Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive58

User:Zeraeph

Following a report on AN/I about personal attacks on Talk:Asperger syndrome, Zeraeph was blocked for a week. There has been ongoing abuse by this user directed at SandyGeorgia for months - amongst other things, the allegations are that SandyGeorgia is stalking Zeraeph (in real life as well as on Wikipedia), using sockpuppets, and conspiring with administrators. There have been three mediation attempts, a request for checkuser which showed that the alleged sockpuppets were unconnected to SandyGeorgia, and frequent complaints to AN/I. Nobody who has looked at Zeraeph's allegations has come to the conclusion that there is any evidence for them at all, or that SandyGeorgia has done anything to provoke this. I've just extended Zeraeph's block to a month, because she was using her talk page to repeat the allegations despite being warned (by myself and Nandesuka who reviewed the initial block) that her only option now was to open an arbitration case or stop the abuse. Does anyone have any objections to a community ban? Zeraeph's article contributions are instructive. --ajn (talk) 10:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

i don't know how to say this politely, so I'll just say it. It's clear that editing Wikipedia is interacting poorly with, and perhaps aggravating, the particular issues this person has. A number of the things she or he says (particularly about being stalked for years by Wikipedia users, conspiracies reaching back into the past, multiple unrelated people out to "get" her) are classic symptoms of various problems that are very, very serious. Obviously, I don't think Zeraeph's editing is good for Wikipedia, but there's a more important issue. While normally I would say that this is the sort of thing that should go through Arbcom, I do not believe that any sort of formal proceeding involving a panel of strangers evaluating her behavior that will drag on for weeks and weeks is going to be healthy for this person. I think the most merciful thing we could do is to shut her down, and do it firmly and quickly.

For what it's worth, I feel that way about User:Doctor Octagon, too, although less strongly. Nandesuka 10:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The incoherence of the allegations and the inability to come up with even the slightest evidence for their reality is also typical. I've had to deal with this sort of thing in real life, and you're right about the best way to deal with it. --ajn (talk) 12:19, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

In addition to the point made by Nandesuka, the user's threatening comments here are extremely serious and support this approach. Newyorkbrad 14:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I've been dealing with Zeraeph on a more personal level, through email after an unblock request sent to the Unblock mailing list (for the record, I advised Zeraeph to take the block as an enforced Wikibreak and to be calm when the block is over). When conversing with me, Zeraeph has alternated between being quite calm and being very frustrated with the situation. I know that Zeraeph can be very calm and reasonable when approached the right way, and I also feel that Zeraeph very honestly feels that he (or she?) is being stalked online, off-Wiki as well as on. I think if I can look at what Zeraeph can present to me, I can either provide advice on actions to take, or possibly log an RfAR on Zeraeph's behalf if the information is valid.

As such, I'd like to volunteer to be a mentor (this would be my first time as a mentor), even during the block. I don't think a community ban is the answer. If you feel that Zeraeph will only cause more trouble in his talk page, the solution may be to protect the talk page so he can continue to converse with me. I don't think Zeraeph is ill-intentioned, but rather, feels that he has a valid complaint. I hope that if I can bring this off-wiki, and in private, we can deal with the situation without rubbing too many Wikipedians the wrong way. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I have no objections to your trying. You should also contact SandyGeorgia privately; apparently she has been receiving unwanted e-mails regarding Zeraeph, and suspects that A Kiwi (talk · contribs) is involved (see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/A Kiwi, particularly the talk page). It could be (and this is pure speculation) that Zeraeph is being stalked online, but not by SandyGeorgia. My personal opinion is that this is going to be too complicated to achieve a workable on-wiki solution. Godspeed. Thatcher131 (talk) 15:20, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, your speculation had occurred to me too. For now, I don't think I need to be contacting SandyGeorgia via email just yet. I am open to on-Wiki communication if necessary. I don't want Zeraeph to feel like I am any part of this conspiracy, and for now I am just communicating one-on-one with Zeraeph. Currently, Zeraeph is being calm and reasonable with me (though clearly frustrated with the situation), and that may change if he thinks I'm carrying on any conversations with SandyGeorgia behind is back. I would like to wait until Zeraeph presents valid evidence that it is indeed SandyGeorgia that is doing the stalking. I can promise that I will keep an open mind, examine the evidence clearly, and not do anything rash or without thought. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:34, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) :Last month, a situation arose that should have been addressed discreetly by senior administrators and with a minimum of public discussion. Instead, it became the topic of extensive discussion on-Wiki that caused egregious harm to vulnerable editors. Although the specifics here are different, this is an extremely serious situation involving allegations of an 8-year history of stalking, legal threats, potentially delusional scenarios, and psychological issues as mentioned by Nandesuka. I strongly believe in transparency on-Wiki, but there are limits. An RfAr under these circumstances would be a horror show and should not be suggested again. We need to be able to identify and deal with the(rare) sensitive situations like this that need to be investigated and resolved in a highly sensitive and confidential fashion. Newyorkbrad 15:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Nandesuka and Newyorkbrad. Zeraeph has been asked several times as part of mediation processes to put forward a coherent, evidence-based statement about what she thinks is going on. All that comes out is the typical conspiracy theory reasoning - the absence of evidence for the conspiracy is firm proof that the conspiracy is real and working well, there are special secret things going on that the "victim" can't explain (for reasons which themselves can't be explained), things are so obvious that a request for evidence is proof of the inquirer having underhand motives for asking the question, and so on. This is typical. I don't think Zeraeph is ill-intentioned, I think she is (literally) deluded. In any case, the abuse of SandyGeorgia has to stop, and on present form an arbitration case would just be used as a platform for further abuse, and would do Zeraeph no good at all. --ajn (talk) 15:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Zeraeph's talk page has been protected since this morning, by the way, because she was using it to continue the behaviour for which she had been blocked. --ajn (talk) 15:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

That's why I want to bring this discussion off-Wiki, so it doesn't hurt established Wikipedians. If I act as a filter, you can be sure that anything I present is, in my opinion, valid. I won't present anything that I don't think is valid. Right now, I have some pretty good dialog with Zeraeph. If I can keep this up, maybe Zeraeph and I can discuss this calmly. I would like for Zeraeph to eventually contribute positively to Wikipedia, but I also don't want for this situation to cause undue stress to Wikipedians. That's why I feel carrying on private dialog with Zeraeph without the threat of a community permaban (just the current temporary block) is best. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

If you think things have got to the stage where Zeraeph is willing to use User talk:Zeraeph appropriately, feel free to unprotect it. I wouldn't be at all happy with an unblock unless there is an arbitration case which has gone "live". --ajn (talk) 16:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

No, for now I think it's in Zeraeph's best interests to leave the talk page protected for now. I don't want Zeraeph to get into a situation where he (or she) will get blocked for even longer. I'm not advocating an unblock yet (indeed, when Zeraeph submitted an unblock request to the mailing list, I suggested that he take this block as an enforced Wikibreak): I'm only opposing the community ban (which is an indefinite block) as proposed here. I don't think a community bad is the answer here. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:19, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

It could be (and this is pure speculation) that Zeraeph is being stalked online, but not by SandyGeorgia. I believe this to be true, based on the emails I have, but apparently it "takes two to tango": she has been stalked and has allegedly been a stalker as well. (Witness the threats against me: that she is going to have authorities deal with me in real life.) I'm not convinced that any amount of conversation or mentoring will be able to convince Zeraeph that I am not the stalker, because that person has an AOL account, and I have an AOL account which I use when I am in a hotel that doesn't have another internet connection. I appreciate your efforts, but I believe the other editors have valid points about dragging this out in public considering the issues involved: I, too, have encountered situations like this and have always believed that disengaging is the only way to handle them. I understand your concerns about contacting me privately in order to preserve your role as a mentor, but someone needs to look at these e-mails, and then deal with the AOL editors who appeared in the midst of this mess, complicating it even further. I have repeatedly encouraged those people to keep the off-Wiki situation off Wiki, to no avail. I am fairly certain at this point that the only person who is going to be damaged by all of this is me: yes, the edit history is instructive (and I'm having a lovely vacation :-). It also needs to be understood that Zeraeph's attacks on me began long before she thought I was "her stalker" and before I received the emails (the person emailed me to supposedly support me because of Zeraeph's attacks), so using that now as the rationalization for her behavior doesn't hold water. Best of luck to you, Sandy 16:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... okay, if you feel that I should look at this emails, send me an email at Special:Emailuser/Deathphoenix. I'm keeping an open mind and assuming good faith, on both sides. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:41, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, someone else needs to look at them. While I understand and accept that you have an open mind and are assuming good faith, and I applaud your effort, the reality is that you don't see this as clearly as ajn, Nandesuka, many others and I do, and your role right now is as Zeraeph's advocate and mentor. First, I believe strongly in guarding the privacy of e-mail, and wouldn't want the information in these e-mails to fall into Zeraeph's hands, even unwittingly. Second, your relationship with her as a mentor is likely to be compromised if she knows you have corresponded with me: she has expressed several times that she is convinced that I can manipulate admins. Third, if the person who sent me the e-mails holds me responsible for the information falling into Zeraeph's hands, I am likely to have not one online problem out of this mess, but multiple. In short, I am the one at risk here, having done nothing to warrant this, and I need for an admin who is not Zeraeph's advocate and mentor to look at the information. Again, Zeraeph's attacks on me began long before she had any reason to involve off-Wiki disputes or to believe that I was one of the people she has had those disputes with: I merely happened to cross paths with her because of a FARC. I concur with ajn and Nandesuka's analysis of the situation: unless there is a very fast cessation of these attacks and recognition that there is no reason to believe I am one of the people Zeraeph has had off-Wiki disputes with, as soon as I'm home, I will bring the ArbCom case myself. I am the one who best knows where to find all the pieces and the dates. Sandy 17:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't forward the emails at all--contact the sender and inform him/her of Deathphoenix's offer to mentor. Let the sender decide. Thatcher131 (talk) 18:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

My once daily checkin: Brilliant solution, thanks. (I have never responded to the sender's emails, as I don't want to be part of the whole drama: it appears that the sender read this and has already contacted ajn.) I feel strongly that the sender needs to be protected. I also failed to make another thing clear yesterday: If the sender is to be considered a "stalker", the sender has violated no Wiki policies, and only came (apparently) to Wiki after seeing Zeraeph do to me what she has done elsewhere to others. Once I asked that I no longer receive these e-mails, they stopped. The sender has turned out to be right about everything I was warned about, so I consider the sender credible, and to be protected. Sandy 15:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah. I thought these emails were the harassing emails, not information sent by other people. In that case, that's fine, I'd rather not know. FWIW, I have yet to correspond with Zeraeph today, so I'm not sure how she feels about the whole thing (or even if I could be considered a mentor). All that is moot if she doesn't accept me as a mentor/advocate anyway. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

For whatever it might be worth at this point, I agree with ajn and others that this individual is not only very nasty but probably delusional, that everything reasonable that can be tried to get him or her to become a positive contributor to Wikipedia has been tried, failed and indeed has only made things worse, and that a community ban is both warranted and probably achievable. I attempted to be a voice of reason in the most recent mediation attempt, and the response was a) a repeat of precisely the same vague and barely coherent non-evidence that I was trying to get past and b) the most vicious and potentially libelous things Zeraeph had said on Wikipedia to date at the time. I seriously believe that he or she should, not only be off Wikipedia forever, but probably in jail or a mental institution as well for that response, and can't imagine how anyone could defend its author. I actually regret that my next response to Zeraeph was so mild - to be honest I skipped over most of the stalking accusations and so on the first time through. Not only were his comments about Sandy at that time completely outrageous toward her, they were rather a slap in the face to me as well. Ban with extreme prejudice. PurplePlatypus 02:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I've now had email from someone (not SG) offering to forward me the emails. This was my response:

I think the best thing would be for you to not forward the emails to anyone at this time - this is a Wikipedia problem and it's regrettable that off-Wikipedia problems have intruded. If anyone else feels it would be useful to know what was in them, I'll be happy to act as an intermediary and make sure that no personal information is divulged.

By "anyone else" I mean involved admins, of course. The person who emailed me stipulated that they were not to be passed directly to Deathphoenix. I think that's what was stipulated - re-reading the message, it could have meant "not to be passed to anyone who is trying to help Zeraeph". Either way, I've not seen them and I don't want to (unless it's necessary). --ajn (talk) 10:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

There's not much in the emails that anyone with eyes wide open can't figure out, or that will be news to you, ajn. The problem is, they do contain identifying information, and if I redacted that information, I couldn't forward the emails with headers. At any rate, I want this to end. It is taking as much of my time as bringing an ArbCom case would, and when I return from vacation, I will have lots of Wiki work to catch up on. I still agree with those who said an ArbCom case will not be good for Wiki or good for Zeraeph, but I have a feeling if I don't bring the case, I'll still be responding to this issue months from now. It is with some irony that I noted the comments above that Zeraeph was "frustrated". This is a situation wholly caused by her and brought upon herself by no one but her, with me as the target, so I'm not entirely sympathetic anymore to her frustration. The people who followed her to Wiki certainly complicated a situation which Wiki admins could have handled, but they followed her to Wiki because she apparently continued a pattern of abuse here she has engaged in elsewhere. I'll check in tomorrow. Sandy 15:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm fine with all of this, apart from this stigma that seems to be attached to my good faith attempts to help someone (I'd like to think that I'm mature and experienced enough not to let my attempts to help Zeraeph get in the way of doing what's best for Wikipedia and in not making unjustified attacks for someone). You guys are beginning to make me wish I hadn't replied to Zeraeph's request to the Unblock mailing list. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:23, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone doubts your good faith or integrity. What's worrying some of us is that any further attempts to give Zeraeph a chance to defend herself will be abused by her. See her recent post to wikien-l, for example. I firmly believe that the most helpful thing that could be done right now is a permanent block and no more discussion, here or offline. Engaging with someone in her state and trying to reason with her is very unlikely to help anyone. --ajn (talk) 17:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

