Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive18

Is Marmot Lir?

Please see 62.253.96.40 (talk · contribs)'s contributions. Both User:Marmot and User:Lir seem to have edited from this page. At any rate, that account was used to create the User:Raul654/Portraits/ page, which is part of Lir's continuing harrassment of User:Raul654. It also seems to have been used by the Love virus vandal. Hmmmm. User:Zoe|^(talk) 07:55, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

62.253.96.40 (talk · contribs) is winn-cache-1.server.ntli.net. A classic example, judging by the name, of an ISP's proxy server, and thus not by itself indicative of anything... Shimgray | talk | 13:56, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd be a little surprised to see Lir reincarnate as a generic vandal. NTL appears to be a British ISP, since the prices listed on their page are in pounds. Lir is from Iowa. Phil Sandifer 15:13, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

NTL is indeed a British ISP (and a pretty lousy one IMHO) the wub "?!" 15:38, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I love my NTL! --Doc ^ask? 15:40, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

On Zoe's hunch, I ran the checkuser, but (for reasons that are not difficult to guess) the results were inconclusive. Raul654 19:13, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

MARMOT's British, Lir's some guy a hot internet female in the midwest. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 20:30, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Lir is male. Phil Sandifer 20:35, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

You know I know that, I was referring to Lirpedia, where he calls himself a hot internet female. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 20:54, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Lir claims every gender imaginable from time to time - I make no assumptions about what people actually know. :) Phil Sandifer 21:16, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't talk to me. -Lirath Q. Pynnor 21:41, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

ur so banned Phil Sandifer 21:46, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

The red faction has targeted you. -Comrade Nick 21:59, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

You know these are technically personal attacks, right? :) Phil Sandifer 22:05, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

So is Lirpedia. Snowspinner 22:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted page print out

I've deleted both Jo Fennessey and Jo fennessey that were created by User:203.220.116.223. They have just asked (User talk:CambridgeBayWeather) me to email them a copy of the deleted page so they can print it out. However, the article was nothing but an attack piece on what is a real person and I don't think that it would serve any useful purpose to provide it. On the other hand perhaps this comment [1] is colouring my view. Any comments? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 11:39, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

That article appears to be total dreck. Inter\^Echo 11:52, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't do it. I do not believe Wikipedia administrators should provide a free text-formatting and backup utility. Anon user should be encouraged to play their game elsewhere. --RobertG ♬ talk 12:01, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any good reason to help anonymous editors who contribute only speedyable attack pieces. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:58, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Good gracious, that thing survived for a whole three weeks ?? Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:02, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

That puzzled me as usually it's vandalism to school articles that get's missed not massive attack pages. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 13:11, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Reducing image server load

As I'm sure everyone is aware, images are very slow to load, if they load at all for the past couple of weeks. Would removing the images used by the stub templates make a noticeable difference or not? I've seen this done in the past when there was an image loading problem but haven't seen it recently. Probably would be a good task for an authorized bot to do when required. I don't follow any of the mailing lists on a regular basis so don't know if this has been discussed there. RedWolf 02:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I have noticed this as well. Also, many small images are just HUGE images scaled down by the X pix command, like the Stop-hand, CVU-icon, and other wiki-icons. This is just silly, because the server still has to load the larger file, only to make it small. BTW, at first glance I though you were RedWolf24...nope...Voice of All^T|@|ESP 02:41, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, but something needs to be done. Images are appallingly slow, if removing them from stub tags would help, I'm all for it. -Greg Asche (talk) 02:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, images that are scaled down load MUCH slower than if there is no scaling...Voice of All^T|@|ESP 03:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

What Voice of All pointed out seems to be the biggest factor in my experience, however the current instructions seem specifically to recommend using better-resolution images in place of smaller ones. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I seem to remember having asked one of the developers about this issue the last time the image servers were overloaded. Unless my memory has gone, the software actually does generate scaled-down versions of images and load those at full size rather than the whole image at reduced size, so that isn't the problem. — Dan | Talk 04:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

So is this something that can be fixed by a) software update b) funddrive for better hardware? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 05:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Both seem to be in order. The hardware should be able to support whatever the software permits, and as such, if images in signatures are a massive server drag, they should be disabled; however, we certainly need more/better image servers to ensure that legitimate images are fully functional. (I get the feeling I'm stating the patently obvious, but it's been a long time since the issue arose and neither of these things has happened.) — Dan | Talk 06:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• RDsmith is correct - the server generates a smaller image. These are supposed to be cached, of course. I think we should ask Brion and/or Jamesday to see if it's actually a problem; certainly, images in a stub template serve no purpose other than to look cute. Radiant_>|< 10:17, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
  • As much as I like cute stub templates, if they are slowing useful images down, we should shut them down for the time being. But with so many stub templates out there, is there anyway to make it easier? Perhaps use standarise them and use a bot to turn the images on and off depending on server load?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Perhaps all of the stubs should use a standard template. When we want to turn off images for all templates, all we would have to do is change the master template. – ClockworkSoul 04:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Extreme Vandalism to High Profile pages

A new experimental anti-vandalism is now on the George Bush talk page. Also, semi-protection is being considered as well.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 19:23, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone object to the implemention of this? An example is shown here. Everything is ready for implementation. Thank you.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:36, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Where has this experimental policy been discussed? —Cleared as filed. 05:52, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

On George Bush talk and on the "See supervised pages", you can find the link to this on the prototype's tags.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:54, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

This is a terrible idea. We stamp "hey everyone, this article is rubbish and always broken" or our most popular articles. That's the way to sell the Wiki, alright. The tag should never be used, and I've removed it from the GWB article. -Splash^talk 22:55, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism is an inherent part of a wiki, and we shouldn't sacrifice progress and advancement in the hopes of deterring vandalism. There's no serious vandalism problem with the article; let's continue doing a good-job of reverting it and I think we should be fine. Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:00, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Over 90% of the edits to the article are vandalism or vandalism reversion meaning the article exists in a vandalized state a significant portion of the time. You don't see a problem with that? - Taxman ^Talk 15:01, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

No. And 90% of edits isn't the same as 90% of the time. It can be even less of the time if people revert even faster. And the suggestions surrounding this proposal are that vandalism destroys Wikipedia's credibility. Much more credibility-losing than any quickly-reverted vandalism is the fact that no-one knows the credentials of (nearly all) our editors. Even if I could magic away the vandals, the citability of the Project would not change in any serious circles without credential-checking, and we all know what happened to Nupedia. -Splash^talk 15:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Problem with rollback?

I am getting the followig error when trying to do a rollback:

Rollback failed

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

User:Zoe|^(talk) 05:23, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I get that now and then, though more often recently. I'm not quite sure exactly what the "problem" with the login session is, but the suggested solution (go back and reload the page), while irritating, is indeed effective. — Dan | Talk 05:27, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I got the message for about 2 days last week. However, as Dan suggests, going back and reloading the page fixed it. Thanks. --Ragib 05:30, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I've seen it suggested that it may have something to do with carrying out a rollback while you have other tabs still loading pages. No idea if this is the case or not.Geni 05:46, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm using IE, so that's not a problem.  :) User:Zoe|^(talk) 07:55, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

No actually, using IE is a problem. :) Dmcdevit·t 20:41, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Although I agree with you, unfortunately, Firefox and AOL are incompatible. Every time I try to start Firefox when running AOL, my computer freezes up. User:Zoe|^(talk) 03:08, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

What to do next with this deletion review?

As a newby admin, I am not sure what to do next with regard to Wikipedia:Deletion review#Sigmund Freud University Vienna. The undelete advocate appears to have a good point (and as I wrote there, he/she forwarded an e-mail to me that appears genuine). I am not sure what to do next, however. Advice/action would be greatly appreciated. --Nlu 16:26, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

That seems to me to negate the claims of copyvio on which the material was deleted, thus to make undeletion appropriate. Phil Sandifer 16:39, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

All right, thanks. I've gone ahead and undeleted the deleted version and merged it in with the current version. Now -- pardon me for being cluelesss -- how do I close out the deletion review? --Nlu 16:52, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

You just remove it from the page and, if the urge takes you, add it to the new strip of red tape at the bottom of the page. You might also add {{confirmation}} to the talk page, and check that you have forwarded the email to permissions at wikimedia dot org. -Splash^talk 17:08, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

PS. I trust the confirmation was not the single word "Danke", because that obviously doesn't suffice. If it was just that, send him the boilerplate available from WP:CP to confirm. -Splash^talk 17:11, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

166.109.0.136

This is being reported on WP:AIV -- with a twist. Apparently, this user was already blocked for 24 hours, but continues to be able to edit anyway -- and then I looked on the talk page, and there was no standard language about it being an anonymous IP! I am going to guess (if numerically named IP are possible) that this user sneakily named himself/herself with an user name that is the same as an IP, and then therefore got the IP blocked but not himself/herself. What, if anything, can be done about it? Please respond ASAP; vandalism is still ongoing. --Nlu 17:45, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Not sure what you are talking about. That user was not recently blocked. See the blocklog. The user has not vandalized since being warned on their talk page, so unless you can show more conclusive evidence of this sneaky account creation, I think this is a non issue. If the user vandalizes again, note that on AIV so they can be blocked. - Taxman ^Talk 18:03, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Mea culpa; I misread the block log and thought that the October 21 block was a November 21 block. --Nlu 18:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

File upload confusion - help needed...

Could someone who understands the image upload page please take a look at this discussion [2] and see if they can help out? Appreciated. Trollderella 21:27, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I was going to ask the same. It may inform to read the discussions at Mediawiki talk:Uploadtext and to view things such as this version which make plain that you can multi-license but that, like every single edit to Wikipedia, all images you upload to which you own the copyright are under the GFDL as well as anything else you like. -Splash^talk 21:40, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

GNAA and WP:AFD

There is a GNAA disruption campaign underway to have any and all articles related in any way to blogs purged from Wikipedia. See User:Timecop/The war on blogs for further information. Every article on their list will at the very least need to have GNAA-sockpuppet votes explicitly disallowed from its AFD tally. It may even be appropriate to simply shut down the AFD discussions at once, since almost all of them were nominated by GNAA sockpuppets in the first place. But I'm not prepared to dictate that or enforce it by myself. How, if at all should we proceed? Bearcat 11:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

This is not a "GNAA disruption". Thank you. --Timecop 03:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• Looking over the AFD discussions linked from there, I see no evidence of sockpuppetry on most of them (I explicitly didn't say all of them). The effort in principle doesn't seem to be a bad thing; Wikipedia is not a web directory, and it wouldn't surprise me if many blogs create a linkspam article about themselves on Wikipedia, even if they would fail WP:WEB. I would certainly object to prematurely closing these AFDs. Radiant_>|< 11:26, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Actually, there's evidence of sockpuppetry on every last one of them: User:Femmina, User:Timecop, User:65.34.232.136, User:JacksonBrown, User:impi.za, User:Skrewler, User:Adamn, User:TedBerg and User:Incognito all have a suspicious edit history; most of them never contributed to Wikipedia before suddenly showing up for the blogfest. I'm not arguing whether Wikipedia should or shouldn't have articles on blogs -- what I am arguing is that it's not the Gay Nigger Association of America's right to decide what Wikipedia should or shouldn't have articles on. If somebody wants to do a serious test batch of blog articles, I'm all for it, but that somebody has to be a legitimate Wikipedia user. Bearcat 11:43, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I am a legitimate wikipedia user. I've cleaned up some articles, fixed typos, and I keep a watch on a few articles that interest me. And I happen to dislike blogs! So if you want to join my effort of cleaning up wikipedia of worthless blogcruft, you're most welcome! --Timecop 12:17, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Wikipedia is not here to conform to what the GNAA likes or dislikes. Bearcat 12:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
        • Perhaps you missed the part where I said I started this effort as a legitimate wikipedia user. However, you for some reason insist that this is GNAA related (it is not), and are turning this into a name-calling shitfest. --Timecop 12:40, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
          • If it's not GNAA related, then kindly explain that I've so far identified eleven different users who have never contributed to Wikipedia before suddenly voting on every blog AFD. If it's not GNAA related, then kindly explain why some of them directly link to your War on Blogs page on their user page. If it's not GNAA related, then kindly explain why you're not the one doing any of the nominating; it's mostly being done by User:Skrewler, one of those users who never existed before your war on blogs started. (Okay, I take that back: before your war on blogs, Skrewler's entire edit history consisted of four edits to Talk:Methamphetamine last December.) If it's not GNAA related, why are there so many sockpuppets? Bearcat 12:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
            • You labeled me a sock puppet Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Blogging_Tories. Whether you beleive people are coming in as sock puppets or not, Please be a bit more careful about who you speak about. --Depakote 12:59, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Reposting the gist of comments I sent to Bearcat directly: once nominations are up on AfD, they are open to the community as a whole to vote on them. Admins know enough to discount suspicious or SP votes. The fact that the nominations are part of an organized campaign to scourge blog articles from WP is irrelevant as I see it, insofar as the AfD process is designed to canvass opinions and let consensus develop. A better tactic is to state clearly why you feel such articles should be allowed to stay and let the force of your arguments sway other editors. I have voted against many of these articles, and I am not related in any way to GNAA. Is the position of the many of us who have voted to delete somehow soiled because they are voting on the same lines? Dottore So 13:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Hmm, I guess so, for feeding the trolls, and probably doubly so for thinking you're voting. :-P (um, you did ask! ^^;;) YHBT, YHL, HAND! Kim Bruning 13:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't what that means. Well, I know what the acronyms mean, but I don't what you mean to say. Dottore So 16:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Well if you insist, yes you're soiled for feeding the trolls. And you're also sort of in trouble for thinking that AFD is a voting page at all. I think we eliminated that misunderstanding with the name change. :) Kim Bruning 20:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
        • LOL. I forgot myself and the diktat of WP NewSpeak! Last I checked, no one had objected to the majority of nominated articles. Those that prompted a legit and interesting debate about how to cover blogs/blogsphere and involved plenty of registered users. I think Bearcat's reaction - understandable given the folks involve - was premature in terms of portraying the extent of the problem. Anyway, point taken even if I disagree. Dottore So 21:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
  • And as I replied to you, part of the problem is that once a certain level of sockpuppetry has been passed, it becomes impossible for an admin to even figure out what the genuine consensus of real Wikipedia users is. Speaking as an admin, I once (quite recently, in fact) actually closed a debate early and renominated it from scratch because it had gotten too out of control. And considering that the first person to reply to my initial comment here didn't even see some of the sockpuppetry going on, I think I can safely say that sockpuppets aren't always immediately obvious. Bearcat 13:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Timecop has friends. This is not against any rules I know of. silsor 15:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Since there are several sockcheckers active now, I'm sure that checking for actual duplicate accounts would not be a problem. Radiant_>|< 16:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Of the sixteen articles currently on GNAA's AFD hitlist, exactly two of the debates have any sockchecking going on, and on both of them the socks have been turning around and tagging real voters as socks in retaliation. How recursive does this have to get before it actually qualifies as inappropriate disruption? Bearcat 20:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Please refer to WP:SIGN - there are five new people with sockchecking abilities, of which Kelly Martin seems to be the most active in using them recently. Contact any of them and request a sockcheck. Radiant_>|< 23:57, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
        • You know as well as I do that a sockpuppet isn't always detectable through an IP check alone; some sockpuppets are distinct users who come along to support the campaign despite never having edited before. An IP check alone isn't going to detect that kind of sockpuppet — that kind requires manually reviewing the contributor's edit history, and so far only two of the sixteen debates currently active have had that kind of sockchecking occur. Bearcat 01:02, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
          • That's not a sockpuppet. A sockpuppet is an extra account of the same person. silsor 01:28, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
            • The definition of "sockpuppet" in Wikipedia policy specifically includes friends and other supporters without contribution histories being brought in to stack the vote. If that's not a sockpuppet, the definition of "sockpuppet" in Wikipedia policy shouldn't say that it is. Bearcat 01:42, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
              • What you're talking about is a meatpuppet, something slightly different but equally ignorable. Titoxd^(?!?) 01:44, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
              • If you can find a definition that says that, it's wrong, so please fix it. The only definition I know of is the more correct one at Wikipedia:Sock puppet. silsor 05:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
          • Admins regularly sock-check during a close, so don't worry if you don't see sockchecking done before the close. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:36, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Moving to delete all blog pages is as straight-forward a violation of WP:POINT as they come. Admins who close an AfD on, for example, Overheard in New York should be smart enough to keep the article regardless. 'Nuff said. Phil Sandifer 01:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

