Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive80

Not sure how to fix this or if it's simple vandalism

Resolved

Barnsy home page Anchoress 20:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. It just needed to be moved back. I have tagged the resulting redirects for speedy deletion. --Born2x 20:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Speedied - Alison^☺ 20:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Cool. May I ask a question just to satisfy my curiosity? Why did it show up on my watchlist? If it was moved from a different page name, what was it before? Anchoress 20:41, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

It was (and is once again) Wikipedia:Requested articles. Presumably, you had that page watchlisted and your watching of the page "followed" the page when it was moved. --Born2x 20:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Anchoress 20:55, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, apologies...

Resolved

I am not sure where to ask a question like thins, but here goes...

Is there a place where we show Wikipedia "In the Law"? I know the "in the media" thing, but wondered if the legal cases that cite or relate to Wikipedia are mentioned somewhere? Just wondering. Mahalo. --Ali'i 21:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_as_a_court_source.

Ali'i <--Not too bright that one.

Maybe you should create a redirect in case someone else has trouble finding it. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 23:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Blatant public account

Resolved

User:Plankder admits that it is a public account, and I have tried and confirmed it. Please take action. Thanks! Wooyi 22:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Blocked. Picaroon 22:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[offtopic]

That typo wasn't so bad. We once put the same error into our church newsletter... heh. -- nae'blis 22:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[/offtopic]

Just curious, did someone explain to this user why their account was blocked or is their an assumption that they know they were behaving inappropriately? Natalie 22:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Edits like this lead me to assume the most recent editor, at least, knew they were behaving inappropriately. And we'll probably never know if they (the November editor) were the same as the creator (the August editor). Picaroon 22:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I figured as much, but figured I'd ask. Natalie 22:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at the history in their User page. Calling Wikipedia admins fascists, etc. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 23:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Note this edit. This is typical of Iasson (talk · contribs), who also created all those Faethon (talk · contribs) accounts a while back (see User:Faethon22 for history) This was also the subject of an arbitration case. See also Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Iasson. Man, those were the days...Mackensen (talk) 00:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Definitely way way before my time. Natalie 01:23, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Keeping image license tags in userspace?

User:Web kai2000 has been tagging (many, many) images with image license templates that he or she keeps in userspace. User:Web kai2000/Template:transport-history, and User:Web kai2000/Template:Bus-at-work. We've gotten a copyright holder complaint about an image so tagged. I've been trying to get to the bottom of what exactly has been going on here over the last five days, but the unfortunate answer seems to be that we do not, in fact, have any reason to believe that these userspace image license templates are accurate, and do have reason to believe (OTRS login needed) that they are not. I have edited the two userspace image license templates that I found to be "no license" for today's date. I'm a little concerned about the recent history of the first template I expressed concern about, however, so I wanted to invite feedback, and let other admins know what is going on with these images.

Regardless of the status of these uploads, does anyone think that keeping image license templates in userspace is a good idea? Jkelly 22:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Nooooo, that is not a good idea. Prodego ^talk 22:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

No, not a good idea. Either they're not appopriate anywhere on Wikipedia, or they're appropriate in template space. I don't think there is an inbetween. --Deskana (talk) 22:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I went to follow your link, only to find OTRS. I have been awaiting approval since January... Prodego ^talk 22:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Does "Don't make up new image license templates in your userspace" need to be spelled out somewhere? Jkelly 22:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that would be WP:CREEP (though not WP:BEANS since it's already happening independently. WP:TFD exists for a reason (or maybe it would have to be WP:MFD since the template is in userspace.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

MfD, I'd say. It's been said before that something is only a template if it's in the template namespace. I think it was Jimbo that said it. --Deskana (talk) 23:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Forthright communication or child porn?

Resolved

 – --Iamunknown 05:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't like to make a mountain out of a molehill, and if the WMF is not in a position to be prosecuted maybe it isn't an issue, but I am fairly certain that this post by a currently-minor editor (by his own admission) is regrettably child pornography in some jurisdictions. Removal/oversight? Or nothing? I already posted this on the ref desk talk page. Anchoress 07:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

It's been removed. Anchoress 09:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Please fill in MediaWiki:sp-contributions-footer-anon

Hi all, now that MediaZilla:9397 is implemented, we can have a footer on all anon user contribs pages now, just like on anon user talk pages. Could someone please put this in MediaWiki:sp-contributions-footer-anon? (I took the tools at the bottom from [[MediaWiki:anontalkpagetext and I do hope I copied the code right.)

---

Cheers, --unforgettableid | how's my driving? 05:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. Now, just take into consideration that it will not show up on the site until the next scap. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Death threat

What exactly constitutes a death threat? Is it sufficient to state, "I hope you die", or does there actually have to be an active threat? That is, would the threat have to be along the lines of, "I will kill you" or "I will get someone to kill you"? Here, I'm talking in the context of abusive behaviour on the Wikipedia obviously, not in the press-charges-legally context. Also, would an emailed threat be sufficient or does it have to be posted on the Wikipedia? --Yamla 17:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• "I hope you die" would not be a death threat, though it would likely violate WP:CIVIL as it's not a very civil thing to say to someone. "I will kill you" or "I will get someone to kill you" would definitely be death threats. Emailed threats would be considered a violation of the rules as well if they could be positively traced to the person who allegedly sent them. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 18:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The second point first: I'd say an email carries as much weight as any other threat.

    As for what constitutes a threat, that is up to the individual to judge the perceived danger. Most threats are nothing, like a kid making a bomb scare to avoid a test. The ones that are serious should be recognized if they carry more gravity as to actual physical harm. Teke 18:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

  • A kid making a bomb threat to a school in order to get out of a test is not "nothing". It is a serious, legal matter, and needs to be treated as such. --Ali'i 18:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
    • All actual death threats deserve an immediate indef block. It is not for me or anyone else to attempt to intuit whether the individual who issues it is a frivolous child or a violent felon. I will not be standing watch to guard the doorstep of the target's home at night so the only ethical alternative is to treat all such threats as serious. Durova^Charge! 02:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• I cannot envision any circumstances where expressing such a hope has anything whatsoever to do with the process of writing an encyclopaedia. At the very least, such a comment is indicative that talk page discussion has gone far off-topic. Uncle G 02:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I've actually seen that [1], and while it was shocking, it was considered incivility rather than a death threat. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 02:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • That's probably a good example. That comment had nothing whatsoever to do with the process of writing an encyclopaedia, and contributed exactly nothing connected to that process to the discussion at hand. Uncle G 12:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Board passes clarification of licensing policy

This came in to the Foundation-l list about an hour ago.

“ The board has now passed its resolution on the media licensing policy, available now at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy

This policy is intended to reflect the principles in the message posted earlier at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-February/027547.html and to make the guidelines for acceptable media licenses clearer across all projects.

A beginning draft of an FAQ page is on Meta at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_policy_FAQ_draft -- please add your own questions and suggest answers.

” — Kat Walsh

Cheers. – Chacor 04:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's supposed to just be a clarification of existing policy, AFAIK. (I actually went and asked Kat Walsh, so there you go. :-) ). Though they will be enforcing it more, and some people might not have realised the policy was really that strict in reality already. --Kim Bruning 05:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• Expect the same uproar we got when images about living personalities began to be deleted. I, for one, like Wikipedia to focus in freedom. The fact that we will have to discuss every fair use image to see if we can keep it or not will keep us busy for a couple of years at least. -- ReyBrujo 05:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Except that, after 1 year, images that haven't been argued under the exemption policy will be deleted. -- Drini 05:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Sadly enough, I actually think that the foundation position is more generous than that which certain of our contributors here seem to think we should be following. At least we now have a clear statement confirming that the foundation is not "on the verge of going German" as several users have claimed to me. --tjstrf talk 05:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • It actually makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside that people think it is not strict enough. I am not about to stop anyone from taking a stricter interpretation of the policy than is required, and am likely to come in and support it! "You can't delete that, the policy doesn't say we have to" is a really terrible argument for keeping something; these are minimum standards beyond which the Foundation will step in and require that project policy be changed. Our goal is free content and the policy's intent is to keep use of non-free content as minimal as possible while still allowing it in those limited cases where alternatives are not reasonable to obtain. There are a few people on the project who hold a more extreme position here than I do. I don't necessarily advocate everything they are doing, but that is a community issue; you are more than welcome to go further than a strict reading requires. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 07:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• So do our existing policies on fair use (which I think are too lax in some areas and too strict in others) constitute an 'Exemption Doctrine Policy' under this new board policy or is something else required? If existing policy covers it then this seems like no change for this project. We already require that 'non free' images provide a fair-use rationale for the page(s) they are used on and delete them if it doesn't meet standards. Someone might get industrious and perform a complete review of all images before March 23, 2008 to locate all problem images, but that's just a more determined effort at enforcing existing practice. --CBD 10:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The number of dodgy fair-use images is huge. This will be a herculean amount of work. We currently have the policy of deleting those that have no explicit rationale (over and above the standard tags) - but I'm far from convinced this is really the best way to proceed. The number of images that are potentially legitimate but lack an explicit rationale is quite large, and so is the number of images that do have an explicit rationale but where the rationale is wrong. Cynically speaking: instead of deleting all the non-explicit ones we could probably just as well delete any random selection of, say, 50% of all claimed fair-use images; the number both of false negatives and false positives would be comparable. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • The resolution makes the distinction between new images, uploaded on or after 2007-03-27, and existing images, uploaded before that date. The latter should go through a process of determining whether a (correct) fair use rationale exists. But we should immediately throw out any attempts to add to the backlog of such a process with newly uploaded images that lack fair use rationales. In other words: We have a year to sort out the corpus of fair use media without proper rationales that we currently have, but we don't make a rod for our own backs by letting any further additions be made to that corpus from this point onwards. Uncle G 12:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
      • For either task, we will need a much more efficient process than we have in place now, to determine that people really write these rationales, that they get reviewed by people who really understand them, and that deletions can then be performed without paperwork overhead. See the current CSD queues, it's not working. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Does the fact that the Foundation's resolution says "Examples include:" and proceeds to link directly to our fair use policy, help to answer that question? Uncle G 12:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Barrett v. Rosenthal

The above-entitled arbitration case has been closed and the final decision published at the above link. Ilena (talk · contribs) is banned from editing Wikipedia for one year and is banned from editing articles and talk pages related to alternative medicine, except talk pages related to breast implants. Fyslee (talk · contribs) is cautioned to use reliable sources and to edit from a neutral point of view. He is reminded that editors with a known partisan point of view should be careful to seek consensus on the talk page of articles to avoid the appearance of a COI if other editors question their edits. For the arbitration committee, Thatcher131 12:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Admins needed...

I believe the current Category:Candidates for speedy deletion category contains roughly 530 items. Might be time for a few admins to get on that. Mahalo. --Ali'i 16:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Cheers, flamethrower time me thinks Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 16:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm on it (although I just added one myself, which I'll leave for Ryan to delete). A Train^{take the} 18:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, I tagged a nonsense article for deletion almost 20 hours ago, and it's still there ( :VectorPotential^Talk 18:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Issue with a recent edit to a MediaWiki page

OK, I don't know my way well enough around MediaWiki to even know what page to go to, so I'll just bring this up here - somebody must have changed something fairly recently so that if you go to, say, [2], there's a bit of gibberish after the boxes for 'user' and 'title'. ('Boxes'! 'Gibberish'! Wonder why I can't change it myself?) Anyway, it's kind of annoying. – Riana ^talk 18:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

its a software bug ping the devs to fix. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 18:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Going to bed now, so passing the buck... sorry! – Riana ^talk 18:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

New log buttons for admins too. MediaWiki:Protect change is screwed up though, it is unlisted, and has no default. And someone fix the 'noautoblock' message while they are at it please? Prodego ^talk 20:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

MfD for many of User:Da.Tomato.Dude's subpages

Given previous issues which have been discussed on WP:AN and WP:ANI regarding people who do not contribute to the encyclopedia part of Wikipedia, this is nomination of a deletion request I have filed. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Da.Tomato.Dude assorted usersubpages. Many of you, I'm sure, will wish to comment. --Deskana (talk) 22:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

IMHO (personal, not as an admin), what they have in their own userpages is their business as long as it's civil, not racist, doesn't attack someone, etc. Now let the fireworks begin.Rlevse 01:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

WP is not a free webhost. MySpace? That-a-way. --Calton | Talk 02:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Rlevse, please post that on the MfD page. This subheader was just intended as a notification. --Deskana (talk) 02:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Admin attention overdue at Wikipedia:Consented blocks

I spotted this at MfD and was alarmed that one of the block reviews is overdue and reference to the other is threatened by the page being deleted. Happy for the page to go if both blocks are reviewed. --Dweller 12:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Roitr

It seems like we are witnessing a new rage of Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Roitr:

• Uroddmitri (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - activities include restoring already deleted images and creating content forks; :88.152.215.245 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

88.152.98.8 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

88.153.55.27 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

88.155.107.101 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

• File:Chinese Admiral of the Fleet.gif (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) - fork of File:Chinese Fleet Admiral-1-.gif (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• File:US-Army OF11.gif (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) - fork of File:US-Army-OF11.gif (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• File:China-army 1955-1965 01.gif (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) - fork of File:China-army-1955-1965 01.gif (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• File:China-army 1955-1965 17.gif (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) - fork of File:China-army-1955-1965 17.gif (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Ranks of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - fork of Ranks of the People's Liberation Army (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Ranks of the Chinese People's Liberation Navy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - fork of Ranks of the People's Liberation Army Navy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Ranks of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - fork of Ranks of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Clear connection connection with indefblocked Tryils (talk · contribs · block log), Mitryi (talk · contribs · block log), Csdak (talk · contribs · block log), Fsak (talk · contribs · block log) etc. engaged in the same activity.

Comment I'm just tired of firing multiple detailed reports per day to WP:AIV and WP:RFP... It's sure a nice way to celebrate his more than 1 year of being indefblocked and a very recent community ban on top of that, but the question is, why is he still able to do this? :( What about a couple of rangeblocks over his IP range? --Dmitry _{(talk •contibs )} 13:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

• Roitr is using Bezeq the main ISP in Israel. Apparently changing the IP there is as easy as pressing the reset button on the cable modem. The IPs are assigned randomly from the pool of their IP numbers. The only usable rangeblock on Roitr would block more than a half of Israeli users. Go figure. Please just give me his socks and I would block them Alex Bakharev 13:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Every sock is blocked, forks protect-redirected, images deleted, affected articles semiprotected Alex Bakharev 14:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

• I just can't keep up - the moment I encounter one IP or username, he's already got himself a few more. Why not instate a block on 88.152.0.0/14 for the duration of his most active hours?!. Maybe some admins could watch Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Roitr for new reports and act accordingly? --Dmitry _{(talk •contibs )} 14:22, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:AIV backlogged + ammusing tidbit

I'm going to bed - someone else deal with it. However - I was ammused by this report. Somone want to poke him with a pointy stick? Viridae^Talk 14:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

high school lameness

any advice on how to handle this mess without attracting one dozen bored high school kids to my talk page? i have a pretty strong hunch that's what i'll be in for. i hate to be a coward exposed for the coward that i am, and if i don't hear from anyone soon i'll probably suck it up and nuke the last week's silliness myself, but if anyone's dealt with a group like this before, i'd be curious what they did. --barneca (talk) 03:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I just reverted, warned, and watchlisted. Metros232 03:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

High school vandalism happens all of the time. Most vandals don't attack the person who reverts it, so feel free to get rid of nonsense like that as soon as possible. If it persists on a page after multiple reverts, report the vandal to WP:AIV, or if it is attacked by a variety of IPs and users list the page on WP:RFP for semi-protection. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Revert, report, block. A nuisance, but no big deal. (Oh, and learn to use your "shift" key.) Raymond Arritt 03:32, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

normally reverting vandals doesn't scare me; i just saw an organized group and expected the worst. not sure what magic bullet i thought admin's might have. but apparently the answer is, indeed, to suck it up, revert, and (from a quick glance at metros' talk page) revert talk page vandalism 3-4 times a day. thanks and good luck. --barneca (talk) 03:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC) p.s. what's a shift key?

Seriously? "What's a shift key?" I don't know how other keyboards are set up, but my shift key is the one that turns lowercase letters into uppercase, located above each control key (in the lower left and right corners of the main grouping of keys). Xaxafrad 21:42, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Userpage vandalism

An IP has taken to valdalizing my userpage, writing "YOUR IMAGES SUCK" under my images section. He appears to have done the same to that of IFCAR's. Who knows how many pages he hit. Can someone take care of this guy? Nothing makes me even more mad than someone who messes with my userpage. Karrmann 15:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a school's IP address, and they only edited those two pages today, nothing for the last hour. It's probably a kid editing between classes. We're discouraged from blocking schools indefinitely, so they may be back. By the way, your response could be considered a threat. I understand you were provoked, but do try to contain your fury, if for no other reason than that some vandals actually like that kind of attention, or may take it as a challenge. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. If I attack them, they may just want to valdalize my userpage more. Hmm, Well, it doesn't seem that they touched my page again yet, but I guess if they do become a problem, I can just have my page semi protected. Karrmann 18:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I've semi-protected the page to prevent IP vandalism for a week, and I very strongly recommend you remove your age and photograph from the page. Durova^Charge! 20:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Admins editing protected pages

I've seen a bunch of cases recently of administrators editing fully protected pages without first getting consensus on the Talk page. I don't want to start naming names yet and making people defensive, but this has to stop. (To be clear, this has been happening on multiple, unrelated pages.) Is it not obvious that editng a protected page without consensus is a use of admin powers to gain advantage in a content dispute? Kla'quot 16:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

If you want us to do anything, you have to be specific. I know I've edited lots of protected pages per Template:Editprotected - but you must not mean that. I know a few times admins have claimed they've edited pages without noticing they were protected - but you must not mean that either. I know of a few other times ... let's just get back to the original point. Cite page and diff, please, if you want us to be able to do anything. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks AnonEMouse. I'm not asking non-guilty admins to be taking action against the guilty. I just want the guilty admins to read this, feel guilty, and stop the offending behaviour. The pages I'm referring to all had full, prominent Protection notices on them. Kla'quot 17:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• Depending on circumstances, of course. A self-evident correction (grammar, typo) or somethign for WP:BLP concerns is unproblematic as long as a note is made somewhere. Guy (Help!) 22:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Removing BLP violations sure. As for "something for BLP concerns", I'm not sure what you are referring to. Kla'quot 04:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I've seen a bunch of cases recently of users doing things I don't like without first taking the steps I feel are necessary. I don't want to start naming names yet and making people defensive, but this has to stop. (To be clear, this has happened many times, although I'm not specifying how many.) Is it not obvious that doing this is not appropriate and disruptive? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• You might want to re-phrase that, because it currently reads as your saying that other editors doing things that you yourself don't like is not appropriate, disruptive, and has to stop. Uncle G 01:27, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a question: Would you consider administrators making non-controversial edits on protected articles inappropriate? In this hypothetical world we can assume a non-controversial edit can be clearly defined and everyone agrees on the standard. --Deskana (talk) 22:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Call me a process wonk, but I personally think admins should use {{editprotected}} just like everyone else (We're not talking about WP:BIO or any other urgent stuff here, right?). It's always possible that the editing admin might perceive something as totally non-controversial, but that doesn't mean it actually is. Having another pair of eyes to look at the proposed edit reduces the risk of making potentially controversial edits greatly. --Conti|✉ 01:50, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Administrators are trusted by the community to receive those extra tools, right? Then they, just like everyone else, should be entitled to be bold when editing pages, even protected pages. If someone legitimately complains, then they should also seek discussion and form consensus about the issue. No need to go through process for the sake of process when we have policies and guidelines that suggest how we go about business. --Iamunknown 02:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure. I wouldn't say that using {{editprotected}} should be a hard rule or anything, being bold is encouraged, of course. I just consider it to be an act of courtesy to go to the talk page and ask for consensus before making any kind of non-minor edit to a protected page. I don't think they should do that for process's sake, they should do it because when it comes to editing articles, admins are normal editors just like everyone else. They don't have any kind of special authority there, and every step we take away from that is a step in the wrong direction, IMHO. --Conti|✉ 02:13, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well-said. Kla'quot 04:49, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Iamunknown, WP policy is clear that Be bold does not apply to protected pages. See the last sentence of Wikipedia:Protection_policy#Content_disputes. Kla'quot 04:49, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Read again. "Admins should not edit pages that are protected due to a content dispute, unless ... the change is unrelated to the dispute." >Radiant< 09:41, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well thats an error. Admins should not be editing pages that have been protected for reasons other than profile unless such edits are required by BLP. Admins should edit as editors not admins and a as a result protected pages are as off limit to admins as they are to everyone else.Geni 14:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

That apparently was an error in the overhaul of the policy, that, as the edit summary implies, was not supposed to change the policy in any way. I've been bold and readded the lost sentence about being really really careful when editing protected pages. --Conti|✉ 15:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

This is something that i've recently been wondering about, after having a look at Atheism, where an admin behaving in good faith seemed to annoy a regular non-admin editor a bit - there's not a huge problem here, but perhaps some kind of guideline might help. When seeing an admin make various edits to a protected page, its one of the only times i feel like a 'non-allowed' editor, and I suppose this is bad (don't worry - i'll get over it!) - particularly when the protection has been there for more than a couple of days, and was put there by another admin. I guess I'd say that if an admin wanted to make uncontroversial edits; why not unprotect, make them, and see if the article is ok for a few minutes? - cheers, Petesmiles 23:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

This type of thread needs specific examples or else it's worse than a waste of time. Go ahead: name names and provide diffs. Specific problems ought to be identified and addressed. If there's an accident or a misunderstanding it ought to get explained and resolved. Subjunctive mood threads achieve nothing but an atmosphere of suspicion. Durova^Charge! 20:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Boba...