As with ajn, I don't doubt your good faith or integrity. I doubt Zeraeph's good faith and integrity. It's very nice of you to offer to help this individual, but I believe it to be naïve; all you are likely to accomplish is to directly or indirectly give him or her a platform for further abusive actions (as happened with my own attempt to introduce some rationality into the debate), and that's not a desirable outcome no matter how good the intentions of the person doing it. Zeraeph is not above attempting the same kind of manipulation of which s/he is so quick to accuse others, and I believe that is likely what will prove to be happening here. PurplePlatypus 19:59, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm experienced enough to not let facetious or invalid information leak to Wikipedia via my own edits. What I hope to accomplish is to look at Zeraeph's information closely and either tell her that the information doesn't indicate too much or find some way of correcting the situation if it does. Since most of you believe that her information is invalid, you shouldn't be too worried, because while I genuinely want to help Zeraeph, I also want to make sure that she is either made aware that her accusations are unmerited or that, if they are, I can help her correct the situation. My dealing with her gives her a way of dealing with someone on Wikipedia. It does not mean that she has a meatpuppet who will blindly post anything that she writes. Currently, she is blocked from Wikipedia (a block that I'm not contesting), and her talk page is also protected (which, despite your offer to allow me to unprotect, remains protected). This pretty much means that the only ways she can communicate with someone on Wikipedia are through email, and that's where I come in. What she writes goes to me. Yes, I read her recent post to the mailing list and while it's a little troubling, the language isn't over-the-top. If it becomes as such, the listmods will likely ban her from the mailing list anyway. Which once again just leaves me to deal with her. What's the harm in that? I'm not a vexatious litigant, and I'm not ignorant either. Sometimes, just sweeping something under the rug and ignoring it isn't the answer. ajn, you must know that we don't hand out permanent blocks like candy. Community bans only become as much if someone permablocks the user and no other admin bothers to unblock. I am fine with this long block you've put her on while I try to deal with this user, but I won't stand idly by and see this user get permanently blocked while I've got some fruitful dialog with her. And this fruitful dialog is nothing that everyone else should be stressed out about either. I'm not an ignorant meatpuppet who allows any statements made by anyone cloud how he sees other users. If result of my discussions with her are that she should stop editing Wikipedia, then so be it. I actually suggested that plan of action in our discussions, and she may consider it if it seems she can't edit Wikipedia without resolving these issues, but I would like me and Zeraphael to make that determination for ourselves, not via a community ban forced upon her. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

"you must know that we don't hand out permanent blocks like candy" - I'd hardly say this is candy, this user should have been blocked a while ago. Constant, unrepenting harrassment of other editors; and yes, I've had a bit of first-hand experience in the articles as well (although thankfully I was never the target but I tried to defend those who were). Please, let this one rest in peace so this user can solve his/her issues; Wikipedia is not a very good place to do that, in fact it usually just makes them worse; LOL!!! RN 19:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the candy remark bugged me too. DP, you're making it sound like all he did was swear at someone or something like that. Frankly, trivializing Zeraeph's offenses, such as calling someone an "erotomanic stalker", is rather offensive. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but at best failing to consider how that might come across backs up my above charge of naïvety. PurplePlatypus 20:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I didn't mean it that way, and I resent the implication that I'm naive. You're entitled to your opinion, and I know you didn't mean it that way, but I find your remark at least as insulting as my inadvertent remark about candy. You'd be singing a different tune if you were to look at the nature of my discussions with Zeraeph. I am by no means trivialising what Zeraeph has done, and I am not saying that what she did was minor. What I am saying is that community banning Zeraeph will not solve these problems of which you speak. And no, I am not saying Wikipedia is therapy either. I am dealing with Zeraeph off-wiki. How many times do I have to say that? I am dealing with Zeraeph off-wiki. That and the fact that she is already being blocked for a month should be sufficient. I do not support a community ban. You guys are asking for a community ban, and I'm not supporting it. Simple as that. If you guys want to file an arbitration case to get her banned for a year, that's fine, go ahead and file, I have no problems with Wikipedia processes being followed. But if you think you can get her banned through a unanimous community ban, I'm afraid you are mistaken. --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:28, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, first of all, as I understand a community ban does not need to be unanimous. Leaving that aside, though, let me come at this from a slightly different angle. Could you please explain what positive result for Wikipedia you hope or expect to accomplish? Under what circumstances do you think Zeraeph should be permitted to edit again, and what benefits do you beleive will result when that happens? You can deal with Zeraeph off-wiki as much as you like, and as long as it stays off-wiki it's no real concern of mine (though I can see why Sandy might have a different view), it's the potential ON-wiki consequences that bother me. PurplePlatypus 20:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it does have to be unanimous. A community ban is simply an indefinite block that other admins can't be bothered to undo. If a single admin wants to undo an indefinite block as a result of a community ban, that community ban will not hold. To have an enforceable ban on a user requires the approval from ArbCom, Jimbo, or via an office action, and unless things have changed since I last paid attention to it, ArbCom can only hand out one-year blocks on main accounts (sockpuppet accounts are another matter). As to your next question, I was hoping to tiptoe around it before, but I'll be frank. I believe that if you simply hand out a blanket block, Zaphrael will continue to find a way to make life difficult for the said parties. While I understand how harrying it is for you people, I may have found another angle with Zaphrael and how to approach her. She's already been blocked for a month, and right now, she can't really do anything on Wikipedia, unless she chooses to get around the block by using sockpuppets or anon IPs, but from what I see in our emails, Zaphrael is fully aware that I will not help her at all if she breaks the block on her in this fashion. I'm reviewing her information in a neutral manner, and I can have feedback that I can give her. Whatever the result, I can act appropriately. --Deathphoenix ʕ 08:18, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

That's actually a reasonable answer that I am a lot more comfortable with. That being the case, good luck. PurplePlatypus 17:12, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. As I stated below, I hope Zeraeph and I can come to an agreement. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:12, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

What's worrying some of us is that any further attempts to give Zeraeph a chance to defend herself will be abused by her. See her recent post to wikien-l, for example. ajn I do not have access to, nor have time while on vacation, to track down this post, but if she is continuing to smear my name, I hope someone has either saved that information or will forward it to me so that I will have a record of it for any potential ArbCom case. I am relieved to see that others have (finally) noted the severity of the statements Zeraeph has made against me, since I was surprised at the initial mild responses, considering how severely she has attacked me in so many places, with no foundation. Phoenix, I have no doubt at all of your good faith effort, but I do wonder if you've had experience with the particular issues and behaviors in evidence. I would also like to have an idea if there is a concensus here as to whether I should bring the Arbcom case. If some admins finally realize what I've been attempting to ignore, I will be glad to continue to ignore it if others think that is best for Wiki and she can be prevented from the continued attacks and smears, which are clearly beyond the pale of anything I've encountered on Wiki. On the other hand, if others feel I should bring the case, I'm willing. It's not fair, but it is what it is. Sandy 18:42, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Please see my response above. And yes, I have experience with these particular issues and behaviours (admittedly, not as a formally trained professional) and it is precisely because of this experience that I am approaching it this way. Think of it this way: she's already blocked for a month and her talk page is protected. If she decides to write any further emails to the mailing list that the listmods deem unacceptable, they will reject it. Any of her other activities beyond this will be outside of Wikipedia, and these actions may occur regardless of whether she is community banned from Wikipedia or not. Please, this time is mine to use (and in all of your opinions, to waste). While I understand how harrying this is for you, I believe this would be equally harrying whether I expend this effort or not. At least give me the chance to expend this effort, try to talk to Zaphrael, and have us (me and Zaphrael) both come to an agreement on something before we act on it. --Deathphoenix ʕ 08:18, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that a community ban won't stop her from harassing me, and my concern is that she will use socks and proxies, and may impersonate me. I have no concerns about off-Wiki attempts or activities: I have never encountered her off-Wiki, and to put it plainly, Zeraeph thinks she knows who I am, but since she's wrong and I'm not who she thinks I am, there is no chance she can harm me in real life or off-Wiki. The only concern is on-Wiki, so I am in agreement with any approach that might work in the long-term. As I've said from the beginning, I'm willing to follow whatever approach is best for Wiki, and will hopefully keep me safe from longer-term attacks via socks, proxies, and impersonations. I just hope others will have my back, because the viciousness is alarming. Sandy 16:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Even while Zeraeph (I keep misspelling her name!) and I are engaging in useful dialog, I am aware of the possibility that she could be doing these things. If she is making any on-Wiki attacks via socks and open proxies, let me know and I will look into these cases myself or, if you are asking another admin to look into this, please let me know regardless. Wikipedia mentorship goes both ways: mentors are supposed to help and guide the people that they are mentoring, but they also issue warnings and blocks if the people they are mentoring continue with un-Wiki behaviour. However, sockpuppet and impersonator accounts can be blocked indefinitely, and this would not be contentious at all. If the account attacking you is a sockpuppet of Zeraeph, I would have no problem with an indef block because Zeraeph is getting around her block in an un-Wiki manner, and if the account attacking you is an impersonator of Zeraeph, she would happily have that account indef blocked because it's trying to get her punished even more. The simplest thing to do would simply be to indef block a sock or impersonator account (or temporarily block the IP) and revert any edits that those accounts make without further action. If, however, a CheckUser confirms the accounts as belonging to Zeraeph, further action would be relevant. I feel confortable saying this because I am certain that Zeraeph would not engage in sockpuppetry while we are in useful dialog, but have no problems with fixing anything that happens because of my misplaced trust. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:03, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'm comfortable that you should be allowed time to see if you can attain a more workable long-term solution, as my concern has always been how I could be safe in the long-term, knowing that short-term approaches and blocks might not help. I hope the admins who said they would bring the ArbCom case if I didn't will also give this some time. [1] I am willing to wait. Sandy 17:27, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Hopefully Zeraeph and I can come to an agreement. --Deathphoenix ʕ 12:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Torinir and ajn both mentioned they would be off-Wiki: I will leave a message on ajn's talk page. Sandy 23:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I've observed a little of the behaviour of Zeraeph, and would like to add that I feel great disquiet about the effect on what should be serious, professional work on WP. I'd be relieved if something could be done about it. (I should disclose that I'm a Wikifriend of Sandy's.) Tony 15:48, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe myself and Justdignity made some important contributions to the Bully and Workplace Bullying topics back around May 2006 but the text kept on being immediately deleted by Zeraeph on the basis of no citations. But very little else on those topics had citations either. Zeraeph said she would be happy to reinstate my text if it had citations. But that left me at her mercy as to whether in her view i had enough citations or in the right places. She should have left my text in place with citation markers in place and I would have gladly provided citations. On her basis i hardly felt motivated to bother doing any more work. I would love to contribute more to the Bully, Workplace Bullying and NPD topics but not with Zeraeph around. --Penbat 15:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Please also check the huge number of revealing comments made by Zeraeph on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bully I even created a subtopic called Zeraeph on that page back in May. The "Characteristic of Bullies subtopic" is also particularly revealing. User "Justdignity" makes the following revealing comment about Zeraeph: "I have read some of the feedback on your page and I realise Penbat and I are not the only ones to have fallen foul of your personal crusade to uphold what you think is WIki policy. While I accept Wiki policy applies to me, please will you accept that it applies to you too." --Penbat 19:45, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I am the aforementioned Justdignity and have to say that my introduction to Wiki editing was short and thoroughly disenchanting thanks Zeraeph's perceived need to control (i.e. delete) user input, justified by non-sequitur commentary (i.e. nonsense). I retreated from Wiki because I had (and have) better things to do with my life than to waste my time grovelling to Zeraeph. However, I would be happy to consider completing the work I started if I knew that Zeraeph had been permanently blocked. Justdignity 13:20, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Zeraeph had a large role in the banning of Sam Vaknin. In my view Zeraeph's contributions were poisonous. Sam Vaknin is a self proclaimed narcissist but not in my view a malicious narcissist like Zeraeph. Like him or loath him he is an important authority in the understanding of narcissism. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sam_Vaknin and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sam_Vaknin If you strip away Zeraeph's comments you dont have too much left to damn Sam Vaknin and some of the other comments were because others were taken in by Zeraeph's poison. I hope that Sam Vaknin can be reinstated. --Penbat 18:00, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Just to add that I think that some of the others putting the knife into Sam Vaknin were Zeraeph sock puppets. Penbat 19:17, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

About the only person not in favour of an immediate ban on Zeraeph is DeathPhoenix. Zeraeph has got form. She has a highly manipulative personality. For her, acting this way is a compulsion. Any idea of negotiating with her to reach agreement is doomed to failure. It is very naive to even try. She may play mind games and pretend to agree to a compromise solution but she would just be bluffing. It is Wikipedia that is much more important than the welfare of one contributor - Zeraeph. Why should we have to endure any more of her poison ? --Penbat 21:24, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

THE SYNOPSIS for those who don't want to read all this * More Wiki situations found re/Zeraeph's problem behaviors * Zeraeph tells of 8 years grudge, showing she brought off-Wiki matters to Wikipedia. -I am Kiwi 23:33, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

My first involvement in the Z-affair was very tangential. I visited Keyne's Talk page to thank him for his plea for Z to halt her disruptive posting on the Asperger Syndrome talk page. The talk page had become emotionally stressful just to read and try to keep up with the others (a steadily dwindling number).

Then came the last of the attempted Mediations. I saw her refusal to cooperate and to divert attention from the issue. Then here, RN and others say they have had problems, too. I decided to check out her contributions history and so far I have, in this short time, found that she has gone after a PhD psychologist by impugning the quality of his education and, seemingly, his relationship with an online mental health site. She then implied that he wasn't at all qualified to write about the topic.

I found situations which indicates Z brought one, perhaps more, old grudges with people in the mental disorders topics. I recognized Penbat from years ago from a bullying forum where he is a moderator and where the two of them had conflict. Penbat was easy to spot as he uses his screen name everywhere.

Most disturbing of anything I saw was the long page of posts I found when I went looking for the man who wrote the rebuttal to the Vaknin opinion article. User_talk:Ta_bu_shi_da_yu/Global_Politician

This was the ending where she revealed that she has been personally upset with Sam for many years. On that page, many of her posts indicate her problems with him were of long duration before she came to Wikipedia. However, when I went hunting, her posts to Samvak started only in February of 2006, and she showed no sign of knowing him at all and he did not recognize her until later.

---

Under the SubTopic entitled TIMEOUT!!!! by Ta bu shi da yu

Folks, my article was never to whale on Sam! I responded to his points, and asked for his response and he only responded with an ad hominem attack. Please, we should not be doing the same in kind. I realise he's frustrating, but it gets us nowhere to have a go at him. Please, some kindness and patience for this critic of Wikipedia! He's absolutely no threat to us, and even if he was, we should not be too harsh on him anyway. - Ta bu shi da yu 15:48, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

You wouldn't say that if you knew him.

The guy has spent almost 8 years cold-bloodedly, deliberately playing cruel little games with the heads of as many extremelly vulnerable, damaged people as he can rope in, and determinedly crushing anyone he percieves as "getting in his way", including, but not limited to, the kind of tactics you have seen around "The Six Sins of the Wikipedia".