We're not deleting ALL BLOG PAGES. We're deleting useless, redundant, vanity, and plain out retarded entries. So please stop with the hate. Enough people are supporting this as clearly shown in the votes coming in. And no, none of them are sockpuppet votes either. There are more socks on the canadian blogosphere deletions generated by blog posts than there are sock delete votes in all the nonsensical blogcruft articles. --Timecop 03:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

And random undefined criteria as well. I'm still waiting for an explanation as to how Progressive Bloggers can be considered objectively less notable than Daily Kos without setting a "Canadian inherently equals less notable" precedent. Plus, just for the record, ProgBlog currently has 9 GNAA socks to 2 blogfan socks and Blogging Tories has 9 GNAAs to 7 blogfans. So you're wrong; your puppetry still outweighs the other side in both cases. Bearcat 03:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• • The facts are that Timecop and his colleagues have nominated blogs because they are blogs. For example, they nominated Jason Kottke who is one of the leading bloggers having won a lifetime achievement award. If you wish to check out TimeCop's user page, he makes it pretty clear that he and his colleagues are nominating blogs irrespective of their merits see User:Timecop/The war on blogs. Calling something the war on blogs is not a good way to generate consensus amongst users. We should be looking at developing criteria similar to WP:NMG to determine notable bloggers, bloggers and blogging techniques on the WP:WEB discussion page on the next few days based on verifiable sources. I welcome the assistance of all people of goodwill. Capitalistroadster 06:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• My $0.02 on this matter: good on TimeCop for listing some of these things. I think we should assume good faith on this one and assume that although he was the founder of the GNAA that having him list these on AFD at least helps us determine whether they are notable or not (many blogs are not notable!). At the very least it will help clear up the crap. Incidently, I understand why Bearcat has concerns. I think it was also valid for him to raise them on AN. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:36, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, there are various organized groups of wikipedians who list various things for deletion on a regular basis (schools, things they think are not notable etc etc). It's regretable, but we don't currently enforce deletion policy, so this is what we have. Trollderella 18:59, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

3RR, SEWilco, WMC

Despite the fact that I agree that a number of the things he has recently posted on 3RR re: User:William M. Connolley are technically parole violations, I'm finding the fact that User:SEWilco is posting separate entries for a huge number of edits that are about a month old to be somewhat disruptive. I've asked him to stop (specifically, I've asked him to roll up all the reports into a single, omnibus report rather than adding a new entry for each). Am I the only person that thinks this is disruptive? I'd like to solicit other admin opinions on this. Thoughts? Nandesuka 18:08, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I was following the instructions on 3RR, and I can't be sure I'll find all the violations (particularly ones not labeled as rv). You can also help report violations. (SEWilco 18:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC))

I think it's disruptive. I agree that we should be enforcing WMC's parole, and that violations should be posted on the 3RR page, but that the stuff that SEWilco is posting is now too old to be relevant. WMC should receive his block for the latest offense (which I believe you've already done?) and then call it done until there is a new offense — one occuring after his latest block. —Cleared as filed. 18:12, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

The ArbComm stated what the penalty is for each violation. WMC having done so many violations has created many violations to examine. (SEWilco 18:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC))

In this space here we are currently discussing whether your activities are disruptive, not the issue you are (in my opinion) being disruptive about. Nandesuka 18:56, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

If you cannot find anything within a month that is a violation, it seems to me good evidence that WMC is currently reformed, making any actions needlessly punitive, and requests for action an unfortunate assumption of bad faith. Phil Sandifer 18:59, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

There indeed have been violations reported within the past month (and his first month), and I agree it is unfortunate that we have to assume bad faith in his edit behavior and obeying his parole terms. (19:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC))

We? --Calton | Talk 23:59, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

• If someone violated some rule that warrants blocking I prefer it to be done within a week, so it's clear what it is about. Anything longer is just digging up old dirt, but that's just my opinion. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:21, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
  • It is dirt newer than the ArbComm's specification of the violation. The user knows what to expect to grow from the dirt he created. (SEWilco 15:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC))

Vandalbot beginnings?

Something fishy is just starting at the article Wikipedia. 3 letter usernames are being created to blank the page. I think I'm going to temporarily protect the page, but if someone else can get to it before me, then all the better...My internet connection is rather slow at the moment. --HappyCamper 03:51, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that too; thanks for protecting it. Btw I think we're all pretty slow right now; it's a bit frustrating waiting for page loads, especially when trying to revert vandal after vandal. Antandrus (talk) 03:54, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, well, I need to go offline right now, so for anyone reading this, feel free to unprotect it whenever it seems appropriate. I'll unprotect it tomorrow if it hasn't been done so by the time I log on again. --HappyCamper 04:04, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and unprotect; let's see what happens. Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:18, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Upcoming edit war at Moses

Judging from Codex Sinaiticus's replies to my statements at Talk:Moses, I'm expecting an impending revert war with him. — BRIAN0918 • 16:26, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[[User talk::86.128.83.160|86.128.83.160]]

86.128.83.160 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) has been trying to defame me for some bizarre reason I can't understand... would it be appropriate for me to block him, or should I have someone else do it? Titoxd^(?!?) 21:56, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Done. · Katefan0^(scribble) 21:59, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

That's User:LtWeasel who you sorted out a block conflict on [3]. They came to IRC claiming the LtWeasel account wasn't theirs and could the IP be unblocked as it was getting autoblocked. When unblocked asked about marking articles for deletion and was told [[WP:AFD]] which the IP promptly went and place on Titoxd's user page as well as some other vanadlism --pgk^(talk) 22:42, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

With permission from mindspillage, the admin who unblocked LtWeasel, I reblocked LtWeasel indefinitely. Mindspillage unblocked per AGF, but he vandalized again. Ral315 (talk) 02:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

So that is what happened. I should have fixed his AFD nomination, though... anyways, thanks a lot for the info. I've added {{indefblockeduser}} to his userpage. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, when he asked me to unblock, he didn't claim that the account wasn't his—I asked him not to continue vandalizing pages and he said he wouldn't. (Yes, I am an optimist. Sigh.) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:24, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

User:Keith Wigdor, User:Keith-Wigdor, User:-keith-wigdor-

These user pages have been victims of vandalism by IPs -- but they are so similar that I am guessing that all three are sock puppets of each other or two are impersonators of one. How should we go about this? --Nlu 22:01, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

This also might be related to User:Ernie-and-bert with a IP's editing the user page including "Bert & Ernie are the alter ego of Keith Wigdor" --pgk^(talk) 22:48, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I haven't reviewed the users' contributions, but if they are not disruptive or are not active, I would say do nothing. I've seen on the new users log that many people create an account and then the next minute create another account extremely similar to the first account. I'm not sure what's going on, but it's pretty common. Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:14, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

User:Robbie Blair

Robbie_Blair (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) self-claims to be a sock puppet of User:Robert Blair. I have blocked indefinitely as imposter, but can someone with sufficient access check deeper to see if it's indeed a sock puppet? If so, perhaps block Robert Blair as well? --Nlu 23:06, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

There's nothing technically wrong with having sock puppet accounts if they're not doing anything. If someone claims to be a sockpuppet, go ahead and block them. In either case, User:Robbie Blair could be blocked because he appears to be an impersonator of User:Robert Blair. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:11, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The reason here why User:Robert Blair may be subject to blocking is because he was under an order by the ArbCom not to edit any sexual organ-related articles -- and User:Robbie Blair not only did so but claimed that he was doing so to circumvent the ArbCom ruling. --Nlu 02:04, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Me too! Can someone else watch this guy please

As an administrator I warned a new user on his talk page about his vandalism. He replied with an extreme insult which has effectively involved me personally, so I don't want anything to do with him in the future, and obviously couldn't block him anyway because I would risk being accused of bias. Could someone look at that talk page and keep an eye on him? Moriori 19:23, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye on him for awhile. --Kbdank71 19:32, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Given that his sole contributions have been to vandalize articles and–now–to lob an insult at your for giving him a very polite welcome and warning (considerably better than he deserved in light of his response) you're welcome to block him (or monitor him) as you see fit. I wouldn't consider you to be personally involved or biased just because he insulted you for carrying out your responsibilities as an admin. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:34, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

User:ThE YaNg

This user put "hi :)" on my user talk page. I told him, "Don't leave messages on people's talk pages unless you want a response. Thank you." He then told me to leave me alone, so I did. Then he edited my talk page four more times, putting the orange "You have new messages" bar on my screen repeatedly. When I went over to his user talk page, I found this message: 'Heres to Denelson83: "Stfu and get life :P"'. I'm leaving him alone, but he apparently does not want to leave me alone. I'm thinking I made a mistake, and I should have put {{welcome}} on his talk page instead. What should happen next?  Denelson83  23:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

In a similar situation I would have used a welcome tag. It's never too late to add one though :-) Why not put a message like this?

Title: "Welcome to Wikipedia!" - hey there...sorry about my earlier message - the odd capitalization on your username made me think you were a vandal - I should have been a bit more welcoming instead. Anyway, it's never too late to welcome new Wikipedians, so with that, here are some links I thought you might find useful!!

{{subst:welcome}}

Oh yeah, one last thing. I'm an admin here, so if you ever need help with things like protecting pages, let me know, and I'll be sure to look into it. See you around! --~~~~

And also, it's not a "mistake" - it's a "learning process", and we all go through that sometimes - carry on, carry on! :-) --HappyCamper 00:57, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Lightbringer Arbitration case now closed

The Arbitration case against Lightbringer, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lightbringer, has closed. The decision is that Lightbringer is hereby banned indefinitely from editing articles and talk-pages related to Freemasonry (the closeness of the relation is to be interpretted by any sysop as they see fit, regardless of the article's title), and is placed on personal attack parole for six months from now (to expire on the 24 of May 2006). If Lightbringer violates the Freemasonry ban, a sysop may ban them for up to a week, and after five such bans, for up to a year. If they violate the personal attack parole, a sysop may ban them for up to a week.

Yours,

James F. (talk) 00:05, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

November + 6 months = May, not April... Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 01:07, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, good point. Fixed.

*feels mildly ashamed* :-)

James F. (talk) 01:13, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

GOOD! =P Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 01:28, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Admins should note, btw, that Lightbringer has sockpuppeted happily in the course of the case, and could be expected to continue. He's on a mission, you know - David Gerard 14:50, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

A weird vandalism problem: French Revolution

There is a quite substantial vandalism problem -- at least 20 to 30 acts of vandalism a day -- on articles relating to the French Revolution: anything from that article itself to people involved in it to articles about particular documents, the causes of the Revolution etc. A handful of these article have been listes as most-vandalized pages, but the vandalism is scattered onto too many pages to make that a particularly effective tactic. Most of them are grafitti type vandalism; some are more insidious (uncommented anonymous changes of dates or numbers that waste a lot of someone's time determining whether this is a correction or vandalism). Almost always they are the sole edit from the IP in question. Does anyone have any suggestion what could be done about this? It wastes quite detectable time and effort, especially when it is the non-grafitti variety. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Do you have a list of them? Perhaps they should be protected for a while until the vandal(s) (hopefully) give up? --Nlu 06:21, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I think this is a long term problem. Pretty much every student in the western world at some point has to do a project on the French Revolution, and this leads to a steady stream of immature vandalism. It increasingly seems like we need a technical or policy change to deal with the small, but growing, class of extremely popular articles that receive constant streams of vandalism. At a certain level of popularity, most visible with the George W. Bush article, the current Wiki system is beginning to fray. Over the last few weeks there have been various ideas for what to do about this proposed at Talk:George W. Bush. - SimonP 19:40, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Nlu, it would be hard to make a list: this is scattered over at least 100 articles. Because I have about 10% of my watchlist devoted to this period, I noticed that there was a pattern. Some of this is doubtless semi-random student vandalism, but the fact that so much of it comes as single acts of vandalism from otherwise unused IP addresses suggests to me that this is something more systematic than that. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:34, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

User:PKtm

This user apparently, despite repeated Jiang's repeated efforts to explain to him how 3RR works and how comments on user talk pages are not vandalism, insists on calling Jiang a vandal. When I tried to set him straight, he wants me to "recuse" myself because, in his view, Jiang and I are "friends" (nevermind that I've never met Jiang). (Please see User talk:PKtm, User talk:Jiang, and User talk:Nlu for details.) I am not sure what to do with this user. Advice would be appreciated. --Nlu 04:35, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

One comment: You stated that "removing rule-related notices" from a user talk page is vandalism. It is not; it is not vandalism to remove comments from one's own talk page. Kelly Martin (talk) 05:04, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm -- other admins have always given me the impression otherwise. So any advice on how to take the situation from here? --Nlu 05:08, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Removing comments from userpages is not really vandalism, but it is sort of a no-no, and a red flag to most folks. There's not really much you can say here, except to remind him that talk pages are in fact for talking -- he's free to remove comments if he wants I suppose, but other folks are equally free to leave them in the first place, as long as they aren't running afoul of some WP policy. I don't think 3RR applies to talk pages, either, since users are free to remove comments from their own talk pages as they wish. · Katefan0^(scribble) 05:23, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

He is claiming discussion here that I am making "personal threats" and that my "remarks are now looking like a personal vendetta" that he considers "harassment and (basically) graffiti" when I try to tell him that he (and myself as well) almost violated the 3RR at The Stanford Axe. (my responses here). Despite showing him the very reverts with date stamps, he responds "STOP posting on my user page, user Jiangg. Edits are not 'reverts', and at no point did I come close to violating the Wikipedia rule, and you know that."

Can someone please kindly coach this relatively new user that his edits at The Stanford Axe were indeed reverts and that he should stop making personal attacks? I tried to discuss the disputed content in dispute at Talk:The_Stanford_Axe#The Play (the issue is settled now, after I moved around the text in question) and he proceeded to ignore the content and accuse me of "pov pushing". I'm not totally clean here, but this user has a case of bad wikiquette and needs some help. --Jiang 05:53, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Note the contradictions in Jiang's own statements above: "I try to tell him that he (and myself as well) almost violated the 3RR". In fact, Jiang claimed specifically that I had violated the 3RR. On my talk page, he wrote, "you were in danger of getting blocked because you made three reverts within 24 hours on multiple occaisions:" However, the examples he cited included articles other than the one over which he and I disagreed, and his time stamps were incorrect anyway, making his claims dubious on that score alone. I considered this flailing, and a way of striking back at me because I was pointing out how he kept inserting POV into the article. He condescendingly kept referring (as in the above) to me as a "new user", which is incorrect and irrelevant. At no point did I ignore the content. And Jiang suggesting I "need some help" is disingenuous and offensive. I certainly recognize that in most cases, removing comments from talk pages is bad form, but in this case, his remarks on my talk page were inaccurate, inappropriately (and without basis) threatening, and basically just another way of striking back outside the discussion. I guess I'd say, "this user has a case of bad wikiquette and needs some help."-- PKtm 06:30, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Enough, please. Nlu's question was entirely appropriate, but this page isn't for airing disputes between users. Avail yourselves of the suggestions outlined in Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. · Katefan0^(scribble) 06:33, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia:Suspected_sockpuppets

Hmm, there's 51 subcats in there right now, and likely hundreds of users tagged. Any false positives won't be very happy with their presence in the suspected sockpuppets category. Now that more folks have sockcheck, could this category please be emptied rapidly? Kim Bruning 08:23, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Checkuser doesn't help much here, because the recentchanges table which is used for it doen't go back very far (a month, as far as I know), and much of the category is older. -- grm_wnr Esc 09:25, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

:-(. Well, at least please try as much as possible, then? Kim Bruning 09:33, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:All Policies in a Nutshell

I've seen that there's often confusion about what our policies actually are, especially as most policy pages are rather long and tend to mutate over time. Such matters frequently come up at ANI, such as "can an admin unblock himself?" or "are multiple accounts allowed?" et cetera. Therefore, I have attempted to create a summary of policy on this page. We really don't have that much policy to begin with, after all. The intent of the page is not to explain anything (since the policy pages already do that) but to create a simple summary, and link to explanations.