RFCU's a mess right now, and I've got something to do later, so I'm notifying everyone that Bobabobabo is back, and I have blocked the following as sockpuppets.

• Bidobidobido (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Momamomamo (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

I have also blocked the following two ranges as belonging to hosting companies and as a result the host of open proxies.

• 64.34.0.0/16 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) (Peer 1 Networks)
• 207.226.0.0/16 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) (Beyond the Network America)

I blocked both of these through edits I found on IPs within them, but the proxy (and range) used by Momamomamo may not be blocked (the register occured prior to the block on the other range).—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

• Nintendowoman (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Just as I was about to go, this one showed up.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Next step after a page blanking

Yesterday, Princess56499 created Karina Garcia, a hoax bio copied from Allyson Swan. The user then vandalized Allyson Swan, as well as the related article Miss Idaho USA to mislead and refer to information in the hoax article. Essentially, the effect of the vandalism was to replace one person with another. I reverted the edits to Allyson Swan and Miss Idaho USA and issued a warning to the user. I also prod'ed Karina Garcia, as well as Julie Wingens which appears to be a hoax created by (and only edited by) the same user. The user has since blanked my warning, which I have no real problem with since it is still in the history and the user obviously got the message, and also blanked the Karina Garcia which I had prod'ed (note, I don't mean they removed the prod, I mean they blanked the page). At this point should the prod just be restored or should the article be deleted per G7, and should any other actions be taken explicitly, or just let the other prod take its course and keep an eye on the user for future activity? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 23:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Empire

Is broken. I dont know how to repair it. It shows {hidden begin |ta1=left |extra1=padding-left:0.25em; padding-bottom:2px; font-size:100%; title=}. --131.188.24.10 00:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

An IP editor mucked up Template:History of Iran. Fixed now. Thatcher131 00:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Free Republic

This arbitration case has closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The indefinite community ban of User:BryanFromPalatine for tendentious editing, personal attacks, block evasion and disruption is endorsed. The ban also applies to User:DeanHinnen and all other proxies or sockpuppets of BryanFromPalatine. User:Fairness And Accuracy For All is banned from Wikipedia for one year. The articles Free Republic and Democratic Underground are placed on article probation. It is expected that these articles will be improved to conform with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and that information contained in them will be supported by verifiable information from reliable sources. Either article may be reviewed on the motion of any arbitrator, or upon acceptance by the Arbitration Committee of a motion made by any user, and users whose editing is disruptive may be banned or their editing restricted as the result of a review. This notice is given by a clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 00:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Factual80man

Factual80man (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) consistently abuses other users and adds profane, insulting edit summaries. He's been given many warnings on his talk page over the last few days, but he has continued the personal attacks and inappropriate edit summaries, even after a level 4 warning. A quick look at his edit history clearly shows the pattern of behavior. Thanks. C ^thirty-three 07:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I left "an official" warning. Hopefully that will alter the behavior. If not, I'll block him. —Doug Bell ^talk 08:05, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

For continuous vandals, consider leaving a note at WP:AIV. CattleGirl ^{talk | sign!} 08:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oliva's eye

Resolved

 – per Woohookitty

The article in question now qualifies for speedy deletion. Could someone please close the discussion and proceed with deletion?--Ng.j 08:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 09:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Nasty AFD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Natural History of South Asia mailing list (3rd nomination) is getting pretty nasty. Maybe a neutral person (admin or not) could calm things down a bit. YechielMan 16:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

User:Atulsnischal just planted the very same text protesting against Wikipedia here. I think nastiness just went up one notch. x42bn6 Talk 17:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Atulsnischal (talk · contribs) has also broken 3RR on the article. I've reported him for this. --Ragib 17:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Hi all I am just complaining, kindly view the comment that was removed from here by user Talk, as it was a legitimate cmplain, thanks Atulsnischal 17:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Which would be: this, which you have put on the 3rd AfD, the article's talk page, and apparently 2 more locations which I cannot find. We are talking about the AfD here, not about the article on the AfD. x42bn6 Talk 17:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

A cure for vandalism

I have searched Wikipedia and this seems to be the best/only place for this message. I am in hopes someone in charge of Wikipedia will see this as I can not find a contact for any of the powers that be Wikipedia.

Vandalism is out of control. Most editors already know this. I have only been here for one year, one month and I have seen it multiply upwards drastically. So much so that one by one I have had to "abandon" articles because I can no longer, nor wish to, keep up with the vandals. I ask myself, Why work so hard fixing the problems created by vandals when Wikipedia invites vandals in freely. On some articles vandalism is an hourly event. I have even seen vandals invite others to make an article into a "chat" room. This cannot be ignored any longer. My daughter's high school history teacher announced to his class some time back that he would no longer accept Wikipedia as a reliable source on their reports. I learned of this while helping my daughter with homework and in conversation told her to always question all information found on Wikipedia. That is a reputation Wikipedia cannot afford to get. Vandalism plays a major role in this. The Wiki process of "warning" vandals is fair but useless as there must be literally millions of acts perpetrated daily, if not hourly.

One way to curtail the problem drastically is to allow only "logged-on" registered editors to edit an article. The extreme percentage of violators do not bother logging on. If they do, they learn quickly to log off before vandalizing. Wikipedia best act on this "easy fix" now as once the reputation goes sour you will never be able to repair it. Soapy 14:32, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

This suggestion has been brought up before and has been rejected. You may wish to read m:Foundation issues and the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Abolish anonymous users for further information. mattbr 14:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• What a mistake. The current slow process of "warning" Vandals makes vandalism mathematically impossible to fix. I won't bother to take the time to read the reasons as to why Wikipedia rejects the solution as it won't help. I guess now is a good time to jump ship. Soapy 14:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• If we did not allow non-logged in editors we would not longer be Wikipedia, that is our thing. Also, vandalism is not out of control, we deal with it everyday just fine. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• As I have stated before several times. Vandalism can always be reverted. The vandals hopes of runing the encylopedia dashed when they realize with the click of a button all of there work is gone. On the other hand, a curious anon editor, who decides not to waste his time when he is required to sign up and leaves cannot be fixed with a quick "revert". -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 14:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• I find the revert-and-warn system very effective if used promptly and correctly, as vandals soon realise that we don't and won't tolerate it and that their actions are quickly reverted, and if they don't, we block them. By shifting vandalism to accounts, the same process would still have to be gone through, plus it would be harder to spot. Many editors also start out as annons, then get hooked and sign up. We would loose this with no annon editing. mattbr 15:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• I edit and fix vandalism hourly so please don't tell me it is not a problem and is an easy fix. Go ahead and continue to believe all is fine, but when high school teachers tell their classes not to trust Wikipedia information then I would say Wiki has a declining reputation. I deal with authors everyday and in my conversations not one has had a good thing to say about Wiki. I used to defend Wikipedia with these people. But now being that I see Wikipedia refuses to fix the ever growing problem I am only left to drastically dropping the number of my watches. I can easily predict that I will continue to drop watches as the problem worsens. Don't be fooled into thinking it will improve itself. Soapy 15:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• No, no one should fully trust Wiki-info ever, nor that of any encyclopedia. That's not the job of encyclopedias: encyclopedias exist to provide quick, easy reference, not to be absolutely perfect. And it is in the nature of wikis that there will be errors/vandalism: per WP:RS, wikis shouldn't be thought of as reliable sources, and this includes Wikipedia. Re vandalism, have you ever tried using rollback/warn/report scripts such as WP:TWINKLE? Makes playing whack-the-vandal a lot quicker and lot less stressful. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?}
• No one should trust wikipedia to write a paper. If you do, it is your own fault for doing such. I used wikipedia to gather basic information, and often used it to develop an outline or a plan for papers, however the research came from books at the library and scholary documents. The fact is, even if wikipedias content could only be edited by registered users, or any other restrictions were imposed, it WOULD NOT make wikipedia a reliable source for papers. It is just not, and that is not what it is here for. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 15:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Encylopedias should -never- be used as a final source in a research paper. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 15:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Wikipedia is a great place to start and is a hugely valuable resource for that, but it isn't a scholarly journal, it isn't a book, and it isn't a reliable source. Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought; instead of using Wikipedia as a source, why not use Wikipedia as a place that organizes other people's research and go from there? I am not surprised at all that your daughter's high school teacher said that it is no longer allowed as a source; I am, however, surprised that it was allowed in the first place. --Strangerer (Talk) 22:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Encylopedia n: course of general information: a work that contains information on all branches of knowledge.

Knowledge IS the job of an encyclopedia and most people assume that knowledge implies correct information. Quick and Easy AND CORRECT information is the job of any encyclopedia. Yes, there will always be mistakes and I agree that everyone SHOULD question everything they read but most don't. Yes Wikipedia would still have some vandalism with enforced registration editing but the problem would be far drastically reduced. As far as vandalism then being harder to detect, I say that most editors check BOTH registered logged-in edits as well as ones not signed in so mathematically fewer would get through. Under the current methods, each vandal you are able to deter, ten more join in. I see with my own eyes what is happening on the pages I use to watch and am currently watching so please don't tell me things are fine. Soapy 16:22, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism is going to happen. I have spent months on rc patrol and it is no problem to revert several hundered acts of vandalism per hour, especially with the sophistacted vandal fighting tools that we have. You can get them set up, but vandalism is not seriously worse than it was a month ago, or 3 months ago. It is the same juvenile pranks that can be INSTANTLY reverted. It is not hard to fix vandalism. It is like saying that a kid writing a chalk board is graffiti vandalism, when in fact with a simple swipe of an eraser, there well thought out, juvenile contributions, are gone. If you dont like vandal fighting dont do it, leave it to somebody else. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 16:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The stupidly juvenile vandalism is not the real problem - it's generally easily reverted, although I've run across occasions where it's escaped notice for weeks. The real, darker problem is subtle factual vandalism, especially of biographies of living persons. If it doesn't look like obvious vandalism, it generally gets overlooked... and if you're smart, you can make all sorts of horribly despicable things look like perfectly good article content. FCYTravis 00:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Mackan (talk · contribs)

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone can assist here. There's a rather combative and rude user by the name of Mackan who's threatened to "report me" for "wikistalking"(apparently he did this last week as well), and is trying to get in edit wars with me on several articles. I was wondering if someone could help here, his edit summaries alone are proof enough that he's incredibly rude and dismissive of other users, something that should not be tolerated on Wikipedia. Just H 11:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide links to what you are talking about? Thanks, --Tom 15:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure, hold on a sec. Let me gather the diffs and edit summaries. Just H 19:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Examples

He seems to have several edit wars going on at once with multiple people, largely due to overly aggressive and arrogant behavior.

• in Brussels
  • Remove per sentence it is in? Especially when using a word such as "considered", you need a source suggesting WHO considers it.)
• removes a disputed tag on Kansai-ben despite the fact that there is still a dispute
  • [3]
• on Asahi Shimbun, he yells at someone for removing a tag, like he did on Kansai-ben
  • They are not reliable sources and it's not presented in a NPOV way..! DON'T REMOVE THE GOD DAMN TAG, what's your problem?
• Threat on User talk: Mister-jones against Mister-jones clearing his own talk page
  • RV talk page, it would be appreciated if you instead of deleting the comments archived them. It is for example relevant that you have been 3RR-warned if you should do it again.
• on Anti-Japanese sentiment
  • (RV - biased, POV-pushing, poorly written, and a FORUM AS A SOURCE? Please give up already.)

I'm beginning to fear that a request for comment is necessary for this user, although i'd prefer not to go down that route, even if some of these people are harrassing him as he claims, that does not give him the right to act in such a way. Just H 19:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Mackan's Response

• There is nothing arrogant or aggressive about the Brussels comment, and that was not an edit war, and if it was, it's one you started and one you but nobody else contributed to.
• There might still be a dispute on the Kansai-ben article, but it's not over the factual accuracy, as the tag suggested. Again, this dispute is not with "multiple people" but me and two more editors disagreeing with you, and only you.
• I "yelled" after having those tags removed several times without any explanation. See the talk page, the admin put the tags back. In the Kansai-ben article, other users removed your tags too.
• The "Mister-Jones" talk page revert does in no way constitute a "threat".

Additionally, I am, unfortunately, involved in a few edit wars, but most of them boil down to Japanese meatpuppetry, see Comfort women, Asahi Shimbun, Japan-Korea relations, Joji Obara. Mackan 19:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I have not "done this last week as well". The one who is trying to get into edit wars with somebody is you, with me. You ARE wikistalking me. Just H started posting on the Joji Obara talk page, after a content dispute we had on the Kansai-ben article. On the Joji Obara page, he sided with the editor opposing me, which he is perfectly free to do, and had it been only this article I wouldn't have minded at all. What freaks me out is when he starts reverting edits I make to other, completely unrelated articles, as well. For example, Brussels, an article he has not previously edited. My edit: [4] and Just H's revert [5]. Also, the Jafaican article: [6] and Just H's revert: [7]. Have I then done something inappropriate when I ask him to stop stalking me? Mackan 18:50, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

At a casual glance, the diffs of his reverts seem like reasonable edits. He's allowed to edit the same pages as you. Stalking would involve an intent to harass or annoy. Is there any evidence of such an intent? I certainly don't see it in the diffs provided. Friday (talk) 19:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course he is allowed to edit any article he wants to, but doesn't the fact that he on all three articles either opposed me or reverted me say something about his intent? Also, how about the fact that he had never touched any of those articles before, but obviously found them by looking at my contributions list. Just H seems pissed off about the situation at Kansai-ben and allows this anger to spill over to other articles. Petty revenge is the motive, if you ask me. Mackan 19:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Usernameblacklist

Should we utilize this? According to Special:Version it's enabled here. See mw:Extension:Username Blacklist for more info. —METS501 (talk) 02:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It would have to be used very sparingly. I can just imagine someone trying to block swear words, only to accidentally block "EmbarassedMonkey" because it matches "ass". I would say only vandal memes that will not be construed in any other way. -Amarkov moo! 02:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Would it be possible to block certain phrases from being in names, such as "on wheels!" and "is communism," or does it have to be a complete name? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 02:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it can block phases. I'm not quite sure why something that required complete names would be any use; why not just create the accounts and block them? -Amarkov moo! 02:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I'm stupid. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Except creating every possible permutation of "on wheels!" would be so time consuming as to be ridiculous. I agree with the point about accidental swearwords, or whatever you want to call that. Natalie 04:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Can the servers be said to suffer from apophenia in such cases? :-) Chris cheese whine 04:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been messing around with it and can't get it to work. I'm deleting the page, but other admins are welcome to look at what I tried. alphachimp 05:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Wait, don't. Comment out the first line using #. Gracenotes^T § 05:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Meh, too late. Anyway, if you want to recreate it, start it like:

 #<pre>
#Administrators: Add regular expressions to this page to block them from creation in usernames.
*Stuff
*Middle stuff
*End stuff
#</pre>

Gracenotes^T § 05:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

You know, the <<pre> is just for readability, and probably not needed. It's been removed, which works. Gracenotes^T § 05:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I tried that and I'm not having much luck. I'll leave the page there for another admin with a little more mediawiki expertise to mess around with. It shouldn't do any harm in its current form. alphachimp 05:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Whenever an admin comes around, make sure to put something in MediaWiki:Blacklistedusernametext and MediaWiki:Blacklistedusername; right now, it's defaulting to a complaint that the account is already in use. -Amarkov moo! 05:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hm. I tested it on my personal wiki... apparently, comments are not allowed, not even starting with #. I just had a file that said

*Stuff

and I couldn't create the account. I just assumed that comments were part of the syntax. Sorry for the running back and forth, and thanks for your patience, Penisfuck123, or shall I say alphachimp. Gracenotes^T § 05:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Gracenotes, have you seen mw:Extension:Usernameblacklist? It appears to only accept bulleted regular expressions. Try that on your wiki. --Iamunknown 05:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, it should "Ignore non-list lines when generating blacklist," which means you should be able to write a note without # or * or // or whatever else. --Iamunknown 05:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

← When I said that I create a file, I meant that I created that mediawiki page. When I created it with the above content, I could not register a user with the username "Stuff". However, when I added this:

* Other 
my wiki stuff

I could create a username called "Other". Then I tried:

* Hey
#my wiki stuff

And it still created the account called "Hey". So if we don't insert comments, we'll be fine. Gracenotes^T § 05:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• We could add ".com" and such to the list. I understand that ampersands are already blocked? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Radiant! (talk • contribs) 12:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

I see a problem with "crat" being used-we actually have a user already that goes by "autocrat", and I could see other users using "Democrat" or the like in a username that would be appropriate. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 12:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey, good news; I tried to create an account called "123456aTEST cache cleared maybe", and it failed. (Failing == good, eh.) Gracenotes^T § 13:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

HEY! There's currently a discussion at MediaWiki talk:Usernameblacklist about what to include. Please join it if you wish. Gracenotes^T § 19:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

¡Muy excelente! I will be there later today. --Iamunknown 20:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Need a free admin to handle an issue

