Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive216

Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Confirmed needs staffing

Click here to watchlist the page

While the diligent efforts of User:Fastily in patrolling this page are appreciated, this board seems otherwise woefully understaffed (requests languished while Fastily was on vacation). Users requesting the confirmed permission are on the verge of taking the red pill, and we should make sure they are granted access, rather than have to wait a few days for their request to be reviewed (and potentially losing interest in contributing). The confirmed userright jumpstarts WP:AUTOCONFIRMED can generally be granted fairly liberally. –xeno^talk 18:36, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Bot making hundreds of links to oocities.com, when links to Archive.org would be better

Unresolved

 – Discussion continues at Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard#External links and references to former GeoCities sites. –xeno^talk 13:13, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Updatehelper (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Despite a previous ANI which concluded that links to oocities.com violate WP:COPYLINK, user UpdateHelper's bot is changing hundreds of links to point to it. [1] Geocities.com is defunct, but its pages are reliably hosted on Archive.org. If somebody wants to provide reliable links to vanished geocities pages, it would be very simple to make a bot to change "geocities.com/blablabla" not to "oocities.com/blablaba" but to "web.archive.org/web/*/geocities.com/blablabla".

Furthermore, to quote a different objection on UpdateHelper's talk page, "Geocities links can be redirected quite easily using Checklinks. Tedious as a human job, but likely possible with a well-thought-out bot. Once they've been changed to point to this mirror, Checklinks is no longer an option. It's worth seriously considering whether this action is going to cause even more work down the road. " (quotingUser:Katherine) [2]

I think these bot-edits should stop until there has been some consensus among administrators on the best place for vanished Geocities links to point to. betsythedevine (talk) 16:40, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Since this appears to be somewhat controversial, Updatehelper (talk · contribs) should stop the AWB task and seek consensus and file a WP:BRFA if it is found. I do note that a large chunk of the edits were rolled back earlier today by an administrator, so by definition there is some controversy here (see WP:AWB#Rules of use). –xeno^talk 17:14, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:BOTPOL#Bot usage: "Note that high-speed semi-automated processes may effectively be considered bots in some cases, even if performed by an account used by a human editor. If in doubt, check." [emph. in original]. I think a best practice would be to seek community consensus and have the task approved by BAG. There are several issues here: first, that many of the oocities links are not presently operational (and may never be), so it's replacing one dead link with another. Second, there is the concern of copyright - which needs to be resolved before we create links en masse to OoCities. I'm not sure that their http://oocities.com/geocities-archive/faq.html satisfies the concern that the re-use of the Geocities content is legal (IANAL). See also Wikipedia:BOTPOL#Assisted editing guidelines: "In general, processes that are operated at higher speeds, with a high volume of edits, or are more automated, may be more likely to be treated as bots for these purposes"). At the present volume and rate, I would say that it 1) is considered a bot task 2) is potentially controversial 3) requires community consensus before continuing and 4) should go through BRFA. And finally, some (most?) of these links perhaps shouldn't even be here in the first place, the former Geocities being a free web server. –xeno^talk 17:45, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree on all points. The copyright status of internet archives are by no means clear, but at this point Wayback is permitted. OoCities seems to have its heart in the right place, but they also seem a bit naive. Did anybody see a registered designated agent there? (I didn't; I also see that in order to remove content, copyright owners must "Use your original email which was stated on your page to verify that you are the owner." That seems to be putting hoops up beyond those permitted by OCILLA.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

- Free webserver is a question i totally agree it should be asked, especially for freewebsite sites made within the last ten years. But in the 90s this was slightly differnt, because there were less better ways to publish. Those geocities sites linked in wikipedia were mostly made between 1994 and 2000 and it was differnt, thus there are quiete a few geocities pages made by high university degree autors which provide trule unique scientific sources. or just very specific unique informations like this one providing tables of results of a historical chess championchips http://web.archive.org/web/20091021101919/http://geocities.com/al2055km/ch_repub/1919/ch_mos19.html --Updatehelper (talk) 00:13, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• While I don't doubt their good faith, there are too many questions that need answering before this task goes forward. I've reverted the most current batch of edits and will ask the user to seek consensus and approval at BRFA prior to recommencing this task. –xeno^talk 18:52, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

--------------

Hello, To read further on the issue you may want to have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive579#User:_Updatehelper and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Updatehelper

My task is simple but cost a lot of time: It is to update links which lead to geocities.com (13000 left) because geocities is completely dead since 10 Month. Therefore i either change them to oocities.com (which has got about 90% of them) or otherwise afterwards to archive.org (which has got less, and takes longer to load single pages) when iam done most of them work again, when i stop they will stay dead as they were for the past 10 month and they will go on wasting a lot of human time.

Now i will give a statement on each single point of criticism:

"better Archive.org? " :

• 1. Oocities has a higher percentage of these pages, estimated 90%, whereas archive.org appears to have only about 50%. Thus its the most reasonable first step to update the links, which are still not changed 10 month later, to oocities.com.

-->A great amount of pages which is not at Archive.org is available at oocities.com but only very few are not at oocities but can be found in another archve. in this case oocities redirects to archive.org

• Anyways there will not be any barrier doing further efforts after my first and most striking step is done and edit single 404 Links to oocities and make them web.archive.org/web/*/geocities.com/ if they are available there. but as said before thats rarly the case. And even 13000 Links are quiete a few i was the only one willing to work on updateing them since they were pulled offline in 2009

If noone else will, then i will of course take those further steps to improve my action. but yet the first and most effective step is to change the links to oocities.com because still 13000 Links lead there and after this first step most of them will work and only a few 100 will redirect to archive.org and another few 100 will not work because they probably arent available anywhere. also Archive.org is very slow (especially images).

• Oocities is not online since 14 years but since one year, when geocities was closed, and its stable.

"copyright" :

• its basically the same question for all archvies. Both take down contents on requests and both mean to be a community service.
• OoCities probably receives less removal request because for Geocities the owners did not intentionally remove their pages.

"BOT"

• I use a very sophisticated so called RegularExpression in AutoWikiBrowser which contains a hundred lines to avoid any mistakes

• i can just apply to be a "BOT" if you guys want me to but it will not change the way i work which is obviously still much more human controlled and time-consuming than a bot was:

When i start editing i first collect a list of articles which should be updated. later working on the articles, thanks to AutoWikiBrowser and the Regular Expressions, i reach a partly high speed because the only thing you have to do is review the changed line for a moment (15 seconds or more) and just click save. But I work concentrated and learnt from a few minor mistakes in the beginning and further improved the Regex so that there wasnt any unwanted mistakes for the past 5000 edits and i will get the next 13000 done within the next month.

-Updatehelper (talk) 21:06, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree that it is basically the same in terms of copyright. Archive.org complies with the DMCA, with a duly registered designated agent. There's no sign that OoCities does this, and their requirement that the copyright holder contact them via the same address they had when they last updated their GeoCities content is problematic. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Its obviously not a requirement but an advice to simplify or speed up their removal process thus its not problematic --Updatehelper (talk) 21:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not what it says. It says, "Use your original email which was stated on your page to verify that you are the owner." --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:32, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

At this point, I begin to feel that in addition to being problematic for copyright concerns (lack of OCILLA compliance), this website could very well be problematic for spam. Randomly clicking, I see that this site is advertiser supported: looking at the last article you updated, compare the wayback version to the version OoCities kindly supplies: [3], complete with urging me to "seize today's top bargains." At this point, I am firmly opposed to this transition and wonder if we should not instead blacklist OoCities. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:30, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I reverted about 20 "oocities.com" conversions, until I realized there are 7680 of them, by searching on "*.oocities.com" with Special:LinkSearch. Every one I looked at was an edit by Updatehelper, usually from November or December 2009, or August 2010. Many are egregious edits of other editors' comments on talk pages, explanations of regex matches, edits of archived threads that say "do not edit", etc. You can look at my contribs for today for some sample diffs. But that's beside the point. I agree with Moonriddengirl and the others about the Copyvio and probably commercial Spam. -Colfer2 (talk) 22:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

the site does not show ads for wikipedia visitors. geocities is dead, it makes no sense to revert the changes. some of my early edits were talk pages but for the last at least 5000 edits i only edited Mainspace and iam no going to edit talkpages. yet there was noway a decision to revert the action. please respect my work which costes 100 of working hours and do not undo random edits, which is contraproductive to the effort. --Updatehelper (talk) 23:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Just a note on the coverage issue - when geocities was going down, I sampled a couple of hundred of our geocities links and tested them against archive.org. Off the top of my head, there was quite a low hit rate - perhaps 40-50% - so a simple direct-replacement won't work well; we'd need a vaguely intelligent script looking for the failures. Shimgray | talk | 23:16, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Exactly! Im not makeing up those numbers. Oocities is an Geocities archive only but also did special seperated collection for everything linked in wikipedia. thats why it totally makes sense to use it. --Updatehelper (talk) 23:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'm not sure if I'm supposed to post here as a non-administrator (so please delete this if I'm not), but I also wanted to point out the huge WP:NPOV issue here. In case anyone doubts that this is an agent of oocities.com, one only need look at the log for user Oocities. User:Oocities refers to oocities.com as "we." That account was created on November 8, 2010, made 32 edits, and then created UpdateHelper 3 days later, which I feel can only have been to conceal that he is an agent of the website. UpdateHelper has since made 6,860 edits, virtually all of which link to a website he represents. These are continuous bot-like edits which directly contradict the guideline that

  "It is true that a link from Wikipedia to an external site may drive Web traffic to that site. But in line with Wikipedia policies, you should avoid linking to a site that you own, maintain, or represent—even if WP guidelines seem to imply that it may otherwise be linked. When in doubt, you may go to the talk page and let another editor decide. This suggestion is in line with WP's conflict-of-interest guidelines." Wikipedia:EL#ADV

If there was a consensus from users generally that this needed to be done, the common sense thing to do would be to allow it. But given that most people have met this with, at best, a lukewarm reception, with many directly opposed, going ahead with this bot-like activity and constantly telling people that the discussion has already happened is not at all appropriate.‡ MAHEWA ‡ • talk 23:57, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with you. I just hope people complaining would see the actuall issue that it 1. as a precondition it cant do any harm 2.that 1000s of people are continuously misled everyday to the dead geocities domain, which is clearly wikipedia`s fault, and its not going to change if i dont change it or if we produce a better plan how to do it. Of course we dont always have to pick oocities but its the most effectiv step possible right now and for a major share of all the lins its the only source available. these were once again the most relevant facts i have to say. --Updatehelper (talk) 00:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

This seems to imply that you know there isn't a consensus. Your wish that people would see it your way does not make consensus. I'm not saying that this definitely isn't the best way to modify these pages. But no matter how much you might think you are improving Wikipedia, it must reflect consensus. The links need to be changed, no doubt. The sooner, the better. But, with very few exceptions, a desire to have content updated right now does not negate the need for consensus. Some editors might think the best action is to remove the links and find better references, given the low quality of these links in the first place. Others may only want to use a more reputable archive. It is completely wrong to act like our only option is to switch the links to oocities.com. Your complete lack of a neutral point of view only makes it worse.‡ MAHEWA ‡ • talk 03:15, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

i would like to suggest you guys to judge about the initial Problem referring to WP:COPYLINK i suggest to indeed just have a look at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COPYLINK#Linking_to_copyrighted_works

"The copyright status of Internet archives in the United States is unclear, however. It is currently acceptable to link to internet archives such as the Wayback Machine, which host unmodified archived copies of webpages taken at various points in time."

there is no breach of WP:COPYLINK:

• Oocities is a webarchive, which hosts unmodified copies/snapshots of these pages.
• Those links to the unmodified contents have generally the full qualification to go on exsiting functional as much as all wikipedia should. the archive is only a service provider.
• The pages are not avaiable anywhere else.
• The Archive is not as old as archive.org but there is no clear reason to distrust it.
• Wikipedia links to other tiny webarchives like http://webcitation.org/ which is much smaller than oocities, links: about 15.000 times most are geocities pages, they run their own bot. and in this case the bot with the same name as the.
• And there is me, who offers to updateing those 13000 geocities.com links all to oocities.com to make already an estimate of 12000 work again and in a second step further optimize the result and without any harm. if you totally deny such action then you will slowly make wikipedia the biggest collection of dead links.

--Updatehelper (talk) 23:37, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with your conclusion about WP:COPYLINK. Wayback Machine has a designated agent to address OCILLA complaints; Oocities does not. Considering the changes to Oocities since the start of this discussion (the FAQ now says, "Preferably use your original email which was stated on your page to verify that you are the owner", where it used to say "Use your original email which was stated on your page to verify that you are the owner." The advertisements which were most definitely visible to Wikipedia visitors when I quoted one above are now evidently suppressed), it seems very apparent that you are directly connected with oocities, which is no more than implied by your focused attempts on getting oocities on Wikipedia. (It was your very first edit to an article, after all; and, of course, User:Mahewa points out the origin of your account.) You may have good intentions, but you need to be aware of our conflict of interest guidelines and be cautious of linkspamming. I am still firmly opposed to this transition. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:35, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Someone above mentioned spam on oocities.com? Can I ask, what spam? I have been to numerous pages in their archive, and it is advert free. And unlike archive.org, it is fast loading, and also had pages that archive.org doesn't have. Frankly, this is a good change as far as I can see. I see no policy that would forbid it. --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 00:40, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Have you read the whole conversation? Perhaps you overlooked that, since it began, the single-purpose account that has been adding these links has disabled advertisement for those who follow the links from Wikipedia. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:42, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

They're not all disabled, either. I just followed the link from the bottom of L'Olimpiade (Vivaldi). The top of the page it takes me to is urging me to "Be smart" by purchasing a calling card from Thaitel.com. (And the link from Arman Sabir would like to tell me about the splendors of the IE School of Communication.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:53, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The link from List of Sigma Lambda Beta chapters ([4]) did not work. Instead, I landed on a page that tells me, "Sorry, "http://oocities.com/slb_betaalpha/" is not available yet. But the following Archive Link maybe leads you to the site you tryed to visit..." following which it offered me a link to Wayback. And two prominent ads...again for Thaitel.com and Nextag.com. But now it's altered to read, "If you are working on Wikipedia note that this link should probably not be deleted even its yet not here. But we are an archive, which is currently trying to retrieve all of these lost contents." These people have been spamming us for months. Even if they did disable the advertising for everyone who follows the links from Wikipedia, what's to stop them restoring them once attention has died down? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:01, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

For ads it might be confusing because some site owners orginally includeed their own ads, which cant be disabled or otherwise they would have to manipulate the single sites. I did neither spam wikipedia nor you. Since i tried to help archival and reduceing the damages/errors caused by geocities closure in 2009 its a a matter of course i was in contact via irc/mailgroup with other people who are/were working on similar aims, especially on oocities. --Updatehelper (talk) 04:15, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

A couple of things. I opened up the site in Internet Explorer, after clearing the cache, and went directly to oocities.com - that is the first time I have visited the site. I have gotten zero ads by doing it this way. I have then done the same thing with Firefox, and again no ads. I have then gone to their site by way of a WP article, and again no ads. It would appear to me that you could have adware on your machine which is causing that to happen to you? On the "not available yet" pages, I agree that links should be checked being changed/added to WP, and the editor in question should be checking those beforehand. Other than that, I see no reason why we shouldn't be using this resource that is available to use. --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 01:41, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

No, because it doesn't happen to me on any other sites. When I visit the page linked from Wikipedia at L'Olimpiade (Vivaldi) via Wikipedia ([5]), it no longer has an ad...though it did. When I visit this random page simply through Firefox, it invites me to Avatar-myself, courtesy of IMVU. This material is advertiser supported; it says so in their FAQ: ("OoCities.com displays a content-related ad within a seperated frame or box next many pages just like it was before on GeoCities, which every page owner agreed with."). And they are not OCILLA-compliant, though they seem to be taking steps to become so after this conversation. At least they no longer block website owners who do not have their original address from removing content. (Adding: Just a thought, but maybe you have a good spam blocker?) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:50, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

@Moonriddengirl. will you please drop them an email what exactly to change to be perfectly OCILLA-compliant. im sure this will be done.--Updatehelper (talk) 04:15, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that's a legal matter, and I can't give you legal advice. I know nothing about your business operations; frankly, I'm not sure if you'd qualify, since you may not meet the definition of an online service provider. You can read up on it elsewhere on your own and try to comply, or contact an attorney. But even if you were OCILLA compliant, there would still be issues with your project.

Think of it this way. Say a prominent university publisher goes out of print--Oxford, maybe. That would be quite a blow to the academic community. But that doesn’t mean somebody else can pick up all their stranded books and reproduce them.

What Wayback (which I love; it’s really essential for copyright cleanup, where I work) does is on legally unsettled grounds (as our copyright policy acknowledges). But the Internet Archive Project that maintains it is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and it is fully OCILLA compliant. They position themselves as a library, and their claim to fair use is at least somewhat supported by their non-profit status.

Oocities by contrast is a commercial entity. In essence, you have picked up somebody else’s out-of-print back catalogue and are selling it now yourselves, under the explanation that if the original authors didn’t mind Geocities selling ads to people hoping to profit from their contents, then surely they won’t object to your doing so. If you truly allow them to opt out, as you say, that's honorable...but you are not a publicly registered organization. There's no accountability.

Finally, as the owner or webmaster of the website in question, you have a clear conflict of interest here. You should read WP:LINKSPAM. While what you're doing is by no means the same thing as someone who drives by adding new links to a commercial website, since you are replacing the GeoCities website, you are nevertheless using Wikipedia to drive traffic to a website in which you have a commercial interest. Most of the GeoCities links on Wikipedia should be removed anyway, under external link guidelines, as it is a self-published source and seldom possible to verify the authenticity of the blog writers. It's not a good idea for a webmaster to replace thousands of those links with links to unauthorized copies of the content at his own site (especially when it's a commercial site in which he has financial interest) without first obtaining strong community consensus that this action is in the best interest of Wikipedia. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:16, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

please stop claimin things you only guess without a most clear reason. iam neither the owner of archive nor have i or they a commercial interest. geocities was probably closed because obviously yahoo were not able to make money with it. the oocities people agree not to show any ads for wikipedia. --Updatehelper (talk) 19:43, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

They sell advertising. And you are clearly connected to the site. It's a commercial site, and you have a conflict.--Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Moonriddengirl -- and would like to add

• The reliability of oocities.com is not known. When this bot showed up on my watchlist, the links to oocities all refused to load. The problem of being sometimes "partly unreachable" (to quote Updatehelper [6]) should be solved before the website becomes a target for hundreds of links from Wikipedia.
• Before making massive bot edits, the bot-runner should be sure that links go to working pages. Consider this change [7] which takes users to an error message that links to Archive.org. It is putting the cart before the horse to make hundreds of links from Wikipedia leading to pages that have not yet been created.
• Wayback Machine has information that is missing from oocities, such as the dates of pages they harvested, but it seems to have no ads on pages where oocities does have ads, compare oocities, Wayback target page, and two different past captures archived at Wayback 2007 and 2009. betsythedevine (talk) 15:44, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

i did nto say sometimes. the website is up since a year, i have no idea why it shortly seemed to be unreachable for some people but this probably due to the nature of the internet and rarly happens to most websites -Updatehelper (talk) 19:43, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

By the way, wrt the claims above that oocities.com does not show ads, or shows ads only because those were present on the original Geocities websites, consider this screencapture taken today of a page to which Updatehelper created a link on August 13. Once again, Wayback Machine would have been an appropriate target for this defunct geocities link; oocities.com simply is not. It does, however, seem to be a very successful website as a target for search engines, according to Alexa. [8] betsythedevine (talk) 18:28, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I see ads. But even without the ads, I agree completely that this should not be happening. The copyright issue alone is sufficient to say no to this, and probably to blacklist it. Reliability is another major issue, and the idea that anyone directly involved with this is going to convert thousands of links to their website is almost beyond belief. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 18:55, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

since there is no consensus, i absolutely agree not to change any more links . now ill concentrat on improving the outer situation. even now probably all is said because everything was at least said twice, maybe check again the discussion in a few days because when i reported those achievements i try to reach, then in a few days they will either prove or disprove quiet a few of the points of critics which remain unclear now.

What i already did therefore is: i requested info@archive.org as well as oocities to send a list of all available geocities links to see which are there and which not, i also asked oocities to permanently remove all ads from all these 13.000 possible links as well as error page and i am sure they will. furthermore i asked them to clearify their copyright situation so that consensus can later maybe be found to use those oocities.com links, which are nowhere else available. if i will not receive any list from one of the archive, then i will find a way to make both lists myself which will take some more days to check them all. both ways i will probably be able to report all the results within a bunch of days --Updatehelper (talk) 19:43, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

No consensus? There seems a strong consensus of those who have commented that oocities is not an appropriate target. Right now, it will be relatively simple to undo your bot edits -- if instead you proceed to make the 13,000 links to oocities that you intend, but then 6 months down the road oocities starts hosting ads on all those target pages again, it will be much more complicated to change all the links, especially since oocities does not retain all the original info in the geocities header -- for example, Geocities' Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash page was clearly on uk.geocities, but that info disappeared when you moved it to oocities.* [[[User:Betsythedevine|betsythedevine]] (talk) 20:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

sorry, honestly, this further complaint makes totally no sense! please catch up on the topic before you complaint. there was noway changed anything else than 'geocities.com/' into 'oocities.com/' it will in fact not make anything more complicated for further works.

Conuting the voices against and pro there is at least not now consensus against. this does not changes if you post repetitive complaints. --Updatehelper (talk) 21:59, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I suggest we should probably blacklist oocities.com and then convert all the existing oocities links to archive.org. Yworo (talk) 21:21, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

as said before many of them will show error 404 at archive.org

furthermore i just said i agree with the denial of further edits but i start to try to improved the whole situation for the next dayss and therefore need to pause this discussion and any further actions. I wonder whats you reason against this part? --Updatehelper (talk) 21:59, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Such that the user is not making bot-assisted changes for the time being, I think this thread should probably be marked resolved. UpdateHelper, once oocities.com house is in order with respect to the contributor copyright infringement concerns and other issues, this task can be proposed at WP:VPR or a similar venue. –xeno^talk 22:04, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the consensus here goes beyond simply closing the thread -- the edits should be undone, and oocities blocked until it has showed itself an appropriate resource. betsythedevine (talk) 22:19, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree, but we would need a bot to do it efficiently, I'm afraid. He has converted literally thousands of links, even on talk page archives. (Some of these conversions have broken working links to other archives of the content, and many of the ones I've looked at today have still had advertisements in them.) Probably the bulk of these links should not be reverted, but simply removed, as they weren't reliable to begin with, but that requires human judgment, I'm afraid. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:37, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

"Some of these conversions have broken working links to other archives of the content" As said before this only happend about 10 times during my first edits in november 2009 and i undid them and included all other archives into my Regex of articles to exclude. --Updatehelper (talk) 16:19, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I would think that a lot would be obvious candidates for a simple revert, those being the hundreds of edits to user pages and talk pages and project page archives. As for the 6,000+ oocities and 11,000+ geocities links remaining in article space, time for a clean-up project to determine what should be deleted and what is worth redirecting to Wayback? I'd put my hand up to participate (as I have been already, as I come across them). Katherine (talk) 06:24, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Works for me. I've put a few hours into it, but there are tons, and I feel guilty if I'm away from my copyright work for too long. :) Maybe we can cobble together a workgroup at WP:ELN or WP:RSN? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:35, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

A fine suggestion indeed. =) I have commenced the cobbling over at WP:ELN. Will leave a clearer note below. Katherine (talk) 16:01, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• Footnote to stricken comment above: My apologies on one point, I see that the change Updatehelper made went to [uk.oocities.com; I was misled by the existence of an identical page without the uk. preface. betsythedevine (talk) 22:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Another argument against simply closing this thread and waiting is the previous ANI concerning oocities. Despite clear consensus there that oocities violates copyright, no action was taken and Updatehelper resumed the bot edits almost at once, presumably with none of the people who took part in the ANI being any the wiser. betsythedevine (talk) 12:42, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Notice to interested parties: I have initiated a discussion at the External Links Noticeboard to establish a way forward with the GeoCities dead-links issue. Comments, concerns, and idle hands would be greatly appreciated. Katherine (talk) 16:01, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• As iam already done with a lot of research on the topic and have a complex Regex and handmade lists in AutowikiBrowser i will of course volunteer and be able to change effectivly semi-automated all geocities.com links to archive.org/..../geocities.com/ one's which will work there, which will as said before only be about 50% because they only have about 50% avaialable. at least this will already solve half the issue within weeks and within consensus. --Updatehelper (talk) 16:44, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Please understand that the proposal I have put forward at the External Links Noticeboard relates specifically to manual, human review of existing links; and the careful replacement or deletion of those links. As the proposal sets out, each link would be assessed on a case-by-case basis after review of the article and the source, in accordance with existing policies and guidelines (specifically, WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:EL.

Accuracy and quality are the key to this proposal, not simply speed. I do not believe that this task can be adequately addressed by an automated or semi-automated tool, and the wording and intent of the proposal reflects this belief. There are many thousands of valuable contributions made daily by approved bots and scripts, but automation is not the solution to every problem. Please keep in mind User:Xeno's earlier advice about the proper process to seek approval from the community for running automated tasks. Katherine (talk) 19:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be somewhat of a double standard here. oocities is labeled as "spam" for having 2 ads per page, whereas wikia, which has about 6 ads per page, seems to be perfectly fine. Not only that, but wikia links don't have the nofollow attribute that almost all other external links have, which greatly helps that site's search engine rankings. I wonder why wikia would get such special treatment? 98.133.115.161 (talk) 20:01, 15 August 2010 (UTC) ((I am restoring this comment, which I had reverted because I considered it offtopic trolling, in case other users think it is a valid contribution to this discussion. betsythedevine (talk) 14:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Continuation

• Still at it. (And, I'll note, that when I followed the link, it had prominent ads on the top and the side.) I have cautioned the contributor against this behavior, here, but I am really unsure at this point if this person is interested in doing anything but pushing through his or her website. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Please be fair and stick to the facts and make posts which clearly help the discussion. your stylisic devices tend to overact. At latest since my last edits here and at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links/Noticeboard#External_links_and_references_to_former_GeoCities_sites you should have an impression of what i care about. some of your points tend to be defamation about me. its not my site nor cant those links push a site of this size. i said i stop editing geocities and i do so. you are free to further monitor my edits. although your voice is the loudest one against, there isnt any consensus for what exactly to do.<ou --Updatehelper (talk) 02:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

There is strong consensus in this conversation, and if it is not your site, your use of the first person plural at User:Oocities ("Now we did not finish checking pages and putting them online.") is hard to understand. And, yes, it's true that you did say you would stop editing geocities--you said, above, "since there is no consensus, i absolutely agree not to change any more links ." (timestamped: 19:43, 14 August 2010); the timestamp here is unmistakable. You have changed more links in spite of your absolute agreement not to do so. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk)

will you please use correct plural, instead of defameing me? it was at maximum one edit and clearly noway another reason to complain about me like you suggest to do. --Updatehelper (talk) 05:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It was not my intention to "defame" you; I will be specific: You have changed nine links, less than 24 hours after your absolute pledge not to "change any more links". --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:02, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

In the discussion above Moonriddengirl, Colfer2, Dougweller, Yworo, and I expressed the strong opinion that links to oocities are inappropriate, with several people suggesting the site be blacklisted. In the light of Updatehelper proceeding today to create yet more links to oocities.com, could some administrator please take action to block future links from Wikipedia to this site? I also note that several Wikimedia logos appear prominently on the oocities.com front page giving a clear impression that we have somehow endorsed their project. betsythedevine (talk) 03:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The WMF can and should be able to sue over that, I'd think. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Carl Johnson)} 03:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I just said you will also be able to count few people who agreed with my actions thus its no consensus. i also saw edits who agreed with it beeing undid by people who complait about it.

this discussion is now baselessly and causeless defameing me. which is irrational to the actual topic and its not of any use to further extend it. As soon as i reached the update iam trying to reach (lists of links available at several archives) like i said above, iam going to post it here because those list will be of good use as soon consensus is reached and when the issue i tryed to solve will finally be solved whether with me or not and with archive.org, oocities, webcitation,... or not but hopefull hopefully soon. in this context best regards, hugs & smiles especially to Moonriddengirl, Betsythedevine, Katherine --Updatehelper (talk) 05:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

That paragraph is not something I'm capable of grokking. But here is something clear. There is ample evidence at a minimum that adding links to oocities is controversial. You have been asked by multiple people to stop. Notwithstanding the appearance that you are associated w/ the site, your behavior has been non-optimal. If you add another link to oocities without some express indication from an admin that this discussion (or some parallel discussion of the same issue on the merits) has reached a conclusion, I will block your account. Is that understood? Protonk (talk) 07:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I have restored a comment that I considered trolling to the discussion above -- I think I was probably too hasty in removing it. Looking at the discussion above with that comment included, I see one user who disputed the existence of ads on oocities and considered it a useful project, plus one user whose argument for oocities is that wikia is even worse. I would like to say in defense of Updatehelper that one need not assume he has some financial connection to oocities to talk of them as "we"; he seems to me much more like an enthusiastic person who has poured hundreds of hours into a volunteer project and understandably resists having that project deflected. Even so, Wikipedia editors need to consider what is best for the encyclopedia project as a whole. Leaving any potential WP:COI completely aside, I still think that oocities is an unsuitable target for Wikipedia links. betsythedevine (talk) 14:21, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Betsythedevine both about Updatehelper and that we should not link to oocities. I also am willing to block Updatehelper if he adds more links until it is clear that there is consensus that the community is happy with such links. Dougweller (talk) 14:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Also, hoping this is not too offtopic, I am impressed by Updatehelper's hard work here, and by his bot-work in particular -- he has technical skills all the more remarkable considering his problems with English, problems which I think have hampered his ability to dive into the Wikipedia policy maelstrom. Note also that he has been harshly criticized here but has tried with unusual success to remain civil and on-topic. I think he would be a real asset to some Wikipedia technical group interested in bots and bot tasks, and if any admin following this discussion knows of such a group, I urge you to yenta such a potentially happy match! betsythedevine (talk) 17:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The Bot Approvals Group is perennially understaffed, but I think UpdateHelper would do well to become more familiar with the relevant policies and processes before applying there. Since they clearly have some skill with AWB and Regex'en, they could keep an eye on WP:BOTREQ and WP:AWB/TA for tasks seeking bot operators. –xeno^talk 17:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Plan. The consensus still needs some details. Maybe something like this:

1. Outside article space: convert all oocities back to geocities, except on a few pages related to making this decision. Bot-assisted.
2. In article space: first convert all oocities back to geocities, fully by bot. The only exception is the article GeoCities which must be handled manually. Then start the project of culling manually through all pages with geocities links.
3. Culling: geocities links must be marked with the {{dead}} template or deleted. This is the fastest way to handle it manually, it's just a quick paste.
4. Then use a bot to to attack dead links which are geocities. Here is probably the controversy, what to do with the geocities links we keep. Either:
   1. dead link to the archive.org Wayback Machine, or
   2. link to an intermediate page which offers a choice of archives. That is how we handle book links (ISBN, OCLC) and map coordinate links. Takes more work.
5. Check article space is free of the pattern "geocities" or "oocities", except a very few articles. Check all other Wikipedia space is free of "oocities", except for a very few pages.

As for the manual culling in step 3, I think checking which archive links work and which do not is too much work. I think we should ignore that, or the culling will take too long. -Colfer2 (talk) 23:21, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

This discussion seems to be continuing elsewhere, with a bot project underway to undo Updatehelper's edits and a user project planned thereafter to update those links to new pages. betsythedevine (talk) 13:01, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Since there's nothing left that requires administrator attention specifically, I'm going to wrap this up. –xeno^talk 13:13, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Pending changes trial closure discussion

Wikipedia:Pending changes/Closure

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

BAG nomination

Hello everyone! I have been nominated for the bot approval group and would like to invite you all to participate in the discussion at Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/nominations/EdoDodo. Thanks. - EdoDodo ^talk 02:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposed New Policy

Resolved

 – User directed to appropriate venue. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 12:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I would like to propose a change to XFD policy, which would apply across all namespaces.

Simply, if a piece of content (article, redirect, image, etc.) survives a deletion discussion, the user who nominated it before cannot nominate it again, ever (no statute of limitations). That doesn't mean it can't be nominated for deletion a second time; it just can't be nominated again by the same person who nominated it before. The purpose of this proposed policy is to prevent users from POINTILY attempting to get content they don't like deleted by nominating it again and again.

Failure to follow this policy will lead to warnings (if the user was not warned previously) or blocks (if the user has been warned before about breaking this rule).

The inspiration for this proposed rule is this discussion; a user has recently re-submitted a case to AFD even though the redirect survived a previous AFD that was also initiated by him. This same user has been found guilty of edit-warring on this and similar topics in the past. I think there should be a way of preventing things like this from happening again. Please note that this policy will not apply retroactively (so Tallicfan20 will not be disciplined no matter what happens).

Supports and opposes can go below. If you feel that the proposal should be modified (for example, if you feel there should be a statute of limitations), you can express that viewpoint too. Stonemason89 (talk) 03:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

This is the wrong place to hold a discussion of such a proposal. In any case, we propose policy changes by discussion and consensus, not by jumping into a straight up-or-down vote without discussion of the alternatives. In any case, we aren't going to change policy based on on person's dislike of one action, and even without that circumstance you would never get consensus for such a policy. There are a number of other things wrong with this proposal, but in the interest of brevity I'll stick to the major ones above. — Gavia immer (talk) 03:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I was going to disagree, but on reflection gavia's got it right. Wrong place. It might be worth noting why I'd have disagreed:

1/ We tend not to do "never" as a community. 2/ There are cases where the nomination was appropriate but the AFD was during the ongoing event or communal sentiment would not have allowed deletion at the time, or it was "no consensus", so the article was kept, but after some weeks or months was then closed as delete. Users who make pointy repeat nominations with no new grounds tend to be pretty obvious and I wouldn't have a problem with the AFD being closed as "speedy keep" and the user warned for WP:DISRUPT or WP:POINT if that were the case. Notice the replies in the example XFD were all "keep". Is a disruptive user going to be able to do it 3 times in a row, same user? Very unlikely. So I would not amend policy for an edge case like this. Better to rely on admins to figure it out and on user observations, at the time. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:57, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Isn't 3RR a "never" policy, though? What I'm proposing is not all that different from 3RR, in that it's intended to prevent people from using Wikipedia as a battleground. Besides, I'm not suggesting that articles that survive AFD can never be nominated again, I'm just saying I don't think the same user should be able to nominate them a second time. Stonemason89 (talk) 04:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, if this is the wrong place to hold such a discussion, where is the right place? I don't know yet. Stonemason89 (talk) 04:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

This would presumably be a change to deletion policy. Try Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:03, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I will move this discussion there. Stonemason89 (talk) 04:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Stonemason89 (talk) 04:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Argh, I would have gone WT:AFD, but I suppose it doesn't matter :) –MuZemike 14:04, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest that notifications should be added there and on all the XFD talk pages (WT:TFD, WT:CFD, WT:MFD etc.) as well as on WP:VPP. Regards SoWhy 14:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Pending unblock request User talk:AAAACCCCDDDDCCCC

User talk:AAAACCCCDDDDCCCC has a pending unblock request that has not been responded to in a long time. Can someone take a look at it? Active Banana ( bananaphone 16:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I responded and unblocked them, if anyone disagrees you can contact me on my talk page. -- Atama頭 17:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Email received re: "Changes in Wikipedia editorial practices in the last few years"

I received an email with a subject line of "Changes in Wikipedia editorial practices in the last few years" on August 15. It's from a user who registered an account back in May but has yet to make an edit. WP:EMAIL doesn't really say much about circumstances like this (or much of anything, frankly), and I'm curious - does anything need to be done/reported with this? The email isn't particularly bothersome, just odd that someone would sign up for an account just to (presumably mass) email a bunch of editors. JPG-GR (talk) 03:34, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I have this really useful tool on my e-mail page that deals with unwanted e-mails and spam such as this. I cal it the "delete button"--Jojhutton (talk) 03:42, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes yes, how informative - I had never noticed that before. I was just trying to reach out and see if anyone else had received a similar email and whether or not registering an account just to email (perhaps spam) a bunch of people is frowned upon. JPG-GR (talk) 03:46, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

It's almost certainly frowned upon; the severity of said frowning depends largely on the purpose of the emails and the extent of their distribution. Please feel free to forward such material to the Arbitration Committee through our mailing list. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 03:57, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

FYI, I didn't get this email; it's been months and months since the last time I received a Wikipedia email that wasn't sent just to me. Nyttend (talk) 04:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Thanks, Kirill. JPG-GR (talk) 04:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for forwarding, JPG-GR. Having read the email, it appears to be from a researcher looking at Open Source projects, and there have been a handful of similar requests for assistance in research over the last few years, and it appears to be legitimate; both of the signators are indeed on the faculty of the university they identify, and the email address matches the published email address of one of the academics.

  Each recipient should decide for themselves if this is a way in which they wish to spend some of their Wikipedia volunteer time. Many have limited time available, and this isn't a priority for them. Others may feel that the underlying educational pillar of the project includes participating in such research, when they have the opportunity. Risker (talk) 04:46, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Fresh administrators needed at Climate Change board

I would like to request that any admins interested in volunteering in the climate Change area, which is currently under general sanctions (the enforcement board is here) please sign up on that page. The old admins there are getting tired and jaded, and it shows. Users are bringing less and less complaints there, because they don't believe that the current crop can solve them. If we can inject new blood, though, then I think that the climate change topic area will run much more smoothly. Anyone interested in helping out?

Requests there generally require a consensus of uninvolved admins. If you want to know more about how it works, there are a few closed and collapsed requests there that are fairly typical of how things go. The Wordsmith^Communicate 19:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Robespierre would have had a better chance at getting volunteers <g>. Collect (talk) 19:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the probation has effectively collapsed because admins are no longer dealing with enforcement requests. Almost every enforcement request that has been submitted over the last few weeks has died from lack of admin involvement. If The Wordsmith's request doesn't produce new volunteers, I suggest that the probation should be formally discontinued and closed down. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I will do it if no one else will. Disclaimers: I won't be as active as I'd like for a few months, though. I can't do it on my own. I also don't like getting sucked into the climate change fiasco (or any sort of sanctioned area). —fetch·comms 22:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll take a look at it too; I don't know that I have high availability at the moment, but this one is somewhat important. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

One of the problems is that after a few enforcement actions, accusations of being involved start getting tossed about. I have about five edits to climate change-related articles (all recent and all to BLPs; three were adding ISI highly cited links and two were reorganizing articles to restore NPOV balance), but I suspect that because I contributed evidence to the ongoing arbitration I would be accused of being involved, which is ludicrous. It's already happened to two editors on this topic, and I've seen it happen elsewhere. Horologium (talk) 03:06, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a great deal of confidence that an admin who makes edits like this[9] will bring a calming effect on this contentious topic. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:14, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Since the subject under discussion was a request for a statement on BLP policy, in a topic in which BLP violation has been blatant, the parallel was appropriate. That both sides assumed that I was supporting their PoV seems to indicate that it hit a little too close to home for all concerned, which was my point. Horologium (talk) 22:47, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Possibly influx of POV editing by Israeli settlers

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Skomorokh 00:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Mario Kart: Double Dash‼/GA1 --edit protected

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Skomorokh 00:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

User Template555

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Skomorokh 00:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

War crimes discussion

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Skomorokh 00:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Canvassing votes

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Skomorokh 00:04, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Huge SPI backlog

There is a huge backlog at SPI. The oldest cases are nearly 2 weeks old now. Burpelson AFB (talk) 03:29, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I think I got most of them. Only one CheckUser request which needs another SPI clerk opinion, and about 7 open cases remaining. Now we need the CheckUsers to step up to the plate and finish the job :) –MuZemike 00:30, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

We really need more checkusers. Burpelson AFB (talk) 01:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

It can be a remarkably brain numbing endeavor, that's for sure. Almost 100% burnout rate. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 06:53, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Tool for a mass delete?