It's not quite finished yet, but I would appreciate feedback on this. In particular, if I've missed something, or misstated some policy. Radiant_>|< 15:28, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

See also the Wikipedia:Policypedia. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:19, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Undelete

Could one of you go Here and undelete that page, because I'd quite fancy it being in my userspace subpage. Thankyou sysoppies --Wonderfool t(c) 16:38, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Why not - done. User:Wonderfool/How to get rich using Wikipedia. Thue | talk 18:00, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Cheers fella. --Wonderfool t(c) 22:16, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Chickenbush

I have been trying to delete this article for half an hour now, but keep getting server errors. Does anybody else have any better luck? User:Zoe|^(talk) 05:38, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Done. I've had a lot of problems saving pages though, too. —Cleared as filed. 05:42, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Cleared. User:Zoe|^(talk) 05:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Horn of Plenty

File:Gmail Thanksgiving.png

Gmail links to us!

Just a quick alert: Gmail has now linked to us for their Thanksgiving screen (see here), so expect some vandalism at Horn of Plenty. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:10, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that too... I was wondering if we should add a template to pages such that have been linked from Google's official blog or its services a la {{slashdotted}}. Any thoughts?

We do have {{High-traffic}} for those purposes now. Titoxd^(?!?) 05:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing Arbitration case injunctions

Two temporary injunctions have been made in the Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs) case. Firstly, Pigsonthewing is banned, until the conclusion of this Arbitration, from editing any page in Karmafist's user space (but not user talk space). He may be blocked for a short time, up to three days, for any edit violating this injunction, and all such edits may be reverted by any editor without regard to the limitations of the three revert rule. Secondly, due to repeated personal attacks, Pigsonthewing is subject, until the conclusion of this Arbitration, to a standard personal attack parole. Any administrator may ban Pigsonthewing for a short time, up to three days, for any edit which, in the opinion of that administrator, constitutes a personal attack.

Any help in carrying forward these matters is greatly appreciated by the Committee.

James F. (talk) 20:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Maoririder closed

The arbitration committee has reached a final decision in the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Maoririder case. Raul654 20:25, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

How to rename a category?

The consensus on Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Puerto_Rican_Baseball_Players appears to be "speedy rename" it, but I don't know how to do it. Pointers would be appreciated. --Nlu 21:34, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• Don't worry, the regular cleaner-uppres on CFD will catch it. Radiant_>|< 23:05, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

User:Beadtot

I'm not sure what to make of this one. Vandal? Troll? In need of meds? Someone else may want to take a look. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

3RR time limit

See Wikipedia talk:Three-revert rule#Proposed addition to the policy. - SoM 21:49, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

While not a change to the policy, I've editted Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRHeader to try to reflect the apparently general feeling that the 3RR incidents page is for current, or at least recent, disputes and violations. I trust I'm not being over-bold in doing so; obviously, tweak it further or change it back if it's felt by anyone to be flawed. Alai 20:17, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Unsure what to do with this user

I was fairly certain that the new user Deepvision (talk · contribs) was just clueless, but after several warnings about uploading copyrighted images and text (all seem to be images of and articles regarding various Penthouse models) he continues to do just that. Not being thoroughly well-versed in copyright law and just returning from a lengthy hiatus, I'm reluctant to take unilateral administrative action against this user. Can sombody more knowledgable please examine him and his actions and consider a course of action? Many thanks. – ClockworkSoul 07:45, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Without even looking into his contribution record, I can say this: constantly uploading copyrighted material, notably after being warned not to do so, is grounds for blocking and, in case of persistence, banning. Jimbo has made it quite clear about how he feels about people who upload copyrighted material (and I believe he's referring to this kind of behavior): they are jeopardizing the entire project, and ought to be banned (that's how he put it). About the images themselves: pictorials from magazines (adult or not) are copyrighted, and we cannot use them unless we have consent. Only a magazine's cover may be used under the Fair Use provision. If this user continues to upload those images, delete them on sight (maybe that'll get a message across). Regards, Redux 22:51, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Redux. I'll keep that in mind. Cheers! – ClockworkSoul 00:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Editing difficulties

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have noticed that Wikipedia is becoming increasingly difficult to edit, with server errors etc. That would most likely be caused by server overload, I guess. Does anybody know if anything is going to be done about that? Are there any plans by devs or board to alleviate that? Or are we getting more money for more servers? Or what? Radiant_>|< 11:58, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

While I've had a hard time editing for the past several weeks, this morning at least it seems very speedy with no errors. I think that the image server upgrade helped, but I don't know what other changes might have occurred to make it faster (or if I'm just the ONLY ONE editing at this time ;) ). --Syrthiss 13:05, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about others, but sometimes, it takes me minutes before I see a page load on Wikipedia. I might even take a Wikibreak until it's faster again. In the time it takes to load my watchlist, I could fall asleep :-) --HappyCamper 15:47, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I've seen that most of the errors come when writing to the database, not reading from it... I don't know if that is helpful or not to the devs. Titoxd^(?!?) 06:27, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia:Hardware and hosting report - hits have doubled since September. Every day as a Wikimedia dev is a continuous WTF?!?!?!! moment - David Gerard 21:23, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

User:GoldDragon

User:GoldDragon is engaged in edit wars and sucessive reverts in Xbox and Ken Kutaragi articles. Using Anonymous IP's (24.43.222.213 - 24.227.213.74) to force their editions and reverts, he doesn't respect the discussion in Talk:Ken Kutaragi with Wikipedia:Cite Sources Wikipedia:Reliable sources statements. I'm already trying to discuss with him for reach consensus, but he ignoring me forcing their editions with more reverts.

I ask for Administrator's help and disponible for mediation in Ken Kutaragi article. Xbox article is already mediated by User:A_Man_In_Black. Thanks.--Brazil4Linux 22:54, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Now, User:GoldDragon and their anonymous IP 24.43.222.213 reverting Sony Computer Entertainment to take advantage and try despite Sockpuppet. --Brazil4Linux 00:47, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Consensus

It seems that the numbers people are always quick to cite as being "consensus" on RFA, AFD, etc, were originally added by Mirv to Wikipedia:Consensus to make a point about how ridiculous our definition of "consensus" is. His exact words are:

I added the numbers as part of a series of edits meant to point out how bizarre the definitions of consensus used on Wikipedia really were. I am doubly appalled to find out that people are actually citing these numbers as The One True Official Meaning of consensus; I am triply appalled when I realize that this is probably because my description of the weird definitions was dead on.

Instead of being reverted, since his additions were never discussed, they remained. Now, attempts to remove them until being discussed are being halted, only by Philip Baird Shearer, who is going against all the discussion on the talk page and the opinions of at least 5 others.

I believe that the supermajority numbers for RFA, AFD, RM, if they do indeed exist, should be detailed at RFA, AFD, RM, and not on a page about consensus. This only makes people think consensus = supermajority. Policy discussion about RFA, AFD, and RM belong on their pages, not on a different policy page.

So, please voice your own opinion. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-28 00:17

God strike me dead for saying this, but Mirv is dead right here. Phil Sandifer 00:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

. . . Instead of being reverted, since his additions were never discussed, they remained.—unchanged, for six months, dozens of edits, and who knows how many readings. Why? Because my description (and that's all it was—the theory being that the best way to ridicule something that's already ridiculous is to describe it fairly) was entirely correct. Brian0918 contends that leaving the numbers there only makes people think consensus = supermajority. —but they already do, and acting as if they don't isn't going to change anything. If so many people really want the numbers gone, then they should try to address the reason that they were there in the first place. Good luck with that. —Charles P. (Mirv) 01:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• We are. It's a catch 22: they need to removed from the one place or the other first. Kim Bruning 01:13, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• When I said "good luck" I was entirely serious. I'm glad that the problems that led me to add the numbers are finally getting some wider attention. —Charles P. (Mirv) 06:10, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• I'm fine with making points, it's just that the addition was never discussed before being added. Newcomers now believe that it is policy (since, after all, it's on the policy page) that consensus=supermajority, so they don't even think about it anymore. I think by trying to make a point, you have only made it worse, as you yourself have said in my quote above. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-28 01:15

• Some people took A Modest Proposal at face value, but nobody actually tried to implement it. I honestly didn't expect anyone to take my numbers seriously. Since they have done just that, it's time for them to go. —Charles P. (Mirv) 06:10, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Vandal Identification

Parties involved:

• Me: Moe Epsilon (talk · contribs)
• Titoxd (talk · contribs) (involved indirectly)
• Mcfly85 (talk · contribs)
• 63.18.246.17 (talk · contribs)
• 63.18.172.52 (talk · contribs)

Well this story has to begin somewhere so lets start back on September 7. Some rather nasty language used by User:Mcfly85 was used when he quit Wikipedia typing "I have retired from editing, thanks for nothing, fuckers." Well, on September 30, I discovered the vulgar language he had written. I simply took off the word "fuckers". In the edit history, I made I typo in my speech and typed in :

fulger instead of vulger. Remember this because its a key part in this vandalism account.

Two months later, on November 24, User:Titoxd reverted some vandalism on my, User:Moe Epsilon, user page by the Anon IP addresses known as User:63.18.246.17 and User:63.18.172.52. Im supposing the IP addresses are the same person considering the vandalism was only 12 minutes apart. The vandalism was here and here. In the first case of vandalism on my user page it said, "reverted fulger language" Learn to spell, fuckface". I didn't realize my page was vandalized until I looked at the history of my page. I immediately recongnized the "fulger" part and contacted User:Titoxd, who reverted the edits previously and he suggested I go here. Also, on November 26, McFly85 reopened his user page and resumed editing.

Proposal: I think McFly85 and the 2 accounts above should be blocked permantly for vandalizing my user page and Wikipedia. Mcfly85 makes nothing but poor edits and choices on Wikipedia and now makes vandal IP accounts to insult users. Titoxd also suggested that we run a CheckUser on Mcfly85 to see if this is true. Can anyone help in this situation?

PS. Sorry for using the "F" word so much in this converation and for involving you, Titoxd, in this whole situation as much as I did. — Moe ε 02:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

*Blushes* hehe... that's my job... but yes, I do think that the three IPs have editing habits sufficiently similar to merit a CheckUser. Titoxd^(?!?) 02:06, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'm not sure this merits a checkuser. If he continues to vandalize, you can handle it from there; if not, let bygones be bygones. In any event, we never perma-block IPs unless they're open proxies, and it's highly unusual to perma-block users for vandalism without ArbCom intervention, or a clear community consensus for such a block.

On another note, Moe Epsilon, you shouldn't change a user page, unless in the case of vandalism. If he wanted to write 'thanks for nothing, fuckers', that's his right, and it's not your job, nor any editor's, to stop him from doing so. Crude language, definitely, but within his rights. Ral315 (talk) 14:51, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism of sex-related pages by 83.151.11.x

There is a vandal or vandals from that range who is/are vandalizing a number of sex-related pages by adding in-line links to a BDSM site. I've blocked one (83.151.11.195 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)) for 24 hours but there was another one (83.151.11.188 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)) before that and another one after (83.151.11.110 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). All of these IPs (as well as all in the 83.151.11.x range) are registered to the same company in Russia. I'm going to put in a range block for 3 hours. If this is inappropriate, please undo my action. --Nlu 11:46, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Range block is in. Found at least one more sock puppet (83.151.11.181 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)). --Nlu 11:50, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Back after the block expired as 83.151.11.154 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Range block is going back in for another three hours. --Nlu 20:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

It'd be nice if you told us what range you used. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 03:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

83.151.11.0/24. --Nlu 03:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

You know, the software has a convenient feature for logging blocks - you could always check and find out the range for yourself rather than post snide comments to this page. — Dan | Talk 17:00, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd prefer it documented all over. Range blocking is dangerous and can fsck up without warning. Even experienced S&N people are wary. Rob Church ^Talk 02:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Rollback text change

In a somewhat bold move, I have changed the MediaWiki text for when you rollback to add in a link to the offender's talk page. This is so while looking at the history of a page, you can check if the vandal has been warned with the test templates, and basically it should be a convenience (much like we link to contribs rather than user page even though contribs is only one click away from user, also talk is one click away from contribs, but this should still be convenient.) If you don't like the change, feel free to revert me at MediaWiki:Revertpage, which will give you the old version. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 09:01, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I like it- makes things easier for me. Ral315 (talk) 18:42, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I like it too. Great idea. Thanks. AnnH ^(talk) 18:44, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Me three. :-) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 18:45, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Ditto. K1Bond007 07:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

One minor quibble. It makes the revert lines on #wikipedia-en-vandalism even longer. I'll probably see if I can get Cool Cat to do some text manipulation on them in the bot code. Oh, all the best people use popups. ;-) --GraemeL ^(talk) 18:55, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Cool Cat has modified the bot to trim the piped sections out of revert messages, thus shortening them. This also makes the links clickable with the standard IRC link scripts. --GraemeL ^(talk) 20:00, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Ooh, my fame goes before me! :P --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 07:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

As the designer of the current rollback text I endorse this change :) silsor 19:03, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm very happy with it as well. Nice work! – ClockworkSoul 05:47, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Does Jimbo always sign in ?