I need an admin to check Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. A user is "moving" (though not with the move tab but instead copying the content) to Mario&Sonic at the Olympic Games because of the game typography, splitting the history between two pages. I recommend converting one into a redirect and fully protecting it until the dispute is over. I would do it, but there may be a conflict of interest by now (as I am trying to calm this user down). Thanks. -- ReyBrujo 04:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I have protected all three pages (Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, Mario&Sonic at the Olympic Games. Please resolve the issue at the relevant talk pages. Thanks. --Ragib 04:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Can someone tackle the histmerge that needs doing here please? This needs to happen before any attempt at discussing the content and location of the article can go ahead. Chris cheese whine 05:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• It's currently a double redirect. JuJube 19:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

  Fixed the double redirect, and unprotected it. Since the history merge has been done, I removed the protection in case we decide to move it there. -- ReyBrujo 19:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I did the history merge and left the merged version at Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. If a diferent title is prefered, it can be moved to the appropriate location. All pages currently unprotected. WjBscribe 02:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Main page and Fair Use

There is currently a discussion going on at Wikipedia talk:Fair use exemptions#Removing exception in policy for "Main Page" about whether to disallow the use of Fair use images on the Main page. Administrators should be aware of this since only admins can edit the main page and many of the templates thereon, and will be called on to enforce any policy which comes from this discussion. Mak (talk) 21:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, I imagine the result will be to disallow fair use. For what it is worth though, I haven't seen a fair-use image on the Main Page in ages. I've noticed ITN go for up to a half a day without a photo in it because of licensing. Nice to have a consensus. Teke 01:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I remember now. Ian Thorpe (last week?) went a good while without an image. Teke 01:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I was at the Commons end of that, it all happened so quickly. --Iamunknown 01:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Post-AfD: Baptist women in ministry

Baptist women in ministry was nominated for deletion on 2007-03-01. Here is the discussion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Baptist women in ministry. The result seems to have been "merge any relevant information and then delete as non-notable organization." I stumbled on to the page today and saw the information hadn't been merged, so I just now merged the information about persecution of Baptist women into Anabaptist. The content in the article has expanded by a significant amount since the AfD closed, but no information about its notability has been added. Should I send this to AfD again or is it proper to delete it as the result of that AfD debate? --Strangerer (Talk) 22:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that Anabaptists and Baptists are not quite the same thing — I can't believe such a merge was proposed. Moreover, sectarian persecutions of several centuries ago and a modern "equal rights" organization aren't either. A better merge destination would be Baptist, since it's a Baptist-related organization. It certainly seems to be a much better article than when it was AfD'd. The notability would be that the group promotes women in ministry at a time when the Southern Baptist Convention has been trying to minimize their presence. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The information that was proposed to be merged was about the "estimated 525 Anabaptist women were martyred" but that seems to have been removed from the page in its current incarnation. It is now solely about the organization. --Strangerer (Talk) 04:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

A strange closure result for an article that was AfD'd for being about an NN organization. In any case, since the irrelevant material has been merged accordingly, it would seem that the direction has been satisfied, and that the AfD tag should be removed inasmuch as there was no consensus to delete the rest of the article. Askari Mark (Talk) 04:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Please review

User:AFA was using a signature that looked like this:

AFA ^{(Fuck you!)}

I went to the user's user page, and found a conversation that looked like this

Hi AFA. Please remove the external link from your signature immediately. It is violation of our signature and spam guidelines. Thanks,--cj | talk 23:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

No worries mate. I hope my new signature is more to your liking. (Nothing personal, I use it all the time to all sorts of random people.) AFA (Fuck you!) 23:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I read this as an obvious violation of WP:POINT, so I didn't bother attempting further discussion. I applied an indefinite block, and left the following message:

Let me know when you've adopted an appropriate signature, and I'll unblock you. Hesperian 23:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

AFA left a message disputing my grounds for applying the block, but nonetheless announced that he had changed his signature. I unblocked.

AFA has now left on my talk page a very long message analysing the situation with respect to our expressions of policy, arguing that his signature was not inappropriate, but my block was. Therefore I am bringing it here for review. Am I wrong in thinking that we shouldn't be letting people go around signing "Fuck you!" on talk pages? Was I wrong in my handling of the situation? Hesperian 02:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I see no problem with blocking a user who adds an obviously offensive signature. There are borderline cases, but I don't think "Fuck you!" is borderline. It's more than a bit disruptive. User is fairly well established (just over 200 edits), but this reaction to a politely-worded request, isn't civil, and certainly seems to me to be a personal attack. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how the signature is offensive. I believe that my response to the first request was civil (I changed my signature when it was pointed out it violated policy). It wasn't a personal attack (as I pointed out). Also, I fail to see how my response to that request has to do with my being blocked indefinitely. As Hesperian has said, I have explained in detail why I feel that my signature didn't violate policy. That can be found here[8]. ~AFA ^(Fine!) 02:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You fail to see how "Fuck you!" is offensive? Firsfron of Ronchester 02:56, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how it is offensive in this context (not directed at anyone). Also, even if it is offensive and violates policy, I still contend that the action taken also violates policy. (As an aside, I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this discussion. I apologies if I shouldn't be talking here.)~AFA ^(Fine!) 03:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Rather than "not directed at anyone", I think it would be more accurate if you said "indiscriminately directed at everyone". Hesperian 03:56, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The block was appropriate and normal. The response to the request to change the signature was blatant violation of WP:POINT and WP:CIVIL, bordering on WP:NPA. It's well established that WP:NOT does not apply to usernames and the same rationale operates for this signature: we defend the potentially offensive where encyclopedic value exists, but we don't endorse the gratuitous. Durova^Charge! 03:57, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

If the block was appropriate and normal, why does the policy not reflect this? I feel that the action taken was excessive, I've explained my position and backed up with references to policy. So, even if the signature was in violation of those policies (and I disagree obviously), I still think that a different cause of action (namely a note on the page) would have been sufficient. I was indefinitely blocked for a signature. Not for vandalism, or other such things, but for a signature. I think that is going a bit overboard, even if the signature is offensive to some people. I've explained elsewhere why I think that WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL don't apply. I don't think that WP:POINT applies either, and I'll explain why here. One, I didn't cause any disruption, my signature was short and was not thrown about excessively. Two, I wasn't making a point, I changed my signature to remove an external link when requested, which was all that was required. I didn't ask for this to come here, though I welcome external comment. I simply asked Hesperian to justify an action which I thought was unjustifiable according to my readings of the relevant polices. I think the best way for any further discussion to proceed would be in the manner of a debate. I.e. I've made my points, someone else now refutes them, and so on. My main points are all at [9]. ~AFA ^(Fine!) 05:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Debate is unnecessary. Your signature was clearly inappropriate. Nobody agrees with you. This is not a government, where every action not outlawed is acceptable. Stop misbehaving. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm misbehaving? I hadn't had any complaints, except from one admin. So you think that it is fine to block someone over a [i]signature[/i]? If you don't want to debate, fine. Whatever. But did you even read what I posted at Hesperian's page? ~AFA ^(Fine!) 06:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't tell you how to interpret my signature, all I can say is what I intended. Which was that it was not directed at anyone. ~AFA ^(Fine!) 05:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

It appears to me that you were (and still are) directing the signature at those who have asked you to change it. The difference is, if you want to have "Fine!" in your signature, that's not disruptive or a gratuitous use of profanity. As you've been told, WP:NOT censored means that we won't delete the article on Pornography because some people may find it offensive. It does not mean that you may put gratuitous swearing that may offend people and cause disruption every time you sign a comment. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

How the fuck is profanity disruptive? (And yes I know I made a WP:POINT, I don't care.) You say "may" offend, and you say it disrupts every time I post a comment. How does a signature that short disrupt the flow of conversation? Tell me, does my signature disrupt the conversation here? And, even if my signature is disruptive and offensive, how does that warrant an indefinite ban? There are two issues here, one was the signature disruptive or something similar, and two, was the action taken over the top and excessive. People only seem to be addressing the first point. ~AFA ^(Fine!) 06:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC) misbehaving,

Ending every comment by saying "Fuck you!" is disruptive. If you doubt me, I suggest you try it out in real life. —dgies^t_c 06:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

One, real life and the Internet are different. Two, so you think that my indefinite ban was justified?

Making a WP:POINT is disruptive, primarily as a distraction to our goal of creating a free encyclopædia. You'd do well to get back to that task. --cj | talk 06:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I made a WP:POINT above. The fact that I pointed it out disrupted the conversation, not the fact that I swore. ~AFA ^(Fine!) 06:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I didn't post this here, I requested that Hesperian respond to my comments, instead he came here. I feel that the way that the issue has been framed is not the way that I would have framed it. I do not see anything coming out of my continued discussion here. I would still like Hesperian and/or someone else who has responded to this thread, to go through and point out why my arguments (which over at Hesperian's talk page) are in fact incorrect, if in fact they are. I will not respond again unless someone, with reference to policy, shows how my indefinite ban was justified. So, this is not about the content of the signature (which obviously people do agree did not meet the guidelines, even though they have failed in my opinion to show this). If you have any further comments, my talk page exists. ~AFA ^(Fine!) 06:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Enough with the "indefinite ban" straw man, please. You were indefinitely blocked, where "indefinite" means no predetermined expiry rather than infinite. You were given clear feedback on what would be required of you in order to have the block lifted. You're entitled to disagree with my handling of the situation, but to characterise it as an "indefinite ban" is simply false. Hesperian 06:24, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Your block log indicates that it was in fact a 64 minute ban. Hesperian 06:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

AFA, as Hesp has explained, an indefinite block is not any sort of ban or indefinite ban. It just means that you have been blocked but the duration hasn't been decided on yet. This was the most appropriate way to block you and it left the length of your block entirely in your hands. Please look at the feedback you are getting here and understand that your language and behaviour is not appropriate. If you continue editing in this way and using that kind of language in edit summaries, your sig or anything else, you will likely be blocked for increasingly longer periods of time until you get the message.

I also support Hesp's block. Sarah 13:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems that Wikipedia:Consensus applies here. Nobody agrees with you that the block was inappropriate. That is sufficient to justify it. Sancho (talk) 06:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• It seems obvious to me that if something is not allowed in your username, it's probably not allowed in your signature either. We would permablock User:Fuck you at sight. Ergo. >Radiant< 10:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Why are we even having this conversation? Everything is obvious to all but trolls (and even to them in reality).--Doc^g 11:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Favorite words? [10], [11][12], etc.--MONGO 11:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

24 hour block for violations of WP:POINT and WP:CIVIL, primarily at this thread. Durova^Charge! 13:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

We may need to keep an eye on this one. He has five barnstars - all awarded by himself. User:AFA#Wikipedia_Awards_for_this_user Durova^Charge! 14:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

A user talk page without vandalism has been protected - is this appropriate? Please look into this for me.

I'd like some clarification on an issue. An admin has protected the User talk:Qxz so that nobody can cantact that individual nor comment on that individual's recent conflict.

I couldn't find anything in policy that allows a talk page to be protected except in the case of vandalism, and then only as a last resort and only for as long as necessary to thwart such vandalism. Can a user request that his talk page be protected just so that he can't be contacted?

I haven't run into this before, and it seems counter to the nature of the Wikipedia project. Please unprotect the page so that the community, me included, can console the individual, who has had a wiki-stress blowout. He also left a message on my talk page, which I'd like to respond to on his talk page.

Or at least quote the specific policy or precedent on this issue. Thank you. The Transhumanist   05:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Note: I was the administrator responsible for protecting Qxz's page per interpretation of meta:Right to vanish. Similar measures have been taken in the past, most recently with respect to User talk:Essjay. Qxz made it quite clear[13][14] (see [15] for more) that he/she did not wish anyone to edit his/her talk page. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 05:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC) (copy of post to WP:RPP ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 05:19, 30 March 2007 (UTC))

Essjay was an extraordinary case, much like Gator1's, where his RFA page was deleted. Those are extreme cases. As a counterexample, I remember when someone invoked the right to vanish and tried to get his RFA page deleted, but another admin reverted it. Also, when Lucky 6.9 vanished, he locked his user talk page, but UninvitedCompany unprotected it and said that Lucky had to let other people post messages if they wanted to. Hbdragon88 05:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I brought this up (vaguely) at WP:VPM to no response. I am unsure of my reasoning, but I would prefer the talk page unprotected. --Iamunknown 05:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

There's also a tangential discussion going on here. It was a judgment call, but I think that the protection was in line with Qxz's stated preference. Still, I understand the concerns brought up by The Transhumanist and Hbrdragon88, and I will not contest unprotection. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 06:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I really wish people would raise issues in one place only or at least make a note that they are also going to raise the matter on another noticeboard. I unprotected the talk page in response to the post at RFPP and before I was aware of this thread. I support the initial protection because it was the talk page of an a blocked editor who was being disruptive. I have unprotected it because the editor is no longer blocked. If other admins feel it should remain protected until Qzx returns and requests unprotection, feel free to revert me. Sarah 06:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Endorse unprotection, and also request that people leave Qxz alone until he decides to return, if he does so at all. He needs a break. – Riana ^talk 07:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• It seems to me that protecting a user talk page has little to nothing to do with "vanishing". In general, when people leave, other people put messages on their talk page asking them to come back. I don't see a solid reason for protection here, and in general we don't protect pages without solid reason. >Radiant< 11:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Mike Church, part N

Indefinitely blocked User:Mike Church has apparently taken to tagging his own sockpuppets just to get attention (oh, and leave nasty messages with my name in them). See Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Mike Church. He's also started a libelous thread about me on another Web forum ([16]) , but that's not something Wikipedia can really deal with except to stare in horror at what a sociopath this dude is.

I'll clarify the current situation: Mike's sockpuppet category contains many sockpuppet accounts that have already been blocked. Now, it contains several more accounts that have had sockpuppet notices added, but in many cases the account adding the sockpuppet notice is also a sockpuppet. Heck, the puppets may even be stacked more than two deep. I don't know yet. Anyway, can I get some help reverting and blocking the sockpuppets?

rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 09:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Why not just delete the category, the userpages and everything? I know not everyone agrees with WP:DENY, but it is the best way to deal with attention seeking like this.--Doc^g 11:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I've thought about that. It's a tricky balancing act, and that throws the balance entirely the wrong way, I think. I'd like to deny him recognition, but he thrives on secrecy and misinformation almost as much as he thrives on recognition. He was exposed so quickly when he tried to libel and impersonate me on AutoAdmit partially because one of the people there found his sockpuppet page.

Something I've considered is redirecting the old Church-tracking pages to the category page, so that his presence on Wikipedia is nothing but a list of names. It would have the effect of burying the historical record of why we want Mike the hell off of Wikipedia in the first place, but perhaps it would be the right amount of recognition denial. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:10, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Disputed policy

Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection has had a "disputed" tag on it for about three months now. There has been no debate on the talk page for the past month. Can some admin involved in the daily main page article please enlighten me/us about what we actually do every day with the main page featured article? >Radiant< 12:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I think unless vandalism is terribly bad, we leave the article unprotected? (We're supposed to be the encyclopedia anyone can edit after all). Look at 9 March. --kingboyk 12:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You may also be interested in this proposal: Wikipedia:Main page featured article stability.-- Waggers 14:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Congrats to Theresa Knott

I thought I'd flag up a good article published in yesterday's edition of The Observer which highlighted the work of Wikipedia's unsung heroes - the vandal fighters. It focuses on our own Theresa Knott, who "visits the site daily, often editing at 5.30am before she leaves for work as a London primary school teacher. Her efforts have been rewarded with regular abuse from vandals and kudos from her Wikipedia peers, who elected her to the position of administrator in 2003." It gives a pretty positive view of Wikipedia's anti-vandalism mechanisms and the people involved, focusing on Theresa's own contributions. It's well worth a look - see http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2042368,00.html . We need more articles like this! :-) -- ChrisO 19:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• Very cool, much props. The article does kinda make it out like admins create [policy], which isn't true, congrats to Theresa for the recognition of her work though. Wickethewok 14:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
  • What does "The article does kinda make it out like admins create, which isn't true" mean, exactly? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 19:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Well, it says that vandalism is "whatever the administrators think it is at a given time", which isn't quite accurate. Vandalism is a thing that many editors take on, not just admins. Its really not a big deal, its just the article makes vandalism-fighting out to be more of an admin thing, when in fact, its something thats dealt with by the whole community. Just a minor thing with the article (shrug). Wickethewok 22:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
  • With respect, I don't see how that has anything to do with "make(s) it out like admins create, which isn't true". What does "create" have to do with vandal fighting? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:56, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Oops, must've mistyped or something, it was supposed to be "create policy" on what vandalism is. Whatever, its just a minor thing I guess, it really doesn't matter. Wickethewok 18:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• I agree about the props. The article also did a great job of describing, simply and clearly, some of the ins and outs of WP. Anchoress 19:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeah...I rather wish WoW hadn't been mentioned: enter more copycat vandals! Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 19:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed, but I spose WP:NOFEEDING isn't really a policy embraced by the press. Wickethewok 22:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales's requested poll nearly done - please see

Jimbo Wales requested a poll to gauge community thoughts on the Wikipedia:Attribution merger. A poll for this is being crafted, and is somewhat close to done. Concensus for the past 24 hours (with the occasional dissenting voice of course) that the thing is close to done. Only the main question is still heavily debated. A pre-poll straw poll is here:

Wikipedia_talk:Attribution/Poll#Q1_Straw_poll_duration

To sort that out. Accepted group concensus seems to be to pre-poll to 4/1/07 22:00 and then launch a site-wide poll (again, as implied/requested by Jimbo) at 4/2/07 00:00. Please help hash out the wording for that last quesion. - Denny 13:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It is not nearly done. This is coming across as underhanded, Denny. El_C 13:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

How many people oppose it? There is hardly a concensus to not do it, and every time I throw out the suggestion there is no opposition. I've had that idea posted at the top of one of the most advertised pages in apparently a long time, and not one person before you, Radiant, and WAS with his inappropriate comments blew in and opposed it. You, Radiant and WAS aren't concenus or overrule concenus, and your voices have equal weight to everyone else--no more, no less. Work with others. :) - Denny 13:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Not me, I oppose the questionable attempt to limit the poll's scope, and to rush this to conclusion. El_C 13:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Please stop spreading some kind of disinformation smear tactic or whatever this is! As I explained in extreme length on the talk page, there is NO attempt to limit anything. Anyone can add ANYTHING that is SUPPORTED by concensus to the poll. If one guy wants a drastic change added with no support, why add it? Because they scream loudest? No. - Denny 14:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Not also that every change you made was reverted out by others (and I think your changing of the supported/agreed upon transclusion for some reason was a revert but I won't file a 3rr on you). - Denny 14:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

"Disinformation smear tactic?" What are you talking about? I take exception as to how your presentation comes across. El_C 14:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Your extremely disruptive tone on the poll talk page is quite the opposite of opposing my presentation. If you have a problem with the Poll, don't edit war. MfD it, and put up or stop being disruptive. Or, work with everyone as I've asked repeatedly. - Denny 14:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not seeing how my tone is disruptive, not to mention "extermely. Anyway, I self-reverted, just in case. El_C 14:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Why won't you discuss your changes as I have repeatedly asked on the talk page? You edit warred instead and posted endlessly and emptily about why the whole affair was bad. In other words, you warred, and added nothing to move forward. Why? - Denny 14:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I have discussed my changes throughout. Please stop misusing the noticeboard. El_C 14:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