Does anyone have an easy way to delete all the pages in Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Leslie81285? Bit of a mistake needs correcting; a class project was mistaken for malfeasance. Crap, I just noticed we also need to delete all the user talk pages, for the same reason (they were all created to hold the sock message, and are all previously unused.) Or, I suppose, they could just be blanked, but deleted would seem more fair. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 06:52, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Could you misappropriate one of the adminbots, such as Procseebot, to do this? Or maybe someone can write a little script. One of the things that Betacommand would have been good at, if he were still very active, and allowed to do these sort of things. --Jayron32 07:12, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Cleared manually. DrKiernan (talk) 07:16, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Didn't feel like doing all that typing. Late night, error prone. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 07:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't twinkle's deli-batch work for that? Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 09:22, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Also User:Animum/massdelete.js. Timotheus Canens (talk) 09:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Adam Rittenberg

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this but the admins I usually ask aren't online at the moment. Could an admin please userfy the Adam Rittenberg article for me? Preferably right here. It was previous prod-deleted. I plan on publishing the article and want to see what I can salvage. I'd be very grateful. OlYeller^Talktome 17:07, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Not much there, I'm afraid - Dumelow (talk) 17:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I guess it's a start. OlYeller^Talktome 17:38, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

RfCs at Wikipedia talk:User pages need closing

Would an admin (or admins) close Wikipedia talk:User pages#Vandalspaces and Wikipedia talk:User pages#RfC: Sexually provocative content in userspace, and Wikipedia talk:User pages#Proposal based on above discussions? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 05:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Anybody? Cunard (talk) 06:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I've marked the superseded discussions and RFC as closed (a separate proposal superseded these and gained community consensus). I haven't marked the last of those 3 as closed, even though it's not contentious to do so, because it's one I opened. It's not an RFC though. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 05:55, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, FT2. Would an uninvolved admin close the discussion at Wikipedia talk:User pages#Proposal based on above discussions which is fairly uncontentious? Cunard (talk) 06:28, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Requesting review of my actions

Hello. I recently closed a move request: Talk:Alien (creature in Alien franchise)#Requested move (2010), and more than one editor has objected to my decision. Therefore, I'm requesting that other members of the community look in, and if there is consensus that I made a mistake, I will not object to my action being reversed. Thanks. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:20, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse Looks like a good close to me based on the discussion -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
• Looks fine to me, both on process and outcome. More involvement would have been nice, but the discussion was open for four weeks. Rd232 ^talk 19:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
• Alien (AcidBlood) surely? :) I think that you made the best you could with a discussion that was short on editors and short on actual discussion. Of the moves your choice was the one that seemed to have the widest support as well as the one that strikes me as most helpful to the reader. un☯mi 19:42, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
• Looks fine - I think that discussion was never going to reach an agreeable consensus simply because I don't think there really is a good title for that article - Wikipedia's standard method of disambiguating just doesn't work for a creature that both shares a name with its fictional franchise, and is a common English word. Any title is going to be awkward and I think you did a good job of evaluating the sparse consensus that appeared in the discussion, arriving at a name that's probably the best of the available bad choices. ~ mazca ^talk 21:12, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
• Looks okay here too. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:25, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Barney's on Fire

Resolved

I think the Barney's on Fire page should redirect to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Barney_Humor#Music_and_related_video instead of Barney & Friends, as the Anti-Barney Humor page specifically references the song. 74.76.28.8 (talk) 02:12, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

It would probably be better to discuss that at one of the talk pages, as this is an Admin board and this doesn't require immediate admin action. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:16, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I've fixed the redirect, it's an obviously sensible change. Apparently it originally redirected there anyway, and got lost in a few bot double-redirect fixes. ~ mazca ^talk 13:04, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Review requested on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Tinpa

I'm requesting a review of an SPI case in which I closed, in which today Symbio04 (talk · contribs) edited the SPI's archive page (and also added himself to the "list of suspected socks", which for now I'm assuming this mas mistakenly added) here and then requested unblocking of all the socks involved on my "unprotected talk page" here. I indefinitely blocked all involved accounts in the SPI after seeing similar edits, language used, and similar timing (i.e. they come on and off all at about the same time). Any review here would be appreciated. Regards, –MuZemike 22:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I've looked at the sockpuppet investigation case page, your talk page, and the article talk page and by the admission of this new editor, if these people aren't sockpuppets they are at least meatpuppets and I think that the block was still warranted. This new editor is also throwing around libel charges left and right and leaving bizarre messages (telling Kwami that they are in love with them)... It seems like English isn't a native language but that's still no excuse. There seems like some big backstory here that I'm not seeing, which also involves some legal matters, and I don't want to get mixed up in it, but I don't think this new editor is here to be productive. -- Atama頭 17:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry about Kwami in Love etc.But what else you can do in a case that falsely accused people is left in WP without any help? Biographies of living people should not be maintained with old newspapers libellous references.WP forbids this.

But look carefully this case : 1-a group of people starts with libels of a living person(s) 2-Data that this was false in Courts are given by Arnaiz1 and Virginal6 at least in Discussion. 3-The group of people, who had disagreed scientifically (linguists?)with the victim (Arnaiz-Villena and his group)a year ago and started the libel on June 9th 2010(Dumu Eduba),say that they do not know how to finish the oldish case.However,they block accounts of libelled people :Arnaiz1 and Virginal6 and libel stays forever in WP.

Thank you ,Atama,I already stated that I was representing the defense of people attacked by a libel .It refers to a case which happened about 10 years ago and it was already solved (false accusations were induced and accusers blackmailed by offering them fix posts in Administration) .I am not involved in the case myself.I have come later. This is the only one purpose of the account.You say you dont disagree with this type of accounts. I am working ,as I said ,with Arnaiz-Villena who came into Wikipedia with his own real name Arnaiz1 (all Wikipedians should do it and you could avoid these defamation cases on WP). Thus,I will dissapear once you let defending Arnaiz1 himself and also another defamated person (Virginal6) from the same case, who does not work now in the group,but he is another civil servant researcher.I just ask you to unblock their accounts (one with a real name). If you think that Arnaiz-Villena and his group have not contributrd to knowledge and to WP project.,just make a search in WP,Google,Google Academic,PubMed ,Biological Abstracts ,BioMed Experts etc Thus,I disagree with your statement that I am not useful or constructive.Symbio04 (talk) 09:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Please keep in mind the No Legal Threats policy; by repeatedly accusing others of libel, you are making perceived legal threats which are not allowed on Wikipedia. In most cases we will block the editor until they retract that language and promise to not do so again, but I'll be lenient in your case because you don't seem to be threatening me, but using that language elsewhere can definitely lead to sanctions. Also, we don't allow editors to collaborate in real life to work together in Wikipedia to push an agenda, that is called meatpuppetry and whatever their reason for doing it, we don't allow it, so those accounts will remain blocked. There are also conflict of interest concerns here. There are so many problems that I can't see how allowing these editors back is going to be helpful to Wikipedia. I'm sorry about the trouble your friends are having, but as an administrator (and as an editor) my concern as always is going to be what's best for the encyclopedia.-- Atama頭 21:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Atama,please apologize my English expression and my intention is far from bothering you ,of course. I will not involve you anymore in this case. We could not agree that having false biographies of living people (Antonio Arnaiz-Villena) is good to Wikipedia.Thank you,Symbio04 (talk) 09:40, 20 August 2010 (UTC).

the actual issue seems to be a criminal charge against Antonio Arnaiz-Villena that the new ed. claims was subsequently dismissed. Charges that an academic misused research funds during his professional activities is relevant to their notability as an academic, and in this case especially, because the subject claimed that the charges were motivated by politically-based disagreement with his academic work, but if the charges were dismissed, that certainly must be prominently said, --if the dismissal of charges can be shown only from official court documents, and not published news stories, the way to use them is to send copies to WP:OTRS, and the article will be adjusted properly. Our need to get this sort of BLP problem right is more important than even sockpuppetry, and if inexperienced users act improperly to get things like this corrected, it should not be held too strongly against them. (Incidentally, I comment here because I know of the ultimately underlying issue: the publisher's unilateral removal of the work in question from its journal to the extent of removing it totally from the electronic archive on the basis of what some -- including myself-- consider political motivation, is considered a notable example of publisher's questionable practice, & can be well-sourced as such. ) DGG ( talk ) 21:27, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Old NAC AfD never transwikied

Found this AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of triband flags

It was closed by a non-admin as Transwiki to Commons, yet the articles were never transwikied nor were the AfD tags removed. Could an admin please take care of this? —Train2104 (talk · contribs · count · email) 22:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

It's 16 articles in all. User:Morenooso closed it, I have alerted him of this discussion (as you should have done, per the recent rule change). Whoever closes an AfD discussion should not just leave it hanging. Fences&Windows 13:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The AfD tag from June is still on Gallery of flags by design. What a mess. Fences&Windows 13:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, you noted that already... Fences&Windows 13:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think we can ask a Commons admin to do this import at commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard. Fences&Windows 13:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of armed forces flags, closed as transwiki by User:Tone but not done. Fences&Windows 13:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

And Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of Durham University, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flags of the American Revolution, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of Choctaw Native Americans. This is quite a trend. Fences&Windows 13:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Several admins here and several with Commons adminship as well were asked to transwiki the files. I assumed and that is probably a bad thing that one of them would have taken care of it. ----moreno oso (talk) 14:53, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Assuming is always bad (ass=u+me :P) Anyway, I'm not a Commons admin (and I nominated all those anyway), so I can't really help. I'd ask at the Commons AN to find a sysop on both there and here who can transwiki it over and then clean up here. —fetch·comms 15:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Just a notice. 17 galleries are now moved - see [10] for details. --MGA73 (talk) 10:42, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

16 is correct. Because I imported one page twice because of repeated failures. I applied 1 rev import → history import to en:Gallery of triband flags. (p.s. During my importing work, I encountered more than 10 errors. Blame wikimedia servers) – Kwj2772 (talk) 14:03, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

As I started the AfDs, I don't want to delete the enwp pages because of COI; can someone do that? —fetch·comms 22:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there's a COI with a purely ministerial deletion, but YMMV... Timotheus Canens (talk) 03:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

How to edit a certain admin-only page

And now for something completely different that hopefully won't set off an unintended firestorm: After you have speedy deleted an article you are sent to the "Action complete" screen. On there are links listing the more urgent/populous CSD categories, it looks like this:

Category:Candidates for speedy deletion (all pages | attack | spam | nonsense | notability | copyvio | author request | oldest)

The one for "nonsense" still links to Category:Nonsense pages for speedy deletion, which was renamed Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as nonsense pages and deleted several months ago. I just recreated it as a redirect because I can't figure out how to edit the "Action complete" screen. It appears to use a template, but I don't know the name of the template. It looks like it would be Template:Maintenance links but that does not exist. Any ideas? Beeblebrox (talk) 16:16, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Filedelete-success? Anomie⚔ 16:27, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

That's the one, I've fixed the link I think. ~ mazca ^talk 16:41, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Beeblebrox, you said that your recreation was temporary, so I've deleted it because the link was fixed. Feel free to restore if you don't think it should have been deleted. That being said, I have a question — do we have a comprehensive list of MediaWiki pages, or a category full of them? Or is there a way to determine what MediaWiki pages are being used on any given screen? I've always had a hard time knowing what page to edit or to which to request an edit. Nyttend (talk) 19:34, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Special:AllMessages. –xeno^talk 19:36, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Special:AllMessages kind of sucks because it's paginated and isn't easily searchable (yet). http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&meta=allmessages loads all the messages files at once, which makes in-browser search possible. It's a large page load, though. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:04, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Also you could ask at Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages, where you'll also find a nav template listing key messages. Rd232 ^talk 19:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages or, more generically, the technical village pump are both good resources. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:03, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Rd232, for the pointer to that page. Most helpful is the search page; I'd never thought to search the MediaWiki namespace for text that I wanted. By the way, any idea how pages such as MediaWiki:Wm-license-cc-by-sa-2.5-scotland-text exist? It appears that it has text, even though it's never been created and has no history. Nyttend (talk) 02:10, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

(totally uninformed speculation) I think it's the default text from MediaWiki. Timotheus Canens (talk) 03:46, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's correct. Graham87 06:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix, I'm fine with it being re-deleted, nothing much else linked to it. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:15, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Attempted deletion review, I think

Could somebody have a look at Linda Christas College prefix:Wikipedia:Deletion review? Ta, Chris (talk) 07:45, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, I retract that. It's spam, apparently. Chris (talk) 08:28, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

New Category:Formerly banned users

Resolved

 – Category deleted.

I have created this cat because I think this could very helpful in tracking what happens to users whose bans have expired or who manage to get their bans lifted. It would make it easier to see which of them re-offend and are re-banned, which have honestly learned to edit productively, and which simply go away after winning their battle to be unbanned. However, I just created it and at present it only contains the most recently unbanned user. So, if anyone's got any names to add it would be appreciated. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

What sorts of ban do you mean — a total siteban of any period of time, or topicbans as well? Nyttend (talk) 20:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of banned users has a list of formerly banned users. Besides the former Betacommand, it lists TheJazzFan, Seeyou, Piotrus, Petri Krohn, Locke Cole, Lightmouse, Jack Merridew, Ulises Heureaux (formerly known as "Encyclopedist"), DanaUllman, Boodlesthecat, and Avg. I suspect that there are plenty more who were banned for specific periods of time and simply forgotten about. Nyttend (talk) 20:27, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• Is this meant to be an opt-in or mandatory category? I know that User:Jack Merridew would likely happily place himself into it, but I'm not sure that such scarlet letters (whether or not that is the intent, the result is the same) are needed (or indeed appropriate) for users who've been unbanned - not to mention the fact that we already have a list. –xeno^talk 20:30, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

This category is designed to be included in the unbanned user's user page. Basically, it should only contain unbanned users – users who have previously been banned but is currently unbanned and unblocked. Also, I've integrated that category into the {{Unbanned}} template. /HeyMid (contributions) 20:44, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

If you are replying to me, that hasn't answered the question as to whether users are to be placed into this category by others (possibly against their will - which I think is wrongheaded and runs counter to forgive and forget), or if it will be a voluntary opt-in category. –xeno^talk 20:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I was just considering the scarlet letter aspect of it, as that is certainly not the intention. Although this is not the normal reasoning, I though making it a WP:HIDDENCAT would deal with that. I hadn't intended it to apply to topic bans. I wouldn't consider it mandatory either, but if it is hidden there is little reason to object. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I would suspect a good number of editors have hidden categories displayed, it doesn't do much to dilute the scarlet aspect. –xeno^talk 20:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• What is the purpose of such a list? Unbanned means the same as not banned or never banned as regards access to the editing tools - it depends on whether you are blocked or not - and there are many "never banned" editors who have little chance of gaining access to enhanced permissions owing to perceived issues with past behaviours. Unless you are hoping to encourage banned users to sock themselves back into responsible editing - knowing that their old account will be forever linked to an episode in their past - I see no good coming of having a list of people who were once denied access to this site. I am not convinced of the worth, now that I know of it, of having that sublist on the banned page. If we want to have editors retain their original username for their editing career, I think we need remove these public "marks of shame". LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:50, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

LHvU, I really must object to your use of "compulsory tattooing" in your previous edit comment. That's rather sensationalistic and over the top, and practically an invocation of Godwin's law. Regardless of whether or not this category is a good idea, that sort of hyperbole seems completely unnecessary and could easily be offensive to some. Yworo (talk) 20:55, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

That was the intent. I might have written "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Formerly Banned Users editors list" but most here seem have fallen for the current claptrap that Communism is intrinsically evil and the point lost. This is a website whose purpose is to create a free and comprehensive encyclopedia, not a vehicle for the stigmatisation of some editors. Those who are banned, like those who are blocked, are the unfortunate few who are unable to work collegiately with the majority - we should not continue to victimise those who have returned to the project, but rather ensure that they are treated the same as those who have never been banned. This category flies in the face of that. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:04, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

You are very articulate and I'm sure you can get your point across without hyperbole. I do have one concern, and that is I'd like to know whether unbanned users experience any difficulty or harassment due to their former status. I suspect they do, even without a category. It seems to me that if this is done as an indication of an exemplary turnaround in attitude and behavior, it could be more of a badge of accomplishment than of shame... Yworo (talk) 21:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, they do. I was commended for making a clean return from an indefinite ban by the arbitration committee and get my past thrown in my face and used as a weapon against me all the time.

		The Resilient Barnstar
		For a successful and legitimate return after a siteban. Keep setting the example and showing it's possible! Durova320 17:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I got a barnstar regarding this, too. Yet, I'm Branded (TV series)#The show proper for life. Jack Merridew 22:41, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's a nice barnstar. :-) But I'm sorry to hear how you are treated after making good your errors. Yworo (talk) 01:33, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Terima kasih. I made two errors, one in 2006, and another in 2008. No one's perfect. Jack Merridew 02:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

• Was there a discussion about this Cat? I would like to review it and contribute my concerns. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:53, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• This appears to have been a bold creation by Beeblebrox (talk · contribs) after closing this unban discussion. I suspect he hasn't fully thought through the implications of such a category being involuntary added to user pages, and I've suggested he cease adding it until this discussion and any attendant discussions (CFD, etc.) have run their course. –xeno^talk 20:56, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• I just created it about an hour ago along with {{unbanned}}, which is intended to replace {{banned}}, when a user is unbanned as the banning template is often the only thing on their userpage. The purpose is not to humiliate anyone (indeed it is a sign of trust to get unbanned) but rather to aid in tracking what happens after, as explained at the top of this section. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:58, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• Regardless of intent, the result is the same: the unbanned editor is branded, and any kind of forgive and forget mentality goes out the window. If this category is to exist, imo it should be opt-in only. –xeno^talk 21:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe we should ask some of the actual unbanned users what they think. Since neither of us have ever been banned this is a fairly hypothetical discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:07, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. I've already pinged Jack when I mentioned his name, I see you pinged BC/D when you added the cat. –xeno^talk 21:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll third that, see my observation above in response to LHvU. Yworo (talk) 21:10, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Question - How do we keep track of, or how do we currently know who has been banned in the past?--Jojhutton (talk) 21:10, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec)(outdent) Although I see and understand and appreciate the idea, this discussion might be better served at VPP, to the talkpage for WP:BAN or Unban, or elsewhere...we seem too early to be having it here, now (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 21:12, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Ugh. What an awful proposal. I note the purpose outlined by the OP but such labels are never used in that way. This amounts to little more than a scarlet letter. It will be divisive and disruptive. There is something faintly odious about the whole proposal. MtD (talk) 21:14, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Are the users allowed to not have it if they don't like it? Off2riorob (talk) 21:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• Note: I have proposed the deletion of this category at CfD, which is the correct venue for the discussion anyway, I believe. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 21:34, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

No, that's the actual wrong place at the moment. This template might have potential - the locations I noted are the first step before deletion, and nom was a pretty bad move IMHO (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 21:35, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty open about my past. I think that's a good thing, and should be encouraged. My userpage has long been clear about my past. At various times, it has listed me as things such as a sock, indef'd, sported a block button, offered the text of relevant motions. Xeno notified me of this, and I was 'tagged' while reading this. I also see that I was added to the dubious list of the 'formerly banned' and that it was done recently using {{vandal}}, which is not accurate. And I don't believe I was ever on that list while 'banned'. While indef'd, my user page never said banned, it said blocked indef/sock (because trancluded pages are used in the page, the bottom is not quite what was displayed, but the boxes are what was up-top, most of the time; earlier versions of the bottom content were present, too).

I have at various times been encouraged to say less about my history, or more, or to say it differently, and in different ways. I got shite for listing my prior accounts on my user page. This account was created to evade my earlier-yet past; i.e. it's a 'sock' and in that sense always will be. And I was directed by the AC to use *this* account, so I do. This was, in part because I don't have control of my original account as I fully scuttled it, and the other accounts had few fewer edits than I had as 'Jack' which is what I am most widely known as; I have proved in many ways that they're all me. They 'point' at this account and there very much is a Scarlet Letter aspect to this. The 'tattooing' metaphor is not off, as that's what all the demonization is about. It's in-out group]]-thinking:

In sociology, an ingroup is a social group towards which an individual feels loyalty and respect, usually due to membership in the group. This loyalty often manifests itself as an ingroup bias. Commonly encountered ingroups include family members, people of the same race, culture, gender or religion, and so on. Research demonstrates that people often privilege ingroup members over outgroup members even when the ingroup has no actual social standing; for instance, a group of people with the same color shirts, when the other group has another color of shirt. The term originates from social identity theory.

In sociology, an outgroup is a social group towards which an individual feels contempt, opposition, or a desire to compete. Members of outgroups may be subject to outgroup homogeneity biases, and generally people tend to privilege ingroup members over outgroup members in many situations. The term originates from social identity theory.

We call this toxic-wiki-shite. This place is poisonous.

I do believe Beeblebrox means well with this, and am not miffed about being tagged. Should I be? I was considering adding myself. If I had, would it have been about transparency? Acceding to community wishes? Or would it have been about sticking it in the faces of my critics?

I'm hitting edit conflicts here, and I see new stuff has appeared while I've been writing, and see that it's a CfD, now, so I'm gonna just save this as-is into a fast moving discussion.

Sincerely, Jack Merridew 21:57, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

p.s. I forgot to mention Daedalus tagging Giano's page and The Bish/Jimbo Affair ;O which did get him out of the blocking business. Cheers, Jack Merridew 22:06, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Note that we had a discussion regarding the List of Formerly Banned Users here Wikipedia talk:List of banned users#Formerly banned users. I removed it at one point and it was restored, after which the discussion took place. I lost interest in arguing for it to be removed. Burpelson AFB (talk) 00:28, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; I'd not looked at the talk. And I see that you used {{vandal}} per the page conventions. That list is far from complete and serves to call-out specific users. How is it that it is not a type of Wikipedia:Attack page? Anyone know if I was, in fact, ever listed there while banned? I believe I looked once and determined that I was not. I'm quite tempted to simply cut that section citing 'attack' and my personal objection. I'll say it again; this place is toxic. I've never vandalized. The wording in {{unbanned}} implies that anyone banned was 'unproductive'. One of my sock accounts was indef'd with an assertion of 'No useful contributions', which is simply not true. This is all WP:MMORPG stuff. Anyone really surprised that I criticize shite here? Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:05, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Update The template has been modified to better reflect the intent and purpose, I've asked for the category to be speedy deleted as it is wildly unpopular and I'm tired of all the bullshit accusations of bad faith being directed at me. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:45, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism

It is awfully backloged, could an admin remove the backlog? thank you. Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 06:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light

Resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment:

Brews ohare (talk · contribs) is topic banned from all physics-related pages, topics and discussions, broadly construed, for twelve months.

For the Arbitration Committee, NW (Talk) 16:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Discuss this

Wikipedia:Pending changes/Vote comment

As per discussion initiated at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Vote comment's talk page, I would like to inquire as to when we can expect to get a site-wide notice up and running for this vote.   — C M B J   07:24, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I already added and updated the links to MediaWiki:Watchlist-details a few hours ago. I'll await consensus on posting it on MediaWiki:Sitenotice, because, IMO, it gets somewhat annoying when it appears on every single page with no current effective mechanism to hide/dismiss it (at least that's what I recall). Also, such notices, especially regarding major policy discussions, are generally posted more on Watchlist-details than Sitenotice; the latter seems more reserved for critical site issues that all users (including anons and new accounts) must see. Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:49, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds fair. On a related note, there is now discussion of restructuring and restarting the vote, as there have been some serious concerns expressed over the methodology of this particular vote.   — C M B J   09:37, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I can confirm CMBJ's statement, some people think the vote isn't a good way to build consensus. It certainly does show how people feel about it (so far about 3/4 support in some fashion), but the concern is that a vote like this shouldn't be used, but rather continued discussion. My concern there is that it may not change any minds and - while it would certainly create some policy changes meant to satisfy some editors - would not have any use on those who just want to see the process removed. I'm keeping a close eye on the proceedings on the vote page, in particular the talk page, to discuss concerns brought up there. I'll keep this up as well. CycloneGU (talk) 13:56, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

There has already been a lot of discussion and discussion is also able to continue, there will always be objectors but in this case they are in a small minority. Already over one hundred and fifteen interested users have joined in and added their preferred choice. Off2riorob (talk) 14:29, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe this poll is poorly designed and worded. I cannot commit to supporting pending changes without improvements, but there is no option to indicate this. I suggest we discontinue this poll and construct one more reflective of the comments in the discussion, and include an option where a clear commitment to implementing requested improvements is made. Yworo (talk) 14:41, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Your option is clearly to reject then as you have done, there is no guarantee of any improvement to the tool, just the idea and the desire to improve. Off2riorob (talk) 14:50, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Yworo, unduly confusing and complex and the method (having everyone reply with a number) doesn't work well either. --WGFinley (talk) 16:40, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, looks like some subtle changes were made from how it was first posted, I think that's a bit better. --WGFinley (talk) 16:42, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Getting a little tired of discussing this, but this "poll" was set up by Off2riorob and was originally the most convoluted and rigged things I've seen, regardless of my opinion about the subject. We are discussing a serious policy change about something that was supposed to be a trial, correct? Also, a person saying that a portion are in the "minority" when that person is the one who set up the poll is really disingenuous and represents a serious conflict of interest at best. Concerns over "lost votes" are really misplaced as well; does anyone not remember thier history here and Jimbo's repeated blanking of improper polls? Ryan Norton 19:03, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

What really concerns me is that Off2riorob is edit-warring over the removal of a portion of the lede (that says a "6-4" majority should be dubbed consensus) that's facing universal condemnation on the talk page as far too low a standard. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v PC/VC is a show-trial!)} 19:32, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering where the 6-4 came from. I thought it was either 50-50 or 75-25 or something along those lines (70-30?). CycloneGU (talk) 21:58, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Text from previously speedily deleted articles

I'm not sure whether this is the right place to ask this, but I'd like to be able to access the source of a couple of previously speedily deleted pages. I've begun an article on Exploits Valley Air Services in my userspace here. According to the logs, two earlier attempts to create a page on this company were speedily deleted. It's possible there may be some salvagable material in those attempts that could be incorporated in a this article, but not being an admin I can't access it. Admin assistance is therefore needed! Thanks, --RFBailey (talk) 02:33, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

They're both short and fairly useless, I think:

Deleted stuff

Exploits Valley Air Servces EVAS Exploits Valley Air Services (EVAS) is an incorporated aerospace/aviation company operating in the Town of Gander, Newfoundland, Canada. EVAS is comprised of an extremely experienced and highly skilled team of Aircraft Maintenance Engineers authorized to certify maintenance of avionics systems, structural repair of composites, sheet metal and tubular structures. It provides Corporate travel, Cargo and Dangerours Goods transport, Air Ambulance, Aerial sightseeing and Charters.

That one is from Exploits Valley Air Services (as of 22 July 2010, at 10:06) by User:Ealobe, and also has a short chart titled "Explits Valley Services EVAS Fleet", but it's unsourced and I doubt it's needed anyway. The other older deleted version basically says what you have already in your draft. —fetch·comms 02:51, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks--it's basically taken from the company website, and I suspect the fleet information came from there as well. So not much help really, but useful to see it all the same. --RFBailey (talk) 03:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

For future reference, you can request the text of deleted pages at WP:REFUND. Cheers, Skomorokh 03:23, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Second Commandment

This is not the place, as the big red text in the edit notice says. The Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard is across the quad. Uncle G (talk) 15:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Bad Reference - upcoming editwar in Bodo Sperling

Please have an eye at Bodo Sperling, my thoughts are on the discussion page. Maybe an edit-war is coming up soon. Thank you for your attention. (We had the exactly same problem in the German article, see w:de:Bodo Sperling.)Regards --Robertsan1 (talk) 19:33, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, there's this book: ISBN 1155483499 - and the IPs want to use it as a source. But - you argue - it's copied from Wikipedia content (and WP:CIRCULAR would apply) - is that correct? Is there anyway of determining that it is copied from Wikipedia? I can get "ISBN" stuff to work, but Google is beyond me... TFOWR 19:50, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I put the links to the discussion page of the article Bodo Sperling. One can see in the preview of amazon that the book is exactly a copy from Wikipedia. I saw your answer on the discussion page. Thank you. (and sorry for my not proper English, I am from Austria, working with the fine arts team in the German Wikipedia).--Robertsan1 (talk) 19:56, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

No worries, your English is fine. I suspect it may be a UK thing (I saw a post recently about it) but I can't see the preview in Amazon. It looks like at least one of the IPs now understands WP:CIRCULAR, however, so hopefully the problem will go away. I've suggested that unless they verify that the book isn't copied from Wikipedia it shouldn't be used. TFOWR 21:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Books, LLC is a Wikipedia mirror in print form, just the same as Alphascript. Fences&Windows 23:58, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Block review please

I've just indef-blocked EnterStanman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who has somehow managed to hang around for a while despite being entirely unhelpful in their career. Asking for a review as they've made their last few edits specifically to my userpage and an article I worked on. Tony Fox (arf!) 21:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

They don't seem to have done anything useful and those last few edits were worthy of an indef on their own, imo. Good block. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Though some of their older edits (as far back as 2007-2008) were constructive, or at least good-faith, most of their more recent actions appear to be outright vandalism, as well as a couple of strange and disruptive test edits in mainspace; I think a block was certainly justified, especially after the personal attacks made on your user page. I'm not sure if an indefinite block is warranted, however. Their last block was 48 hours, I would probably have escalated to a week and left a very clear warning of the effects of further vandalism and/or attacks. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 21:09, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

It appears they initially went rogue after a fairly trivial fact was not allowed in a BLP [11] at which point they felt bullied [12]. They have also also encountered opposition to their edits more recently, over trying to add the prefix "African-" to an American where sources are apparently unavailable to support the claim. –xeno^talk 21:22, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think this would be difficult to get sources for, considering this is the gentleman in question... Tony Fox (arf!) 23:01, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

• Indefinite /= infinite. I've seen many initially good accounts later go off the rails, and whether that is due to a change of mood, or account hijacking is always difficult to establish without behavioural or Checkuser evidence. Bottom line is that aberrant behaviour from an otherwise constructive account requires some explanation. Until then, good block. Rodhullandemu 23:09, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Can an admin kindly chime in on this please?

Resolved

 – Doesn't require admin attention; I can help the user on one of our talk pages if necessary. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 22:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC) Update: WP:FOOTBALLPLAYERWHOSHALLNOTBENAMED. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:22, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

The discussion is at my talk page. Two users keep implying that I will be blocked and quite frankly they are acting like they are admins, or at least one of them is. I checked their user rights and they are not. I appreciate any help, because I think they are out of line with constantly threatening to block me, when neither is an admin, according to the check user rights feature. I don't want this to become a problem, I just want a clarification.74.194.176.82 (talk) 20:46, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I haven't read the full discussion, but it seems that an editor on your talk page has already pointed out that all editors are equal, and that any editor is entitled to warn you if your actions are not per policy. I appreciate that it can be difficult to get used to how wikipedia works, but if you have received warnings from other editors, there is a very good chance that they were justified; please try to take the advice given, and if you need more information on how to edit constructively, you can ask myself or another editor for help. I don't believe that this requires admin attention, so I am marking it as resolved. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 22:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I commented in some more detail on edit warring on the IP editor's talkpage, as well. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, the IP was right; he is now blocked – not for edit warring really, but for evasion of a ban. –MuZemike 00:20, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Sock puppet

Hi. I am w:de:Benutzer:Robertsan and an IP had put a sockpuppet-box into my Robertsan1-userpage. I wanted to take my own username when I first came to English WP, but this was not possible beause the username Robertsan already existed. So I took Robertsan1. I am known as user:Robertsan in German Wikipedia where I work with the fine arts team, and in German Wikiquote. You can watch my edits there. You can also see my block-log, I have never been blocked. So, what shall I do to wash my name clear? --Robertsan1 (talk) 10:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I removed the tag. Looks like a misunderstanding on the part of the unregistered user who placed it. CIreland (talk) 10:41, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. --Robertsan1 (talk) 12:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Eyes needed at Jewish Internet Defense Force....

Things are starting to flare up again.. If people could put it on their watchlist and help keep an eye on it, it'd be appreciated Weaponbb7 (talk) 13:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

• For the related discussion and a community ban proposal, see [13] Kindzmarauli (talk) 17:42, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

The unblock-en-l Mailing list could use some more admins.

For the past two weeks the unblock-en-l mailing list has been suffering from a rather low capacity of admin users who are handling the unblock requests send to the list, and could therefor use a a few extra admin to keep the backlog limited (We went into a 7 days backlog two weeks in a row now).

For those who don't know the unblock-en-l list, a short introduction: Unblock-en-l is a mailing list which can be contacted by users who have been blocked from editing. Examples are IP editors who have been caught in a rangeblock (And therefor cannot create an account), and users who's accounts have been blocked but for some reason do not utilize the unblock request templates. The list itself receives about 10 requests a day in average, and most of them are fairly easy to handle, since a lot of questions are similar.

Interested admins can subscribe to the mailing list at this link. After being approved by one of the lists admins all mail send to unblock-en-l will be forwarded to your subscribed e-mail address. For those fearing spam i would point out that the list itself is filtered by the list admins, which means that in general, only valid unblock requests are forwarded to the people who are subscribed. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 17:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

This will mean more mailing list spam... that is, list messages clogging up my inbox when I already am subscribed to several. 10/day is a lot, but I'll see if I can help out. No guarantees on activity level. —fetch·comms 03:46, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I presume you could set up a separate mail account for the unblock-en-l messages, if they prove to be to spammy. Personally i use a Wikipedia-specific gmail account which i set up to categorize incoming e-mail automatically. All mailing list items are sorted to various labels while keeping track of the ones i am involved in, to allow for easy tracking of the ones i should react to or check once new mail comes in. A second handy gimmick is Gmail's ability to save canned responses, which allows for extremely fast reacting with standard messages. I believe that all these features are likely present in other mail clients as well. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 16:49, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Re. Fetchcomms, you could always subscribe in digest mode. I expect that it's low activity because of the time of year (people away on vacation, spending time outside and so on). Aiken ♫ 16:57, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm already juggling several email addresses (:P), and digest mode just makes it harder to reply to things. But I'll cope, I guess :) —fetch·comms 21:01, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Huh, I never actually realised how to subscribe before, thanks for the explanation Excirial :). Although like Fetchcomms I doubt I'll be that active. Oh, and Fetchcomms, do you sort your email into different folders? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 21:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

No, too annoying. Most of what I get is from wp mailing lists and stupid Twitter notifications I'm too lazy to turn off anyway :P —fetch·comms 21:18, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Rlevse

What happened I wonder. I hope he's OK. Herostratus (talk) 13:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

He posted the notice, and had been editing as little as an hour prior, so I imagine he's ok... but is still apparently a sadness for someone close to him. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:06, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

The notice could have been posted by a spouse/family member who either knows his passwords or was able to use a logged in account.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 16:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Good Lord, it can't be that, right?. Does he have a good Wikifriend from whom he might answer an email? Herostratus (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I've emailed him and asked another 'crat who might know. Until we hear otherwise, there is no need to speculate. I do wish that he (or whoever edited his page with his account) didn't leave it the way it was.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 17:02, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I had also sent a message to a known email. Let's wait a bit and see what is up. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:43, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

He's an admin at Commons; his last contributions there were yesterday. Nyttend (talk) 20:49, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

He just posted, it is memory of a friend... not Rlevse himself or a family member.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:57, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Loss of a close friend still hurts. Let's all give him some space and consideration. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I think some kind condolences, thoughts, and prayers are fine, but asking tons of questions isn't. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:09, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all for the concern and help. I just need a few days. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:23, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The following is a summary of the remedies enacted:

• Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for "race and intelligence" and all closely related articles.
• The following editors are topic-banned from race and intelligence articles, broadly construed:
  • Mathsci (by consent)
  • David.Kane
  • Captain Occam
  • Mikemikev
• Mikemikev, who was indefinitely blocked as a result of an ANI discussion during the case proceedings, is site-banned for 12 months. Until his ArbCom ban expires, he may only appeal his block to the Arbitration Committee, via the Ban Appeals Subcommittee. After 12 months, he may choose to appeal the ban to either the Arbitration Committee or to the community.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee,

NW (Talk) 22:55, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Discuss this

Lots of unanswered requests at WT:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage

Just notifying the admins, there are currently 8 unreviewed requests at WT:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage, and some have been there for a pretty long time. Access Denied ^talk _contribs editor review 00:51, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty much up to reviewing requests there, and the current Service Level Agreement seems to be be 48 hours, so the current backlog is not unusual. If I don't get to it, somebody else will. Rodhullandemu 01:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I approved all the outstanding requests with over 500 edits.--Chaser (talk) 02:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Template:Schoolblock

Minor edits to the above template are proposed at Template talk:Schoolblock. --Bsherr (talk) 03:56, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Notification: Community ban proposal on ANI for User:Sven70

Recently indefinitely blocked user Sven70 (talk · contribs) is being proposed for a community ban due to - well, exhaustion of community patience, I think is the only reasonable summary from reading it. See: WP:ANI#Ban proposal on User:Sven70.

If you have comments or input please leave them there...

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 07:37, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Content of Rotaru deleted

An editor is trying to delete the content of the surname page Rotaru and replace it with a redirect to a specific article about a pop singer. Would be good if an outsider could give her opinion on this. --Jaan Pärn (talk) 12:42, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

They did it once. You undid it, but then failed to address it directly with the user who did it. What are you looking for from Admins? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I've done that, and made Rotaru a dab page. Dougweller (talk) 13:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Please check the importance of other "Rotarus" and a number of hits per Rotaru as referred to Sofia Rotaru on Google and other search machines. It is clear that a redirect from Rotaru should be related in my opinion to Sofia Rotaru as by far the most important and searchable Rotaru.Rubikonchik (talk) 10:26, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Shall I understand this silence as a proof that no contrary argument to the aforesaid by me was accepted by editors.Rubikonchik (talk) 12:43, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

No, you may not. The redirect/disambig was fixed by admins according to this report, and that's the way it should stand. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you decided that the puproted by you decision was taken by administrators, as they have not marked it explicitly? What is your assertion based on? Rubikonchik (talk) 09:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Goodman Theatre

Resolved

I'd appreciate opinions on the Goodman Theatre article and Goodmanintern (talk · contribs). I first noticed that this user was pasting large parts of the Goodman Theatre website into the article. I was concerned about the username so I left them a message regarding it, which they initially ignored. However, I also reverted the copy/paste because of copyright concerns. The user has now informed me that they are an intern assigned to change the Wikipedia article "for publicity needs," by Goodman's publicity office (see User talk:Goodmanintern). This would seem to me to be a conflict of interest issue and also an attempt by the theatre to take ownership of the article. However, the theatre is a respected Chicago institution, so I want to make sure that I have done the right thing. Thanks, —Jeremy (talk) 17:19, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like you did the right thing to me. I've soft-blocked the account pending a username change, and pointed them to Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks—Jeremy (talk) 17:57, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Update on Checkuser and Oversight appointment process

Following the call for applicants (19 July) and the initial call for comments on the candidates (16 August), this notice is a second call for comments from the community on the suitability of the candidates for the September 2010 appointments for checkuser and oversight permissions. The Arbitration Committee is continuing to review and collate the comments received so far. If you have not done so already, please send in your comments before 23:59 on 25 August 2010 (UTC).

Those actively being considered for Checkuser and Oversight permissions are listed here (same link as above). As the primary area of concern is confidence in the candidate's ability to operate within the Wikimedia privacy policy, comments of this nature are best directed to the Committee's mailing list (arbcom-llists.wikimedia.org).

For the Arbitration Committee, Carcharoth (talk) 21:26, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Discuss this

Merge help

Two years ago, someone proposed the union of proxy wedding and proxy marriage; the seven individuals who have since chimed in have all supported merger, so it's an obvious "yes". However, for some reason, the talk page requests that the closing admin perform a history merge. I don't really see why we can't just redirect one article to the other and indicate in the merge edit summary that it's taken from the other, and I'm very inexperienced with history merges, so I don't want to perform this merger. Would someone more experienced than I please do it? Nyttend (talk) 04:18, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

What should the article's name be? -- Avi (talk) 04:31, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I have no opinion on the matter. Nyttend (talk) 11:50, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

As an uninvolved person: a wedding is a ceremony where the solemnization of marriage occurs. A marriage is the official solemnization by an authorized party. The marriage itself is therefore not by proxy, but the wedding service is done by proxy...at least IMHO. However, the issue as to whether or not some countries consider the couple actually married if it happened by proxy may kick in ... (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:30, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I think I did it right. Someone check, though. —fetch·comms 16:49, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Looks OK mergewise—nicely done. The question remains should "marriage" be the canonical title or "wedding"? Bwilkins has a point, IMO. -- Avi (talk) 22:35, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I would think a wedding is part of a marriage, even if there's no proxy marriage. I don't really care either way, someone change if they want. —fetch·comms 04:41, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

E. Normus Johnson

• E. Normus Johnson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Could someone move User:TonyTheTiger/sandbox/E. Normus Johnson back into the main space, restore his page history from the deleted version, and add an appropriate T:AH to his talk page.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:53, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

• Done. There was no deleted history of the article to merge, and you can put the talk page notices that you desire in directly. Uncle G (talk) 00:09, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I did not notice the deleted history was restored with the userfication.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Could someone move this page?

I need http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yor%C3%B9b%C3%A1land moved to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorubaland and the previous page deleted. Thank you! -- Brout8 (talk) 11:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Although the best place is requested moves, we might as well look after it here ... why not simply change the redirect of the current Yorubaland to the new stub that you have created (although, it's not much of a stub anymore)? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:49, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

That's what I've done. —fetch·comms 12:53, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! --Brout8 (talk) 14:32, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm apparently more brilliant than bold today :-) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:35, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Copyright concerns versus BLP concerns

We have a talk page banner that is used to indicate when an external source has copied from Wikipedia, see the top of Talk:Maze Prison escape to see it in use.

