he was blocked indefinetly he asked me to continue his editing of the lists of Iraqi insurgent and security forces deaths".[153][154] Now as User:BobaFett85, BobaFett85 / Top Gun has admitted to editing interchangeably as User:BobaFett85 and User:89.216.234.131: "I did that edit anonymously only because I didn't want to bother signing in, but you know what I realy don't care, do what you want, I am starting a whole new article ..."[155]. After his sockpuppet User:Guyver85 was blocked indefinitely on October 3, 2008, BobaFett85 tried repeatedly to evade that block as well between October 4, 2008 and October 22, 2008 by going through User:89.216.234.131, to the point where an administrator had to block his IP account 6 times.[156] After he was was blocked for the 6th time as User:89.216.235.26 on October 22, 2008, he simply ignored the Wikipedia sanction and was back two days later under a different IP, resuming his disruptive editing as User:89.216.236.45 from October 24, 2008 [157] to December 22, 2008 [158]. As that User:89.216.236.45, BobaFett85 began a revert and edit war in mid-December, 2008[159] that has been extremely disruptive across a number of pages over the past four months.[160][161][162][163][164] A day after his last edit as User:89.216.246.45 on December 22, 2008, Top Gun created his latest named-account sockpuppet, User:BobaFett85, and has been disruptively editing as User:BobaFet85 from 01:50 December 23, 2008 [165] to present[166]. At the same time as editing as sockpuppet User:BobaFett85, he has regularly been editing interchangeably as User:89.216.234.131 from February 2, 2009[167] to present[168]. As previously mentioned, he made two edits as User:89.216.234.131[169][170] which he admitted to as User:BobaFett85 [171]. While User:BobaFett85's disruptive editing to make a point on coalition casualties in the war in Afghanistan appears to have lasted four months now, he has in fact actually been tendentiously and disruptively editing to make the very same point for over two and a half years now: As User:89.216.229.112 (officially confirmed to be User:Top Gun), he wrote on September 5, 2006: "Your removed 61 soldiers from the count of 333 who have died in operation Enduring freedom puting the number 272. OK I will agree not including the 14 soldiers killed in operation OEF Horn of Africa,14 soldiers killed in operation OEF Philippines and 5 soldiers killed in operation OEF Guantanamo bay. But that leaves 28 more soldiers."[172] As User:Top Gun in July 2007, BobaFett85 wrote: "OK listen up the number given for the US military casualties here is not right. ... icasualties.org states that 543 soldiers have been killed in Enduring Freedom up to date. The operation can be bropken down into four different operations. OEF - Afghanistan, OEF - Phillipines, OEF - Horn of Africa and OEF - Guantanamo bay. The Phillipines part of the operation has had 15 fatalities, the Africa part 17 and Guantanamo bay 5. So 543 - (15+17+5) = 516. Also the icasualties.org number doesn't include the civilian employee of the DoD that was killed by hostile fire. ..." As his sockpuppet User:BobaFett85 on March 28, 2009, Top Gun writes: "Operation Enduring Freedom consists of five specific sub-operations, those are: OEF-Afghanistan, OEF-Phillipines, OEF-Horn of Africa, OEF-Trans Sahara and OEF-Guantanamo bay. Of all confirmed OEF casualties, 41 have been found on the icasualties.org's list to have died in Africa, Cuba or the Phillipines so logic dictates that all of the rest died in support of OEF-Afghanistan."[173][174] As his sockpuppet User:BobaFett85 again: "Currently operation Enduring Freedom has five different operations: OEF-Afghanistan, OEF-Horn of Africa, OEF-Trans Sahara, OEF-Philipines and OEF-Guantanamo bay. Icasualties.org has a filter instaled to filter out soldeirs killed by country in which they were killed. I checked and 41 soldiers have been listed as killed in African or Southeast Asia countries or Cuba. Thus those 41 died in OEF-Horn of Africa, OEF-Trans Sahara, OEF-Philipines and OEF-Guantanamo bay. That would mean the rest died in OEF-Afghanistan, there is not any other current OEF operation to atribute the rest of the deaths."