To Sam Vaknin "kindness" and "patience" are just contemptable weaknesses in others to be exploited. So don't waste them on him.

Truth and fairness are the best he deserves. --Zeraeph 16:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe so, but this is not the forum for such matters. Blogs and places like Kuro5hin are best for such matters. - Ta bu shi da yu 16:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe so, but I don't think this is the place to request "kindness and patience" for someone like that under circumstances where to extend either would be to leave oneself open to abuse.

Still it might be best if discussion of the man himself, as opposed to the specific article in question, were to move over to Talk:Sam Vaknin? --Zeraeph 16:28, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

---

-I am Kiwi 23:33, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks to me like Sam Vaknin got badly wound up by Zeraeph, ref his "The Six Sins of the Wikipedia" for example. He presumably equated Wikipedia with Zeraeph as Wikipedia in general seemed to have sided with Zeraeph in preferance to himself. Far from being the monster that Zeraeph portrays him as, he still runs two popular support groups for victims of narcissists and commands the respect of many victims. --Penbat 14:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Update

This sub-topic seems to have gone quiet all of a sudden. --Penbat 20:47, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Slowed a week ago. Deathphoenix wanted time for Zeraeph, see if she could ignore cetain people. He said she'd promised not to slip around in stocking feet. on that note, I got wiki mail from someone who may or may not be the someone others have mentioned. The party says they have had two socks in sight for the past week and 3 IP addresses to check against. Something about how it won't be sent unless it's wanted. So, for what it's worth, I'll leave that bit without further ado. Hey, The Amazing Race begins again tonight! CBS -I am Kiwi 23:06, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Research request

Please do not delete this post without discussion with James F..

Hello I'm a member of the research team at Palo Alto Research Center (formerly known as Xerox PARC) interested in understanding conflict in Wikipedia. A number of other admins and James Forrester (a member of the Wiki Research community) have supported our research, and we hope that you also will support our endeavor. We are currently running a survey to understand how administrators characterize conflict. If you would like to help in our research on Wikipedia please complete the survey at the link below:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=272072498578

Please note that we are committed to providing quality research to the Wikipedia community. The results of the survey will be incorporated into an academic paper that will be submitted to a peer-reviewed conference this fall (likely the CHI conference), and will be freely available to any interested parties. A link to this publication will be posted on my user page. You can look at the preliminary results of our first survey in which we targeted members of the Mediation Cabal to get an idea of the kinds of questions we are interested in.

We are not journalists or spammers but an established research institution with a strong track record of high-quality publications. Here are links to find out more about our team (the User Interface Research group) and our past research, including studies on characterizing the web. Thank you for your help! Parc wiki researcher 17:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Please do not remove this request. It is the third bloody time we've had to put it up, and I'm tired of people massively mis-interpreting Policy. Do not attempt become the third sysop to endure my wrath over this. ;-)

In as much as I have the authority so to do (which is not great), I welcome the research efforts from PARC. Please take this as sufficient to quell any doubts you might have about the authenticity of the request.

James F. (talk), Wikimedia CRO. 22:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Any chance that a bot can be created to automatically send a copy of the complteted research to our (interested users) talk pages? Just a thought. RVTA 22:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

if they have done this before why are they not hoasting on thier own servers and why are they not trying to contact people directly rather than useing theier current setup which gives them no control over who fills it in. It also asks about articles and then provides a list that includes a portal. Result obtained are likely to be largely useless.Geni 23:18, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a valid point: How are the respondents being vetted? Is there a possiblity of creating a seperate page in userspace to ask these questions without clogging up the noticeboard? RVTA 00:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Just to respond to the above questions: Geni, we are using SurveyMonkey to host the survey, which is a common tool used in the research community. The articles/portals are selected using an algorithm which we will discuss more in the paper. RVTA, originally we targeted a randomly selected (by name) group of admins, but people told us to post here instead of to individual user pages. If the WP community has a better idea for a method for researchers to interact with the community, we'd definitely be interested in hearing it. Thanks! Parc wiki researcher 19:02, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

If you use your own domain to host serveys people are going to tend to be less paranoid.Geni 21:29, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

A problem I see is that there is no way to ensure you are getting answers from administrators and editors, or trolls and passers-by. Anyone can do the survey and anyone can fill in whatever username they wish to impersonate. A better way might be to send e-mail messages with unique passwords. —Centrx→talk • 21:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't encourage them to spam Wikipedia users. That will just get Wikipedia put on blocklists. --John Nagle 19:04, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I just took the survey and the research methodology seems to be at best lacking. The articles one was asked to look at are clearly not randomly selected but the procedure they were selected by doesn't seem at all clear either. There were other issues I had but I don't want to taint the study by going into them now. JoshuaZ 02:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

new topic: can we have a more informative rollback choice?

I assume most of us revert vandalism using the rollback choice but you notice it leaves no explanation of the reason. There are a few other categories of "rollback on sight", such as removing linkspam or removing personal info or removing personal attack or removing edit by banned person. I am sure a few others might occur to people. Is anyone else in favor of asking the developers for a choice of, say, 5 or 6 rollback buttons that function like the present one but put a brief explanatory phrase in the edit summary? alteripse 20:13, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

If it's anything other than vandalism, rollback isn't appropriate. I'm sure we've all broken that rule now and again, but to be honest, it's generally a good one. If you need to undo an edit for any other reason than vandalism, then you need to manually explain whay you're doing. Doing so will also help you think twice about reverting in the first place. ➨ ЯEDVERS 20:23, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

A related question, what can be done for admins who continuously use rollback for reverts during edit disputes, and other cases where no obvious vandalism/link spam etc has occurred? I have tried politely requesting them in such cases, but most of the time, the offending admin simply ignores and does it again and again. --Ragib 20:26, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest not doing anything, since there is nothing wrong with doing so. User:Zoe|(talk) 20:29, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

There is of course problems in abusing admin features in edit disputes. According to WP:ADMIN#Reverting, Do not use one-click rollback on edits that are not simple vandalism; please revert manually with an appropriate edit summary.. --Ragib 20:34, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

If an admin repeatedly uses the rollback feature to get the upper hand in an edit war they should first be reported for violating 3RR or the spirit of the rule if appropriate, then send to arbcom if they keep ignoring requests not to. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:53, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I cannot see how using rollback is any different from leaving a blank or uninformative edit summary. 3RR is already taken care of. There is already guidance to not describe a good-faith edit as vandalism. Misusing one's position as an admin is understood to be wrong no matter what mechanism is used. How is using the rollback button worse than leaving as a summary "restored NPOV"? Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the interface clutter is worth the trouble. Rollback is, in the vast majority of cases, used where the reason for its use is obvious. If an editor is confused or perplexed about why an admin used rollback in a particular circumstance, a polite talk page request usually clears matters right up. For admins (or other editors, for that matter) who would like more specific or more customizable rollback buttons, my understanding is that there are any number of homebrew scripts available for download these days. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:00, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

It shouldn't happen in the first place, and having to talk to the admin first is quite a waste of time. I had a minor fight on a WP:BJAODN page - I added something and the admin reverted. I think we both wasted more time arguing about it on his talk page than if he had just spent 20 seconds explaining why he didn't think it was funny. Hbdragon88 19:36, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know, we don't do that with edit wars, etc. So where can I find a "homebrew script" that would let me make a small menu of edit summaries for rollback? alteripse 02:59, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Admin rollback has always been for vandalism only. If admins are making an edit decision, they should do it manually like everyone else, and leave an edit summary to explain the edit (which rollback can't do). This is for good communication with other editors. Past discussions about this feature have been unambiguous. Tyrenius 07:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

All points agreed as above. This is about how, not when and whether. I am suggesting/requesting a measure to increase ease and detail of communication for those rollbacks that do not warrant a talk page discussion but might not look like obvious vandalism. I am one of those editors who feel a much stronger conversation obligation to named users with accounts than to anon IPs but would like to leave a more informative message than the automatic "reverted". Please don't repeat the points already stipulated, thanks. alteripse 12:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Patterns merely perceived?: User name plus behavior = small freak-out

Is this at all normal? A series of user names, most of the form "name <space> name", all editing a single article, with very small edits quite quickly, over a short period of time but not overlapping. Is this someone trying to 'establish' a set of users for ... 'later'?

• 05:09, 14 September 2006 User:Stanley Goodwin (Talk | contribs) (New user account)
• 05:05, 14 September 2006 User:Kevin Ronchzkowski (Talk | contribs) (New user account)
• 05:02, 14 September 2006 User:David Sam (Talk | contribs) (New user account)
• 04:59, 14 September 2006 User:Carl Edwards (Talk | contribs) (New user account)
• 04:53, 14 September 2006 User:Mark Stanley (Talk | contribs) (New user account)
• 04:31, 14 September 2006 User:Jonathanchristman (Talk | contribs) (New user account)

Check out the edit history of Reformed_Baptist. (I'm tempted to revert the whole lot of changes, as several are just bad, but I'm spooked.)

I scanned down the list of new accounts for about 1.5 hours' worth, and except for

• 04:25, 14 September 2006 User:Bruce Graham (Talk | contribs) (New user account)

none else fit the (perceived?) pattern.

I know that people will often perceive a pattern in "white noise", but this is too strange for me. Shenme 05:57, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd say there's something up. That history page is scary! Looking at this dif (there are over 50 edits in between) there seem to be no substantial changes (and a few copyediting errors, which I am going to go fix). It seems like someone trying to build up an edit count on a few socks. I'm no expert or admin though, but that's what I think. Ungovernable Force^{The Wiki Kitchen!} 06:37, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, that looks like a pattern all right. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:26, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Bruce seems to be unconnected to the others, and is presumably blisfully ignorant that his name is being dragged through the mud. I've dropped a handrolled "please don't" message on each of the others. Probably just someone experimenting. We will see. Regards, Ben Aveling 09:12, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I hope I didn't give that impression, sorry if I did. User:Bruce Graham was not in the first list, and I was _trying_ to say he wasn't a possible problem, but apparently failed. No, I was not including User:Bruce Graham in my concerns. Shenme 16:36, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I apologise. I didn't think that you meant that Bruce was a problem, only that you were just raising a perfectly valid concern that there might be a connection. But I'm discomforted that Bruce was included in a check user request [2]. That's not because it wasn't done in good faith - it was. Just that it's rough on him to show up and accidentally be caught in a dragnet. I'm uncomfortable that we're discussing him and he doesn't (presumably) know it. But I don't what to do about it - leave a message on his page saying "By the way Bruce, just to let you know, we're watching you and we're know you're innocent?" That's wierd too. Regards, Ben Aveling 22:59, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• I only included him, because he appears (or appeared) to be connected by naming and edit habits. If he's innocent I'm sorry he got dragged in here, but I don't see anything implicitly wrong with innocents being included in RFCU when there's reason to believe there's a connection. The persons performing such checks will not reveal any confidential information, so information he is not related can only be good for him. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

myg0t

Myg0t (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has been deleted, reviewed, deletion endorsed, earth salted, reviewed again, reviewed again. It's pretty unliekly that we'll see an article at that location in the near future. The talk page is, of course, the usual trollfest. I suggest we delete it, as a talk page of a deleted article which is unlikely to play any productive part in a deletion review in the foreseeable future. What say? Guy 12:11, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Deleted. JoshuaZ 12:52, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

And earth salted. Technically talk pages aren't speediable if they "contain deletion discussion that isn't logged elsewhere", but I don't even see the use of that generally, and certainly none of the trolling on Talk:Myg0t is any use to anyone. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 16:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you think the same approach could be applied to Talk:Wii60? -- ReyBrujo 21:26, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Luelinks is also flaring up again after another admin deleted the talk page a few months ago. Hbdragon88 19:40, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate username

User:YouWontUnblockMeBecuaseYou'reProbably(ARepressed)Gay! It's probably already blocked, but I thought someone ought to take a look at this one... —Keakealani 00:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this one might need a block too (presumably the same user) User:IHopeYou'reKiddingAboutThatNaziComment.CauseTheyHateGays! —Keakealani 00:24, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Another: I don't know if I should keep a running list of these: User:IsThisWebsiteRunByTheMarines?..ThenStopBlockingUsGays!

Please use WP:AIV next time, and please simplfy your sig. Yanksox 00:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Apologies, I'm still rather new, so I'm not really familiar with the processes behind this. May I ask how to simply my signature? I won't sign with the automatic one, then, now, until I figure it out. --User:Keakealani

These were all blocked previously. You can check yourself before posting to WP:AIV. One of the easy ways is to go to the user's contributions and at the top the page it will list "For <user name> (Talk | block | Block log | Logs)". Click on the "Block log". -- JLaTondre 00:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thank you very much...so sorry for the trouble I caused - it was purely newbie blunders, since I've never ventured near this part of Wikipedia before *sweatdrop* And Thank you to Yanksox for letting me know about my signature...I was genuinely unaware that it was as long as it was or as disruptive...I hope this one is a bit better? If not, I can prune it down again. —Keakealani 05:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It's good, lots of users have a green-colored letter in their signature to signify Esperenza. Hbdragon88 08:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Politics of Israel

This article is blank. Somebody has vandalized it. I don't know if that's proper place to put such an information, but I don't know where else do it. 83.238.15.162 06:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Next time you can fix it yourself by going back into the page history, editing the last good version, and saving it. That overwrites the vandalised copy. Regards, Ben Aveling 06:59, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

NOTE: Please note that IP 65.105.179.195 appears to be on a blanking-vandalizing spree on Israel subjects, and needs to be blocked immediately. --Janke | Talk 07:01, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

• Seems to have stopped vandalising yesterday. -Mgm|^(talk) 07:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Influx of users using personal experience over verifiable sources

Apparently, User:Lentower has invited his friends (at least six of them) to oppose the deletion of his self-bio, filed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leonard H. Tower Jr.. Most of them have only a single contribution, which is to that AfD (which Lentower created and contributed to). At least one, Special:Contributions/Gonzopancho, has now started to contribute to other articles, with a tendency to refer to his own experience rather than verifiable sources. I'm busy, can someone keep an eye on these users? Thanks. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:52, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I not that User:Gonzopancho gave a reasonable reference for the change, from the subject's own website no less, and a credible reason why the original date was wrong. Guy 13:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Subjects' own websites are generally not considered reliable sources. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

That is not always true. It really depends on who the subject is and what is being referenced. 172.190.124.131 19:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Subjects' own websotes are generally reliable sources for facts regarding the subject (e.g. you can cite a company website for numbers of employees, or a person's website for their date of birth). I can't say I've formed a firm view on this particular edit, but it looks OK on the surface. Guy 22:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee has ruled in the past that it's inappropriate for users to add links to their own websites. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 23:06, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's as simple as "never add a link to your own Web site". Doing so is a bad idea upwards of 90% of the time, sure, but I don't think there's a hard and fast rule against it and it sounds like this might reasonably fall into the other <10%. PurplePlatypus 07:29, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppet of banned user: Please block

User:Pnatt's latest sockpuppet, User:Hockeypuck, has been vandalizing MySpace with a Pnatt-like motive and results. He also appears to be talking to himself on the talk page, but that is not necessarily true. -- Chris chat edits essays 14:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Blocked. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

User:LordByronKing

I have indefinitely blocked LordByronKing (talk · contribs) for repeatedly inserting his name and nn books into articles all over Wikipedia. He has yet to respond to any messages on his Talk page. I have indicated that I will entertain an unblock request if he pledges to stop the spamming. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:17, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Temporary injunction in the Kosovo arbitration case

For the duration of this case, any of the named parties may be banned, by an uninvolved administrator, from Kosovo or related pages for disruptive edits.