Now this generally seems to be used for random websites of unknown authorship that have copied from Wikipedia, but right now I find myself in a somewhat different position. Without giving exact details for obvious reasons a high-profile lawyer has published his memoirs and there's substantial copying and plagiarism from an article here, not the article about the lawyer for the record. So by adding that banner, and therefore accusing a named person of copyright/plagiarism issues, would I be breaking BLP? Thanks. 2 lines of K₃₀₃ 14:26, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

• The template's purpose seems to be more to notify users of the simple fact that an external source has copied Wikipedia (so users don't think we copied them and tag our article as copyvio). It doesn't seem to accuse the external source of inappropriate use, which is (presumably) left as an exercise for the reader. –xeno^talk 14:29, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

If content from Wikipedia is used verbatim, there are requirements for attribution in the CC-BY-SA and GDFL that may need to be satisfied. But that's not a template issue. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:57, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, that's a separate issue entirely. –xeno^talk 16:06, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

The template implies copyright violation; it's called {{backwardscopyvio}}. It's not meant to be substituted, but when it is, the implication is lost. When it's not, it's there in the code, as in the bottom template headers here. I don't think it's a major BLP issue, but we could always consider creating {{backwardscopy}}. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Fair point. What about renaming it to "article reused" or something? –xeno^talk 16:22, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I myself am partial to {{backwardscopy}} just because it's closer to the template I've been using for so long. :D It'll be easier to remember. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:32, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

There's already the {{Notacopyvio}} redirect. VernoWhitney (talk) 16:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

If we use it, does it still show backwardscopyvio in the code, o person who knows such things? :)I tested myself; that would seem to resolve the issue, as the code shows {{Notacopyvio}}. Of course, it is a bit more positive in asserting that there is no copyvio when there may well be, if the external source doesn't attribute.... --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Backwardscopy was my first thought and seems fine but I was trying to get more descriptive =]. –xeno^talk 16:42, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposed editing restrictions on User:Wolfkeeper

The proposed sanctions are enacted Spartaz Humbug! 07:30, 28 August 2010 (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. Wolfkeeper (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · socks confirmedsuspected) BigBodBad (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · socks) The user has been generally disruptive (moreso recently) with respect to policies on articles about words (stridently pushing a very restrictive and not widely-held view with respect to the inclusion of words-as-articles) and feels they have "the right under WP:IAR to have and use socks", (see recent ANI where they defended themselves in the third person with an undisclosed sock) I proposed editing restrictions as follows: Wolfkeeper is indefinitely restricted from using undisclosed alternate accounts. Wolfkeeper is topic-banned for six months from any edits in the mainspace related to words-as-articles, broadly construed. Wolfkeeper is topic-banned for six months from any edits on policies and guidelines related to words-as-articles, broadly construed. Constructive talk page comments are permitted in respect to 2 & 3 above. Support as proposer. –xenotalk 14:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support alternate account restriction, but not sure about mainspace restriction. Convince me. Convinced. Support all 3.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:15, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Hm, split mainspace from policy/guideline. Do you support the policy/guideline restriction? See [14] for an example of mainspace disruption related to their extreme view on articles-on-words, there are many examples like this which may be easily found in the contributions history of his two accounts. –xenotalk 14:18, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Wolfkeeper has had difficulty in understanding what WP:NOT#DICT, WP:NOTDICT actually mean, taking the fact that we have articles that define and then further expand upon the term in a manner that Wikidiction is not set out to do ( eg, Yankee, Truthiness, pussy). He repeatedly has challenged if WP really is a dictionary because we have these types of definitions. ((see Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is not a dictionary/Draft RfC on words for a starting point on his vies). RFCs and other discussions have closed that WK's view is mistaken, that we still aren't a dictionary but we will have articles on terms and words with their definition as part of an encyclopedic coverage of that term as evidenced in the above examples. That's ok to disagree on, but then he has changes WP:NOT and WP:NOTDICT to basically claim that since we allow these articles, we must be a dictionary by default. He edit wars to keep these ideas on these pages (rarely hitting 3RR but effectively close to that). (see around May 10-14 on [15] or late March - Early April [16] . --MASEM (t) 14:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support - all three - better than the alternative - (indefinite block) - Off2riorob (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support both all 3 actions. --MASEM (t) 14:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support all proposed restrictions. This behavior has gone on far too long, and now it's escalated to deliberate disruption. —David Levy 14:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support I think he's on a runaway bullet train to bannedsville, but if there's some hope of progress away from that then I'm all for it. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support all. With respect to the latter two, he seems to have become quite bitter over the subject, based on his comments here. Gaining some distance might help him gain some perspective, but if nothing else limiting his comments to "Constructive talk page comments" should help. Given his willingness to IAR on sock puppetry, I'm not entirely sure that his definition of "constructive" talk page comments related to this issue will accord with the community's, so I do worry that this may not resolve the situation. I presume the goal here to be avoiding a site ban and hope it will be successful. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Indeed that is the goal, and I would suggest that (if this carries,) his block may be commuted in lieu of the restrictions. –xenotalk 14:48, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Or at least, the edit warring/disruptive editing block. The extra week for socking, I'd suggest leaving alone. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC) I disagree on that point. The 2-week block is well-deserved given the history, and the fact that the disruption has escalated lately suggests a break from Wikipedia is sorely needed in this case. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Hmm, was probably a mistake on my part to bring it up here as it complicates this discussion. Can be discussed separately if Wolfkeeper initiates a third unblock request. Hope y'all don't mind if I shrink this. –xenotalk 15:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Suggestion to commute block withdrawn because user shows absolutely no understanding of why they have been blocked. –xenotalk 17:30, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support all 3 The blatant "use socks to IAR" says so much. The lack of understanding in this whole episode says even more. I too agree he's on a runnaway train, not sure of the destination. I agree in principle with all previous support arguments, though I think Moonridden girl is overly optimistic in her hopes. Dlohcierekim 15:04, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support all per nom; having now read a couple of the discussions this user has been involved in regarding articles about words, I think these measures will be necessary (and hopefully successfully avoid the need for a ban). GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 15:17, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Yep. Indeed, given that he apparently thinks it's quite okay to use socks to back yourself up in disputes I might have a look at some previous interactions I've had with him, one of which in particular was characterised by random support for his position from new users. An additional note: this is the first time I've come across this particular policy argument, and I happen to pretty much agree with Wolfkeeper's position, which makes it doubly annoying that it's now tainted. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:22, 26 August 2010 (UTC) There are a few other editors who somewhat agree with a few of Wolfkeeper's positions. Read through Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary/Draft RfC on words, and its talkpage, to get a general idea of the situation. This issue is still somewhat unresolved, despite Wolfkeeper's apparent departure. Everyone's input is welcome (and encouraged). -- Quiddity (talk) 22:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support. There were similar problems at WP:LEAD. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 15:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC) After the seemingly futile discussion with his sock at ANI, I completely support all three proposed restrictions. —DoRD (talk) 15:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support per Starblind. Access Denied talk contribs editor review 16:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support all proposed restrictions. This is a very long time coming. Wolfkeeper's sustained low-intensity edit warring on word articles and his belligerent, personal comments are directly counterproductive to collaborative work, and the problem has been recurring for well over two years. Hopefully this will get him to reign it back in and further sanctions won't be necessary. However, like Moonriddengirl, I worry that his definition of "constructive talk page comments" won't accord with that of the community particularly well.--Cúchullain t/c 16:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support. I don't usually watch WP:AN; I asked to be notified if Wolfkeeper showed up here ... not because I wanted to "get" him, but because every difficult editor seems to either get worse or better with time, and his absence from WP:AN would have been good news. Looks like it went the other way. - Dank (push to talk) 16:27, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support all and an unconditional indef at the first breach. He's exhausted the patience of too many already. —fetch·comms 16:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Comment – Are we still going to allow Wolfkeeper to edit on said restricted articles', policies', and guidelines' talk pages as well as any AFDs concerning words-as-articles? My assumption is "yes", but I want to make sure there is mutual agreement on this. –MuZemike 16:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC) The proposal states that constructive talk-page edits will be allowed. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 16:52, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Hmm - I hadn't thought about AFDs. The restrictions as proposed would permit him to participate in, but not initiate, AFDs on words-as-articles. –xenotalk 17:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Is this something we want to address? Wolfkeeper has been just as acrimonious and disruptive at AfDs on word articles as anywhere (cf. [17] and [18], and these are cases where there are others who generally agree with his position).--Cúchullain t/c 18:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC) I drafted the restrictions to be somewhat lenient; but based on subsequent comments by Wolfkeeper that demonstrate an apparent inability to understand the issues at hand or accept any responsibility for his actions, a wider topic ban (including AfD discussions) may be appropriate. –xenotalk 18:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support - my only encounters with Wolfkeeper have been at Homeopathy, where Wolfkeeper was at the centre of epic discussions and revert-fests over the meaning of single words (though I probably reverted at least one of wolfkeeper's edits; feel free to discount my !vote if you think that's a conflict of interest) bobrayner (talk) 16:56, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Prefer no use of alternate accounts in lieu of #1. Support 2 & 3 in entirety. Editor completely lacks a clue, and is now a significant disruption to the project. Modifying policies unlaterally to achieve one's own goals is a blatant disregard for the project as a whole. Clearly does not get it. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:53, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support all three. Of course, he'll violate them or leave in a huff, but that's his choice. Jclemens (talk) 17:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support as minimal, but I'd support a community ban (i.e., no editing of anything, ever). Words-as-articles is only of the bees in his bonnet. I am also concerned about his role in AFDs and the potential for endless disruption on talk pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support - All restrictions, better than the indef I was leaning towards per his denial that it is wrong to sock to evade sanctions on his talk.— Dædαlus Contribs 20:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support - I've run into this editor's pointy behavior regarding the "not a dictionary" debates, and was expecting some sanctions would be needed. I think this is a very fair response. -- Atama頭 21:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Just as an FYI the editor claims to have scrambled their password, so if this proposal passes it will effectively be a community ban (as they will be indefinitely prohibited from operating undisclosed alternate accounts and unable to certifiably disclose any alternate accounts). –xenotalk 21:43, 26 August 2010 (UTC) If he hasn't done the same with his known sock, I suppose that he might come back on that account to request an unblock. —DoRD (talk) 21:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC) I think that's a bridge to cross when and if we come to it. I'm sure there's some way we could work on allowing him back if he were really going to avoid his problematic behavior.--Cúchullain t/c 22:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC) The restrictions apply to the PERSON behind the accounts, and it doesn't matter if he goes away for 6 years, or Wikipedia is sold to Martians - the person who is aka Wolfkeeper will be subject to the restrictions until they are removed (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:02, 27 August 2010 (UTC) Support, especially numbers 2 and 3. The user has been enforcing their own view about WP:NOTDICT as policy for as long as I can remember. It's time for a break if they can't accept consensus on the matter. Jafeluv (talk) 22:04, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Support This user first came to my attention at my RFA when I closed a controversial AFD and he started drama about me having the potential to abuse my tools. Since then when he threated to auto oppose my next RFA, I have seen him go downhill from there on out. Hopefully this will throw some sense their way and they will come back for the better. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:55, 27 August 2010 (UTC) Support Watching some noticeboards has become very painful due to the persistent and exaggerated not dictionary pushing. Johnuniq (talk) 08:49, 27 August 2010 (UTC) Support. Wolfkeeper seems to be acting in good faith, but simply doesn't get that things in the real world cannot all be classified into black or white. He has caused a large amount of disruption, and the proposed rules are just about the minimum for preventing that to continue. Hans Adler 08:57, 27 August 2010 (UTC) Wolfkeeper's actions have stemmed from sincere disagreement, but he's far exceeded the bounds of good faith. He's well aware that the community does not share his views, and his recent edits to policy/guideline pages (and announcement that he intended to deploy bots to create stub articles for all dictionary terms) constituted spiteful, point-making mockery of that fact. Meanwhile, he's been operating a sock puppet account and using it to deceptively back himself (clearly a bad-faith act). —David Levy 12:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC) Support #2 & #3. #1 (note WP:SOCK#LEGIT and WP:SOCK#NOTIFY) would seem to apply to everyone. Support that, too... Doc9871 (talk) 09:05, 27 August 2010 (UTC) Note that users are permitted to use undisclosed sock accounts under certain circumstances (for example, if it is necessary to hide your identity because of the risk of personal endangerment). Wolfkeeper would be restricted from using undisclosed socks for any reason. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 09:09, 27 August 2010 (UTC) An editor facing "personal endangerment" would hopefully "consider notifying a checkuser or member of the arbitration committee if they believe editing will attract scrutiny." "Privacy" socks... (shiver) ;> Doc9871 (talk) 09:32, 27 August 2010 (UTC) Support - Just caught up on the background on this editor. All three sanctions seems reasonable in the circumstances. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:36, 28 August 2010 (UTC) Support. There is no 'right' under IAR to disruptively use socks. Lankiveil (speak to me) 06:39, 28 August 2010 (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.

I would just like to note that I just realized a slight flaw in one of the points made; it has been said by multiple people that this would effectively be a community ban, because he can't come back after having 'scrambled his password'. This is not the case. He could come back under a sock account, but he would have to disclose it immediately upon registration. Just felt the need to get that out there.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 07:44, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Unless he uses his known sock, he would, as xeno pointed out, have no way of verifying his identity via a new sock. —DoRD (talk) 13:58, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Or he could post on the blocked sock's talkpage Spartaz ^Humbug! 14:00, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that may not be a major issue. If he created a new account and took appropriate steps to announce himself by one of many methods (even an e-mail to arbcom or an admin involved in this discussion), I suspect we'd be able to take his word for the connection--not to the point of a rename or anything, but at least to the point of permitting him to edit under one known, approved account within restrictions. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:02, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I can't think of anything to be gained by falsely claiming to be this editor. —David Levy 14:20, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

My only concern would be the false flag sockpuppet trying to impersonate them into greater hot water. If they do return under a different moniker, they should probably verify their identity with someone with whom they've had email contact, or have a checkuser verify the link. –xeno^talk 14:23, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that such efforts should be undertaken if feasible (i.e. if a suitable e-mail contact exists and/or the pertinent CheckUser records haven't expired by that point). If not, applying the duck test can only be fairer to this editor than the alternative would be, as no amount of misbehavior on the part of an impersonator can result in an outcome more severe than a de facto ban would be. —David Levy 14:33, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The thing is, he would probably be unable to stay away from any of his past haunts as he is pretty opinionated. If he does come back, it will probably be discovered pretty quickly. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Phantomphan91

Resolved

 – All non-PD images deleted by User:Peripitus

Phantomphan91 (talk · contribs) has uploaded several images which seem to be copyrighted images from various other sources. Is it necessary to go through each image and tag each and every one? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 00:14, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

User notified. This is now mandatory. Exxolon (talk) 00:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

All the photos this editor has uploaded other than one which is clearly PD have now been deleted by User:Peripitus Nick-D (talk) 00:53, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 02:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Incomplete XfD's

Could an admin please go through Wikipedia:Database reports/Old deletion discussions and process them? Most of these have closure results that are not delete or keep (no consensus, merge, etc). — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 18:26, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

2007?!?!?....oops ;-) Weaponbb7 (talk) 19:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Nothing's really that old, the oldest dates back to May 2010. The oldest are really just maintenance cats. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 19:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Seems mostly done, except for the galleries that want moving to Commons. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:18, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

The flags galleries have already been moved and can be deleted. See my previous post here.— Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 23:54, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Gallery of flags by design is not the same as Commons:Gallery of flags by design, which is a mess, full of non-existent images. This should be resolved before the version here can be deleted. Chick Bowen 18:44, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Some will not be free images, and thus won't be on Commons. Others just have different file names. —fetch·comms 20:05, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Request deletion of article The heathers.

Article title is incorrect as the group in question are named 'Heathers' All content has been moved to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathers_(Band) and I will begin redirecting mentions of the group to here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seanor3 (talk • contribs) 22:17, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

 Doing... This is a cut & paste move, which I am currently fixing. Rodhullandemu 22:20, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Redirects should be fixed in due course, and the title should be Heathers (band). Rodhullandemu 22:24, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Closing an RfC

Resolved

 – Discussion closed. — Coren ^(talk) 04:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

An RfC was conducted over the past month at Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board#RfC on date format for GG bios. Now that the requisite 30 days has expired and participation has dissipated, I wonder if an uninvolved admin could review the discussion and polls and close the RfC with a concluding note of it's ultimate result. The RfC is related to a wide-ranging dispute that needs closure. Cheers. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 02:45, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll take a look. — Coren ^(talk) 02:17, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 13:10, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

And another

• Talk:Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907#RFC: Passenger and crew list section. MickMacNee (talk) 20:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
  • On my way there. — Coren ^(talk) 22:55, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Many thanks for the prompt closure. Section now removed. MickMacNee (talk) 01:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
      • The content has been restored by Crum375 (talk · contribs). As I was involved in the RfC, I will take no action beyond notifying the restoring user of its outcome. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 04:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Haken (Band)

Resolved

 – DumbBOT saved the day GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 16:56, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Not sure where the right place is but Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Haken (Band) seems to have dropped of the list and been forgotten. duffbeerforme (talk) 12:53, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Looked again and this can be ignored and closed, DumbBOT found and fixed it. Sorry. duffbeerforme (talk) 12:56, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Dumbbot's been falling behind. This AFD was open on the 12th but not found by Dumbbot until the 24th. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:51, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

That may be something to discuss with the bot's creator, if (s)he is still around. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 08:45, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Creator is Tizio. S/he edited last week, but his/her edits have been sporadic recently; s/he has made fewer than fifty edits in the last six months. Nyttend (talk) 12:33, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Should IP users be allowed to do non-admin closures?

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dominique Cottrez. I am not contesting the actual close here, which is clearly correct and an acceptable case for an NAC, but raising the principle of whether NACs by IPs should be permitted. WP:NAC and WP:NACD do not explicitly forbid it, but do say that only "Experienced editors in good standing" should do them. The problem with an IP is that one cannot tell whether it is an experienced editor in good standing (this particular NAC close was the IP's first ever edit), a non-static IP user cannot be held to account for its actions, and there is in theory the possibility of an editor taking part in a discussion and then logging out to close it. Since there is no pressing need for NACs - by their nature, they are the easy ones which any admin can do quickly - I suggest that WP:NAC and WP:NACD should be amended to say that only registered users may perform NACs. JohnCD (talk) 16:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Please discuss further at Wikipedia talk:Non-admin closure#Should IP users be allowed to do non-admin closures?.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Seems like a reasonable change, especially given the scenario you suggest above with the logged-out participant. Do you have any evidence that this has been intentionally done, or is it just an obvious possibility? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:49, 30 August 2010 (UTC) Well we had an IP close an RfA a couple of weeks ago. I'm all for compulsory registration, but until then, I see no reason to restrict IPs from performing fairly routine actions. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:52, 30 August 2010 (UTC) compulsory registration? That will be the day I retire. Who was it that said that they would never belong to any club that would have them as a member? :) ...anyways, --Threeafterthree (talk) 17:13, 30 August 2010 (UTC)ps, sorry, not trying to be snarky since I apprecite your attitude that ips should be allowed to performing fairly routine actions...cheers, --Threeafterthree (talk) 17:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC) Letting IPs with only a handful of edits close AfDs is likely to lead to a lot of problems. I wouldn't be happy with anyone with only a handful of edits closing AfDs. And as suggested, it could easily by an editor who'd voted, someone who was attracted to Wikipedia from a website discussing the AfD, etc. So yes, do change it to say only registered accounts. Dougweller (talk) 17:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC) Seconded. I think that change would make a lot of sense. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 17:33, 30 August 2010 (UTC) Full support. --Rschen7754 17:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC) I general I'm against limiting what an IP can do based on the slogan "the encyclopedia anyone can edit", however AfD is not a part of the encyclopedia and considering the risk of shenanigans I would support restricting non-admin closures to registered experienced users in good standing. J04n(talk page) 17:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC) We have enough registered users who perform poor NAC's now - let alone some ip-hopping, "but they're my favourite band"-toting editor close an AFD? Zoinks! (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia to Wikimedia Commons Deletion Assistant (W2WCDA) (Beta Testing)

Hi all,

I've created a Wikipedia to Wikimedia Commons Deletion Assistant tool. (http://toolserver.org/~jylee/w2wcda/) It is 90% functional, there are some minor tweaks that require fixing (like the next and previous links). This tool is to provide a split screen interface for administrators to compare the two images side-by-side, one on the English Wikipedia and the Commons version of the same image. Please give me feedback on my talk page.

Thanks! --AllyUnion (talk) 00:22, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Cool. I'm trying it out now; that backlog is ghastly. —fetch·comms 01:30, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I've been working on this backlog manually for about two months now, and I estimate it will take me until about Christmas to deal with it all. However, I don't see how this tool helps; when I go to the links it invites me to log in , and when I do so, it takes me to a Category page I'm already working. Any ideas why this is so? Rodhullandemu 00:38, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

That's because the page is retrieved from the server side and presented to you. I'll remove the log in link. --AllyUnion (talk) 22:21, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay. I've fixed that. One of my known bugs is the URL conversion for strange characters like á or é (etc) -- That is being worked on. --AllyUnion (talk) 22:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

@Rod, did you click thru onto an image? Once you select an image, it gives you the side-by-side view. –xeno^talk 22:56, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I picked a few files at random and they've all had the same problem. The left side shows the WP file correctly, but the right side does not because 1=File: is added to the beginning of the file name on Commons, e.g. [19] File:HARRISON-CRIB-1910.jpg vs File:1=File:HARRISON-CRIB-1910.jpg. —DoRD (talk) 22:58, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. --AllyUnion (talk) 23:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Another bug? The 'Delete Wikipedia Image' link does not properly populate the deletion reason, and just fills '[[WP:CSD'. Also the Next/Prev links are not working? Thanks for the work though. Stephen 01:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, the Next/Prev links are being worked on. I am trying to figure out the best way to do that without impacting Wikipedia too much -- it may ultimately lag behind the Wikipedia's updates. Looking into the Delete function problem now. --AllyUnion (talk) 05:46, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. --AllyUnion (talk) 06:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Purge and category delete links have been added --AllyUnion (talk) 19:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Review Requested

Resolved

 – Action endorsed. Following discussion, editors involved will follow WP:RESEARCH accordingly. Based on this, account has been unblocked (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 15:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Akoha77 seems to be requesting that admins respond to a survey on gender, and are using an alpha list of admins. They appear to be using some form of automated process (they ignored a redirect on User talk:7SeriesBOT and posted in its talkpage), and are going upwards of 3-4 pages per minute.

I asked them at 8:43 to explain if they're using an automated process - no response, and they started posting faster. I have blocked for 3 hours, hoping to get some form of response.

A review of my actions here would be welcome. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

A short block is entirely appropriate to get their attention if it appears they're running an unattended automatic process. If they want to know the gender of admins they can use the {{GENDER}} magicword. If admins wanted to disclose their gender, presumably it would be set in their preferences. If not, it's not very appropriate to ask, is it? –xeno^talk 13:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the message they're sending, I see they tried this and found that only ~400 admins have this preference set. If that isn't enough data for them, they should review Wikipedia:Research and contact WP:SRAG before proceeding. –xeno^talk 13:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Endorse action - polling all users in a large class in an automated manner probably needs some reasonable explanation before going ahead, bot editing should have a higher level of responsiveness to concerns, and a short block for nonresponsiveness is not going to hurt it. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 13:13, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi Bwilkins, xeno and FT2! Akoha77 is working with me so, since she is blocked, I reply. Sorry if we caused problems, it was not our intention! We are not using automated delivery forms for writing the messages. We simply did some copy and paste. Before writing the messages, I asked to 2 admins if this way of doing it was ok and they reply that, according to them, it was ok (see 1 and 2). Of course this does not mean that I'm arguing that we can do it. It is simply to say that I did some work in trying to understand if we could do the survey in this way. If it is ok, I first read Wikipedia:Research and then I write at being discussed at WP:AN. Thanks for your suggestions reply and sorry again for any problem we might have caused! phauly (talk) 13:15, 31 August 2010 (UTC) (copied from User talk:Akoha77)

One of those admins is very new... The other is very old. =) Probably neither was aware that there are procedures in place for researchers on Wikipedia... Thanks for explaining and your attention to this. –xeno^talk 13:19, 31 August 2010 (UTC) (copied from User talk:Akoha77)

Thanks for pointing this about the 2 admins that replied. We were unlucky in getting the random sample! ;) phauly (talk) 13:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

400 out of around a couple of thousand is an excellent ratio for a sample size. There should be no additional need to request additional respondents. Any researcher would be thrilled at that ratio (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:33, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Self-selection may be an issue though. –xeno^talk 13:38, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Bwilkins, I agree!!! 30 something percent is great, but 100% would be better! ;) Of course I understand that not all admins are going to reply to our survey so we might get similar coverage. And, xeno, maybe there is similar self-selection effect (admins who decide to reply to the survey) but I have the feeling (not motivated at the moment) that the self-filtering would be minor. I'm reading the policy of Wikipedia Research at the moment, very well done actually! I reorder the ideas and then I decide if it makes sense to apply for the survey or working with the data we have at the moment. Thanks again! phauly (talk) 13:44, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course, given that about 25% of people who self-identify as "female" in online forums are actually male, whereas only 7% of people who self-identify as "male" are actually female, one might want to consider those issues. That said, asking people is not likely to change their answers :-) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:46, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

← I think now that the users are aware the relevant procedures for conducting research, the block can be lifted (with the understanding that no more surveys be sent out until SRAG has given approval) and this thread can be marked 'resolved'. –xeno^talk 13:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everyone! We will go the SRAG way. phauly (talk) 13:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

On a related note, at the moment for getting the {{GENDER}} of a user I call the API with something like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=users&ususers=brion%7CTimStarling%7CPhauly%7CWarmfuzzygrrl%7CNightsky%7CJengod%7CGeeoharee&usprop=blockinfo%7Cgroups%7Ceditcount%7Cregistration%7Cemailable%7Cgender but I can pass a maximum of 50 users to the API. Do you know if there is a way to increase this limit? I think maybe bots have 500 but I'm not sure, I didn't find it in the API documentation. Or is is possible to get access to a copy of the database (without requiring access to toolserver.org)? Well, I guess this is not the correct place to ask but since you are being very supportative, I thought I could try the chance ;) Thanks anyway! phauly (talk) 13:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

You might try asking at WT:DUMPREP. –xeno^talk 13:51, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

If you have more time, you could look at other indicators on administrators' userpages; for example, you can see that I claim to be male, because I claim to be an Eagle Scout, and only males can be Eagle Scouts. Nyttend (talk) 14:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Lotsa spaghetti

Resolved

 – seasoning applied

Can someone please salt Lotsa spaghetti? Lotsa users keep making this as a nonsensical redirect to Hotel Mario. It stems from a non-notable meme from the game's cutscenes, and we just plain don't need it — the same redirect's been deleted at least four times now. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 19:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Atsa salty meat-a-ball. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:24, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Why is Admin User:Endofskull speeding my stub?

Resolved

 – Speedy declined GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 22:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I started a short stub on Claus Bock of which a German Wikipedia version is well-established. I noted this on in the start page edit. Why did EndofSkull speedy tag this, I'm confused? --Libb Thims (talk) 22:28, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Speedy declined, please do continue expanding the article and remove the 'Expand German' tag when complete. –xeno^talk 22:38, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Woah woah woah. Sorry about that. I think you probably could just contact me on that one next time. I would've happily removed it. Sorry about that. Happy editing! :) Endofskull (talk) 22:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I posted comment on the talk page, waited, but you didn't respond, so I took the next logical step. No worries. I just don't really like writing more than stubs anymore. --Libb Thims (talk) 22:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Post it on my talkpage, next time. Alright? Anyways, sorry about this! Endofskull (talk) 22:54, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Interim desysop

Marskell (talk · contribs) is desysopped as he is no longer in control of his account per the interim desysop procedures. This desysop shall remain in place until such a time as Marskell is able to demonstrate to the Committee that he has regained control of his account.

In support: Carcharoth, Kirill Lokshin, KnightLago

For the Arbitration Committee, KnightLago (talk) 23:00, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Discuss this

Backlog at WP:SPI

There is a backlog at WP:SPI for non-checkuser cases. If a few admins could hop over there and at least cut the field in half, that would be great. I've actually never seen it this bad before. I, too, will be pitching in what I can but unfortunately I have a meeting in 30 minutes, but I thought I would drop a line here anyway in case someone can handle it in the meantime. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 15:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigation

Nothing to do here per [20]. Gimmetoo (talk) 17:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Please see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Marskell. Note: The ongoing sock activity by multiple accounts and IPs, is occurring after the desysop of the Marskell (talk · contribs) account and the block of the Timothymarskell (talk · contribs) account. This includes double-voting on an AFD, at the AFD page, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Manama incident. Would help to have some added attention from multiple administrators, regarding this ongoing pattern of (new) socks, and disruption of ongoing AFD through double voting. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 17:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC) We've all seen it already, Cirt. Please stop creating extra drama by spreading it over multiple pages. DrKiernan (talk) 17:35, 1 September 2010 (UTC) Update: This has resulted in CU check of  Confirmed. -- Cirt (talk) 17:36, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Errors on the main page

There's a complaint at Talk:Main Page that error reports about content on the Main Page are being left for too long, and are sometimes not dealt with at all before the content rotates to the next day's selection. For obvious reasons, it requires an admin to make any necessary changes. Sometimes it's only a spelling mistake, sometimes a blurb at "In the news" needs updating with the latest death-toll (alas), sometimes etc... If a few more admins could add WP:ERRORS to their watchlists, it would be appreciated. One participant in the discussion reckons that only about a dozen admins respond to reports, so a few more people helping out would really be appreciated. Thanks, Bencherlite^Talk 23:37, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

David Appletree tagged as community banned

Bringing this here for community review as it's a ban matter.

DavidAppletree (talk · contribs) was under discussion at ANI (WP:ANI#Einsteindonut/WPYellowStar/David Appletree is back despite a community ban,) as being a possible reincarnation of previously banned Einsteindonut (talk · contribs) (and socks) whose editing was unacceptable. A subthread discussed the "lifting of the community ban" on DavidAppletree (on the basis of that identity) based on communal pessimism and showing significant opposition. The user was reblocked on the basis of being a "probable reincarnation" with an "obvious agenda" including offsite activities related to Wikipedia disputes, chilling attempts and lack of useful content editing.

There was some discussion of whether he was in fact Einsteindonut and the source of issues, I offered as a completely uninvolved user to mentor on the possible chance that there may have been some misunderstandings in the past. At least one other mentor had also withdrawn their offer, stating "I have withdrawn my support for David above and withdraw my offer of mentoring in the unlikely event he be unblocked... I can no longer see that as an option" [21].

Comment Three other editors offered to help mentor him (Avi, Spartaz, and off2riorob, and he accepted, before Scott Mac came in to use the block as an unnecessary punishment, while DavidAppletree was already in the process of being steamrolled. Despite DavidAppletree being under a lot of pressure, he maintained civility and things were going fine, before the block, which I believe was misused as a punitive measure. Clearly DavidAppletree did not comprehend the block, which came almost immediately after David questioned one of Scott Mac's insensitive remarks. There's an entire context here that must be considered. WP editors were also saying that DavidAppletree should not be welcomed back unless he censored significant portions of his website dealing with Wikipedia, that they didn't like. Given the circumstance, and the fact that DA came here with the best possible faith, I can understand why he'd feel so hopeless and act out the way he did. --Bevader (talk) 15:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC) Block evasion sock - appears to be DavidAppletree per block log and contribs FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

DavidAppletree declined (which was his right) and then undertook a campaign of refactoring his talk page to present the posts he selected at the top out of order. His reply to being told not to do so, was to try and forge an anti-Jewish racist rant as an apparent post from another user and to state on-wiki [22][23] and in email he was going to use enhanced deception ("deep undercover").

Perhaps, FT2, you would allow another admin to decide whether or not to strike out these posts?--Wehwalt (talk) 15:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Any admin can, and so can any user - striking out posts for evasion is not an "admin only" right. Ultimately we run an encyclopedia here not a drama-mill. Imposing posts into an active thread as a sock, to talk about "DA", will not help that thread do its job of reaching a decision on the encyclopedia and community matter, because it confuses the discussion by faking an uninvolved user's contribution. I choose strike-out because it leaves the post visible but avoids confusing the thread. Administrators do not become conflicted just because they have acted in an administrator/dispute resolution capacity and striking out is not an "admin matter". As I stated at the start, I have no prior connection to the matter and no interest in it. If someone else wants to also deal with the socks or disruption, that's fine too. Take a look at communal norms for handling evasion socks, disruptive posts by evaders, and the like. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 16:07, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

It's a question of appearance, and of fairness. You have asked for the community to review your actions in this regard, and the community is obliging. You should also not be the one who determines what information the community receives to evaluate your actions. You may or may not be involved in the underlying matter, I have no idea and will accept in good faith your statement you are not. However, you are an interested party in the community's review of your action, and should be cautious in that regard, allowing others to make the judgment whether or not to remove "evidence". Just a cautionary note.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

That goes so far only. Long standing norms say any user (or admin) may take very obvious non-contentious steps that any other reasonable user might take. You'll notice for example I did not strike out his attack sock's post against myself (which was not disruptive to the thread and where I was personally involved). Nor did I actually remove his posts (which I could have and which other admins did) but only <s>...</s>'d them so anyone could still read them, to prevent the "socking" effect on the debate, and each was signed clearly with explanation of the reasoning. Nor did I block his attack sock (again, too personally close to do so). Similarly I did not assume the community ban was "open and shut", I immediately self-referred it to the community with explanation and neutral wording of the request for review ("Bans only exist with community consensus; I am bringing this action to AN to see whether or not this was an appropriate tag to add to his user page."). Last, you don't have to "take my word" for any of it - you can check my editing history or use Wikipedia's internal search to prove it to your own satisfaction. As I had disclosed, my involvement is extremely minor and certainly nowhere near enough even going back years, to show any significant "involvement" in the I-P dispute area. It's important not to confuse administrator action in a specific issue, with editorial involvement in the content area (sufficient to shed doubt on neutrality).

In summary, the review was left for the community, but preventing disruption of the review was a clear issue open to anyone and that was important to do promptly. I left DA's attack posts and matters where they were annoying but not disruptive or specifically personal; his actual attempts to confuse the debate by deception (using a sock that spoke of DA as someone else) were important to deal with promptly and were minimally and correctly dealt with. Where I addressed them I merely struck out the text and then explained, ensuring anyone could see what had been done and correct it if needed. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 21:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

FT2 has done nothing wrong. Socks of a banned user are routinely struct through, especially when they attempt to evade and double vote. In addition, the user is de facto banned, in the longstanding tradition of no administrators being willing to unblock him. I would say this discussion has a strong consensus to make it an official community ban. The Wordsmith^Communicate 22:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

On the basis of

1. Previous and ongoing community pessimism
2. Once mentorship was declined it was looking extremely unlikely he would be unblocked (and may have been a reincarnation of another banned user), and
3. All this even before his recent forgeries (multiple edits) and his statements (plural) of intended future gaming,

I suspect it is unlikely any administrator will unblock any time soon. I have tagged his user page as community banned rather than indef blocked at this point and protected his user pages against future abuse. Bans only exist with community consensus; I am bringing this action to AN to see whether or not this was an appropriate tag to add to his user page. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 08:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure how useful it was to link to these diffs after you made them invisible, but of course it may well have been necessary. In any case I would like to see a statement from someone with access to hidden revisions (checkusers only?) and ideally to the email in question including all headers, to make sure this wasn't a case of impersonation. In the discussion there has been a lot of noise due to people asking for a ban for the wrong reasons (such as not editing articles after being told not to), and I think for solving the problem we need as much clarity and transparency as possible. Hans Adler 08:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

It turns out that hidden revisions are visible to all admins, and an admin has meanwhile sent me the content of these revisions. (The same as can be seen in the ImageShack screenshot below.) It was in fact a severely antisemitic rant written by DavidAppletree, with Scott Mac's signature. Hans Adler 21:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Just for clarity: the revisions that are removed contained an anti-Semitic rant written by David and then tagged with the blocking admins name. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 08:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Hans - the hidden revisions are visible to any administrator, therefore any one of around a thousand active admins can check the authorship and contents. As with any deleted disruptive material (and impersonation of other editors with racist ranting is grossly disruptive), sometimes they need wider review as part of a community discussion and are linked for that purpose. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Or you can check his Tweets. Looks like the kid is having a field day in front of 54,000 people:

• When asked if he was Jewish, a WP admin answered, "keep your knife off my penis" (cc: @Jimmy_Wales) #tcot #jcot
• If you edit Wikipedia, whatever you do, don't call out an admin for his inappropriate comments, You'll get BLOCKED!
• @Architekt010 Yeah WIkipedia kicked me out. I went in w/ the best of intentions and honesty, and they still found a way!
• If you get kicked out of something despite doing nothing wrong, all you can really do is mock it and chip away at it. Perhaps infiltrate.
• Here's my take on it -I'm not a fan of places that allow Jew hatred, anti-Israel bias, and extreme leftism fester, and kicks ppl like me out
• I wonder what the largest vandalizing campaign against Wikipedia has been.
• Wikipedia is a terrible project. Any time ur on there, u should edit in a grammatical error or spelling mistake, just to register disdain
• @g10greg56 lol - well, here's the remark i called him out on - apparently it's acceptable WP admin behavior.
• (Re: previous Tweet, of course I edited that a bit, but that's how it happened in my mind, at least.....)
• My short career editing Wikipedia as D. Appletree has concluded. Here's what happened #tcot #jcot (cc: @Jimmy_Wales) --80.79.116.243 (talk) 09:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

A little explanation: A few days ago, while I was defending a BLP subject who happens to be Jewish, an SPA accused me of having a COI because "Scott Mac is Jewish"[24]. Not being Jewish, I was amused by this, and responded with a light-hearted remark about circumcision [25]. The remark was inappropriate. It appears that DavidAppletree commented (rightly) to that effect. However, the thread was long and his comment was late, and I didn't see it, and had no idea he'd been involved in that discussion at all. A few hours ago, as the result of an unconnected ANI discussion, I indef blocked Appletree. Had I realised he'd commented on my remark, I wouldn't have blocked him, because of the possible appearance of bias (but someone else would have blocked him anyway). Unfortunately, the fact he criticised my remark and then I blocked him, as given him licence to call my block anti-Semitic. I made that bed, and I have to lie on it. The first time the remark was brought to my attention (by Avi) and apologised for it,[26] and struck it. I repeat that apology - it was careless and thoughtless, and has only caused drama.--Scott Mac 09:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

That's understandable. This is sick and intolerable. Is there anyway anyone can complain to Imageshack or any other place this is hosted? Can we get the Foundation involved here? Dougweller (talk) 09:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Comment He offered a disclaimer saying "in all fairness to that jerk, i used some poetic license there. that's how it happened in my mind, but not in reality'" Block evasion sock - appears to be DavidAppletree per block log and contribs (Striking since FT2 missed this one) GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 16:02, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Strongly Agree: I'll report the image to imageshack myself. It'd certainly carry more weight coming from the foundation, however. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 10:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Here. I think this probably qualifies as "harassment". —DoRD (talk) 10:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Wow. If that comment was faked by the DavidAppletree account we could hardly have a clearer case. Very much in character, but even slightly more stupid than I expected. Hans Adler 10:38, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done I reported it to imageshack as libel (under their "harrassment" category) and left a clear explanation of how they can confirm that the image is libellous (i.e. that this comment was not left by any wikipedia administrator) and why it should be removed. I'd imagine they take libel seriously, so I don't think this will be on their server for much longer. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 10:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Comment It was actually a form of commentary and included a disclaimer on Tweets surrounding it. Given the context of Scott Mac's inappropriate comments and quick block of David Appletree shortly after DA call him out on it, I can understand how this played out in DA's mind, especially as he already in the process of being steamrolled by the community. --Bevader (talk) 15:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC) Block evasion sock - appears to be DavidAppletree per block log and contribs FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Anyone anywhere on the planet can fake stuff. What people do who try it on Wikipedia (and what DavidAppletree has done) is provide a platform for his opponents who wish to prove beyond doubt that as a Wiki editor, that "User:DavidAppletree" faked stuff in their arguments - evidence which will stand up if the matter was ever looked at by mainstream media or the Jewish press too - which probably won't help his cause at all. So it's a classic and rather unfortunate and pointless "point gun at foot, pull trigger" because anyone can check that rant was actually David's own writing and nobody elses'. But that is his concern not ours, we can do little about the wider world and the behaviors in it. Similar results would probably arise if it had been his opponents and not him. Our role at Wikipedia is simply to document topics, which is by definition a role which requires an awareness of the bounds between encyclopedia writing and advocacy. I suspect Scott MacDonald has handled other attempts to make false defamatory claims and will handle this one too. One learns to shrug it off. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• "I am bringing this action to AN to see whether or not this was an appropriate tag to add to his user page." Beyond the shadow of a doubt. Support full ban. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse community ban. For the record, the deleted diffs FT2 links to above are as shown in the Imageshack link: a forged post purporting to be from Scott MacDonald but posted by David Appletree. TFOWR 12:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse community ban. Faking an anti-semitic comment by the blocking admin and posting a screenshot offsite? There has rarely been a clearer case. Hans Adler 12:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse full community ban and requesting Wikimedia legal folks intervention. We journalist types know full well the results of falsifying things and posting them on the web. There's enough non-journalism legal precedence as well - this one really opens whoever created it up for a full-blown can of whoop-ass, and counts as perhaps the stupidest idea ever. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:28, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Comment Given the original inappropriateness of the comment, the fact that the editor in question quickly blocked David Appletree, while handfuls of other WP editors were demanding censorship of material about Wikipedia they didn't like on DA's site, and considering that he included disclaimers with his tweets that explained that it was a spoof and how it played out in his mind, I'm not sure WP would have much of a case. --Bevader (talk) 15:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC) Block evasion sock - appears to be DavidAppletree per block log and contribs FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse community ban. Per all of the above. Heiro 13:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse full community ban. This is about the worst personal attack I've seen on wikipedia so far, and I certainly hope the foundation decides to pursue the matter. Publishing such blatant libel about an individual, as well as attempting to discredit the project itself, calls for more than just a community ban, IMO. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:00, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support unblocking and mentoring - Scott should not have blocked him and was actually himself the one to put his own foot in it so to speak with his jewish foreskin joke, what do you expect when you steamroll someone who showed quite good faith imo. Steamrolling a user like that was excessive and you should expect him to be angry. Off2riorob (talk) 14:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• The words "reasonable force" come to mind here. Being angry is one thing. Forging an antisemitic rant and posting it elsewhere in such a way to imply authenticity is something else, certainly well out of keeping with behavioral standards on Wikipedia. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:11, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Comment Thus far, you're the only fair minded, objective, and reasonable person here, who actually has the context to know what you're even talking about. Kudos to you. --Bevader (talk) 15:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC) Block evasion sock - appears to be DavidAppletree per block log and contribs FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Not in a million years would I waste a mentor on this person. Mentors are for problem editors who are perceived to still have a value to the project; these attacks and forgeries show that Appletree has nothing to offer. Tarc (talk) 14:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse ban non-stop stream of bad faith behavior from the get-go. Cu found it "likely" that 4 recent socks were tied to this account, he refused to come clean over it. Probably the same account as community banned User:Einsteindonut, which has dozens of socks. Blatantly lied repeatedly, then wrote an anti-semitic rant, placed another editor's sig at the bottom of it, then spread that all over the internet as part of his campaign against people who disagree with him ("look at what an anti-semite so and so is!"). Given that he runs a website that openly uses lies and spoofs to try to "win" a fight against its opponents, allowing him to spread the campaign to wikipedia was always a bad idea. But after the attempted smear (which should not have been oversighted by the way, because it makes it harder to show to outsiders what a little weasel the pseudonymous keyboard warrior really is, but whatever), there's no way back. Anger? We all get angry sometimes. A fabricated smear of the basest sort reveals the sort of character that has no business here.Bali ultimate (talk) 14:13, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Note: it's not oversighted, just revision deleted, and it can be undone at the click of a button if it is determined to have more value in proving the forgery. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

My opinion notwithstanding, I guess that would be up to the effected editor to ask for (or not) at this point.Bali ultimate (talk) 14:34, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree. I think it might do more good than harm to publish it until it is no longer printed elsewhere, as it exonerates him completely, but that doesn't feel like my call. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

It's a double-edged sword. The fact that the revisions have been hidden may raise suspicion, but leaving them unhidden would allow the forger to link to the oldid and visitors unfamiliar with Wikipedia may not have the wherewithal to move back and forth through the revisions or look at the history to see that it is, indeed, a forgery. –xeno^talk 15:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, in that case you can show them the diff when they're misled. Right now, it's just a big game of "trust me." I'm pretty sure the editor in question would like the thing undeleted. I know i would if i was him.Bali ultimate (talk) 15:28, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The edits are purely disruptive and have no place on the project, and also, we don't need to create a shrine to defamation, it just means we then have to have a post explaining it's fake (not on the history page where the defamation is actually visible) and it distracts from WP:RBI and WP:DENY and not feeding attention-seekers and those using Wiki as a battleground, which are far more suitable approaches. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't disagree at all with your redaction; clearly, that content didn't belong. I only question whether it would be better visible now so long as the forged document is published elsewhere as part of the "paper trail" proving the forgery. xeno makes good sense about its potential for additional misuse, however, so I'm undecided. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I think Appletree's talk page should contain an explanation along the lines of "This editor forged an antisemitic rant directed at himself, and forged another editor's signature to the rant. If you would like to be taken through the page archive and shown who edited the diatribe, please ask an experienced editor." Or words to that effect. Anthony (talk) 16:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Or, better still, we just redirect his talk page to his user page and proceed to forget he ever existed. HalfShadow 16:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think that would be appropriate. As I have indicated, we leave everything we can out in the open unless there are strong reasons not to. There was an objection to David rewriting his talk page for his own purposes, it would be hypocritical for us to similarly rewrite history.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Why? As I understand it, he's essentially just a clever troll; and he's suggested he plans continuation as such. RBI. HalfShadow

I believe editors should be able to view, with ease, what went on. That is central to others determining whether or not what actions were taken were proper.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:49, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

It's obvious from the page history that a bunch of edits by DavidAppletree were redacted. Everything written by anyone else is visible. –xeno^talk 17:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

@Anthony, this message won't be visible when viewing an oldid. –xeno^talk 17:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah. Anthony (talk) 18:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the edits should remain revdelled; I shared Moonriddengirl's concerns, but xeno makes a good point: anyone who can see that edits have been hidden, can also see that the only edits which have been hidden, are those made by the user himself. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 18:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse - One of the worst net-negatives to come across the project in recent memory, from what I have read so far. There's nothing redeemable about a person who forges racist messages and mounts off-wiki harassment/intimidation campaigns. Tarc (talk) 14:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose ban This isn't the proper procedure. If you want to ban the guy, start a !vote, not on whether to "endorse" a already-imposed ban. Tagging as community ban was unwarranted. Where is the evidence that he was, as stated, a "probable reincarnation" of Einsteindonut? I do not see that David's off wiki actions, that is, if it was him, rise to the level of conduct under the WP:EEMI decision. Very surprised FT2 first asked for an uninvolved admin to look and decide whether to refactor and protect DA's talk and then decides not only to do it himself but to assume that DA is community banned. If you want to have a vote on whether to have a community ban, have a clean vote. I'm surprised at the whole procedure, actually. The block itself seemed unwarranted given that David was civilly engaging at the AN/I thread, though he refused to give satisfaction by admitting he was a banned user. Very odd.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Not odd at all. David declined mentorship, which was his right, he then commenced repeatedly refactoring his talk page to highlight the dialog in a selective manner. Basic principle is "do not edit war" - when it was clear he was going to persist in doing so despite requests and warnings, I passed the matter to ANI to ask for an uninvolved admin to look into the misuse of the talk page.