I wonder if these were really posted by Jimbo or by an imposter at IP 203.160.1.47:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Eugene_van_der_Pijll&diff=prev&oldid=29404604
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Eugene_van_der_Pijll&diff=prev&oldid=29402972
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Kizor&diff=29403211&oldid=29403027

Looks a little suspicious to me... -- 64.229.221.143 21:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Suspicious indeed. I very much doubt it's Jimbo, and I've blocked the IP for pretending to be him. If it really was Jimbo, he'll be able to unblock himself :-) Thanks for reporting it! --JoanneB 22:07, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, JoanneB, for taking care of things. -- 64.229.178.66 07:33, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, totally not me. I do almost always sign in and anyway I almost never block anyone for vandalism or anything else of course.--Jimbo Wales 17:48, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

BWI (Blocking While Involved)

I'd like to urge my fellow admins: if you are involved in a dispute with somebody over substantive matters, or if someone is insulting you, it is really pretty bad form to block that person. I'm not saying it is never correct: if you contact a user with whom you have no "history" to give him/her an appropriate warning on a matter with which you are previously uninvolved and he/she responds with a tirade of abuse, and continues the behavior you were warning about, that doesn't put you out of the running for throwing the necessary block. But if you have a long history of conflict with someone, or if you are currently involved in a content dispute, or if he/she just insulted your best buddy, life would be a lot simpler if you took off your admin hat and asked for a block precisely as if you were not an administrator. If you are clearly in the right, someone else will presumably take action. If you are not, well, that's the breaks: being an admin is not supposed to mean that you decide unilaterally how to resolve matters in which you are a disputant. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Is there a specific incident that you're refering to?--Sean|Black 01:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

This last came up a few days ago and is stated fairly clearly in WP:BP. What inspired the posting of this particular message? -Splash^talk 01:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Shameless ad for WP:PAIN! :) Titoxd^(?!?) 01:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Image deletion

Am I missing something obvious, or is there something wonky with image deletions lately? Of the four I've deleted today, three only hit the image description page, leaving the image itself and (when it was there to start with) the metadata. See, for example, Image:LVhouse2.jpg. They still showed up when I went to check their articles, too. (And yes, I've been using the "delete all revisions" link, not the normal "delete page" link.) —Cryptic (talk) 16:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I've seen a couple of those myself. Guessing it's just a caching thing though, if you try to open the actual file[4] you get a 404 error. I ran an action=purge on the page and the image vanished, so I guess the squids just had not realised the page was deleted yet. --Sherool (talk) 16:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I've had this happen in the past. For reaons I won't pretend to know, it has previously been fixed by restoring the page, and then using the standard delete button (there won't be the usual "all revisions link", for some reason). This appears to make the image go away. I do not think it is a caching problem, since I too say the example image above, and had never visited it before. It's gone now, though and MediaWiki agrees. -Splash^talk 16:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

this bug has been hitting me for months. No idea what is causeing it.Geni 17:14, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Blogs/podcasts/websites and XD2

Hi. I'm not an administrator; I'm looking for the attention/input of the administrators. If I shouldn't be posting here, I'm sorry; please let me know where I should have put this instead.

I'm just alerting you to the beginnings of a potentially sticky situation. You've read about "The War on Blogs" and how technically, everything that has happened has been in process so far. This is no different, but it looks like conflict will continue/be further inflamed.

A bunch of blogs, podcasts and other websites have now been deleted using XD2, completely in process, though sometimes shortly after a failed AfD on the subject. See, for example, this edit history. (I undeleted this one, because I felt strongly about it, but it's the only one I've touched and I actually agree with many of the deletions.)

If you check out User:Secksiewolfie's [5], you will find that many of them are XD2s. (A couple are for voting in an AfD about the GNAA.) I had concerns that Secksiewolf may be a sock, but he has content on his userpage that helps allieviate my concerns. Nevertheless, I wish he would make contributions in addition to his deletions.

If you investigate further, you will also see that Haakon has reverted a number of the XD2s with the message, "rvt vandalism." It may be that Haakon has these pages on his watchlist. He doesn't appear to be stalking, IMHO, because he didn't go through all of Secksiewolfie's XD2s. However, the use of the term "vandalism" could be considered inflammatory. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

These are only two users; I haven't been able to ascertain if there are more situations like these, but I wouldn't doubt if there are, or would be soon. I'm just concerned that the situation may become more contentious, and thought I should let you know what's happening. Thanks. Jacqui^★ 14:47, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Er, Extreme Deletion (1 or 2) just isn't the way that articles are deleted here. Blanking a page is considered vandalism. A word with Secksiewolfie is in order. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:52, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Aha. I had just thought I had missed some sort of important anouncement regarding the implementation of XD2. Thanks for your help (and your tactful words on Secksiewolfie's talk). :) Jacqui^★ 17:46, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Ouw. It's not my fault, but I do feel a bit sorry that that happened. It's ok for folks to try out XD methods, but they're only temporary. Once you've tried an XD, you're supposed to clean up after yourself.

Trying out XD on pages *AFTER* they've passed though AFD is probably not the way to go. I'd encourage people not to abuse XD, else the possibility to experiment might go away. Kim Bruning 08:34, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I've added {{proposed}} to the Wikipedia:Experimental deletion page and its subpages. This needs to be made obvious. Superm401 | Talk 21:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for promoting experimental deletion to proposed status. However I must politely decline, and shall revert it back to experimental status. Kim Bruning 21:23, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Please continue discussion at Wikipedia talk:Experimental Deletion. Superm401 | Talk 00:43, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Mikkalai and Bonaparte

Bonaparte contacted me asking that someone review Mikkalai's block of him for "persistent uncivility without useful contribs".

Mikkalai, perhaps you could list some edits or edit summaries constitute incivility? I ask because the two of you have been in enough disagreement over matters related to Moldova and related topics that you are not a disinterested party here (nor am I).

I think that in the circumstances Mikkalai should either provide some concrete evidence of incivility (which may well exist, though I don't recall anything from Bonaparte that was particularly beyond the pale), or Bonaparte should be unblocked. And I think that, in general, individual admins should be very hesitant to block people with whom they themselves have been in conflict over substantive matters: on the rare occasion I've had this level of complaint against someone other than a vandal, I never throw the block myself. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:06, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I gotta agree. Bonaparte has been very civil in my dealings with him. He emailed me to ask for help, here's the message:

Can you please unblock me?! I am blocked by User:Mikkalai a russian who had me blocked now for the third time only because I don't agree with his statements. He abused many times now of his power. However today it was a huge personal attack against me on the Talk:Moldovan language from User:Node ue and of course I didn't reply to it in order not to inflame the vandals.

This is what I reply today:

Actually he just put fan on flames. He didn't block the user who labelled others as "knocenii- sperm". He was not cooperative at all and he just reverted the text without any explanation. Until Administrator Ronline told him to calm down he was just supporting and encouraging this kind of approach. Just look at his history. -Mark Williamson (User:Node ue) said:" Bonaparte, tu eshti koncenii!!! " -Mikka User:Mikkalai said: "That's a tough one for Bonaparte: if he recognizes this as an insult, then he will admit that Moldovan is not identical to Romanian, if he will not, then he does not know Moldavian. :-)" mikka (t) 00:12, 12 November 2005 (UTC) -Mark Williamson (User:Node ue) said: "Indeed :) that was the intention..."--Node With this kind of support from Administrator User:Mikkalai is no wonder that the things are going in this way that he continues to labelling others as "koncenii" like Dpotop, Anittas and others. They are continuing sabotagging this page. And still he was not blocked for a period of time to stop this kind of bad approach.

I agree to unlock the page since we are here a majority of people who supports the same one thing:Moldovan is identical with Romanian. The majority of users are: Bogdangiusca, Ronline, Dpotop, Bonaparte, Anittas, Jmabel, Dacodava, Constantzeanu, Mihai, Alexander_007, EvilAlex, Mihaitza, Duca, Domnu Goie, AdiJapan, Gutza, Vasile, Jeorjika and many others! Or we can vote to state our version of the page. Bonaparte talk & contribs

Now, without going into the ins and outs of it, I thikn he has a point, and that Mikkalai has been a bit heavy handed. This does not look to me to be out of control at this point, but if anyone is being unmutual then it is not Bonaparte, in this exchange at least. So let's have some conrete examples, and maybe a voluntary agreement not to block people in active dispute without reference to a neutral third party - it looks bad. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] (W) AfD? 21:38, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I would like to thank the person who unblock me, if it was Mikka he repaired the mistake that he made. He kept a monopol of that page even when the majority agrees with my point of view. However I am asking for an adivice for me, how should I further react in case he will continue to make bias edits without any explanation and to continue to bias block other users. Anyway it will be inacceptable to warn me like he previous did like "you were blocked for the third time" and so on, and now to have a reason to block me, when he made actually an illegal blocking.  Bonaparte  talk & contribs

Mikkalai's response

Jmabel, I was not at particular disagreement with him. I came to the page amid the heated revert war with a dozen of occasional anon accounts reverting. I protected the page at a version which both sides of normal editors considered reasonably fair, with the exception of Bonaparte. The talk page was a mess, with people busy calling each other names rather than put forth arguments. I put a warning in bold on the page, reminding about the policy you know which one. After it was ignored, I blocked the first ones who violated after this warnig. I was also persistently blocking badmouthing and reverting anons (now they are gone). After that tyhe page retured to a reasonably civil debate. Only Bonaparte continued flaming. I blocked him for a week once more. He failed to control himself again and continued personal attacks: this was my reaction. You don't recall anything from Bonaparte because all this disgusting quarrel has already been archived before you came to the page. If you are interested in it, take a look there, if you have spare time. Also feel free to inspect contributions of Bonaparte and see for yourself whether he made any contributions beyond pushing his opinion that Moldovans and Romanians are the same and Moldovan and Romanian are identical without producing any new arguments, only shouting and badmouthing.

If you want to unlock him, good luck. I already retired from the page, since it looks like almost all people behave in a civilized way. I have better things to do. mikka (t) 21:39, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, "just this Guy", do you think I cannnot find a person who would happily block a person who is persistently badmouthing? Good luck with your new buddy. mikka (t) 21:45, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

As for "third party", I am the third party. Until all this mess started I did not care about the Moldovan language. I equally resisted to ungrounded changes of node ue (as seen in the talk page) and added into the locked article the chages proposed by the opposite side that were based on facts. Right now I posted on the talk page three crucial simple questions, which would decide whether the page will be unprotected or not. In fact, it seems that the consensus is right here, beyond the corner, and pasionate shouts of Bonaparte are hardly helpful. mikka (t) 21:54, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

One more remark: Bonaparte says about "huge personal attack". Read it for yourself: Talk:Moldovan language#Not helping! While it is written in a heated way, it addresses real issues. Compare it with this clean-cut attack.

I am unblocking Bonaparte so that he can address them in a civilized way and referring to facts. Otherwise I will surely find a "fourth party", since looks like I am the main villain here. mikka (t) 22:16, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Mikka, I don't think you are the villain, I just think that in this case Bonaparte has a point. His previous conduct was clearly unacceptable, and I agree that in the past you did entirely the right thing. I guess that this time you simply didn't give him quite enough rope with which to hang himself :-) - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] (W) AfD? 09:30, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• Update: I note Bonaparte is now back online. Mikka, if it was you who unlocked him, I salute you. I have advised him to cool off for a while, and to come and vent his spleen at my user talk page before escalating the argument; sometimes passion outweighs judgment. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] (W) AfD? 19:31, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Mikkalai & Bonaparte 2: The Sequel

I see Bonaparte is blocked again, following some intemperate references to Stalin (not quite a Godwin post, though, it was relevant in context, albeit quite likely a propaganda myth). Again, I think the block is excessively harsh, but again I think he is not without fault. I have suggested to him (again) that he try the proper methods for resolving the dispute rather than trading insults. I can see why Mikka has lost patience with him: to my untutored eye it looks like the bone of contention is the paragraph "Presently the Moldovan language, in its official form, is near-identical to Romanian. In fact, a number of high-ranked Moldovan officials declared in public that Moldovan and Romanian are the same. At the same time, there are differences in spoken language, most significantly due to the heavy influence of the Russian language in Moldova." Perhaps someone could explain to me why he finds that offensive, so I can help calm him down? It strikes me that the above paragraph is a fair statement. Am I right that the single word "near" is the root of his problem? And Mikka, you might have been the white knight to start with, but you do seem to have taken sides here, and that looks bad to an outsider. Others have insulted Bonaparte without being blocked; I think he is disputatious not malicious. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] (W) AfD? 19:11, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

IP monobooks

• User:72.49.62.205/monobook.css
• User:72.49.62.205/monobook.js

Why are anons allowed to have monobooks, isn't that potentialy dangerous on shared ips? --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 07:47, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that's very dangerous. That facility should have been disabled for anons last time this came up. I've deleted those two pages, freely admitting there is no CSD to handle them. Restore with care. -Splash^talk 12:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I did a test. While anons can edit the pages, they aren't actually served. I.E. they don't function. They're just text, and therefore harmless. Superm401 | Talk 23:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Caile Hill

I noticed this article today. It looks like a probable hoax to me. Can someone please check if it is or not, because I suspect it is. Anyone who is knowledgeable about the West Midlands should post on the article of the talk page. --Sunfazer 15:04, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know the area - but nothing is obvious from Google about it being a bona fide article - do we have any brummies? Brookie: A collector of little round things 16:46, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• I will post something on the UK Wikipedians notice board to see if anyone there can shed any light. Capitalistroadster 18:08, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
• PS Given that it gets no Google hits at all, it is definitely dodgy see [11].

Capitalistroadster 18:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Not a Brum, but am from the UK. The usually very reliable Mapquest says no: [12]. Additionally the Royal Mail (http://www.royalmail.co.uk) finds nothing, although you'll need to register to confirm that. This is, however, a matter for AfD rather than AN. -Splash^talk 18:16, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• Can't find any mention of the place on Wolverhampton City Council's site (wolverhampton.gov.uk). Mapquest shows nothing in the vicinity of Beacon FM (267 Tettenhall Road, WV6 0) as claimed in the article. -- Arwel (talk) 18:28, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
• I have now nominated this at AfD. Capitalistroadster 18:51, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Arbcom Elections

Hi all, there seems to be a bit of confusion caused by me about what's going on with the arbcom elections. Things are still not 100% settled, but please rest assured that the intention is a diverse, uncontroversial, community-centric, firm but fair arbcom.--Jimbo Wales 17:59, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

If you wouldn't mind Jimbo I think a little bit of clarification on the plans (when they're sufficently settled) for the arbcom election would be helpful in making people more confident in the drastic change in election procedure. Though I understand that it could be awhile until everything is laid out solidly and that you have other things you have to do as well. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 19:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The great Karnataka Expansion

When this article was first written, it included the following line:

(Taken from a post by Y. Malaiya, used with permission).

I asked User:Malaiya what that meant, and he/she said that he/she had copied it from another site he/she had originally written it on. I asked the name of the site and what their copyright policy is, but have gotten no response. Should this article be deleted as a copyright violation? User:Zoe|^(talk) 03:31, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

At the very least, it may be afd'able under original research. --Syrthiss 03:37, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

If I had to guess, "Y. Malaiya" might be Yashwant K. Malaiya of Colorado State [13], who despite being in the computer science department has authored a number of websites related to Jainism, i.e. [14] [15] [16]. If User:Malaiya is the original author, as he claims to be, then I would assume that since he wanted us to have this material that he is implicitly granting a GFDL license to it. Absent some more explicit conflict, I would assume for the moment that it is not a copyvio, though it would be nice to know where and under what circumstances this material was used previously. Dragons flight 04:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Meta:DynamicPageList

This is a lovely feature that allows one to show a cross-section of two categories. Does anyone know if we're going to get that on enwiki as well? Or would it increase server load by too much? Radiant_>|< 12:04, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't see any reason why not to implement it...En.WN already has this. Ral315 (talk) 21:34, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Why am I blocked ?

I am new to Wikipedia -- so perhaps this question is inappropriate for this location -- but I was blocked by Cculber007 -- and I can't find a way to contact him directly by email. The text that accompanied the block is as follows:

Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "Cculber007". The reason given for Cculber007's block is: "Wikipedia:No legal threats".

If some administator will look at my entries and edits, I don't that there's anything threatening about them at all ! -- Just a bunch of stuff for people who like sculpture.

Mountshang 16:46, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

At his talk page. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 22:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Potential impersonator -- or am I too vain

I noticed that there is a User:Mlu with no edits. I am pondering whether it might be a potential impersonation account of me -- or am I too vain? :-) Should it be blocked? --Nlu 23:03, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

The general rule of thumb is: when in doubt, assume good faith. If the account's not being disruptive or doing anything, there's really no point in blocking it. If the account does attempt to impersonate you, I'm sure it'll be caught and blocked immediately. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

In my experience, it's far more likely that if somebody were to impersonate you, it would be under the name NIu or N1u. This is probably just a coincidence. – ClockworkSoul 06:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

George W. Bush is an alcoholic old man

This page has been re-created 9 times on average. Should we block every vandal who keeps on re-creating the article?? --Sunfazer 11:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Westwax was also in on it and is, in all liklihood the WoW vandal.--MONGO 12:13, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Can it be protected blank? That's been done in past cases, right? Superm401 | Talk 15:13, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I put the "deletedpage" template on there and protected. Of course, now we'll always have a page of that name. Hmm. Friday (talk) 15:19, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Could I get some help on WP:RfD

It's badly badly backlogged (we still have October entries). Could I get some help cleaning them out? I good bunch of the redirects listed aren't even redirects anymore. Thanks. Right now I seem to be the only one weeding through them. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 12:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I was just thinking yesterday that that page was getting out-of-hand. Thanks for at least trying, kitty. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:05, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Tony Blair

Okay, what just happened to the Tony Blair article?