[175][176] In the latest lengthy WP:Afd discussion to be caused by BobaFett85's disruptive editing to make a point, editor Lawrence, M.J. observed "Further, I highly suspect him to be a sockpuppet of the banned User:Top Gun, who used to maintain similar lists before he was blocked.". In his reponse to that, User:BobaFett85 himself brought up his previous sockpuppet alias, User:Guyver85, on his own without anyone else mentioning it, saying "if you mean the lists of victims of war than yes I maintain some of them. Currently I update Afghan insurgent and security forces casualties and update the Iraqi insurgent and security forces casualties ... And as far as I can see the last user who updated those two articles before me was some guy named Guyver, he was doing it every posible day, he stoped I don't know why."[177][178][179] Likewise, writing as User:BobaFett85 in a lengthy dispute on talk page Coalition casualties in Afghanistan, he also brings up his previous alias User:Top Gun on his own without anyone else mentioning it, saying: "List of insurgent fatality reports in Afghanistan - what? What's the problem here? It's the same as List of insurgent fatality reports in Iraq, and by the way don't try and accuse me of arbitery editing that article as well, it wasn't created by me but by users Publicus and Top Gun three years ago, they stoped editing it so I continued instead of them. And that article, the Iraqi one, was nominated for deletion two times, and both times editors thought that there is no basis for deletion and that the article is needed, with an overwhelming majority. So obviously Wikipedia Users think that articles like List of insurgent fatality reports in Afghanistan are needed. ..." [180][181][182] Besides the obvious sockpuppetry, there may also be a case of meatpuppetry or WP:Teamwork here. Throughout his various sockpuppets and alternative accounts, BobaFett85 seems to consult with and report in frequently to his friend User:TheFEARgod in Serbian. User:TheFEARgod communicated very frequently in Serbian with BobaFett85 when he was still using his primary account, User:Top Gun. As User:Guyver85, BobaFett85 also communicated frequently with User:TheFEARgod in Serbian: [183][184]. As User:89.216.236.45 he also communicated frequently in Serbian with User:TheFEARgod. And, of course, as User:BobaFett85 he has been communicating with the same User:TheFEARgod in Serbian. There is a clear association. User:Top Gun consulting or reporting in with User:TheFEARgod in Serbian[185] User:Guyer85 consulting or reporting in with User:TheFEARgod in Serbian[186] User:BobaFett85 consulting or reporting in with User:TheFEARgod in Serbian[187] User:89.216.235.26 consulting or reporting in with User:TheFEARgod in Serbian[188] User:89.216.236.45 consulting or reporting in with User:TheFEARgod in Serbian[189] User:87.116.170.203 consulting or reporting in with User:TheFEARgod in Serbian[190] User:87.116.171.227 consulting or reporting in with User:TheFEARgod in Serbian[191] In the latest WP:Afd to be caused by BobaFett85's POV forking, WP:Articles for deletion/American Forces casualties in the war in Afghanistan, User:TheFEARgod was of course there to take his friend's side, as he has done in the previous discussions over deletion of BobaFett85's articles WP:Articles for deletion/War on Terrorism: Allies and WP:Articles for deletion/Kosovo Forces fatalities. User:TheFEARgod also came to his help when BobaFett85 was being blocked as User:Top Gun, writing: "If you take a look at TopGuns contributiopns, you will see a bunch of very benign "little" casualty figures-related edits."[192] There may be a form of WP:Tagteam or WP:Teamwork in this.

