Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. If you are new, try the Wikipedia:Teahouse instead. Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead use Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent. Do not post requests for page protection, deletion requests, or block requests here. Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. If opening a close appeal, use {{RfC closure review}} When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:AN-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Sections inactive for over seven days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search) Start a new discussion

Tasks

Wikipedia:Cleaning department

This seems to have falled into desuetude; I organized it a bit and added a whole bunch of things (CfD, TfD, etc) to bring it somewhat up-to-date. I then went through this page (and the archives), and added all the things listed here. (I was tempted to copy signups from here to that page, but I thought I'd better let people sign up on their own steam! :-) Anyway, if people could go look at it, and i) add things I missed, and ii) sign up for things (especially if you are already doing them, so we know what's covered, and what's not), that woule be great. Thanks! Noel (talk) 22:27, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Requested Moves (WP:RM)

I know there is an endless list of tasks for the admins to do but I'd just like to make note that WP:RM is starting to build up a bit of a backlog. I usually do the moves but can't right now because the servers are running too slowly for me. Would be good if anyone could take a look and do a couple. Cheers, violet/riga (t) 16:18, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

General

Wikipedia:Guide to Votes for Deletion

A new guide for VFD is being written. I highly recommend that all administrators review this guide -- AllyUnion (talk) 21:53, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Confirm queried sources

I've made a new proposed policy. Not sure if I'm going about it the right way. Anyway, it's Wikipedia:Confirm queried sources. I recommend all admins view this as if it gets approved it's going to make admining and content disputes a lot more easy to resolve. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:14, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Page move bugs

Somehow, Mikkalai's move of List of English words of Russian origin to Words of Russian derivation caused all of the editing history to be lost except for the most recent edit, mine. Contrary to what the history now says, I am not the sole contributor to that article. Is there any way to fix this? Uncle G 12:41, 2005 Mar 2 (UTC)

• Try asking a developer, this is their area and not admin stuff. I guess they should be able to restore the history from a backup copy of the database if neccesary. Thue | talk 13:34, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I'll look for a Wikipedia:Developers' noticeboard ... Uncle G 13:49, 2005 Mar 2 (UTC)
    • That would be http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ . Thue | talk 19:58, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• What happened is the page was first moved to Words of Russian origin, and then moved again to Words of Russian derivation, but the history stayed at Words of Russian origin, where it was inaccessable because there was no page with that name. I moved the page back to Words of Russian origin to pick up the lost history, and it worked! Goplat 15:59, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

More page move bugs

Numanuma moved to Numa Numa with loss of history. Also, what links to Numa Numa looks weird now. Mikkalai 01:00, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hm, looks fine to me. Also, it is at Numa numa now. When I fixed a copy/paste move yesterday, I noticed that page histories do not seem to update immediately after a move. (When I deleted a page, moved the original there, and then checked the history, I got shown the history of the deleted page.) It only updated to the history of the moved page when I switched from "last 50" to "last 100" changes. Can it be that this whole business with histories being left behind is just a caching issue? Lupo 07:39, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Several times, doing a history merge, I have noticed a wierd bug, which may be related. I delete X-new, move X-old to X-new, and then undelete X-new, and the undelete succeeds. But then the history doesn't show the X-old versions, just the X-new ones! Waiting (I tried up to half an hour on one article), and/or flushing the cache with "&action=flush" doesn't help. However, make a gratuitous edit, and all of a sudden the old versions appear! (I guess I really ought to file a bug report about this, too busy, though...) Noel (talk) 15:33, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this does seem to be some sort of "cached copy of the history not getting updated properly". I have now seen the same sort of behaviour Lupo mentioned - when the history after a restore isn't what you expect, select one of the other history lengths, and it shows up correct. Making a gratuitous edit brings the history back correctly too. Sounds like it's correct in the master database, but history copies cached in various places aren't getting updated correctly. Doing any one of a number of things causes the caches copies of the history to be flushed, and the master (which is correct) to be looked at. Will definitely have to file a bug report on this (if someone else hasn't done so already). Noel (talk) 02:31, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oh wierd - this bug is provoked not just by undeletes, but in other circumstances too. Check out this version of the history, and compare it with this version. Notice the two missing versions in there? All I did was a save (albeit while the system was loaded). Wierd.... Noel (talk) 20:41, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I seem to have editing this page since then, so the wierdness is no longer visible. But at one point the "normal" history link was missing the two most recent non-current versons (i.e. the two ones before the then-current version). Noel (talk) 20:42, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Another history missing