Atlant 14:59, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

WoW moved it, Curps and Dbiv fixed it. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:01, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!

Atlant 15:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Admins who unblock themselves

What's the policy on admins who unblock themselves? Ed Poor blocked Duncharris for this edit. Duncharris unblocked himself claiming that Ed was a POV pusher. I re-blocked Duncharris for violation of the rule that states "Sysops are technically able to unblock themselves by following this procedure but should absolutely not do so" in the Blocking policy. Was this the right course of action? — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 16:51, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Technically it seems you took the right action, however I believe this is a case of WP:IAR, as the initial block was totally disproportionate (as far as I can tell anyway, I may be wrong if there is some history here or something). A few days ago I was autoblocked myself because my bot was briefly blocked, when I unblocked myself I was immediately re-blocked for violation of this rule, I think it was totally crazy and very un-wiki like, it was also extremely frustrating and a very quick way of losing good editors. Martin 17:09, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

You are using the block the punish Duncharris, not for for a good reason ie "vandalism, bots, personal attacks, and inappropriate usernames" (WP:BP). Could you remove the block now.--Commander Keane 17:14, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

You missed out the disruption clause, which I suppose would be Ed's justification (not saying I agree with that, just saying). Giving out commands like your last edit isn't especially polite, by the way. -Splash^talk 17:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

You can't use IAR and technically in the same sentence, it is a contradiction in terms. Unblocking when you have been accidentally blocked is obviously fine. Unblocking yourself because you disagree with the nature of a block is emphatically not. Such an action was part of Stevertigo's recent de-adminningish. It is not unwikilike, since we block all the time. And Ed Poor may well be crazy, so you have a point there. I trust the relevant talk page has been availed of before coming here? -Splash^talk 17:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

It's fine to unblock yourself when you're hit by an autoblock meant for someone else (even your own bot - the point is to stop the bot, not you yourself, from editing), so it appears that whoever reblocked Martin was being overzealous. However, unblocking yourself when you and the person who blocked you are in disagreement about the validity of the block is wholly another matter, and is inexcusable as far as I can tell. — Dan | Talk 17:17, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

There are over 600 admins here, with dozens (at a minimum) being active at any given time. If you believe an inappropriate block has been placed, there's several recourses. I'd suggest first posting a note on your talk page and emailing the blocking admin. If the blocking admin refuses to unblock, email the mailing list or visit IRC. Unblocking yourself is probably the worst way to handle the situation. With the number of admins we have, I'd expect very rapid action on any obviously inappropriate blocks. Carbonite | Talk 17:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

reply below follows multiple edit conflicts

Per Bluemoose/Martin, I'd say that it's appropriate to unblock oneself if the block is the result of 'collateral damage' caused by the autoblocker, a dubious block of an AOL proxy, or some similar case—that is, if the block clearly isn't intended to affect the admin in question then I see no reason not to let him unblock himself.

For blocks that were deliberately applied to the admin in question, the blocked admin shouldn't go unblocking himself. (At most, the unblocking should be temporary, and solely for the purpose of requesting a review of the block at WP:AN/I.) Even in cases where the block is inappropriate, it's best to let another admin do the unblocking. To do otherwise is to ask for block wars and all kinds of other trouble.

Given the abusive unblocking message left by Duncharris (see the blocking log) he probably needs a bit of time to cool off, and the reblocking by Asbestos should stand. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:25, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I am lifting the block - it was wholly inappropriate to tag the article within a minute of its creation, and Duncharris's response is understandable, if unfortunate. Phil Sandifer 17:22, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Tagging an article within one minute is absolutely fine (in general, rather than in particular). -Splash^talk 17:23, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

No, it's really not. People take multiple edits to make an article - it's not at all uncommon to see a flurry of five or six edits at the start of an article's history page. To tag an article as a speedy within a minute of its creation is to assume bad faith in the creator - give them some time to finish their initial version of the article before you whack it. Phil Sandifer 17:30, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not disputing your unblocking, but why is it wholly inappropriate to tag an article within minutes of its creation? Isn't that the whole point of newpages patrol? Wouldn't it have been infinitely more productive for Duncharris to have expanded the article slightly and then removed the tag instead telling another editor to "fuck off"? Or perhaps he could have even began the article with the expanded version? Carbonite | Talk 17:30, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

It is appropriate to delete some articles on sight, and to tag them on sight. There is surely no disagreement over that, unless you're such a rabid inclusionist you need an inclusionectomy. I would suggest that an article whose first word is "sir" in the kinghthood sense should, however, be allowed more than 1 minute to form. -Splash^talk 17:38, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed - I've never disputed whacking patent nonsense and the like on sight. Things that appear to be about people and plausibly notable subjects, on the other hand, do us no harm by sitting for a day before we kill them to see if someone wants to add the assertion of notability. Phil Sandifer 17:47, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

New pages patrol is important for catching patent nonsense, copyvio, and things like that. It's inappropriate to use it to zap pages before their creators have finished them. People, empirically, do not submit their edits in a single shot. It's very common to make a big edit in a series of five or six smaller edits. To make a claim of the form of "no assertion of notability" within a minute of creation is just unfair. Phil Sandifer 17:32, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

That's why you need to do the asserting of notability in the very first edit. Even if you don't get around to editing the article after that, at least we won't be stuck with a crap article. The point of Newpages patrol is to get rid of crap. Creators should make sure their entries aren't mistaken for crap. We can only watch newpages that have been created in the last few minutes, if we don't act quick on something newly created, there's no real way to keep it in check apart from listing the articles on a user subpage for later checking which - to me - seems too time-consuming for something that should be quick and simple. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:33, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

When you tag an article as a speedy, you should have a look at who is creating it. That should be common sense. An anon, a user with no edit history...things like that. Not when you see an established editor creating a page. Guettarda 18:01, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Whoa, deja vu. I once {{db}}'d a stub Dunc wrote on a biologist, without realizing who the author was, and got an edit summary along the lines of "don't be stupid". If I had been an admin at the time, I wouldn't have even considered blocking him even if he had dropped the f-bomb on me, and a certainly didn't complain about it, even to him; I made a mistake, and it didn't bother me at all. Dunc probably shouldn't have unblocked himself, but the block was pretty silly in the first place. Since when can an admin block someone for a single instance of a personal attack? android79 18:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, since when can one such comment warrant a block. I could see "FUCK YOU YOU GONNA DIE!", but a curse word by an angry editor would, and should, only warrant a warning. Interesting that an admin gets blocked for losing his cool(which I admit he shouldn't have), but vandals can't get blocked until after they put "FUCK BUSH" three or four times all over articles. And off course, I have seen people defend the vandals too. Personally I follow a 2 strike rule,...but thats another story...Anyway, lets try to respect admins/editors more than vandals/trolls. If vandals can't get blocked this easily, then admins/editors cant either.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 18:28, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

This is not the first time Duncharris has employed the use of vulgarities, it appears to be habitual:

• [17] - "fuck off"
• [18] - "grrrr!!! I want save not fucking preview!"
• [19] - "save not preview!!! fucking hell"
• [20] - "yeah whatever. To Bahn Mi (cos I know you're watching) fuck off"
• [21] - "Talk:Fjellstrand Skole moved to Talk:Fjellstrand skole: Do not move VFD nominations, it fucks them up real good"
• [22] - "Abusive language - fuck off"
• [23] - "seriously fucked up"
• [24] "Portmadoc, Beddgelert & South Snowdon Railway moved to Portmadoc, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway: I hate having to fucking do this!"
• [25] "Rushden, Higham & Wellingborough Railway moved to Rushden, Higham and Wellingborough Railway: and AND AND AND AND AND AND AND AND for fuck sake how many of these bleeding things do I have to move?"
• [26] - "totally disputed. fucking group selection!"
• [27] - "what the fuck is this?"
• [28] - "Morality links -fucking hell"
• [29] - "fucking hell!"
• [30] - "oh for fucks sake,"
• [31] - "for fucks sake!"
• [32] - "delete this fucking page"

• [33] - "that's becuas eit Neo-Lamarckian bullshit rather than ID bullshit"
• [34] - "OMG what utter shite."
• [35] - "cleanup tags should be for shit articles, though not perfect, this ain't bad."
• [36] - "delete patent nonsense, POV christian fundamentalist bullshit."

• [37] - "delete this crap"
• [38] - "crap"
• [39] - "more crap"
• [40] - "crap"
• [41] - "crap"
• [42] - "REDIRECT medicine (will vfd if neccesary cos it's crap)"
• [43] - "WP:CIVIL - the crap is of your own making dear boy"

This information was obtained during a cursory contribution grep, some of the actual comments made beyond the edit summaries are much more offensive. This type of attitude is poisonous to Wikipedia, and a review of his talk page archives reveal that he has been asked on multiple occassions to treat others with civility. I would expect this type of flagrant disregard for Wikipedia policy from a vandal, not an administrator for heaven's sake. Silensor 19:27, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Cursing is not in and of its self a fucking violation of policy. Phil Sandifer 20:19, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

True, but it often creates a shitty editing environment. Carbonite | Talk 20:35, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

All jokes aside, this is not only about cursing. This is about violating the Wikipedia:Civility policy. Silensor 20:44, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Cursing is not in and of its self a violation of policy. Cursing at someone, telling them to "fuck off" after being asked to be civil, and calling all their edits "crap" and "bullshit" repeatedly, is violation of policy and is not becoming of an administrator.

My original question was merely asking whether admins should be allowed to unblock themselves when they have had a block explicitly placed on themselves. Personally I'm now wondering about this user's role as an administrator. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 20:47, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I saw the "Fuck off" edit summary while I was checking articles marked for speedy deletion. I left a polite note about it on Dunc's talk page, which I felt more apropriate than a block for a one-off incident (I didn't know about any others at the time, and didn't have time to investigate further). Dunc emailed me at about 4pm this afternoon (UTC) asking me to unblock him and made another personal attack against Ed Poor in the email. I've been out all day and didn't see the email until about 20 minutes ago, so I did not get involved in the unblocking. I would personally have blocked him for 12 hours for unblocking himself and the personal attacks in the email and his unblock summary. With all the information that I've since seen on the subject, I believe that RfC is the apropriate avenue for this to continue. Thryduulf 21:04, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit conflict]Civility? How is "grrrr!!! I want save not fucking preview!" a civility violation? Is the software offended? Guettarda 20:55, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe Tim is. Phil Sandifer 21:02, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that none of those edits are against WP:Civility? Silensor may have put extra that shouln't be there, but there are certainly many there that are simply abusive to other editors. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 21:12, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Going through the listed edits, I find four: [44] [45] [46] [47] that could even be argued as incivility directed at a person, and I'd dispute the last of those. The list spans nearly a year. I think we can survive an admin who swears at someone once every three months. Phil Sandifer 21:08, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I quote the No personal attacks policy (Examples of an attack):

Negative personal comments and "I'm better than you" attacks, such as "You have no life."

and more pointedly:

Profanity directed against another contributor.

Seems like he violated policy. I haven't read through all of the above comments, so I cannot comment on the full context of the situation. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 21:19, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Unblocking also specifically states:

Sysops are technically able to unblock themselves by following this procedure but should absolutely not do so. [48] So far the policies breached by Duncharris include: Wikipedia:Blocking policy, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, and Wikipedia:Civility. Silensor 21:59, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Violating policy four times in a year? Not something we should celebrate, but nor is it a huge deal. Taken as part of Dunc's wealth of contributions, and the fact that he does deal with a lot of kooks and mischief makers, we should not be criticising him. We're talking about an editor with almost 22,000 edits, the vast majority of them excellent edits. Guettarda 22:01, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Addendum: Two of the 4 that Phil linked to are simply "Oh, for fuck's sake"...I don't see those as personal attacks. If, on the other hand, we are going to censure people for using the word fuck, please let me know so that I can leave now. Guettarda 22:07, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

We shouldn't make exceptions for people with a lot of edits. They are just editors, same as we. Just because someone has a ton of edits does not give them the right to violate policy, and people who let them slide for this reason are not doing WP any favors. In fact, they should probably be held to higher standards, seeing as they've been around so long they should know policy. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 22:10, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Suppose Duncharris had not yet been through RfA. Suppose the list of edit summaries above were presented. 1)Would he receive a block? 2)Would he be made an admin at the end of the 7 days? -Splash^talk 22:12, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

No, he probably wouldn't, though to tell you the truth, the reason most RfB's fail is because once you have been here long enough and have been active you will have made enemies - probably enough to sink your nom. Guettarda 22:51, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

For the record I think that Ed's block was completely appropriate. Is anyone really contesting that telling someone to fuck off is not a serious violation of WP:CIVIL?

Guettarda, I would not at all censure you for using the word fuck. But I would absolutely censure you if you said "fuck off", to another editor, in anger. And, if you did that, you'd deserve it.

And I absolutely agree with Lord Voldemort. The rules apply to experienced users as much as to newbies. Arguably, we should be setting a higher standard. Nandesuka 22:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

But is a block the way to deal with it? As far as I understand a block is never used as a punishment. Even a vandal would not be dealt with in this fashion, plus it makes it difficult to communicate your point of view if you have been blocked. Martin 22:30, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Since we're all high on policy at the moment, could someone explain to me, per the blocking policy, how a 24-hour block, without warning and without explanation on the user's talk page, is warranted for an isolated instance of a personal attack? android79 22:34, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Android. It wasn't done without explanation on the user's talk page. See this. Ann Heneghan ^(talk) 22:50, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough, but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous. We treat blatant vandals better than this. android79 22:53, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Mountain. violet/riga (t) 22:35, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Pfft! I actually went to the effort to make the article "molehill" for that to work, and nobody commented. Fine, I know where poor attempts at humour aren't wanted...  :) violet/riga (t) 11:09, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Well I would also like to say that the reason Ed blocked me is that we've had bad blood in the past because of his insistence on pushing his Moonie pseudoscience of the evolutionary biology topics. But yes, I know I shouldn't've sworn. — Dunc|☺ 22:46, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I have used my magic powers to block everyone involved for 24 hours microseconds for violation of WP:IAR. Please use this time to consider how this discussion advances the content of this wonderful free encyclopaedia, accessible to all, that we are creating for the good of humaninity. Guettarda 23:00, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Well for starters, IAR is not technically policy, whereas the others are. Now whether or not this specific block of Dunc was warranted can be argued elsewhere. However, the larger issue of Admins unblocking themselves does serve WP well, as it establishes some order and consequences of Admin actions. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 23:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

While some of these do significantly violated Civility, things such as "crap" don't, unless it is used in every other word ;0. Anyway, the violations deserve warning, but blocking over this is just inconsistant, as Android and I have pointed out, and too severe. I believe, that with such comments, he SHOULD NOT be an administrator, and I would vote him down if I had the chance, but its too late for that. Blocking is just going to far. If he makes a clear,severe, and direct personal attack, and you warn him, and he does it right again to you, then perhaps 6 hours will do, but 24 for what seem to be more scattered events is just over the top.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 23:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

This whole thing stinks on ice. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 23:07, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

An RFC has been filed, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Duncharris, please comment. Silensor 23:32, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Well besides the RFC and this particular user, I am against self-unblocking period. As many admins as there are available, if you get accidentally autoblocked, it's still better to have another admin unblock you, for all we know, your account could have been compromised, etc. «»Who?¿?^meta 23:46, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

And Jimbo said to his admins: Thou shalt never unblock thyself unless the rare case where you get blocked because of some jerk sharing your IP. And there was much rejoicing. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 23:49, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Can I add this to WP:LAME despite it not being an edit war? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:09, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Phase II: Nohat

Looks like Nohat, a former arbitrator and the guy who drew up a logo or two for Wikimedia just unblocked himself [49]. What now? Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 03:17, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Tsk tsk, Nohat. No cookie for you.