To summarize, User:BobaFett85 is the latest sockpuppet of User:Top Gun, aka User:Guyver85 aka 89.216.*.* aka 87.116.*.*, who is a community-banned user, has used at least 10 accounts (3 named accounts and at least 7 IP accounts), has been blocked at least 13 times, has been blocked indefinitely 3 times, has repeatedly used sockpuppetry to evade the indefinite blocks and the community-ban, has disrupted with at least 6 articles nominated for deletion[193][194][195][196][197][198], and has been given numerous warnings for edit warring, revert warring, lack of civility, disruptive editing, and other violations of Wikipedia policies. This is a case of long-term WP:Disruptive editing, WP:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, and WP:Sock puppetry.

As per WP:Banning Policy, "Banned or blocked users sometimes return to Wikipedia using another user name. Obvious reincarnations are easily dealt with—the account is blocked and contributions are reverted or deleted, as discussed above." [199]

"A banned user who evades a ban, may have all of their edits reverted without question (with the exceptions listed here). Any pages that they create may be deleted on sight, per WP:CSD#G5 (though care should be taken if other editors have made good-faith edits to the page or its talk page)" [200]

Community-banned User:Top Gun returned to Wikipedia repeatedly using numerous other user names in obvious reincarnations.

Action requested: WP:Banning policy mandates an indefinite block/ban of User:BobaFett85 and his alternate account User:89.216.236.45 as obvious reincarnations of community-banned User:Top Gun to enforce the indefinite block that is in place on User:Top Gun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ActionRequest (talk • contribs) 17:53, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

So, who are you, ActionRequest? It appears that you've created a single-purpose sockpuppet to post a ban request and engage in canvassing on its behalf. Admins around here don't like to jump without reasonably complete information, and a sockpuppet asking for the ban of another (purported) sockpuppet is troubling. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is single-purpose account created for the sole purpose of reporting this sockpuppet and requesting action. I will not be using this account for any other purpose. Because the user in question is tendentious to an extreme and is sure to be back, I was concerned about having to deal with a nightmare of reprisals. I created this account as a makeshift form of witness protection program or whistleblower protection program, though it probably won't help in the end. You can discount my request on this basis if you feel you should, but I believe I have documented the case above sufficiently that it stands on its own. ActionRequest (talk) 18:51, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigations are requested here. hmwithτ 19:18, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

A checkuser report has been made at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Top Gun and it appears to have been accepted. As such, I'm marking this as resolved. Nick-D (talk) 08:11, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

AWB and rollback

Resolved

Hi! I have a quick question for admins. It seems that I made a mistake when using WP:AWB to add listas parameters to biography tags, so I was wondering if it would be acceptable to use admin rollback to undo them all to save time (well over 100 edits). If not, I can use Twinkle, but I was just wondering if that was OK under the current policies and guidelines. Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C) 01:27, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I've now finished this with Twinkle. –Drilnoth (T • C) 02:31, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

It's a little late now, but in future, rollback is fine for stuff like this (self-reverts, reverting bots that made many errors). See Wikipedia:ROLLBACK#Mass rollbacks and Wikipedia:ROLLBACK#Custom_edit summaries. –xeno (talk) 02:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3

Resolved

Just to let everyone know, I have nominated Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3 for MfD, there is no actual evidence of anyone trying to resolve this dispute, and no real evidence that the dispute was ever identified by anyone other than Abd, who is to say the least of an odd character. Multiple users in good faith have identified the RfC as vexatious, a restatement of multiple previously dismissed complaints, a characteristic behaviour with Abd. I do not intend to watchlist the RfC or the MfD debate or comment any further on either, I think that their useful purpose has been exhausted in that a serious problem with Abd's behaviour has been identified and I will leave it to uninvolved individuals to raise any RfC that may be deemed necessary or desirable. I don't think it's fixable myself, it's a case of show him the door or live forever with his flat refusal to accept or drop any consensus that goes against him. Guy (Help!) 20:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Now closed Speedy Keep. --Salix (talk): 21:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Fine, so just move the RfC to Wikipedia:List of users with grudges against JzG and be done with it, that's its only function now. Guy (Help!) 11:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I don't think we need to host a page that big - the current page suffices for the very small portion of that huge gathering currently bothering with the matter. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:57, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Being a friend of JzG does take an unusual amount of determination. What do you say, old bean, about making things a little easier on your friends? Jehochman ^Talk 13:01, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Block problems