Affected users are listed in the case, and have all been notified. The affected articles (and two templates) have all been labelled with appropriate notices.

For the Arbitration Committee. --Tony Sidaway 18:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

DreamGuy Accused of violating sock protocol

What is going on ? I was visiting with DreamGuy when I found the WP:SOCK matter. Anything to this matter ?Martial Law 18:59, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

According to this checkuser request, Essjay found it likely that Victrix is a sockpuppet of DreamGuy. Both disappeared in the next few days; DG has only made a few edits.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Just got home from the pub so excuse my bad grammar. This has been discussed before. Nothing much more to add bar the info above but the evidence is overwhelming. Both had similar edit times, had similar edit summaries, edited the same articles and the account was used to voilate the 3RR rule, e.g. Victrix would rv 3 times then DG would step in and vise versa. Englishrose 23:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Pistonheads

Loads of vandalism in the last hour, a second ip is just starting to get to work. Needs sprotecting really. Probably at least half my fault because I posted on the message boards at the site saying that we really needed to get a decent page up that was proportionate to the size of the site. Current vandalistic users on wikipedia are banned from the site too. Dave 23:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protected, hopefully in a reasonably non-vandalised state. The article does need some serious work though. Gwernol 00:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Favouring admins involved in 3RR violations?

I was going to drop this matter, but I am still uneasy about it and decided to interrupt my wikibreak to get at least get some community comments on the matter. User:UtherSRG, an admin has recently engaged in revert war with 154.20.161.143 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) with a total of 6 reverts over two days (including 4 reverts within 24 hours) on Paranthropus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) within 24 hours labelling the revers as vandalism. However, the anon editor was trying to discuss this matter on the talk page, and in a very civil way. The dispute was over the accuracy of the article and the reliability of the article sources. The anon user reported the UtherSRG to WP:AN/3RR where he was himself blocked by User:Winhunter for 3RR violation and UtherSRG was left without as much as a note on his talk page.

I came into this incident when 154.20.161.143 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) put up an unblock request describing the matter. I found his 3RR report, reviewed it, and not realising that User:UtherSRG was an administrator, I have blocked him for 24 hours and put a note on his talk page informing him of the block. A couple of seconds later, on the admin channel on IRC, I was informed that I had just blocked an admin. After 10 minutes of discussion on IRC, User:Glen_S decided that because a lot of his reverts were reverting {{unreferenced}} tags on a "referenced" article he could be unblocked.

However, at the beginning of the revert war, there were absolutely 0 references in the article (see the version at the time of the first revert), later on the anon explained his concerns on the talk page, put in an unreferenced tag, and a disputed assertion tag on one of the statements, this again was reverted as vandalism using admin rollback. The admin anon reverted the revert asking for discussion, this was removed again using admin rollback, more links were added by the UtherSRG, the anon expressed futher very legitimate concerns about the reliability of the online sources and about neutrality of the article and put in POV and unreferenced tags but was again reverted multiple times. UtherSRG has made only two small comments on the talk page, not even bothering to address the last detailed statement describing his rationale for each tag - instead of addressing it 4 reverts were made, including 3 admin rollbacks.

I am not happy that an admin was favoured in this case for what clearly looks to me like a revert war NOT vandalism reversion as the edit summaries suggest. And I am not happy that admins can run around using their admin rollbacks in revert wars without decent attempts at discussion. I don't agree with the technicality used to lift the block on UtherSRG, that was pointed out to me on IRC - i.e. that the {{unreferenced}} tags are meant to refer to articles with absolutely 0 references. An anon has no way of knowing all the tags available on wikipedia, otherwise he could have used something more like: {{Primarysources}}, which even I did not know of until just a couple of minutes ago! And in any case these are not the only tags that were reverted. For me it looks like that UtherSRG, who got out of this unscathed, is more at fault than the anon who was blocked for "3RR violation and disruption" while actually trying to discuss the matter and being the one who reported the incident in the first place!

So I would like to know what everyone else thinks on this matter.--Konstable 00:04, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I have found one place where I write "the admin" instead of "the anon" so I went back and replaced the instances where I referred to UtherSRG as "the admin" with his name. Nothing else is changed--Konstable 00:55, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mark any of the reverts as vandalism. I often use the admin rollback as it is very convenient and gives an automatic and very neutral edit summary. My first rollback was followed immediately by an edit where I add a reference, countering the anon's complaint. Etc. If the anon has relevant information to add to the article they should do so instead of complaining at the state of the artcle and slapping tags on it. I didn't add the majority of the information, but I helped clean up the edits of several other, well informed, editors. Perhaps my biggest offense is WP:BITE, where I have little patience for non-productive armchair quarterbacking. The anon showed little interest in editing, only in complaining that the article didn't reflect the POV they felt was more valid. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:54, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:ADMIN and the Guanco, MarkSweep, et al arbitration case says to never use the rollback for any old reason, for only vandalism. Rollback summaries are essentailly blank ones: vandalism is the only self-explanatory reason. Otherwise it should be explained. Hbdragon88 07:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

This I did not know. I do not (and can not) keep up to date on all of the Wiki rules and policies. There are way too many and they change way too frequently to keep current on. Taht said, the edit summary of the rollback must be changed to indicate it is reverting vandalism if, indeed, that is the current policy. Until the edit summary matches the policy and is changed from its neutral wording to one that states it is revertin vandalism, then the policy is flawed and should be disregarded as it doesn't match the effect of the software. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

So UtherSRG was unnblocked because he technically didn't break the 3RR since he only reverted the {{POV}} tag twice, and removed the {{unreferenced}} tag. But if that is so, then I technically did not break 3RR either. How can I be at fault but not him?

I was not aware that adding external links was considered citing sources. On the Paranthropus talk page I explained why I had added the unreferenced tag. If it is true that external links are considered references, that could have been explained to me on the talk page and I would not have re-added the same tag.

"If the anon has relevant information to add to the article they should do so instead of complaining at the state of the artcle and slapping tags on it. I didn't add the majority of the information, but I helped clean up the edits of several other, well informed, editors. Perhaps my biggest offense is WP:BITE, where I have little patience for non-productive armchair quarterbacking. The anon showed little interest in editing, only in complaining that the article didn't reflect the POV they felt was more valid. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:54, 16 September 2006"

I find this statement offensive and erroneous. In the Parathropus talk page I clearly said: "There is no consensus in the scientific community that the species A. aethiopicus, A. boisei and A. robustus belong in the genus Paranthropus. They are commonly referred to as A. aethiopicus, A. boisei and A. robustus in current peer reviewed articles and books. To provide a neutral viewpoint, both models of classification systems should be described in detail. For these reasons I have added a disputed tag. Please do not remove until article is updated to be NPOV." and "What I am suggesting is that BOTH models of classification systems are mentioned and described in detail. For these reasons, I have added a POV tag. Please do not remove the tag until both classification systems are given the equal attention which they deserve" I was not trying to promote my own POV as I do not have an opinion on which genus the three species belong to. All I was attempting to do by adding the tags was trying to bring attention to the false statement that there is a consensus on that subject in the scientific community. I even provided references on the talk page to show that it was not my personal point of view, but that of textbooks. There are many different ways to contribute to wikipedia, just because I don't make major changes to the article does not mean my edits should be discounted. IMO, alerting others that an article is POV is productive editing (if not, why even have the tags). I would also like to note I tried to continue the discussion on the talk page with UtherSRG, but he responded by saying "(rv I tked, we disagreed, i have nothing left to say.)" which I found to be very discourteous. 154.20.161.143 03:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Could you state the case briefly? If the point is that someone who has a sysop bit was given false favor in an edit warring situation, then this is a serious matter. Nobody should edit war. Admins especially should not edit war. --Tony Sidaway 03:41, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Very brief summary edit war on Paranthropus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) between anon 154.20.161.143 and admin UtherSRG. On anon's report to WP:AN/3RR the anon was blocked, UtherSRG was not blocked. I blocked UtherSRG when responding to anon's unblock request,without realising he was an admin, after IRC discussion someone else unblocked him on what seems to be a technicality over tag definitions to me. Either way, even 3RR was technically not violated, they were both revert warring.--Konstable

I don't understand what you mean here or what Glen S means in the unblock summary. I count 5 reverts by UtherSRG within 24 hours. It makes no difference that both were revert warring or that he was removing a reference tag on an ostensibly referenced article. —Centrx→talk • 05:08, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Well the {{unreferenced}} tag does say that the article cites no sources, since the article has no sources putting in this tag is techincally wrong, that is what User:Glen S had meant at least. Though I don't really see this as a valid excuse for reverting.--Konstable 08:35, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Remove Template:Afd2 whitespace

As I'm not trusted with admin tools, could someone go and remove the excess whitespace at Template:Afd2. It's because it has now been edited with a hidden comment warning, telling users to be more considerate to outside users to stop people mailing WP:OTRS and complaining. I'm not too happy that there's any message there at all as I mentioned in the talk page, but before anything is done about the message, please remove the whitespace. - Hahnchen 00:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted the commented warning for now, because, as I said in my edit summary, this is a template which people subst without ever reading the full text contained in the template. And, frankly I couldn't care less if spammers are whining about their spam being deleted. That I didn't say in the edit summary. I suggest further discussion is taken to Template talk:Afd2. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that such a warning should be manually inserted in situations where civility actually becomes a problem. The majority of AFD pages consist of drive-by, pile-on "votes" in one direction or another with very little accompanying commentary. However a few of them actually evolve into meaningful, or possibly inflammatory, discussion, and may require a warning shot across the bow. Perhaps as an ironic counterpoint to {{afd-anons}}, we need a {{afd-regulars}} template. Thoughts? —freak(talk) 21:19, Sep. 17, 2006 (UTC)

Request for Unblock

I take my rejection straight to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony Sidaway_4 on this so called "community ban." Since it is through the community users rather than the formal committee i feel that RFC is sufficient rather than Arb-comm. Please let me come back Le Wiki Brah 06:19, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Le Wiki Brah. Perhaps it would be a better idea to speak to Tony Sidaway first as opposed to filing an RfC? -- Samir धर्म 12:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Silly me, I didn't see the thread above -- Samir धर्म 12:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Code bug

Sigh hope I'm in the right place. Bug in the page code for the entry on DDT. Box content on right-hand side not able to appear.

• I'm afraid this is the wrong place. Try WP:HD. = Mgm|^(talk) 11:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Shanghai bus deleted by mistake

While editing Shanghai Bus, the server went down. Now the text is deleted, and I can't get it back no matter how many times I try to paste my edit in. It's blank. I don't want to be named a vandal. --Outlook

It's fixed; don't worry. Take a look at the five bullet points at the top of Help:Reverting to learn how to do this yourself in the future. Happy editing. ~ PseudoSudo 13:19, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Politics of Israel

This article is blank. Somebody has vandalized it. I don't know if that's proper place to put such an information, but I don't know where else do it. 83.238.15.162 06:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Next time you can fix it yourself by going back into the page history, editing the last good version, and saving it. That overwrites the vandalised copy. Regards, Ben Aveling 06:59, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

NOTE: Please note that IP 65.105.179.195 appears to be on a blanking-vandalizing spree on Israel subjects, and needs to be blocked immediately. --Janke | Talk 07:01, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

• Seems to have stopped vandalising yesterday. -Mgm|^(talk) 07:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Influx of users using personal experience over verifiable sources

Apparently, User:Lentower has invited his friends (at least six of them) to oppose the deletion of his self-bio, filed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leonard H. Tower Jr.. Most of them have only a single contribution, which is to that AfD (which Lentower created and contributed to). At least one, Special:Contributions/Gonzopancho, has now started to contribute to other articles, with a tendency to refer to his own experience rather than verifiable sources. I'm busy, can someone keep an eye on these users? Thanks. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:52, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I not that User:Gonzopancho gave a reasonable reference for the change, from the subject's own website no less, and a credible reason why the original date was wrong. Guy 13:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Subjects' own websites are generally not considered reliable sources. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

That is not always true. It really depends on who the subject is and what is being referenced. 172.190.124.131 19:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Subjects' own websotes are generally reliable sources for facts regarding the subject (e.g. you can cite a company website for numbers of employees, or a person's website for their date of birth). I can't say I've formed a firm view on this particular edit, but it looks OK on the surface. Guy 22:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee has ruled in the past that it's inappropriate for users to add links to their own websites. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 23:06, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's as simple as "never add a link to your own Web site". Doing so is a bad idea upwards of 90% of the time, sure, but I don't think there's a hard and fast rule against it and it sounds like this might reasonably fall into the other <10%. PurplePlatypus 07:29, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppet of banned user: Please block

User:Pnatt's latest sockpuppet, User:Hockeypuck, has been vandalizing MySpace with a Pnatt-like motive and results. He also appears to be talking to himself on the talk page, but that is not necessarily true. -- Chris chat edits essays 14:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Blocked. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

User:LordByronKing

I have indefinitely blocked LordByronKing (talk · contribs) for repeatedly inserting his name and nn books into articles all over Wikipedia. He has yet to respond to any messages on his Talk page. I have indicated that I will entertain an unblock request if he pledges to stop the spamming. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:17, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Temporary injunction in the Kosovo arbitration case

For the duration of this case, any of the named parties may be banned, by an uninvolved administrator, from Kosovo or related pages for disruptive edits.

Affected users are listed in the case, and have all been notified. The affected articles (and two templates) have all been labelled with appropriate notices.