1) I posted an announcement. Nothing more. 2) Your discussion is edit war inappropriately, then agree to talk when everyone shut you down. Good day. - Denny 15:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That's clearly untrue. Stop misusing this noticeboard. El_C 17:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) That is a misrepresentation, El C. You posted, to voice your unhappiness, and in two edits undid 40+ edits by myself, Jossi, Picaroon9288, Marskell, Conti, Kim Bruning, SmCandlish, WAS, SlimVirgin, Pmanderson, David Levy, Crum375, and Armedblowfish. Removing 40+ edits by 13 editors is disruptive. Stop misusing this noticeboard, please. Regardless of how you spin this, unless someone deletes or edits the page history... it is there for all to see in the edit history. I don't know what you are hoping to accomplish by attacking me here. El_C, why are you deceiving/spinning? What do you hope to gain in calling me a liar? - Denny 18:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I am not decieving nor am I calling anyone a liar. Stop mischaractarizing my comments. El_C 18:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I wished to clear up the mispresentation that I was misusing this board. Happy editing. - Denny 18:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It's amazing how such a tiny number of editors wish to introduce a site-wide poll within a day or two considering the changes to the structure of the poll over the last day alone. That, in itself, deserves closer administrative attention. El_C 18:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

El_C, the poll so far is by concensus. See here:

Front of poll:

number of edits 586
number of minor edits 206 (35.2%)
first edit 03/20/2007 21:37 (Picaroon9288)
most recent edit 03/29/2007 14:16 (El C)
mean time between edits 21:15 m
unique editors 43 (0 IP addresses)
average number of edits per user 13.6
number of edits within last day 26
number of edits within last week 410
number of edits within last month 586
number of edits within last year 586

This talk page:

number of edits 1689
number of minor edits 334 (19.8%)
first edit 03/20/2007 21:54 (Picaroon9288)
most recent edit 03/29/2007 18:31 (El C)
mean time between edits 7:31 m
unique editors 58 (0 IP addresses)
average number of edits per user 29.1
number of edits within last day 346
number of edits within last week 1528
number of edits within last month 1689
number of edits within last year 1689

Its been here since 3/20/07. Your first edit was 03/27/2007 21:19 to the poll, your first talk page edit here was 03/29/2007 10:12. It was advertised heavily on ALL Watchlists starting 3/24/07. I believe you were editing on 3/24? Thanks, - Denny 18:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Note: El_C attempted to erase my demonstration that he insulted me, failed to AGF, and so on. All I would like is an apology to his misrepresentations about the work we did, and calling me out in his original response. - Denny 18:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I did no such thing. El_C 19:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Assume the assumption of good faith -- ReyBrujo 19:01, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. "This is coming across as underhanded, Denny. El_C 13:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)". - Denny 19:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Give it a rest. El_C 19:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Denny, El C, it might be helpful if you each posted a short (<100 word) summary of (1) what you think the current dispute about the WP:ATT poll is and (2) how you think additional input might help resolve that dispute, and then let it go. I've given my opinion and reasoning in the metapoll, but am not sure if there's any other way I can help. Thanks, TheronJ 14:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

My sole concern is that concensus for days on the talk page has been to resolve this, and people coming in and deciding that "they are above" the agreed upon concensus system disrupts everything. - Denny 14:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

How about in 50 words or less. El_C 14:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Dudes, we need to slow down a bit for a moment. We're seriously not ready to run a poll right now. --Kim Bruning 14:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Kim, I seriously appreciate your desire to help mediate. Seriously, you're the only person to simply say that. Is your concern over concensus of what will be IN the poll? Because that is being hashed out now. Or is it something else? - Denny 14:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

We're not ready, it's not nearly done. Claims of consensus are premature. Discussion is that-a-way. El_C 14:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Denny, I left a message on your talk page. I think the energy you're putting into this is tremendous, and it's really appreciated. At the same time, you're leaving a bit of a wake behind you, you see (the number of people we seem to need to mediate between is expanding quite rapidly). So hmm, maybe you don't even need to slow down, just help us mediator-type-people deal with the wake for a bit. :-) --Kim Bruning 14:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not gonna respond to this thread any further, lest Denny would choose to duplicate lengthy comments from the poll's talk page. Ciao. El_C 19:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• The poll is not near consensus. There are six options for what the first question is to be, four of which can claim reasonable support, as I write.
• It has not been conducted civilly or with decency.
• It is not nearly done. Even if consensus on Q1 emerges, the result will still require tweaking if we don't want editors deprecating the poll as biased. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• It is also nowhere near intelligible. I can't make head nor tail of it. Come back when there is a settled poll that I can take part in. Guy (Help!) 06:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
• This poll shouldn't be held period. If people get into heated debate for over a week over the wording of a poll, then no good can come out of the poll either. m:polling is evil. >Radiant< 07:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• If it were only heated debate over the poll, it wouldn't be so bad, but there's been a row over the poll about the poll too. It's beyond absurd, and almost no one can follow what's going on. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 11:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

My apologies if anyone thought I was directly attacking them. If you guys don't think there should be a Poll MfD the whole thing and stand up to Jimbo. I also have the right to stand up to El_C's abusive misrepresenation that I did something wrong. Up to when I posted, only an extreme minority complained in the way that people are now. I was only trying to help. If people were unhappy, why didn't they SAY so? Also, his assertation that I was keeping things out of the pre-poll was a flagrant lie meant to disparage me. I don't care if someone has 300 edits or 30,000. I have every right to defend myself if made to look bad with false statements... I never once remove a single thing that anyone added, and in fact INTEGRATED two other suggestions (Q4, Q5) that I said I didn't care for. Look at my history of editing--I go out of my way to not try to own stuff, and to add in suggestions that people give me since I've been here... if you took it as an attack on you, sorry, it certainly was't meant to be. El_C was 100% out of line in singleing me out and I wasn't going to let him make me a patsy for the problems some obviously have with Jimbo over this. - Denny 13:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, well, well. It has started, two days early. The only consensus was that this would not start before 00:00 2 April, to avoid April Fool's Day; and three editors have started it on an hour's discussion. This entire process has been done in bad faith; but as many editors as possible should read ATT and opine as can do so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Does WP:BLP apply to professional wrestlers?

Some advice is requested here, I have noticed that a vast number of our articles about pro wrestlers (ex. Category:American professional wrestlers) are written in a kayfabe style and contain nothing in the way of references. I am contacting the administrators noticeboard for suggestions on how to deal with these articles in situations where on-line research turns up nothing in the way of reliable sources to corroborate article content. Burntsauce 16:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• That's perilously close to WP:FICT; part of the wrestling world is indeed a fictional universe, and no we should not perpetuate that. Every article must have multiple non-trivial sources. I'd say that at least one or two in each case should be independent of the wrestling world, precisely because of the kayfabe issue. And WP:BLP unquestionably applies to the individuals, whether it applies to their wrestling persona is a different matter. Guy (Help!) 16:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The reason I ask is that we treat biographies of living people much more rigorously than, say, an article about a superhero. Professional wrestlers fall somewhere in the middle, and the bulk of Wikipedia articles about them are plagued with unsupported, and in many cases unsupportable, material. Should these article be treated as any other "real life" biography, or are special considerations given to their largely fictitious personas? Burntsauce 17:10, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The sourcing of the articles is very problematic. I went through just the 'A' and 'B' entries of the above category earlier this week and there were over 50 articles I added an unreferenced (or equivalent) template to, and not many of the rest were adequately sourced either. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 17:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• I think what's needed is a lead which is strictly factual, an in-universe warning on the body, and fact tags for anything not decently sourced, plus unreferenced tags for those which have no credible sourcing. Anything not fixed in a couple of weeks, we can start to purge. Hopefully people will get the hint. Source it or lose it... Guy (Help!) 18:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• My understanding of the matter is that the persona, along with the name, is generally owned by the specific company. The solution seems to be to say that |Wrestler Stage Name| is the stage persona of |Wrestler Actual Name|.KV(Talk) 00:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Well I went through the Cs, and 47 out of 50 articles need sources/verifying. From what I've seen, there's a popular misconception among people editing the wrestling articles that if you've just seen something on TV you can just add it to an article. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 19:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• My findings are exactly the same as One Night in Hackney's. In virtually every single case, they're either entirely without sources, or have had the {{unreferenced}} template requesting sources for many months with zero progress. I expect that if I begin the purge process I am going to be met with an onslaught of resistance from the pro wrestling fans. Burntsauce 20:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Based on past experience they will !vote with "Strong keep" en masse, then the same people will make no effort to source the articles in the months that follow the AfDs. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 20:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Example: "when a section dosen't have referances you tag it not delete it" — Natl1 20:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC) -- This directly contradicts WP:BLP, please correct me if I am wrong. Burntsauce 20:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Everything that needs verification is verified or comes straight from the shows which are a primary source. DXRAW 23:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's take Rob Conway for example, which you removed the unreferenced tag claiming "everything that needs verification is verified or comes straight from the shows which are a primary source". There are currently two external links, one confirms that a "Conway Jr., Robert Thomas" attended a particular school in a particular year, the other a fansite. So not much seems verified to me. Even ignoring that interpretation of primary sources by editors is original research, it's impossible to verify. WWE TV shows from the last 7 years aren't repeated, there's no online archive of them, so how can anyone verify the article? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 23:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You don't need an online archive. Take some old random book for example is it online? why would you need an achieve to be online. Most achieves are not online. DXRAW 00:05, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but books can be read in libraries or purchased. Please tell us where there is an offline archive for WWE TV shows? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 00:13, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

1241 East Main Street Stamford, Connecticut DXRAW 00:31, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

An archive that's not open to the general public. Thanks for clarifying that the TV shows are not sources that can be verified. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 00:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I answered your question. Next time you might want to phrase it differently next time. Why do you need to a primary source to be verified sounds like a bit of overkill to me. DXRAW 00:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Then the whole project of trying to collect verifiable material into a neutral encyclopedia is overkill. If we don't require information to be verifiable by actual readers, then Wikipedia is no different from the rest of the internet. The reason Wikipedia is different is that we bother to filter out the unverifiable stuff. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the ultimate problem here is that the articles at issue here are a matter of one article on two subjects - one a fictional character, one a person. WP:BLP clearly applies to one and not the other. What needs to happen is the separation of the two personae within the article, with information about the person subject to BLP, information about the character subject to the usual level of ATT, and information not identifiably about either of the two rewritten or removed. Chris cheese whine 00:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I feel that they are separate enough at the moment. DXRAW 00:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

(0utdent) Be aware that JB196, one of the site's long term vandals and most prolific sockpuppeteers, concentrates on frivolous drives to delete articles in professional wrestling. Durova^Charge! 00:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

JB196 is also still engaged in self-advertising, see for example the history of this (and there's several similar ones) article, he's quite persistent. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 00:57, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Who is going to maintain these articles except people who are interested in professional wrestling? It is unlikely that they will ever be brought to and held to encyclopedic standards. I think we need to acknowledge that if we have these articles, then these articles in their current form is exactly what we are going to have. Tom Harrison ^Talk 01:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

That's not something we can acknowledge, since that would make the articles deletable under "no potential". Some of the cleanup tags suggest "This article needs a little work", whereas some effectively say "This article is not in a fit state for Wikipedia". It has long been my opinion that in the latter case, anyone who wants such an article kept at AfD is duty-bound to contribute to the improvement. Chris cheese whine 01:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I just want to make certain the other sysops are aware of possible background at this topic: JB196's modus operandi is to breed a large sockfarm, go on a notability/verifiability tagging spree of non-North American professional wrestling topics (often targeting older biographies from the pre-internet period), then initiate mass deletion nominations. Meanwhile he uses other socks to vandalize the non-North American professional wrestling articles that do have citations, deleting the references and then tag teaming with his other socks to pin (previously) verified but vandalized pages onto the deletion mat if the vandalism doesn't get reverted fast enough. He does this faster than a team of people could possibly add citations from vintage magazines and he's been at this game for a year. He just happens to think the only pro wrestling that matters happens in the United States and Canada, and he wants to manipulate the world's most popular reference site to reflect his bias. He got away with that for a long time too because (heck let's face it) professional wrestling doesn't get a whole lot of respect, but the more one thinks about it the more pernicious and exploitable that whole methodology looks. So to summarize, it's a wise idea to view all tagged articles on this subject as very possibly tagged in bad faith by a banned user (checkuser requests have confirmed well over 100 sockpuppets). Durova^Charge! 02:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

He has a long term abuse report. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 02:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

That is not an excuse to say that articles that can only ever make it a short way up the quality scale are acceptable. Every now and then the vandals do something right. Chris cheese whine 02:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Why is this interesting? If we are making unsourced, or poorly sourced claims about living people, it needs to be cleaned up. It can be cleaned up through careful editing, which is going to have the effect of removing any verifiability tags, or it can be removed by deletion, if the article doesn't fit our inclusion criteria, or if we cannot find enough reliable sources to write a proper one. Frankly, we should be a lot more concerned about unsourced claims about living people than we should about someone frivolously using {{verify}}. What terrible thing happens if someone puts {{verify}} on a scrupulously-sourced, neutral, encylopedic article? Jkelly 02:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

That is precisely the sort of thinking this vandal exploits. I had the same incredulous reaction at first until I looked into the matter in depth. Here's a rather clever vandal who's found a chink in our wikiarmor. Durova^Charge! 02:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to comment on the above discussion, but instead answer the question posed in the title: yes, WP:BLP does definitely apply to proffesional wrestlers. --Iamunknown 03:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Apropos of nothing in particular, half of what JB196 did/does needs doing, as many of the wrestler articles are garbage, and deleting them - particularly those of minor backyard wrestlers - loses nothing particularly useful (and it often helps). Neil (not Proto ►)

(VP)

Resolved

 – Does not belong here.

Corrupt User List. Needs Fixing. Poorleno 17:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Please submit any complaints related to this tool at User talk:AmiDaniel/VP/Bugs, not here. We can't do much about this. Sandstein 21:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hippie

User:A Man In Black protected Hippie on Mar 25 for edit warring and has, since then, apparently taken a break or left the project. Rather than harrassing him about it, unless someone here objects, I'll unprotect the page. I guess what I am asking is, what is the right procedure when the blocking admin doesn't want to be contacted. CMummert 18:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

If there is no ongoing reason to block, you can unblock the article. The blocking administrator does not have a veto, though it's sometimes useful to contact him in case there is a special problem. --Tony Sidaway 18:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. CMummert · talk 18:56, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

There should be minimal deference to the judgement of another admin. It's not wheel warring until he reverts your revert. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:48, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Userspace of banned users

Do we protect the user pages and user talk pages of banned users? And do we clean out said pages except for the {{banned}} template and other relevant templates and ban information? I've been cleaning up the WP:BANNED page and see an ad hoc patchwork of protection and talk page blanking. —²¹⁰physicq (c) 01:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK, If needed, and yes. —Pilotguy cleared for takeoff 01:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Whatever strategy works in the situation, so far as is necessary to enforce the ban. --bainer (talk) 04:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

In general, the talk page is blanked and/or protected if a banned user is using it as a soapbox or to place bogus {{unblock}} and {{helpme}} requests. Otherwise, it doesn't really matter. —Centrx→talk • 04:09, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Attribution/Poll

FYI, a poll collecting opinions about WP:ATT is now open at Wikipedia:Attribution/Poll ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a bit of back and forth on this. Perhaps it's not quite ready yet? · j e r s y k o talk · 03:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, as anyone can verify, the poll is not open right now. CMummert · talk 03:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

It's open again. RxS 04:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

All right! Let me go there and cast my...uh, comment in the discussion. Hbdragon88 05:27, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Harassment by Arbustoo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Moved to AN/I, sorry. Frise 03:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_March_25#Category:Wars_France_lost

This discussion, which is past time for deletion/keep, is causing some issues, as anyone can look at my talk page and see. One user wishes to delete the categories, even while the discussion is open, in the name of IAR; I say they should stay. However, we both agree it's a bogus cat, and it would be much simpler if an admin could close the discussion right now, and the issue would no longer matter. Patstuart^talk·edits 03:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Worse, now other people are removing the cats, in direct violation of the cfd rules. Someone please handle. Patstuart^talk·edits 03:29, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Well I guess I'll explain my position here, even though I am having a difficult time understanding why this has become such a big deal. First of all, the vast majority of the people who voted on whether this category should be kept or removed went for the latter. The vote currently stands at 27-6 in favor of deletion. What I am requesting is that, in light of the vote and the time that we have spent arguing over this issue, including the fact that many arguments have not been addressed by those who wanted to keep the category, we should delete this category....basically now. I don't see any point in waiting any further. The category is wholly unencyclopedic and, as someone mentioned during the discussion, it will never survive almost any bureaucratic process that we put it through. It is virtually dead. Prolonging its existence can only cause the sort of rancor and discomfort that Pat and I have, unfortunately, experienced today.UberCryxic 03:45, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I've closed the discussion as the category was obviously POV and the overwhelming majority of participants agreed on that point. I also emptied the cat and deleted it. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:27, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Deathcamps nonsense

Remember this Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive219#141.157.161.15? The owner of deathcamps.org is being quite aggressive (not without reason) on OTRS; there are dozens of links to death-camps.org on other language projects, and several links to deathcamps.org have also been removed. I have requested blacklisting of both sites to contain the problem, but if speakers of other languages could help out it would be appreciated.