Resolved

 – No admin attention required

Looks like we have a problem at the moment. Anyone know anything about this? Hiberniantears (talk) 15:03, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Never mind. I just blocked someone. Appears to be resolved. Hiberniantears (talk) 15:09, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:AIV backlogged

hasn't been cleared for 20+ minutes. any admins about? Enigma^msg 17:48, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Backlogged again. Also, this appears to be a vandalism-only account. Enigma^msg 20:12, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. It tends to build up around this time of day, but it looks like several admins are on it now. hmwithτ 20:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I reported an IP 20 minutes ago. It's been repeatedly vandalizing several pages. 20 minutes later and nothing has been done. This is rather frustrating. I hate having to rollback again and again and again... Enigma^msg 21:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Redressing grievances (MZMcBride)

If you feel I've wronged you or the project in some way, please feel free to comment at User talk:MZMcBride#Redressing grievances. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

User Mitsube

I have been having a lot of trouble with user:Mitsube, who seems to be following me from article to article and undoing all my edits and references with no valid reasons. I have tried talking to him/her on his talk page, so far to no avail -- he ignores me there and carries on reverting my edits. I notice from his talk page that other editors also have a hard time with him. What do you suggest I do next? Thanks for your help. (Truthbody (talk) 17:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC))

The user has been spamming articles on my watchlist with material published by a publisher devoted to the ideas of a leader of a Tibetan Buddhist sect. The material is unreliable. The user has violated 3rr at Tantra techniques (Vajrayana). Mitsube (talk) 20:26, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

The user tries to include as much material from only one teacher and only one publisher as possible and makes many links to the same websites, promoting his teacher and religion. The publications are modern religious teachings from a somewhat controversial tibetan buddhist group (sect). Their take on things doesn't not represent tibetan buddhism as a whole. The user takes everything personal, and is quite new to wikipedia. Greetings, Sacca 20:50, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Sacca, when you say "the user", are you referring to the topic of this thread or its author? hmwithτ 21:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Sacca is referring to edits made by User:Truthbody, not Mitsube. Viriditas (talk) 01:28, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

For further discussion of the author, please see the Users Emptymountains and Truthbody section above. hmwithτ 21:39, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Note: I notified the user of this section. hmwithτ 19:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

These accusations are untrue. And I am not trying to take things personally -- but Mitsube and Sacca are making this entirely personal by insulting me, my edits, my religion, my teachers etc (which can be seen on their reversions of my edits and on the discussion above). They are not basing their comments on facts. I have included books from an author who is reliable, but not only from him, and only in places where the edits and WP:RS have improved the articles, which is what I am trying to do. I explain where the edits are coming from (the mainstream Gelugpa school of Buddhism). I am not new to Wikipedia. I am not spamming. I am trying to help with an area that I have studied for 27 years. Mitsube and his friend user:Sacca are joining forces to try and run me off these articles due to some prejudice they have which is not based on facts or reason. They are no doubt hoping I will give up before they do. But is this bully boy behaviour really how Wikipedia is supposed to function? Please request them to stop undoing all my edits. (Truthbody (talk) 21:55, 5 April 2009 (UTC))

Read and understand Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, as you are editing articles that you have an admittedly strong POV about, and you are emotionally invested in the outcome of promoting your outside interests. Your interests, however fascinating they may be, are secondary to our policies and guidelines. From what I can tell, Mitsube and Sacca have not been following you around; on the contrary, you have been editing articles on their watchlists, articles that they have been editing for a long time. I think you need to take this issue to the WikiProject and the appropriate noticeboards (Reliable sources and Original research). Viriditas (talk) 01:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