Okay, so I'm a new admin as of late yesterday. I got a request from a user I've worked with to undo a page move for W.A.C. Bennett. The page was moved to a longer, less common name (William Andrew Cecil Bennett), and the user could not move it back because the shorter name had two items in the edit history. After a little bit of looking around for policies/procedures, it seemed to me that the resolution would be to do a delete on the requested destination and then move from the longer name to the shorter name. The delete worked without incident, but then I guess I tried to do the move a little too soon because I got the usual conflict message. After a few seconds, I was able to do the move, but the edit history doesn't seem to be there from the page's longer name. The longer name's history only shows my move. Did I miss a step? AdThanksVance. slambo 16:45, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

So either someone fixed the history or it was just a server cache that needed purging, but the history appears to be in the correct place now. slambo 18:57, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Cut and paste move repair holding pen

There is currently a problem with deleting older articles, which sometimes makes it impossible to fix cut and paste moves.

I have created Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen as a place to hold articles waiting for this problem to be fixed (so their histories can be merged). (I debated created a category for them as well, but decided not too - there no good reason I can think of for gunking up their histories.)

I have linked to it from Wikipedia:How to fix cut and paste moves; if there's anyplace else it should be linked from, please do so.

If you run across more of these situations, please add them to the list there. Thanks! Noel (talk) 15:25, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There's another list of pending history merges at Wikipedia:Requested moves#History mergers. You might want to merge the two lists and update the instructions at the top of WP:RM accordingly. Gdr 18:18, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Speedy deletions of "already in Wiktionary" articles

In a laudable effort to clean up Category:Move to Wiktionary, a number of articles have been marked with the speedy deletion tags. However, some of these articles have long since expanded beyond dictionary entries (e.g. realm, a type 1 disambiguation article currently listed in CAT:CSD for being "in Wiktionary") and in others the transwikification process simply wasn't done properly, and speedily deleting the article will render the edit history (required for transwikification) inaccessible. I urge any administrators on speedy deletion patrol to be cautious about deleting these articles, and to hold off deleting them until things are sorted out at Category talk:Move to Wiktionary. Uncle G 19:01, 2005 Mar 15 (UTC)

Comment on categorization

Your feedback is requested on a bold proposal to make categorization more stable and consistent, at Wikipedia:Categorization policy. Specifically, the idea is to disallow normal users from adding or renaming categories, and instead work from a 'request new category' page to ensure all categories are consistent in name and organization. Radiant_* 13:40, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

query about blocked users

Do they see the "you have new messages" notice?Geni 10:32, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Would you like someone to block you so you can find out? :-) (Momentarily, of course! :-) Noel (talk) 14:27, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, blocked users see the notice. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 15:32, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Proposed amendment revote

For those of you who haven't seen this yet, I direct your attention to Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Proposed amendment revote (and also wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Proposals) and remind you to put your voice in there so we can get the whole amendment thing over with. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 15:33, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for de-adminship

Please weigh in on your opinions regarding this proposed procedure for de-Adminning. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 17:16, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Revert bug?

I noticed lately that when I try to revert back more than one edit (say, when two acts of vandalism occur back to back), that my automated revert will only go back back one revision (example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stony_Brook_University&action=history. On 00:33 21 Mar 2005 I tried to revert to the last edit by 68.195.88.148, and failed). Has anybody seen this, or am I out of my mind? – ClockworkSoul 05:37, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand. Do you think the rollback button has AI? How would it know you wanted to rollback to 68.195.88.148 and not to 205.188.116.70? silsor 05:41, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I should clarify. Not by the rollback button. It was so that when I would compare two revisions, I would click the rollback link and the later revision would be reverted to the earlier revision. This no longer seems to be so. Rather, it will revert the the earliest revision that is not by me. Sorry about the confusion. – ClockworkSoul 05:53, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The rollback link removes all changes by the last person to edit the page. silsor 06:09, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to do that before; it forces you to do a manual rv on that kind of vandalism. It'd be a great feature to have (I think), why make a request in [bugzilla.wikipedia.org bugzilla]? -Frazzydee|✍ 01:57, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oops, meant http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org, it can be so picky sometimes :P -Frazzydee|✍ 23:05, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Rollback failed

While trying to roll back several edits made by a vandal, I ran into this situation:

Rollback failed

There seems to be a problem with your login session; this action has been canceled as a precaution against session hijacking. Please hit "back" and reload the page you came from, then try again.

Any idea why this is happening? RickK 07:48, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

You're not using AOL, are you? --Carnildo 08:56, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Um, yeah, I am.  :) RickK 21:26, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

That could explain it, then. AOL's system of using random transparent proxies in a very large IP space for all connections to the Internet breaks most anti-session-hijacking measures, in a way unfavorable to honest users. --Carnildo 21:57, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I get this too, from time to time, and I'm on cable. I assumed that it was a database burp, like the others that I regularly get during high-traffic periods. – ClockworkSoul 23:58, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I get these occasionally too, and I also use cable. Tuf-Kat 05:06, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Unblocking IP after user is blocked... a problem

Hello. User:Gumba gumba was blocked indefinitely, as "all edits vandalism". He had been blocked earlier for 24 hours and came right back. However, he seems to be using a shared IP, so the username should be blocked, but not the underlying IP.