• de: [17], [18]
• fr: [19] (removed), [20] (removed)
• he: [21], [22]
• nl: [23] (all nuked), [24]
• no: [25]
• it: [26]

Plenty more where they came from, I'm sure. Guy (Help!) 20:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Blacklisting is definitely in order! Give us a break already. Good on you for spotting the extended nature of this JzG. (→Netscott) 20:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. Blacklist both. We don't need this crap, even if the material they supply is useful; they need to work out their differences and not bring their battle to Wikipedia. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 20:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

• Good call on the blacklisting request. I know that sometime in the past I was involved in a situation where some editor was going through pages and replacing one version of the URLs with the other, along with not so veiled legal threats. IMO the benefit of these as external links is outweighed by the headache of having to deal with something that is essentially not our problem.--Isotope23 20:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

fr: is done, unless my edits get reverted. Jkelly 20:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

• You might want to visit m:Talk:Spam blacklist and advocate that, then, as it's being questioned. Guy (Help!) 21:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

• • So, all links should be removed? I can do it on nl., but where can I point to in order to explain that mass removal of links? --Edokter (Talk) 23:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Argh, don't they understand that complaining to Wikipedia will get them nowhere? They should instead seek dispute resolution off-wiki. I'll chime my support at the spam backlist; hopefully it remain, unlikely most conversations at the spam blacklist, a small unheated conversation. --Iamunknown 03:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I have started removing the links at German Wikipedia. Hope I don't get blocked! I have two questions: One — should I also remove them from discussion pages? Two — what should I do when they are not just given as external links, but given as a footnote to source a particular claim being made? See, for example, Footnote 3 in this article. I know that claims have to be sourced in Wikipedia articles, and my German isn't good enough to enable me to rewrite an article taking that bit out. It might leave a gap in the sense if I just removed the sentence that is sourced, and I wouldn't be able to explain myself on the talk page either. (In fact, I got my edit summary from a German Wikipedians who has edited some of the articles I was editing here.) Is it enough if I just nowiki the link? ElinorD (talk) 08:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think they're too happy with me at German Wikipedia. It's being discussed at the admin noticeboard. See here. I removed all the "death-camp" links (over fifty) from articles, but there are still some left on talk pages and project space.[27] (Nobody answered my question above.) I removed a very small number of the "deathcamps" links, but there are more than a hundred left.[28] I'm stopping for the moment, because they don't like what I'm doing, and anyway, I have to go out. I'd be prepared to continue with the "deathcamps" links later, if somebody okays it. Someone at German Wikipedia has also just told me that it would be better to comment them out instead of removing them. ElinorD (talk) 10:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I left a note there, but if any enWP admins speak German perhaps they could go over and make nice. Guy (Help!) 11:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The messages at my German talk page are here. ElinorD (talk) 11:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for your information on our noticeboard. We will discuss this issue and let you know about the outcome for german wikipedia. Please refrain from removing or changing those links for the time being. Of course if those sites get on the blacklist there wont be anything to discuss. --Taxman_de^{Talk (de)} 11:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Note: the above user is not User:Taxman from en, but is Benutzer:Taxman from de, who has an account here as User:(Taxman) de. He may modify his signature above, as the enwiki Taxman has pointed out that it links to the enwiki Taxman's userpage, but in case he doesn't (he doesn't come to this wiki very much), I thought I'd point it out. ElinorD (talk) 19:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Elinor, in response to your question, I guess just refrain from removing the links until further information comes in from de. --Iamunknown 16:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. There were 68 links to death-camps, and I got it down to 14 (leaving only discussion pages and project space), but I've been reverted, and it's now back at 29.[29] There are 137 links to deathcamps; I had only removed a few when I was challenged.[30] I'm not going to do anything more until some kind of decision has been made by the people who are supposed to make these decisions. ElinorD (talk) 19:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Would anybody be so kind to explain, why this link should`nt be used on wikipediapages? What is the meaning of ORTS ? Why is the deadcamp.org on a blacklist? What are the reasons of the owner? Bodoklecksel 12:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

OTRS is the e-mail system that any e-mail to addresses AT wikimedia DOT com go into. The two domains are in some kind of battle (c.f. WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND), took it on wiki (c.f. archive), and now the one that got blocked is being belligerent on OTRS. As a result of the whole bitter imbroglio, we removed all of the links from all articles on the English-language Wikipedia. They apparently didn't think that was enough and are now on OTRS complaining that links can be added back in / links can be added to other Wikimedia projects. In an effort to stop the whole battle, some (including myself) are asking that both domains be blacklisted at the meta:Spam blacklist so that no Wikimedia project may use them. I don't really know (as I am not an OTRS member) and am unsure that I care the exact reasons of the respective domain owners for this particular battle. It is really a moot point and it should be taken off-wiki. I have my opinions but refrain from repeating them because, when I did elsewhere earlier, my intentions were bitterly and baselessly attacked and misrepresented by one of the domain owners. I don't particularly care for anymore nonsense. --Iamunknown 16:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

In case you guys haven't been watching meta:Talk:Spam blacklist, I'm not sure the links are going to be blacklisted. I continue to hope that they are but, in the event that they are not, what should be our next course of action? And Guy, can we get an update from the OTRS side of it? --Iamunknown 16:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• [http://www.deathcamps.org deathcamps.org] is a valuable source for articles about the Holocaust and deathcamps in particular. We see from archive.org that the site exists since November 25, 2002. It is the original. We learn from whois.net and the [http://www.deathcamps.org/arc/ information] on the website itself that it is runned and responded by Chris Webb from Cranleigh, UK, as ARC Secretary & Trustee. According to the notice the site's last update was in July 2006. The team is no longer accepting donations. There was a vandalism in October 2006 and the pages were restored in December 2006.
• [http://www.death-camps.org death-camps.org] seems to be a plagiarism. This [http://www.death-camps.org/arc/ information] dated October 2006 says: "Every donation or contribution will help us maintain this website." The website does not name a resonsible person. whois.net says it was registered by Stephan Thier from Vienna, on October 17, 2006.
• I suggest to restore the weblinks for deathcamps.org -- Simplicius, German user, 21:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Thank for your analysis. Unfortunately, and I speak only for myself and have no authority in the matter, I do not care anymore which domain was established when and by whom. The prior discussion took up 37 kilobytes in less than 24 hours, people affiliated with the domains keep trying to import their bitter imbroglio onto Wikipedia, OTRS is (as I understand, I am not on the OTRS team) the next battlefield, and I personally have been rather viciously attacked elsewhere for expressing what I thought might be the motivation for this particular battle. I would prefer formally forbidding any links to either website permanently, or at least until this mix up is sorted out off wiki. --Iamunknown 21:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• This is not a court, this is an encyclopedia and it needs good sources.
  Some lost relatives in the holocaust. And some lose their nerves due to 37 kilobytes of discussion. -- Simplicius 08:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

A meta administrator added the sites to the blacklist a few hours ago, and then apparently changed his mind.[31], [32], [33], [34] ElinorD (talk) 23:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I've blacklisted both after rather tedious research; see the blacklist request for the reasoning. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:30:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

German Wikipedia admin Benutzer:DaB. whitelisted deathcamps at German Wikipedia after the two sites had been blacklisted by a Meta admin. See here and here. He said that he didn't like it that a need of enWP counted more then a need of other project at meta. ElinorD (talk) 20:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Which is a rather ridiculous presumption. This is not stricly an enWP thing; this is, in summary, at least one of the site owners being very belligerent to OTRS correspondents not just about links on enWP but also about links on all of Wikimedia. --Iamunknown 21:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Let the folks over at de:wikipedia experience this deathmatch in a teapot for a while, & they'll reconsider the whitelist in due time. In other words, it's not our problem so let's rely on their own good judgement. -- llywrch 01:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates

An editor has challenged an AFD decision of mine at Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Requests/March 2007/Jalabi99 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). I'm thoroughly unamused by this turn of events, as it seeks to personalise an administrative issue and avoids the correct forum (WP:DRV). Furthermore, I was not notified of this "case" (I found it when looking at "what links here" for my user page), and the "advocates" dealing with it have responded to the "case" as though they are lawyers who have already judged me "guilty" (User talk:Jalabi99).

Whether or not my closure was proper or improper isn't the point (I have no problem with a DRV and always respect its outcome). The incident does, however, lead me to question the role of Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates and whether "advocacy" is good for the encyclopedia. Personally I see WP:ARBCOM as necessary, but any further attempts at bringing quasi-legal organisations to Wikipedia as undesirable and something to be resisted. --kingboyk 14:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I started questioning the role of that particular project a while ago. I used to be a member, but I left it, because that's what I saw happening to it. Awesome, isn't it. --Deskana (talk) 14:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that is funny. DRV is not a legal process, and treating it as one is utterly stupid. -Amarkov moo! 14:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not a legal process, it's WP Policy, and the original request to AMA is an attempt to do an end run around it, in my opinion. SirFozzie 15:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the point of WP:AMA is to help people deal with policy, and consensus in general, so going to AMA first is actually a really good idea. The AMA people should then be able to explain what needs to be done next, and help folks do that.

The big problem that AMA (and several other projects just like it) faces these days is that they cannot recruit skilled people straight off of Requests for Adminship anymore. They have to train newbies from scratch, and this makes the quality of their work a bit variable at the moment. It's still better than nothing, but they could use a lot more help from experienced people!

--Kim Bruning 15:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy to criticize AMA when it deserves it, but this seems like a basically good advocacy. The original user was frustrated by a deletion, and the advocates informed him/her of the options of (1) DRV; (2) getting the deleted content restored to a userpage for use off-wiki; or (3) letting it go. See the mediation page. I can see Kingboyk's frustration that he/she wasn't notified earlier, but the AMA seems to have accurately fullfilled the function of advising novice users of Wiki norms and procedures. It also looks like the AMA has resolved the issue.[35] -- all in all, this looks like a positive result, if a little clumsy. TheronJ 15:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I can see the positive side of it when you put it like that. Thanks. --kingboyk 15:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Can someone provide me one example of the AMA actually doing something good? As far as I can see it's bad idea, period, because the trolls get a support network, and a walking disaster when it comes to Arbitration, and I think most of the Arbitrators would agree with me there. 90 per cent of the iniquitous wikilawyering we get around here comes from the AMA, most of the people at which haven't got much of a clue either. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 15:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. All I ever hear of the AMA is a litany of complaints from hard-working administrators and abitrators and I know for a fact that some people I wouldn't trust to know their arse from their elbow act as Advocates. After that blunt message Raul654 issued them with they seem to have tried their hand at reform but it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere. An MfD may be on the cards. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

(EC)I really didn't see any evidence of trolling here, just that the user was frustrated and really didn't know what to do next. I had an advocate myself when I was new here and was involved for the first time on a content dispute, and the process was very helpful. The only reason I hadn't talked to Kingboyk sooner was that I hadn't determined for myself what was going on, in hindsight, it probably would've been a better idea to do so sooner. A lot of the time, though, newer users can become frustrated when they don't know the processes and policies as well as the experienced users they may be dealing with. In many cases, it can be helpful to have someone there to say "Hey, here's what your options are," and to provide some advice if they're not sure if something is acceptable or not. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:42, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Since at the end of the day this seems to have turned out to be a successful advocacy, I don't think an MFD is in the cards at this point in time. :-) --Kim Bruning 15:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

(EC)Dev920, Moreschi, I actually think that this case is exactly what the AMA is best at. A novice user was frustrated by a deletion. AMA explained his options, and he cooled down and solved his problem. AMA is at its best when a frustrated user has someone "on his side" explain that the best way to solve his problem is to cool down, and explaining the Wiki policies and procedures that are in place. You might be able to achieve something similar with a Help desk-style group question and answer session, but I think it would take more thought than MfD is likely to bring to the problem. TheronJ 15:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It's something the help desk could have done, and in the end I was my own "advocate" really as I had to chase around to find out what the hell was going on. Not a particularly satisfying experience, even if some good came out of it :). (The "good" being I userfied a crappy list ;)). It would nonetheless be interesting to hear about any truly useful work this group have done (not a loaded request - surprise me!) --kingboyk 15:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Guys, you should be looking forward to an MfD, because no one writes those nominations like Dev. Remember the thunderous, majestic poetry that spelled doom for Esperanza? At any rate, this sort of comment makes me want to retch. I mean, really... "The goal of advocacy is not to set the user straight, but to help them acheive a good outcome from the DR process."? WTF? Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 15:50, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Or we could look at fixing the system. Unlike Esperanza, AMA *does* potentially fulfill a useful role. I'm dreadfully overextended at the moment. I wonder if I can find someone to send to take a look. ^^;; --Kim Bruning 15:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

(EC) Well, I did another quite lengthy case with User:Futurebird, who was involved in the Race and intelligence article and getting quite frustrated with a content dispute there. That's now cooled off by quite a few degrees and is in mediation. I already mentioned the case I was on the other end of, where I got quite a bit of help and good advice. In this case, yes, the request could've probably been handled just fine by the help desk, but some of them are a bit more complex, and a one-on-one discussion as the situation evolves is more helpful than repeated requests to the help desk where the person answering today may not have any idea what the situation was yesterday, or has to go look back through the whole thing. I think it also is helpful to develop a one-on-one relationship in such cases, so that if you tell someone "Look, that really would be a bad idea", they'll probably listen. I don't disagree that problems exist or reform is needed, but I think it certainly has the potential to be useful and helpful, and in many cases has been. (Remember also selection bias in reporting-it'll be the bad cases that tend to get reported, the ones that end well are likely to also end quietly.) And in reply to Moreschi, I've more than once set a user straight-that should be part of the process. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

This statement: Advocates are the closest thing to lawyers on Wikipedia... is a little disturbing to me. Even though they make some effort to reduce editors coming to the page looking for wikilawyers it's all a little legal eagle for me. Seems like all this can be done via help desk and mediation, without the coordinators, deputy coordinators, filings and refilings. Seems a little Concordia/Esperanza-like to me...a self governed sub-group working within Wikipedia replicating functions already in place. And: The AMA is an independent association and is not subject to any committees or other external controls?? RxS 15:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Kim is right in that AMA has the potential to fulfil a need on Wikipedia that requires slightly more thought and attention than the Help desk, but it seems to be miring itself in it's own self-importance and a sense of wikilawyering, not to mention bureaucracy. Why, for example, does every request for assistance require a page and form to be filled out? What's wrong with a single page to list requests like the WP:LoCE? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 16:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I've seen many things that are farther away from producing reliable content (our only goal) than the wikilawyering that goes on there. MFD away. Please. Let's get back to what we are here for. - Taxman ^Talk 16:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

(reduce indent) Agree, I believe MFD is overdue. This particular program, by its nature, is divisive to the project. We have an entire community willing to assist new users in the areas within the scope of AMA, I do not believe a program dedicated to this is needed or healthy. Navou ^banter / _contribs 16:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh heck, do whatever you like, as long as you come up with a replacement system that does what AMA promises better than AMA does that itself (which is to help people figure out the current policy morass on wikipedia). --Kim Bruning 17:01, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we actually have a problem with a morass of policies. The five pillars pretty much sum it all up, and anyone who can't grasp the importance of verifiability, neutrality, free content, civility and that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy with a few minutes of reading shouldn't try to write an encyclopaedia. If there is a morass which requires experience to navigate, it's the numerous organisations and pages which have grown up around them. For example, Esperanza, Concordia, the personal attack intervention noticeboard, and, yes, the AMA itself. The AMA is part of the problem, and shutting it down, just as the three I just mentioned were shut down, is part of the solution. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

MfD/Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates. Please don't hesitate to comment there. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Which has been closed. I was under the impression that anything can be sent to MFD provided it's a good faith nomination; if folks want it tagged "historical" (rather than deleted or kept as is) they can say so there. Is my impression incorrect? --kingboyk 17:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware. Wikipedia:Esperanza and WP:CONCORD were both shut down in that way: ditto for plenty of useless wikiprojects. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 17:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I tend to keep away from MFD. If people were really being that silly, I might need to start patrolling. <sigh> I do know about the Esperanza MFDs. In the end the Esperanza people themselves pulled the trigger, so I couldn't do much about that one. But it's still silly, you can just freely apply historic and rejected without using an MFD. If you think AMA is dead, apply the relevant tags there now! :-) --Kim Bruning 17:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That is indeed incorrect. MFD is for deleting pages. Systems like AMA have a very long history, and if discontinued, they should not be deleted, but rather marked as historical, as a matter of policy and expedience (this is not something you can vote for). The MFDs for esperanza were very flawed indeed, and in fact didn't lead to the outcomes most people desired, because they didn't understand this.

--Kim Bruning 17:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

We tag pages historical at MfD all the time. --tjstrf talk 17:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That's silly then, because you don't need MFD to tag historical. If you want to actually mark something historical or rejected, just do so. --Kim Bruning 17:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Silly or not, MfD is currently the correct location for gathering consensus on historical tagging of maybe-useful projects. (This is as opposed to policy proposals, where it takes place on the talk page.) --tjstrf talk 17:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That's silly, and an end run around normal policy process besides. *sigh*... I thought that on setup, we explicitly decided Not To Do That (tm). So alright, how long has this been going on now then? --Kim Bruning 17:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

At least since Esperanza, maybe even before that. Although I think in the case of Esperanza, deletion really was being sought, and Messedrocker came up with the historical etc. solution in the middle. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Just from my watchlist, I see Esperanza, Concordia, WP:PAIN, and several minor pages nobody used anymore. (Messedrocker didn't invent the Historify solution either, he just publicized it and gave it an oddly catchy name.) --tjstrf talk 17:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I see. But that's entirely silly then. Since you don't need to historify. You can just mark as historic directly, with no MFD inbetween.

At any rate, taking things to the talk page of a broken project gives you much more elbow-room to get consensus to either tidy up their act or wrap them up entirely. I'd reccomend everyone who wants to see AMA closed go to the ama talk pages, and push for closure there. Hey, who knows, it might even work, eh? :-) --Kim Bruning 18:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I could end up getting very bold on it, and end up reworking the problems I see. Though, that may involve stepping on a few toes. I'm still thinking about it, though. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The location to continue discussion would then be WT:AMA. Straightforward, really. --Kim Bruning 18:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I still do not think that MfD is an inappropriate place for this; sufficient amounts of people desired that MfD, and do indeed want to see this killed outright. There is als nothing saying that an XfD can't result in anything other than deletion. And an XfD will garner more community attention than a discussion on the talk page. As well, see this. 18:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree on both points. An XFD that does not end in deletion doesn't need to run at all, because all other actions can be done by non-admins based on plain consensus. Using XFD for other reasons is fairly disempowering, since people can't use the full spectrum of consensus based solutions there. And there's simply no need to do that. --Kim Bruning 18:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• AMA is an admirable aim, atrociously badly implemented. And that really is no disrespect to the people who have tried hard to make it not suck, but in the end it's a place where disgruntled trolls, POV-pushers and other assorted ne'er-do-well's, along of course with the occasional bitten newbie, go to find allies. Every single time AMA has become involved in a case where I have had any kind of involvement at all, it has been an unmitigated disaster. The least problematic was the advocate who took the case and then did nothing for months, leaving the argument on slow burn on the AMA request until it was finally closed as a waste of time. Another case saw a troll given help and support in his trolling, to the point where a deleted article was restored to his userspace, to much crowing and glee, where it then sat untouched for months before being quietly deleted again as an end-run around deletion policy. ArbCom have commented that AMA have actively hindered people's attempts to get cases reviewed. I have seen users whose advocates were so obnoxious that the review was immediately closed and a ban not lifted or softened to an editing restriction, when that would almost certainly have been acceptable to all parties in the original dispute. AMA sucks. Well-meaning people have expended much effort to make it not suck, b ut still it sucks. My especial commiserations to Kim, who I hold in high regard, but really we need to think of a better idea than this. Too bureaucratic, too much inclined to encourage Wikilawyering, not least through its name, too little genuine oversight and input from others (that's us, by the way) because the users who end up there are almost always the people we would not consider much of a loss. Please, please expend some of our creative energies coming up with a better system for helping bitten newbies, people who come to OTRS, the webmaster of deathcamps.org and so many others whose first foray into Wikipedia quickly ends up with escalating blocks and bans. We need a system which would have helped Ilena avoid a ban. We need a system which would have actually helped Nobs01 rather than resulting in his band being extended by another year (not sure if that was AMA, but we need a system). Something different, lighter, clueful. Something Jeff Raymond can help out with. A place where we can be kind but firm in educating people who have not yet got the plot. Sorry, I do feel a bit strongly about this one. Guy (Help!) 18:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That's an excellent opinion. Would you be willing to try to design such a system? --Kim Bruning 18:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Side note to JzG - to be fair to Peter, I'm not sure anyone or anything could have stopped Ilena getting banned. Agreed with the rest, though. Such a system that actually works can't be so hard to make. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 19:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

To be completely clear, I have no problem at all with any of the people who have given time, energy and thought to the AMA. I have said all along, it is an entirely worthy idea, it just... doesn't work, often through no fault of the AMA members.

Design a system? That will take many people a long time. Here are some of the features I think a good replacement would have:

• The right name. The name should imply that it is a help function, there to help people resolve a problem or understand this confusing new place. A lot like adopt-a-member.
• A bar to entry, and coaching / mentoring for new starts.
• The right culture. A culture where CyclePat can actually help rather than charging around like a bull in a china shop making a bad situation worse. So: jobs for enthusiastic people to do, jobs for calm and thoughtful people to do, and a group of people imbued with the elusive Clue to match requests to skills.
• The willingess to tell people that the problem is them, not The System. When an article has been deleted five times and reviewed to the far side of the galaxy and back, the very last thing we need is another venue for the terminally quixotic to get their hopes up.
• A complete absence of people who are joining up in the hope of changing The System. Some projects attract malcontents looking to kick back. They have no part of the process of helping people with problems.
• Plenty of peer-review. The admin noticeboard works well because people bring things here for review, even quite uncontroversial things. Problems happen when people work in isolation.