There are some significant concerns about the use of the sources that User:Truthbody is relying on; harassment is not acceptable, but if the user is repeatedly adding material with the same sourcing issues to pages that Mitsube is watching, than reverting is not harassment. Again, I think we need to see specific edits and pages where there are issues, rather than just making blanket claims about editors. A discussion in general about using specific teachers as sources should probably be started at the Wikiproject:Buddhism page, and then ask for third party opinions on pages where there are specific conflicts. --Clay Collier (talk) 03:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

"I explain where the edits are coming from (the mainstream Gelugpa school of Buddhism)." The Dalai Lama, who is the de facto leader of the Gelugpas, has condemned this movement. Has anyone got a reliable source saying how many Gelugpas support each side? Peter jackson (talk) 08:21, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The point here is not what the Dalai Lama likes and what he dislikes, it is the accuracy of the information that is being added to the articles. If the information being added is incorrect, of course it should be deleted but it is mainstream Gelugpa view that no one would have a problem with. The problem is that some people have taken a sectarian dislike to Geshe Kelsang and his books because of his opposition to the Dalai Lama over his ban of the practice of Dorje Shugden. This is no valid reason to prevent information that is correct being added from these books, surely? I would go further and request the Admins to protect users from the discrimination and sectarianism that is being shown through changes to these articles being reverted for no good reason. --Truthsayer62 (talk) 14:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is user:Mitsube permitted to keep undoing every single one of my changes on the Vajrayana page instead of taking each one on its merits (and editing it further if he wishes)? If the edits add something useful to the article, is it correct for him to just keep reverting everything I do, even if the article is on his "watch list"? For example, this one: "Although it is sometimes called death yoga, it is mainly practiced during life, during meditation. It can be practiced first according to generation stage and then according to completion stage. The accumulation of meditative practice helps to prepare the practitioner for what they need to do at the time of death. At the time of death the mind is in a subtle state (clear light) that can open the mind to enlightenment if it is skilfully used to meditate on emptiness (shunyata). During completion stage meditation it is possible to manifest a similar clear light mind and use it to meditate on emptiness. This meditation causes dualistic appearances to subside into emptiness and enables the practitioner to destroy their ignorance and the imprints of ignorance that are the obstructions to omniscience. It is said that masters like Lama Tsong Khapa used these techniques to achieve enlightenment during the death process." This is a standard explanation of how to do death yoga, it is correct. So why just delete it? There are other examples, i'm trying to be specific to show the problems I am encountering with this user. Please can the moderators ask Mitsube to discuss why exactly he disagrees with an edit like this one on the talk page before unilaterally removing it and trying to have an edit war. And with all due respect, Viriditas, I am not trying to "protect outside interests", I am only trying to improve these articles in accordance with wiki policy, including neutrality. Please give me one example of an edit Mitsube has removed where I have not followed wiki policy. Thank you. (Truthbody (talk) 17:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC))