For the Arbitration Committee. --Tony Sidaway 18:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

DreamGuy Accused of violating sock protocol

What is going on ? I was visiting with DreamGuy when I found the WP:SOCK matter. Anything to this matter ?Martial Law 18:59, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

According to this checkuser request, Essjay found it likely that Victrix is a sockpuppet of DreamGuy. Both disappeared in the next few days; DG has only made a few edits.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Just got home from the pub so excuse my bad grammar. This has been discussed before. Nothing much more to add bar the info above but the evidence is overwhelming. Both had similar edit times, had similar edit summaries, edited the same articles and the account was used to voilate the 3RR rule, e.g. Victrix would rv 3 times then DG would step in and vise versa. Englishrose 23:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Pistonheads

Loads of vandalism in the last hour, a second ip is just starting to get to work. Needs sprotecting really. Probably at least half my fault because I posted on the message boards at the site saying that we really needed to get a decent page up that was proportionate to the size of the site. Current vandalistic users on wikipedia are banned from the site too. Dave 23:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protected, hopefully in a reasonably non-vandalised state. The article does need some serious work though. Gwernol 00:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Favouring admins involved in 3RR violations?

I was going to drop this matter, but I am still uneasy about it and decided to interrupt my wikibreak to get at least get some community comments on the matter. User:UtherSRG, an admin has recently engaged in revert war with 154.20.161.143 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) with a total of 6 reverts over two days (including 4 reverts within 24 hours) on Paranthropus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) within 24 hours labelling the revers as vandalism. However, the anon editor was trying to discuss this matter on the talk page, and in a very civil way. The dispute was over the accuracy of the article and the reliability of the article sources. The anon user reported the UtherSRG to WP:AN/3RR where he was himself blocked by User:Winhunter for 3RR violation and UtherSRG was left without as much as a note on his talk page.

I came into this incident when 154.20.161.143 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) put up an unblock request describing the matter. I found his 3RR report, reviewed it, and not realising that User:UtherSRG was an administrator, I have blocked him for 24 hours and put a note on his talk page informing him of the block. A couple of seconds later, on the admin channel on IRC, I was informed that I had just blocked an admin. After 10 minutes of discussion on IRC, User:Glen_S decided that because a lot of his reverts were reverting {{unreferenced}} tags on a "referenced" article he could be unblocked.

However, at the beginning of the revert war, there were absolutely 0 references in the article (see the version at the time of the first revert), later on the anon explained his concerns on the talk page, put in an unreferenced tag, and a disputed assertion tag on one of the statements, this again was reverted as vandalism using admin rollback. The admin anon reverted the revert asking for discussion, this was removed again using admin rollback, more links were added by the UtherSRG, the anon expressed futher very legitimate concerns about the reliability of the online sources and about neutrality of the article and put in POV and unreferenced tags but was again reverted multiple times. UtherSRG has made only two small comments on the talk page, not even bothering to address the last detailed statement describing his rationale for each tag - instead of addressing it 4 reverts were made, including 3 admin rollbacks.

I am not happy that an admin was favoured in this case for what clearly looks to me like a revert war NOT vandalism reversion as the edit summaries suggest. And I am not happy that admins can run around using their admin rollbacks in revert wars without decent attempts at discussion. I don't agree with the technicality used to lift the block on UtherSRG, that was pointed out to me on IRC - i.e. that the {{unreferenced}} tags are meant to refer to articles with absolutely 0 references. An anon has no way of knowing all the tags available on wikipedia, otherwise he could have used something more like: {{Primarysources}}, which even I did not know of until just a couple of minutes ago! And in any case these are not the only tags that were reverted. For me it looks like that UtherSRG, who got out of this unscathed, is more at fault than the anon who was blocked for "3RR violation and disruption" while actually trying to discuss the matter and being the one who reported the incident in the first place!

So I would like to know what everyone else thinks on this matter.--Konstable 00:04, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I have found one place where I write "the admin" instead of "the anon" so I went back and replaced the instances where I referred to UtherSRG as "the admin" with his name. Nothing else is changed--Konstable 00:55, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mark any of the reverts as vandalism. I often use the admin rollback as it is very convenient and gives an automatic and very neutral edit summary. My first rollback was followed immediately by an edit where I add a reference, countering the anon's complaint. Etc. If the anon has relevant information to add to the article they should do so instead of complaining at the state of the artcle and slapping tags on it. I didn't add the majority of the information, but I helped clean up the edits of several other, well informed, editors. Perhaps my biggest offense is WP:BITE, where I have little patience for non-productive armchair quarterbacking. The anon showed little interest in editing, only in complaining that the article didn't reflect the POV they felt was more valid. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:54, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:ADMIN and the Guanco, MarkSweep, et al arbitration case says to never use the rollback for any old reason, for only vandalism. Rollback summaries are essentailly blank ones: vandalism is the only self-explanatory reason. Otherwise it should be explained. Hbdragon88 07:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

This I did not know. I do not (and can not) keep up to date on all of the Wiki rules and policies. There are way too many and they change way too frequently to keep current on. Taht said, the edit summary of the rollback must be changed to indicate it is reverting vandalism if, indeed, that is the current policy. Until the edit summary matches the policy and is changed from its neutral wording to one that states it is revertin vandalism, then the policy is flawed and should be disregarded as it doesn't match the effect of the software. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

So UtherSRG was unnblocked because he technically didn't break the 3RR since he only reverted the {{POV}} tag twice, and removed the {{unreferenced}} tag. But if that is so, then I technically did not break 3RR either. How can I be at fault but not him?

I was not aware that adding external links was considered citing sources. On the Paranthropus talk page I explained why I had added the unreferenced tag. If it is true that external links are considered references, that could have been explained to me on the talk page and I would not have re-added the same tag.

"If the anon has relevant information to add to the article they should do so instead of complaining at the state of the artcle and slapping tags on it. I didn't add the majority of the information, but I helped clean up the edits of several other, well informed, editors. Perhaps my biggest offense is WP:BITE, where I have little patience for non-productive armchair quarterbacking. The anon showed little interest in editing, only in complaining that the article didn't reflect the POV they felt was more valid. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:54, 16 September 2006"

I find this statement offensive and erroneous. In the Parathropus talk page I clearly said: "There is no consensus in the scientific community that the species A. aethiopicus, A. boisei and A. robustus belong in the genus Paranthropus. They are commonly referred to as A. aethiopicus, A. boisei and A. robustus in current peer reviewed articles and books. To provide a neutral viewpoint, both models of classification systems should be described in detail. For these reasons I have added a disputed tag. Please do not remove until article is updated to be NPOV." and "What I am suggesting is that BOTH models of classification systems are mentioned and described in detail. For these reasons, I have added a POV tag. Please do not remove the tag until both classification systems are given the equal attention which they deserve" I was not trying to promote my own POV as I do not have an opinion on which genus the three species belong to. All I was attempting to do by adding the tags was trying to bring attention to the false statement that there is a consensus on that subject in the scientific community. I even provided references on the talk page to show that it was not my personal point of view, but that of textbooks. There are many different ways to contribute to wikipedia, just because I don't make major changes to the article does not mean my edits should be discounted. IMO, alerting others that an article is POV is productive editing (if not, why even have the tags). I would also like to note I tried to continue the discussion on the talk page with UtherSRG, but he responded by saying "(rv I tked, we disagreed, i have nothing left to say.)" which I found to be very discourteous. 154.20.161.143 03:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Could you state the case briefly? If the point is that someone who has a sysop bit was given false favor in an edit warring situation, then this is a serious matter. Nobody should edit war. Admins especially should not edit war. --Tony Sidaway 03:41, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Very brief summary edit war on Paranthropus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) between anon 154.20.161.143 and admin UtherSRG. On anon's report to WP:AN/3RR the anon was blocked, UtherSRG was not blocked. I blocked UtherSRG when responding to anon's unblock request,without realising he was an admin, after IRC discussion someone else unblocked him on what seems to be a technicality over tag definitions to me. Either way, even 3RR was technically not violated, they were both revert warring.--Konstable

I don't understand what you mean here or what Glen S means in the unblock summary. I count 5 reverts by UtherSRG within 24 hours. It makes no difference that both were revert warring or that he was removing a reference tag on an ostensibly referenced article. —Centrx→talk • 05:08, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Well the {{unreferenced}} tag does say that the article cites no sources, since the article has no sources putting in this tag is techincally wrong, that is what User:Glen S had meant at least. Though I don't really see this as a valid excuse for reverting.--Konstable 08:35, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Remove Template:Afd2 whitespace

As I'm not trusted with admin tools, could someone go and remove the excess whitespace at Template:Afd2. It's because it has now been edited with a hidden comment warning, telling users to be more considerate to outside users to stop people mailing WP:OTRS and complaining. I'm not too happy that there's any message there at all as I mentioned in the talk page, but before anything is done about the message, please remove the whitespace. - Hahnchen 00:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted the commented warning for now, because, as I said in my edit summary, this is a template which people subst without ever reading the full text contained in the template. And, frankly I couldn't care less if spammers are whining about their spam being deleted. That I didn't say in the edit summary. I suggest further discussion is taken to Template talk:Afd2. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that such a warning should be manually inserted in situations where civility actually becomes a problem. The majority of AFD pages consist of drive-by, pile-on "votes" in one direction or another with very little accompanying commentary. However a few of them actually evolve into meaningful, or possibly inflammatory, discussion, and may require a warning shot across the bow. Perhaps as an ironic counterpoint to {{afd-anons}}, we need a {{afd-regulars}} template. Thoughts? —freak(talk) 21:19, Sep. 17, 2006 (UTC)

Deleted Wikipedia Page

if you search for Jeffree Star the page is deleted and i don't realise why this would be so. I'm not that good with the user tools so could someone put the page back on or at least start it up? Thank's :] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.180.137.162 (talk • contribs) .

The page Jeffree Star was deleted because it does not assert the notability of its subject. If he became notable he'll get an article until then this was correctly deleted and won't be recreated. Please read WP:BIO and WP:MUSIC for details on the specific notability guidelines that apply. Thanks, Gwernol 03:41, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a note. The article has been deleted now by 'six' different admins. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:15, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Request for Unblock

I take my rejection straight to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony Sidaway_4 on this so called "community ban." Since it is through the community users rather than the formal committee i feel that RFC is sufficient rather than Arb-comm. Please let me come back Le Wiki Brah 06:19, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Le Wiki Brah. Perhaps it would be a better idea to speak to Tony Sidaway first as opposed to filing an RfC? -- Samir धर्म 12:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Silly me, I didn't see the thread above -- Samir धर्म 12:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Code bug

Sigh hope I'm in the right place. Bug in the page code for the entry on DDT. Box content on right-hand side not able to appear.

• I'm afraid this is the wrong place. Try WP:HD. = Mgm|^(talk) 11:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Shanghai bus deleted by mistake

While editing Shanghai Bus, the server went down. Now the text is deleted, and I can't get it back no matter how many times I try to paste my edit in. It's blank. I don't want to be named a vandal. --Outlook

It's fixed; don't worry. Take a look at the five bullet points at the top of Help:Reverting to learn how to do this yourself in the future. Happy editing. ~ PseudoSudo 13:19, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Mccready is issued a 30 day community ban from editing all articles related to Pseudoscience

Based on this discussion on AN/I [3] and the numerous comments on Mccready's talk page, Mccready (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is issued a 30 day community ban from editing all articles related to the Pseudoscience. Mccready is encouraged to discuss his ideas on the talk pages of these articles. The the suggested sanction for disregarding the article ban is a 24 hour block with the block time adjusted up or down according to Mccready's response. Admins are encouraged to monitor the ongoing effectiveness of this article topic ban and make appropriate adjustments if needed. FloNight 22:03, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

• Hm, interesting. There was a discussion about community probation last week (i.e. deciding that a user should stay away from certain articles, as opposed to a community ban which decides a user must stay away from the entire 'pedia). Based on the response there, it sounds like a good idea to give this a shot. Based on the heavy mailflow on the Admin Noticeboard, I figured it might be a good idea to log all current probations on a single page (but please keep all related discussion on this page). I've created a log at Wikipedia:Community probation with some deliberately vague language at the top (feel free to edit) because I'm quite sure we don't need a formal legislative process for this. >Radiant< 22:48, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Logged here. [4] --FloNight 23:29, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, good idea. FeloniousMonk 05:23, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Redirecting sites

Please redirect U-Pass to Universal Transit Pass as [[U-Pass] applies only to Vancouver area whereas the other one is in a broder sense in being Canadian.

--Cahk 07:38, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

• Followed up on user's talk page. Herostratus 07:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Huh?

What the hell? Protoss Archon 15:45, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Same as #G.I. Joe character list DELETED without cause. It was a valid list. A null edit did the trick. Conscious 15:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/St Christopher

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above. ParalelUni's community ban is endorsed. Any of the single-purpose accounts mentioned identified in the case, or any other accounts or IPs an administrator deems to be an account used solely for the editing of St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine or related pages, may be banned from that article or related pages for disruptive edits.

For the Arbitration Committee. FloNight 17:31, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Lollywood Block review

I have blocked Lollywood (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) indefinitely as he has continued to insert copyrighted text into various articles despite warnings. This includes Undivided India [5], Durand line [6], Pashtunistan [7], Pakhtunkhwa [8] etc.

I should note that the same user has in the past edited from the ip block 82.159.*.* as evidenced by exactly same copypasting in these articles ([9], [10] etc.) and was warned/blocked several times in the last 2 months. --Ragib 18:08, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Added: Further evidence of vandalism/disruptions include [11], [12], [13], [14] and so on. --Ragib 18:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I support Ragib's actions.Bakaman _Bakatalk 19:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kehrli

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above. Kehrli is banned for one year from articles which relate to m/z. Kehrli is prohibited for two years from changing the notation m/z, wherever found, to any other notation. Should Kehrli violate any ban placed on him by this decision or engage in substitution of notation, he may be blocked for an appropriate time. All blocks are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kehrli#Log of blocks and bans.

For the Arbitration Committee. FloNight 18:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Remove loong talk diatribes per SOAP?