However, when he switched to falsifying defamatory racist material in another users' name and stating a preference to sock instead, at that point there was no real question left, nor need to ask someone else to review, since the matter was not problematic refactoring of a talk page and avoidance of edit warring, but prevention of defamation and extreme abuse where no edit warring nor need for talk page review was involved. It was overwhelmingly likely at that point the community would consider him banned - that being a WP:CLUEd in reading of the other recent threads on the topic including his "verging on a ban" even before the racist forgery. Because a community ban is an act of the community it was brought here and left completely up to the community to formally endorse or nullify. The comments above show how others saw it. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe most of the comments complained of took place after the block in question?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

And? There's a massive difference between steaming on your talk page and falsifying posts from other users. HalfShadow 16:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Wehwalt, are you joking? No matter how badly this was handled by FT2, DavidAppletree was clearly on his way out when he faked a comment by Scott Mac (to quote for those who are too lazy to follow the link to ImageShack above: "If I want to make fun of Jewish rituals as an admin of WP and then abuse my power when you call me out on it, I'm well within my rights. [...] BLOCKED, Jewboy."), took a screenshot and linked to that from Twitter. And before Scott Mac blocked him, he made it very clear that he doesn't care about the accuracy of the Wikipedia editor attack list on his site. We are all here supposedly to write an encyclopedia, not Der Stürmer and not its mirror image. We have no use here for such unsavoury characters. Hans Adler 15:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm questioning the procedure used. Please do not confuse that with condoning behavior.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• I blocked Einsteindonut for a year. This situation looks very similar, though we can't peek through the wires to see who's at the other end. The extreme bad faith manifest by the user -- nobody forced him to forge that image -- is evidence enough to indef block, regardless of other factors. Jehochman ^Talk 15:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense, you can't ill treat someone and then say look what he did that is worth a block. As for clams that he refused mentoring, David had accepted mentoring and to claim otherwise is false. Off2riorob (talk) 15:54, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Don' call other editors liars, especially when the mentorship rejection is as clear as a sunny day. Tarc (talk) 16:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I said it was a false claim, your diff is after the user had been indefinitely blocked, previous to that he had been very conducive and accepting of any mentoring. Off2riorob (talk) 16:07, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Also the user has fifty two thousand followers on twitter you can not just assert any or all of the new accounts are him at all. Off2riorob (talk) 15:57, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I will suggest this. Delete nothing, strike out nothing. If that is David, I do not feel his comments on a thread dealing with his own actions should be stricken, as they are relevant to the discussion.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

His honest posts, yes. These are not honest, are they? Nor are they responses to the actual concerns of the community. Instead they are self-pity and justification posts that say nothing about his improper actions, written under a different name and purporting to talk to and about DA. Even so if he stated an honest intention to stop everything and take time to allow trust, he might have a way back. That's true for any blocked/banned user though. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 16:16, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

IMO this block was a punitive escalation of the situation when the user was clearly in constructive discussion, sadly as Scott was a quality contributor, he appears to have fallen on his sword. Off2riorob (talk) 16:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse ban. The tweets say it all. This is the latest: "There's a lot you can do with VPN's. Wikipedia cannot fully block/ban someone." Anthony (talk) 16:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• And there's this question and this reply which suggests we can expect more. HalfShadow 16:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

We lose Scott and get to keep the troll. I've seen better swaps. Anthony (talk) 16:14, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, its an awful trade which could have gone a lot better. Off2riorob (talk) 16:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

If Scott hadn't been such a Cowboy, we might have avoided a pissed off troll and kept a good contributor.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I notice you repeatedly refer to the EEMI case. Admins have to seek community or Arbcom support if they go beyond limits set by Arbcom. If the community decide to agree with Arbcom's criteria, then the admin actions get undone. If we decide differently, then a different set of criteria come into force which Arbcomas our representatives should respect.--Peter cohen (talk) 16:33, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I am fairly indifferent as to what standard is applied, within reason, so long as it is a consistent standard. To break from an existing standard to get one user smells of pitchforks and torches.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse The outcome of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Einsteindonut makes it clear that "Appletree" was lying about his usage of previous accounts. In fact he was conforming to the previous known behaviour of Einsteindonut wiht the use of multiple ids, proxies etc and using an accoutn that already had been identified several months ago as a Einsteindonut puppet. He therefore is beyond reasonable doubt the same person who has already been community banned.--Peter cohen (talk) 16:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Likely was the outcome which clearly is not a certain fact and there was no overlap of editing. Off2riorob (talk) 16:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I would ask people who are complaining about David's supposed inaccuracies to be utterly certain what they are writing concerning him is accurate. Otherwise, it's just a slanging contest.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse ban - Whatever led up to it, this editor now is clearly on a crusade to harm Wikipedia through libel. Based on that fact alone, I can't see any reason to not ban him. -- Atama頭 16:44, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Reply from latest sock on my talk page here. Under the circumstances, I'm not sure if I consider the fact the he sees me as a 'supporter' an insult or not. My only was 'support' of him was that when it appeared he was no longer a sock (and that's still open to interpretation), I no longer considered him an issue and warned him to be careful.HalfShadow 17:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Left me the same message, which was also odd since my only action in this whole mess was to endorse the ban. I did mention WP:SO but warned him that he might have burned too many bridges for even that to work. -- Atama頭 17:18, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Me too. Get a life, kid. Anthony (talk) 17:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'm glad I'm not the only one confused by talk page messages. Not sure how he figures I'm a supporter when my sole comments on this thread have been to endorse the ban and comment on the libellous image uploaded to imageshack. I just deleted it from my page per WP:DENY; it seems he's just trying to get more attention. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 18:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse ban - A no-brainer, not worthy of the prcedural objections that have been raised. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:19, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. Even looking at one issue alone: he posted antisemitic material and added an admin's name to the post. People who engage in forgery shouldn't be editing an encyclopaedia. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 17:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I don't want to really comment too much more on this whole escapade. However I wanted to publicly note that I sent David the following email just now.

Email

David, I'm sorry it has ended, at least for now, in this way. It is a shame; I have no idea if your intentions were to honestly give up previous accounts/socks and become an open and constructive editor - but I'd like to think that was the case :) I admit, I found some of your actions off-wiki verging on meat puppetry and not always in the spirit of the community. But, I was also hopeful that you would, given the opportunity to edit here, come to see how great things really are and understand the process and concepts we use to build a neutral encyclopedia. As it is Scott made, I think, an error of judgement. Please don't hold that against him (and I have to say that I was pretty annoyed to see you forge that note "from him", not good dude). He was technically correct in enforcing a community ban based off the SPI report - but perhaps a better way would have been to notify you of this ban and ask you not to edit in article space till it had been hashed out. Especially as, at that time, we were working on an option to get you excluded from the ban. Never mind; it all went very wrong after that. What I will ask is this; please don't disrupt WP now because of this. It might not be the end. Show the community you can avoid socking and disruptive behaviour and show it that you are able to understand why editing happens like it does. I'd also suggest joining another wiki somewhere and contributing constructively to that. Then, perhaps, in a few months there may be a avenue for re-opening the discussion of unbanning and mentoring you. If you have he honest intention of joining the community constructively that is the remaining option. If you did so I would probably support you and once again extend the offer of mentorship. As a final note; I do not at all approve or condone your opinions and actions on off-wiki sites. In fact I dislike some of them intensely. The reason I supported you here is that, for as long as you were a constructive editor, I don't think we can dis-clude someone purely for their views. I just wanted to make that clear :) Errant

This pretty much states my opinion on the matter. Note, however, that I do not oppose what has happened. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 17:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Support I think the conversation here when he attack another editor for being not serving in the military is unacceptable. I think Tweeting that We are filled anti-semites, Anti-Isreali, and extereme leftist while asking us to work with him and WP:AGF. Neither is advertising a dispute causing meat puppety to attack and out me. (The most vocal person on here at that point.)

• Avi Stated that While ED did not = DA
• Avi did state that DA= Mreddit.
• DA popped up as soon as WP:yellowstar and ED were community bannned,
• YellowStar popped up after we accused Mr.reddit of being a sock of ED.
• Mr.reddit popped up as soon as we Semi procted the JIDF talk
• We semi protect the JIDF talk Page so IPs from three different continents were messing around with the talkpage.

The Appletree account was nothing more than a Troll that put on make up and came to dinner. Weaponbb7 (talk) 18:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

This is the kind of inexperienced opinionated user that has led us to this awful situation. This user attacked the account with his false claims of mistaken policy to which the user responded with very good faith and it was only after reading the policies and guidelines that David called User:weaponbb7 claims out as being absolutely false according to policy. Off2riorob (talk) 18:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I fail to follow your logic, All i have heard from you is "not true" and "thats false". If i am so mistaken of policy please indicate where. Weaponbb7 (talk) 19:09, 31 August 2010 (UTC)to clarify statement with this edit ~ Weaponbb7 (talk)

You do kind of overreact. Just saying. HalfShadow 19:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

To say the least! Frankly, Weaponbb7's actions could have been better, and I hope he will take Rob's and HS's comments to heart.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I got very frustrated very quickly, particularly after the outing (which I still find creepy as hell). IF i am in error could some one drop by my talk page and indicate how i am interpreting policy wrongly? Walking away from thisWeaponbb7 (talk) 19:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse Disgusting comments made by from several users, but one doesn't seem to have learnt his lesson yet. —fetch·comms 00:52, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

More images needing deletion/report

Just list any you find here. Going through twitter to find these.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 10:27, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

• http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/3037/scottmacdonaldwikipedia.jpg

Can I ask what is wrong with that? --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 10:42, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I would think that would fall under libel again; that aside, seems it was already deleted.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 20:34, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

From my knowledge, that was a pure screencap of a talk page. There was absolutely nothing altered about it. No libel whatsoever. Please be careful of baseless allegations. --ConcernedAboutContent (talk) 22:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC) — ConcernedAboutContent (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. - Another sockpuppet of Davidappletree. -- Atama頭 22:48, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Nother User:Einsteindonut / User:DavidAppletree sock active on the Jewish Internet Defense Force page active. 94.46.8.72 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)). Probably time for semi-protection.Bali ultimate (talk) 04:18, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

That's what your mother wishes she said. --94.46.8.72 (talk) 04:20, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Semi-protection won't help. We'll just eventually activate the sleepers. Might as well fully protect it. However, if you keep the article as POV and unfair as it is, we'll get them involved in other articles. You could have had one editor playing by the rules, and trying, but consensus overwhelmingly opted for socks, sleepers, disruptions, and mass off-wiki canvassing campaigns. Next time? You might want to assume a little good faith. --74.115.209.15 (talk) 04:44, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, another IP sock of the same banned user. I think Semi on Jewish Internet Defense Force is in order.Bali ultimate (talk) 04:51, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Ones mentioned so far blocked. However Special:Contributions/96.45.176.32. I don't want to go hog wild with it as Avon would say, but isn't semi-protection a good idea after we've dispatched with the latest one?Bali ultimate (talk) 04:58, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

user John_KB adds bold and removes discussions

see user John_KB editings, he removes discussions in his talk page and add boldings inside text--Musamies (talk) 05:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

He is allowed to remove sections from his talk page. The bolding is a layout discussion that should be carried out at the talk page of the articl, or at the Wikiproject level if it is a more general discussion about a type of articles. Nothing here that warrants admin intervention though. Plus, you are supposed to notify an editor when you discuss them on this noticeboard. I'll drop a note on John_KB's talk page for you now. Fram (talk) 07:07, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

AfD needs closing

Resolved

 – The AfD in question was closed as keep by DrKiernan.

Would an uninvolved admin please close this AfD? Mjroots (talk) 06:06, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Done. DrKiernan (talk) 08:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I needed that one closed before I raised an issue at ANI. Mjroots (talk) 13:11, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

RFC/Us open and stale

We have two RFC/U's that are over one month old, would someone mind formally closing and summarizing them. Weaponbb7 (talk) 01:41, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Suicide response

The template {{Suicide response}} contains a link to http://suicideandmentalhealthassociationinternational.org/Crisis.html, which is a dead link, probably permenantly, redirecting to sponsored links of sex dating sites. Obviously not the best responce to give to someone in that situation! Could someone find a better site please. The Samaritans is the obvious choice, at least here in the UK, but I don't think they're international. Note that I'll probably be off-line for the next few days. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) (logged on as Pek) 19:20, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Quick search turned up http://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/ which I've now added in place of the dead link. That may not be an ideal page though, so if someone can turn up a better one feel free to replace it.
Might be best moved to one of the pumps though. Amalthea 19:36, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe http://www.befrienders.org/ would work as well? I've never searched for a crisis center before, but that one seems to offer a lot of country choices. —fetch·comms 20:48, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Ban of User:Dr.Mukesh111

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Dr.Mukesh111 (talk · contribs) is banned by community consensus. Courcelles 23:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

---

Dr.Mukesh111 (talk · contribs)

This user has been chronically socking, and a ban would help to be able to mass revert any edits made by socks. I've never started a ban discussion, but the mass socking at this point is getting ridiculous and very disruptive. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 01:05, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

SPI archive here. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 04:10, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

• Support Don't see any reason it would be bad, but you might as well revert all his socks' edits anyway even without a ban, if he's being disruptive. —fetch·comms 02:03, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support No need for him on the project if that's all he has to offer. Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 02:21, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support He already is de facto banned/mass reverted. Ah the joys of law :( YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 02:24, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Come on. WP:AGF guys.--Brave Dragon 02:25, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Why should we assume good faith when there is consistently repeated bad faith editing and socking? NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 02:46, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Because he is a doctor.--Brave Dragon 02:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
      • • So was MengeleHeiro 03:28, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
          • Godwin's Law! (X! · talk)  · @191  ·  03:35, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Oops, lol, guess I shoulda picked another untrustworthy doc, meant it to be a funny response to the comment above it, will try harder next time, promise. Heiro 03:38, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

• • • • Stop trolling. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 02:57, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
        • I'm not trying to troll. Okay, they've created a couple of socks but seriously, that aside, I have seen some good work from him, and I know that he is cabable of making good edits. I suggest we just put a restriction on him but not an outright ban.--Brave Dragon 02:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I might have to CU you too YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 03:01, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I would say that NativeForeigner is acting suspiciously. If you want to checkuser Native, I'd have no problem with that.--Brave Dragon 03:03, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

• Support -- Per Yellow Monkey's findings, Dr.Mukesh111 is indefinitely blocked for using CU-confirmed socks. See suspected sockpuppets 13 socks) and confirmed sockpuppets (39 socks). I think AGF went out the window some time ago. See the SPI. Lately he has been creating more than a dozen socks per week. It would not come as a complete surprise if BraveDragon is also his sock (account created September 1). EdJohnston (talk) 03:06, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh for gods sake. This is not about me, and it never was. I'd CU NativeForeigner instead.--Brave Dragon 03:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Just a note, that Brave Dragon is a confirmed sockpuppet of the good doc per Hersfold's block message on their talk page. -- Atama頭 16:51, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

• Support They're de facto banned anyway with that number of socks, we may as well make this official to facilitate any future blocks. Nick-D (talk) 03:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support , enough with the blocked sockmasters. Heiro 03:28, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support - The list of confirmed socks is very persuasive. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:21, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment - NativeForiegner, you failed to notify Dr.Mukesh111 of this discussion. Please note this now required. It's very poor form to try and get someone community banned without giving them a chance to defend themselves. As Dr.Mukesh111 is blocked, I've asked them to place any points/comments on their talkpage. We should then copy them here. Exxolon (talk) 12:01, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks for cleaning up after me :| I have never started anything of this nature, and somehow I forgot, even though I keep on notifying people about their threads at ANI when others forget. The irony. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 14:05, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support - De facto ban or not, a formal ban helps avoid confusion in the future for things like automatic reverts of sock contributions, etc. -- Atama頭 16:51, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support. There's a pattern of repeated socking here; let's make this a de jure band and stop worrying about 3-rr. Salvio ^{Let's talk 'bout it!} 18:00, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• Strongest Possible Support - Yet another "wasp in the park" user. He has exhausted all of his chances and has been banned before. This user has used sockpuppets to disrupt the project. No need for that, so we should get rid of him. His value to the project is "in the red". And with that, "enough is enough". Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 14:28, 3 September 2010 (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.

Block Review Request

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've blocked an IP for personal attacks and harassment - it's my first day with the bit, so did I do anything wrong here? Please undo it if you feel that I have - thanks, Connormah (talk) 01:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Definitely block-worthy. If it were me (and I don't do much blocking and "I iz a new adminn 2" so take this with a grain of salt) I would have blocked for a week. I think the tariff for these personal attacks should be a little higher than for garden variety vandalism.--Mkativerata (talk) 01:09, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, well, as the IP may be shared, it is usual not to block for too long.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:10, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

You did fine. The repeated "Hitler" cracks well earned a little time to think. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hmmm, the language is over the top but I don't follow the other editor's actions either. Why answer an article talk question on the IP's talk page? Then why the quasi-sarcastic answer(s) to a question that was an apparent innocent mistake? Seems like an unnecessary get-the-last-word-in squabble, all after the IP had recently corrected vandalism by another IP. I probably would not have blocked at all, let alone for a week. Wknight94 ^talk 01:32, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Wow, this is a joke, right? I was kindly asking why the editor felt the need to attack my very existence here and just told them that the info was already on the page. What on earth was "quasi-sarcastic" about it? Paralympiakos (talk) 22:11, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

You appear to be a day behind. This discussion was about the first block and your warnings to the IP yesterday. —DoRD (talk) 22:17, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm aware, but I'm a little upset that I've been labelled condescending and quasi-sarcastic. I was just informing the individual that it was already on the page, but I'm met with accusations, never mind the attacks from the IP. Paralympiakos (talk) 22:21, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm open to reducing the duration, but I agree - the nature of the attacks is not acceptable. Here's the AIV report also FWIW: [27] Connormah (talk) 01:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm...I don't know. I'd probably have let the IP go on that series of edits as it looks like the other editor was rather condescending throughout the entire exchange. On the other hand, they did prove Godwin's law. —DoRD (talk) 03:17, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll reduce it to 12 hours having thought a little - 24 is a bit excessive, I guess. We'll see what happens after it expires. Connormah (talk) 03:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

It's borderline for sure, but I'd recommend to keep the overall context in mind. It was someone who fixed vandalism, then asked a simple - but mistaken - question, and got a snarky sarcastic response. I would have been annoyed too. If the IP were a teenager, it might be expected that he would degrade into vulgarity pretty quickly. At the point where you stepped in, the only warnings were from the needlessly-sarcastic individual, so I might have left a note for the IP asking him to tone it down a bit and simultaneously asking the other editor to be a little more thoughtful in responding. There is a chance the IP would have disappeared on his own, but would have appreciated that the other editor was rightfully chastised as well. There is also a chance that the IP would have let you have a nastygram, and then disappeared. Let him have the last word - take the high road. If it persists elsewhere, then block. Except in cases of blatant article-space vandalism and trolling, I try to use the block button as a last resort. You never know when you'll permanently chase away a future positive contributor. Just something to think about... Wknight94 ^talk 04:15, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Good points - definitely will keep them in mind. Thanks! :) Connormah (talk) 05:15, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

The block expired - and looky what just came out: [28] and [29]. I think a stern warning is in line, if not a block, but I'm going to abstain from taking any actions. Connormah (talk) 21:57, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I was just about to send him down for one week but Fastily's done it for two. Which is a good call. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

It's disappointing, but not unexpected, to see this here so soon after after Connormah's "promotion". Has anyone considered the possibility that his heavy-handed block may have provoked those inevitable responses? Malleus Fatuorum 22:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

We gave him the tools for a reason. (Even though I opposed) He's doing fine so far.--White Shadows ^{Your guess is as good as mine} 22:10, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You gave him the tools, not me. Administrators ought to stay away from spats on user talk pages. Malleus Fatuorum 22:16, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I may have screwed, I'll admit (and I am willing to learn) - the attacks were made before the block, though. It was not meant to be punitive, but preventative against that nature of attacks - which is not acceptable. It's a shame how the IP came back after the block to engage in the attacks again - he/she could have possibly became a constructive contributor, but after being warned, the attacks continued (and were continuing until Fastily's block was put in). Connormah (talk) 22:15, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, Malleus, the "spat" was reported to AIV, so an admin was asked to get involved, so to speak. —DoRD (talk) 22:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Really? And is the only adminly response available to get out the block hammer, just to try it out? Malleus Fatuorum 22:22, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Or sit back and let the IP trash my talk page... Paralympiakos (talk) 22:23, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Your page is easily repaired. Malleus Fatuorum 22:25, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

As are most things on wikipedia. Shall we never block ever? Paralympiakos (talk) 22:25, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe, although it may just be a rumour, that administrators have the ability to semi-protect user talk pages, which would have solved the problem in this case. Malleus Fatuorum 22:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

It's always desirable to handle issues with less drama / stress. Perhaps another approach at the beginning would have headed this off, as Connormah has admitted.

However, it's not OK to allow editors to abuse each other, and this IP is being abusive. They were before the first warning, were between that and the block, were after the first block (particularly much).

It's not clear that we can look into the IP's heart and see if they were like this all along or if it was prompted to escalate by the initial handling. But an initial response was called for. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:34, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

An initial response was indeed called for, but from the range of weapons available the wrong one was chosen. Semi-protecting the page and talking to the IP should have Connormah's inital response, not administering "justice" as if he is Judge Dredd. Malleus Fatuorum 22:46, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Malleus, why don't we protect the IPs talk page and the other user talk page while we're at it? Protecting my page would be a good idea. Let's prevent any hard-working IPs from discussing matters with me. Paralympiakos (talk) 22:37, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Because IPs aren't able to edit through protection. Malleus Fatuorum 22:47, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Also unable to edit through blocking. As you seem to have conveniently ignored, other IPs wouldn't be able to edit my talk page productively if it is semi-protected. Paralympiakos (talk) 22:48, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a short block on the editors involved usually preferrable to protection in cases where one or two editors are involved? It allows other non-autoconfirmed editors to continue contributing, while directly preventing disruption from the main culprit(s) and giving them time to reconsider their actions which warranted a block, and get up to speed with relevant policy. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 22:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

That's my understanding (and argument). Paralympiakos (talk) 22:54, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I think you may be thinking about article pages, not user talk pages. Malleus Fatuorum 22:56, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Attacks are attacks regardless of where they take place. Preventative measures count for all. Paralympiakos (talk) 23:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

For future reference, it would be better to ask for a review before making a block. If you're not sure, don't do anything. Aiken Drum 22:55, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Not quite sure who that was aimed at, but I was sure that AIV was the correct thing to do from my perspective. Paralympiakos (talk) 22:58, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Then it's a good job that you're not an administrator. The correct thing would to have requested that your talk page was semi-protected. Malleus Fatuorum 23:11, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, a good job I'm not an admin who'd do the same (the block) as a real admin has done and what a few other admins have agreed with. God forbid. Paralympiakos (talk) 23:13, 3 September 2010 (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.

Not sure closing was the best idea. Could argue that there appears to be some discussion left in it, but fair enough. Paralympiakos (talk) 23:25, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Like I said - I'll admit that I erred a bit, but I'm ready to learn and move on - yes - I won't do anything if I'm not sure. Connormah (talk) 23:28, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Please Allow my User:iiskopos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Iiskopos I am Tyler Swaffield- I have not tried to edit more pages than I khave information on, and petition only that my page is allowed and verified. I am an honest young business man, very grateful for your consideration.Iiskopos 01:20, 4 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iiskopos (talk • contribs)

Not quite sure what you're asking here. Nakon 01:22, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you're referring to a page you created, Ioom, but that was deleted last October. I don't see any issues raised with your user page other than copyright questions about a photograph you have uploaded. Otherwise, I, like Nakon, am at a loss as to what you're asking for. —DoRD (talk) 01:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

He wants to allow the image (of himself) on his userpage. It's due for deletion. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 10:47, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I've explained that he needs to change the licence the photo is released under. Mjroots (talk) 12:32, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking

Resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification that: The Date delinking case is supplemented as follows:

Nonwithstanding remedies #7.1 and #8, Lightmouse (talk · contribs) is permitted to use his Lightbot (talk · contribs) account for a single automation task authorized by the Bot Approvals Group. "Automation" is to be interpreted broadly to refer to any automated or semi-automated tools whatsoever.

For the Arbitration Committee,
Dougweller (talk) 13:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Discuss this

Arbitration motions regarding Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tothwolf

Resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification that:
1) Tothwolf (talk · contribs · logs), Miami33139 (talk · contribs · logs) and JBsupreme (talk · contribs · logs) are banned from interacting with each other, broadly construed. This includes things like not editing each other's userspace, not becoming involved directly with each other in discussions, and not nominating articles for deletion which another one has started. This does not prohibit commenting in the same discussion without directly interacting or editing the same articles so long as they are not directly in conflict. They may request enforcement of this restriction at the Arbitration Enforcement board or by email to the Arbitration mailing list; they may not request enforcement or action against each other for any other reason or at any other venue. Attempts to game this restriction should be treated as a violation of the restriction.

2) Miami33139 (talk · contribs · logs) is subject to an editing restriction for six months. Should Miami33139 make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, assumptions of bad faith or disruptive to deletion discussions, Miami33139 may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement portion of the case. The six months starts from the day this motion passes.

3) Remedy 2 (already updated once) is changed to "JBsupreme (talk · contribs · logs) is subject to an editing restriction for six months. Should JBsupreme make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, assumptions of bad faith, or disruptive to deletion discussions, JBsupreme may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below." The six months is reset to start from the day this motion passes.

For the Arbitration Committee, Dougweller (talk) 15:28, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Discuss this

Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list

Resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification that: The Eastern European mailing list case is supplemented as follows:

Remedy 7 of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list "Martintg topic banned") is replaced with the following:

Martintg (talk · contribs) is topic banned from articles about national, cultural, or ethnic disputes within Eastern Europe, their associated talk pages, and any process discussion about these topics, until December 22, 2010 (one year from the closing of the original case).

For the Arbitration Committee, Dougweller (talk) 18:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Discuss this

An admin Rfc/U

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.

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Pursuant to his recent attempt to restrict me at Afd, please note Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Mjroots. It's not currently certified, but I would be gratefull if someone could review it and certify it. Anyone else, feel free to comment as you wish, as I think there is an issue here that needs resolved, and indeed, I do want it resolved. MickMacNee (talk) 19:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Certification can only come from someone who has tried and failed to resolve the dispute. –xeno^talk 19:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Without in any way commenting on the merits of the complaint, this is premature.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I've asked the ANI thread closer if he will certify it. If this is premature, I'm open to suggestions as to where to go next, but based on the warnings I have recieved for trying to raise this before, I am not willing to simply discuss it with him for fear of being blocked, and per the evidence presented, he clearly does not accept the outcome of the thread, and therefore, I very much do consider this to be an active and unresolved dispute, whether anybody will ceritfy it or not. MickMacNee (talk) 19:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Considering how people who bring their personal disputes to AN and AN/I are always told to seek dispute resolution, I've always been amazed by how bleeding difficult it is to actually get through the DR steps. So much red tape and bureaucracy! I think a lot of disputes could be more easily resolved if DR was overhauled and simplified. As it is, no wonder people are always fighting here. And I wonder how many just give up and quit wikipedia? That's probably easier than trying to construct RfC/U and then find someone to certify the thing. Burpelson AFB (talk) 21:13, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Trying to get to the bottom of a dispute is not easy and does take time and legwork. Many people don't like to do that, and hence why it's easier to go to ANI and simply wail away at each other. –MuZemike 22:45, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Heh, true that. Burpelson AFB (talk) 23:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Would someone please review the question I posted on the talk page of the RFC? Mjroots (talk) 09:10, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, MickMacNee counts as certifying. No one else has legitimately certified yet; it will be deleted unless that happens. Fences&Windows 16:17, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

It's been certified now. MickMacNee (talk) 00:39, 5 September 2010 (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.

Edit war brewing at WP:EL

Just a head's up. There is some heated discussion regarding links to other wikis. Two reverts have already been made while discussion is ongoing. Please keep an eye on it. — Edokter • Talk • 03:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Miami-Dade County article- incomplete operation

In early July, Miami-Dade County, Florida was moved to Miami-Wade County, Florida, but it was a botched up page move. Donald Albury (talk · contribs) moved the version with the old history back to the old name, but the version with the botched history (but a couple of edits) was moved to Miami-Dade County, Florida (bad) and indef protected. He hasn't been active since. Could another admin please clean this situation up? — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 15:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I finished the histmerge, but I'd like someone else to look over it. I also removed all protection (including PC) as there has been little trouble with it since mid-July. —fetch·comms 19:52, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The fact that a (bad) article was created is hinting to me that more than a histmerge is needed here. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 19:53, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what more is needed. I think he moved a copy at "Dade" to (old), then "to clear way for restoring version of article with full history", he moved the "Wade" copy back to "Dade" and forgot about the copy at (old). If you can figure out something else that's currently wrong, I'll fix it right away, but I can't find any missing/deleted revisions or anything, and it's at the right title now. —fetch·comms 20:44, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

BLPs

I just finished an analysis of all articles that where tagged as unreferenced BLPs, I removed/had deleted multiple articles that had issues. But in the process I discovered ~1400 articles that have either ref tags or a citation template. The full list is at User:Δ/Sandbox 2 feel free to address the issues as needed and once they are addressed remove them from the list. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 21:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Is a long-term block for 218.186.8.224/27 appropriate?

Over the pase several months, we've had several edits by 218.186.8.224/27(218.186.8.224-218.186.8.255) placing problematic content on their own talk pages (admins can see an example of it here). Should we make a long-term block on the entire range, with editing one's own talk page disabled? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:45, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

If it's just a problem with the talk pages, we could consider semi protection of intermediate length. Airplaneman ✈ 18:43, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

We're talking about 32 talk pages, and it's likely that if we protect them, this anon will stat to do this at other places. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:19, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

How much collateral damage? If most of the edits from that range are problematic, just rangeblock it. —fetch·comms 20:46, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, if it's that many talk pages, then I think a rangeblock would be the best option. Airplaneman ✈ 01:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I support the long-term anonymous rangeblock of 218.186.8.224/27 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)). Since there are some good-faith edits from that range, I suggest including in the block notice, "Please see WP:ACC for account creation." EdJohnston (talk) 01:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

SQUISH! A Whale of BLP Violation since June 2005!

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The BLP has been dealt with, there isn't anything else for us to do. Keeping this open just highlights the BLP and the discussion. It encourages anybody with any knowledge about Wikipedia to find out what the BLP was. As mentioned by User:Rodhullandemu, the proper manner to handle this would have been to find it, fix it, and move on. Let alone highlighting the BLP on both this and wp:BLP. There is nothing the admins can do at this point, so closing it.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 00:36, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

---

On 14 June 2005 this Statment was added to the Fred Phelps Bio a high visibility article:

<redacted>

This failed to have a source when inserted and the sources its had for over a year now has failed to even remotely back up the claim. Note: this Failed to be addressed during its tenure as a WP:FA or even after its Demotion Weaponbb7 (talk) 22:48, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I've redacted the statement because WP:BLP applies even here. The offending text is available in the history to those who need to see it. However, that BLP violations can persist in articles such as this is no surprise to me; the statement should not have survived even cursory scrutiny, let alone a FA review. In my view, any remaining visibility of this content should be expunged and arguably oversighted as a BLP violation. Rodhullandemu 23:33, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

If your going to expunge - It was also posted to the BLPN (complete with the big whale) and I archived it to here. Off2riorob (talk) 23:39, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

A mess. This sort of thing, when detected, should be deleted ASAP, maybe quietly, and reported to WP:OVERSIGHT. I have no axe to grind for the Phelps family, but that doesn't matter. WP:BLP would even apply to Hitler if he were still alive. All of this should be expunged, sine it does us no credit as an objective source of information. Rodhullandemu 23:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I agreed, thats more why I felt the need to reported it somewhere. Oversighting 5 years of edits? Can that be done?Weaponbb7 (talk) 00:19, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Neither FAC nor FAR were what they are today in 2005/06. I've toned down what remains a bit more. I agree, the thing to do when you discover something like this is deal with it quietly.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not the time, it's the number of edits. If it exceeds some threshold (the value of which I forget), the Wikimedia developers need to be involved, and in my experience they don't, because they are too busy doing other stuff. Personally, I don't feel so strongly about it that I'm going to go through this article and WP:REVDEL offending versions, but neither am I confident that Fred Phelps would dare to sue WMF. It would be too risky (in my view as a lawyer) to have their activities scrutinised in a court of law, which I note they have consistently failed to do. That doesn't necessarily get us off the hook, but "fair comment" is always a defence to matters of public importance, as is the doctrine of laches to failing to take up appropriate legal remedies. We could mitigate our liability by removing this stuff, but legally, we aren't liable for it anyway. Rodhullandemu 00:46, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It has less than 5,000 revisions, so it could be deleted and selectively restored if someone felt it necessary. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:53, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Or if someone had the time to click all the buttons. It's been there for five years; there's not much worth in hiding it now once it's been removed from the current revision. I don't say "BLP overkill" much, but deleting all those revisions seems like overkill to me in this case. —fetch·comms 03:37, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Wow, WP:BLP would even apply to Hitler if he were still alive, huh. Anyway, let's not be mindless robot ants here: Having a WP:BLP policy above and beyond normal WP:V etc is for two reasons: 1) protect us from lawsuit or bad publicity and 2) protect the subject from harm of any kind - material harm, hurt feelings, anything. In this particular case, the chance that we could sued or get bad publicity for saying something false and bad about Fred Phelps, whatever it was, is mathematically zero. The chance that anything in Wikipedia can cause any distress whatsoever in any way to Fred Phelps is mathematically zero. Fred Phelps is way, way beyond caring about stuff like that. It's a fuckup, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. Herostratus (talk) 04:20, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

In case you aren't familiar, Phelps is the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, which is a family full of lawyers. I'm sure they'd love the chance to sue, since that's the main reason they protest: to goad people into saying or doing something that'll bring a lawsuit. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:42, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think they'd bother. I mean, they sort of bring these sort of comments upon themselves (not that I endorse BLP violations, but...), and any case would end up on a greater examination of their own actions. —fetch·comms 19:32, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Redacting the comment here is inexplicable. How are we to know what the comment was (or was like) in order to provide some response? Protonk (talk) 23:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Duh. WP:BLP applies anywhere on Wikipedia, including here. If there is a libel, gratuitous repetition isn't going to reduce any damages, rather the opposite. As far as I know, the contentious content is still available in the article history, although there's at least an arguable case for its oversighting per WP:BLP. Meanwhile, if you can't see it, I am not going to even email it to anyone because I would then become a publisher, and liable. Some things need to be taken on trust. Rodhullandemu 00:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

That's the letter of the policy, of course and I'm aware that normally AN (or AN/I) is a multiplier for scurrilous revisions when posted by a well meaning petitioner. But Phelps is a reasonably high traffic article and the revision stuck for 5 years. What good does it do to say "how on earth did *redacted* get left on a page"? A regular editor couldn't respond cogently, nor could an admin respond without difficulty. And the legal paranoia doesn't add to the discussion. Protonk (talk) 00:14, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

As pointed out above, the Phelps family is full of lawyers; that they haven't sued is perhaps that they are directed elsewhere, but that does not mean they at some point they won't. Estoppel aside, I think it's about time that we take a pragmatic legal position which would at least mitigate any damages that might arise, and that's assuming that the longstanding BLP violation is untrue or is defensible as fair comment on a matter of public importance. Meanwhile, a cautious lawyer would say that undue repetition is more likely to aggravate, rather than mitigate, and damages that might arise. And that's my position here. Rodhullandemu 00:31, 7 September 2010 (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.

Please, edit this protected page...