The problem is that sourcing exclusively from NKT sources forces other editors to constantly ask: is this point different between the NKT and other traditions- particularly in the cases where NKT positions are being held to apply generally to all of Mahayana or all of Buddhism- or can it reasonably stand in as a general description? By its own admission, NKT has disassociated itself from the rest of the Tibetan Buddhist community; to say that NKT is the same as orthodox Gelugpa is a bit confusing to me, because on at least one issue (Shugden), NKT has gone one way and other Gelugpa (including many senior people in the Tibetan exile community) have gone another. Is this really the only difference in doctrine and interpretation between the NKT and the rest of Tibetan Buddhism? NKT believes itself to be the heirs of the 'true' Gelugpa tradition, but non-NKT Tibetan Buddhists see it differently. And as was discussed above, using the views of a particular teacher as a source for information about Buddhism or a branch of Buddhism generally run the risk of substituting that teacher's personal understanding of the topic for the broader view- we can't assume just because the Dalai Lama is a Tibetan Buddhist that what is presented as his understanding of every Tibetan Buddhist topic is the correct one, just as we can't assume that Kelsang Gyatso's view of every topic are correct. There exists a controversy about the status of the NKT in relation to the rest of the tradition. By relying exclusively on sources that are specific to one side of the dispute, it becomes impossible for editors to know if interpretations idiosyncratic to that tradition are being presented as the general understanding of all Tibetan Buddhists, or all Mahayanists. The bottom line is that it is inappropriate for NKT's views to stand in for all of Tibetan Buddhism, or all of Mahayana; there are plenty of sources that adopt the viewpoint of no particular school that contain descriptions of these broader views. --Clay Collier (talk) 20:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the Buddhism taught by Geshe Kelsang (which is the same as that taught by Trijang Rinpoche) or by the Dalai Lama or by any other Buddhist teacher should NOT be presented on a general encyclopedia as the only view of Buddhism. But I am not aware that I have tried to present my contributions as such, which is why I have sourced edits to that particular author (and also to other sources -- I have edited many articles and used a huge number of different sources). The problem I am finding with user:Mitsube and user:Sacca is that they are simply reverting any edit I do on any article that they are also working on and they have not given one single specific example of an edit that is inaccurate or even non-representative of Buddhism. [Ironically, I also find on some of the articles in question e.g. rebirth (Buddhism) that there are very few sources given, so the material has to be taken by the reader on trust that it fairly represents mainstream Buddhism (whatever that is!) -- this is ironic because I am being criticized for trying to add some sources.] As for whether Geshe Kelsang presents mainstream Gelugpa teachings, hopefully this might shed some light: http://www.newkadampatruth.org/newkadampa5a.php and http://newkadampatruth.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/has-the-nkt-broken-away-from-the-mainstream/ (Truthbody (talk) 21:33, 6 April 2009 (UTC))

Also I agree with admins above that "specifics are necessary". To avoid generalized bias, user:Mitsube and user:Sacca please give examples of the edits you take exception to and exactly why (you can use the talk page of that particular article if you wish and that gives me the opportunity to show you why I used those edits and I will modify them if you show that they are inaccurate in any way.) (Truthbody (talk) 23:38, 6 April 2009 (UTC))

User Sacca

I think this user is trying to make me fall into infringing the three revert rule -- but I have not reverted anyone else's edits on Vajrayana, I have simply tried to restore my own valid edits. Sorry for any infraction in doing so, but I have tried talking to user:Sacca on his talk page to no avail. Please see User:Mitsube discussion just above this one for more information on how so far I have not been allowed to edit a single thing on their articles. Thank you. (Truthbody (talk) 23:47, 6 April 2009 (UTC))

You are in control of your own actions, so don't worry about what you think others are doing. Use the discussion page of the articles to call attention to the content dispute. Also, your comment about Sacca on your talk page[201] is not kind, so please remember to keep things WP:CIVIL. These types of content disputes arise when people focus on words rather than the mind. Please remember the importance of the wordless flower sermon and focus on things as they are, not as you think they should be defined. Viriditas (talk) 23:58, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

User Truthbody

Second 3rr violation by user truthbody. This time on vajrayana. Shows no sign of improvement yet. Time for a ban me thinks. Can't see how his edits are low quality, thinks he can do anything because his edits are always good. Greetings, Sacca 00:02, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

user:93.96.148.42 - reply to AndyTheGrump's complaint

AndyTheGrump has called me a dickhead, accused me of spamming wikipedia, and obstructed various edits at Phallus, and Penis. He refuses to engage in discussion on the merits of arguments, instead pointing to patterns of behaviour that allegedly invalidate my contributions to discussion, and making personal remarks. I would be grateful if you would investigate his edits.93.96.148.42 (talk) 07:57, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

He made his complaint after I asked for help at Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance at his request. There he wrote "Please see this contributors recent edit history, and the new thread I've started at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#user:93.96.148.42. I'm not interested in discussing matters of Wikiquette with people clearly out to cause trouble - and in the case of this contributor, my description of him/her as a 'dickhead' was not intended as a metaphor. I suggest the contributor should either grow up, or fuck off and troll elsewhere..."93.96.148.42 (talk) 08:21, 21 July 2012 (UTC)