Is it ok to revert long diatribes on talk pages per WP:SOAP? Andrew Cuomo has been protected due to large additions of POV text, and now its moved to the talk page, with no real attempt to construct proper content for inclusion. Can the most recent cut/paste be removed? [15]. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 19:13, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

If it's not copyvio I would say the best idea is to archive it. —Nate Scheffey 19:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Didn't think of the copyvio issue. As it stands, the diff above is a large cut/paste from the newspaper article (but it cited as such). --ZimZalaBim (talk) 19:31, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Some input to List of African-American writers

I'm going to assume good faith and not revert, but this edit (actually a series of small edits) added lots of red links to the List of African-American writers page. Can anybody determine if these people are notable writers? User:Zoe|(talk) 19:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Well the first three are legitimate authors, and IMO they meet the notability criteria. However, the article is a List of African-American writers, and there doesn't seem to be a notability threshold for inclusion. I didn't read up enough to figure out if they are actually African-American, which is an issue and should be verified. But what's the existing standard of verifiability on the article? Have all the 'blue-linked' authors been verified as A-A? If the issue is the red-links, IMO the discussion should wait until actual articles are written about them, whereupon it can be decided whether or not they are notable enough to warrant them. Anchoress 21:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) From what I can tell they appear to be notable writers, although I haven't checked every one. Should serve as a good guideline for creating some new articles in an area Wikipedia is short on. —Nate Scheffey 21:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the input from both of you. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Request for Unblock

User:Agquarx has requested to be unblocked after being indefinitely blocked in July 2006. I wanted to post here to try to gain some community consensus as to whether or not Wikipedia would benefit from giving this user another chance. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 21:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Looking at a random selection, all this user's "contributions" to Wikipedia seem to have been torrential outpourings of utter nonsense - this looks to be typical. No unblocking, please. --ajn (talk) 21:14, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The unblock request was recently reviewed and denied by Centrx. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 21:17, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Um, that's just ... bizarre. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I didn't use the "unblock reviewed" template so the user was still listed at CAT:RFU and Centrx must have been working there and missed my comment on the user's talk page mentioning this thread and made the decision to deny the request. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 22:03, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I just erupted in laughter after reading that. Yeah, the indefinite block is completely warranted. I wonder if this overdescribing of everything couldn't be caused by some mental disorder, though. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I also went through this user's contributions, and I think ajn's assessment is spot-on. In fact, I'm not sure I could find a single diff which cannot be characterized as a "torrential outpouring of utter nonsense". For example, woah. Perhaps I've missed some, but can anyone point me to good edits by this user? --- Deville (Talk) 22:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Not rely, I remember running into him a while back when he made a royal mess of the Love (disambiguation) page with one of his philosophical rants and a page move. I've never seen anyone capable of writing so much nonsense and still somehow stay on topic on some level, almost a Malkavian quality to his "work". A usefull contributer his is not thogh, he would write lengthy rants on his talk page defending his works when people called him on his vandalism. --Sherool (talk) 22:49, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

He was indefinitely blocked for making death threats, and didn't consider that he might need to apologise for them before an unblock request would be taken seriously, instead trying to claim that "There is only one way to deal with bullies - a gun. If you are collecting my articles, you must to be shot to save humanity, per your own definition - a Darwin Award" [16] is a "figure of speech". Should we unblock? Hell no. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:46, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Warren Kinsella

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above. Arthur Ellis is banned indefinitely from Warren Kinsella and articles which relate to Canadian politics and its blogosphere. Any article which mentions Warren Kinsella is considered a related article for the purposes of this remedy. This includes all talk pages other than the talk page of Mark Bourrie. Arthur Ellis is required to use one registered account. For the Arbitration Committee. FloNight 03:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Phishing from wiki@wikimedia.org ?

I received this strange e-mail:

Someone (probably you, from IP address 24.121.44.189) requested that
we send you a new Wikipedia login password for en.wikipedia.org. 
The password for user "Janke" is now "XXXXXX". You should log in 
and change your password now. If someone else made this request 
or if you have remembered your password and you no longer wish to 
change it, you may ignore this message and continue using your old password.

What's going on here? The IP above is not even close to mine! Is someone else trying to get my logon password? Greetings, --Janke | Talk 06:32, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It's someone else asking for a password reminder, it sends that to your registered and confirmed email address, as the message you got says "If someone else made this request ... you may ignore this message and continue using your old password". As to the other persons motivation, as an IP that user only has one edit[17] so I can see no obvious connection. Beyond that it's guessing, could be someone thinking they could get your password (though that seems unlikely), could be someone who can't remember their own account details etc. --pgk 06:51, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Only one edit, yes, but probably from an anon IP that is changing with each access (such as AOL)? That edit was certainly not a newbie edit... --Janke | Talk 06:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

For a brute force attack, requesting a new password increases the size of your target, because there are now two passwords that will work. However, I tend to ignore such emails - six random numbers and letters are fairly hard to crack (2 billion variants). I suspect there are admins here who receive several of these every week, especially those with accounts on several Wikimedia projects. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:11, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the clarification. I'm a little wiser now... ;-) --Janke | Talk 12:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I've already had a few of these. I don't know what the wiki source code is like, but depending upon how these random passwords are generated there may well be a vulnerability here that someone is trying to exploit - I can certainly think of some hypotheticals. Dave 00:06, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

The most probable explanation is that the person attempted to register an account with your name. This failing, they supposed that they might have already created it, and had a reminder mail sent. When this didn't work they gave up. Deco 02:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

POssibly, but several of us had at least half a dozen of these a while back all generated by the same IP address - clearly up to mischief. Alas I don't remember the IP, but I blocked it. --kingboyk 21:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Macedonia, yet again...

At Template_talk:EU_countries_and_candidates#Regarding_.7B.7BMKD.7D.7D, Niko Silver refuses to acknowledge that the neutral form in use on Wikipedia is "Republic of Macedonia", even in articles on or related to the European Union. Or am I wrong? —Nightstallion (?) 10:24, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I dunno - the Hutchinson Encyclopedia says that "Republic of Macedonia" is the "official internal name" and that "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" is the "official international name". --Telex 10:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

• If it's worth anything. They're referred to as FYR Macedonia in Eurovision song contests. But I don't see why either would be more neutral than the other. Removing Yugoslavia from the name may come across as hiding info that is significantly important. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

As far as I was aware, RoM would prefer "Macedonia", Greece would prefer "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", and most Wikipedia pages use "Republic of Macedonia" as a neutral compromise. The question is whether this should apply to all pages, or only to some; by Niko Silver's arguments, Republic of Macedonia should be at Macedona (country), however... ;p —Nightstallion (?) 14:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Ummm, no. That is not the case. Greece would prefer "Republic of Skopje" or "Slavomacedonia" or "Vardar Macedonia". The country itself would prefer "Republic of Macedonia". The compromise solution in the UN was Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. So, this is not Greek POV, it is int'l POV, as described in featured article Macedonia (terminology). EU calls that country FYROM, and the country itself addresses officially the EU as FYROM. Not as RoM (and definitely not as "Slavomacedonia"). Interested parties kindly contribute to this discussion in the template talk. •NikoSilver• 10:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe 10 years ago. - FrancisTyers · 02:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Block to review

I have blocked User:133.41.4.46 for the 3RR violation on Holodomor - 5 reverts in two hours, user was warned. Posting here since I was involved in the disputeabakharev 11:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Generally speaking, don't block users you're in a dispute with. If they need a block, get another admin involved. — Werdna talk criticism 11:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Werdna on this matter; I also agree with the need for the 3RR block. I would recommend allowing the block to stand, but definitely don't do it again. Captainktainer * Talk 12:12, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

User:133.41.4.46 made an edit to add Category:Genocide to the article Holodomor. The following edits were all concerned with adding and removing this category. There were 5 reverts to delete it. He only made 4 reverts to reinstate it (the first of his 5 edits was not a revert). His first edit was at 10.28. The first and second reverts against him were at 10.32 and 10.36 by User:Irpen. The third was at 10.43 by User: Alex Bakharev. The fourth at 11.47 10.47 by Irpen (his 3rd revert) and the fifth by Alex Bakharev (his 2nd revert) at 11.16.

This was an edit war which all three users engaged in. As it was two editors acting against one, 133.41.4.46 would inevitably fall foul of 3RR first. It does not speak well of any of the editors involved, particularly an admin, especially when the latter blocked his opponent and made his preferred edit 2 minutes later.

133.41.4.46 made his 3rd rv at 10.46 and was warned for 3RR a minute later. However, at 10.43 the 3rd rv had actually been made against him (Bakharev's 1st rv, following 2 by Irpen).

At 10.57, 133.41.4.46 had left a justification for his edit on Bakharev's talk page.[18] There was no response to this and at 11.07, Irpen made his 3rd rv and the 4th in total against 133.41.4.46., who rv 3 minutes later and was blocked. Then Bakharev made his 2nd rv and the 5th in total against 133.41.4.46.

The net effect is that an editing decision has been achieved by force rather than argument, and that an adroit use of the rules has been employed to achieve this. It is not in wiki's interest to tolerate such practice. Two users acting in concert have been as guilty in spirit, if not the strict letter of the law, as the single user.

I commend Bhakarev for bringing this to AN, but he cannot expect to receive a "get out of jail free" card for doing so. I propose that all three editors involved need to back off and cool down, and if Bhakarev considers that a block is needed to do this, then he and Irpen should also receive one; or he may decide that the block on 133.41.4.46 was unjustified in the circumstances and remove it, in order to respond to continue the dialogue which 133.41.4.46 initiated on his talk page. and which he has so far ignored. See clarification below

Tyrenius 14:27, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Clarification: 133.41.4.46 made the post initiating dialogue at 10.57. 133.41.4.46's final edit was at 11.10. Bhakarev responded to 133.41.4.46's post at 11.12 and then immediately blocked 133.41.4.46 at 11.14 (at which time Irpen also responded to the post).

Tyrenius 17:08, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

This situation needs some more responses to it. Tyrenius 21:45, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

The edits to Holodomor were repeats of the edits of User:Alex Kov (see e.g. this dif) so all the five edits are reverts. The edit were intensively discussed by Irpen on Alex Kov's talk page User_talk:Alex_Kov#Rurikid_image_and_Holodomor and User_talk:Alex_Kov#Holodomor he did not answer. User:Alex Kov and the anonim are the same person. They not only do the same edits to Holodomor, but also highly unusual edits to Rurikids princes see history of Sviatoslav I of Kiev, Yaroslav I the Wise, Vladimir I of Kiev as well Japanese prefectures. He did not answer Irpen's comments. In any case I warned the user about the 3RR rule but he choose to ignore it. That is my explanation. If you feel that I should be blocked, please go ahead, but Irpen did not do anything illegal, no violated any policy. abakharev 22:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your offer of being blocked, which shows integrity, though it is not something which I will do unilaterally. I wondered if something of what you said was occurring, but, assuming that it is true, a different approach is preferable. You are stating that a user is employing socks abusively, and the tack should be to resolve that situation. The anon has been editing as such for some time. Two against one, as in the current situation, always looks bad, especially when one is a blocking admin. It doesn't help our reputation for fairness. Tyrenius 23:07, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

BTW I find the Tyrenius's interpretation of WP:3RR to be extremely unusual. In my opinion the whole point of 3RR is that it is a surrogate of polling: if three editors prefer one version and two prefer another than the most popular opinion wins. So do not worry if you are right somebody else will restore your version. Now, if the interpretation is that you are not allowed to revert if somebody did two similar reverts before you then the effect on the editing process is quite dramatic. I am not sure how Wiki is suppose to work if everybody is allowed to revert against the consensus and the consensus is not allowed to revert back. abakharev 03:13, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, it is a completely nonsensical interpretation of 3RR. 3RR applies to individual editors, not groups of editors. If one were to rule according to Tyrenius's view, it would mean that one editor could hold an article hostage against the will of any number of other editors, and we would have a "1RR rule", not a "3RR rule". Rather, if one individual is reverted by three other editors, that is not a sign that they have all violated 3RR, but rather a sign of consensus against that first editor's view. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:47, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd disagree with you there. The 3RR exists to encourage that people stop reverting, and actually take the issue to the talk page. Those reverting changes which are not vandalism should include "discuss on talk page" in their edit summaries. The 3RR rule can only be broken by a group when enforcing recient agreed consensus. Edit summaries do not provide enough space to include reasoning, preventing most forms of informed consensus being reached without having to use the talk page. If groups could act to ignore the 3RR, meatpuppetry and gang actions would become the prefered means to edit. LinaMishima 03:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

3RR in no way applies to groups, and never has. Groups who agree on something are not a "gang", or "meatpuppets", but rather "consensus". Jayjg ^(talk) 03:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with JayJG, at some stage I thought I have gone mad. Besides the talk page to the article and its archives are plastered with the discussion if the Holodomor was a genocide and how to better formulate the facts. The latest section Talk:Holodomor#Genocide_once_more is specifically about the category. There was also a discussion on the User Talk:Alex Kov page that belong to the blocked user. Really the Category:Democides is a result of long arguments and is a compromise abakharev 04:09, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree as well. 3RR does not apply to "groups", but to individual editors. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:12, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg, consider a fairly common case wereby a group of editors wish to refuse to follow policy. In cases like this, their acts are simply not consensus. Wikipedia uses informed consensus, based on an understanding of policy, guidelines, good practice and so on. One does not create informed consensus through the brute pushing of a viewpoint (about all that's practical in the edit summary length), but through detailed discussion and evaluation. If 3RR represented a consensus, this would send the message that ignoring the concept of informed consensus is perfectly acceptable. 3RR must apply to groups also to stop group edit wars, another common occurance wereby the editors of an article all take sides, and there are enough of them to prevent 3RR from being noticably reached. If a consensus has formed on the talk page, the best approach is for the first reverter to state "See the talk page". If the original editor cannot find the entry, they then may leave a summary of "could not find the section". The next revert should then either point out the most recient clear consensus, or state "Let's dicuss this". It seems to me in this case that the group reverting was justified, but they allowed an edit summary argument to occur rather than continuing to attempt to drag the matter onto the talk page LinaMishima 04:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

3RR appling to "groups", not just individuals? No. Never has, and never will. Talk about "policy creep." Lina, you've been contributing to the project now, what, like two months? You may want to consider spending a little more time contributing to articles and getting to better understand policy and convention here before lecturing us on how policy is applied. Especially to arbcom members. FeloniousMonk 05:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I note that you choose to use the age of my account as an argument, rather than actually debating the subject via reason. WP:BITE probably applies here. If you check through my edits, you'll see I am contributing quite nicely, and the situations I am refering to are occuring in articles I am editing. The literal interpretation behind the 3RR rule does not apply to groups, no. But the spirit of the rule is to prevent edit wars, which often may not consist of only two users, or one user verses 'the rest'. LinaMishima 05:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This is not a case of BITE, rather, this is a case of experience mattering. FM clearly stated that you might want to spend time "getting to better understand policy and convention here" - a gentle reminder that perhaps you simply don't understand the policy well, not a bite. KillerChihuahua^?!? 08:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

She understands it perfectly: "the spirit of the rule is to prevent edit wars." Tyrenius 00:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

More so to prevent single editors from edit warring against consensus. When there are many editors in two groups edit warring protection is in order. If a single user disagrees with the general consensus it is that users job to either convince the other editors (or if that fails) get an outside mediator or opinion to step in. 3RR simply has no bearing on groups of editors. JoshuaZ 20:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I just came online and found out this amazing thread from the note left by Tyrenius at my talk. If he had some questions on the issue, he could have asked for details if he is too busy to spend a little time to clear this up from the edit histories on his own. I would have happily answered all his questions and so would Alex, who found himself bizzardly accused in Admin abuse.