According to Wikipedia:Blocking policy, the thing to do is wait for an "autoblocked because you share an IP" notice to appear at Special:Ipblocklist and then unblock that. However, I've done that half a dozen times now (see Special:Log/block, and new autoblock notices keep appearing. Does this work as advertised?

Can someone look into this? Unfortunately I have to step away from the computer soon. -- Curps 22:29, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I thought IP autoblocks expired after 24 hours anyway, even if the user account was blocked indefinitely? Lupo 22:40, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Apparently this user is using a shared proxy IP. Waiting 24 hours is really not an option. User:Tony Sidaway and I unblocked about ten IP autoblocks over nearly 45 minutes, but they just kept coming, and finally had to unblock User:Gumba gumba. Imagine that, an unblockable non-anonymous vandal. The software leaves much to be desired. -- Curps 23:01, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

His IP gets auto-blocked for 24 hours every time he logs in, so blocking him and then unblocking the auto-block works, unless he keeps trying to edit under User:Gumba gumba, as each time he does that the IP gets auto-blocked again. --Weyes 23:12, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)

So a vandal user on an ISP that uses shared proxy IPs can carry out a denial of service attack against fellow Wikipedia users on that same ISP, just by repeatedly trying to edit under their own username? That's insane. Why can't we just block a username without blocking an IP, and why wasn't that a feature from DAY ONE? -- Curps 23:46, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It was there at day one, but at a certain point auto-blocking was introduced, and getting that up and running was deemed more important than making it optional. Ask for someone to hack up a fix at wikitech-l, and in the meantime advise those who are affected to disable the proxy in their browser settings, or, if it's a transparent proxy and cannot be disabled, to use one of the many available public proxies. --Weyes 00:34, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)

The problem would disappear as soon as Bug 550 would find a developer to implement. andy 15:11, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Block conflict question

Pardon my ignorance; I am a relatively new administrator and a couple times another administrator and I blocked the same person without realizing the other had already blocked him. How long will the block last? I can't find this anywhere although I thought I saw something about shorter blocks, but it was on a talk page somewhere. One of us blocked for 24 hours, the other one indefinitely. Any information would be appreciated. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:07, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The newer block replaces the old one. So whatever block length you put down is the block length that will be used. I had the same question a couple of weeks ago. BrokenSegue 02:55, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) Apparently someone told me the wrong information. BrokenSegue 05:47, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have a related question. When dealing with a user account set up to vandalize (and which has made no or virtually no regular edits), what is the usual period to block for? Wikipedia:Dealing with vandalism says up to one month for static IP addresses. Does that also refer to user accounts, or can these be blocked indefinitely? SlimVirgin 02:27, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Blocking policy: "Sysops may also block new user accounts that make lots of disruptive edits, for any length of time or permanently, at their discretion. Sockpuppets that were created to violate Wikipedia policy should be blocked permanently." Jayjg ^(talk) 03:09, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Jay. SlimVirgin 03:12, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

According to User:Tim Starling in #mediawiki, and as confirmed by a bit of testing I did (as you may have noticed in the block log), the shortest block is the one which takes effect, and not the oldest or newest. User:Rdsmith4/Sig 05:49, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Blocking myself was something I hadn't considered trying; nice idea. Thanks, Dan. So then my next question is: suppose an administrator blocks someone indefinitely, and I then block the same person for 24 hours (SlimVirgin and I blocked the same person during the same minute). I check the log and see that she was first—how do we restore the indefinite block? Do I unblock the user and then reblock indefinitely? — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:03, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, you do. Don't forget to mention the reblock in the reason field. This is exactly why I check the block log before blocking someone. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:39, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Here's a feature idea: first, put a "Block" tab near the "Delete" tab (in the default layout) for admins viewing User pages. Second, when you click the tab, you automatically see that user's complete block history. Good idea? dbenbenn | talk 00:05, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Korath implemented this idea at User:Korath/blockip.js, which needs to go in User:USERNAME/monobook.js. dbenbenn | talk 19:08, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Excellent! Wow, this is exactly what I needed. Thanks for pointing it out! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:19, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Request for Account Block

Account: BurnInBlue

Reason: Public Account

Proof: Username == Password

Proof2: The creation of this message. I hereby assert that I am *NOT* the creator of this account... however I am using it to prove that the account has (or at least had) public access.