There. I think that covers what's needed here. Phil Sandifer 03:29, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Mostly. But the thing is it seems not enough people know we're not supposed to unblock ourselves... Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 03:35, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

You seriously think any admins don't know they shouldn't unblock themselves? Even so, ignorance is not a great excuse for abusing admin tools, considering command of Wikipedia policies is one of the thinkgs the community considers in granting them those tools. Dmcdevit·t 03:50, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Looks like a typical 3RR block to me, I'm considering reblocking (not looking forward to it) unless anyone does it first, or raises a reasonable objection... Dmcdevit·t 03:50, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

It will not be necessary to re-block me. I do not plan to make any further edits to Wikipedia until next Monday. Nohat 03:53, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Heh, I think he only did it for the sitenotice edit. But yes, some admins don't know about that clause. In fact one of the people who was desysopped for this stuff told me that he didn't know about it, and I AGF... Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 03:56, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

A different case - same rule or not?

I have unblocked myself several times. The reason? I share an IP with someone who is quite obviously a regular vandal. I was recently blocked for three months because of this vandal's actions. Given that in an average three months I make 12,000 edits to Wikipedia - of which, to my knowledge, none are vandalous - and also given that several other bona fide editors share the same IP and pester me by email when there's a block on this IP, I felt justified in unblocking after a length of time that was considerably less than three months (one hour, to be precise). Hopefully the new anon-only block of IPs that has been proposed (at Wikipedia:Blocking policy proposal) will be acted upon soon and this will all be moot, but for now the question remains - was I within my rights to do so? Grutness...wha? 11:43, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Of course you were. I've done the same on many occasions as well. — Dan | Talk 14:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I've done the same several times too. Dmn 20:25, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Me too, me too; I share my IP with several thousand people... Lectonar 14:42, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• If the IP block clearly wasn't aimed at the admin in question, I see no problem with them unblocking themselves. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Rob Blair

Can we do something about this user?? Check the contributions history for this user. --Sunfazer 16:28, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems like he's already been blocked indef. Flcelloguy (A note?) 17:19, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Already blocked, yes, but there is a bigger issue. Please see above involving User:Robbie Blair as well. --Nlu 17:42, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Is the ArbCom aware of this? Flcelloguy (A note?) 17:45, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

What is the proper vehicle for making them aware of it? Pointers would be appreciated. Thanks. --Nlu 18:33, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

• No need to make them aware, I think. Just block and reset the counter. If you're banned, you're banned. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

User:JuanMuslim

Seems to me to be trying lately to disrupt Wikipedia. He has created User:JuanMuslim/Wikipedia Boycott Campaign which, bizarrely, advocates a boycott of Wikipedia without any indication of what he objects to. I wanted to ask him about this, but he has redirected his talk page to his user page (which I suspect should not be allowed), and his user page doesn't give a clue what is going on.

He's done good work at Portal:Islam (and, I presume, elsewhere) so this is not you basic random flake. Does anyone know what is going on here? -- Jmabel | Talk 21:56, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

User_talk:JuanMuslim/Wikipedia_Boycott_Campaign#Questions In the one place where he has supposedly clarified, as far as I can tell he has only obfuscated further, citing only Criticism of Wikipedia in general as an explanation. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:08, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

• Talk pages are for contacting Wikipedians. Redirecting someone to the boycott campaign goes against the principle they're there for communication. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:13, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Wujiangwanlida

User page is an advert. Do we have a usual response? -- Rick Block (talk) 02:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Either post it at WP:MFD, or stretch CSD A3 a little bit and delete it as a page that only attempts to communicate with their subjects. Titoxd^(?!?) 02:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I've left a message on the talk page asking them to change the user page content. If nobody changes it in a few days, I'll get a little pushier. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I've been a bit bold and deleted the page. Undo if necessary, but I think I will go with Titoxd's suggestion. I also left a note on that user page. --HappyCamper 04:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• People deserve the right to do a little bit of advertising on their userpage if they're good contributors. This user simply did one edit and then created a userpage for advert purposes. Wikipedia is not a free webhost. Deleting it was a good call. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Removing information at subject's request

See Francis J. Beckwith (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views); Ambi (talk · contribs) has apparently been in contact with Professor Beckwith who wants mention of the fact that he is a member of the intelligent design movement removed from the article. This, despite Beckwith being a fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, author of a book on the subject and has spoken publicly on the issue.

I believe this has wider implications for the accuracy and so is posted here (imagine removing criticism at the subjects request, let alone a simple mention of his documented interests). I think Ambi's removal is misguided, but what do other's think? — Dunc|☺ 15:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that his support for intelligent design is notable and verified, and thus encyclopedic. I am, however, generally sympathetic to the removal of non-encyclopedic or marginally relevent information - things like the place of employment of webcartoonists and band members, which are perhaps verifiable, but not hugely important. We shouldn't intrude on privacy, nor should we whitewash things. This seems to me a clear case of the latter, but I wouldn't draw a general line against removing things on the subject's request either. Phil Sandifer 15:55, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

That's just it. We shouldn't remove encyclopedic info, because this is an encyclopedia. We should remove non-encyclopedic andor irrelevant information, again because this is an encyclopedia. The subject shouldn't have any influence on this judgement.

Although, I'm worried about the principle of ever removing something at the subject's request, I basically agree with Phil. Any idea why he wants this information removed? It seems like if he wanted to seperate himself from the intellegent design movement the first step might be to resign said post. --best, kevin _└ ^KZOLLMAN/ _TALK^┐ 16:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Kevin and Phil - it makes sense to consider requests for the removal of information on privacy grounds, but removing verifiable information simply on the grounds that the subject of the article doesn't like it is a very bad idea, IMO. Guettarda 17:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

If it's "private" it probably isn't relevant. This clearly is. Superm401 | Talk 23:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

On the topic of granting spin control to the subject of a biographical article, I have only two words:

Lori Bazzill

That's all, I must leave quickly and change IP numbers before I get blocked. I encourage you to exercise dilligence. Good day, gentlemen. --anonymous forever 16:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

• It's encyclopedic, verifiable and relevant to his current post. I see no valid reason to delete said information. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:06, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

User:StabRule

What do you think? WP:U vio? Sounds fairly violent, but just wanted to check. Check his talk page too, he's a trouble maker as well. karmafist 03:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh yes. SUCH a troublemaker. Just ban me already - as I see that's everyone's goal. Stab Rule is an pulp indie reference. StabRule 04:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the name is a problem, from what I see in WP:U. StabRule, you might want to read WP:TINC, though. -- SCZenz 04:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

"StabRule" is not a blockable username. TacoDeposit 04:34, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

It's a borderline since WP:U says the following... This includes, but is not limited to... Names which refer to violent real world actions. I've never heard of the "Stab Rule", but you never know. Since it was borderline, I thought i'd check here first. However,due to that WP:CIVIL vio(looks like another one) along with some issues he had with misbehavior on afd the other day, i'm going to give him a 6 hour block now. karmafist 05:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Child. StabRule 21:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Please refrain from incivilty. Thanks.--Sean|Black 22:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

This, from a user whose name is a portmanteau of fist! Andy Mabbett 20:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Talk:Jimmy Wales

Can someone permanently delete the versions of this article that contain his home address. That is really below the belt. Trödel|talk 00:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I tried deleting it and doing a selective restore (without the two edits by Zondor which were undesirable), but the page history seems to have gone missing. Can someone fix it for me please, and maybe tell me what I did wrong?-gadfium 01:15, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

From what I can see, you deleted them, but there was another revision that featured them, so they stayed. Is that right?--Sean|Black 01:21, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I've gotten rid of them. I hope I did that right.--Sean|Black 01:32, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Did I do the right thing on this AfD?

I've started to work on closing out the mind bogglingly ugly Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of modern day dictators. My first step was to distill the whole discussion down to two lists of people, those expressing opinions in either the keep or delete camp. I figured I would give people about a day to correct any mistakes I may have made in the distilation process, then I would decide what to do. Was this a good way to handle it? I suspect whatever I end up deciding, there will be people demanding my head. --RoySmith 04:06, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah, so you're a masochist. ;) I have a bad feeling that no matter how this AfD is closed, it's going to end up at Deletion review. I voted in the AfD so it's pretty obvious which way I'd like to see this go. I think you've done just fine so far. Eventually you will need to examine the reason provided with each vote and see if one side makes a more persuasive argument than its raw vote count shows. Good luck! Carbonite | Talk 04:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

New Arbcom Poll

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2005/Straw poll

I made a new poll because the old one didn't really accurately reflect the live options before us. I'm hopeful that a lot of people will be eager to participate in a dialogue about the best way forward.--Jimbo Wales 05:56, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Wonderfool

From Talk:Nihilartikel:

I've put in 4 nihilartikels into Wikipedia so far, with 2 being found and subsequently deleted, yet leaving 2 undetected as of November 25 2005. These nihilartikels have begun to appear less bogus, as they have been "wikified" by some other users (including a sysop). So there's gotta be hundred of nihilartikels in here, statistically. --Wonderfool t(c) 15:45, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

If true, quite a confession: deliberately creating false articles is pretty serious vandalism, in my view. I'd consider this a basis for a ban, unless he will identify the articles and remove them.

If there is somewhere more appropriate to bring this up, I'm amenable to moving the discussion. Does this require an RfC, or what? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:40, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Block him now. User:Zoe|^(talk) 05:38, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I have blocked him. User:Zoe|^(talk) 05:53, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Brutal. Anyway, Home-churching is one of them, if you view this as being worthy of some special category of speedy deletion. I'd rather see it make its way through AfD; the article was based on an Onion article, but I'm not entirely sure there isn't something real there too. Glitter lung, a more clear-cut case, is another, already in the middle of its AfD. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:57, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

If he's banned by community consensus, any hoax articles can be deleted under the "contributions by banned users" provision of CSD. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 06:23, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

We can just delete his hoaxes as self-confessed vandalism - regardless of whether he's banned or not. --Doc ^ask? 13:44, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, I think that was overhasty; he wasn't even given a chance to respond to my request on his talk page that he identify the articles so that we could delete them. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• He can still edit his Talk page. User:Zoe|^(talk) 07:04, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
  • If anyone really wants to do this, search his contribs log. I do believe this block is rather harsh, unless we want to set precedent by blocking people who write patent nonsense and such. Radiant_>|< 11:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I've unblocked Wonderfool. The infinite block is too harsh. Let's just take a step back, and let this slowly develop. We have not got a response from Wonderfool yet. There is not a sufficient urgency to ban here - we can do this at any time if we really needed to.

However, with one thing to note going forward: I do not want to see this situation degenerate into one where editors become motivated to comb through someone's edits for the purposes of finding "dirt". This situation can be resolved in a much more amicable way - for example, why not let Wonderfool tag those suspicious articles and send them to AfD? We are also forgetting that perhaps Wonderfool's statement may not be entirely complete - there might be something contextual that is missing. Finally, it may be the case that these nihilartikels may not be so - even if Wonderfool might have create them, it is also quite possible that they are meaningful to someone else. We just don't know. So for these reasons and other reasons, let's just take this one step at a time. Understandably, if we do find out an editor is deliberately sprinkling false articles into Wikipedia, that is at minimum an euphemistic irritance and a degeneracy of a certain level of trust - however, I don't think we need to act on this so harshly on this point at the moment. --HappyCamper 13:59, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed - immediate blocks should be preventative. Is he carrying on doing this after being warned? Nothing to suggest this. We don't block for punishment, so if he promises not to do it again, then that's an end of it. If he refuses to explain himself in a reasonable time, I'd support an indef block until he does so, but give him 48 hours to reply. We don't ban vandals without several warnings, why shoudl it be different for a logged in user with a record of useful contributions?--Doc ^ask? 14:07, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely, plus i would add this is more reason for needing the ability to sort user contributions by new articles as well as namespaces. Martin 14:31, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Not an admin, but I have to agree with Doc glasgow: it looks to me as if Wonderfool is a good editor, for the most part an asset to WP, with a sense of humour. My guess is that he regards this as playing a practical joke on his friends. Why not invite him to 'fess up and BJAODN them? They must be reasonably good hoaxes to get Wikified by other editors. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] (W) AfD? 21:07, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

p.s.: Martin is bang on the money. Being able to sort / search by new contribs would also be an asset to those of us who spend time vandal-scanning. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] (W) AfD? 21:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Why would we tolerate a User who brags about creating hoax articles that have not been found and doesn't want to let us know what they are? User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:27, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

• That's absurd. You're single-handedly banning a user who has, it seems, made four bad calls. I'm not opposed to blocking users indefinitely without an arbcom ruling, but it's to be done with users who are entirely and wholly without merit - not users who have a specific and narrow problem. Phil Sandifer 01:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree. However, if Wonderfool doesn't step up, apologize, and indentify the articles in question, I might support a block.--Sean|Black 01:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Have you seen his Talk page? He's now being coy. Oh, well, maybe I didn't create any hoax articles after all. Oh, well, okay, there were two. What? You found another one? Well, maybe there are more, I don't remember. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:15, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm not excusing the conduct, but a unilateral ban is not appropriate for a user with good contributions. Bring the case to arbcom if you want a lengthy ban. Phil Sandifer 02:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I've only scanned this section, but I don't see anyone mentioning Wonderfool's actions at Wiktionary. He was a sysop and he deleted the Main Page and a few MediaWiki articles citing something like 'I'm tired of this shit' as his reason. Anyways, read WP:POINT, you'll see something like 'don't test how well Wikipedia works by creating bogus articles'. That's a violation of WP:POINT, vandalism, it lowers Wikipedia's respectability, and I can't think of any excuse for it from an editor who should know better. I back up Zoe's actions, though perhaps not an indefinite block at least 2 weeks would have been good enough. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 02:39, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, i think the length of the ban is irrelevant. This isn't about punishment and sentence, it is about preventing future damage to the project. I have posted on his talk page demanding that he 1) identifies all his vandalism 2) indicates he understands his error and will behave in future. If those conditions are met, and met soon, then I'd let him be, at least unless he does it again. If they are not met, then we don't want him on wikipedia, and he should be banned either by admin consensus or ArbCom, it makes not odds. If you block him for a set time right now what will it acheive? If he reforms then it will be unneccessary and if he doesn't, then it won't be long enough. --Doc ^ask? 02:55, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I concur 100% with Doc. Raul654 02:59, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I concur 100% with Raul654. Honestly: if someone wilfully posts vandal articles we just don't need them around — and we don't need to clutter the ArbCom's time having them tell us that. If he reforms, fine. If he doesn't, get rid of him. -Splash^talk 03:03, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

In the case of an editor who is making a mix of good and bad contributions, though, I think the case is more complex - I'm uncertain, at least, that were I an arbitrator I would go for a year ban, an article creation prohibition, an accuracy parole, or what. I certainly don't think there's community consensus for an out and out ban here. Phil Sandifer 03:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Doc as well. I don't think a remedy like Snowspinner proproses is appropriate, because there's a very simple solution: An apology, indentification of the aricles, and a promise that it won't happen again, ever. Simple as that.--Sean|Black 06:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I was assuming a failure of that process. Phil Sandifer 19:22, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