Here is the situation. Anon IP 133.41.4.46 (talk · contribs), who is also User:133.41.4.47 which both are also Alex Kov (talk · contribs) who chooses to edit without logging in switching between these two IPs and in all likelihood also Oleksiy (talk · contribs) appears to be a non-responding sterile revert warrior. He has his views. That's fine of course. What's not fine is that he resorts to abusive methods to force his POV into the articles, such as switching between IPs and usernames, not responding to attempts to talk, to calls to register and/or edit from an account, and when he finally said something, he just made a bunch of curt statements that defy days and days of talk discussions.

His entire edit history to this day consisted from:

• removing multiple times a well referenced piece from History of Cossacks article
• sterile revert warring in several articles trying to insert the WP:OR images he drew in defiance of historical research (see his images). Involved articles include Sviatoslav I of Kiev , Yaroslav I the Wise , Rurik Dynasty and Vladimir I of Kiev (in the latter he was also removing a photo from a historical monument as well as the dab on top
• Finally, on the very same day something got to him to start a sterile rv war aimed at adding cat:Genocide to Holodomor. The latter issue has been discussed at talk:Holodomor to death and the current version reflects the outcome of that discussion that the article should reflect that some researchers consider it a Genocide but such a view is not as generally accepted as e. g. for the Holocaust. I am well involved on that article and I wrote much for it. I participated in lengths of discussions at the talk. I am intimately familiar with the state of the art in the research of the issue. The anon/sock was first reverting in silence and after multiple calls at several talk pages to talk, he defiantly stated that some laws exist that claim that Holodomor was indeed a Genocide. I pointed to him that no law can say such a thing. The law he probably means is the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Convention provides only a definition and does not list any specific cases. As such, it is up to scholars to agree or disagree on whether the definition fits a specific case. The scholarly debate is still unresolved as presented in the article. He did not respond and resorted to sterile reverting despite being warned multiple times.

When finally Alex Bakharev blocked the editor who did nothing but disruption we get these strange "reviews", like the 14:27, 16 September 2006 (UTC) post by Tyrenius. More can be seen at anon's talks and User talk:Alex Bakharev#Holodomor. The statement that "The net effect is that an editing decision has been achieved by force rather than argument," is plain incorrect. The article was simply restored to pre POV-push attempt that it reached through prolonged discussion and search by multiple editors. The "..don't be reckless" clause at WP:BB is there for a very good reason. I thoroughly agree with statements above that revert wars are harmful and useless and discussion should be always preferred but with certain editors it is imnpossible to discuss things. Editors who refuse to talk, ignore calls to read past discussions, refuse to use registered accounts and instead use multiple IPs to circumvent 3RR by such activity exhaust the WP:AGF guideline and need to be tought to become responsive if they can't be talked into that. If Tyrenius or anyone else has more questions on the matter, I am looking forward to hear from him. --Irpen 07:07, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I spent some time analysing not only the edits, but also the article talk page. Each situation has to be judged on its own merits. I am not suggesting a rigid rule that should be imposed everywhere. I am assessing whether this situation was conducted properly, and I find there are aspects which don't meet the standard we should aim for. Accusations of sockpuppetry are being made now: those things should have been addressed initially, not afterwards here, when the editor is not even able to participate. 3RR is never an excuse to get away with reverting 3 times: it is a barrier to reverting any more than three times. The spirit of this is that there should not be mindless edit wars.

I am concerned that there was not dialogue, and that, even though the anon tried to initiate it,[19] it was only responded to 2 minutes before he was then blocked. That is not something to be encouraged. The editors opposing him were relying on being able to escape the strict 3RR by having more reverts at their disposal. This is not in accord with the aim of the 3RR rule. That rule operates when there is a consensus to stop a rogue editor, but two editors is hardly a consensus. I don't find that this short but intense session of reverts over a single category in this way reflects well on any of the participants, especially when it is finally resolved by one of the involved editors blocking his opponent.

Irpen's basis of argument is also questionable, as he has decided that the term "genocide" can only be agreed if scholars are united in its application, and that its use by governments is invalid. This, to say the least, is not definitive, but is now seen as the arbiter of consensus over the issue in this article.

Some of the arguments above have descended to ad hominem (and pro hominem). That is not the sign of a good argument. Let us address the points on their merit, not on who made them.

Tyrenius 11:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Tyrenius, with all due respect, it is not up to one individual to judge what is or not "in accord with the aim of the 3RR rule." The dialogue on that was established ages ago on the talk page, so if a rogue editor omits to read the dialogue, it's just about his problem.

And btw, the editor in question probably created socks to avoid the block, making his behaviour even more questionable. The issue was debated and is explained quite well in the "Was holodomor genocide?" section of the article. Being rogue does not prevent one from reading the damzor thing.

Consequently, I would rather not push things further and not run against a respectable and well-established policy.

Personally I endorse Alex's block fully. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 23:03, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not disputing the block, so that is irrelevant. Nor am I challenging the policy: WP:3RR makes it clear that there is no licence to neatly nip up to 3RR and be in the clear. If there is edit warring it is blockable with less reverts. The policy is the spirit of that, and not the letter of the law. I've made my points above, but if there is no consensus that they are of concern, then I'll leave it. Tyrenius 00:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The whole purpose of 3rr is to let tempers cool down when a conflict between two people gets too heated. It is obvious to me that if others revert a particular user, we are dealing with an entirely different situation. Sometimes this happens with very obvious cases of vandalism or trolling. Sometimes it happens in more complicated situations. But no matter what, when it happens it is not because one person has lost his or her cool. Multiple people reverting a user is an example of the community at work.

Let's really look at this proposal to see how absurd it is. What is being suggested is this: once a person has been reverted three times, they are immune from being reverted. is this really the situation we want here? I do not think so.Slrubenstein | Talk 10:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

What is being suggested is that 1RR is optimal followed by other solutions. This should involve discussion if the involved editors are in good faith. If there is a deliberate violation of consensus, then they can be warned for abusive behaviour and sanctioned if they persist. If thre is a sockpupper, then they can be blocked as such. I hope you find these suggestions less absurd. Tyrenius 20:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Tirenius, I find your suggestions not just non-absurd, but excellent. The problem isn't that what you say is wrong. It isn't! However, you are making a set of entirely correct statements but the problem is that they are not applicable to the particular case. 1RR is optimal, true. Non-reverting is even better. Discussing at talk between many editors with different views who are all acting in good faith in search of consensus is an ideal solution for an ideal world. This solution could not be applied in this case because the situation is different. The rogue user resorted to a series of sterile reverts using anon ip accounts. He repeatedly defied all attempts to engage him into any meaningful discussions. He was asked to log in which he also refused to do. Finally, he supplied his final revert with a frivolous statement that cannot be interpreted as a "discussion" but makes it clear that he either did not read the talk page where it was discussed or choose to simply disregard everything said there.

Socks are to be blocked in their own right. Users who resort to sterile reverts, then are asked to discuss, refuse to do so and persist with reverting are not proper candidates to have discussions with. In such case, there is nothing else to do but revert the user. That many users do so proves the consensus or at least violation of WP:BB "...but don't be reckless" clause. 3RR is by no means an entitlement. It is a guideline based on the principle that edit warring is harmful but discussions are preferable. However, you can't force the user into the discussion if he adamantly refuses to and ignores all the past discussions. There is nothing else left to do with such user but revert him, ask him many times to explain himself and, and if he persists with sterile revert wars, he's got to be blocked. 3RR is a very useful guideline both by a letter and by a spirit. --Irpen 22:00, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

G.I. Joe character list DELETED without cause. It was a valid list.

Dream Focus 14:15, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I am the creator of a page that was formerly found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Joe_character_list

It listed a name of every character from the series. Dozens of these names also had links to wikipedia pages others have created about those characters.

I believe it is a very valuable and valid page.

Why the sudden deletion?

I checked the deletion logs, but they don't even list it.

Since I see other series have pages with list of all characters from that series, complete with links to wikipedia articals about those characters, I don't understand why mine was deleted. Surely it is the result of vandalism.

This information is listed nowhere else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GI_Joe The main G.I. Joe page has a link to my list. And the list of hundreds of names wouldn't really fit on that page.

Can someone undelete this please, and tell me if it was a vandal that destroyed it somehow?

Um, the list seems to be there: G.I. Joe character list. Am I missing something? --ZimZalaBim (talk) 14:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Huh? I still see it - G.I. Joe character list. —AySz88\^-^ 14:22, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

There was some sort of weirdness going on. I went there and it gave me the "Wikipedia does not have an article by this name" page, but didn't have a deletion log. In fact, the history log was still available and when I clicked "edit this page" it looked like the article. I clicked "save page" without changing anything and the page was back (with no record of any edit by me). Seems like some sort of glitch? --Fastfission 14:26, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps not clearing your cache resulted in this? Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:19, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought it perhaps had something to do with the database error of yesterday. I had someone today thinking I deleted an article. The article indeed seemed gone. Purging did the trick. Garion96 (talk) 01:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

FYI, I noticed what appears to be the same problem with a different article, on 16 or 17 September. On the page Neo-noir, I clicked on the link for 8mm and got the "Wikipedia does not have an article by this name" page. I did Search for 8mm and got the same results both from the Go and when clicking on 8mm in the list of Search results. 8mm is fine now, though. -- Writtenonsand 06:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I've had that error a few times in recent days with different articles and category pages. The article history was there though and a null edit brought it back. --kingboyk 11:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Rob Levin

I don't know how familiar people here are with him but apparently a large number of people on the Wikipedia IRC channel knew him. No disrespect intended, but this article is recreation of previously deleted content. See the first AfD which apparently he himself initated by saying he didn't feel he was notable enough for a Wikipedia article. Now I know I could tag it as db-repost but I feel even tagging it as such may generate some ill will. I'd like to get a consensus about what should be done here first, perhaps circumstances have changed and the community indeed feels he is now notable enough for an article. VegaDark 02:13, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The AFD was about 9 months ago, and circumstances have changed so db-repost isn't sutible, another AFD would likely be kept as well. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 02:19, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

(After edit conflict) In that case the article should state what makes him more notable now than when he was at the time of the first AfD. From what I can by the information in the article, his claims to notability have not changed since January, hence the first AfD would stand. VegaDark 02:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

According to the log and history, the article was restored today to restore the edit history after content was merged; before that it had been redirected to Peer-Directed Projects Center since January. The redirect has now been undone, but if content has been merged it can't be simply deleted. The thing to do would be to get consensus to re-redirect the article in the normal way. Incidentally, dying is not a claim to notability. I would have been perfectly willing to delete this per CSD G4 if this was just a standard repost (which it isn't). --Sam Blanning^(talk) 02:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

(Just got edit conflicted twice) Well, I think he is a lot more notable now then ever before.... but freenode only has a few thousand users, and I haven't a clue if that makes him notable. Personally I think we need to find a reliable biography to use as a source, because as it stands, all we know about is his death. (which earlier incarnations of the article didn't even have). Ok, time for google. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 02:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

• The page has been reverted to a redirect and reverted back to an article twice each now. I still have yet to see any new information towards his notability that would show why he is more notable since the AfD in January. VegaDark 19:13, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

We've also become more inclusionist since then. You know we have articles about farm roads, right? Give it up. —freak(talk) 21:12, Sep. 17, 2006 (UTC)

We've had thse farm to market roads since long before that AfD (I've checked one, and it survived an AfD in January 2005 with no consensus). So your example is invalid, and the idea that we have become "more inclusionist" is not reflected in policies or guidelines. There are some categories of articles where we have (sadly, IMO) become more inclusionist, to the point of dropping all questions of importance, notability, or even being somheow remarkable or exceptional, and where the only necessities are verifiablilty and NPOV. But for most articles, I don't have the impression that the "rules" have changed or that more articles are kept. If it's not notable, delete it. Fram 08:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Circumstances have changed since the original nomination to AFD, if someone contests the notability of this person they should renominate the article and allow it to be discussed there. Yamaguchi先生 00:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Deleting this without discussion on the basis that it was "previously deleted content" is process over substance. It should not be speedily deleted on that basis. As many people have pointed out, standards of notability have changed. I personally think that Rob would be considered notable under current standards; in any case, there should be a proper discussion rather than an attempt to strongarm misunderstood policy to circumvent such a discussion. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Protected deleted pages

This category has grown overly huge over the years, and frankly it is pretty ugly to visitors of the encyclopedia that might even end up there via Special:Randompage. In my opinion we should prune it. I have been trying to replace a few with sensible redirects, but for most of this list I can't think of any. What I'd like to do is generate a list of all PDPs that are older than, say, three months, and delete the lot of those (because I don't think most recreators are all that persistent in the first place). What would people think of that? >Radiant< 10:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely, this is horrible clutter - and in some cases it's even blocking the creation of legitimate articles. I proposed cleanup procedures a while back at Template_talk:Deletedpage#How_temporary_is_this.3F. Haukur 11:01, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd say go for it. Most of the recreators are just bored schoolkids who will have wandered off elsewhere by the end of the day anyway. Deleting 3 month old deleteprotected pages should be no problem (even 1 month old should not be a problem in general), I think most of the "backlog" is simply due to the fact that most admins, myself included, just protect a page and then forget about it. --Sherool (talk) 11:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd also support this as long as a suitable time period is given (such as one to three months, per Sherool (talk). While I don't want to name names, there is an administrator who is currently arbitrarily undoing these deleted pages with the edit summary "Old deleted-protected page unlikely to be recreated." The problem is that a number of the pages he/she is undoing were protected only days ago. While there is nothing wrong with getting rid of these pages once the risk of vandalism and such has passed, doing so after only a few days is a a waste of everyone's time. --Alabamaboy 11:46, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I would be opposed to assigning specific time ranges for this. Some unprotection after a couple of days would be fine, for some I've seen 6 months later people still wanting to recreate an article delted as not a crystal ball based on the same "sources" available when initially deleted. This should be a common sense thing. --pgk 12:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