Please, someone edit this page. Edit the following line, from

'''[[September 7]]''': [[Independence Day]] in '''[[Brazil]]''' ([[1822]])

to

'''[[September 7]]''': '''[[Independence Day (Brazil)|Independence Day]]''' in [[Brazil]] ([[1822]])

Thanks. Missionary (talk) 04:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Done; maybe use {{editprotected}} or post at Talk:Main Page for a faster response next time. —fetch·comms 04:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. But you didn't do the bold part :( Missionary (talk) 05:14, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, WP:ERRORS is the best place to ask for corrections for Main Page items, as this helps keep error reports away from general discussions about front page issues. Bencherlite^Talk 06:38, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Help closing a straw poll

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Wikipedia talk:Pending changes/Straw poll is indeed thataway. Tryptofish asked for assistance, not dramah ;-) TFOWR 13:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

---

I've noticed that editors are unsure how to determine a result at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Straw poll. Perhaps it would be helpful if an uninvolved administrator would take a look at it. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:28, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Uninvolved admin? I don't think there is such a thing :P Even if there was an uninvolved admin familiar with the arguments about PC and how it works, we'd need a panel of admins, not just one. I personally feel that a (roughly) 2:1 ration of keep:remove is no consensus, and thus it should be removed as no consensus to continue a trial defaults to removing the feature. —fetch·comms 03:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Yep. Every time a PC alert pops up on my watchlist, I handle the edit and then unprotect or protect the article as appropriate. I just don't understand how a two-month trial turned into an indefinitely long trial with an interminable discussion at the two-month point.—Kww(talk) 05:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, I just thought I should ask. Thanks. Not my intention to start a second discussion here. Discussion is moving along at the straw poll talk, and it looks like that's what should happen next. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:32, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Rejecting something the community supports by a majority of 2 to 1 or approx 66 percent support is a mockery of users positions. The trial should clearly continue in some form and that is clearly reflected in the support. A third of the users that commented don't like it, that is not a rejection at all. it is community support . Off2riorob (talk) 18:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Not a mockery at all. The trial as begun has no consensus to continue. It needs to stop, and now. When you have a consensus to start a new trial, start that one. Saying "it's a two-month trial" and then refusing to stop the trial when the trial period is complete is deceitful trickery.—Kww(talk) 19:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The trial is an ongoing issue which is not making any wheel s drop off. You user:Kww are a strong opposer of the tool and in a minority, you should not reject as if valueless the vast majority of users that support the tool. Off2riorob (talk) 19:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Let me repeat, nice and slow: Not my intention to start a second discussion here. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh well. AN has the tendency to fork off discussions :P —fetch·comms 19:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• - Over four hundred users have commented in good faith that they want this trial and the tool to continue and opponents of the tool in a minority should not be allowed to reject that consensus support. Off2riorob (talk) 20:42, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Over two hundred users have opposed the continuation of this current trial until issues with it have been resolved. By your definition of minority, then 400 keep and 399 remove would mean the trial could continue. Not even 2/3 of the voters supported keeping it. That's no consensus for such a large decision. —fetch·comms 00:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
    • What on Earth are you talking about? Please point me to wherever you learned that we need unanimity or anything close to it for major policy decisions. Jimbo first called for the turning on of flagged revisions with about 3/5 support, why would 2/3 support be so different from that? Please back off and allow, say, Jimbo Wales (hey, failure of our governance system!) to close this discussion. NW (Talk) 02:14, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
      • I'd rather the community decided the future of this than God. Resolute 02:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
• RfAs don't pass with 2/3 in support because everyone knows it's really a big deal. So is PC. If Jimbo wants to make the final decision, he can do it and face both the community's outrage and favor. But for such major changes, 2/3 isn't a very good indication of consensus, especially as the weight of the arguments and the functionality of PC is still being discussed. —fetch·comms 04:45, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
• Votes are not consensus. They are one tool to determine if consensus exists. The sysadmins have advised that it would be technically infeasible to keep switching the feature on and off, and I think this guided the "keep because we might not ever get it back" argument heavily. However, when a straw poll determines "no consensus", then the correct course of action is to go back and discuss further. Perhaps not all the options were explored. Perhaps the community isn't convinced. We shouldn't allow a minority to "win" an argument on the grounds of "no consensus", but neither should we allow a majority to impose it's will against a significant minority. In this case, that means we need to go back and hash out differences to reach an agreement acceptable to more of the participants..Triona (talk) 06:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
• Wikipedia talk:Pending changes/Straw poll is that-a-way. My apologies for having started this thread here. ;-) --Tryptofish (talk) 13:48, 7 September 2010 (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.

Wikiquette question

What is the wikiquette in raising a RFC/U against an editor who has raised a RFC/U against oneself? As you are aware, MickMacNee has raised this RFC against me. For some reason, it is not appearing in the templated notice at the top of this page, although MickMacNee and another editor have certified the RFC.

Should I allow this RFC to run its course first? Would my raising an RFC against MickMacNee be seen as being in bad faith? Mjroots (talk) 08:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• It was not displaying because the certifiers did not list it. I've listed it now (without prejudice to either party and as an uninvolved user) so that others can comment. You probably should let it run - if you do file an RfC, how it will be seen will depend on what you present and why you're moving the dispute there. You should be mindful that the RfC is going in a direction of compromise at the moment and rather than having to be in the same dispute with the same user for god knows how long, both of you may want to consider coming to an agreement of some sort and bringing the dispute to a conclusion. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:27, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks, Ncm. I did try to engage with the certifier to see if we could find some middle ground, but this approach was rejected. I'm happy to let the RFC run for now and will see what the outcome is. Mjroots (talk) 10:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
• It's probably best not to do it at all. Points about MickMacNee's own behaviour are already being raised in the RFC that MickMacNee brought. The desired outcome here, surely, is for you to accept what people said about AFD intentionally being a discussion, and for MickMacNee to listen to and to accept what people are starting to say about xyr approach of impugning other editor's motives (alongside you and Wikireader4 impugning MickMacNee's motives, ironically).

  In light of these edits it seems time to re-state Wikipedia's answer to Godwin's Law:

  The only times that people use "deletionist" and "inclusionist" is to call other editors names. Their use has never improved a discussion. Any editor who resorts to such name calling is indicating that xe has run out of proper, valid, arguments to make.

  And — Lo! — the ensuing discussion at WT:AV#UPS Airlines Flight 6 proved that law yet again.

  I recommend not raising another RFC that will also end up proving it. Uncle G (talk) 11:42, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

  • UncleG, we're already halfway there. I do accept that consensus is that arguments may be challenged at XfD. The problem I have is in the manner that some editors make that challenge. I felt that in the case of MickMacNee it was becoming disruptive. The normal way of dealing with editors who have problems editing in certain areas is either to restrict them, or to block them. Hence the thread I started at ANI having consulted with a 'crat as to the best venue for the discussion.

    Re the question at WT:AV about Mikemoral's nominations, the use of "deletionist" should be seen in context. The question was asked as to whether or not there was a pattern of nominations that merited further investigation, or whether the editor was a deletionist. I am of the opinion that Mikemoral's nomination of articles are being made in good faith, and therefore no further investigation into his editing is justified. I accept that sometimes Wikipedia can be improved by deleting material. I identify as an inclusionist and think that generally Wikipedia can be improved by the addition of material, subject to the usual rules of V, RS, NPOV, no OR etc. Mjroots (talk) 12:13, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

    • Nonetheless the order of events was:
      1. Editors A and B called editor C an "-ista".
      2. The discussion went downhill from that point onwards.
    • This is what invariably happens. Discussions never improve by this. Uncle G (talk) 13:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
• I'm also fairly sure Mikemoral is not really a deletionist, but monitors recent NOTNEWS stories due to his heavy involvement and awareness of the stories on Wikinews (shameless plug: everyone involved in arguing about NOTNEWS AfDs should just go write for Wikinews). Otherwise, I don't think calling people deletionist or labeling users as any -ist is acceptable if they don't self-identify as that "type", because it shows a lack of good faith about the reasoning behind their actions. Now, if someone really is trying to get valid articles deleted and consensus is continually against that user's views, then something should be done. —fetch·comms 19:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Now, if someone really is trying to get valid articles deleted and consensus is continually against that user's views, then something should be done. - Couldn't agree more. Mjroots (talk) 13:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

UAA backlog

Resolved

 – Noticeboard no longer backlogged GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Could someone pop by UAA and deal with some of the reports? It's been backlogged for a little while. I've marked about half the reports as not blatant violations, but would like a second opinion before they're removed since I'm not an admin. Thanks in advance. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Possible COI

Actually, the COI might be mine and I thought I'd get some opinions here. I'd like to write a bio on a well-known and regarded sales motivational speaker. I believe he meets the requirements and I can provide a bunch of online references. Problem is, he's a member of my family. I've written about subjects I've had some involvement with before, but with all the tightening of the rules regarding bios, I thought I'd run this by a the community first. I'm not even sure if this is the place to start, but hey, I figured I'd get some opinions from other admins first. Needless to say, it will be properly referenced per WP:BLP and totally NPOV. Thanks, all. I'll be offline for another day or two until I replace my blown-out computer. Regards, PMDrive1061 (talk) 05:36, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd recommend writing about him on a subpage of yours, and then asking if that article can be moved into the mainspace. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Other venues may be the Article Incubator or Articles for Creation. Mjroots (talk) 05:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Write it in a subpage, poke one or two other users to take a look and then have one of them move it out if they think it's fine. The {{move draft}} method is deprecated in favor of AfC, which is backlogged and not accustomed to dealing with these situations. The article incubator is also understaffed and ineffective for this sort of job. —fetch·comms 19:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

And a {{coi}} tag can only be helpful here. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:55, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I seem to be more hawkish about this sort of thing than other commenters: I'd prefer that you didn't write about him due to the COI. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 09:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with 67.122.211.178; if he's a member of your family it will be difficult writing a neutral article about them. I'd suggest listing him as a red link on appropriate article for creation lists and letting other editors start the article and chose what to cover if they consider him sufficiently notable. Nick-D (talk) 10:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Please please please keep in mind WP:LUC and consider whether or not you really want to create that article. -- Atama頭 20:47, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I will keep all of this in mind. Thanks for the help. I don't know when I'd be able to start it, but I will most assuredly do so on a subpage (I planned to do that anyway) and get some community feedback before slapping it into the article space. This has just been one of those borderline things where I know he meets the BLP criteria, but I don't want to come off as a hypocrite since I've deleted any number of NN bios over the years, not to mention the COI issues I'd face if I'm not careful. So, I wanted to put this out in the open before I proceed. Thanks, friends.  :) PMDrive1061 (talk) 00:34, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Create redirect page for proposed internationalized ccTLD .ไทย

Resolved

 – Seems reasonable. Done. — Coren ^(talk) 19:54, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

{{ccTLD}} and Internationalized_country_code_top-level_domain#Future_internationalized_ccTLDs list ".ไทย" as the proposed TLD for Thailand, but that title is blacklisted. Would someone please create it so {{ccTLD}} wouldn't have a redlink sitting in it? Proposed text is:

#REDIRECT [[Internationalized country code top-level domain#Future internationalized ccTLDs]] {{R with possibilities}} [[Category:Telecommunications in Thailand]] [[Category:Country code top-level domains]]

Thanks! Cxw (talk) 17:18, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

SPI ongoing backlog

Unsurprisingly there's a backlog at SPI. The majority don't require CU but just need another set of eyes and an administrator's buttons. I know one I reported remains active. Shadowjams (talk) 21:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Please help: I was just threatened with an indef block by DMacks?

• Sadi Carnot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) ==
• Wavesmikey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) ==
• Libb Thims (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I have just been threatened with an indef block here by admin User:DMacks for (a) bringing up the fact that admin Kww has been on a three-year assault on me for writing about human chemistry, to the point that in 2007 he was angrily throwing the word “kill” around:

All this hate?

“Delete. Salt. Block the author from further creation” Kww (7 Oct 2007) “Such a massive piece of fraud cannot be perpetrated in good faith. One outcome of this discussion should be an indefinite block” Kww (9 Oct 2007) "Just remember to put an indefinite block on Sadi Carnot while you are at it. Deleting the article is of small importance compared to deleting the author." Kww (10 Oct 2007) "Human chemistry is deleted, but not quite resolved. Sadi Carnot did not receive the indefinite block he deserves for it." Kww (11 Oct 2007) Delete and salt and ban author: Another in the web of "human chemistry' garbage perpetrated by Sadi Carnot. No real notability, an involvement with a fringe pseudoscience that is so far on the fringe that it nearly seems to be an analogy, no good third-party sources, and the only Wikipedia editor that has taken any interest in him writes dishonest self-promoting articles as a hobby. Kill the article, ban the author." Kww (12 Oct 2007) "Problematic is such a polite word. I'm surprised that no one that wields a few of the magic admin buttons has blocked him, and I'm curious ... what is the proper venue for getting him banned?" Kww (14 Oct 2007) "Glad to see that I didn't have to wait for the heat death of the universe to get someone to agree that he is deserving of a ban. I'll ask again ... what is the proper forum to discuss banning him?" Kww (15 Oct 2007) "He is a dangerous editor. If I trust my instincts, I lean towards an elaborate hoax. I heartily recommend a lifetime ban on the editor." Kww (20 Oct 2007) "The one I wish I had handled better was Sadi Carnot. I allowed myself to get goaded into anger. I learned from that. I may still get angry at times, but you'd have a hard time seeing it from the words I write." Kww (06 Jun 2009) "I lobbied for an indefinite ban on Sadi Carnot on the basis of that group of articles. It didn't happen, so we can't act as if it did." Kww (10 Jun 2010)

and (b) for pointing out that Kww, having an obvious bias against the topic of the article, has improperly speeded my attempt at a re-write in June and stated this month that he will do it again using his “magic admin button”. I do not take likely to both the word "kill" directed at me and an indef block directed at me. All I am looking to do is write an article on “human molecules” (and not having it speeded by Kww). I have been persecuted for writing on this topic (human molecules) since my very first edit at Wikipedia in 2005, an edit based the 1952 book by C.G. Darwin on the thermodynamics of human molecules. I have politely asked Kww that if thinks that the human molecule topic should be deleted that he should follow procedure and formerly initiate an afd, after the article is written. He has declined this and stated that he will delete the article again as soon as it shows up in mainspace. Please help. --Libb Thims (talk) 00:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Dmacks and Kww have been notified about this thread. Exxolon (talk) 00:47, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I hope we find some resolution. My only intention here is to write a simple article on the subject of the "human molecule". For the record, I do not have a personal issue with Kww, but with his June improper speedy of my attempt at re-write. If an editor writes an article, but then requests deletion of his own article per G7, so as to possibly come back at a latter time to write a better version, he or she should not have to subjected to G4 speedy and noticeboard posting as though I had done some type of criminal act. --Libb Thims (talk) 01:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I find it difficult to see how someone could misinterpret Kww's statements in the same manner that LibbThims has. Protonk (talk) 00:53, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

That's easy for you to say, especially when the words aren't being directed at you. I have been jumping through hoops now for Kww for the last few weeks trying to work his issue out. Try also spending some time reading through Kww's 100+ pages of talk to have be "lifetime-banned" for writing a simple article on "human chemistry: the study of attractions of human molecules (Henry Adams, 1885). --Libb Thims (talk) 01:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, unbelievable, almost. Could you please provide some diffs for all the supposed quotes above so that we may a) see them in context and b) know whether the emphasis (bold, large text, and wikilinks) were in the originals? Thanks —DoRD (talk) 01:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• Point of Clarification as I was confused for a few minutes. Libb Thims=Sadi Carnot. Not sure if anyone else was confused, but I know I was. Basket of Puppies 01:10, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes thank you. You can read about my Wikipedia username here. --Libb Thims (talk) 01:13, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• Libb Thims=Sadi Carnot and he has just said that he takes "kill the article, ban the author" to mean "kill the author". I have asked him to retract this at once. --121.220.98.146 (talk) 01:15, 7 September 2010 (UTC) My login dropped out. This was Bduke (Discussion)
• It's hard to see if there is something inappropriate going on here when you confuse the matter by making it look like "kill the article" and "heat death of the universe" are some sort of personal threats. My advice is think this through and stick with why you think the block threats are not reasonable.--Cube lurker (talk) 01:15, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
• The edits DMacks threatened to block over were eventually removed here, but the claim that "kill the article, ban the author" means "kill the author" still remains on the page, so no actual retraction has occurred. —DoRD (talk) 01:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I have retracted the comment, but I do not take the use of the word "kill" by and admin to be civil. --Libb Thims (talk) 01:38, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Refactoring your comments to leave out the personal attacks is not the same as retracting them. Your comments about Kww, including the heading seen here are what the block was threatened over. —DoRD (talk) 01:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• Let me state my gripe concisely: an admin who has admittedly “angrily” used the word “kill” directed at me, and has stated more than a dozen times his wish to permanently ban me has improperly speeded my attempt at re-write. This fact gets brought up during discussion on the WikiProject Chemistry talk page, and I get threatened with indef ban? Is pointing someone’s uncivil behavior, grounds for indef ban? --Libb Thims (talk) 01:36, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I guess I should be more clear. It looks like you are deliberately misunderstanding the phrases. You can't stitch together "kill the article" and "heat death of the universe" and get a death threat against an author without some willful contortion. Protonk (talk) 01:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• However I originally stated my case, when a representative of a public encyclopedia has publicly stated that they have been “angry” with you for three years, expresses the view “kill the article”, and says “I may still get angry at times, but you'd have a hard time seeing it from the words I write", one is forced to read between the lines, especially when the word kill is involved. Last time I checked, during afds, the three votes are “Keep”, “Delete”, or “Rewrite”. I do not remember a vote of "Kill", as being one of the choices of votes? --Libb Thims (talk) 02:01, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• It looks to me like there is consensus (per the AfDs) that the articles should not exist. If you don't bother trying to recreate the articles, then he won't need to threaten you with a block. Now, I'm not saying that Kww has been nice the whole time, but neither have you, and there's obviously a reason behind what he is saying. Of course, none of that is certain without diffs. —fetch·comms 02:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• To point one, an afd for the article "human chemistry", is not grounds to umbrella speedy deleted every connected topic I might write on this subject, at a later date. To point two, the assertion that I haven't been nice to Kww, I haven't even been here for the last three years and since my return, I have been jumping through hoops for Kww (being at incubator on his suggestion for almost two weeks now) and have been very courteous to him, up until today when I found him using the word "kill". My only concern here is that Kww not speedy this article when it comes out of incubator, but that if he thinks the topic is not allowable in Wikipedia that he send it to afd and explain why it should be deleted. --Libb Thims (talk) 02:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• In its current condition, it is eligible for G4 the moment it is in article space. Unless you fix that, you shouldn't move it out of article space. None of your changes have addressed the reason that article was deleted in the first place. It was a massive WP:OR violation when originally deleted, and it remains one today.—Kww(talk) 02:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

So, let's see: comments from 3 years ago (well before I was an admin), an expression of regret on my part about the tone from a year ago, and a statement that there is no indefinite ban in place against the editor. That certainly doesn't sound like much of an attack on me. This is basically a reaction to a deletion review where my deletion of Human Chemistry under G4 was upheld, my pointing out that he was lying about what I had said during that review, and the universally negative response to his attempt to recreate the article in the incubator. And yes, if he moves that article out of the incubator into the mainspace in its current condition, it's eligible for G4 deletion again. That's not a threat, that simply an observation of fact. Here's a quote that isn't taken out of context: It appears to me that there are a lot of completely different philosophic and scientific ideas, allegories, technobabble and completely unrelated stuff mixed together under one umbrella, the connection only being the two syntactic words "human" and "atom" (or "molecule"). The result is at best a work of art, but not a coherent article. from another reviewer. That pretty much echoes the original AFD.—Kww(talk) 02:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• Kww, if I had attempted a rewrite of the "human chemistry" article and you speeded it per G4, although I would have been irritated, this would have been within guidelines, being that human chemistry has had a deletion discussion (2007). The human molecule has never been to afd:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human molecule

• Therefore you have improperly used G4. All I am looking for here is a chance to write up an overview of the subject. The current version has 100+ references (40 of which discussing the term "human molecule" in the various branches of knowledge). The 2007 two-month, smear tactics campaign to discredit me, has resulted to prejudice the topic. I certainly did not go back in time 220 years ago and make up this term and I don't see why it should be banned from Wikipedia or me blocked for writing on it? If someone has issues here with the topic (not the author) then it should be taken to afd. Does anyone have objections to this? My only purpose here is education. --Libb Thims (talk) 02:57, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

It was specifically listed in the nomination statement in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human chemistry. G4 applies, and a G4 speedy survived DRV. Like it or not, you have to accept that the speedy deletion was proper.—Kww(talk) 03:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

LT doesn't contribute anything useful. Pity that he used the name of a great thermodynamicist SC YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 02:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I have already been placed in the same rank with Sadi Carnot by other thermodynamicists in published scientific magazines. Save the derogation. --Libb Thims (talk) 03:08, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:SOAP. Jehochman ^Talk 03:13, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sadi Carnot. This editor "for an extensive period of time engaged in knowingly misrepresenting sources in order to promote his original research on Wikipedia", and was banned for a year. If the pattern has resumed, they need to be blocked indefinitely. Jehochman ^Talk 03:13, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Jehochman, the statement "knowingly misrepresenting sources" is an allegation. In the current article, do you see me anywhere misrepresenting sources? --Libb Thims (talk) 03:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Regarding "promote his original research on Wikipedia", there is none of this in the current article. I specifically state this on the talk page: Self-referential material. You are aiming to penalize me now for past behavior, from three years ago, for which I have already been punished. --Libb Thims (talk) 03:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

No, you are absolutely, positively wrong. That content is a direct quotation from a finding of fact in an arbitration case against you. It is a settled matter of fact that you falsified references and added original research to Wikipedia. I see that you have resumed your prior pattern of highly disruptive behavior, recreating an article that was deemed either as original research. See [30], and [31] (article deleted in 2007 and 2010, sorry, only admins can see this link.) We are not going to relitigate that case on this noticeboard. Please file an appeal with the arbitration committee if you think Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sadi Carnot was in error. Until then, you must not continue adding original research to Wikipedia, or else you will be blocked indefinitely. Jehochman ^Talk 03:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Either show me where, since my return, I have "continued to add original research to Wikipedia", or retract your accusation. --Libb Thims (talk) 03:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

He is referring to the article you are working on, I believe. Airplaneman ✈ 03:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

This article appears to be original research and/or synthesis: Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Human molecule. It was formerly deleted twice at Human molecule. Here is a list of your contributions: [32] to that article. Given your reputation, the burden is on you to show that you aren't doing what you did before. Since you claim that the arbitration case was merely unfounded accusations, you obviously do not accept the result. It is quite reasonable to understand that you are carrying forward your former campaign to use Wikipedia as a platform to publish original research. This is not allowed. Please stop. As I suggested, you can appeal the decisions if you do not like it. Don't do an end run, because that will just result in your account being blocked again. Jehochman ^Talk 03:41, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• The 2007 human molecule article was deleted because I requested it be deleted per G7. There is no WP:OR or WP:SYN in the current article. The article is a referenced article on the forty plus different people throughout history to use the construct "human molecule", in their respective field (chemistry, thermodynamics, sociology, economics, history, literature, psychology, law, etc.). You are penalizing me and making accusations about my edits from three years ago for a trial that I was never even present at to defend myself. Your accusation that I “misrepresent sources”, for example, is based mainly on one reference to a National Geographic article “Love the Chemical Reaction”, on the neurochemistry of love, where I stated something to the effect that scientists are beginning to view love as chemical reaction. The article was based on the neuroimaging research of Helen Fisher. Therefore, because of this one edit, from three years ago, the 100 references in the current article are all misrepresented? Regarding “burden is on you to show that you aren't doing what you did before”, why do you think that I am working on this article in the incubator over the next month; taking feedback on the talk page; asking for help and feedback in the various WikiProject Science talk pages; etc. Do please come to the incubator talk page and help me with this. This is now a textbook subject. If an editor made of few mistakes in the past (e.g. referencing his own book, not using enough of a neutral point of view, etc.) is the editor never to be given the chance to improve? --Libb Thims (talk) 04:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Human molecule was not deleted per your request.[33] (deleted diff, admins only) It was redirected to Human chemistry, which was deleted by discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human chemistry. Jehochman ^Talk 04:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

My request for G7 is here. This was my last Wikipedia edit for three years. --Libb Thims (talk) 04:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

When you deny the validity of a past arbitration case where you were the central figure, this leads me to be very skeptical. You didn't just make one or two little mistakes. The findings in that case are clear: deliberate misrepresentation of sources. It looks like you are now cherry picking bits and pieces and synthesizing them into a narrative that tells an original story. In my statement at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sadi_Carnot#Statement_by_Jehochman, I explained how you had used the Wavesmikey account to spam Wikipedia and add fringe theories. When this was uncovered, you abandoned that account and started using User:Sadi Carnot to do the same thing. When that abuse was uncovered, you laid low for a while and came back as User: Libb Thims. You appear to be continuing the exact same sort of editing as before. Assume good faith does have its limits, and your current editing appears to be outside them. Why do you insist on recreating an article that has been deleted twice? Why not go do some non-controversial, transparent editing to show that you understand and are willing to follow Wikipedia's policies and guidelines> Jehochman ^Talk 04:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Again, your accusations sicken me. I did not sock-puppet around to spam Wikipedia. My user names are explained here User:Sadi Carnot/Contributions. In the course of writing 85 new articles at Wikipedia, between 2005 and 2007, sure I added links to articles, but this is far from spamming. Regarding being deleted twice, as commented above my request for G7 is here. This was my last Wikipedia edit for three years. --Libb Thims (talk) 04:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Thus far the outside feedback on has been unanimously negative.[34][35][36] Please read the comments. This reinforces my concerns. At this stage I feel that a community ban is the only way we can contain this problem. Jehochman ^Talk 04:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Community ban discussion

And so enacted. Sadi Carnot / Libb Thims is subject to a community ban from the project. Spartaz Humbug! 07:28, 9 September 2010 (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. Uninvolved admin note: Per usual policy, pls leave this open for a minimum of 48 hrs for adequate discussion coverage etc. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:49, 7 September 2010 (UTC) I propose to community ban User:Wavesmikey == User:Sadi Carnot == User:Libb Thims. The rationale is that the user just doesn't get it, and probably never will. After Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sadi Carnot established the deliberate misrepresentation of sources and persistent addition of original research into Wikipedia, the user has come back creating exactly the same sort of article, even on the same topic as an article, Human molecule, that was deleted in 2007, and again in 2010. Outside reviews of this work are highly negative. [37][38][39] Wikipedia editors should not be forced to deal with this same problem over and over again. The amount of time wasted to date has been huge. For the good of the encyclopedia, this user needs to be excluded. Jehochman Talk 04:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Wouldn't an indef just do fine in this case? I don't care either way, but some sort of stop to this pattern needs to be implemented. —fetch·comms 04:42, 7 September 2010 (UTC) An indef would be fine, except that the user keeps switching accounts, and last time I placed an indef on the account, the block was reverted, restored, and then reverted again. (A - B - C - D type wheel war). We ended up at arbitration, which took a lot of time and trouble. To avoid any possible repeat of either scenario (change of account, or wheel war), I'd like to have a discussion and consensus first. Jehochman Talk 04:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Now I am to be indef banned for writing, by suggestion of Kww, a 100-reference "non-original research", "non-synthesized" article, of a 220 year old topic, in incubator? Thanks. --Libb Thims (talk) 04:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Support I don't see any signs that this editor is here for any reason other than to repeat the same behaviour that triggered the arbcom ban. As to Libb Thims's comment: if you had done that, there would be no problem. Had you failed and accepted your failure, there would be no problem. Coming here with distortions and drama after failing makes it pretty clear that the intent of your return is to create this kind of unacceptable article. If we take you at your word that you actually don't understand why the article is unacceptable, it is clear that you do not possess the minimum competence required to edit Wikipedia.—Kww(talk) 04:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC) I am not sure lack of competency is the issue. It seems more like not understanding/caring what Wikipedia is for, combined with a determination to pursue an agenda regardless of negative feedback. Let's try to be kind, but firm. Jehochman Talk 05:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Understanding what the project is about and a willingness and ability to process feedback are part of the minimum skill set required to edit.—Kww(talk) 05:08, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Support - This person is not here to contribute to the encyclopedia in the way that our policies demands, i.e. NPOV, no OR, etc. The discussion here is ample proof of their willingness to disrupt in order to make their point, and their ability to not hear (or hear worngly) what they don't want to hear (or what they need to hear wrongly) is apparent. There is absolutely no downside to banning this person. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Support. Even the discussion of this editor's actions is full of the same problematic pattern: intentionally misrepresenting (per arbcom) (or at best negligently misreading even if we WP:AGF for latest items) others' positions to suit/support his own agenda or desired position. Even when trying to prove he's moved beyond the years-ago problem, still can't see that "google found similar words in different contexts" != "the surrounding topics are related", and then again the "heat death" misreading and attendant out-of-context quoting? Incorrigible. (NB: this was apparent (ec) with the next msg from Libb Thims...) DMacks (talk) 05:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC) For the record: since I have been back (June), I have contributed 24 new articles to Wikipedia, many new images here and at the commons, and have done of things everyone is accusing me of. Check my edits. --Libb Thims (talk) 05:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC) That's wonderful! However, the overall damage level from your other edits is high. The edits themselves, but also the time spent dealing with it and the associated drama level are serious detractions from wikipedia. If you refrained from the behaviors that numerous editors (including arbcom) have repeatedly, loudly, and nearly unanimously said are completely unacceptable and instead focused on the other articles that nobody seems to have a problem with, we wouldn't be discussing any of this and you wouldn't be facing this situation. As it stands, the problem we are discussing might even throw some doubt on the other pages you created! Wouldn't that be a shame? Blocks and bans are instituted to prevent damage, and I think the "some good work" can't really compensate for the seriousness of the damage. DMacks (talk) 06:38, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Jean Sales was condemned by the Chatelet in 1775 for writing about “human molecules”, after which he was imprisoned and later sentenced to perpetual banishment on what have been called "absurdly inadequate grounds". 235-years and I see things haven’t changed. Do you think the twenty-four Wikipedia stub pages I have written matter at all to me compared to the near 2,000+ EoHT articles I have written in the last three years. This is a matter of principle. Young children need to know that the subject of the human molecule is a fact of established knowledge, that has been worked on now for two-centuries. Ban me if you will. I’m sure there will be no admin-Voltaire to come to my rescue. I do, however, strongly salute Physchim62 the only one who stood up for my defense, in my absence. --Libb Thims (talk) 07:36, 7 September 2010 (UTC) While imprisoned, Sales (age 36) was visited by French philosopher Voltaire (IQ=190-200) (age 83), a year before his death, who gave 500 pounds to towards his release, in support of his theory that humans are molecules. What? Your actions have been poorly understood, and sadly your genius is being constrained by those who simply do not understand? No, the simple fact is that if you needed to choose either a) be a good contributor, or b) be disruptive. You chose both a and b,and since your b outweighs your a, you're a net negative to the project. You're no Galileo. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:24, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Even if he were a "Galileo", there's no persecution here. Nobody is going to send him to jail, nobody is going to banish him and there's no "inquisition" (at least nobody expects one) to put him on trial. The only thing that is happening is that he is being told that he can't put his ideas up on a website in Florida. He is free to write all he wants about "human molecules" on his own website and blog. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:22, 8 September 2010 (UTC) Support; with regret. There are occasionally editors who honestly and sincerely believe that they are maligned geniuses and that our (collective) attempts to prevent them from expounding on their discoveries on Wikipedia is philistine persecution, and Thims is one of them. The only thing we can do is politely, but firmly, direct them elsewhere. (Caveat: just so that it is 100% clear, this is my opinion as an editor and absolutely not as a member of ArbCom. I was involved in the original case as a party.) — Coren (talk) 10:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Generally support. The only long term efficacious solution for pseudoscience and civil POV pushing is to ban the source. Protonk (talk) 15:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Support - I see an unwillingness to acknowledge disruption and an inability to properly collaborate, and is a net negative. A ban is warranted at this point considering the long history of problems with this editor. -- Atama頭 21:03, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Strong support hopeless editor. The articles he refers to are mostly one-liners far outweighed by a day's nonsense of this guy YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 01:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC) Go ahead and ban me already. I am quite content to be one in a long line of people to have been imprisoned, banned, and or excommunicated, on trumped up charges, for writing about human molecules. --Libb Thims (talk) 10:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC) It does seem inevitable at this point. Please seek help, your fixation is doing you harm. — Coren (talk) 13:06, 8 September 2010 (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.

IP block evasion by User:Amir.Hossein.7055 - is rangeblock an option?

Resolved

 – Soft rangeblock.

User:Amir.Hossein.7055 is a prolific and extremely persistent sockpuppeteer, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Amir.Hossein.7055/Archive for background info. His last sock, User:Nima.afroozi was blocked yesterday. Now, this guy seems to have changed tactics somewhat. He is now editing as an IP here, but uploading images to Commons and re-adding them to the articles edited by him here on WP previously. He currently seems to edit as User:80.191.41.237. This IP consistently goes through the articles where immediately preceding (or almost immediately preceding edits) edits were by User:Amir.Hossein.7055's socks, e.g. Jafar Sharif-Emami‎, Gholam-Reza Azhari, Shapour Bakhtiar, Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, List of Prime Ministers of Iran, etc. He often adds images that he has uploaded to Commons under the same usernames as his socks user here on WP, eg. this edit[40] and this image[41], this edit[42] adding this image[43] and many more like this. The IP is still actively editing. I'd appreciate if someone could block the IP, User:80.191.41.237 and also see if some kind of a rangeblock is a possibility here. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 10:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

This was brought up at my talk page also. I've implemented a soft rangeblock in the hopes of discouraging this copyright infringing block evader. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks! I am unfamiliar with the details of how softblocks work technically. Are they supposed to show in the block log for a given IP? The block log[44] for User:80.191.41.237 currently shows as empty. Nsk92 (talk) 11:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The rangeblock does not show up in the block log of a specific IP. However, it does appear in Moonriddengirl's logs, which shows the blocked range as 80.191.41.224/28. TNXMan 11:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully I did it correctly. I muffed my first (and only prior) rangeblock in spite of my good self-intentions and failed to make it anon-only. :/ Anyway, I'm back to say I've notified Commons of the issue at their AN. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:51, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Very good, thanks! Nsk92 (talk) 12:00, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Closure request

I've been asked to close a discussion here, at Talk:Ireland. I've declined, as I was involved in the earlier discussion over at WT:BISE. Could someone non-involved (doesn't have to be an admin, but it wouldn't hurt) close this discussion? Thanks! TFOWR 12:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Rainie & Love ....?

Resolved

This page Rainie & Love ....? is protected, I would like to created an article about the album by Rainie Yang but it is protected as being on a blak list. Want an admin to remove the restriction. See also zh:Rainie＆Love...? 雨愛 Enlil Ninlil (talk) 05:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• The correctly spelled title is not on any blacklist, you'll find. ☺ Write the name as it is written elsewhere, including on the album cover. Uncle G (talk) 11:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
  • That was spectacularly unhelpful Uncle G. The reason they are asking to create at that title is that is the current album redlink at the Rainie Yang article. Just saying "you're doing it wrong" without offering any practical assistance is worse than useless. Enlil Ninlil, the correct album title would appear to be Rainie & love...? based on [[45]]. I've changed the link in the main Rainie Yang article to point to that location, go ahead and start your article at Rainie & love...?. Exxolon (talk) 11:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
    • The practical assistance given was to write the name as it is on the album cover. Or indeed, as it is in the title of the Chinese Wikipedia article that Enlil Ninlil gave. We've all had these "Of course! I didn't spot that!", moments. There's no need to rub it in with spoon feeding and treating the editor like an incompetent. I didn't treat an editor in good standing with five years and eight thousand edits under xyr belt as being so incompetent that xe was not to be able to fix a very simple spelling error and create an article at the right title on xyr own, once the error is pointed out. A simple, short, good humoured note of what the error is, suffices. Why are you doing so? Uncle G (talk) 12:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
      • I find the advice to "write the name as it is written elsewhere" to be fairly practical advice, though I myself might have been more straight-forward (pointing out the extra . and space as errors). I don't think that Uncle G just said "you're doing it wrong". The original editor was helped so let's consider this resolved? -- Atama頭 21:55, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
        • Indeed. I also checked the global and local blacklists to see whether there was an entry explicitly covering this for some reason; and logged in to an account without administrative privileges to check whether the blacklisting covered the correct spelling. Two sentences and a smiley face hid a non-trivial amount of work behind the scenes. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 11:56, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
          • What smiley face? Exxolon (talk) 16:43, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
            • The one Uncle G posted between the words "find." and "Write" in his first post of this thread. ---Sluzzelin talk 17:02, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
              • That looks nothing like a smiley in my browser - it renders as this "File:Not smiley.jpg". Without the smiley to give the sentence it's correct emotional context, Uncle G's reply came off as condescending. If I've misinterpreted things based on that I apologise. Exxolon (talk) 17:10, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
                • The character renders as a really small smiley face in my browser; I can recognize what it is but it's a bit hard to see. I usually just use ":)" myself because just about everyone knows what that means and it should appear the same in almost every browser. -- Atama頭 20:31, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
                  • I'm probably an early adopter here. I found out that Unicode had a proper smiley face character, switched to it, and didn't look back. Uncle G (talk) 15:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
• Of course, the correct name of the article is not Rainie＆Love...? (as in zhwiki), since the ampersand is supposed to be spaced and anyway ＆ is a different character than &. Nor is the correct title Rainie & love...? (as is written in the album cover), as we have a convention to capitalize words in album titles. Try this one: Rainie & Love...?. Jafeluv (talk) 22:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
• Woowooowooo settle down people, it is hard to offend me. Thanks for the advice all and I appreciate everyones help. I will look at what everyone said and take it in. Hooroo and be friends. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 22:53, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Assessment of consensus on pending changes trial

I have made a (lengthy) assessment of consensus on the pending changes trial. No uninvolved admin made a determination of consensus yet and the deadline of one month after the end of the trial ends soon. I'm not an uninvolved admin, since I elaborated much of the trial and proposed it, but I can keep my distances and favor community consensus over my personal opinion in this case. So I ask that uninvolved admins indicate if they endorse my assessment or not, and if not what is their determination, so that we can resolve this situation. Thanks, Cenarium (talk) 07:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate the thoughtful work Cenarium is devoting to this, but I want to note a few things. First, obviously, #Help closing a straw poll, just above. Second, under the circumstances, the fact is that editors are already discussing Cenarium's interpretation, as well as various other proposals and interpretations, which makes me wonder about what "authority" any administrator would have in saying thumbs up or thumbs down on Cenarium's interpretation. I'm not sure that we can really have a credible "referee" at this point (other than, perhaps Jimbo or the WMF), and maybe there just has to be a messy process of editors trying to find an (imperfect) consensus on how to interpret this. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:15, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I doubt even Jimmy Wales can be considered uninvolved, since he is a significant advocate for adopting pending changes. While I personally believe Cenarium's assessment is the most accurate one possible under the circumstances the matter is in a deadlock, & unless one or the other group gives in it will continue to be in a deadlock, perhaps until someone at the Foundation has the time to evaluate how much of a server load pending changes creates & acts accordingly. -- llywrch (talk) 16:36, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

• I can leave a comment there tomorrow (a lot to digest). I'm...somewhat uninvolved. I was not a participant in the RfC and I was not a major participant in the discussion to start PC. I will declare my personal bias is against PC, but it isn't as strong as some off-site criticism implies. Protonk (talk) 20:57, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Not sure I can expand upon Cenarium's comments there. Protonk (talk) 17:15, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Thurop Van Orman

Can someone please histmerge Thurop Van Orman and Thurop Van-Orman? The page title should be at Thurop Van Orman because his name is NOT hyphenated, but both pages have non-trivial edits. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 16:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I could do that, but weren't the two articles developed independently (by the same editor)? I don't see why we don't just delete Thurop Van Orman and allow the move. History merges are usually done to repair a cut-and-paste move, and it looks like what happened here was that the Thurop Van Orman article was repeatedly being turned into a redirect and so the author started over again at Thurop Van-Orman (from scratch), so this isn't a case where we'd do a history merge. Also, per WP:HM#A troublesome case we shouldn't be doing history merges if the edit histories of the two articles overlap, as they do in this case. I'd be happy to do the delete-and-move procedure though. -- Atama頭 17:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, then do that if a histmerge isn't needed. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 17:16, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I've done the move, and also fixed the spelling of his surname in the article itself (it hyphenated it throughout the article). Just to be sure I was doing the right thing, I Googled his name and it looks like his name doesn't have a hyphen everywhere else I looked. Also, I've never seen a surname with "van" in it that was hyphenated, per Van (Dutch) that's not correct, so I'm fairly confident that this is correct. -- Atama頭 17:44, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Changes to Template:Rfr

I have made some changes to {{Rfr}}:

• Your username as the first parameter is no longer necessary, it is now automatic through {{subst:REVISIONUSER}}.
• Use the parameter header to specify a custom header.
• Use the parameter noheader=yes to hide the header altogether if you are issuing through new section and want to avoid clicking save twice (if you require an edit summary). Note: setting noheader to anything else doesn't do anything.

— Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 20:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the tweaks. Don't forget to employ safesubst so as to not leave behind unnecessary parserfunction junk. –xeno^talk 20:27, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with safesubst. I just put the subst in includeonly tags. Rfr shouldn't be transcluded anyway. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 20:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Fair point... safesubst is just so much easier though. (Or less characters, anyway). –xeno^talk 20:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

What happened to the page history?

Thanks to VernoWhitney, I recently discovered that Mark Weber (historian) is the same person as Mark Weber, so at Verno's request, I decided to merge the page histories. "MW" had been deleted at AFD; it was later recreated as "MW (h)" and modified to the point that it no longer qualified for deletion as a repost. I restored everything of "MW" that had been deleted at AFD, moved it to "MW (h)", deleted the current history of "MW (h)", and restored it to complete the history merge. Something's gone wrong, however: the newest visible version of "MW (h)" is from 2008, just before "MW" was deleted. A link is visible for "View or restore 46 deleted edits?" on the "MW (h)" history page, but when I click it, it tells me that there are no deleted edits. I'd appreciate anyone's help, because I need it :-) Nyttend (talk) 12:30, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Server lag, it is all where it should be when I look at the page history. Regards, Woody (talk) 12:34, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, okay; thanks. I've never had the server lag like that in previous history merges, and it's been long enough since my last history merge that I thought I might have done something wrongly. Nyttend (talk) 12:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It often depends on time of the day, or the number of edits to be merged. Bit hit and miss but all seems good now. Woody (talk) 12:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes bypassing your cache is all that is required. –xeno^talk 12:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

changing the number of edits displayed in the page history always fixes this problem. Graham87 03:06, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I need administrator tools to handle a move-page redirect error

Resolved

 – Article at AFD. –xeno^talk 01:30, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi!

I was trying to preserve the edit history of Alternative theories regarding Hurricane Katrina which was intended to be spun-out to a new article, Supernatural attributions of Hurricane Katrina. Can an administrator take the page history of the first article and append it to the second? Thanks.