If the process fails, and he makes no reply in the next (say) 48 hours, I still see no need for a 'sentence' whether timed or otherwise. The solution is simple: we block him until he indicates that he will behave and comply. The length of the block is then in his hands not ours. We don't need to say whether it is infinite, for a year or for another 24 hours, it is simply until he indicates a willingness to contrbute properly. Refer it to Arbcom if you will, but IMHO Arbcom is for judging and pronouncing on difficult or controvertial cases - there is no difficulty here, and no judgement to be made - either he is going to comply or he is not - up to him.--Doc ^ask? 20:59, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Um ... I'm entirely uncomfortable with the idea that you can permablock someone who makes good articles just because they won't tell you where they put their alleged nihilartikels - David Gerard 21:08, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not. There are plenty of other people who can make good articles. Wikipedia does not need editors who deliberately sneak in misinformation. I'd be happy if he comes clean, fixes his errors, and promises not to do it again. Otherwise, forget it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 21:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Read his comment again - I don't think he's saying he's uncomfortable with the idea of a permablock being used here. I think his objection (And mine) is the idea that you, where you is a given admin, can do that. Process and all. Phil Sandifer 21:27, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Got it. That's not the interpretation I got. Even so, if it's discussed on the administrators' noticeboard with a large number of administrators supporting it, that makes it not be a lone administrator acting capriciously. — Knowledge Seeker দ 21:36, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Wow, this is politics in action, I'm impressed. I've flagged my "nihilartikles" - Javanais and Hot Puppies, plus found another one - Spyguard. Although, I quite fancy being the subject of an ArbCom case, so if you wanna put me up for ArbCom, I'd be happy with it. And anyway, in the mean time I'll get back to doing good editting (although 1 in 100 of these edits will probably be cheeky.) --User:Wonderfool/sig 22:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Speedied. Back to work now.. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 23:16, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, well I was against punishment but Wonderfool's last remarks just take the biscuit. That hardly fills me with confidence that he's understood the seriousness of the breach of trust in adding vandalism to wp. All I wanted was 'sorry, I'll not do it again' but instead we are promised more spurious edits. Snowspinner, as far as I'm concerned, Arbcom can have him, if you want to do the paper work. I'm through with him. --Doc ^ask? 23:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree - a contributor 1% of whose contributions are unreliable is worse than useless. I say give him 48 hours to unambiguously undertake not to continue inserting hoaxes into Wikipedia, and if he fails to do so then ban him permanently without wasting any further time on discussion. Then go through everything he's ever edited to make sure whether they're accurate or not. -- Arwel (talk) 00:05, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Heartily agree with Arwel and Doc. — Dan | Talk 00:08, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I can't imagine why after the shitthrowing that went on he might be inclined to make a snarky comment like that. If you want to arbcom him, arbcom him. If you want to unilaterally ban him and salt the earth, expect me to unblock him. Phil Sandifer 00:16, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

How can you call it unilateral when so many people have supported and so many have been defending him only to change their minds? A community ban takes even more consideration than an arbcom ban, it's not even close to unilateral. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 00:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Community bans are for when nobody would seriously argue that there's a reason to have the user around. Anything other than that is an admin acting unilaterally. There may be admins who agree with them, but in the face of both policy and spoken opposition here, any admin who bans Wonderfool is speaking for themselves, not for the community. Phil Sandifer 00:24, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I was just about to say you're right, he can't be community banned. I just thought unilatteraly was misused there. Who wants to do the arbcom-ness? Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 00:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Not me, at least. Phil Sandifer 00:32, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Recommend Wonderfool should be sent to bed without his cookie. Permabanning him is unbelievably harsh. Edit well, Wonderfool. FreplySpang (talk) 00:36, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

So you view deliberate vandalism from registered users as some kind of entertaining pastime worth making crass jokes about? -Splash^talk 00:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Cookies are crass? Phil Sandifer 00:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Jokes about them in relation to vandalism (and incivility) are. -Splash^talk 00:47, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Considering this diff indicates that he is still unrepentant about his vandalism. I'm blocking him for 48 hours to consider his position. --GraemeL ^(talk) 00:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

wonderfool cont.

Firstly, please can we stop the cookie talk. When some people are genuine concerned about a user's conduct, by all means say you think they may be over-reacting, but dismissing their concerns with trivial humour is extreemly patronising! It adds nothing to the debate and just gets folk's backs up.

To return to the substantive point, at no time have I suggested that Wonderfool be banned, much less that I or any admin should do so unilaterally. I suggested that we might agree a conditional block, with the perfectly reasonable demand that he agrees that he should adhere to basic policy in future (i.e. no more vandalism). His last contribution (above) effectively promised more disruption, and tht is in itself blockable. Arbitration committies are for arbitrating (and there is no inter-user dispute here). As I say, Snowspinner can refer this to Arbcom if he wants - but to insist that admins can't use common sense and consensus to protect wp against an unretracted threat of vandalism is bureaucracy, and smacks of a desire to keep all the power in one place. Arbcom have enough to do. --Doc ^ask? 01:04, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I doubt you'd get anywhere banning him, blocking him, or making agreements with him. He's a little...odd. He was also an admin on Wiktionary until he got indef blocked for recreational vandalism. *SHRUG*. It doesn't take much to make a sockpuppet to edit with, so bans are only really useful for prevention. And arbcom? I doubt they'd accept the case at this point. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (mmm chicken)} 01:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I must say that I am surprised that the cookie talk was so offensive, but I accept that it was, and I apologize for my mishandling of the tone of the conversation. I do think that people are over-reacting here, to an extent that got my back pretty far up too. Many of the positions taken above are quite rigid, which disturbs me. I believe that using common sense would not lead to blocking Wonderfool. Maybe watching his edits for a while, maybe talking with him about it, but if his edits are mostly good he should be mostly welcome. FreplySpang (talk) 02:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

And this [50], after the comments above, doesn't trouble you? --Doc ^ask? 02:06, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

It certainly troubles me. He hasn't promised to stop yet. Perhaps an RfC could do the trick? Really though, I don't know.--Sean|Black 02:16, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Oddly enough, not very much. I'm sorry to see Phroziac's note about his history on Wiktionary, and I hope that he chooses to continue to make positive edits here. But right now, I think it's an inflamed situation, and my preference is to let it calm down a bit rather than inflame it further. I'm quite sure that people will be monitoring his edits for the next several days. If he starts a pattern of negative edits, then blocking him is appropriate. But I am opposed to punitively blocking him at the moment. FreplySpang (talk) 02:17, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee Order

By emergency order of the Arbitration Committee, enacted 04:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC), Wonderfool (talk · contribs), having admitted [51] to creating several nihilartikels, at least one of which has not yet been identified to the community, is hereby banned from editing Wikipedia until such time as he identifies all undiscovered nihilartikels to the community, and further until he apologizes to the Wikipedia community for perpetrating a fraud upon the community.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kelly Martin (talk) 04:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Aye - David Gerard 09:00, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
• Aye. Raul654 09:06, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
• This all occurred while I was happily snoozing (wow, there is a disadvantage to living in LA!), but I heartily endorse it nonetheless. ➥the Epopt 14:59, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
• Aye. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 14:59, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
• Aye. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:21, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
• Aye. (Belatedly.) James F. (talk) 20:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
• Aye. Neutrality^talk 01:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

---

Furthermore, he shall not get any cookies until 2006. (yeah, the cookie meme is starting to get old...) Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 04:40, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

No cookies? That's too harsh of a punishment. I shall not accept that until a member of the ArbCom sanctions it. :P Titoxd^(?!?) 05:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

While I find it somewhat puzzling that the arbcom issued this ruling in a manner that does not seem consistent with arbitration policy, it seems to me preferable to the wheel war that was developing, and a basically reasonable ruling. I hope Wonderfool will take the opportunity to fess up to the last nihilartikel. Phil Sandifer 05:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I think it's harsh but not unnecessarily so. He gets the block lifted as soon as he owns up to the last hoax—thus undoing the damage to the content of the project caused by this action—and apologizes, thus acknowledging the damage to the community. (Though personally I think AC intervention wasn't necessary; this could have come by community consensus.) As for the cookies... well, no one wants any of mine, anyhow, unless I've bought them from the store. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 05:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

It's my opinion that the wheel war that was already starting to brew would have continued, if not escalated, if we had not stepped in. It's clear that there is not community consensus to ban him, although it might have developed after a week or two of block/unblock games, which are bad for Wikipedia. Our action avoids a wheel war, and therefore was clearly something had to be done. This is precisely the sort of situation where the Arbitration Committee has no choice but to act. At least, according to my philosophy of what the ArbCom is. Kelly Martin (talk) 05:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

And that's why we need you to get elected agan. :) Phil Sandifer 06:00, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Where's the record of the ArbCom coming to this decision? I've looked here and here and even here out of desperation. I mean, this was discussed somewhere that there is a record, correct? - brenneman^(t)(c) 06:03, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, I initiated discussion of this topic on our mailing list when I saw what was happening. Raul654 06:05, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • How about a link to the discusion then? - brenneman^(t)(c) 06:15, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
    • All the discussion took place either on the private ArbCom mailing list or via various forms of instant messaging. (I'm sure that this will just act as more proof that ArbCom is just a big-ass cabal trying to run everything.) Kelly Martin (talk) 06:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I got your record right here. ;-) --MarkSweep (call me collect) 06:40, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Sorry if I don't think that's funny. Dammit, ok that was funny, and totally sucked me in as well. But it's still not funny, if you know what I mean.
      brenneman^(t)(c) 06:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
      • All right, I'll try to respond more specifically to your question (but this is about as much information as you are going to get). At 7:30 PM EST yesterday (Sunday), I posted a comment to the arbcom mailing list describing the situation, including the on-going wheel war. Following up on that email, 4 other arbitrators and one former arbitrator expressed extreme disapproval of wonderfool's actions, and the emergency decision was hammered out. Raul654 06:54, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Ok, no further information available... you don't see a problem with that? It's not ok for a full open and accountable discussion here to set up a block-until-apologises, but a group that apparently will-not-be-named can? Please don't give me TINC, it's not about that. It's about the fact that if decisions are going to be made, they should withstand the light of day. Saying things like "four other arbitrators" only makes it worse. - brenneman^(t)(c) 07:00, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

From what we know of the activity level of various arbcom members it isn't hard to guess who is involved. If you look a the disscussion here a solid block of six individuals favoring a block is enough to establish a fairly solid consensus.Geni 07:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Let me add my name to support of this move (which was hammered out while I was asleep). I withdraw my qualms above about this after someone pointed out that it was Wonderfool who went rogue admin on Wiktionary. That blows the benefit of the doubt IMO.

I appreciate Aaron's qualms, but the wheel war is probably more damaging than Wonderfool's actions and the AC (in its role as an extension of Jimbo) is the body with the power to resolve such situations. Mostly the admins get along fine with just shouting at each other, but actual block wars are a really bad idea (which is why people tend to hold off on them) and need fast resolution - David Gerard 08:17, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and the way it worked was: note to AC mailing list, every response being "yep, Wonderfool is acting stupidly badly", notes that the block war needs to be stopped, and the emergency resolution. That's the whole story - David Gerard 08:19, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

When making these kinds of announcements, is it possible for all the arbitrators who agree with the statement to sign them (and if anyone opposes, for them to say that too)? Talrias (t | e | c) 08:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. I've added my name and suggested the others do so too. (It's 9am UTC, so the US arbs are probably asleep right now) - David Gerard 08:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Guess I came to this late, but, urgh... Jarlaxle was banned from all Wikimedia projects, but the guy who deleted Wiktionary's main page, among other important pages, and had to be taken down by a developer, is still around...? Just thinking out loud, you know, but... Um? Dmcdevit·t 09:42, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks David, that's all that it took to make me happy with regards to accountabilty. Why I didn't just come out and say that still isn't clear to me...
  brenneman^(t)(c) 12:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Not that I disagree with this action, but it seems to contradict the Wikipedia:arbitration policy. Since Wikipedia not a bureaucracy, I believe that simply means the policy needs to be updated a bit to reflect this. I've changed it for now, but this may need some copyediting if people are concerned about the exact wording. Radiant_>|< 10:07, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • And I've rolled it back. Cheers. Kelly Martin (talk) 12:21, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Using the vandal rollback, even. Might I ask why? Radiant_>|< 15:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
      • A one-time application of IAR to accomplish a clearly necessary action does not justify a change to Arbitration policy. It is not even clear that the community has the right to change Arbitration policy, and certainly you do not have the right to do so without discussion. WP:BOLD does not apply to policy articles, especially not to ones like the Arbitation policy, which is special even amongst policy articles. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I personally think the Arbitrators probably cut this one right, even if it did involve some IAR on Arb policy. (Is it precedented, out of interest?) Any further nihiledits are prevented until the immediate problem is fixed and that can be basically immediately if Wonderfool gets his act together. If he won't fix it, then there is no particular reason to assume any good faith with his would-be edits. It also doesn't (I presume) preclude full Arbitration, with this order among the evidence, if such becomes necessary, although Dmcdevit raises a pertinent point. -Splash^talk 13:54, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

the closest president I can think of would be when ed poor was ordered to reverse some deadminships he carried out

What's the fuss about here? Guy admits to making undisclosed hoaxes, Committee demands that he disclose all hoaxes, forbids him from further editing until he does so. Why should this be even remotely problematic? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe Guy is following the ArbComm's precedent of ignoring ArbComm rulings. (SEWilco 16:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC))

The Arbcom ruling is welcome and sensible: an editor who has both vandalised an threatended to do so again is (non-punitively) suspended, until he agrees to abide by basic wp policies and play nice. There is no sentence, since the block will be lifted as soon as he indicates a willingness to comply. (Indeed, I flatter myself that it is the same common-sense remedy that I proposed yesterday). The only issue that remains unsettled is: is it acceptable for a consensus of admins to impose such non-punative temporary suspensions in future (a common-sense extention of vandal/disruption blocking) - or do all such cases have to be refered to Arbcom (as Snowspinner has contented)? --Doc ^ask? 17:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

As I see it, the reason the ArbCom stepped in is not so much because admins don't have the authority to deal with problems like this, but rather because he had been blocked, unblock, and reblocked, which indicates a wheel war. Wheel wars are bad, and our intervention was as much to stop the wheel war as to deal with the underlying problem. Kelly Martin (talk) 19:38, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Folks, this is a clear-cut case of WP:IAR being applied correctly. The ArbCom mailing list is private for a reason, that they need to be able to express their minds clearly in order to actually come to an agreement to something. It is common sense. Show's over. Titoxd^(?!?) 17:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Well...now it gets even more interesting, as shown below. If his nihilartikels are not nihil, then you can't block him until he fesses up. Blocking for disruption may be in order, but this Order is now null, as far as I can see. Guettarda 17:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm happy to interpret it as still effective, with Wonderfool remaining blocked until he confesses to whatever hoax articles he's posted, though those below may not be among them—or that he confesses he hasn't posted any; either way. If he is merely playing games with us, that's not acceptable, either, and the apology is still needed; I take a very dim view of such games within the article namespace. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 19:21, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I think it's a mistake to block him, regardless of his past, for the following combined reasons:

• He has shown a great interest in Wikipedia, and that he has the free time necessary to contribute significantly to the project.
• He has shown an interest in creating fake articles and using sockpuppets.
• Every single moment that he spends editing under his username is a moment that we can monitor.
• Every single moment that he spends editing under his username is a moment that he can't spend editing through a hidden/anonymous name.
• Every single moment that he spends editing through one of the easily-available subversive methods is a moment that we can not monitor. (He will be able to easily edit through these means regardless of the block)
• Blocking always makes the blockee more hostile.
• The only purpose to such a block can be to send a message to the community that we do not tolerate such action.