BurnInBlue 04:57, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Password changed, thanks for reporting. silsor 04:59, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

If the real owner of this account would like to step forward they can have it back, with a good password of course. Funny how you knew it was a public account when it had never made a contribution. silsor 05:01, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

I know it is a public account because i found it on bugmenot.com, which is a well knoiwn public account distributer... indeed that is the purpose of said site.. to distribute public accounts for various websites... 69.68.36.55 05:03, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Also I have checked all Accounts listed from bugmenot.com at this time, none worked except this one.. because this is a wiki and thus there is no *valid* use for a public account it may be advisable to request removal of *.wikipedia.org; *.wiktionary.org, etc from bugmenot... 69.68.36.55 05:08, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sent such a request. 69.68.36.55 05:12, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, we do block all bugmenot accounts when we find them. As far as I know they ignore all requests to stop hosting public account information for Wikipedia sites. silsor 05:14, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

That is funny becaue according to BugMeNot: "BugMeNot also willingly removes accounts for any web site that requests that they do not provide accounts for non-registered users." 69.68.36.55 05:35, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I sent BugMeNot an e-mail, and they say they've stopped supplying accounts for any of the Wikimedia projects. They were very friendly about it, and complimented the project, so that should make the public account problem a little better. Snowspinner 17:13, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

There's no need to block public accounts, which clutters up the block list. Instead, just change the E-mail and password in the account preferences, you don't even need to be an admin to do so. --Weyes 13:23, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)

I'm inclined to disagree. Such accounts are easily abused by vandals. Simply change the password and lay low. I certainly support preventive blocking in this case. Mgm|^(talk) 12:52, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

I think we have some misunderstanding here. I'm arguing for disabling public accounts, but for doing so by changing the password instead of through blocking. Blocking means the account will clutter up the block list for all eternity, which in the long run doesn't scale. Changing the password prevents use of the account too, but without cluttering up the block list. --Weyes 14:18, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Well done! Unknown public accounts are a big security hole for our Wikipedia society. Wikipedians must find them all asap! We, the known public accounts, in order to help wikipedia community to escape from the unknown public accounts curse, we are declaring that we join the admins, the arbitrators, the private accounts and the anonymousIP accounts in their fight against unknown public accounts. We are going to find them all and burn them to fire! Agasias 17:56, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Database error

I want to let you know of a database error that is happening when users submit edits at the exact same time. When Marxx was speedy deleted at the exact same time I marked it as VFD, the database started to incorrectly list that I first created it. Zzyzx11 18:27, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That isn't an error. The page was deleted, and a few moments later you recreated it. I suppose we could fix this problem with a magic token that tells the system "I'm not creating a new page, just modifying it, so just ignore this edit if the page isn't there!" dbenbenn | talk 18:50, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's not a bug, it's a feature ;) I've had some problems with that too...I've given a couple people messages about creating a test page, and they always get so confused because they never created it. If it got speedied before, then you can just {{db|reincarnation}} it (unless of course it wasn't a real speedy). -Frazzydee|✍ 20:05, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Speedy-deleting "hoaxes"

A reminder to all admins to use extra care when speedy deleting. There have been incidents recently where an anon has repeatedly inappropriately nominated a page for speedy deletion as a "hoax" (which is not one of the speedy criteria in any case), ignoring all suggestions to take it to VfD, and has actually succeeded in getting it deleted twice. The page in question does not in fact appear to be a hoax at all (a minor musical genre with an odd name). Remember to check page history. -- Curps 18:00, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Incidents

Reporting of all types of incidents other than 3RR violations (e.g. informal complaints over the behaviour of an admin, blocked users evading blocks, etc) is done on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (shortcut WP:AN/I).

Three-revert rule violations

Reporting of Three-revert rule violations is done at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR.

82.35.37.118

This user is vandalising. various topics, due to complete ignorance of the areas he is dealing with. I suggest you block them.--Jirate 19:17, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Ignorance is not vandalism. Please consult the meanings of the things you're accusing people of before accusing. Snowspinner 19:34, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

But the products of ignorance in this case is vandlism, learn wha words mean. Have you blocked them?

Have you looked at Wikipedia:Vandalism at all? If so, which of the types of vandalism listed do you think he's committing? Snowspinner 19:41, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

I'm using the term as in ENglish. Not in the Wikibook of alternate meanings.--Jirate 19:43, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

So you're asking me to make a block that has no basis in policy? Snowspinner 19:46, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not asking you to do anything. In fact I am suprised you are still an admin.--Jirate 19:52, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress is the place to report vandalism, which this isn't. Try explaining what's wrong with the category schemes this user is trying to apply before racing off to demand a block. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 19:40, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have already tried that at about 15:00 this afternoon.--Jirate 19:43, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)