ScienceApologist (talk) 22:41, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Histories can't be copied... Sufficient attribution can be noted thusly. See also WP:Copying within Wikipedia. –xeno^talk 23:01, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I've seen article histories appended to articles in the past. It just requires some fancy deleting and moving. If I had the tools I'd do it myself. Since I proposed the Alternative theories article for deletion, the attribution note you gave won't work (assuming deletion happens). ScienceApologist (talk) 23:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

There is no way to duplicate history entries. The history could be moved (history merge), but I'm not sure that's appropriate. I removed the prod tag because it's already been through AFD and kept twice. –xeno^talk 23:19, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It's possible (by which I mean the software allows it, not that it's a good idea or that it wouldn't make one hell of a mess if cocked up) to delete the page, partially restore it and move the restored content to the new title, leaving the deleted edits behind to be restored. Attribution in edit summaries and {{copied}} should be sufficient 99.99% of the time. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:20, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Even then, relevant history regarding conspiracy theories about levee placement would peculiarly exist in the history of the supernatural attributions article. –xeno^talk 23:25, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that's okay. We need to preserve the history somewhere and I think that since the current article title is obviously in violation of WP:SYNTH it shouldn't even exist as a redirect. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

To be clear: the problem here is that I think the original page's title needs to be removed from Wikipedia. The history of the article, however, should be preserved. Think of it as a rename without redirect problem. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Then start a new AFD, we can't summarily overturn the last two. And I don't think SYN really applies. –xeno^talk 23:52, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

To be clear: the problem here is that I think the original page's title needs to be removed from Wikipedia. If I had done the action correctly I would have

1. Moved the article to a new title: Supernatural attributions of Hurricane Katrina
2. Recreated the current version of the article at Alternative theories regarding Hurricane Katrina
3. Prodded that article (to allow for discussion of the WP:BOLD action)
4. Added attribution remarks at Hurricane Katrina and global warming and 2005 levee failures in Greater New Orleans as xeno showed.

However, I messed up and I need the tools to fix my error. Won't someone do this for me?

The history of the article should be preserved. Think of it as a rename without redirect problem. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

That would've constituted an endrun around the proper way to go about your goal. The article is ineligible for prod. –xeno^talk 23:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Except, I could have done this if I hadn't messed up. WP:IAR is a policy for a reason. Anyway, I AfDed it. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

No, IAR does not cover dishonesty, only improvements to the encyclopedia. If you want a page deleted when the community has endorsed keeping it, you may go to AfD, which does not require either dishonesty or IAR. — Gavia immer (talk) 00:07, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Dishonesty? That's a pretty nasty charge and, frankly, I take umbrage to it. To be clear: I'm not arguing for the deletion of any content at all. All I want to do is move good content and edit history to a better article title. If this was a section title it would be a simple matter of making an edit, but it's an article title and that makes it trickier. Arguing that because the article went through two previous AfDs means that an administrator can't fix my error is just being needlessly nitpicky, IMHO. If I hadn't messed up, we'd have the appropriate preservation of the article history at the new article and be able to discuss deletion of the old article procedurally (at AfD, if you wish). If I had administrator tools I could fix my mess up myself, but I can't seem to get anybody to understand. I just wanted some help from the admins who have the ability to fix this, but it seems that this has gotten lost in needless sound and fury. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:04, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Attempting to achieve a PROD deletion by concealing the fact that the article is not eligible for PROD deletion is dishonesty, and there's no way around it. Note that just deleting the article, or just asking for deletion on IAR grounds, would not be dishonest - those would be valid applications of IAR. Achieving the same end by deception is not. In the meantime, as you know, I have agreed with you at the AfD, so I hope that part of the issue is clear enough. — Gavia immer (talk) 01:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The PROD vs. AfD was my mistake, and it's not the reason I came here. I don't need administrator help to put on AfD or PROD templates. I just need an administrator help to fix a botched pagemove. I don't want the article deleted. I want it moved. I hope that part of the issue is clear enough. Now we're at AfD needlessly because if I had just moved the article to Supernatural attributions of Hurricane Katrina PROD would have been fine at the written-over-redirect or we could have had the discussion at WP:Redirects for discussion where it would be more natural. Note the use of bold here is done out of frustration because it seems like people are not understanding what I'm asking for and I'm not sure why.ScienceApologist (talk) 01:18, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Moving an article about three things, to an article about one thing without discussion when the an article in question has been thrice to AFD and once to DRV, and kept all the way, is not a good idea. Thanks for starting the AFD. Tagging thread resolved. –xeno^talk 01:30, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The whole point of WP:BOLD is to allow people to do that and if it's not liked it can be undone. If admins here had said from the get-go, "Moving an article about three things, to an article about one thing without discussion when the an article in question has been thrice to AFD and once to DRV, and kept all the way, is not a good idea." then I would have understood. However, instead I was accused of making "endruns" regarding "prod" and engaging in "dishonesty". See the problem? ScienceApologist (talk) 01:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Well I did suggest above you start the AFD discussion which implied I felt a formal discussion was a good idea =]. I don't think BOLD or IAR particularly support the course of action - when an article has been discussed many times at AFD (and DRV) and kept, to quietly divest it and then prod the remnants does strike me as "an attempt to avoid a difficult situation by transcending it without confronting it directly". I realize you were acting in good faith. –xeno^talk 01:53, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:BOLD encourages people who think they have solutions to difficult problems to act on them. Wikis, by definition, can go back to previous versions. Sometimes bold action can unstuck situations and I've had success doing this in the past. This is how, for example, John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories got its title during a needlessly contentious debate about what "alternative theories" meant. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:44, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

please help

please this url:[redacted spam] from blacklist add to whitelist.please.thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hosseinmokhteh (talk • contribs) 17:06, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The accounts spamming this website were sockpuppets of Huppafa (talk · contribs) and the link has been globally blacklisted as a result. Elockid (Alternate) ^(Talk) 17:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of sockpuppets... (Insert meaningful cough here) HalfShadow 17:23, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

You rang? A few sleepers: 30nemasite (talk · contribs), Nowrunningweb (talk · contribs), and Infoomid1984 (talk · contribs). TNXMan 14:56, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Blocked and tagged. —fetch·comms 15:46, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

May I draw Admin attention to a Deletion dicussion

Resolved

 – AFD closed, article moved to a more neutral title. –xeno^talk 15:21, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The AFD Debate for International Burn a Koran Day is now thrown in confusion due to the cancellation of the event Could we get some one there to clean it up the WP:CRYSTAL mess?Weaponbb7 (talk) 21:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think opinions will change much simply because it has been canceled, but there are 5 days in which people can change their position before the end of the discussion. –xeno^talk 21:41, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

No my point is it looks like editors are unclear about whether to continue or or start a new one Weaponbb7 (talk) 21:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a content matter to me. Us admins know nothing about content.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

We now have personal attacks and Fbombs dropping will some one settle it down in there Weaponbb7 (talk) 22:02, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It's the Bigoted woman incident news item all over although I expect this article to be kept because the event is in America and American editors will want to keep it. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 22:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I went and took a look. I see one use of the er, F bomb, about an hour ago, the editor was promptly reproved and has not posted since to that discussion. I see no personal attacks. I see a lot of ABF, but I see nothing close to a personal attack. Are there diffs you want to post, Weaponbb7, that you think would qualify? Diffs, not interpretations, please.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to not let it run its course, although it is quite, uh, lively. -- Atama頭 23:12, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

sorry just double checked, I was looking at in the edit preview and mistakened Raw text and Preview as two f-bombs. Weaponbb7 (talk) 01:27, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Help needed in cleanup

Darius Dhlomo CCI case:

• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/Created articles list
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/How to help
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/Notice
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/Task explanation
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 1
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 10
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 11
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 12
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 13
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 14
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 15
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 16
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 17
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 18
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 19
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 2
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 20
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 21
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 22
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 23
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 24
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 3
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 4
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 5
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 6
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 7
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 8
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 9

Your help in the above cleanup effort would be appreciated. This is not a task that four people can take on alone. It's an order of magnitude larger than the largest of the other currently open CCI listings. Uncle G (talk) 13:28, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

discuss this

Here are more:

Airplaneman ✈ 17:22, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, it's not even half again as big as the next largest (see the 14 subpages of Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Aiman abmajid which are quite a bit larger on average), but additional help either with CCIs directly or with the day-to-day copyright cleanup needed at WP:CP freeing up time for the WP:COPYCLEAN regulars to work on CCIs would be greatly appreciated. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:25, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Mass blanking of ten thousand articles by a 'bot

It has been proposed that we mass blank articles using a 'bot. For details, see the discussion. Uncle G (talk) 15:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

discuss this

We're now at the stage where the 'bot is ready to roll, and no-one has voiced an objection. (Indeed, to the contrary: Several people want to go further, and mass delete the articles.)

If the 'bot goes ahead, this will probably light up some people's watchlists like Diwali. Currently, there are unsubtle notices here, on the Content noticeboard, on the Village Pump, on the 'Bot owner's noticeboard, at BRFA, and on several relevant WikiProjects, warning that we're heading towards this happening. Would a watchlist notice, also, be a good idea? Comments, please. Uncle G (talk) 04:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• I think a watchlist notice for a day or two might be worthwhile, as this affects so many articles. Would anyone care to draft one? NW (Talk) 13:17, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• The explanation for the bot's tasking, at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/Task explanation, provides a rather more succinct explanation of why this is being proposed. I clicked the above link for info on the bot but had no interest in wading through a discussion of whether that user should be banned or whatever. Propaniac (talk) 13:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
  • You can also read Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Uncle G's major work 'bot, where we're discussing the purely technical issues. Uncle G (talk) 15:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I tried to read much of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/CCI but it was a lot to digest. Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/Task explanation is certainly more succinct. I support a general mass-blanking of the editor's creations. However, what will be left behind on the page? Will there be a message template to direct editors towards the relevant discussions of the violations in question so that there is minimal confusion for those that are unaware of this? How about a (hidden?) category to organize the post-blanking cleanup/deletion efforts?
  • Quick and dirty suggestion (that may or may not be useful):
  • — Scientizzle 14:40, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Thank you. We've already worked up an article notice, though. See this example 'bot edit. I'm talking about a watchlist notice that goes at the top of everyone's watchlist to forewarn them that their watchlists might light up in the near future. Uncle G (talk) 15:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm been very bold at MediaWiki:Watchlist-details. Feel free to tweak. Uncle G (talk) 15:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I've noted that this is part of a CCI so that the severity is understood immediately w/o having to follow links. --MASEM (t) 16:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I assume that the edit summary the bot provides will indicate that its action was part of the mass blanking. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:10, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Appeal of Article/Talk Ban

Community appeals have been clearly exhausted at this point. The next step in the appeals process is to appeal to ArbCom, and this isn't the place to do that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:24, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Note: The following appeal has been turned down twice at Arbitration Enforcement, here and here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:40, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Please also note that I acknowledge and address that fact below. I would respectfully request that the following appeal be considered without prejudice, on the basis of its actual merits/demerits. This is a reasonable request, and I am confident that any impartial observer who takes the time to examine the actual facts will find that there was absolutely no basis for this ban in the first place. Please review the facts and consider this appeal on its own grounds, without prejudice. JRHammond (talk) 01:36, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Ban appeal by JRHammond collapsed for convenience I wish to appeal an indefinite ban on the Six Day War article and talk page imposed upon me by User:Wgfinley.[46] "Editors who are banned from a topic area or certain pages but can otherwise edit, may appeal (and comment in a discussion) on-wiki, either at the administrators' noticeboard or at requests for arbitration."[47] Based on this, it is my understanding this is an appropriate place to appeal. I am quite new to Wikipedia and am not familiar with all the policies and procedures, so my apologies if this in the wrong place. I have already tried to appeal on the "Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement" page, but both appeals were closed.[48] I maintain that this is not because my ban was warranted, but because admins who reviewed my appeals judged on the basis of comments made by other involved editors who made prejudicial statements against me (that I am biased, disruptive, etc), despite the fact that not a single person offered a single example of anything I'd posted to support said claims. In fact, I repeatedly requested those making said claims to substantiate them, and provide a diff or diffs to support their statements. Yet all commenting editors refused to do so. Admins who reviewed the ban failed to substantively address even a single point I made in my argument for overturning the ban, but rather simply repeated the above said claims, substantiating opinion with more opinion. I approached each one on their talk pages and asked them, since they were repeating said claims to support the ban, to provide me with even a single instance to substantiate said claims. All refused. Apart from diffs offered by WGFinley allegedly substantiating his claims, not a single person who commented on my appeal offered anything by way of evidence to support their accusations against me of behavior that would warrant a ban. There was one exception to this, User:Gatoclass, who questioned the legitimacy of the block and responded to another of the admins included among those mentioned above by saying: "PhilKnight, given that all the blocks and bans in question were handed out by WGFinley himself, whose own conduct in relation to JRH has been described or found to be inappropriate by more than one admin, escalating to a one-month ban would in my opinion only be rewarding the questionable conduct by WGF."[49] I would ask that non-involved admins address follow the lead of Gatoclass and actually look into the matter and review this new appeal non-prejudicially; and decide not on the basis of unsubstantiated claims or the past failure of my appeals, but on my actual conduct on the talk page itself, on the ostensible basis for the ban, and on the merit/demerit of my argument for having it overturned. Abuse of Authority First of all, the administrator who banned me has constantly harassed me and abused his authority against me. This current ban follows a pattern of abusive behavior. "Harassment is defined as a pattern of offensive behavior that appears to a reasonable observer to have the purpose of adversely affecting a targeted person or persons, usually (but not always) for the purpose of threatening or intimidating the primary target. The intended outcome may be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to discourage them from editing entirely."[50] I submit the following as clear evidence of harrassment and a pattern of abuse: (1) Blocking me on a wholly spurious pretext, with the admin granting my appeal stating "I see nothing in JRHammond's comments at that talk page that warrant a block, let alone a one week block, and particularly a "cool down" block."[51]; (2) Posting personal information about me, including my full legal name and work organization, neither of which I had never revealed myself, and which constitutes a direct violation of WP:OUTING.[52]. (3) Banning me for 48 hours on the basis that I had violated 1RR[53] when the facts were that: (a) an edit I made[54] was reverted by an anonymous IP editor on the basis it was not well sourced,[55] (b) I did not revert back to my original edit, but rather (c) added a great many authoritative sources in order to satisfy the raised objection;[56] (d) and, moreover, my edit improved the article by replacing an unsourced and demonstrably false statement with a very well sourced statement of fact. (4) Blocking me for 7 days and banning me for two weeks on the basis that I had violated my spurious 48 hour ban[57] when the facts were that: (a) My above noted improvement to the article was reverted by the same anonymous IP editor with no legitimate explanation and without discussion,[58], so I (b) restored my edit to prevent the unsourced and false statement from remaining in the article,[59], (c) all of which is in keeping with the the spirit of Wikipedia guidelines, the whole purpose and intent of which is to create a conducive environment for the improvement of articles,[60]; the spirit of which Wgfinley then himself violated by again reverting my well-sourced and verifiable edit back to the unsourced and demonstrably false version.[61] (5) Telling me I "shouldn't be" contributing to the Talk page after my ban and block had expired and threatening to ban me again for "carrying the edit war from the article on to the talk page",[62] a reference to my having proposed a solution to a problematic passage in the article that was reviewed, approved, and implemented by an administrator![63] (6) My current ban on the Six Day War article based on demonstrably false and misleading claims, which I will review below. (7) Issuing further veiled threats of punitive action against me on the basis that my comment "Accredited, it is not clear to me, because you commented on tangential matters and not on any perceived merits/demerits on your part of my proposed edit, so kindly just answer my question. Yes or no?" was "combative".[64]. False and Misleading Pretexts Turning to my current ban, WGFinley made a number of accusations against me as pretexts, yet not only are these accusations unsubstantiated, but they consist of demonstrable falsehoods and mischaracterizations. Here are the stated pretexts for the ban: (1) It is claimed I refuse to collaborate with other editors. (2) It is claimed I do "tendentious editing". (3) It is claimed I "vowed to continue making protected page change requests even though an admin told you that you were abusing it" and "will be disruptive if you consider it necessary you will venue shop by abusing the 'editprotected' template and believe proper usage of it is 'unreasonable'." (4) It is claimed I am "uncivil to other editors, you accuse them of making personal attacks where there are none".[65] Examining each claim: (1) This claim is false on its face: If I refused to collaborate with other editors, I wouldn't bother participating on the Talk page, where I have been, in fact, a leading and probably the leading contributor (a fact, you will notice if you view the ban statement, that WGFinley tried to use against me, citing as a further pretext that I had posted "100" comments to the talk page; I didn't know being a prolific contributor was a against Wikipedia policy!). Since my previous block expired, I have proposed exactly three edits: one to correct unsourced and demonstrably false information with a well-sourced replacement,[66], and two to bring two separate parts of the article into compliance with WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT.[67][68] The whole point of proposing these edits on the talk page was to get peer review and approval for them. That is, ipso facto, collaboration. As a clear demonstration of my willingness to collaborate with other editors, in the case of the first edit, after discussion, I accepted a counter-proposal from User:BorisG, despite the fact that every single concession in his alternative proposed edit came from me.[69] In all three cases I expended an enormous amount of time and energy trying to understand others' positions and address their arguments factually and logically. That is, ipso facto, collaboration. I'm a very busy person, and if I was one to refuse to collaborate with others, I certainly would not go through all the trouble of trying to reason with people, many of whom seem to refuse to be reasoned with, which I maintain is the real problem here (I matter to which I will return, citing evidence). (2) "Tendentious editing" is defined as "a manner of editing which is partisan, biased or skewed taken as a whole. It does not conform to the neutral point of view, and fails to do so at a level more general than an isolated comment that was badly thought out." The first observation to make is that since my previous block expired, I had not edited the article even one time -- nor could I have if I wanted to, as the article has long been under protection. WGFinley does not offer even one instance of "partisan, biased, or skewed" editing on my part, or editing that "does not conform to the neutral point of view", and it wouldn't matter even if he had, because, as WP:TE states explicitly: "It is important to recognize that everybody has bias. Whether it is the systemic bias of demographics or a political opinion, few people will edit subjects in which they have no interest. Bias is not in and of itself a problem in editors, only in articles."[70] WGFinley offered nothing to substantiate the basic assumption of this accusation that an edit I'd made (again, I'd made none) or proposed (one was reviewed, approved, and implemented by an administrator who found it reasonable and supported) that found its way into the article was in any way "partisan, biased, or skewed", or otherwise non-WP:NPOV. There are some "characteristics of problem editors" that might otherwise apply to conduct on Talk pages,[71] perhaps regardless of whether any actual edits to the article are made (this seems to me to be a matter of interpretation of WP:TE), but none of them apply in my case. WGFinley didn't even attempt to make a case otherwise, neither citing which characteristic he thinks I've demonstrated nor citing any examples of said characteristic being demonstrated on my part. (3) This is an outright lie - demonstrably so. I did no such thing as declare my intent to abuse the template. Nor did I state that I believed "proper usage of it is 'unreasonable'". Quite the contrary. Here are the facts, which anyone can verify: After I had employed the template for my first proposed edit in order to remove contested material (unsourced and demonstrably false information), until a consensus could be achieved on a replacement, User:Amatulic reviewed my request and approved it. After implementing the edit to remove the contested material, Amatulic stated: "Done. The two sentences are gone. I see no issue removing contentious material when the parties concerned agree that the material should eventually be replaced with something more neutral."[72] I also employed the template for my second proposed edit. I offered an explanation for precisely why existing content constituted a blatant violation of WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT, and proposed a neutral replacement to resolve the issue. The next day, I stated my intent to employ the template to have the edit made if there were no objections to doing so. The next day, observing that there were still no objections, I employed the template.[73] User:MSGJ arrived, reviewed my request, and declined it. I therefore approached MSGJ on his talk page to inquire as to what the problem was. MSGJ said that he declined it because it seemed disputed and still under discussion. This was incorrect. As I mentioned, I had proposed three edits. The first had already been approved. The second had been met with no objections. The third had been objected to. MSGJ had confused the discussion on the third as being with regard to the second. After pointing this error out to MSGJ, he took the liberty of dividing my two edits into two separate sections to avoid any further confusion,[74][75] and MSGJ replied: "Okay I didn't realise there were two separate requests. I recommend putting each in a new section so that they don't get confused. I've invited other editors to comment on your proposal and if there is no response in a couple of days I can make the edit."[76] Amatulic then also returned and expressed concern that I didn't understand the proper use of the template, and outlined the process: first, propose an edit; second, present a rationale and request input; third, consider the feedback; fourth, reach a consensus; fifth, employ the template. I responded to note that I had followed that procedure exactly, and that there had been no objections raised.[77] Quite the opposite of WGFinley's false claim, I responded to observe that I had followed that procedure, and only employed the template after no objections were raised. What I actually said was: "I'm using the tag precisely as it was intended, as you yourself just outlined. And, as I said, I will continue to employ the tag as it was intended to be used." Amatulic then replied, "JRHammond, I am gratified that you have agreed to follow the procedure I outlined..."[78] Amatulic went on to express his personal view that it was not enough that no objections were raised to the proposed edit for which I'd employed the template, arguing that "You won't find an administrator on Wikipedia who will agree to a request to edit a contentious article without clear positive evidence of consensus." I disagreed with that interpretation of its use, expressed my opinion that it was unreasonable (which I explained further), and observed the fact that I had already come to an understanding with another admin, MSGJ, who had already, in fact, agreed to implement my requested edit if it remained unopposed after more time was allowed to give others opportunity to review it. This is the actual situation that WGFinley deliberately tries to mischaracterize as some kind of "disruptive" behavior in an attempt to offer a pretext for this ban, including by lying that I had declared my intent to abuse the template. (4) It is a mischaracterization to say that I "accuse[d]" others "of making personal attacks". WGFinley offered numerous diffs as ostensible evidence for this claim. What I in fact had observed in each case was that other editors were employing the logical fallacy of ad hominem. WGFinley might perhaps have made the above untrue assertion on a good faith basis; it's possible he simply doesn't understand what the ad hominem fallacy is. It can include, but is not limited to, personal attacks. Again, I never accused others of making personal attacks. What I was referring to was their arguments that appealed to supposed prejudice on my part, but which did not in any way substantively address my own arguments on the basis of any error they perceived in fact or logic on my part. Every single one of the diffs Wgfinley provided in an attempt to substantiate his claim in fact shows my reasonable replies in which I merely observed others' clear use of said fallacy in lieu of an actual argument.[79][80][81][82][83] Conclusion Those are the facts. All of which demonstrates what I contested above, which is that I have been perfectly reasonable on the talk page. I made an enormous good faith effort to work to try to improve this article. I presented my arguments factually and logically. I was civil and addressed others' arguments on the basis of their merits or demerits, rather than by appealing to any prejudice on their part (unlike others, many of whom continually employed ad hominem or other logical fallacies in their own arguments, or lack thereof). I addressed every single objection raised to my proposed edits on the basis of the facts and logic (or lack thereof) presented to me. I understand that people don't like having their arguments shown to be invalid. Many people take such discussions very personally. I believe numerous other editors resent me for pointing out their errors in fact and/or logic, and for so vigorously and extensively supporting my own position in a manner which they feel they cannot contest (it became almost a cliche to characterize my contributions as a "wall of words", and to simply respond with ad homimen arguments, rather than with actual counter-arguments). I believe this is the actual cause of the prejudicial statements against me in my appeal, which would explain why not a single one of them was willing and/or able to present even a single example as evidence to support their baseless characterizations that led to my appeals being denied. This is the situation that has been willfully and deliberately falsified and otherwise mischaracterized by an administrator who has a clear record of harassment and abuse of authority against me in what seems to be some kind of personal vendetta, which has since continued. I recently began contributing to the UNSC Resolution 242 article in addition to the Six Day War article. Immediately after I began contributing there, WGFinley showed up and posted a warning that the article was under sanctions, which I contest was clearly directed at me; I said this to him and his explanation was that since it was directly related to the Six Day War, it was natural for him to do this; yet the Six Day War article has been under sanctions for as long as I can remember, and he never bothered to post this notice at the 242 article until I began contributing there. In addition, every single comment he has made there (I reviewed the history going back some ways, and he had not contributed there at all as far back as I can tell) has been directed at me. His contention that this is all merely a coincidence is simply not plausible.[84] I request that my appeal be reviewed without prejudice, on the basis of the facts and logic I've here presented, which I believe demonstrate incontrovertibly the inappropriateness of this ban and abuse of authority by WGFinley. On that basis, I request further that my appeal to overturn this ban be granted. JRHammond (talk) 00:26, 10 September 2010 (UTC) KISS: Forum shopping on this with walls of text isn't going to help your position. For right now the best thing you can do, if you want the ban lifted, is to drop the topic entirely. Do not edit sections of other articles related to the topic. Do not engage in discussions related to the topics, on any talk page. Do not engage other editors on the topic on their user pages. Do not respond to other prodding you with the topic. Just edit articles on topics totally unrelated to the source of the ban. Show that you can work well with others in that way. Do this for a few months and then politely and succinctly request the ban to be lifted to show that you can work well with others on the topic you are banned from. - J Greb (talk) 01:40, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Look, I appreciate your advice, but the underlying assumption of it is that the ban was warranted and legitimate. It is that assumption I reject, and that is the entire basis for my appeal. If you'd like to help me out, please just read and consider my appeal. If you arrive at a different conclusion from my own, fine. But at least consider my argument. I don't think this is too much to ask. If you are not willing to do so, fine. But that should not prevent another admin who is willing to do so from doing so. Please. Pretty please. Just review it. If you don't think I've made a case, fine, then decline my appeal, and I'll do as you advice. All I'm asking is that you actually consider what I have to say first. I don't think this is an unreasonable request, and I'm confident you won't think it is, either, once you've actually examined the issue. JRHammond (talk) 02:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC) JRHammond I am reviewing the above, however I must note that few admins would have the patience to bother sifting through the pile of text you have posted here. It does not assist you in your case with a blatthering of text that simply makes it difficult to get to the jist of the issue. Admins do not have an abundance of time. In future keep such post to the bare minimum. Seddon talk|WikimediaUK 01:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Thank you for reviewing it. That is all I ask. I apologize for the length and inconvenience, but I felt it necessary to fully document and explain the issue. I've tried to section and format it in a way that makes it is easy to review as possible. JRHammond (talk) 02:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Oppose and not only oppose, but topic ban on all I/P related articles. As user:J Greb said the appellant should prove he is capable of making positive contributions on other topics. So far I do not see it. I see just the opposite. Here's more Canvassing from today: [85] [86] [87]--Mbz1 (talk) 02:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Mbz1 is not an uninvolved editor. In fact, he picked up the torch from Wgfinley in violating WP:OUTING by posting information personally identifying me, including my full legal name and workplace, neither of which I had voluntarily disclosed.[88] As for this alleged "canvassing", I am having yet another conflict with Wgfinley (the one and the same), in which he is again issuing transparent threats to ban me from that article as well, and I merely requested Harlan, Frederico1234, and Gatoclass to review the matter and comment and mediate so as to prevent that from occurring. This, too, goes to the heart of my above appeal. As I argued above, I believe incontrovertibly, this is harassment. I can't very well demonstrate good faith editing on other articles when Wgfinley follows me around and bans me on spurious pretexts constantly, and then only to have admins refuse to seriously review my appeal and thus tacitly endorse Wgfinley's behavior! Please help me! All I'm asking is that admins review my appeal. That's it. I'll respect the decision of impartial and uninvolved admins in deciding this appeal, and will regard your decision here as final. All I ask in return is that my appeal actually be reviewed and considered by impartial admins. I believe this is a reasonable request. Thank you for your consideration. I apologize again for the inconvenience, but I am confident that if you take the time to examine the issue, you will arrive at the same conclusion I have. JRHammond (talk) 02:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC) WGFinley's Response I will ignore the fact I wasn't notified on this (although he seems to have had time to canvass) and just state this should be immediately closed. This is a WP:GS related ban, the user has had three objections on WP:AE previously, the first for his block that was declined and the last two for this matter. As a WP:GS ban this is not the appropriate forum for the appeal per the decision, if he is not happy with his twice-heard appeal on AE he can appeal directly to Arbcom, not to here. I think further action should be taken against this user but I won't be the one to do it, I've outlined the case of his repeated disruptions, this 22k filing with a 3k retort being but the latest, in his last ban appeal here on AE. --WGFinley (talk) 02:43, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Agree - Close appeal without action, not the proper forum, too many bites of the apple already. User should be admonished for wasting the communty's time. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC) If this is not the proper forum, why does this page say otherwise, as I pointed out above?[89] JRHammond (talk) 07:24, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Because if you read three lines above where I wrote why it was you would see why it's not. This should already be clear to you since you've made several appeals in the correct venue, you even asked me what the right one was,[90] I told you[91] and you acknowledged it.[92]. --WGFinley (talk) 13:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC) You didn't answer my question. If this is not the proper forum, why does the Banning policy page say otherwise? JRHammond (talk) 22:39, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Because in the specific instance of this particular ban concerning this topic there is another venue that is the most appropriate, and in which you have already been turned down twice. Give it a rest, already. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC) Review I have tried to keep this as short as possible. The main issue here surrounds JRHammonds combative approach to editting. The shouting and pushing of a single user precludes the existence of a concensus. JRHammond regularly dismisses the opinions and arguments of other people and proclaims that his argument is fact. He repeatedly stated that edits were uncontroversial when it was clear that these edits were controversial in thier entirety. There were issues being raised by fellow editors that were actively being discussed. This process had not been completed at the time of posting the first edit request. There was significant backlash to JRHammonds first edit request which precludes the existence of a concensus. Four protected page edit request were posted and three were declined by two different admins. When a third admin was prepared to make an edit they changed their opinion following a backlash from editors and they felt that there wasn't sufficient concensus. I support the opinion the opinion of all three administrators in thier final assessments of the situation. Given the repeated disregard for other people opinions and the continual pushing of his own personal point of view I support the placement of a permanent topic ban on the article and talk page of Six-Day War on JRHammond, to be enforced by block should the ban be breached. In addition to this it is a note to the editor that similar behaiviour on other article talk pages will incur harsher and broader reaching sanctions. Seddon talk|WikimediaUK 03:39, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Seddon, I am sorry if I have seemed "combative". I most certainly argue my positions vigorously, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I have never dismissed anyone's arguments, and have always have substantively replied to each and every one and addressed them on the basis of their facts and logic. As for saying my edit was uncontroversial, I meant anyone could verify the UNEF mandate says what I quoted it as saying, not that everyone agreed with the change. As for my first use of the template, I am very sorry if I misused it. I am relatively new here. Having read the instructions, I didn't believe I was doing so. It seemed reasonable to me to have the text that everyone agreed was problematic removed in the meantime. The first admins seemed not even to understand what I was requesting. Amatulic was the first one who actually took the time to understand it. He reviewed it, agreed with it, and approved it. In his words: "Done. The two sentences are gone. I see no issue removing contentious material when the parties concerned agree that the material should eventually be replaced with something more neutral". As for the other request for the other edit, at the time MSGJ approved it, there was no objection whatsoever. You can confirm with MSGJ on that. You can also confirm with him I agreed to allow more time after he de-activated it to give everyone ample opportunity to state any objections. He gave it more time. Nobody objected. Did you read the above appeal? Would you please address it? Have I myself made any error in fact or logic? JRHammond (talk) 07:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC) As a general observation - I don't think you're helping yourself here. As a specific observation, we call re-appealing in many different venues "forum-shopping", and it's considered a disruptive behavior. People are often blocked for doing so. Unless the first venue was the wrong one, and a discussion is redirected, the appeal process is "any other admin", "a (single) noticeboard as appropriate", then "arbcom". Taking it to every noticeboard that might be appropriate, separately and one after the other, is forum shopping. In Wikipedia terms, in other words, this behavior exceeds "arguing your positions vigorously" and is clearly within "combative". It's not really rude, but it is combative, in the sense of refusing to accept a noticeboard's admin response / judgement and seeking to go around it and get someone else to override it. I appreciate that you feel wronged in all of this, but the best advice I can offer at the moment is to calm down and seek another path. This particular one - being so sure of yourself that no venue telling you otherwise is enough to convince you that you may be the one in error - leads to madness, and bans from the site. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 08:15, 10 September 2010 (UTC) It's not my intention to do violate any guidelines by "forum-shopping". As I said, I'm relatively new and not familiar with all the protocols. I'm just frustrated because nobody wants to actually examine my case for appeal, and always finds some reason or another to simply dismiss it, such as you have just given, without actually looking at the merits of my case. Look, I've given you facts you can verify. I've made a logical argument. If you think there's any error in fact or logic above, please, please point it out to me. Is the fact that Wgfinley felt it necessary to deliberately falsify what occurred somehow not relevant? Is his history of harassment, including previously banning me on spurious pretexts and outing me, not relevant? Is nothing I've said above actually relevant? This is precisely why I'm so frustrated, and precisely why I'm "shopping". I just want somebody to examine and actually substantively address my case. Is that really too much to ask? I just want some help here. Please! So far, only one person seems to have taken the time to actually seriously examine my case: "Here, on the other hand, we have a very inexperienced admin handing out a series of punitive blocks and bans against one particular user, at least one of which - a weeklong block - has been overturned as inappropriate, who then went on to hand out an indef page ban on the same user. My own interpretation of the talk page interchanges between the two (admittedly I haven't read them all) is that WGF has been sanctioning phantom offences that appear to exist only in his own mind - as in his list of alleged incivilities, given as part of his reason for the indef ban, that are not supported by the diffs. Given the lack of evidence for at least two of WGF's administrative actions here, his other blocks of the same user must also be suspect, so I don't think JRH should be getting a longer ban on the assumption that the previous blocks were sound. Indeed, judging by the current talk page, I can't see much justification for a ban at all at this stage." -- User:Gatoclass on my appeal. JRHammond (talk) 11:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC) The only issue that concerns me in this is the outing by WGFinley. That needs to be addressed if it has not been already. --Errant [tmorton166] (chat!) 09:11, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Please see here about "outing". As you could see the user was advised to request WP:OVERSIGHT. He never has. So called "outing" has never been even deleted from the user talk's page. It is still here. All complains about "outing" are bogus. --Mbz1 (talk) 10:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Doesn't matter, WGFinley needs to be made aware it was inappropriate, even if the user is ok leaving it there. WP:OUTING is clear, it is not appropriate (however, fully support the conclusion of Seddon above). --Errant [tmorton166] (chat!) 10:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC) The user is editing under his own real life name. To ask about some articles the user wrote does bot mean outing. It happens all the time. see here a post at my talk page, and I do not even edit under my real name.--Mbz1 (talk) 11:51, 10 September 2010 (UTC) He's brought this up in every appeal of his action he's made on WP:AE, he's forum shopping even though it's been reviewed and addressed, he didn't like the answer, he was told where he could go to if he didn't. Normally I would have done this confidentially but I find it difficult to understand how one editing under their own name has any presumption of anonymity, I certainly don't.. --WGFinley (talk) 13:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC) Posting another person's personal information is harassment, unless that person voluntarily had posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia. Personal information includes legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, whether any such information is accurate or not. Posting such information about another editor is an unjustifiable and uninvited invasion of privacy and may place that editor at risk of harm outside of their activities on Wikipedia. I have never posted my full name, or my work organization. Yet you did so. This is a clear and blatant violation of WP:OUTING. Also, as it says, this is unjustifiable. JRHammond (talk) 15:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC) This section is quickly turning into War and Peace. Maybe it should be moved to a subpage and linked here? Or would be better as a user RfC? Nevermind the last part. Burpelson AFB (talk) 12:21, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

A bit of an unorthodox technique

In dealing with the innumerable socks of Mario96, I've started to handle it has I have with Wiki iFri3ndz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) in order to prevent the creation of a memorial trail of fake pages: I delete the talk page, delete the user page, tag the user page, and then full-protect both. This is just unusual enough I decided to point it out here and see if anyone has a strong objection.—Kww(talk) 16:46, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds OK to me -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:32, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

No complaints. Perhaps slightly in violation of some standard or another, but IAR is policy, and this is helping the encyclopedia. Nyttend (talk) 20:19, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

No complaints here either. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 20:49, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not that different than what WP:SPI/AI suggests we do with sockpuppets, where it says, "Redirect the sock puppet's user talk page – Replace the content on the talk page with a redirect to the user page. All content must remain in the page history for research purposes; redirecting eliminates any possible "trophy" page." What Kww is doing is at least in the same spirit of eliminating "trophy pages". -- Atama頭 22:56, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, you good... --Jayron32 02:52, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Widespread canvassing by User:WritersCramp

This post related to a specific problem, dispute, user, help request, or other narrow issue, and has been moved to the Administrators' noticeboard for incidents (ANI). Please look for it on that page. Thank you.

Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:32, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Differences between the Front Page and the featured article

Front page: Roy of the Rovers is a British comic strip about the life and exploits of a fictional footballer named Roy Race, who played for Melchester Rovers. The article: Roy of the Rovers is a British comic strip about the life and times of a fictional footballer named Roy Race, who played for Melchester Rovers.

Normally I would expect the front page to be OK, and the Article to be messed up, but it's vice versa here. I don't know if the Front Page or the article was changed, but SOMETHING is up. Can someone please look into it? Thank you! Math321 (talk) 22:28, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment): The front page blurb is just that, a blurb. A snapshot of the article in question. So it is going to be slightly different to encompass the entire article in such a small space. Some people use the exact same words verbatim, some change it up, depends on the writer. This is a case of a writer changing things up. Now if there were dates off or something major, then that is worth looking into, but one word, nah. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:37, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The article has been on the mainpage for over 22 hours. The odds are, the variation came to be because someone changed the article during that time. The blurb is fixed and can only be altered by admins; it does not change with every edit to the article.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

@Wehwalt I know that, I was just making sure we didn't have a problem, because the word "exploits" has many different meanings, and can be seen differently by different people. Math321 (talk) 22:47, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Uninvolved Admin RFC Closing Requested

Would an uninvolved admin please summarize and close this RFC: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Inclusion criteria for Lists? Thanks--Mike Cline (talk) 22:52, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

• I'd just like to echo this request. We don't see eye to eye on the final issue. But we both believe there are some points of consensus. Stuff that's at a high level, like "most people agree that we should usually..." and "most people agree we should never..." We fully expect that we will need to have a further discussion to pin down certain issues. So anything we can pull out of this discussion will help get us passed the first few hurdles and move forward. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:40, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

• This RFC does not appear to have been running for 30 days. Mjroots (talk) 18:01, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

AfD closers beware

There's something amiss at WP:AFD - the discussions for 6 September are being included in WP:AFD/Old despite the fact that they're only 6 days old. It'd be easy for someone to start closing them without realising. I'm not sure what's causing it, but I've dropped a note on MathBot's owner's page. I'm unsure whether tweaking the /Old page manually would cause some sort of problem, though. Black Kite (t) (c) 17:47, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Semi protect Robert Hooke?

I'm exasperated by seeing trivial vandalism on Robert Hooke on my watchlist every other day. It gets by far the most of any page I watch: 145 revertions since 26 October 2009 (many of 2 or more edits by same ip). This is similar to or more than pages such as Tim Berners-Lee and Isaac Newton suffered before semi-protection. Is this a good enough precedent? Best, Trev M  ~  17:44, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I've semiprotected the article for six months. (For future reference, WP:RFPP is the place for requests like this; no big deal, though.) AlexiusHoratius 17:50, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

You did that while I was just trying to move the section to the appropriate page I'd just found! Cheers, Trev M  ~  17:53, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Secret pages 2

The nominator at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Secret pages 2 has now said that it's not an MfC but an RfC. Could any admin help him remove it from MfD and list it as an RfC please? DuncanHill (talk) 20:56, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Would the MfD page be used as the RfC page, just moving that to a new title, or would he prefer that the MfD be closed as "change to RfC" or something and then make a new page? I've notified him of this. —fetch·comms 22:03, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

My impression is that we should start a new page, with a new proposal, but include a link to the failed proposal so that those interested can see the history. However, I'll be happy to defer to the original nominator if there is a better course.--SPhilbrickT 23:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with SPhilbrick that starting a new page with a link to the failed proposal is the best way forward. A new page would prevent participants from being confused by the nomination statement and the discussion that has occurred so far. Cunard (talk) 00:02, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I closed it, let Cunard start the RFC proposal. Secret ^account 01:41, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Requesting uninvolved Admin to make a Page Move after the Closure of a RFC

An RFC on the Proper Title of Second Temple of Jerusalem has found that the preferred name for the article is simply the "Second Temple" by a fairly good margin. As a show of good faith, I am asking an Admin to review the RFC and make the move to make sure consensus was properly gauged. The RFC and be found here. Weaponbb7 (talk) 03:00, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done --Jayron32 03:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Kissle request

Resolved

 – not done - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:47, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I am requesting to use Kissle. Thanks. -Porchcrop ^{(talk|contributions)} 09:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

This is the correct place to request that, I see you have been declined twice already though. Try again there. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 09:42, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

 Not done Agree with tmorton, you were declined a few days ago, this is forum shopping. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:47, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Tag: possible cut and paste move or recreation

Hi, I recently did two translations from Portuguese Wikipedia to here, and a tag appeared:

1. 13:49, 10 July 2010 (diff | hist) N Serra da Leba ‎ (new article) (Tag: possible cut and paste move or recreation)
2. 11:26, 10 July 2010 (diff | hist) N Snow in Brazil ‎ (new article) (Tag: possible cut and paste move or recreation)

I take this as an offense, I don't know if it is illegal to translate from one Wikipedia to another, if it is please delete the articles I created. Otherwise I would like that those "(Tag: possible cut and paste move or recreation)" be erased. Thanks in advance. AmigoDoPaulo (talk) 11:38, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

They were tagged because the articles were created with the {{unreferenced}} tag on them. Normally, an article wouldn't be created with the tag unless you were copy-pasting it. See the filter. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 13:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

If they are direct translations from the Purtuguese Wikipedia, you need to indicate as much in the edit summary, or I'm afraid that it is a problem to translate from one Wikipedia to another. :/ Wikipedia's content is not public domain, but liberally licensed for reuse. Please see the guideline on "Copying within Wikipedia" for more information, including the procedure. I'll go ahead and provide attribution for these two; if you have translated other articles without attribution, please be sure to attribute them now. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:36, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Good to know, sure I will do it, thanks Moonriddengirl. But, there is no way to remove the tags? Thanks. AmigoDoPaulo (talk) 13:25, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

There is no way to remove the tags, but you should not worry about them. Most editors are aware that the edit filter may generate false positives and will not hold such entries in your edit filter log against you. I have some too =). –xeno^talk 13:29, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit semiprotected

Resolved

 – Thanks Jafeluv. sonia♫ 09:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Can somebody in the know take a look at {{editsemiprotected}}? It was recently moved but the "click to leave an edit request" link on the main article page (for IPs and non-confirmed editors - and I logged out to check) does not transclude the template on the talk page, instead it leaves "#REDIRECT [[Template:Edit semi-protected/preload]]" along with the request. Don't know what needs correction, but semi-protected page edit requests don't show in the logs because of this (Talk:Bollywood is an example). cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 05:47, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext needs to have its links corrected to the actual page rather than the redirect, I think. sonia♫ 05:53, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I've left a note on that talk page linking to this discussion. From a Special:Search for "Redirect [[Template: Edit semi-protected/preload]]" in Talk namespaces there are currently 26 instances of this "broken template link". —SpacemanSpiff 06:41, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

The MediaWiki page should work now. Jafeluv (talk) 09:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, looks like the category is getting updated now. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 10:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it had to do with my move, but I was actually pretty sure this wouldn't happen. What happened was a bug in the MediaWiki software, which I believed to have been fixed already. I'm not sure about it, but maybe it's not live yet. --The Evil IP address (talk) 15:43, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Need assistance from a neutral party at Chiropractic

The article Chiropractic has been a POV-battleground for many months, if not years. QuackGuru, who has been previously banned from the topic for 6 months as a result of arbitration, has been reverting almost every edit anyone has ever made to the article. Since I've joined in, very recently, we have managed to stop him from reverting and do a bit more discussion. I have requested MEDCAB mediation, but with QuackGuru not even responding to mediation requests and with no mediator it may not happen. The discussion is unfriendly enough as it is, and now an administrator User:Arthur Rubin joins in and makes things even more difficult:

• less-than accurate personal comments
• threatening to block for alleged violations of the WP:TALK guideline, even after I agreed to not remove anything
• accused me of putting in incorrect information (and it was Ocaasi and not me who corrected the sentence in question!)
• Ocaasi offered a solution to tone down the discussion with QuackGuru, before QuackGuru had a chance to respond Arthur Rubin pre-emptively threatened to revert
• And now even claims that Ocaasi's suggestion (on which he hasn't acted but thinks policy supports) has moral and legal issues!