I'm sure there's more. I liked the feedback collection on AMA, by the way. Guy (Help!) 21:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Please, no more bureaucracy. Our support network is big enough as it is to the point where we're finally managing to prune it down after several years where we had no real way of dealing with exponentially breeding process. We should be focused on getting rid of the excess mini-bureaucracies, and have the guts to realise that doing so is a success, instead of acting like being unable to replace them with a different bureaucracy is a failure. Users seeking help have the Help Desk, the Village Pump, here, and probably a few other relevant pages, and it comes down to the fact that there is only so much help you can give people before you realise that material added to the encyclopaedia should stand up on its own merits as verified and neutral - which means that an organisation which is designed to take the side of someone adding material which doesn't stand up is a Bad Idea(tm). We don't need a new system. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think the best model would be to have a desk similar to the help desk but intended for more in-depth inquiries ("This admin has done this. Why has he done this and what can I do?" which seems to be the majority of valid work that AMA does). Maybe name it Complex Help desk or Requests for Investigation (Requests for Reflection?). It would present most users with the options they have and reduce any resemblance of lawyering, while in relaity performing the function most solicitors do. Sound good? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 23:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

"This admin has done this. Why has he done this and what can I do?" sounds to me like a very good question for the admins' noticeboard. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

True, but in practice I see two problems. First, WP:AN(/I) can be intimidating for the new editor. The name sounds intimidating. A novice may have no idea that non-admins are even allowed to post here. AN(/I) are huge, high traffic, rapid-turnover pages; novices probably even have some difficulty finding and following a threaded discussion. Also, a new editor who has gotten into some sort of trouble (run afoul of 3RR, been warned about a conflict of interest, or just got stuck in some sort of personality conflict) may be fresh off of a warning (or block) from an admin, and may not necessarily want to go looking for more admin attention—at least not directly.

The second problem is that a lot of new editors just don't know how to assemble what Sam (reasonably) describes as a good question. They've just been warned/blocked; they're hot under the collar; they don't know how to link to a diff; they may not even be able to figure out who blocked them; they may want to explain in minute detail all of the BLP/COI/POV/etc. issues surrounding the article they've just created/edited/fought over/seen deleted.

I don't know what the solution to these problems is. It almost seems like it could be an extension of the standard Help Desk. ("I have Problem X. What do I do?" "You need to post a polite request for Y at WP:Z. If you require assistance with that, please stay on the line...") TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

As it appears that AMA is indeed going to be shut down (and probably, from what's seen here, for pretty good cause), I've started a draft of a new proposal, I'd be interested to hear what anyone would think. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

If you are so incredibly mad that you can't be reasonable about it, why would an advocate help, and for that matter, why would you be able to wait the week it takes for someone to pick up your case? -Amarkov moo! 04:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Break

Sorry for the section break, but Firefox is truncating text areas. Seraphimblade, thanks for starting the draft. I wonder, however, if the help desk could simply supersede the AMA. The name is more intuitive, my experience is that help-deskers are experienced, and it seems to be a more neutral area. --Iamunknown 06:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I think, in a lot of cases, a referral to the help desk might be the exact way to go. Where I've seen AMA be effective, though, is where a user might need more than one-time help (content disputes, things like that), and someone working one-on-one with them who knows the situation in context and can develop a rapport can be more effective than a different person potentially answering every time (and flooding the help desk). If something could be worked into the help desk for longer-term one-on-one assistance, that may be a good solution. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:24, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it should be called Newcomers' assistence. It would deter other people who don;t consider themselves newbies or find the term demeaning. Also, dialogue should be held on a user's talkpage - this'll teach them to use it as well as keep the main page uncluttered. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 07:09, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Good suggestions both. I've put in a note to hold discussions on an editor's talk page and changed the title to "Editor Assistants", what do you think? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

What about Editor Assistance? It puts the emphasis on the editor, not the assistant. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 11:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Good idea as well, will do that. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Canvassing

There's a certain amount of canvassing going on; see MFD What Links Here, {{AMA alerts}} (What Links Here), and Special:Contributions/KeithTyler. WP:CANVASS is less than clearcut as to whether this is allowable (the recipients are presumably members, although they're also likely to be in the pro-AMA minority) so I'm posting here for discussion/review/to be ignored as is seen fit. --kingboyk 18:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• I de-WP:CANVASS-ified it (see diff). --Iamunknown 19:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Oh, and I added {{not a vote}} to the mfd (diff). --Iamunknown 19:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • For the record, even if the message left is entirely neutral, it can still be canvassing. What matters is who the message is sent to; if it is sent to a group of people who are expected to represent one particular viewpoint (as it appears to have been in this case), it's canvassing. Doesn't matter if the text doesn't prod them that way. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 22:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
    • OK. So... I chose to notify the recently active members of the project that is up for deletion, so that they could be aware of a discussion directly affecting that project. That's a partisan audience. Who else should I notify? If I notify people not involved in AMA, that would be cross-posting. So basically... WP:CANVASS, which doesn't really seem to have project deletion in mind anyway, makes it disruptive for me to notify the members of the project that the project is up for deletion. Is that a positive situation? - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 04:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Anyone? WP:CANVASS makes it impossible to notify members of a project that that project is up for deletion? Or does the fact that each member I contacted had recently edited the AMA members page and have "Available" listed on their contact listing cover this action under the "friendly notice" section of WP:CANVASS? Or is it not fair to presume that active members of a project who declare their availability want to be notified about the project? Or is making a rational, reasonable argument just me "wikilawyering" again? - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 05:49, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
• He's been posting it on member's usertalks. It's definitely not bipartisan to only inform members and others who have a greater "stake" in the project. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • c.f. his contribs. These, though limited in scale, are undoubtedly partisan messages to a partisan audience; same with the template. In fact, I'm going to remove the message from the template. I'm confident my actions will be reverted, so feel free to re-remove the message. --Iamunknown 01:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Strike out my comment. Don't feel like it. --Iamunknown 04:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Request for impartial review regarding Zibiki Wym

As expressed here, this account is a new incarnation of MyWikiBiz who was banned by Jimbo last fall and unbanned on 23 March 2007. This user appears to resent my involvement in an investigation and an unban request while the ban was in place, as evidenced by these posts that may constitute blockable/bannable legal threats.[36][37][38][39] Note also that on 1 March 2007 this person accused me of defamation at Wikipedia Review.[40]

I have invited this person to air his concerns through normal channels (here or at WP:RFAR). This person's response was to belittle these venues as a kangaroo court and threaten to take the matter to the media. Please review. Durova^Charge! 20:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• WP:RBI. Greg Kohs has only one agenda: his own personal gain. He is very very keen to use Wikipedia for this end, especially if he can "prove" that Jimbo was wrong to boot him in the first place. Problem is, he thinks Wikipedia is a failure as a business directory because we don't allow subjects to have editorial control. He also doesn't see a problem with conflict of interest. He also keeps coming back even though he is banned. Not just blocked, banned. If he wants back, he can go to ArbCom and get unbanned. Until that happens, he is a banned person. And yes I know that has uncomfortable overtones of Apartheid South Africa, and you know something? I don't care, not in this case. We have heard what Kohs has to say, he has said it at length many times, we have no need to allow him to evade his ban yet again in order to repeat it. Guy (Help!) 21:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Under the circumstances, since he accuses me of defamation, I defer to uninvolved administrators to reach that decision and implement it. I wish to avoid any appearance of impropriety. BTW Jimbo unbanned him so he does have a right to edit unless someone decides his comments have crossed the line of indef blockable threats. Based on an e-mail I received a while back from Jimbo I think we can trust that this editor has actually been unbanned. Durova^Charge! 21:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• No, Jimbo unblocked him, because he asked nicely. He did last time, too - didn't last long. Jimbo was probably not aware of the community ban. Guy (Help!) 22:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• I've reblocked User:MyWikiBiz to make absolutely sure, although he seems to be trying to give the impression that he's chosen not to use that account (which is not something I can see the point of). To me it's clear that this will never be a productive user (see also previous post below and to the left). The diffs Durova cites are an obvious case of legalistic intimidation, about as subtle as the chosen username. I'm about to notify Jimbo of this. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Among the many people that get banned and keep trying to come back, some are ambiguous cases which may merit consideration as to whether they might be productive contributors if allowed back. Kohs/MyWikiBiz is not one of them. He really, really isn't. Kohs, in my opinion, would be unable to work with other Wikipedians even if he wasn't being paid to write articles. Kohs is welcome to take his story to the media, who will surely be only too glad to have something to run other than those deathly dull and unimportant pieces about the diplomatic crisis between Britain and Iran, the outbreak of peace in Northern Ireland, and the moider of a team coach during an international sporting championship, but if that happens it's above our heads anyway. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 22:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

As I said the last time we had this discussion (just a few weeks ago, iirc), private conversations with Mr. Kohs have convinced me that there's no way he'll interact positively with the Wikipedia community. Ral315 » 05:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Same here. He just doesn't get it. That does not make him a bad person, not everybody has to get the Wikipedia religion, but anybody who wants to edit has to accept the policies and cultural mores of the project - which Kohs does not. Add to that a generous dose of block-evasion with sockpuppets, including promoting his own for-pay project to authors of soon-to-be-deleted articles, and you have a persistent abuser we can do without. I'm sure Kohs is a really nice guy and good to his mother, but he is an unmitigated nuisance on Wikipedia. Guy (Help!) 08:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Browse this thread at Wikipedia Review where Kohs was active during the last week. [41] Durova^Charge! 13:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking of making a "Banned from Wikipedia Club", where we could all get together in major urban centers, with our heterosexual spouses and kids. Hm. So Kohs is a homophobe, too? Corvus cornix 20:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Corvus cornix 21:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Mr. Kohs sent me a lovely little email concerning my above comment. The last sentence was, If you do not take down that comment, I will have no choice but to press for your censure on Wikipedia.. Is my above comment censurable? If others believe it to be, I will take it down, but not just because Kohs is unhappy. Corvus cornix 18:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

E-mail the Foundation if have any concerns. That's what I did a month ago when he first accused me of defamation (not that I was particularly worried about the legitimacy of my comments, but I like to keep all my ducks in a row). Durova^Charge! 01:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Holy smokes, that guy has gone too far. If he's making homophobic comments like that, I think I'll just give his employer a call. Could you point to the link again? I'm not seeing where he made that comment. Okay, I think I see what's happening here. Kohs seems to have edited his post on the Wikipedia Review so that instead of it saying "heterosexual spouses" it now says "lovely spouses". And, really, in reading his whole post, it's pretty clear he was just trying to make a joke that "Wikipedians are gay". Lame, yes. But, certainly not grounds for calling him a homophobe. Have we lost touch with the line between humor and hatred? I think we do all need to take a breather. Oh, wait, it's April Fool's Day, isn't it? No time for breathers. --SpamWatcher 06:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

MyWikiBiz article deleted out of process

I don't care/mind the block of Kohs, but did Guy have to unilaterally delete the article MyWikiBiz which had passed DRV plus an Afd?

21:12, March 29, 2007 JzG (Talk | contribs) deleted "MyWikiBiz" (Already deleted by consensus, we also deleted Kohs. No thanks.)

I like Guy but this is the sort of thing that is just gonna start another fire. It's already on DRV. - Denny 01:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Recreations of AFDed articles often get speedied. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 01:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't. it had passed DRV plus a new AfD and was fine. The deletion was wrong. - Denny 02:09, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• My bad. It was previously deleted, I did not see the second AfD. It had only one semi-trivial independent source, and Kohs has been deleted as non-notable. I don't know of any evidence of notability for this one-man company which has never had turnover of more than a few hundreds of dollars. I have taken it back to AfD, which is what I'd have done if I hadn't been distracted last night and missed the second AfD. Guy (Help!) 06:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Kohs' canvassing

When I checked my inbox this afternoon, I found an e-mail sent to me by Kohs through this latest sockpuppet. He asked me to add two links to MyWikiBiz that are to show that it does not fail WP:CORP. He also sent this message to everyone arguing for deletion in the current AFD, as xyzzy_n has just sent me a message concerning the fact that he, too, was e-mailed about it, and the two links discussed in the e-mail were later placed in the article. As a result of this message, I replied to him saying how I would not add the links, and also that I have removed them from the article per WP:BAN.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

While I did not save my response, here are two e-mails I received from Mr. Kohs, User:Ryulong/Kohs.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting emails. He certainly knows how to win friends and influence people, doesn't he? Raymond Arritt 22:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Ryūlóng, am I mistaken, or does this "I'm sure their lawyers would love to hear them described as trivial" and the entire second message feel like a legal threat to you as it does to me? --Iamunknown 01:52, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

He's an idiot, plain and simple. I e-mailed him ages ago (I wish I still had a copy around), and he essentially assured me that anything I wanted written could be assured to never be deleted. How about we ask him to write one up on Gay Nigger Association of America? Ban his accounts and let the AfD run its course. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 06:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

New one:

“ I see you shared my private e-mail in a public forum. That's classy. Very ethical.

Get back to your Dungeons & Dragons game.

”

Little does he know I abhor DnD.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I think everyone's convinced. We should stop giving him an audience now. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 11:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Killa Kitty

I have indef blocked this account as a probable sockpuppet of banned Cindery per this edit.[42] Factors that influenced this decision include disruption at Wikipedia talk:Banning policy,[43][44] edit warring over national spelling variants at Motorcycle (via popups).[45][46][47][48][49] Inappropriate changes to Tori Amos.[50] Other factors that indicate this as a ban-evading sockpuppet are knowledge of templates[51][52][53] and the fist edit ever on 25 March 2007.[54] Checkuser seems unnecessary per WP:DUCK. Durova^Charge! 14:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• O blocked for 24h for persistent disruption, he has a long history of drive-by reverts on controversial articles, always to his own preferred version of something or other. Guy (Help!) 18:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Are we talking about the same editor? I indef blocked this account. Who got a 24h? Durova^Charge! 00:54, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Guy actually blocked Atomaton, apparently due to the entry below. But see his talkpage for the aftermath: there had been no warning to Atomaton, he hadn't even been notified of the entry below, and other people don't agree with that interpretation of events. (Nor do I.) -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 02:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay. The main reason I posted here had been to make certain I had attributed the correct sockmaster. If Guy's post is unrelated I'll move along - plenty of other stuff needs attention. Durova^Charge! 02:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

User:Atomaton and edit waring on Ejaculation

I will try to keep this short an simple.

There has been a hot button topic concerning the use of an image on the Ejaculation article for some 3 months now. It has come down to nothing more than trolling on part of one user who will not concede that the consensus does not support his selection. The image has survived WP:IFD but the results of that issue have lead to the image being WP:PUI. The user periodically reverts the image with comments like "[Went back to consensus image to avoid controversy]". The "controversy" finally died down and the user stopped reverting the image replacement for a period of weeks, during which time the user also ceased to participate in the discussions. During this time the replacement image remained in place without any major incidents. The user popped up a few days ago to started reverting again declaring things like "[Return consensus image - correct one]" and "[Return image that was removed for some unknown reason.]" I reverted this undiscussed changes the past two times, noting that this user did not hold the consensus, but he's not stopping. Please review the [History] and Talk:Ejaculation. This user has even gone so far as to [attempt to have the replacement image deleted] after one such revert the last month. These shenanigans have been going on way too long. I even left Wikipedia for a time from having to contend with this users contentious and disingenuous attitude.

I am not asking for a dispute resolution, I am asking for intervention with the revert war. It's wasting a lot of peoples time at this point, and User:Atomaton does not strike me that he has any intention to stop. -- jsa 16:10, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

From over here it looks like there's been a concerted effort to censor Wikipedia, and when XfDs fail to get consensus (or the consensus is "keep") then the proposed deletions are done anyway. I ran into the fringes of this when templates {{notcensored}} and {{notcensored2}} were TfD'd, did NOT get a consensus to delete, and the TfD's proponent simply went back later and blanked out the text from {{notcensored2}} that he'd objected to in the TfD. May I commend to your attention the edit history of Ejaculation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)? -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 01:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I also see that the opener of this section has not complied with "As a courtesy, please inform other users and editors if they are mentioned in a posting, or if their actions are being discussed.". Therefore, I have notified Atomaton of this discussion. No Doubt This Blindsiding Was Entirely Inadvertent. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 01:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Protection templates overhaul completed

I have now completed the overhaul on the protection templates, if you had problem remembering the old ones, it should be much easier now; the templates is as follow:

See also Wikipedia:Template messages/Maintenance#Protected articles, pages and images.

All templates, except pp-template, pp-semi-template and pp-office takes an expiry parameter, for example {{pp-vandalism|expiry=2007-08-15}}. All templates except pp'office takes a small parameter, and if it is set to yes, then the template is shown only as an icon (simlar to the previous protected2 types). pp-protected and pp'semi'protected takes an reason parameter, and pp-usertalk and pp-semi-usertalk takes an optional user parameter, if you want to specify another main user that is blocked. →AzaToth 21:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Currently I don't have any remarks on the templates themselves, but I can say that the pink padlock is exceedingly...strange. —Physicq210 21:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I chose pink because I liked it, it's only for move protection. if you want another type, here is the available:

• Padlocks
• 
  Ol' standard padlock
• 
  Green
• 
  Red
• 
  Blue
• 
  Silver
• 
  Turquoise
• 
  Violet
• 
  Olive
• 
  Gold
• 
  Pink
• 
  Purple
• 
  Orange
• 
  Skyblue
• 
  Lightolive
• 
  Silver (light)
• 
  Silver (medium)
• 
  Fur?
• 
  Black
• 
  Tiger
• 
  Zebra

→AzaToth 21:56, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

LOL, this is a sign of just how insidious Apple's marketing campaigns have become. Why on earth would we ever need a furry padlock?  ;-) Burntsauce 21:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Come on, it's only a normal padlock with black splotches. Censored by Cabal decree. —Physicq210 22:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

There is definitely a joke in there somewhere. More than one, even. Chriscf 22:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Avoid the black one though, they always cost extra. --Interiot 22:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

/me laughs while gazing adoringly at his black macbook —Bbatsell 22:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking specifically of the "furry padlock". There is so much mileage in that one alone. Chriscf 22:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

They're padlocks? Oh... I though they were handbags. -- Tariqabjotu 22:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Why can't we just use the same padlock for move protection as we do semi protection? --tjstrf talk 22:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I would say because move protection isn't the same as semi protection, when they are iconized, you might want to quickly see what type of protection it is. →AzaToth 22:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe {{pp-move}}'s padlock could be changed to gold? Pink just looks...weird. — Malcolm 00:09, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally, the template should always be readable. We can't expect casual users to understand a padlock. However, the small icon would be useful for articles that are protected only against movings (like the featured article of the day). -- ReyBrujo 00:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I've made so if expiry is defined, than the small=yes is overruled. →AzaToth 00:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I choose light silver (denoted above as silver (light)). Forgive my preferable disposition towards silver and blue. —Physicq210 00:25, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I think "silver (light)" would be the logical choice as well, denoting the decreasing level of protection (from highest to lowest: black (office), gold (full), semi (silver), move (light silver)).--cj | talk 16:31, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm very tempted to throw the pink padlock on my userpage, just for shits and giggles. ^demon 07:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I like the olive one. I don't know why. Proto 23:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

These templates are still huge. For instance on Afghanistan the template occupies about a paragraph-worth of space. It would probably help if the box were removed, and the image. Then the template could read something like:

Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled to deal with vandalism. Click here for more information.

The extra wording, the box and the image are unnecessary. The underlined "here" in the last sentence would link to a page explaining the whys and wherefores, and invite the user to register.