These things, combined, tell me that it would be bad to block. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-28 19:37

We should make it clear we don't tolerate such action. A knowledgeable editor, knowing the consequences, who deliberately jerks around the entire community in this manner is doing something seriously wrong. If he doesn't change his tune and apologize, there should be consequences. Probably the ArbCom should hold a full review of this case, if he doesn't fully reveal whatever he's done and apologize in the near future. -- SCZenz 21:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Those arguments have some teeth - but if followed to their conclusion, we'd never block a logged-in vandal account. We should even unblock WOW, without precondition. --Doc ^ask? 21:25, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

We can make exceptions for significant contributors like Wonderfool. It's not like blocking him will remove his motivation to edit here, or stop him from editing here. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-28 21:35

ABSOLUTELY NOT. Subtlely-incorrect information mixed in with good edits is the hardest to detect, most time-consuming vandalism to clean up. Your claim that we should tolerate his vandalism because he mixes it in with good edits is absurd. This is the kind of thing that merits the harshest punishments. Raul654 00:12, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

It'll just create an active, 100% negative contributor who cannot be tracked at all, versus the current scenario of an active, <100% negative contributor who can be tracked sometimes. I don't know which is better. -- BRIAN0918  01:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

You're saying that it's possible that we shouldn't do anything, because if he decides to be a full-time vandal it'll take work stop him? I don't think that makes much sense. Of course it'll take work to stop full-time vandalism, maybe even more than dealing with the current part-time vandalism. But vandals have no place in Wikipedia, and tolerating them as long as they don't do it too often will only make things worse. -- SCZenz 01:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not saying tolerate it. I would rather find some alternative, such as trying to encourage him through community involvement to not do this sort of thing. Maybe get him a mentor or something. Banning outright doesn't seem like the proper solution for a significant contributor. At least, this is what I have seen when Arbcom deals with folks like Everyking. They tolerate his repeated violations because he does great work otherwise. -- BRIAN0918  01:37, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. He has only to repudiate his behavior and apologize to make a ban completely unnecessary. But he knows what he's doing, and is choosing to do it; without him deciding to change his course, I don't see how a mentor or polite requests will change anything. -- SCZenz 01:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Wonderfool fooled the community again -- Hot Puppies is NOT FAKE

I don't know how this happened, but it appears that Wonderfool pulled another fast one on us. He simply stated that Hot Puppies was fake (further up on this page), and somehow it was accepted as truth. That article is completely verifiable using the BBC website in the external links section. It is completely real. They are a Welsh band. I haven't checked his other claimed nihilartikels, but this one is absolutely not. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-28 16:56

Look at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Hot_Puppies. Wonderfool didn't say it was fake; he said he didn't think they were notable when he created the page. Not letting his pages go through the AfD process, so a little investigation and debate could happen, was an overreaction. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 17:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Nihilartikel has a very clear definition. It means the article is fake. The content is made-up. Whether or not that's the definition Wonderfool uses, it's the definition everyone thought he was using. Also, Wonderfool's {{db}} rationale was "author admits hoax". If this doesn't imply "fake", I don't know what does. Maybe he purposely created possibly non-notable articles as a cover, so that he could later say that he did not know what "nihilartikel" meant, but his usage of "hoax" here should clear that up: he was trying to have us believe he made fake articles. See also his VFD for Javanais, where he says, "I apparently made this a long time ago. And, here, I don't think it's a real thing." And, immediately above, he calls these 3 articles "nihilartikels". — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-28 17:34

If I were to assume good faith here (I'm not sure I entirely can, but I'll give it a try), Wonderfool, under pressure to mark his nihils as such, took a quick pass through his changes, and thought "hmm, I vaguely recall something dodgy about this Hot Puppies one... better mark it as {{db|hoax}}." An hour-and-a-half later, he had time to check it out a little more, realized it wasn't a proper nihil, and changed it from {{db}} to {{afd}}. What the deal is with Javanais, and how it could fit into such a good-faith narrative, I'm not sure. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 17:54, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Why would he say that of his 4 nihilartikels, 2 had not yet been deleted as of November 25 2005?? Did he suddenly forget what 2 those were?? It seems undeniable that he was having us believe they were fake. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-28 17:57

There's no denying that he enjoys jerking our chains. I don't know what the appropriate remedy is for that. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:04, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I think he threw some of his old borderline-notables at us to keep his true nihilartikels in hiding. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-28 18:19

• In that case I support this block. Calling non-nihil articles, nihil to get out of a block and admitting to creating such articles in the first place (when it's not April Fool's day) is disruptive and grounds for blocking perhaps even banning. Purposely inserting fake information in Wikipedia shouldn't be allowed period. No matter who is doing it. I would block Jimbo if he were to start a vandalism spree. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:45, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Javanais is NOT FAKE EITHER -- c'mon people!

Javanais is exactly verifiable using OED. Didn't anyone bother to check whether he was telling the truth this time? — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-28 17:03

I've copyeditted that one, and it's definitely not a nihil. violet/riga (t) 17:24, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Spyguard also real

I checked, and that's a real product as well. I've undeleted all three of these and tagged as disputed while we sort this out. Phil Sandifer 17:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• You mean Spyguard? — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-28 17:15
  • Yeah. It's a product for glass. Give me a break. :) Phil Sandifer 17:18, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
• This one may be non-notable, but it is a real product. violet/riga (t) 17:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I Removed the reference to it containing platinum, which I couldn't verify from the companies information material. Everything else seems to check out, so I removed the disputed tag. --GraemeL ^(talk) 17:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Another Wonderfool alias

Please note that Expurgator (talk · contribs) has adopted User:Wonderfool's talk page and created Wikipedia:Nihilartikels (a guide on "how to write a believable nihilartikel"). That, and this edit by Newnoise (talk · contribs) (an admitted alias) and this edit by Expurgator, are strong indications that this is another alias. Uncle G 16:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

• Confirmed by CheckUser. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • ...and indef blocked. Speedy the 'article' since it's from a banned user? -Splash^talk

Please also read Wikipedia:Wild goose chases, by the same author. It is a shame that this situation is as it is. I'm in the process of reviewing Expurgator's contributions for the last couple of days, and most of them so far have been helpful backlog clearance. Uncle G 17:29, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore: Please see this edit. Uncle G 00:40, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi-Protection

Hey there fellow admins, users, editors of all levels: a couple of users, fed up with the rampant vandalism of George W. Bush (no not the man, the article), have come together to try and find a middleground between Protection and open editing. If you'd like to weigh in at Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Mysekurity 12:45, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• fed up with the rampant vandalism of George W. Bush (no not the man, the article). I glad you clarified that. --Calton | Talk 23:47, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• No problem. I'm always glad to assist ;) -Mysekurity 20:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

User name spam?

Am I the only one who finds this odd??--Aolanonawanabe 02:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

• By this I of course mean the 30 or so new users who registered within 1 to 2 seconds of each other, essentially covering about half of the 50 most recent edits--Aolanonawanabe 02:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see anything matching that description in the user creation log around the time you were looking. silsor 03:16, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I came across something odd a while ago - right after the creation of User:HSUB EGROEG KCUF --HappyCamper 03:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Looking at the user creation log for that time, the spacing of user account creations is not statistically unusual. silsor 03:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

No, but it did cover the entire page, and did cause server lag, both of which are probably unusual--Aolanonawanabe 03:34, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Look at the user creation log, and then at recent changes. The most users created in the same minute around the time you're talking about is something like half a dozen. I don't see how this can cover recent changes, which moves considerably faster. Maybe there was a server hiccup that caused only user creations to be displayed. silsor 04:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Lots of users ae created per minute. However many do not ever make edits. I think this is a problem. Unused accouts should be deleted (if created and never used for lets say a month). Surely people should be making at least one edit.... If not I do not think they need an account. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 20:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

What if they just want to read without getting messages from people vandalizing on their IP? Broken S 20:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

There's a perfectly valid reason to create an account even if you never edit: having an account lets you change the display preferences. For example, if you want dates displayed in a specific way, or if you want the "classic" skin, you need an account. --Carnildo 00:09, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Or perhaps you'd like to have a watchlist, or e-mail other users. — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:32, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Kurdistan

This page needs attention, it is currently a blog of every referance to "Kurdistan". Article is in horrible condition and I feel attention by fellow wikipedians is necesarry. While I have POV on the topic, I also have a desier to make it something useful.

Things I have done so far:

1. I introduced the POV and Cleanup templates to the article
2. I moved several sections to talk (which need to be seperate articles or refined and reintroduced back to the article)
   • Article is intended to describe a cultural region so sections removed really do not expand that.

--Cool Cat^Talk|@ 16:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Since administrators have no special editorial authority, content issues like this probably don't belong here. This might be the appropriate topic of an article RFC. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 20:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

True but User:Karl Meier is interfereing with my edit experience and his comments on the discussion page bricking me should be "enforced". Although that is one of the more famous cases, you may want to refer to: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Coolcat, Davenbelle and Stereotek.

The page requires attention and perhaps a protection in the time being matters will be discussed. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 20:30, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Is it a full moon or something?

What is going on tonight? I'm simultaneously dealing with one Protestant nutter vandalising articles to add in anti-Catholic attacks and turning sentences around to say the exact opposite of what they once said. On other pages a Catholic nutter deleting things that aren't pushing a Catholic POV everyone. Meanwhile George W. Bush is like looney-central with all the vandals. Is there a Vandalise Wikipedia Day I don't know about? lol FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 05:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that this has been the worst twenty-four hours for vandalism my watchlist has seen. Jkelly 05:47, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Strange. I thought it pretty quiet today, except for some Turkey vandal. And I see good old 4.242.*.* is back. Must have been on holiday, I missed them this past week. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 05:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Yup. I've been on non-stop RC patrol since I came home from work, and there's been no shortage of pages to revert. Seems to me like a trend, though: every time I come on to RC patrol it seems to me like we're being overrun. Antandrus (talk) 05:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

For the record, it is presently a new moon. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 06:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

And, for the record, we don't seem to see Redwolf24 or White Wolf on the patrol tonight. Hmmm... --Nlu 06:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

There both wolves, are they? (or was this the at full moon :)) Lectonar 10:30, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

• This does prompt a thought - are some times more-vandalised than others? I mean, I know our traffic fluctuates, and people have anecdotal evidence, but there may be proportionally worse periods. Might be useful to know. hmm. Perhaps if we could sample RecentChanges over a specific timeframe, and note the proportion of "rvv" and rollback-generated edit summaries... Shimgray | talk | 15:19, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

  Yes, there are dead times and hyper times. These times do not follow a pattern however it is generaly quiet when US and Europe sleaps which is a 2,3 hour time frame (due to time zones). Wikipdia:DefCon was introduced to provide such an insight but user:Cool Cat is having difficulty in completeing the algorithm as he is not sure a good way to "mesure" vandalism level. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 20:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

But would that get us anywhere? And you have to take into account that some timeperiods are also more patrolled than others, and that too would be reflected in the number of reversions... but as you said in your summary: it's an idle thought, perhaps prompted by the new moon....:))Lectonar 15:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

There's been a lot of discussion on the mailing list about article validation statistics, and what we can do with them - it makes me look at pretty much anything on-wiki and think, hmm, if we analyse that will something interesting fall out of it? You never know... Shimgray | talk | 16:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

File:CVU2.PNG

You may want to mention such incidents at Wikipedia talk:Counter Vandalism Unit, although I am sure we are aware of it :) --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 20:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

One thing that might be interesting (but its original research!) just for fun would be to compare vandalism traffic with full moons. Sounds strange I know, but I know some people who work in jobs who deal with the public (taximen, nurses, people taking calls in call centres, bar workers etc) all of whom say that at full moons they notice that the numbers of people they come across who are (i) aggressive, or (ii) obnoxious, or (iii) hyperactive, or (iv) plain nuts goes through the roof. One London taximan I know refuses to work during full moons. He found that he was attacked four full moons in a row. People in call centres joke about the utter nutters who seem to ring in every full moon. Everyone I discussed it with said how they always thought the claim about full moons affecting people (hence the word lunatic from lunar) was a myth until they started noticing that the numbers of people screaming abuse down phones in call centres would jump by 25%, the numbers of abusive people taximen would face would rocket. Even the police privately say (though they always say "don't quote me on this. They'll think I'm mad but . . . ") that something seems to be different in human behaviour at full moons. It would be fascinating to see if full moons impact on vandalism rates on WP. (And yes I am sceptical but puzzled. I'd love to see a statistical analysis look objectively at numbers.) FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 00:32, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

According to this National Geographic article, which quotes Ivan Kelly, a Canadian psychologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, "The studies are not consistent. For every positive study, there is a negative study." One study showed that dog bites double around full moon in England, while another showed that they were not more likely at full moon in Australia. The one in Australia actually showed that there were less dog bites at full moon. The speculation is that people think the full moon has an affect due to selective memories. Something unusual happens, it is full moon, so they must be linked. Evil Monkey - Hello 01:12, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

To give an example: A friend of mine in a call centre observed how on average every 9th call was "difficult" (obnoxious customer demanding the impossible or looking to blame someone else for their own screw-up). She noticed that on two full moons in a row, from filling out ticks in a box (She is one of these forever curious types) that in a full moon period it became an average of one-in-four. On one occasion, she had eight colleagues who sit together suddenly realised that all eight had screamers on the phone, all with completely ludicrous complaints (one was complaining about a 'redesigned' bill that had actually been redesigned 11 months before. He just never noticed till that morning!) and all getting so obnoxious the people taking the call had to terminate the call. None of the eight had ever had the experience where all of them, simultaneously, had screamers. Yet that day (a full moon) was so bad two of the eight had to go home they were so upset at all the calls. My friend went home to find that her husband, a taxi-driver, had been assaulted at work (he hadn't been before for months), and her children who get on brilliantly normally and never fight were in the middle of a screaming match. That day my editor, normally the calmest man on earth, shocked us all by losing his temper over a minor thing. (He was shocked himself.) It was thoroughly weird. I am really fascinated by the whole idea of this 'full moon' thing. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 01:34, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't read anything into it. It's confirmation bias. Something weird happens during a waxing crescent and you see no connection. Something weird happens during a full moon and you blame the moon. Besides, we're at waxing crescent right now, about half a month away from the full moon. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 02:14, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Changes in editing page

For those of you who noticed there's a new "Please make sure your changes do not violate any copyright and are based on verifiable sources." line when you hit edit, please go to MediaWiki_talk:Copyrightwarning for some discussion and to give your opinion. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:43, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Alert about Sea of Japan

Cleric71 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and 203.84.95.84 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) did some nasty stuff this morning. This is in regards to the naming dispute over the Sea of Japan. He tried to move Dispute_over_naming_the_body_of_water_between_Japan_and_the_Koreas to the Koreas and Japan and then he tried to edit one of them. I warned him since the consensus is for it all to go under Sea of Japan naming dispute. So then he went ahead and moved Sea of Japan instead. I blocked him, but...he was also using the IP of 203.84.95.84. I blocked that one for just 24 hours because I am not certain if that is static or no. Just an alert in case he tries another method. Pretty nasty. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 14:21, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Other possible vandalism by Cleric71

Please check for accuracy of other revisions by Cleric71 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). In particular, Cleric71 moved the Ewha Womans University page to The Ewha Women's University. This revision must have been vandalism also, because the university's official name is Ewha Womans University (with the grammatical error in its name), according to its official website [52].--Endroit 16:19, 3 December 2005 (UTC)