We're having a hard enough time as it is without the situation being inflamed further with block threats, revert threats, legal issues. We need help to tone down the situation so we can actually discuss the article instead. --Anon 08:50, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Let me see if I understand this.

• The "less than accurate" comment is Arthur's edit summary of reverting Anon's removal of another editor's talk page comment.[93] That removal looks like a WP:TPO violation to me.
• The "threat to block" actually says "if I wasn't involved, I'd block", i.e. not a threat.
• "accusation of putting in incorrect information" = looks like a disagreement on editorial judgment. If there was an error about who corrected what when, AGF and work it out on the talk page.
• "Preemptive threat to revert" - reasonably discusses proposed refactoring of talk page, accepts some parts of proposal but rejects changing meaning of headers. Doesn't sound very threatening to me. Basic issue seems to be that the talkpage has section headers like "Failed verification" (started by someone claiming that a verification had failed) when the failure was actually disputed so the header is not "neutral".
• "moral rights, if not legal rights" Explains that changing meaning of headers alters the context of comments and can cause them to be read in ways unfair to the authors. I don't see legal issues being brought in except in the abstract. Basically he says it's not ok to mess with other people's comments, by changing either the words or the context.

Just based on looking at the diffs I see some heated discussion (chilling is always good) but nothing terribly unreasonable. I took the trouble to look at the diffs because I know Arthur does get overheated sometimes, but I didn't see that here. Anon's complaint is lame at least based on the diffs given. It's possible some mediation could help on that talk page. As for the non-neutral headers, I'd say leave the existing ones alone (the archive bot will haul them away sooner or later), but advise participants to use neutral headers on new sections going forward. Or if headers are changed, insert an explanatory comment under the new header explaining what happened. Generally avoid removing other people's talkpage comments since it just causes drama. The article is about a topic with a long-history of real world controversy, and has 30+ pages of talk archives, so obviously things were heated there long before Arthur arrived. Anon, if you're going to edit contentious topics like this, you have to accept dealing with some friction. If you want a more relaxed editing experience, try a more relaxed subject area. 67.119.12.106 (talk) 10:45, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I will keep on editing Chiropractic thank you for your concern. I happen to know a bit about how things work around here, prior to me creating my current account I was an administrator. I've had my share of arguments and arbitrations trust me ;-) In case you haven't noticed I'm not here to accuse anyone of policy violations, but pointing out an administrator who is throwing fuel to the fire. Perhaps there are others here who can help. I know this is not what this board is normally used for, but I think the intention is to contact administrators, and that's what I'm doing.--Anon 11:19, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the anon (not Sir Anon) said what needed to be said. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:06, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I think I said what needed to be said.--Anon 23:27, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The title of the thread does say: "neutral party". I would be interested to have an actual neutral party comment (that is someone who is not involved with Arthur Rubin, nor someone who has a conflict of interest with the topic Chiropractic). Looking at his/her edits, I don't think this IP meets the "neutral party" request.--Anon 04:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe I'm a neutral party and I commented. I've never had anything to do with the chiropractic article. I've edited some mathematics articles that Arthur Rubin has also edited, but I'm certainly not "involved" with him (sheesh!). The message on Arthur Rubin's usertalk that you saw in my contribs was IIRC because I looked there as part of checking out the background of this thread, and I saw an unrelated issue there that I commented on. Anyway, your whole approach of putting your complaint on AN is ill-conceived (since it's a non-admin matter) and if you're really an ex-admin you should know better. Try WQA or RFC if you must. Added: mediation might help too. 67.119.12.29 (talk) 06:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I've never been involved in the chiropractic article, I'm sure. I looked over the diffs you presented as evidence of Arthur Rubin's misbehavior, and think that the IP's response was spot-on. I don't have much to add to that, really. Sir Anon, if I ran across you edit warring to remove someone else's talk page comments as you did, I would have blocked you myself for violating WP:TPO. That behavior is completely unacceptable. -- Atama頭 22:53, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Nipples - I have two, how about you?

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.

---

Cirt has indef blocked User:Nipples20 and User:Nippletaco for violating our username policy ("Your username is the only reason for this block"). Per earlier ANI threads (Block review of User:Nipple37 and Haven't I seen your nipples somewhere before), the inclusion of the word "nipple" is not a violation of WP:USERNAME. These users should be unblocked. Hopefully this thread will serve as a reminder for admins that they should be blocking based on violations of the community's standards, not their own. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:07, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Note: This is now an exact dup of thread at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Nipples_-_I_have_two.2C_how_about_you.3F. Both accounts have been unblocked, four minutes after this report was first filed. Thanks. -- Cirt (talk) 21:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Note also: I have removed my initial reply copied above, because it was part of the original thread, which was moved to WP:ANI, and should not have been copied when this thread was created. This thread is also an incident report, and has been resolved on ANI; it should not be here, but I'll leave that for an uninvolved admin to sort out now, since Delicious repeated the thread after I moved it. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 21:55, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

While I was attempting to re-open the thread which I started here and close the thread at ANI, Cirt replied at the ANI thread. This particular incarnation of the thread here was restored by someone other than myself. The ANI thread has now been collapsed by Giftiger wunsch, so the duplication issue seems moot. Let me be clear that I started this thread here so that it might serve as a more visible reminder to admins who might be tempted to block users with similar usernames. I am certain that Cirt would have unblocked the users had I asked, and Cirt's blocks are not the issue here, just an example. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Couple things:

1. Please note that Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) failed to notify me of this thread report to an admin board.
2. Please also note that Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) failed to bring up the issue with me at my user talk page, or even attempt any other form of dispute resolution or discussion or communication with me, prior to coming straight to an admin board.

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 22:14, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Please also note that Cirt was far too busy complaining about DC to actually tell the editors concerned that he had unblocked them, or remove the block templates from their talk pages. To help him out, I have told them that he has unblocked them and acknowledged his mistake. DuncanHill (talk) 22:17, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Cirt, I notified you immediately after I started the thread. This is not about you. Perhaps reading the linked earlier ANI threads will be helpful. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) chose to start the admin board thread with "Cirt", while posturing that the thread is not about the user that is the first word of the chosen wording of the report - all while failing to even attempt to resolve the issue with that user (myself). -- Cirt (talk) 22:22, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

The issue seems to be widespread ignorance of a general consensus that the word "nipple" is not offensive and users should not be blocked because their username contains the word "nipple". That issue cannot be solved on your userpage, although this thread may help spread the word. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:27, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:SOAP (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 22:29, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

So this is where the Smurf party continues after the ANI thread was finally closed? I was wondering where everybody had gone... Hans Adler 22:23, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, considering this thread was rightly closed and moved to ANI, and the right place to discuss this was the UAA talkpage, the fact that this thread was reopened is pretty disruptive (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 22:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this comment by admin BWilkins from ANI: "If they wanted to make an announcement like this, the UAA talkpage would have worked best, or else it's a massive failure to AGF" Thanks, -- Cirt (talk) 22:37, 13 September 2010 (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.

Tweak to Template:Infobox UK school

A recent change to {{Infobox UK school}} has led the icons to not being displayed on the article & are showing as unused on the image description page. Just an FYI for those that are dealing with the F5/orphaned non-free deletions. Skier Dude (talk 01:23, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Fundraising 2010

It is probably best to avoid reposting my entire message here so that discussion doesn't get completely split but I did want to point people towards my VP post about this years Wikimedia fundraiser and ask for as much participation as people are willing to give :). Jalexander (talk) 16:18, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Fundraiser suggestion/discussion page: m:Fundraising 2010/Messages. MER-C 02:37, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Copy of CSD page Peter Karlsen

Can I please have a copy of the CSD page Peter Karlsen @ User:Wolfnix/SandboxPK so I can apply the note/warning to the user. It was removed by Connormah and he was unsure on how to do that, and asked me to post it here. Thank you! --Wolfnix• Talk • 03:00, 14 September 2010 (UTC) If you reply here, please leave me a{{Talkback}} or {{Whisper Back}} message on my talk page.

Check your spelling; it doesn't look like there was ever a page at that title. Courcelles 03:01, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

It was a user page, and the original poster-User:Nicktraver-has since been indefed. There's nothing else that needs doing here. Admins only; see [94]. Courcelles 03:04, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I wasn't too sure what you mean by 'apply a note/warning' to the user - I blocked the user. Connormah (talk) 03:08, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I am asking because apparently I got this on my watch list, and I can not see what of mine was reverted. --Wolfnix • Talk • 03:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, I was talking about User:Peter Karlsen not User:Nicktraver Connormah, I read my watchlist wrong and seen an edit reverted on Peter's talk page, and then seen Peter's user page CSDed, Sleepy eyes crossed, and maded me think the reverts were on the user page (of Peters) and needed to find out what was reverted so I could apply whatever warning/notice I misplaced. --Wolfnix • Talk • 03:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

You can check in the page history of Peter's talkpage - he basically deleted a warning that you (I hope) mistakenly gave him - I assume the warning it was for the IP, not Peter, who actually reverted the vandalism on the page? Connormah (talk) 03:14, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Look at my comment above, that was trying to be posted during the dreaded edit-conflicts. If you look I did give the warning to the IP user, I am not sure why Peter got one, that is odd.--Wolfnix • Talk • 03:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

The history says that you gave a warning, reverted yourself, then added it again - strange. Connormah (talk) 03:22, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I understand what happened, I clicked the wrong link when going from the page that was vandalized. Instead of the IP page, I clicked his. The undo was because I used the wrong template. I see what the problem was, anyways. Sleepy eye editing makes the world cry, aye? --Wolfnix • Talk • 03:24, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Apologized to User:Peter Karlsen at his Talk Page, thanks for sticking with me :P --Wolfnix • Talk • 03:31, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:SPI

If there any admins out there who have a moment, could you possibly pop your head in at SPI? There's a backlog of cases that need attention. If you've never been involved with sockpuppet investigations, there are some handy instructions. I'd also be happy to answer any questions that come up. Thanks! TNXMan 15:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

AfC backlogged

Resolved

 – Backlog cleared. Chzz  ►  14:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Just a notice, WP:Articles for creation is severely backlogged. There's 130 submissions awaiting review if anyone feels like helping out. Those guys could probably use an extra hand to ease the workload. -- œ^™ 22:35, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I did almost all of them yesterday.  Chzz  ►  14:35, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

You are seriously awesome. File:Thumbsup emote.gif -- œ^™ 21:40, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Autoblock problem

Resolved

 – Survey says...not an open proxy. IP unblocked by xeno, IPBE granted by PhantomSteve.

There is an unblock request at User talk:Ositadinma. The user is reporting an autoblock, but I can find no evidence of a block. The autoblock finder returns "The requested IP address or username is not blocked." When I try to unblock I get "Error: Block ID not found. It may have been unblocked already." However, the user still claims to be blocked. Is there someone who knows how to deal with this situation who can step in? Or, failing that, someone cleverer than me at figuring out what to do? JamesBWatson (talk) 20:56, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

its not an autoblock, the user is attempting to edit from an open proxy that was hard blocked. the underling ip is still hardblocked. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 20:59, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's not an autoblock, but an IP block [95]. It looks like they are connecting through an IP that was blocked as an open proxy. –xeno^talk 21:01, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I think WP:IP block exemption is justified here, if they can give a reason why they're editing through an open proxy. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 21:04, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Can someone who knows about such things confirm that 24.243.178.229 is actually an open proxy. Ositadinma doesn't know why he/she is connected through one. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 21:35, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Has a request been made at WP:OPP? They'll be able to run a proxy check. —DoRD (talk) 21:57, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's open any longer - I wasn't able to connect through it just now, so I've unblocked. However, if it turns out I am in error feel free to reblock. –xeno^talk 22:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Need assistance of any Admin

There is an issue here: Talk:List_of_countries_by_number_of_troops#Pakistani_Armed_Forces, need assistance of any Admin to resolve the issue. --Talha^{Discuss ©} 04:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I offered two cents on personal attacks and edit warring there. Otherwise, that is a content issue and this is not the appropriate venue.--Kubigula (talk) 04:57, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Announcement: New Conflict of interest noticeboard design

Hello all! I have just completed a new design for the conflict of interest noticeboard, which is now live. The new design centers on creating an easy to understand reporting interface so our newer users can easily report conflicts of interest. This is done through the simplification of instructions, the hiding of instructions for helpers (which is now in a collapsed menu), and a new reporting form. If you have any questions or wish to provide feedback, please do so on the talk page. If there are more projects where you believe I can help, please do not hesitate to let me know. Thank you. Netalarm^talk 00:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

What's a revert?

Nope, this isn't a wandering help desk question. I'm requesting admin opinions here about the correct language to interpret the meaning of "revert" under our 3RR policy. And I was hoping to do so by asking people to scan and vet a draft statement that I plan to post to the talk page of a hotly disputed 1RR article. ( An article that I don't edit, btw. This is decidedly not a disguised attempt to gain points in some content dispute. I'm not involved in any. ) I'd also appreciate any opinions as to whether we need to change our 3RR documentation, perhaps adding examples, to try to make it less easy to misunderstand what is meant by a "revert".

This is what the policy says, at present:

A "revert" in the context of this rule means any edit (or administrative action) that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part. It can involve as little as one word. A series of consecutive saved revert edits by one user with no intervening edits by another user counts as one revert.

My impression is that many editors misconstrue this, and come up with a faulty understanding of "revert" that causes them to incorrectly believe:

• They can delete or restore anything without it "counting" for 3RR purposes if there's no current dispute about the passage(s) affected.
• A string of edits that's interrupted in the article's history by another editor can still count as a single edit so long as the other editor didn't change any passage(s) they were working on or vice-versa.

This confusion came up at 3RRNB recently, where an admin who's a longtime and frequent participant there corrected a user's beliefs to this effect. The errors do appear to be rather common, though, especially among newer users. They also appear to be fairly common among editors who gravitate toward controversial articles, but perhaps that might be so for different reasons. ;-)

To conserve space here at AN, I've saved the text I intend to post to the 1RR article's talk page here, in my userspace. Once this AN post rolls off to archives I'll probably recycle that userspace page for other purposes, btw. Thanks, all.  – OhioStandard (talk) 23:59, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Ohio. I agree that defining a revert often seems a bit too fuzzy in practice and better guidance would be a good thing. I was involved in a discussion a while ago where there seemed to be consensus that 3rr was only breached if your edit was exactly the same in all three cases. Which can't be right, surely?

You say They can delete or restore anything without it "counting" for 3RR purposes if there's no current dispute about the passage(s) affected. I'm not sure when this would apply. Unless an editor is just self-reverting, surely it is not possible that reverts would take place without some sort of dispute over content being the case (?).

On the second point, I'm not sure. A strict reading of policy might mean that if you get interrupted then you have made two reverts. But this might not be very fair. If you and I are edit-warring and someone happens to make an unrelated edit at the same time as I am making a string of changes, surely this is just bad luck on my part. Why should your string be counted as one revision and mine as two? --FormerIP (talk) 00:26, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

"The four or more reverts that constitute a violation of the rule may involve the same or different material each time." – from the 3RR policy page.  – OhioStandard (talk) 02:12, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I've always felt uncomfortable about strictly enforcing "no intervening edits by another user" If an editor is busily reverting away a pile of additions he didn't care for, and another editor is going through doing maintenance work like correcting genres in infoboxes of dozens of articles, a collision in time between those series of edits doesn't suddenly turn one reversion into two. The editors weren't fighting, and probably weren't even conscious of each other's existence.—Kww(talk) 00:29, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

@FormerIP, I think it is entirely possible to "revert" when there's no current dispute. I've been watching it happen on the article in question. It's on 1RR restriction, but editors on both sides still come in and weed-whack anything they don't like, and presumably think to themselves, "The text I'm deleting only 'stuck' after a fierce battle three weeks ago, or three days ago, or whatever, but I can delete via multiple edits now because it's not under current dispute." I think those kinds of wholesale POV reverts are exactly what the rules are designed to prevent, or at least slow down. If you haven't looked at the text I proposed you might like to, and see what you think.

@Kww:I understand your reluctance, and I'd probably feel similarly in practice. The issue would probably never come up, though, re any non-controversial article; no one would ever raise it. But I think there does need to be a "bright line" somewhere, to support the rule for controversial articles. And I think that "bright line" has to be at the article–change level; otherwise I think we're asking admins at 3RRNB to undertake an impossible task, as I explain in the draft text I asked people to vet. Thoughts?  – OhioStandard (talk) 01:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) To be honest, I've always believed 3rr to be one of the most thoroughly gamed policies on wikipedia, and I suspect attempts to clarify it (such as this) will just serve as more lawyer-fodder. really, the whole concept is misguided: I've gotten 3rr blocks in the past (back when I was a newb), and each time it was because I was trying to edit in what I thought was a reasonable point and and got tag-teamed by a bunch of uncommunicative a$$h%les. Now I've learned how to play the game better, but the obvious point is that it shouldn't be a game one has to learn in the first place. personally, I think we should deprecate 3rr, at least as it applies to individuals. I think that if a page falls into a edit/revert loop of any sort (which doesn't need to be defined more than the page is going around in circles rather than progressing), the page should get a brief lock to stop both sides, the discussion should be reviewed, and everyone on whichever side was refusing to communicate properly (could be both sides, but it's always the case that one side is refusing to communicate) should get put on 1rr. It doesn't matter who the first one to violate 3rr is, because the situation explicitly requires that both sides are behaving badly. The disposition of the problem should be based on the broad concept of which editors are violating the consensus process, not on some narrow perception of who made the most salient or recent mistake. --Ludwigs2 01:11, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Broadly speaking, I tend to agree. If I see two people who were edit warring, and one clearly goading the other into "technically" stepping over the line, I'll just block the both of them. On the other hand, if it is a case of one editor reverting multiple others, that's a problem. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:17, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Any kind of revert war (1-on-1, 1-on-many, many-on-1, many-on-many) is a problem. My point is that the numbers on each side are often used as a metric of worth, when in fact they shouldn't be. Personally, I'd say if you had one newb editor trying to make an edit and trying to be communicative being reverted by four experienced editors who only use elliptical edit summaries, the four experienced editors are in the wrong, and ought to get a collective 1rr. that has nothing to do with whether they are right in terms of content, mind you - further discussion would probably show that they are (experienced editors usually have something right going on). but they don't get to skip the discussion phase just because they're experienced, and they sure as heck shouldn't be allowed trap newbs into 3rr violations just by being obstructionist, which is one of the major uses of 3rr. --Ludwigs2 01:44, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

See, I tend to find 3RR worthless for different reasons that Ludwigs2 does. I have, in many years of administrative actions, never once mentioned 3RR as a rationale when blocking someone OR when reviewing an unblock request. Why? Because there is a policy, written out at WP:EDITWAR, which is adequate. Every 3RR violation is also an edit war, but not every edit war is necessarily a 3RR violation. So 3RR is completely superfluous. The main problem with 3rr is the main problem with speed limits. It's a theoretical maximum that everyone treats as a minimum. Thus, as long as someone can maintain a rate of exactly 3 reverts in no more than 24:01, they think they can maintain that rate forever. They act as though they have a God-given right to 3 reverts every 24 hours. But the existance of that mentality is itself an edit war violation. As I tell people who try to have a bookeeping discussion when defending themselves against 3RR. "Even if you didn't violate 3RR, you did violate WP:EDITWAR, and the block to stop you from edit warring is exactly the same". --Jayron32 01:35, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

See the history of the Selena article on what's a revert is, as long as you have three or less reverts that isn't vandalism, unsourced, etc in a 24 hour period, you are normally fine. I used to blocked editors for edit warring if it's a clear violation of the rules or the revert war is silly or they do lets say 4 reverts on a 30 hour period knowing that they know the rules of 3RR. If it's one user against many or two users against each other the best method is to block, if it's multiple people edit warring, the best method is to protect. Secret ^account 01:47, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Jayron, I have to say that's well put, and less sour-grapesy than my own perspective. --Ludwigs2 01:48, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

( Oops, missed the previous posts somehow. My response below was intended primarily for Seraphimblade.  – OhioStandard (talk) 01:54, 14 September 2010 (UTC) )

I'm not trying to be glib, but how do you know when one editor is reverting multiple others? I think the only way to answer that question is to spell out just what you mean by "revert" and "reverting". It's a hard question to get one's head around, and it would take great care (and examples!) to document one's answer properly. A related question is this: Suppose two editors have a similar outlook on a given controversy. One added text and refs to an article two weeks ago. The other added text and refs just an hour ago. Does the first editor's contribution deserve less protection under revert rules than those made by the second editor? I say "no, they deserve equal protection." Should someone be free to delete any text he disapproves of beyond 1RR or 3RR restrictions in 24 hours, just because it wasn't added very recently? Again, I say "no". I honestly think that's what the revert policy says, too, or at least what it's trying to say: "Equal protection under law." :-)  – OhioStandard (talk) 01:50, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Again, if you use WP:EDITWAR, you can not even worry about defining a revert. There are only 3 kinds of edit wars, really:

• One person tries to add some new information, the information is removed and the person is asked to use the talk page to discuss. They refuse, and continually try to re-add it. Per WP:BURDEN, you block them for edit warring.
• Two people are fighting back and forth over some aspect of the article. Both are edit warring. Block them both.
• Two groups of people are edit warring all over the place. Protect the article.

That's about it. You don't worry about what a revert is. You look at things like the general flow of the edits, evidence of trying to game the system, how long ago the war stopped, or if it is ongoing, who is using talk pages, where the WP:BURDEN of evidence lies, the comments left in edit summaries. What is usually the convincing evidence for me is language or behavior that indicates an intent to continue to edit war. That usually is the sign that a block or protection is needed. --Jayron32 02:00, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I really like your idea of giving WP:EDITWAR precedence over WP:3RR, but I still think we need to define the terms "revert" and "edit war". Otherwise it's just all subjective, and I don't see how we can all even discuss the subject area, really. Without objective definitions it just becomes a matter of an admin saying "I know it when I see it". That's no doubt true in your case, Jayron, but it's not knowledge that others can easily draw upon when you're not around. Other admins may see it differently, as well, and it really shouldn't just be "luck of the draw" for a user who goes to 3RRNB or, if you prefer, the "Edit Warring notice board". It's very frustrating for users when they find that results depend very heavily on which admin happens to respond at any given time. People get discouraged about trying to help enforce any rules at all when no one can say precisely what they are, and there's accordingly little consistency in how they're interpreted and applied by those with the power to enforce them.

But I do want to ask you to expand on your opinion re about the temporal aspect of this. If I understand the implications of what you wrote just above, you seem to be saying that two or more people have to be engaged on opposing sides of a content dispute pretty much in real time, or pretty close to real time, for any notion of a revert to come into play. Is that correct? I ask because I know at least one other admin who spends considerable time at 3RRNB is of the opinion that it doesn't matter how long ago text was restored or deleted, that both recent edits and non-recent ones are appropriately accorded the same status under these policies. Am I correct in thinking that you disagree with that?  – OhioStandard (talk) 02:55, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Not exactly. What I am saying is that I look for certain behavioral cues before deciding on how to handle an edit war violation. First is the question: Is this active and ongoing? Like, if I don't take action, will the problematic behavior continue? Or if I let this go, or attempt a non-sanctioning method (engage in discussion, refer to WP:DR), do I believe the behavior will stop? That is always criteria number 1 in any block/protection rationale for me. After all, admin tools are meant to stop disruption, not to punish or penalize past bad behavior. They exist solely to stop ongoing or likely problems. So, even if I can recognize that 3 days ago someone reverted 4 times in a 24 hour period, I may let such a violation pass if it is also clear that that person has modified that behavior and is now, for example, engaging in constructive dialogue on the talk page and has ceased editing the article in question. On the other hand, if the second time someone reverts, they publish an edit summary which says something like "Go ahead and take my edits out. I'll just put it back again. I can do this all day". Well, then I block immediately, because they have expressed a clear intent to continue to disrupt. I will do this even if they person has not approached the 3RR limit, because the expressed intent is clear. It is unhelpful to adhear slavishly to an artificial limit. A block should not short-circuit a productive discussion; if the edit war has clearly stopped there's no use in handing down a block. If the edit war is clearly going to continue, there's no use in waiting for the fourth revert before blocking. Secondly, sometimes its obvious when something is a revert: a user has just used the undo function, or has obviously copy-pasted their prefered version of the article. No brainer there. However, other behaviors could be edit warring, such as constantly adding the same ideas, even if the actual text varies, so wouldn't technically be revert. --Jayron32 03:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Re-reading what I just wrote, I see it could be misinterpreted as somewhat sarcastic. I didn't intend it that way at all; I was wholly serious when I wrote that you (Jayron) no doubt recognize edit warring when you see it. I know you've been around here quite awhile now, and that you know what you're doing when you intervene in content conflicts that interfere with productivity.  – OhioStandard (talk) 03:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

IMO, edit warring is actually easier to recognize than reverts because it doesn't need to take into account editor's intentions. Any time you see an article cycle back and forth between two (or more) versions, possibly with minor variations, maybe quickly, maybe slowly, but with no sign that any discussion is taking place which could possibly result in consensus or an end to the page cycling, you have an edit war. It's like one of those situations in chess where no one can win, but both players refuse to call it a draw in the hopes that their opponent will do something stupid. This boils down to maybe 3 cases:

• Where editors ignore the talk page entirely and speak to each other only in edit summaries, with no progress.
• Where one editor or side tries to create a talk page discussion but is ignored by the other editor/side, who only speak(s) in edit summaries
• Where a talk page discussion exists, but it's not a consensus discussion - one or both sides use the talk page only to vilify the others, to make simple declarative statements that are not subject to compromise, or to fly off into tangential diatribes intended to explain why they can and should continue making the same edit they have been making all along.

In other words, any time you run across page that makes you feel totally constipated, you've stepped into an edit war. --Ludwigs2 06:02, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the technical nature of the 3RR rule is problematic. I got my first 3RR warning from an admin after an habitual, uncommunicative edit warrior had removed a sentence with a fact tag as unverified. My crime was restoring the sentence with a source, and to my great astonishment it was "correct" to count this as a revert according to the rules. Even worse, I have recently seen an admin seriously claim that self-reverts count towards 3RR. Fortunately that's totally false since self-reverts are an explicit exception. But I think it underlines the potential for abuse. Hans Adler 16:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

• I agree that "what is a revert" is the Achilles heel of 3RR - at the margin it gets very messy in multiple ways, some of which have been mentioned above. This is partly why WP:3RR was merged into WP:EW - because 3RR is trying to help get a handle on edit warring, and it doesn't always help. Under a very strict definition of "revert" constructive editing can be severely inhibited; it is very easy for a series of constructive changes back and forth - collaborative editing in the best sense, not warring at all - to exceed 3RR. Taking a severe approach can easily drive away good faith editors, and leave edit warriors who are willing to play the game. I don't have any easy answer, but I would encourage admins to emphasise their judgement on whether behaviour is edit warring in context over whether 3RR has been technically exceeded. Rd232 ^talk 18:01, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I find I have to talk things over with others, sometimes, before I can hone in on the question I really want to ask. That's been the case here, I find, so thank you all for the good discussion on the general issue. But I can now express what I was asking about more clearly:

It's easy for an admin to identify edit warring or inappropriate reversions when an editor deletes content that another editor added an hour ago. What's not easy, but nevertheless seems really important to me, is to try to be clear about the circumstances under which we count a removal of opposing content as relevant to 1RR when that content was not added recently. Clearly, admins have the right to "count" such deletion under 1RR. Consider:

• [A revert] may involve the same or different material each time.
• A "revert" in the context of this rule means any edit that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part.

This does not say "any edit that reverses the recent actions of other editors", please note. There is no time-limit requirement stated here, and no requirement that the passage(s) deleted or restored must be under current dispute to "count" for 1RR purposes. This gives administrators considerable discretion to decide. So the question I have is this:

• How many of you will you allow an editor in a hotly-contested 1RR article to delete opposing content more than once per day if the content he removes wasn't added recently?

Can an editor use "his daily 1RR" revert to delete some content added by an opponent an hour ago, and then also walk through the article like a shopper pushing a cart down a grocery aisle and just remove (or restore) whatever additional content he chooses to suit his POV? Merely because that additional content was added (or removed) a year ago or a month ago, and is thus not under current dispute? Doing so might violate other policies, but does it violate 1RR or not? That's the crux of my question. Thanks,  – OhioStandard (talk) 04:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Short answer: probably. Longer answer: recency of content may not be specified in the policy, but it's implied in the nature of what it's trying to prevent (edit warring). If the content has been there a long time and is not subject of current discussion, than changes related to it are not edit warring. In addition, if recency is ignored, then the distinction between an edit and a revert virtually collapses. That said, the way you put the example makes it sound like it could still be part of WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour and possibly WP:GAMEing in furtherance of a wider edit war. Rd232 ^talk 09:59, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

To Ohiostandard's latest scenario: At this point, this is becomeing too specific for my comfort without diffs and background. It seems obvious that Ohiostandard has a specific event or events in mind. I would have a hard time saying "yes, you should block this user" or "no, you should not block them" without seeing more details on the specific set of events that led to this discussion. The tone of Ohiostandard's post makes it seem if he has a pony in this race (sorry if I misinterpreted that, but the tone indicates you personally disapprove of this editor), and so I would not feel comfortable commenting one way or the other without being able to see the details for myself. --Jayron32 14:14, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

@Jayron: I have no pony, not in the way you're thinking, anyway. I do have one article principally in mind, as I said at the very beginning of this post, where I also wrote that I'm not involved in any content dispute and that I don't edit the article I'm thinking of. It turns out that second statement wasn't strictly correct, btw, as I found when I searched its edit history just now. I'd forgotten that I'd made one small change which didn't stick, and one that did. So maybe I have a hamster in the race, but I'm not attached to it in a deeply emotional way. ;-)

The interest I have is that when I first came across this article I was so appalled at the edit warring going on that I wanted to do something about it. That's where most of the tone you notice in my hypothetical comes from. But instead of reporting anyone on either side to any of the boards, I thought it would be a better plan to just watch its edit history for awhile, and see if things settled down. They didn't, and I'll admit that I've thought about the possibility of such a report. I eventually posted a blandly phrased reminder to the article's talk page that the article is on 1RR, not directing that to any individual or either side, and things seemed to slow down a little. I also contacted the one individual user who I noticed as being most prolific in his reverts recently, saying explicitly that I was in no way doubting his good faith, but that he seemed to be exceeding 1RR as I understand the rule on almost a daily basis.

Now you're all smart enough look in my edit history and fill in the details from this information, if you haven't done so before, but I've not been more explicit because I don't want this to become about any particular article or user. And although I do want the regular editors on the article I've been (not) talking about here to dial it down, I do not want anyone blocked. The interaction is by no means rancorous there, anyway; most editors are at least superficially polite most of the time, but there's also an awful lot of polite reverting going on, too, much more than seems right or productive to me.

I'll end my disclosure of interest, Jayron, by saying that I've been going back and forth about informing the user I mentioned above about this present thread, and that I decided yesterday that I wanted to do that, but didn't want to do it publicly. I went to "mail this user", and was disappointed to discover that he doesn't have e-mail enabled. I'd been reluctant previously, because I started this thread to ask admins about their interpretations of the policy, about how they interpret it in actual practice, and didn't want it to become specific enough for anyone to personalize it. Also, my initial reluctance and my desire to use e-mail were/are because I didn't want this thread to become a broader discussion where a great many non-admins might move it toward a general free-for-all with comments like, "Yeah, I was blocked this one time for nothing! Let me tell you about it..." If people see that as inappropriately selfish or view it as improper, well ... "slap my hamster!", is all I can say... Actually, that sounds really unpleasant, so nevermind that. Don't do that, please.

Wow. All that real-estate so necessarily off-topic re the question I asked. Well, let me at least close with one substantive reply: @Rd232: Thanks for answering my question; I appreciate that. It occurs to me that an affirmative answer rewards "motivated" editors, such as SPAs who are willing and able to camp out on an article, to the detriment of more neutral, less involved ones. But I realize a contrary answer to my "crux" question has its drawbacks too, of course. Best,  – OhioStandard (talk) 17:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Another assistance request

Hi, currently, the page for Antonio Valencia is being spammed with a rather distasteful picture. Last night, Valencia had his ankle broken in a football game, which has led User:TheHurter to add the current picture of Valencia, with an added caption of pain, combined with his leg missing. IPs have been attempting to revert this, but to no avail, as TheHurter undos this. Now, I've noticed some incivility on User talk:TheHurter, so something tells me that warnings/discussion from me are going to be in vain. Any help? Paralympiakos (talk) 11:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

That image was pure vandalism. Deleted. Courcelles 11:33, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Probably the best idea. Is that going to end the matter or is someone going to have a word with the user? To me, it seems like a primarily vandalism-based account. Paralympiakos (talk) 11:34, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Nope, I had to review some of the account's old edits, but I found almost nothing worthwhile in the 39. Indeffed as VOA. Courcelles 11:36, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. See this, this, this and this. Paralympiakos (talk) 11:40, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

How are those evidence I shouldn't have blocked the account? Reread my comment please- I did block him, and I don't think we disagree. Courcelles 11:43, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Little misunderstanding here. Given the context, when you said "I found almost nothing worthwhile in the 39", I thought you meant nothing worth talking to the user about. VOA meant nothing to me until I looked it up a moment ago, so I was just confused. No problem. Matter over. Paralympiakos (talk) 11:46, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Argh, I'm falling into the three-letter nonsense again! Even on WP, WP-speak can be nonsense sometimes. Sorry about that. Courcelles 11:53, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. I get most of them, but strangely that one threw me. Chalk this one up to me not being a veteran around this page. Cheers for the assistance! Paralympiakos (talk) 11:55, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned with the image on the user's user and talk pages, particularly when combined with the text above the image. —DoRD (talk) 15:01, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that is concerning to me as well. I can't see any encyclopedic content to this image; maybe it needs to be IFD'd on Commons. I'm not going to do it because I am unfamiliar with the process on Commons though.