This would be more reader-friendly. Most people who visit a Wikipedia article do so only to read it, so cluttering the top of the article with redundant information, formatting, boxes and even images is not a good idea. --Tony Sidaway 23:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

If you really hate the box, then add the parameter small=yes then. →AzaToth 14:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll take your word for it that this will resolve any problems. How about making small the default, and deprecating the large version? --Tony Sidaway 15:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

That's not up to be, for that you need to get a wider support, though one thing I could see fixable, is to make it small unless expiry is set or small is set to anything except yes. _→AzaToth 15:56, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

CSD Backlog

It's piling up quite a bit for the past 48 hours. If you have some time to spare, drop by speedy deletions and give a hand in clearing up the backlog. Thanks! - Mailer Diablo 08:05, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

And check out the image deletion backlogs while you're at it. – Riana ^talk 08:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I would die a happy man if we could hatch up a more efficient way of deleting images. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 08:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, if we just took out the restricted permission option when uploading images, that... reduces our problems by about 5%. Not very much, but Category:Non-commercial use only images for speedy deletion can sometimes climb up to over 200 images. But I'm sure there's a very good reason why we haven't taken it out, that it's been discussed ad nauseum, and that I missed out on the whole thing... – Riana ^talk 09:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Taking it out would reduce the visible problem by about 5%, but then those 5% would simply be mis-tagged and we'd never find them for deletion. --Carnildo 18:13, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, those images would just be tagged as public domain, GFDL self or another free license. -- ReyBrujo 18:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

For Greasemonkey users, I have a small script that can help speed things up a tiny bit. CSDHelper makes providing useful delete rationales a bit quicker, which are helpful in explaining why things were deleted. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 15:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

For Windows users WP:NPW is also handy. The "one click delete and orphan" feature for admins is very handy when dealing with images that are still in use on multiple pages (well some images used as parameters to infoboxes and such still require manual intervention). Just wish there where more options when generating a work list. If you want to delete some spesific images you are prety much forced to first add them to some custum category (can be a redlink though). --Sherool (talk) 15:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

For other uses, TW has two click speedy delete, sadly no orhpan function as of yet. _→AzaToth 16:09, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

For those of you who run pyWikipedia bots, the speedy_delete.py bot is very good at handling this kind of stuff. --Cyde Weys 19:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

What slows down deleting images in CSD is that they are invariably linked on a page somewhere. Orphanbothasn't got to them yet. Thatcher131 19:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

To put it simply, the image backlogs are going to keep piling up until all admins are given an "orphan this image" tab up next to the delete button. No special scripts, just a button. I think I'll go propose that on WP:VPT right now. Picaroon 19:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Here we go. Picaroon 19:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I have such a tab in my monobook, and it does work. alphachimp 20:46, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I cut quite a bit of the backlog at CSD I3. All the ones in there as of this post are used in at least one article (and a few *might* have some good Fair Use rationale, so I was light on the trigger with them). Back to work I go... ^demon^{[omg plz]} 20:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

For those seeking the removal of the automatic CSD-I3 notification licence selector, please note that a good proportion of the deleted images are immediately uploaded again, only this time with a preposterous free licence that requires slow deletion.

If the option was removed, I think about 90% of deletable images would simply be wrongly licensed instead - far harder to sort out as users will go to their deaths claiming they actually took that professional and watermarked picture of someone who died before they were born and how dare we suggest they are lying?!??!!? and so forth. Better that they volunteer to be slaughtered than be dragged into the abattoir.

By the way, for those shy of doing it, the deletion job is boring but easy - I do about 500 a day at the moment, just with tabbed browsing and a neat little "why this was deleted" clickable edit summary for both the image and the removal from the article. Although I'm usually the only one who does the latter step anyway... RΞDVΞRS ✖ ЯΞVΞЯSΞ 22:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what's the big idea about deleting invalid license images even if they aren't orphaned. Those redlinks will be cleaned up eventually. Better to get rid of the bad image now than keep it around longer. No harm can come from having red image links. Harm can come from continuing to post an image past when it's been identified as bad. --Cyde Weys 00:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

That's what I think too, but whenever I delete images and don't clean up the redlinks, someone invariably yells at me for it on my talk page. (So no, Redverse, you're not the only one who removes red links when deleting images!) —Angr 10:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I lways remove the images too 0:) And thanks for explaining about I3, too, I assumed that was the reason. – Riana ^talk 10:54, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

WunNation

I have no idea how to handle this user. His user page looks like blatant trolling, but most of his edits fall just within my threshold of AGF. Here we "cleans up" some vandalism, and adds some worthwhile additional information. Here he replaces an image previously deleted as non-free by an "artist's impression". Here he votes on an AFD. What a helpful guy! So, seriously, are we being trolled, or is it possible that this user is trying to make useful contributions? Hesperian 12:55, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

troll. Funny, but obviously not naive mistakes. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Not very funny. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 14:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Vandal only account, I am surprised the account was still there for me to block. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

user:1337_H4XZ0R

1337_H4XZ0R (talk · contribs) registered a new account today, immediately signed up at Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Members and assigned himself to the case Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Requests/March 2007/Rashaun. Might be worth to check up if he is a sockpuppet involved in the case. I've reverted his involvement with the AMA/ Fred-Chess 22:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

First edit was to support the Halo 2 FAC? Something is suspicious here. Hbdragon88 23:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's a username vio, at least. Natalie 01:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

New deletion system proposed.

According to the oft-cited guideline WP:NOVOTE and the policy WP:NOT, Wikipedia is not a democracy. This means that votes should be deleted to prevent these policies from being violated.

To facilitate this, I am hereby proposing the new Votes for deletion system, in which votes can be proposed for deletion. Please comment here or on the talk page! —Dark•Shikari^[T] 00:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I reverted that because there are a lot of links to VfD. Could you use a different name? Prodego ^talk 00:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Come on, its an April Fool's page, it can't stand for one day? —Dark•Shikari^[T] 00:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Well... I dislike the whole idea of April fools, after all, this is a serious project. So I am not the best to ask. But how about Wikipedia:Votes for deletion proposal or something? Prodego ^talk 00:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Too serious at times. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 11:49, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Might want to check out the main page in that case, if you really think that we're being serious today ;) —Dark•Shikari^[T] 00:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Sureley this reversion should be taken to Wikipedia:Reversions for deletion/Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. Jkelly 00:49, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, yes. There are over 12000 links to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion though, so take that into account. Prodego ^talk 00:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I've moved it to Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion instead. Its a rarely-used capitalization, so it should work better. —Dark•Shikari^[T] 02:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Is that you SPUI? (→Netscott) 05:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Image:Randy-orton2.jpg

Can i please have another Admin look into Image:Randy-orton2.jpg as Yamla does not have a history of being correct with his judgment of image tags and i don't want to see a new user being falsely accused. DXRAW 02:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It'd be best to know whose MySpace account it comes from... But I think Yamla's right here.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 02:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

We have another free image, it seems. I've switched it back to that one and blocked Heldman. His images are all copyright violations.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 02:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Note that Heldman admits that he himself did not take this image, meaning that the license on this image, too, is most definitely false, as were all the other licenses on images uploaded by this user. I resent DXRAW's accusation here as well. --Yamla 02:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

My accusations are proven to be correct. DXRAW 02:24, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The user tagged the image with {{PD-SELF}} when he claimed he did not take the photograph himself. That is a copyright violation. Conversation over.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 02:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Ryulong just to declare a Conversation over is a bit harsh don' you think. DXRAW 02:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

This was a fairly straight-forward case. I added a no-source tag to an image missing verifiable source information and which the uploader noted on the image's talk page had a false license (licensed with pd-self, uploader admitted "a friend" took the photograph) and who had a history of uploading images with falsified information. What's to discuss? Another admin reviewed the image. And for the record, somewhere between 0% and 1% of the images I delete end up failing a deletion review. In this case, I didn't even delete the image, only marked it as missing the source which was obviously the case. --Yamla 02:54, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing more to say. The uploader claimed the image was fair use, then claimed it as {{PD-SELF}} when someone suggested that it was a replaceable fair use image, and admits that he didn't create the image himself. --bainer (talk) 02:54, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Games allowed on Wikipedia?

I saw this User:Sisyphus/Sisyphus and was wondering if this was allowed? it seems that the user created the account sorely for the purpose of promoting this "game". It may not even be a game as it may be a virus or something worse. -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 02:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Not allowed, nor the spamming either. Blocked, reverted, and deleted. —Centrx→talk • 02:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Alternative to multiple cleanup templates

NOTE: This is not an April Fool joke. An editor has proposed a template here and in the creator's user subpage. The proposed template is intended to replace the multiple cleanup templates on articles that impairs a reader's ability to read it. Admins please join this discussion and voice your opinion on the prospect of the new box. Thanks! Wooyi 03:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Noticed heavy vandalism in the article Dr. No (film). I don't know how to fix it; letting you guys know seemed like the best idea, since I am new.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source 2005

Resolved

An unregistered user has removed some links (examples/references for Wikipedia having been used as a source) from the page, and now I am unable to re-add them because they are blacklisted. What should be done with it now? - Mike Rosoft 09:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It's being handled by Can't sleep, clown will eat me, he reverted the edits (multiple times) and warned the user (who seems to insist he's removing spam). --Edokter (Talk) 13:56, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yerba mate page move

Someone moved Yerba mate to Yerba maté and edited the redirect page as well (IMO deliberately to prevent reverting the move), so I can't move back. The page move was not discussed and the claim "spanish spelling" is not correct as can be seen readily from the iw link to spanish Wikipedia. Could someone:

• move Yerba maté back to Yerba mate
• delete Yerba mate (temp) that I tried creating to circumvent the redirect?

See also User_talk:CieloEstrellado#Page_move_of_Yerba_mate and Talk:Yerba_maté#Page_move_from_Yerba_mate_to_Yerba_maté???.

Thanks. Han-Kwang 10:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The New Oxford American Dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary and the Columbia Encyclopedia all spell it yerba maté with an accent. You can check them all if you wish. This spelling is even stated in the Wikipedia article. Hey, I don't like it either. I speak Spanish natively and find it totally silly, but that's the way things are and our "duty" is to inform what's documented. If you move it back you would be making an unsourced claim. This is the English Wikipedia not the Spanish Wikipedia. —☆ CieloEstrellado 11:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Moved back per request above. Please discuss on article talk page and wait for consensus before moving page. -- Infrogmation 12:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

How to vandalize Wikipedia

Several OTRS complaints about vandalism instructions, was this someone playing silly buggers with the MediaWiki pages? Guy (Help!) 12:32, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I played with a MediaWiki page, but not than anyone but an admin is going to see. It has been added and removed several times though. Viridae^Talk 13:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, even before I was an admin, I used to check recent changes to the MediaWiki and MediaWiki talk namespaces every now and then, so it's possible non-admins will find out. --ais523 13:54, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

User:Choolabuuulba and User:Booooomerang. Sockpuppets of User:Danny Daniel and User:Choolabuuula (repost)

Before I could get on to reporting these two users, you probably should know who Danny Daniel is. Danny Daniel is a user who vandalized pages related My Gym Partner's a Monkey and Zatch Bell!. His confirmed sockpuppets like to create hoaxes and vandalise articles related to The Fairly OddParents, My Gym Partner's a Monkey, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Re-Animated and anything related to anime. He created a hoax article called Monk (Cartoon Network). All of this would eventually get him blocked indefinitely for vandalism on December 21, 2006. See this Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Danny Daniel for more information about this vandal.

I already notified User talk:Persian Poet Gal about this, but she says that she can't log on right now, so I decided to report this here. Anyways, I found two possible sockpuppets of Danny Daniel. They are Choolabuuulba (talk · contribs) and Booooomerang (talk · contribs). Both of these accounts have similar editing patterns to that indefinitely blocked user. In fact, Choolabuulba even edited a page created by Booooomerang adding on to the hoax with more misinformation and lies. Choolabuulba also edited List of characters from My Gym Partner's a Monkey, which is a page Danny Daniel's sockpuppets seem to edit frequently ([55], [56], [57], [58]). Danny Daniel's edits can be traced back as far as September 2006, three months before the name Danny Daniel was registered.. Both seem to be vandal-only accounts. To top it all off, Boooomerang has created a hoax page called Jeanie Meanie Minnie Mo. Note how it seems to relate to the television shows The Fairly OddParents, Ed, Edd n Eddy (see the parts about Jib), and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Danny Daniel's sockpuppets seem to "like" creating hoaxes like that.

Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Danny Daniel shows some other suspected sockpuppets of Danny Daniel that were reported to a checkuser, but most of them were considered "inconclusive." Even User:Jibbity was considered to be inconclusive. Squirepants101 00:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Here are some more edits directed at My Gym Partner's a Monkey. [59], [60], [61], [62].

I originally posted this on 00:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC), but no admin had resolved it then. About two days later, User:MiszaBot II archived it and it still has not been resolved. Squirepants101 14:49, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

For some reason, some of the edits in the page history keep disappearing. Some of the entries are also disappearing. Squirepants101 15:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:RFPP

There seems to be no admin action on this page. Are you all too busy with April Fool's Day? G Donato (talk to me...) 15:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, AzaToth has cleared the backlog. G Donato (talk to me...) 15:26, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Flint River Ranch being edited by members of the company?

[63] Note the usernames containing 'frr', such as Frronline (talk · contribs) and Aplusfrr (talk · contribs). Note also Happytalespets (talk · contribs) which sounds like the name of a company. They may be engaged in self promotion on the article. (Spme paragraphs read like an advertisement) What's the correct procedure to go about correcting this? 70.88.111.65 12:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, seems to be a bit deeper. Aplusfrr is engaged in some sort of conflict with who appears to be another FRR distributor, anon IP 24.17.208.226. 70.88.111.65 12:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Ugh. All spam links removed, official website left as the sole link, article protected, and I'm wondering whether we should block the lot of them as well. Guy (Help!) 17:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

  Block the lot, I say. By the way, I posted to start this thread at school without logging in. ~Crazytales, your resident godking (I AM THE AVALANCHE) 16:52, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Talk Page

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:QuackGuru&curid=8694088&diff=119438164&oldid=119438067

I would like permission to blank my talk page. But I am being reverted. What is the policy on this situation. I would like an administrator to blank my talk page. I think I am in my right to blank my talk page. :) - Mr.Guru (^talk/_contribs) 07:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to make sure you read my post, if you did you can delete it. --w^{L<speak·check>} 07:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I want you or anyone to blank my page then. According to what policy are you allowed to revert my talk page. :) - Mr.Guru (^talk/_contribs) 07:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

a process that I forgot became inactive, I'll revert myself as soon as I'm done here. --w^{L<speak·check>} 08:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AEssjay_controversy&diff=119437950&oldid=119436694 I have been discussing on the talk page to improve an article and then I was accused of being disruptive. I beg to differ. Other editors agreed with my edit and I was discussing. I would like this reviewed. The way to improve article is by discussing. Further, I have provided thoughtful arguements and I was ignored by the other editors. :) - Mr.Guru (^talk/_contribs) 07:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I beg to differ. No matter how many times you repeat your statements, you can't make Larry Sanger's founder status have anything at all to do with the article on the Essjay controversy, so your constant bickering about the subject was not improving the article but rather disrupting it. --tjstrf talk 08:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The matter at hand is an issue that is being debated at the wrong talk page. QuackGuru is running a discussion about Jimbo and Larry at the Essjay article. Since previous consensus said that it should be discussed at either/both Jimbo or/and Larry's talk pages, he's brought the issue back up, causing another editor to blow up on him (see WP:AN/I#Appalling personal attack by Ned Scott). For more information, please see Talk:Essjay controversy#"a" Wikipedia founder --w^{L<speak·check>} 08:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It is in the Essjay controversy article that the sentences are located. Whether you agree with his point or not, to say he is discussing it in the wrong place is not true. David D. (Talk) 17:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Essjay_controversy#His_founder_status_or_his_CEO-like_status.3F There is a current discussion at the Essjay talk about the role of Mr. Jimmy Wales and how to word it in the article. I request the comments made by WikiLeon be striked out. I was discussing like any normal editor would. The editor WikiLeon is actually the one who is being disruptive by trying to censor my voice in a talk page. Editors or administrators should not be allowed to abuse their privileges or powers on Wiipedia. :) - Mr.Guru (^talk/_contribs) 17:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Cloff, please

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Deletedtext&oldid=119488686 - splendid! Do not back this out. Ever. Guy (Help!) 16:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I love that one! Especially "baby things to blow up". Muwahahahaha. Natalie 17:32, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes please, can we keep it? ;) Dina 18:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Problems at Jim Bob Duggar

I am having a problem with what User:Lilkunta is doing at Jim Bob Duggar. They are reverting lots of changes and refusing to listen to others. I have made numerous attempts to communicate with this user via the article's Talk page and their Talk page. I don't know what to do, they won't listen. Please help? 18:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

USSTRATCOM PAO

A little over a year ago, the account USSTRATCOM PAO (talk · contribs) joined us and claims to be a m:Role account for the United States Military's public affairs office. Two months ago I asked the user to submit an OTRS ticket to verify the account. From what I understand, the foundation has not received an email.

This is an obvious violation of username policy, as well as the fact that we don't permit role accounts. The user has not made any controversial edits, but I see a need to indefinitely block the account to prevent any further misconception. I have forgone a post to RFCN, because I don't think this is specifically under the auspices of any one policy. I would like to block the account, but a review first would be appreciated. Teke 01:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I have indefinitely blocked the account until if/when this is resolved. Other feedback would still be appreciated. Teke 01:58, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

My opinion (as already expressed on IRC) is that this account should be blocked with a note requesting that they work with us to verify their identity. Also we need to make it clear to them that we don't permit accounts to be shared. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 01:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure one of the guidelines actually specifies that companies should use 'official' accounts to make it clear when they're speaking for the company. That's different from a 'role' account that serves as 'mediator' or 'editor' or 'wikibanker', to give a few examples of banned accounts. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:29, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

For my rationale as to why I consider this a role account and not just a PR arm, read the user page linked above. A role account is an account in which other users have the password and edit to act as one user. I have no faith this is a secure account, much less legitimate. Teke 06:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I support the block. I'll add {{Indefblockeduser}} to the user's user page. --Iamunknown 05:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Why has this action been taken on this account, and not on the account which claims to be speaking for the Palestinian Authority? Corvus cornix 18:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Ooo, I don't think the "role account" issue was brought up with that account. We should bring it up again. --Iamunknown 00:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the question is rhetorical, as I have no knowledge or desire to act on anything other than what my subject was about. Teke 06:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that it was a question towards administrators; there was a rather heated debate earlier about another role account claiming to be a representative of Hamas. --Iamunknown 06:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, okay. I must have missed that situation. Sorry, Corvus, for the brusqueness. Teke 06:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

As to why this action has been taken on this account, it is because it is a user that I've had my eye on and I used my judgment based on policy after ample time and warning. I don't desire for this question about USSTRATCOM PAO to become a forum for a separate user, that's not what the thread is for as I specifically aimed it to a particular situation. Teke 06:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand your position, Teke, I'm just addressing this question to the admins as a whole. We're being inconsistant, here, IMHO. Corvus cornix 21:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Unblock appeal

I am William Mauco (talk · contribs). I was blocked for 3 months for using 9 socks at page Transnistria. See my block log. Can I be unblocked? I created this account now for appealing to you administrators. Please help me. Dmcdevit blocked me for 3 months.--Mauco William 10:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

No. However, we have a special today on indefinite blocks for block-evading socks. If you want a review of the block, use {{unblock}} on your talk page. If you used 9 socks, I wouldn't hold your breath though. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

You haven't been blocked for 3 months, you have been blocked indefinitely. Aecis^Brievenbus 13:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

BTW, William, why did you create User:William Mauco/sockpuppetry and Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of William Mauco? Aecis^Brievenbus 13:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

William has emailed me expressing his surprise with all the activity of user:Mauco_William,user:WMauco,User:MaucoWilliamPernambuco as well as several anonymous IPs spouting incivilities on his talk page ([64], [65], [66]).