Could we possibly have anything actionable with that picture and the username and the text? Sounds to me like The Hurter might be a child abuser and he's bragging about it... maybe I'm reading too much into it though. —Alison (Crazytales) (talk) 18:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I've nominated the image for deletion at Commons. Nyttend (talk) 18:15, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Lanark Grammar School 1

Lanark Grammar School 1, Lanark Grammar School 2 and Lanark Grammar School 3 were recently blocked and unblocked by Cirt upon my request, but they fall quite short of the username policy (see their talkpages and userpages). They claim to be under the supervision of User:Blackt4098, aka User:Tb240904, and I have posted on the user's talkpage here regarding my concerns]. He said that an administrator would look into it, but it seems like the matter was ignored. Could someone please help address these users and take it up again? Thanks. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 23:10, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Just to note that I found this a rather confusing report, since as demonstrated these look like articles, not usernames. :) These are pretty clearly a problem under our username policy. I've notified User:Tb240904 about this thread; maybe he can clarify what admin is looking into it or what's going on. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:23, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

See this discussion at the Village Pump. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 12:37, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, helpful! And also here. No action since. I'm inclined to go ahead and softblock on the username issue. I presume that the problems with group accounts are now understood based on the ANI thread. "They" haven't edited at all, and there should be no issue with simply creating new accounts for them, even if their IP is blocked. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:59, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I expressed the opinion in the ANI discussion that the usernames were violations of our username policy, but others disagreed with me so I let it go. I certainly have no objection to blocking them now. I explained to the teacher why it was in their best interest as well to not allow the students to share accounts. -- Atama頭 17:10, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

He's actually not a teacher, but a student himself. :) I'll go ahead and block, then, and we'll see where it goes from here. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:33, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I was led to believe he was a teacher by the comment at the Village Pump, where he stated, "I plan on organising a research project in school in which several of our students would research the local area then contribute their research to either the English wikipedia or the Simple English wikipedia (dependant on their competancy in English). Each student would have their own account on Wikipedia, which myself and any staff involved would monitor for any vandalism, but the school's IP address is currently blocked due to vandalism by other students." I thought that by "our students" and "myself and any staff involved" there was an implication that this person was a teacher or other kind of supervisor. Also, I'm used to the American definition of grammar school where students are much younger than the person appeared to be. -- Atama頭 19:46, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I would have thought so, too, if not for that note on his userpage. It's a bit confusing. Maybe he's leading a senior project or something of younger students? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Help with AIV

I copy an entry from AIV:

• 87.8.52.57 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) - Tripped filter 17 (Prolific socker) (details). Mr.Z-bot (talk) 16:24, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

How did this IP trip the filter, seeing that it has no contributions and no deleted contributions? I'd appreciate input on this, especially since the edit shown in the "details" link doesn't appear in the relevant contributions history. Nyttend (talk) 18:23, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Click the "details" which shows you how they tripped the filter with an attempted edit. –xeno^talk 18:24, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

That's what I mean — the edit history shows that they didn't perform an edit that changed 475 to 774 or 650 to 750. Nyttend (talk) 18:26, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

The edit filter disallowed the action. This was (apparently) a false positive, as indicated by Soap (talk · contribs) in the liner notes of filter 17. –xeno^talk 18:27, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, so edit filters can prevent certain edits? I'm sorry, but I never realised that they did anything more than adding those little comments such as "(Tag: references removed)". As far as I knew, the spam blacklists were the only ways we had of preventing edits, other than blocking and protection. Nyttend (talk) 18:29, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Yep, see Wikipedia:EFM#Actions which can be assigned in response to filtered edits. And no worries. –xeno^talk 18:32, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes.. the AbuseFilter is one powerful tool.. It's impressed me a number of times, I'm really grateful for it quite honestly. -- œ^™ 18:35, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I took a look at the edit filter logic, and as I read it, it will block any new user from editing any of the articles that match its article-selection criteria. The actual change is not examined, beyond the size of the change. This appears to effectively impose a limited form of semi-protection. Any new IP users who attempt to edit will have their edits blocked and will be reported to AN/AIV. Looking at recent hits in the edit filter log, I see a mix of good faith edits and minor vandalism, which is likely just the random mix we normally get from new IPs. I don't think these hits have anything to do with the intended purpose of this filter. -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 23:31, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Twinkle Issue

There seems to be an issue with Twinkle right now that is causing problems with reverting changes and tagging pages for CSD, among other things. This problem seems to be hitting NPP pretty hard, because users there have to manually tag and warn for all CSDs. Particularly if an admin has a grasp of the TW code, it might be worthwhile looking into. See WT:Twinkle#Not loading and WT:Twinkle/Bugs#TW-B-403 (new). --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 00:33, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Javascript issue with the Tampa Servers - see this discussion.  7  00:46, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

So this is what the problem is (was?). I was having trouble reverting around 23:45 UTC, but successfully did so at 00:32. Still, I can't protect pages, warn users, etc. Hope it's fixed soon :). Airplaneman ✈ 00:57, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe purge your cache... easyblock started working for me again. For those out there far smarter than me, the spike in this graph may shed light on the problem.  7  01:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

History merge question

I offered to do a history merge on 10 articles into one - see here, but after reading Wikipedia:History merge I am thinking just making the others into redirects and putting a note on the talk page of the new main article would work better. Does the GFDL require a history merge or would this just be a big mess? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:38, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I think attribution notes are fine. —fetch·comms 03:50, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

A history merge would be a big mess due to the dissimilar and likely interleaved histories. A normal merge would be better. If someone does the merging and redirecting per Help:Merging#Performing the merger – please try to use the recommended edit summaries and {{R from merge}} – I'll do the {{Copied}} tags on the talk pages per WP:Copying within Wikipedia. The content may fall under "Simple, non-creative lists of information", but I think it's better to link the originals just in case. Flatscan (talk) 04:17, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - I will work on this today. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 11:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe my part is done. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:42, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

The tags look good. I'm seeing slowness and proxy errors when trying to view diffs, but I'll finish the {{Copied}} tags in the next few days. Flatscan (talk) 04:27, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Unprotected image on the Main Page Part VIII

We let File:King James II by Alexis Simon Belle.jpeg sit on the main page for two hours and 5 minutes before it ended up being protected....... ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 02:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Darn bot. Whenever I think of it I check, but alas I didn't today. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 03:23, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

At least there wasn't a fish this time. Kitties are much cuter. Kindzmarauli (talk) 03:26, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

• When was the last time one of these unprotected images on the mainpage got vandalized? Do you think that continually posting about the lack of protection in a high profile location will increase or decrease the probability of one of the images being vandalized? –xeno^talk 18:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

• Δ, could you modify your bot to warn admins before the image hits the main page? That's what I've done for DYK.
• @Xeno: File:Meister von San Vitale in Ravenna.jpg and File:Lyon0002soft.JPG were vandalized in April 2009 while on the Main page. Don't know of any more recent examples. Shubinator (talk) 02:38, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Review my actions, please

I've create protected Marty and Doug's New Religion; please see its deletion log. Is this appropriate (as I think it is), or should I have waited until it had been deleted more times? Feel free to unprotect without asking me if you think that I should have waited. Nyttend (talk) 11:02, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

• The title isn't encyclopedic by any stretch of the imagination - a new religion would be titled after the new religion, not the fact that it is the particular new religion that Marty and Doug came up with. WP:HAMMER may also apply, as well - if the religion has no name as yet, it's unlikely to be notable. On point, three recreations in a short span of time says that yes, protection is warranted. The name issue justifies the indef protection; if for some reason the name becomes usable for a notable topic, it's simple enough to unprotect. Good call here. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:28, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Psst! It's the title of some "web show", not a religion. Uncle G (talk) 13:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
    • lol fail --Golbez (talk) 13:56, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
      • Whoops! Looking at the deleted content, though, I still think WP:SALT was properly applied. And there's more fail here than my own, I'm glad to say. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:15, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
• See also Marty and doug's new religion (AfD discussion). Uncle G (talk) 13:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Pallet

I was wondering if I could get views from admins for a project I am working on. I am currently creating a bot platform called Pallet you can read more about it here, here and here. I would like to see this platform helping admins by running their bots which does tasks like moving, deleting, protecting, etc. The bot policy requires me to be an admin, which I am not. But since this platform will be running bots from admins, not me and if I develop the platform to require an admin to approve these bots before they are run, can the platform have admin rights to run these bots? Because this is a collaborative open-source project the source code will be available to show that the platform will only pick up bots from Wikipedia and approval from an admin is check when the bot is running admin tasks. d'oh! _talk 07:15, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you could develop the platform, but you wouldn't be allowed to run any bots with +sysop. To make it more clear, you may never know the password to an account with sysop permissions. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 07:41, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I thought so, but doesn't hurt to ask. Thanks Kingpin. d'oh! _talk 08:01, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Hm, I think that a bot with +sysop that can be operated by proxy would probably not be approved (notwithstanding the fact that operators of adminbots must be admins themselves). It would be best to build it with the user functions first and once it is proven then perhaps you could see about adding the admin functions to it, to be operated by admins only (with TUSC authentication and probably a further in-house approval to ensure they are qualified to execute queries using the proposed WQL). –xeno^talk 13:11, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan. d'oh! _talk 17:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, there are a few sandbox wikis where you can test stuff out, like testwiki:Main Page. If you show a legit need for the sysop flag for development purposes, you can get admin rights there. Shubinator (talk) 15:09, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, this will come in handy when testing the admin functions in the future. d'oh! _talk 17:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Iran related issue

I've had an off-Wiki communication re a problem with an Iran-related article. This is outside my area of expertise and I was wondering if there is an Admin who has knowledge of the area of editing that would be better placed to look into the complaint and see it it is justified. An allegation of outing is part of the complaint, but from what I can tell, the complainant has already self-identified their real name on Wikipedia, so no such outing can have taken place. Mjroots (talk) 20:04, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Is self-identifying or has self-identified. Its not a trivial matter. If a user revealed their real identity once a long time ago, but has made pains to cleans all current pages, such as their user and user talk page, of current evidence of their identity, its usually good ettiquete to not go digging, nor to attempt to re-out them. If it took some level of research to find someone's real identity by digging through old posts, it could still be considered outing if the user appears to wish to remain anonymous today. --Jayron32 20:31, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Has self-identified. The editor posted an image of himself in the article in question, and named himself in the caption. That is not to say that other issues raised are not worthy of investigation. It is possible that some of the issues raised are valid, but I don't feel that I have the necessary knowledge of the topic to be able to fully investigate the complaint in a way that would be fair to both accuser and accused. Mjroots (talk) 20:55, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, this is getting complicated. Another editor was indeffed by me for outing the complainant back in May. The self-identification seems to have been more recent though. Mjroots (talk) 21:01, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like somebody who self-identified is trying to get an opponent blocked by complaining of "outing." If they posted a picture of themselves with their name appended, they can't really complain. Easy peasy.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:04, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe not. There was no mention of getting editors blocked in the e-mail I received. An outline of the complaint, with a couple of editors named and a request re what to do. I've not replied to the complainant yet. I've had a quick look at the editing history of those complained about, and also of articles mentioned. It appears that there may be at least some substance in parts of the complaint. The outing issue may also be worthy of full investigation, if only to settle the issue one way or another. Mjroots (talk) 21:09, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Banned vandal soapboxing on talk pages

Some of the last round of User:ECW500 socks are soapboxing and making silly accusations towards other editors, myself included, on their talk pages. See also [96] [97] [98]

Would anyone consider either reblocking the latest batch of socks to disallow talk page editing, fully protecting the talk pages, or both? McJEFF ^(talk) 19:03, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Going forward, that person's socks should probably be blocked with talkpage disabled right off the bat. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 23:28, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I've done those three. Haven't looked at all the rest to see if this needs doing on a wider scale. Courcelles 07:37, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and disabled talk page access to all the accounts, given the history here. Additionally, I found another sleeper; Newel Owlishly (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki). They are now blocked. Tiptoety ^talk 06:13, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

AWB request for registration

Hi. Could someone take a look at my registration request for AWB use? I applied on the 15th. Thanks Frank (Urashima Tarō) (talk) 23:12, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Done. Sorry that it took some time. —fetch·comms 02:40, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Trainweb images

Due to a recent discussion on WP:PUF, I've come across the {{trainweb}} template. It's flown under the radar for years, however the site and the template both clearly indicate that trainweb images are non-commercial and non-derivative only - there was a TFD at the beginning of the year that confirmed as much. However, all or near all the images are being used in a free sense (e.g., in galleries) and don't have a fair use rationale. I'm trying to go through the images one-by-one to determine which are only being used in replaceably-free ways (and marking {{subst:rfu}}), which are irreplaceable (and adding a rationale), and which are being used as both (adding a rationale, and removing the image from the other pages). This could take a bit, the number of images is in the 81-90 range; any help would be appreciated. Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:56, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

That licensing tag is useless and misleading to user who don't understand copyright very well. I don't see why an uploader cannot tag it with a {{non-free fair use in}} and add a FUR with a real, non-boilerplate explanation for its use. I might TfD this template again if no one else does so soon. —fetch·comms 02:36, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

The template specifically states that a FUR must also be used. If editors aren't adding a FUR, then that should be dealt with in the usual way. Mjroots (talk) 05:59, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I recently changed the template to be more specific. Before it just said the images are released "for any purpose", which is patently false (like I said... it flew under the radar). Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Helmuth Nyborg

The article mentions something about an Olympic competitor. However I am not sure that this is the same person as the one that the article is about. Can someone see to this and correct it if necessary?--Nomenclaturehedonism (talk) 21:47, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, they're two different people, and both have articles; I've edited Nyborg's to remove the spurious info and added a hatnote. Black Kite (t) (c) 22:35, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

It seems likely to me that they are the same person. The Olympic canoeist was Helmuth Nyborg Sørenson; the personal web page for Helmuth Nyborg lists him as Helmuth Sørenson Nyborg. Both appear to have birth dates of 1937, although it's difficult to verify this for the professor because of dead links in his article refs. Looie496 (talk) 22:38, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've just been alerted to the fact that last names are often dropped from Danish names ... in which case they could well be. If that's the case, the articles need to be merged. Black Kite (t) (c) 22:48, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

The professor's Curriculum Vitae [99] (PDF) makes it clear that he's the kayaker as well. They are the same person, so merging is correct. — Gavia immer (talk) 00:36, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Poll on interim use of PC

I have an RfC for the wording of a poll I'm going to run from Monday->Sunday on the interim use of PC while the Foundation works on the new version, due out November 9th.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:11, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Why has this been posted only to the administrator's noticeboard? Is it only the opinions of administrators that are to be given any weight? Malleus Fatuorum 14:45, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

It couldn't possibly be because that's the most prominent place Jimmy could think of on short notice. Obviously, it was meant to hide this from you personally, since only administrators ever read this noticeboard or are capable of doing so — which clearly explains why you were unable to see this notice. — Coren ^(talk) 14:56, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I suppose it's also a well known fact the Signpost is restricted to administrators so that publicizing it there is tantamount to making it a state secret. — Coren ^(talk) 15:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Such a sarcastic way to avoid the question Coren, the answer to which is, of course, self-evident. Malleus Fatuorum 15:02, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure I approve of having this RfC on your talkpage, but regardless of that, is there going to be some format to this, or just a free for all? I would be in support of having a separate sub-section for each proposal, and keeping all discussion within that sub-section specific to that proposal and user's opinions of it. Otherwise I fear things may become too cluttered. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 15:04, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

• Perhaps it could be listed on the centralised discussion box? That would help overcome some of the difficulties of having an RfC in usertalk space, surely? DuncanHill (talk) 16:38, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

In the absence of any objections, I have taken my own advice and listed it on WP:CENT. DuncanHill (talk) 06:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I've also linked the RfC at the Village Pump/Policy, and at Wikipedia talk:Pending changes, these being the places it struck me as most appropriate. I believe the text I used was neutral in tone and content (of course, I welcome review). I think the combination of announcements here, at the Signpost talk page, WP:CENT, VPP and the Pending Changes talk page should be sufficient. DuncanHill (talk) 06:38, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit Filter Manager request

Hello everyone! I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but my request for the edit filter manager group at Wikipedia talk:Edit filter has been open for nearly a month, and it would be nice if an uninvolved administrator could close it. Thanks! - EdoDodo ^talk 14:52, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Courcelles 15:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! - EdoDodo ^talk 15:08, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Please review my use of WP:RD2

Hello all, I've deleted three revisions of Bisexuality, as can be seen here and here. Admins, could you please review my actions (first time using RD2)? I'd like to get a better feel for what qualifies and what doesn't. Thanks, Airplaneman ✈ 21:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not that confident with revdelete myself, but it sure wasn't unreasonable. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 23:32, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Seems a fine use to me. That looks like a gross BLP violation, which is exactly what RD2 is intended for, at least by my reading of it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Criteria 2 - BLP vio. No encyclopaedia value. I'd say the rev-del was fine. TFOWR 23:40, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all! Airplaneman ✈ 00:37, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I also revdeleted the IP's only other edit, which was along the same lines as the above diffs. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:20, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Renamed Imposter

So this popped up in my watchlist, and I noticed that the account has now been renamed 'Renamed Imposter', which it kinda obviously is - I wonder where the best spot to read up on the policy / process by which imposter accounts are renamed now is, and I also wanted to flag the obvious fact that when edits are reverted the original username is preserved in the diff - somewhat negating the point of renaming an account - if the intention is to occasionally remove libel / bad stuff from the username log, then it hasn't worked in this case. Personally I'm uncomfortable with the amount of renaming / rev. hiding etc. that's going on, so would like to read where decisions are being made, and process evolving :-) Privatemusings (talk) 10:02, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Well you have to look a bit harder to see the name that was used originally, eg in the history of the user talk page. However other people will not be confused by this as the context is pretty clear in those logs. They could be hidden by more log redaction, but probably better to leave some visible evidence of the imposter's actions. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:36, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Renaming a user isn't the same as hiding the user name, as it leaves a trace visible to all people with access to Wikipedia. In this case, as you can see from the talk page history, the original name is "Ottava". עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe the primary goal of the rename was to remove it from special:Listusers/Ottava, which has been accomplished in this case. As a point of order, this probably belongs at WP:BN as opposed to AN. –xeno^talk 14:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

New Pending Changes poll launched

Wikipedia:Pending changes/Straw poll on Interim Usage

I welcome assistance in publicizing this appropriately.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Close and keep are muddled... :/. Think I've fixed this :D - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 12:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Have listed it on WP:CENT, Village Pump/Policy, and Talk:Pending Changes. DuncanHill (talk) 13:14, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requested moves seriously backlogged

Just a bit of gentle encouragement, for anyone who needs something to do - requested move closures are seriously backlogged, with open discussions back to August 18. Most closures are purely mechanical, but require admin bits. Thanks to anyone who works on this. — Gavia immer (talk) 16:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Problem with some turkey

Some turkey keeps adding turkey to articles and abusing other editors by calling them turkeys and swearing at them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dozenhigh (talk • contribs) 09:53, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

You can name the user at WP:AIV Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Dozenhigh has been indef blocked per WP:LTA, I'm guessing sockpuppet. Nothing to see here... -- Atama頭 23:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Hypocrisy

Why was I banned for the three revert rule and the other user who also broke the rule was not? Please explain why the other user was not blocked as well so I can know that the system is fair and will respect the rules in the future.--UhOhFeeling (talk) 15:56, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

A cursory check shows a clear consensus at Talk:Emerson, Lake & Palmer against the edit you were trying to make. Our policy on edit-warring describes it as "try[ing] to force their own position by combative editing (making edits they know will be opposed) and repeated reverting.". This describes your behaviour but not that of the editor reverting back to the agreed version. Consequently, you were blocked and he/she was not. CIreland (talk) 16:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Clearly you misunderstand policy. A couple of educational quotes for you.

Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale.

Consensus is not immutable. Past decisions are open to challenge and are not binding, and one must realize that such changes are often reasonable. Thus, "according to consensus" and "violates consensus" are not valid rationales for accepting or rejecting proposals or actions. While past "extensive discussions" can guide editors on what influenced a past consensus, editors need to re-examine each proposal on its own merits, and determine afresh whether consensus either has or has not changed.

The "clear consensus" which you talk is extreme hyperbole and thoroughly expresses your ignorance of the issue. I have never known 4-2 to be a consensus. Especially when the opinions of at least some of the 4 express bias.

I have continuously tried to get a non-biased opinion on this issue and wikipedia has continuously let me down.

Good Day--UhOhFeeling (talk) 16:24, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, are you saying it was alright for the other user to break the 3 revert rule? This is very interesting considering it is a rule and all. (Please see discussion heading)--UhOhFeeling (talk) 16:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

UhOhFeeling - here's a little "light reading" to hopefully point this in the "right" direction: WP:NOTTHEM, WP:EW, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:LAWYER, WP:CIVIL... there's more, but this is a good start. Correct me if I'm wrong. Edits like this[100] may just make the point even more... Doc9871 (talk) 16:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

:: Ah, thank you sir.

Do not excuse what you did with what others did.

Are we then allowed, as the other user did, to break the three revert rule if we have an excuse?

Is the three revert rule a "rule" or not. I don't understand.--UhOhFeeling (talk) 16:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I was adding sourced information, the type of which is common on other pages. --UhOhFeeling (talk) 16:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

P.P.S. I was the one trying to discuss this matter. The other user simply kept reverting. Your links only establish that I followed policy (Other than my three revert rule violation which I apologize for) and the other user did not. (Please see discussion heading)--UhOhFeeling (talk) 16:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

• I do have to wonder why the other user wasn't blocked as well. A consensus on a talk page - especially one as vague as this - still isn't any reason to revert EIGHT times. I note that particular editor has a long block log for similar behaviour as well; their last one was a month. This is obviously stale now, but I do think the OP has a point, even if nothing is going to be done about it now. I've notified the other user, btw. Black Kite (t) (c) 19:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Isn't Radiopathy still under a 1RR restriction for continued edit warring? 70.254.43.255 (talk) 19:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
    • It doesn't really matter if they are; this issue is dead now, I merely wanted to make clear to the OP that there are only very limited reasons to break 3RR, and they're listed at WP:3RR#Exceptions - you'd need a very good reason to do it otherwise. Black Kite (t) (c) 19:36, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

OK. Thank you for explaining Black Kite.--UhOhFeeling (talk) 22:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm looking at the page, and with all due respect to all involved, I would certainly have blocked both editors, especially hearing now that Radiopathy is under 1RR restriction. If I'd seen the unblock I would have blocked the other user. UhOhFeeling does have a point there. UhOhFeeling, to get the best idea of why the block was applied as such, you might want to point the blocking admin to this thread. Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:36, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Disparity of treatment does not give carte blanche to continue edit-warring, as UhOhFeeling has recently continued doing; it's WP:BRD, not WP:BRRRRR, and this is getting too close to disruptive to be tolerable. I've advised UhOh more than once to start a discussion on the talk page with regard to his proposed edit, despite the fact that over a year ago, there was no consensus to accept it, even through an attempt at mediation. UhOh seems to me to be forcing his POV through edit-warring rather than negotiation, and I've advised him that I at least am not prepared to tolerate it for any longer. This isn't personal; it's for the proper regulation of the encyclopedia. Rodhullandemu 22:47, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

It seems that you are missing the point. I know I was wrong to edit war. I apologize. I have tried to discuss this issue through mediation and through the other users talk page to no avail. In other words, I have already thoroughly tried to get some other opinions and discuss the issue. Do you really think addressing the issue on the articles talk page will be the secret to success? You are completely avoiding the issue of your inconsistent application of the rules.--UhOhFeeling (talk) 22:57, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

"Do you really think addressing the issue on the articles talk page will be the secret to success?" Yes, because that's where the content debate belongs, and it is not up to me, but other editors, and your arguments, whether success ensues. As to your other point, I blocked you for edit-warring, pure and simple; you appealed twice and were rejected twice, and on the second occasion, you gave no substantive argument why you should have been unblocked. Let's be clear here: 3RR is a "bright-line" policy with little "wriggle-room", and as far as I am concerned, if you had any such scope to begin with, you've long since exhausted it, given your edits since your block expired. Your attempts to renegotiate consensus are feeble and ineffective, since you made no attempt to reopen a discussion on the article's Talk page. Rodhullandemu 01:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

You are missing the point. I know I was wrong. I apologize. I was only writing to understand you're inconsistent application of the rule. As you say 3RR is a "bright-line" policy with little "wriggle-room." You did not block the user radiopathy who else broke 3RR (and had a 1R restriction at that). The other editors explained that you were wrong to not apply the rules consistently. That was all I wanted to know.--UhOhFeeling (talk) 14:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

As a vital note, however, making a heading of "Hypocrisy" regarding an admin, then making a WP:NOTTHEM type of argument never goes well. If the admin in question was not aware of the other person's 1RR restriction, then you need to assume some good faith. The next question becomes "did you gently and politely bring up this question with the admin in question once your block expired" - you know full well that the other editor could not be blocked this much later. Indeed, you could have submitted an unblock request that stated something along the lines of apologizing for edit-warring, and gently asking if the other person had also been blocked for their part in the edit-war (making sure it did not sound like a WP:NOTTHEM argument). (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Does the 1RR even matter when the other editor reverted plenty of times? My intent in this discussion is to understand the rules and policies. It is important to understand that policies are fair in order to trust the rules. If people believe rules are fair they are much more likely to abide by them. I'm sorry I wasn't super duper polite. --UhOhFeeling (talk) 00:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Restore an article, please

Would someone please act on this request, restoring the article in question if appropriate? I'm taking a quick break from late-night schoolwork, and I don't have the mental energy or the awakeness to do it myself. Nyttend (talk) 06:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Done. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 12:46, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Admin closure needed

Resolved

 – Closed by DGG in favor of Inclusion (ie - Keep) — Becksguy (talk) 02:24, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Any brave souls willing to try and close the monstrous Fox News political donation RFC? This is the one that got picked up by DKOS, and then one of the sides decided to try and call a unilateral "reboot/do-over" (which was soundly rejected at ANI). Be warned -- lots of reading involved in the closure, but given all of the bullshit surrounding the RFC anything less then an admin closure will be untenable. Thanks in advance, and much respect to anyone(s) brave enough to tackle this. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 20:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The RFC was completely flawed even before the vote rigging took place. We should now sensibly debate the matter on the talk page. Not implement something because of the RFC , we do not have to follow it. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:46, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The RfC was a debate on the talk page, as RfC is essentially nothing but a talk page debate, but with a better promoted and wider community participation. I second the request for a neutral uninvolved admin closure. — Becksguy (talk) 22:57, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Someone call it no consensus or whatever they do in RfCs, and then we'll be back to the less-than-problem it was for almost ten years. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 01:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Wrong RfC, my bad. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:32, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I have closed it, according to my evaluation of the basic principles at stake, which are WP:V and WP:NPOV. As this is the first time I have closed an rfc, I request assistance in making the appropriate technical maneuvers if I did not get them right. DGG ( talk ) 01:49, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes you did it right, good close. Secret ^account 04:27, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Move request

Could somebody please move 2010 kashmir unrest to 2010 Kashmir unrest, with proper capitalization? Thank you. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 06:58, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Done. --Mkativerata (talk) 07:25, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

User:7SeriesBOT is down

For those of you who are following along at home, 7SeriesBOT is down after a second failed attempt to upgrade that PC to Windows 7, and a massive failure to return to its original XP configuration. Although the PC now has a skeleton Red Hat Linux install (and it's an old version), I have not progressed in reinstalling things from a Linux perspective. Of course, the fact that I have never used Linux might be a point there too. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:48, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Block warning template made specifically for a role account

I've blocked Austinandaustin12345 because, judging by its name, it's a role account. However, I can't find any templates that say "You've been blocked because you're a role account"; is anyone aware of one? I've produced a custom message, which you can find at User talk:Austinandaustin12345; pleas eimprove it if you can. Nyttend (talk) 12:12, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Can any experienced admin guide me on whether I did this correctly?

I protected the Bob Dylan page here post a request at RPP. This is perchance my first article protection. So needed guidance and advice on whether I did it correctly. Thanks and regards. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 17:58, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• And also, could an administrator correct the protection tag after appropriate review? Thanks again and regards. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 18:01, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Hm - not quite. The article was being vandalized, but you've selected "full protection: dispute" as the reason in the Twinkle dialog. Note that until Twinkle bug 345 is resolved, the pp button from Twinkle should probably not be used (since it doesn't properly handle distinct edit and move protection, but treats them as one). So your next step is to: reduce edit to semi (leave "move" to sysop for indefinite), and change "pp-dispute" to "{{pp-semi-vandalism|small=yes|expiry=26 September 2010}}". –xeno^talk 18:03, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and fixed it before seeing xeno's comment. Also, if you are using small=yes, then the expiry time is not needed. T. Canens (talk) 18:08, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

If you set the expiry, then it will display as a tooltip. –xeno^talk 18:09, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Heh, didn't know that. I guess I learn something new everyday :) T. Canens (talk) 18:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Xeno, thanks Timotheus. I'll note that and not use Twinkle from now on with respect to this. Rgds. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 18:11, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Incomplete SFD

Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2008/November/29 was closed as rename, but no rename was done. Could someone fix them (since I don't know if it's possible to move categories?) — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 00:44, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

You'll have to use Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working, I think. —fetch·comms 02:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, I see whats going on here: the templates need to be updated. Could you move the cats though? — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 17:55, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

You can't move categories that easily, which is what the link I mentioned above is for. List it at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working; the bot will then manually update every instance of that category because category redirects don't work as one would expect. —fetch·comms 20:23, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

First, the working page is protected, second, the categories are all template populated. Templates have been updated.— Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 23:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly needs to be done (I know what's wrong, but I don't know where to start in order to fix it), but maybe Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy is the right place. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:23, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I put them on this list. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 12:00, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The move has been completed. Ruslik_Zero 19:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

A few mistakes:

• Category:Ukraine political party stubs should be moved to Category:Ukrainian political party stubs.
• Category:Northern African political party stubs belongs at Category:North Africa political party stubs.
• Category:Western African political party stubs belongs at Category:West Africa political party stubs.

— Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 19:13, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I moved them according to the results of the SFD discussion. Category:Ukraine political party stubs was not part of it and I do not know where it has been discussed. Ruslik_Zero 19:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, the discussion said "rev of North/West Africa per Grutness", and the North/West Africa was what Grutness proposed in the discussion. On the bottom of the list of cats, it says: "and Cat:Ukraine political party stubs currently at WP:WSS/P". My interpretation of this is that it should get the adjectival as well. (Ukrainian) — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 23:37, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

You are actually right. I did not notice the first line due to absence of the signature of the closing admin. Ruslik_Zero 19:25, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Go ahead and move them before this thread gets archived! — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 19:01, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Can we assemble a crack team to make a bot like User:WebCiteBOT operational?

(I don't have any programming skills, so I can only cheer from the sidelines.) Some people have said they are working on this, but their discussions are old, and it looks like they've run into bugs. AGradman / talk / how this article and talk looked when I made this edit 15:54, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

It's a pretty hard task to do, even though it doesn't seem like it on the surface. Regardless, this isn't an administrator matter. (X! · talk)  · @822  ·  18:43, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I thought this was an admin matter because I assumed the WikiMedia Foundation has some group of employees ("crack team"?) who write high-priority upgrades to MediaWiki software (like the upgrades to Pending Changes), and I thought the WP administrators would be the people to go through to reach them. If I am wrong, then please tell me, what is the place to put this post? Bot requests? AGradman / talk / how this article and talk looked when I made this edit 20:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Bots are client-side scripts run by Wikipedia editors. The server admins have nothing to do with them. The correct place is WP:BOTREQ, but it's been brought up make times before. (X! · talk)  · @905  ·  20:42, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Last time a bot like this ran it cause a outrage, if anyone takes on this bot requests should be throttled. d'oh! _talk 01:20, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Was that a Freudian slip, or what? :-) Looie496 (talk) 01:54, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Where is the freudian slip? d'oh! _talk 05:20, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

"Throttled" - double meaning here - one a jocular comment that anyone who proposes this should be strangled for their pains, second is a reference to "throttling" a bot - intentionally reducing the speed at which it operates either for testing, to avoid overloading the servers or to avoid aggravating editors by templating them 10 times in a minute etc. Exxolon (talk) 09:44, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Russbot blocked

Resolved

I've shut-down RussBot, as there is a lot of confusion about edits such as this, and the incorrect piping of the resultant dab link [[as per WP:INTDABLINK. See discusion on User talk:R'n'B#Russbot malfunctioning?. Feel free to unblock it if you feel I've acted incorrectly. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 06:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I've unblocked the bot, so that it can carry out its other operations, and suspended hatnote fixing until this is resolved. Ironically, I must note that I added the language about piping in hatnotes to WP:INTDABLINK a couple of weeks ago; the problem is, however, that whenever unpiped links are inserted in hatnotes, some editors raise strong objections. I've therefore changed the bot script to pipe the links, and removed the language I added to the guideline. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 08:47, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that both the bot's function and the INTDABLINK guidelines need further discussion before that function of the bot is allowed to continue, as it's obviously causing confusion and controversy. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 09:00, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Because, apparently, the discussions that already took place at WP:Bots/Requests for approval/RussBot 4, Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 31#Hatnote redirects to disambiguation pages., Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Redirects in hatnotes, and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive636#RussBot Problem were not sufficient? The third of these was published on both WP:CENT and WP:RFD for thirty days. I apologize if anyone is offended by my tone, but I get tired of having to justify the same thing over and over and over, after bending over backwards to get this task approved. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't see anything wrong with the bot's edits. T. Canens (talk) 18:12, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

This has been resolved following discussion with R'n'B and clarification of the bot's explanation page and associated guideline. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 11:29, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Removal of AutoPatroller flags

I've started a thread at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_permissions/Autopatrolled#Autopatrollers_who_create_unreferenced_BLPs about removing the Autopatroller flag from some of our longstanding autopatrollers who don't seem to have kept up with current BLP requirements. Extra input would be appreciated. I've removed three flags so far and want some input before I continue. ϢereSpielChequers 14:22, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Series of articles on Italian Irridentism created by banned user

Hello everybody, I have a specific and a general question. These centre upon, but are not restricted to, a series of articles being created by socks of User:Brunodam about Italian irredentism. The articles concerned can be found under Template:Italian irredentism by region, but the tentacles spread far and wide to assert Italian supremacy into such articles as Nero expedition to Ethiopia. Now my questions. Specifically, what can be done about the new articles that Brunodam's clones are creating? We chop off one head of the Hydra, but the article always remains in place. I can confirm that all of the articles concerned are encylopaedically worthless - none of the references say what the article says. This is one of the reasons he was banned. But nobody has the time to check this. A new article appears, nobody has time to check the references, they are not in English anyway and voila, Wikipedia states the content as a fact.

Asking generally now, should/can/must articles created by banned users be deleted? If not, why not? What is the presumption? Is there a presumption that an article by a banned user has merit, or does not? It would be great if, after an SPI case, any new article shown to have been put up by a banned user could be automatically deleted. If there were any merit in it, somebody could request the text personally for readdition, so nothing would be lost, but knocking out articles created by socks of banned folk would help our credibility greatly.

Thanks for you attention, I will be interested to see what the consensus is on this. I don't remember having seen it asked before. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 00:20, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Pages created by banned or blocked users in violation of their ban or block, and which have no substantial edits by others can be speedied per WP:CSD#G5. Salvio ^{Let's talk 'bout it!} 00:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I think AlasdairGreen27 is a sick person. Only a "special need" boy can see Italian supremacy in the "Nero expedition to Ethiopia". What has to do the travel of two Roman legionaries of the first century AD with Italian supremacy (sic!) of the XX century? He sees "hydras" everywhere: he really needs a psychologist! - Everard Proudfoot (talk) 20:52, 20 September 2010 (UTC)> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.215.160.90 (talk) 18:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

To answer the question... "Asking generally now, should/can/must articles created by banned users be deleted?" The answer is probably/yes/no. Articles created by banned users should probably be deleted because that editor was banned for a reason. Editors are only banned when the community and/or ArbCom decides that the editor's contributions aren't wanted (and I suppose that the immediate presumption would therefore be that their creations have no merit). They can be deleted exactly as Salvio stated above, and any edit by a banned editor can also be reverted per policy. But, it's not true that the articles must be deleted. Per our CSD criteria, an article created by a banned user can only be deleted by the G5 criteria if the article has "no substantial edits by others". So if another editor decides to take responsibility for the article and expand it, they can certainly do so. It would be silly if a banned editor created a new article on a notable subject with great sources and people deleted it because of due process and for no other reason.

If an SPI case concludes that an editor was a sockpuppet of a banned user, then most certainly you can look at that editor's contributions and revert their edits and put CSD tags on articles they create. I have done so myself on a number of occasions. Just keep in mind that you should also weigh the quality of the edits made (don't delete good edits from banned editors, especially ones that have reverted vandalism) and that articles that have had substantial contributions from other editors can't be speedily deleted solely because the author was a sockpuppet. -- Atama頭 23:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Atama. Your time taken to address this and the obvious fact that you have applied thought and consideration to it is genuinely appreciated. However, the obvious question arising from "don't delete good edits from banned editors" is that, de facto, a ban is never actually a ban. As I understand a ban, this means you are not welcome anymore, goodbye, our burly security guards have shown you to the door. But you say that any banned editor can show up under any old sock account and we have to evaluate if their stuff is good or not before we send it to G5. Is that it? AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 23:04, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

No, you actually don't have to. You can evaluate before tagging, and probably should, but you don't necessarily have to; any page created by a banned editor while a ban is in place and which has no other significant contributions from other editors is automatically eligible for G5. But just using common sense, if the ultimate goal is to have a really great encyclopedia, and the wrong person creates a really great article, should it be deleted just to ensure that a ban stays a ban? Doing so seems to be cutting off the nose to spite the face. Our policy states, "the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert" (or with articles, to delete). In a case where the edit or article is unambiguously positive, we shouldn't delete.

To give an example, let's say that I'm browsing WP:SPI and see that a Checkuser has confirmed that an editor is a sockpuppet of a banned user and that the editor's case is awaiting administrator action. I'll go ahead and indefinitely block the editor, and then what I often do is look at the editor's history and see what the sock has been doing. I see that they've created an article. If the article is a stub, and nobody else has edited it, I'll likely just delete it and cite G5. If the article has been worked on by another editor in good standing who has contributed a lot of information, then G5 doesn't really apply (even if those contributions were to the talk page of the article); this is up to an administrator's discretion. If another editor has only added tags, or fixed typos, or some other really minor action, I'll likely delete it per G5. If the article has no other contributions but those from the sockpuppet, yet is fully-sourced, seems notable, and is of good quality, then what I'll probably do is go to the talk page of the article and leave a note explaining that the article was created by a sockpuppet in defiance of a ban, and yet I think the article should stay, and that I "take complete responsibility for the content" (see the first paragraph of WP:BAN#Enforcement by reverting).

Also one thing to point out is that this policy applies to banned, not blocked editors. Articles created by sockpuppets of editors who are blocked but not banned aren't eligible for G5. This also means that it applies to an editor who isn't site banned but is topic banned; an editor who is only banned from climate change subjects and creates an article about the effects of global warming on penguin populations can have their new article deleted per G5. -- Atama頭 16:50, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

As I recall, we have permitted Ottava Rima's articles (he is blocked here) which he created at Simple English wiki under the guise that he planned to eventually convert them into Simple English to be transwikied here. As I recall, we had a discussion at AN/I on this and the articles were allowed to stay.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:25, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't comment earlier, but I only noticed the example article a moment ago -- which is drew my attention, & may address some of AlasdairGreen27's concerns directly. This article is clearly problematic: on one hand, there was in fact a Roman expedition which attempted to follow the Nile upriver to its source; on the other, AFAIK experts limit its reach to the area of modern Sudan & the use of the word "Ethiopia" refers to its older use applying to the Nubian kingdoms. The use of this word here only makes sense in light of Italian & Ethiopian relations -- namely, the two Italo-Abyssinian wars. If this article is not deleted (which would be fine, for the most part it's a fair beginning on this subject with only a few questionable details) then it should be renamed to something less troublesome, for example Roman exploration of the Nile. And other articles this banned user wrote also may need to be renamed. -- llywrch (talk) 16:12, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Troublesome? ethiopia or africa troublesome? Simply RIDICULOUS.....B.D.

External tax

I recently declined an A1 on this and subsequently searched for articles to redirect it to; I could find none. It may have potential. Any suggestions on what to do with it? In the meantime, I've cleaned it up a bit. Thanks, Airplaneman ✈ 04:29, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm failing to find any primary sources (except for one of my old textbooks).   Thorncrag  05:58, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I added two gBook hits as sources. It's a bit more broad than just the UK in the 1700s, but most of the coverage is about their taxes on the US colonies. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 15:22, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

What about Tariff? Grsz¹¹ 21:11, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Deletion

This Benedict Aaronson Appreciation Society looks like a candidate for deletion. can some other admin do it so i can watch and see how it's done (as a new admin). Fainites ^barleyscribs 20:46, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it needs an admin to tag that one. PhGustaf (talk) 20:51, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Deleted. I'm not sure what needs to be watched--if you are not sure, just tag it and another admin will look. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 22:06, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Midnight baseball - request to reconsider an interaction ban

Baseball Bugs (talk · contribs · logs · block log)

ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs · logs · block log)

The above two editors are currently subject to an interaction ban which prevents either of them "from commenting on, about, or to each other anywhere on Wikipedia, apart from ArbCom proceedings where both are named parties". This ban was decided by the community here, and recorded here.

ChildOfMidnight is currently blocked until 27 August 2011. Baseball Bugs has asked me here (this section) about the ban's current relevance, given COM's block, and I am raising the matter here at AN. My first thought is that there would be no harm in rescinding the ban while COM remains blocked. What does the community think? TFOWR 19:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Is there any harm leaving it in place? –xeno^talk 19:22, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

COM's current block has been reset several times, due to sock puppetry. Bugs' is familiar with COM, and feels that they could provide useful input at, for example, SPI. TFOWR 19:26, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I do note that the original interaction ban proposal was proposed to expire January 2010, and it's been in place for over a year now. (I had something more to go with this, but it's not relevant anymore after your response, so this should be taken more as a simple observation, as I haven't reviewed the background in depth.) –xeno^talk 19:28, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, xeno. I'd noticed the original end date, too, and almost emailed Bugs to say there was no issue here ;-) Fortunately I checked the recorded restrictions before I embarrassed myself!

Anyone else? I'd like this to have some sort of closure - Bugs is an established editor, and - I believe - deserves definitive closure: "no, keep the ban" is preferable to "meh, no comment, no consensus"... (though I'd imagine Bugs would prefer "yes, lift the ban"!) TFOWR 11:12, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

• I think we can drop the ban, but with a wording that any comments in regard to the other party should be strictly within pages regarding any concerns (such as SPI) - and that the ban can be reset if issues raise their heads again. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• That seems reasonable. No outright ban, but Bugs, please don't do anything in regard to CoM unless in situations like SPI. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 15:12, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• There is potential harm in recinding the interaction ban, or at least potential unneeded drama. CoM is currently banned for about the next 11 months. The interaction ban was indefinite. Therefore, when/if CoM is unblocked and returns to productive editing there will be no interaction ban between these two editors. In my opinion, it's better to keep the current ban in place even though it's pointless because it's doing no harm rather than the alternative which has CoM come back and necessitate multiple AN/ANI dramafests to possibly reinstate the interaction ban. -Atmoz (talk) 18:32, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• What if we relax it somewhat, but not completely lift it? We could change it from "only ArbCom proceedings" to "only administrative processes" or something like that. That allows participation on SPI and related issues, but upholds the original reasoning for the ban. The Wordsmith^Communicate 18:48, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• I don't think that Bugs is much interested in communicating directly with CoM. But history suggests that CoM is going to come back soon with another sock, and I think Bugs's comments in talkspace about that might be helpful. PhGustaf (talk) 20:58, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I am perfectly fine with an expanded restriction to "administrative processes". I have stuck with the current restriction the whole time (is it really a year already? time flies) and I have no desire whatsoever to communicate directly with the user in question, nor do I feel any need to "go after him" any more, as there is nothing else I need to say to or about him - except where I might be able to help in providing support for SPI's or other administrative efforts. And if I violate your trust, you can take appropriate measures against me, in a New York second. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:50, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

To put it another way, when I posed the question to TFOWR, I hadn't really thought about a "middle ground" approach. But now that I've seen your comments, I realize I neither need nor want a total lifting of the ban. The direct interaction ban can stay in place. I just want to be able to provide factual observational evidence without fear that I'm going to be blocked for it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:07, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

User pages listed at C:SD

The following pages show up on C:SD as of 02:38, 25 September 2010 (UTC) for me, but they aren't listed for speedy deletion. A quick search through transcluded templates reveals none that are tagged for speedy deletion. Plus, they're listed under "μ". I'm confused.

• User:Avono
• User:Avono/userpage
• User:GeneralIroh/Discovering Award
• User:GeneralIroh/Userboxes/Secret
• User:KC109
• User:RatonBat
• User:Roastytoast
• User:Sir Drance

If it helps, I tried this on Safari, Firefox, and Chrome, and all produced the same result. I am on a Macintosh running Snow Leopard. Thanks, Airplaneman ✈ 02:38, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and they're listed at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion for unspecified reason as well. Airplaneman ✈ 02:43, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Ok, they've been delisted. Airplaneman ✈ 03:29, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Pages in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion for unspecified reason appear under μ in C:SD. These pages all transclude User:GeneralIroh/Userboxes/Secret, which was tagged using {{db}} here. It was noinclude'd later, but the category does not update immediately due to the job queue, I think. Next time, a dummy edit would force an update and fix the problem, but it looks like the problem has fixed itself without that here. T. Canens (talk) 05:56, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

no admin comment in a three hour old complaint at ANI

Resolved

 – Resolved on AN/I --Salix (talk): 09:31, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi, there has been no comment at all from any Administrators in this thread that originates in a racist accusation and then multiple quacking reverting created accounts and IP reverts, please comment as to reasons for any reasons or issues with failure to reply to the Administrative request., thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 21:55, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Very rare for the Incidents board. You can go days and weeks without seeing an admin on the other admins noticeboard, but that one is usually quick. Although i must say the last issue i raised there got lots of comments from editors but im not sure if an admin responded and there was certainly no ruling. And that went on for several days until it got auto archived without any resolution. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:58, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Update on Audit Subcommittee

The Audit Subcommittee is a subcommittee of the Arbitration Committee, tasked to review and act upon concerns and complaints about checkuser and oversight activities received from the community. Membership consists of three community representatives elected by the community, who serve one-year terms; and three arbitrators, who rotate through this assignment for approximately six months.

In advance of the scheduled election/appointment of community representatives to the Audit Subcommittee, a summary of activity has been posted on the subcommittee's report page.

The community is invited to discuss this report, as well as preferred methods and terms for the selection of community representatives to participate in the audit process. The result of the discussion will inform the Arbitration Committee on how best to proceed before progressing to another election cycle.

For the Arbitration Committee,
Risker (talk) Cross-posted by NW (Talk) 20:42, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Discuss this