He believes that an impostor is working to defame his image in Willam's absense. As the block has been prolonged from 2 (not three as the impostor states here) months to indef, I guess the diversion had been successful.

This is not the first time this happens to Mauco, too.

Can something please be done to clarify the case? --Illythr 14:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Mauco's socks were more discreet and behaved than these ones. I think the things are quite clear: one sock puppeteer is trying to make another sock puppeteer appear worse.

BTW, I don't believe in his victim status: he wasn't less guilty for the simple reason that his actual sockpuppets in his wars in Transnistria were more polite. bogdan 16:10, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it appears that his block was extended due to the activity of these new socks, thus indeed turning him into a setup victim of sorts. Say, is there a way to trace at least some these socks back to a single source? At least two candidates come to mind... --Illythr 16:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

No, Illythr. I still remember the edit wars that drove me off Transnistria-related pages. Patronizing editors supporting one another, and all socks of Mauco, and accusing all opposing editors of uncivility, vandalism, a.s.o.. I know it's not even important from a WP POV, but I also have to mention the availability of Mauco and his puppets to POV-push on those pages. It is only just that such aggressive political operatives are drove off wikipedia. Some guy below talked about User:Bonaparte, but Mauco is worse. For Bonaparte, the behavior started with clear conflicts which evolved into blocks and then sockpuppetry to evade the blocks. Here, it appears that Mauco started to use socks out of pure malice. Not even the necessity (for a wikipediholic) to evade a block. This is nasty. No victim here, just the application of rules. Dpotop 17:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

There is pure malice and there is pure stupidity. Not even out of pure malice would someone create his own sockpuppetry case [67] or demand his own release in such a way as to provoke an indef block (first post in this section) instead. Even as his opponent, surely, you would agree that Mauco is not stupid. Oh yeah, and I don't believe in malice. There always is a goal. Bonny, for example, wants to become famous... --Illythr 18:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that Mauco is innocent of all puppeteering? I agree someone impersonated Mauco after his block, which is plain dumb. But Mauco still is a puppet master. We are talking here of puppet masters blaming one another. What I am saying here is that Mauco is guilty. Bonaparte is currently banned. Dpotop 18:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

No, innocent only of puppeteering that got him banned for good, instead of for two months. As for the original case, based on the data I have on hand, I think that Mauco does deserve his 2 month block for setting himself up so foolishly. --Illythr 19:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

A new sock of Mauco was found, see M-renewal (talk · contribs) one sock minus ;-) --Hair pilot 15:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I am a little surprised that this set-up has been taken so seriously. Mauco is too smart to create a sock based on his name to vandalize articles (as is the average ten-year-old). He had nothing to gain by edits made by these socks; however, due to his ability to compellingly defend his views (not an endorsement) and his extensive knowledge on a controversial subject (Transnistria), someone with little to lose (see below) saw an opportunity and took a shot. I hope it doesn't work.

Although I have not been very active lately and cannot judge all of the recent events, I do not believe that User:MaucoWilliamPernambuco is User:William Mauco. Having worked with Mauco for a little over seven months, I have a pretty good idea of his issues and his style. I created an article Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic which was vandalized by User:MaucoWilliamPernambuco earlier today. Specifically, the sock changed the official languages from Moldovan/Ukranian/Russian to just Russian [68]. This is not consistant with Mauco who attempts to frame the PMSSR and its "quasi-state" successor (Kolsto, 2006), the PMR, as a tolerant multinational (or "internationalist") counterpoint to the supposedly "nationalist" government in Moldova proper during the civil war. It is consistent, however, with banned puppet master User:Bonaparte's attacks on Mauco. Bonaparte and others attempt to paint Mauco as a Russian nationalist and FSB-paid apologist. While Mauco would not make this edit, this is exactly what Bonaparte impersonating Mauco would do. Unless there is some other overwhelming evidence of which I am not aware, I ask that this be taken into consideration with regard to the indefinite block of User:William Mauco. Thanks jamason 16:52, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Well...and now this jamason 17:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to say, but you did not read the posts here. Nobody claims that User:MaucoWilliamPernambuco is Mauco. Your post is based on false assumptions. Dpotop 17:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Generally, there's only so much "good faith" I'm willing to presume on behalf of those who have already received a lengthy block for abusive sockpuppetry. Can someone please clarify why these should not be considered disruptive socks of Mauco? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:58, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

If it is decided to ban him indefinitely for socks that are his, that is fair enough. However, I just want to be clear that some of these socks are not his. Specifically, it looks like he was banned indefinitely for the behavior of socks regarding which there is clearly some doubt. My post above explains my thoughts on at least one of the socks and the others have been found to be from different IPs. See the link in the 17:12 post. jamason 18:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Jamason, your argument is fallacious: User:MaucoWilliamPernambuco is not listed as a sock of User:William Mauco. Note that I am assuming good faith. But this is the 2nd time I am telling you this, and WP:AGF is only intended to work once. Dpotop 18:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Given doubts raised by Khoikhoi and the Checkuser, I've set the block back to 2 months. (Of course, that previous block for proven abusive sockpuppetry will still apply.) However, I've still got my doubts, and this had best not happen again. In any case, there's one easy way to keep from being thought of as an abusive sock puppet master-don't abusively use socks in the first place. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:32, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I would also say that Mauco is not a simple vandal, and that he didn't use his sock puppets to vandalize, but to push his POV in some articles. Personally, I judge him much worse than I judge most vandals because he wasted more contributors’ time. A vandal is reverted in a few seconds, but we spoke months with Pernambuco!Dl.goe 20:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I have to second Dl.goe, especially as Mauco has a history of accusing individuals of sock-puppetry and meat-puppetry as soon as more than one person disagrees with his (blatant) POV pushing. (His behavior in this regard having driven away at least one reputable contributor.) There is a word one uses for people who accuse others of behavior they engage in themselves: hypocrite. This sort of POV-pushing cottage industry tactic must not be tolerated. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

And I should mention that Mauco is self-professed associated with the International Council for Democratic Institutions and State Sovereignty (ICDISS), having indicated to journalist Edward Lucas he attended their first conference. The ICDISS is a front for pro-PMR interests having nothing to do with "democracy." So he has been pushing a particular POV for special interests from day one. [69]

     I have always been prepared from day one to debate Mauco on the facts--along with the other obvious POV pushers, for example, Mark Street, editor of the "Tiraspol Times". One can only unmask propaganda by debating the facts. But this sort of intellectually insulting hypocrisy (Pernambuco, for months) crosses the line. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Seems to me a permanent block is in order. If not, then at least for as long as Pernambuco has been in existence. (That would be September 21, 2006 [70]), i.e., minimum of 6 months). A two month only block rewards Mauco's behavior. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 04:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/William Mauco, many some of the accounts mentioned above are unrelated to William Mauco. Aecis^Brievenbus 20:56, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppet check

Just blocked D053 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) as a sockpuppet of Matthvm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), see Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Matthvm (2nd). Just looking for a review. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 18:58, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

AfD

I have nominated a bunch of articles for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Columbia Pictures (Sony Pictures) - I have a feeling that they are all an elaborate April Fool's Day joke, created by User:Columbia Pictures all of them today. However, he has created loads of articles and done some modifications - I need a second opinion as to see if they are serious articles since the articles are truly elaborate and subtle. In some cases there are references given, but they are all false and irrelevant, pointing to MySpace or GoFish.com. And most paragraphs start seriously but end up turning really bizarre like "he was the best friend of the Pegasus" (the emblem of the real Columbia Pictures) If they are jokes, maybe an admin can cleanup the modifications that has been done to many articles. Baristarim 21:10, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Can an administrator please block this account? Since the AfD he has created two more articles like Columbia Torch Lady's Time Travel adventure and Columbia Torch Lady disambig.. Baristarim 21:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

this guy is creating articles faster than I can add them to the AfD - block urgent. Baristarim 21:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, done.. Baristarim 21:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Reverting page moves

Has reverting page moves been removed as an ability for regular editors? Thanks. Charles 21:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that provided the page you wish to move to exists only as a redirect to the page you're moving, it should be possible. Otherwise, the page you're moving to will need to be deleted to make way for the move. --Deskana (ya rly) 21:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to revert such page moves, but the movers' contribution logs no longer have the links to undo such moves. For instance, Page A is moved to the previous non-existant title of Page B and Page A is not edited after it has automatically become a redirect. I cannot undo such a move. Charles 21:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll see if I can. --Deskana (ya rly) 21:28, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Even if the page exists as a redirect, but has a page history, it won't let you move it. For example, User:DeskanaTest/Page1 cannot be moved to User:DeskanaTest/Page2, despite the fact Page2 redirects to Page1, because Page2 had something added and then removed. --DeskanaTest 21:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's the same case. For instance, I moved Prince Maximillian von Horn of Hornes to Maximilian, Prince of Hornes, the latter of which was previously non-existant. The title from which it was moved automatically became a redirect and has not subsequently been edited. I should be able to revert such a move (I wouldn't, but it only serves as an example), but I cannot (the function doesn't even appear there anymore). This is leading me to believe that there is an error of some sort. Have I possibly had my revert privileges revoked? Charles 21:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Charles, the cabal is after you. Hbdragon88 01:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Eek! What do I do?! (Haha ;-) ) Charles 01:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe that Charles is referring to the "(revert)" buttons in the logs, not just using the move tab to revert page moves. Hbdragon88 22:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, yes. They no longer exist (for me, at least). Charles 23:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Revert_button_on_move_log.3F.-gadfium 23:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! This helps a lot. Charles 23:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Enquiry re user's indefinite blocking as a sockpuppet

I've been contacted by a user who's found themselves indefinitely blocked as a sockpuppet. The checkuser report is here. None of the three third-party responses made there seems to support a ban; instead, there is a query, a decline and an inconclusive. I'd appreciate any advice as to whether or not this indefinite block is unwarranted. Thanks, David Kernow (talk) 00:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I've not looked at the edits, but if someone familiar with the contributions notices similarities with the edits, the checkuser evidence shows they're all coming from the same IP address, so even an inconclusive CU report can make a suspected case stronger as it can show whether the accounts are editing from the same location at the same time etc. -- Nick ^t 00:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, Nick. I think the crucial distinction in this case might be the "at the same time" requirement. The user looks to've had their first account blocked for three months at the end of September last year, at which point they began editing under a second account and did not return to their first account once its three-month block had expired (at the end of December). So I'm not sure whether their current (second) account warrants the indefinite block it's just received...?  Regards, David (talk) 04:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Non-Involved Admin Needed at RFCN

Resolved

Can a non-involved admin please close the discussion of User:TortureIsWrong on WP:RFCN after reviewing the discussion? --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@ 02:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Closed by Thebainer as allow. WjBscribe 03:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, before this is closed out completely, could someone explain the 'allow' in light of the alleged policy violation? RJASE1 ^Talk 03:45, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Ya, vote counting may have led to that idea, but the fact is the that name is explicitly forbidden by policy, that is not how we judge consensus. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 03:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Left request on closing admin's talk page. RJASE1 ^Talk 03:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Replied at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/User names#TortureIsWrong (talk • contribs). --bainer (talk) 06:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

April Fools Day 2007 Entries

Last year we had a forest fire of April Fools day reports, it may be beneficial to keep these centralized. After the event this can be archived in AN like other pages. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Deletions Needed

These pages may need to be deleted. Some of them may not need to be deleted until after the event.

• Wikipedia:Credit Card Registration will need to be deleted. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • and WP:CCR — xaosflux ^Talk 02:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Has been moved to user space User:Theresa knott/Credit Card Registration, I think its OK there. There are no actual text entry fields. CMummert · talk 14:03, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Fairuse rules preclude usage in userspace of the company logos. --Dual Freq 14:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
        • I've asked her to remove them. 14:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Requests for Forgiveness will too. PTO 01:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikipedia (2nd nomination)
• Bill Clinton (truck driver) --ZhongHan (Email) 01:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jimbo Wales
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kansas
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pluto
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Special:Recentchanges as well. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 01:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion (Redirect restore?) — xaosflux ^Talk 01:49, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

  Protection seems in order. PTO 01:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

  Protected. --Coredesat 02:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

  Now at Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion (note capital D). Prodego ^talk 02:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Jimbo Wales
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OrphanBot (not unless updated)
• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jc iindyysgvxc
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Special:Upload
• Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/VandalBot
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vandalism
• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Wiarthurhu
• Template:Sucks
• Category:Pages blessed by the input of Wikipedia user tjstrf

  Ran my category bot Fluxbot to empty this, and deleted. WP:SIG has been updated to forbid this, notified creator. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Main Page
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Main Page

Things that may raise suspicion based upon their names

These things were created on April Fool's day and may raise suspicion based upon their names, but appear not to be hoaxes:

• Category:Doodles — It's a categorization of a set of dog breeds. Uncle G 15:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
• Category:Welsh sausages — The citations, in the one article in the category, give the date 2007-04-01, but the cited articles themselves have other datelines. Uncle G 15:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Things to Note

• CAT:CSD
• Various xFDs from joke noms.
• MediaWiki namespace especially
• Wikipedia:1 April 2007 vandalism for reporters to use

Why the heck does this exist? ^demon^{[omg plz]} 01:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

No idea. Doesn't anymore... WjBscribe 01:45, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

• Category:April Fools 2007

Discussions

Upcoming April Fools

You know, April Fools coming up in less than 24 hours. Are we ready to deal with the influx of vandalism and general stupidity that normally comes with it? ^demon 07:45, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, this is going to be fun :-)... Sigh... Still lets be aware of WP:BEANS- we don't want being prepared for the inevitable to draw too much attention to the event and provide ideas. WjBscribe 07:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

All I know is, I stumbled across WP:AFMP today and was stunned by how intricate people try to plan that crap.... ^demon 07:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

It's due to the hell that was April Fools 2005 around these parts. It was a complete mess. Look here. --Woohookitty 08:20, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Relax, we'll just get a developer to lock down the servers saying, Editing has been prevented as an april fools joke, come back tomorrow ;) James086 10:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Where's the damn BEANS-patrol when you need 'em? :p – Riana ^ऋ 10:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey, here's an idea. If it's really bad this year, then next year, on March 31, we should give out a couple thousand sysop bits to trusted contributors, with an expiry time of 24 hours, just to deal with April 1. Possible? Moreschi 10:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Or just block everyone for 24 hours. I know I could do with a rest! :) Bubba hotep 10:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

C'mon, 4/1/2005 wasn't all bad :) · Jersyko 15:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

We need a temporary April fools joke criteria for speedy deletion. Swatjester 21:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't CSD G1 count for most of what we get on April 1st? ^demon 21:44, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) {{db-nonsense}} seems to cover it. WjBscribe 21:44, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the problem with April fools jokes so long as they stay out of the main namespace and are cleaned up by 2 April.  : ) Or are we only talking about the ones that occur in the main namespace? — Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 21:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know about you, but personally I see it as disruption, period, and I'll treat the vandalism like I would any other day of the year. ^demon 21:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Laughing together might help build WikiLove. However, that obviously wouldn't work if some of us aren't laughing. Perhaps we need a guideline on tasteful April Fools' jokes. — Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 21:45, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
    • A guideline on jokes? That seems a bit bureaucratic. --Iamunknown 21:46, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
      • 1. Keep it out of the main namespace. 2. Keep it nice: no racist, sexist, etc. jokes. 3. If it has the potential to disrupt the wiki process if people take it seriously, include an invisible comment like this: <!-- This is a joke. Please do not take it seriously. Thanks!  : ) --> — Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 21:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
• The error in the "I don't see the problem" argument is that it's merely a statement that one personally hasn't encountered the problem, not that there isn't a problem. There most definitely is a problem. The fact that one doesn't see it merely reflects that one hasn't been involved in the cleanup of the aftermath. In 2005, we were still dealing with the deletion of April Fools articles lying around in the main article namespace six months later. Uncle G 14:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Any and all attempts at tomfoolery in mainspace may be deleted immediately, and persistent offenders can be blocked for the duration of the day. --Tony Sidaway 22:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• Tony, it seems you demolished the signatures of everybody in this thread. What happened? Oh, and an addition to stay on topic: Stay out of the MediaWiki namespace. PTO 22:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Tony maintains the personal right to refactor all talk pages to remove any (now all?) signatures that are not plain text, and has done for a while. I just wish I had the spare hours this must take each day. Although I'd use them a tad more productively. RΞDVΞRS ✖ ЯΞVΞЯSΞ 22:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Although, as Tony no doubt meant to say, there is a requirement to WP:AGF and not to indiscriminately block established editors who are adding odd things to Wikipedia that happen to be merely odd and not actual "tomfoolery". RΞDVΞRS ✖ ЯΞVΞЯSΞ 22:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Any discussion can be refactored for readability. It takes a few seconds and stop the discussion becoming so cluttered that participation is impossible. It would of course be a lot nicer if editors would refrain from cluttering the talk space with unnecessary embellishments in the first place. --Tony Sidaway 22:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Let us hope that April Fools' day 2006, doesn't repeat itself in its entirety. (→Netscott) 22:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway, if my signature bothers you that much, why don't talk to me about it? Much less controversial than refactoring. : ) Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 22:25, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Consensus appears to have already reached that it is not controversial. --Iamunknown 22:31, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Apparently Tony did not restrict himself to just changing signatures- which is heavy-handed and incivil, but also removed one of my comments. I am not amused. WjBscribe 23:29, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Heavy handed and uncivil, certainly, but also inconsistent. It seems that some editors' colourful and non-standard signatures are left untouched. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Any content removal was unintentional, and I apologise for that. Please stop treating Wikipedia discussion pages like a toilet wall. --Tony Sidaway 23:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Toilet wall? When signatures have dirty limericks or random phone numbers advertising where to find a good time, then your comment might be accurate. Until then, lighten up man. Just H 07:52, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

They aren't being treated like toilet walls. Any "refactoring" that you claim that you are doing is more disruptive than any signature I've seen in this thread. Please stop. PTO 23:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

If you have an issue with present use of signatures, get consensus for a change in Wikipedia policy on user signatures. In the meantime, I suggest you stop interfering with other users' comments, which is the only disruptive activity presently occuring on this page. WjBscribe 23:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. Prodego ^talk 23:46, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

MIght I point out that the relevant policy frowns on overly long sigs (not sure what he ones refactored were) and this page states at the stop that signatures with heavy coding may be refactored to help readability. Viridae^Talk 13:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It'd be disappointing if a visually impaired editor had a high contrast sig "refactored to help readability" :( DanBeale 15:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

---

April Fools'

Just for the record, I deleted Bill Clinton (truck driver) and left an explanatory note on the talk page. I don't see any problem with a bit of humor, but I really don't think we should start inserting such articles into the main namespace. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I've nom'd the talk page for speedy deletion. It's been there long enough. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@ 14:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I moved Wikipedia: Articles for deletion/Jimbo Wales to my userspace. Is that ok? Toonmon2005 02:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Is it ok if I move Template:Sucks to WP:BJAODN? Toonmon2005 17:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)