• I found this: User:Kotepho/reports/deleted page by cl timestamp. Sounds useful. >Radiant< 12:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

That's an interesting page but not very useful since it must be manually updated. Is it possible to create an automatic page along these lines?--Alabamaboy 12:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Well cl_timestamp is actually a field on the categorylinks database table, so I would suggest that this is actually being extracted rather than manually produced. That timestamp has its problems since IIRC it gets updated each time the page gets changed rather than when the category was added, however for this purpose that shouldn't be an issue... --pgk 13:15, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

It's defenently possible, it requires accesss to the database though, and unfortunately the toolserver still doesn't have a working copy of the enwiki database. Guess the best bet is to download a dump of the categorylinks database (the most recent ones is only 6 days old as of now) and run some querries offline. --Sherool (talk) 13:31, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Luckily, even regular users have limited access to the database; see m:Query or http://en.wikipedia.org/w/query.php (I know that at least two bots use this method to get cl_timestamp data). --ais523 09:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Is it not possible, in addition to whatever pruning we might do, to get the developers to come up with a way of not picking them up on random? Guy 17:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I asked about whether special:random would find them a month ago. However, now that I think about it, if the developers applied a way to make exceptions to finding these from special:random, there would be a clamor about "excusing this article," "excusing that article," and excusing all articles with deletion, wikify, and NPOV tags, too. In my opinion, when sysops deal with this category, the goal should be to keep it tidy and miniscule, not to dump things in it and hope they're gone. They should just use their common sense about what needs to be protected against recreation indefinitely, what can be removed from this category after a week, and everything in between. If effective pruning is carried out, then there will be very little need to excuse these protected deleted pages, if only due to the tiny amount of them in total. Picaroon9288 19:40, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I've gotten a protected deleted page twice recently while clicking random article, so yes this is beginning to be a problem. I would support a way to not be able to get pages in this category if the developers can do that. If not, I think finding redirects would be the best way to get rid of a lot of the pages in that category. Who knows how many are YTMND related, perhaps everyone should do a scan over the category and make redirects to anything they recognize. VegaDark 20:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Some of these are protected after having been deleted for legal reasons and whatnot; perhaps we need another template (identical but for the category) for these? — Dan | talk 20:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey, let's just keep them protected and redirect them all to bad title or something similar. A template could be used to categorize such redirects for later perusal, in fact it could even be the same template we're using now. —freak(talk) 21:09, Sep. 17, 2006 (UTC)

• I'd say that rather than making feature requests, our easiest solution is to delete most of those pages. I'd be happy to give it a shot, and if two or three other admins chime in it's not really that much work with a tabbed browser. >Radiant< 22:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, the point of my suggestion is: protected redirects prevent page re-creation, yet are ignored by Special:Random. If we made all WP:SALT pages redirect to a common target, the probability of randomly finding it would be 1/{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} rather than a couple hundred times greater. —freak(talk) 04:25, Sep. 21, 2006 (UTC)

It would make sense for someone to go through and clear out the old ones, but it is absolutely essential that we maintain a list of these pages somewhere so that we can, in the future, look over it to see which redlinks turned blue and determine if the recreation was valid. How about maintaining the list at Wikipedia:Deleted protected deleted pages? --Cyde Weys 02:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean Wikipedia:List of pages protected against re-creation or a new bot generated list? --Sherool (talk) 08:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh I see deleted protected deleted pages, so new list then, nevermind. Yeah, usefull to keep taps on recreations. --Sherool (talk) 08:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• Also, you can watchlist deleted pages, and they'll show up if recreated. And also, you can check in your deletion log whether any page you deleted has been recreated. >Radiant< 16:22, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• A watchlist doesn't do nearly the same thing because: it only works for one person not everyone; if multiple people are deleting these protected deleted pages then no single person will have the list; and watchlists are generally used for lots of other stuff, and if you aren't editing for over a day or so, you will totally miss it. Thus, it is essential that we create a page somewhere where we list all of these protected deleted pages that are deleted so everyone can keep an eye on the redlinks that turn blue and make sure that it is valid content. --Cyde Weys 02:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Having a list of deleted deleted-protected pages might be over-kill unless it can be done extremely easily; most are not re-created and when they do they seem to be mostly found, and then that's just another backlog that has to be cleared of dead items. Keep in mind also that many of these topics actually do warrant articles, mostly for different persons other than the one that was deleted. That's the main reason for getting rid of these deleted pages. There are so few relative to the number of articles that readers getting them on a Random article is not a significant problem, but when you have major political figures, etc. blocked because some bozo with a similar name created a vanity page in a space of 2 minutes 6 months ago, that is a problem.

The list we currently have at User:Kotepho/reports/deleted page by cl timestamp will last at least for the deletedpages until 8-10-2006. Whereas bots are necessary to do things on a daily basis, this list doesn't absolutely need to be created more than once a month really. It would be nice though to have it automatically created.

Another way to help out with deletedpages is through Special:Shortpages. Recently protected deletedpages show up there (mostly at 15 bytes). If the page was created in the space of an hour 4 days ago, delete. If it looks like it's a little more chronic problem, append a little comment that pushes it off the list, like <!--Excess long comment to prevent listing on [[Special:Shortpages]]............................................................-->. This is an automatically generated list and is cutting down the backlog from the other end, as well as doing it from the Kotepho list. —Centrx→talk • 03:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The rule of thumb I've been using whether to keep them protected is whether the amount of time between the first deletion and the last deletion is longer than the amount of time between the last deletion and now, with leeway if someone has talked about creating a legitimate article on the talk page. As you can see from the list, most don't stay protected. —Centrx→talk • 03:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• This purging has started; I've already seen some others work on it besides myself. Any help would be appreciated. >Radiant< 20:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposed ban of JarlaxleArtemis

According to the terms of an Arbitration on JarlaxleArtemis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), he can be banned for a year with the agreement of any three administrators. I suggest that we should do this, following his recent trolling. He's also been guilty of copyright violations, flagrantly violating the MOS, removing deletion tags, POV/vandalism edits, posting the source code for a vandalbot, etc. (as seen on his current RFAR). We can save the ArbCom a bit of time by dealing with this ourselves. They don't need to re-examine this case; they've already looked at him twice before, and what came out of it was that we can ban him for a year as necessary. I propose that it is now necessary. --Cyde Weys 23:30, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I am JarlaxleArtemis. I think that Cyde is the one who is trolling and should be banned. Of course, no one will believe me, but I just want to at least try to counter this admin's lies. His lies regarding me are here. My message telling him to stop are here and here. He then blocked me for trolling, even though he is the one who is trolling. [20] Another lie about me is that he is saying I was trying to make a vandal bot. What will I gain with that? I pasted the script for Checkuser (yes, Checkuser, not a vandal bot) on a freaking Sandbox page of mine. Great vandal bot that is, isn't it?--4.168.33.6 23:40, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

According to [21], the second arbitration case was closed early because he was "permanently banned" for spamming account creations with impersonating user names. After he was unblocked probationarily in November 2005, he has been blocked 8 times since for various disruptive behavior. In total, he has previously been blocked by 9 different administrators a total of 20 times. Based on looking at the comments in the block log and the arbitration case, it is clear that this user is repeatedly disruptive and is not amenable through promises, probations, or mentoring. —Centrx→talk • 23:45, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Look, the source codes are readily available at Special:Version, which is linked to from Special:Specialpages. I am mistaken; the source code was for renaming users, not Checkuser. As if I could benefit from that. I need to be a bureaucrat or something like that to rename users, which I don't even want to. Please ban Cyde. 4.168.33.6 23:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The comments in the block log are deceptive. The admins repeatedly make overstatements and/or flat out lie there.--4.168.33.6 23:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Admin number three here. Get it over with. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course you listen to Cyde. You are a fucking cabal. Goodbye, then corrupt admins!--4.168.33.6 23:56, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Did the three-admin-ban thing actually pass? The case was closed, but it's not clear whether the proposed decision was ever put into place. (Not that I have any objection to banning him, mind you, just curious.) Kirill Lokshin 00:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Who cares? He is disruptive, always has been, just block him. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 00:12, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure. He ended up being banned outright, but for some unknown reason, he was unbanned and then continued to get into all sorts of trouble in the following months. I'm reinstating the indefinite community ban. --Cyde Weys 00:14, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Linuxbeak thought he could be reformed, if I recall correctly. In any case, a community ban sounds fine. Kirill Lokshin 00:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Is there even a single test case of this working? "Reforming" just doesn't seem workable to me. This is just an Internet site; if someone is an asshole, they're going to keep being an asshole, and no mere Internet site is going to get them to reform. Seeing a psychiatrist regularly, maybe. But not this. --Cyde Weys 01:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

It has been known (there is also the issue that we have been around long enough for certain people to just grow up).Geni 01:49, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I concur with Geni. According to information he posted on Wikipedia, JarlaxleArtemis started contributing to Wikipedia last year when he was in the tenth grade. Some young people lack the maturity, discipline, and people skills to contribute to a serious collaborative project like Wikipedia, but they may gain these skills as they grow older. —Psychonaut 01:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Now that you've blocked him, prepare yourselves for a flood of vandalism. He did this the couple last times he was banned or blocked for a long period. Favourite tactics include mailbombing and mass creation of user accounts. —Psychonaut 00:26, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

He's just violated WP:3RR on User talk:JarlaxleArtemis by tampering with his block template (changing it from "reviewed" to unreviewed). If his ban doesn't prevent him from editing his own page, then perhaps it should be protected. —Psychonaut 00:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. Kirill Lokshin 00:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I have been JarlaxleArtemis' principle mentor for the last several months. During that time there have been many complaints and instances of JA repeating the specific behaviors which led to his previous bannings. Since this new ban has been placed on him he has once again acted in an immature manner. His negative inputs have exceeded his positive contributions, and I regret having to endorse this ban. -Will Beback 05:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Copied from Wikipedia talk:Vandalism

The following was posted a few minutes ago at the Vandalism talk page by an unregistered user:

Someone in Deffective By Design suggested a "wikipedia-bombing" on October 3rd, to change all occurrences from "Digital rights Management" to "Digital RESTRICTIONS Management". Although I am completely against DRM, and think that DbD has some interesting ideas, this one in particular would cause more harm than good. I think the DRM article should be watched to avoid edit wars and vandalism.

here is the link to the Deffective By Design site.

00:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC) An Anonymous reader

It may not be anything, but then again, it may be something. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm adding the page to my watchlist. The somewhat... erm... intellectually challenged person who made that suggestion apparently never bothered to consider that a) what he writes is visible to everyone and b) administrators' actions can be reversed, very quickly, and often are. Truly one of the lamer "OMG LET'S VANDALIZE T3H W1K1P3D14!!!11!!!oneoneone" suggestions. Captainktainer * Talk 01:08, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I wouldn't exactly say they've set up us the bomb. Still, it'll be good for a few of us to be watching the pages in question. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Defective by Design has now taken down the page that that links to. I wonder if their admins decided it was inappropriate, or if they're trying to hide something? User:Zoe|(talk) 02:03, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's because I sent them a message pointing out how much it discredited their project and how futile an exercise it would be, especially since their suggestion that any DfD members with admin rights protect the page after vandalizing it would lead only to an immediate revert of the protection and an emergency desysopping with a speed not seen since the Everyking scandal. Aside from a few odd DfD members who saw the notice, I don't think we'll see anything now. Captainktainer * Talk 15:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

One to watch

Chelsea Tory (talk · contribs) is causing a ruckus at Gregory Lauder-Frost (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). He attributes motives to all editors including User:William Pietri, who is just about the most civil person I've come across on the project. Trolling, tendentious edits, assertions of illegality. If one or two uninvolved admins could keep an eye I'd be grateful. Guy 10:00, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible this could be legal-threat-extraordinaire Sussexman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) again? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 15:13, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Possibly, but I doubt it. They are undoubtedly connected in some way, though. -- ChrisO 23:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Trouble with User Jim62sch

Dear Admins, over the last few days I have run into trouble with User:Jim62sch on the Pope Benedict XVI article. Our actual disagreement is about whether to include certain comments or not: [22]]. I opposed this as I think the comments uninformative and bloating the section, while he readded them time and again. But the real problem with him is that he does not assume good faith when I state my reasons for removing them, instead accuses me of trying to "censor" or "whitewash", and is extremely uncivil in trying to use my religious persuasion, which I did indicate on my user page to ban me from editing in this issue. He has made similar remarks towards User:Musical Linguist, when she commented on the issue. Now, I want to be clear that I am not aiming at Jim being blocked or anything like this. I am sure he is a valuable contributor. However, could some admin please admonish him to desist from his uncivil and unwikipedian behaviour. Cheers, Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 13:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a content dispute. Please take it to dispute resolution. Jim is acting in his capacity as editor, not admin here. Please note that revert-warring is not endorsed as a way of resolving content disputes. While the relevance of individual criticisms may be debatable, there is no doubt that at this moment the controversy in question is headline news around the world and we need to give a flavour of that. The content in question is cited and stated accurately, so it's a judgment call, and that is not something we can fix by admin intervention, I'm afraid. Guy 14:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

My query is not about a content dispute, but about Jim's behaviour of trying to exclude editors from certain topics based on their respective religions, and of constant insulting and bad faith comments. I have not asked you for your opinion in the content dispute, as you have voiced that on that talk page. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 16:06, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Still a content dispute. I know Jim, he is a fair-minded guy. Have you tried talking nicely ot him? I often find that works a treat. Guy 17:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

It is NOT a content dispute. If you don't want to help, then don't. Jim might otherwise be a nice guy, but he has attacked and assumed bad faith at me since our first disagreement on this issue. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 17:50, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

How silly of me to suggest that a dispute over the inclusion of content is a content dispute. I'll know better next time, I guess. Guy 23:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Content dispute. This isn't the place for it. Work it out on the talk. Arbusto 00:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I will stop this here, since apperently no one here cares about AGF and civility any more. How silly of me to think problematic behaviour is a behaviour problem. (And to repeat it one more time: I did not come here to get the content dispute solved, so please don't comment on it.) Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 07:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't go overboard, please. It's a content dispute, there is no administrative intervention required. Honestly. There's no need to try and make a Federal case of it. Guy 14:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't go overborad. And I am disappointed that no admin wants to tackle it. But most of all, I am astounded how someone can repeatedly declare something a content dispute when it is quite clearly not the content dispute that I have raised here. There was a content dispute, but what I raised here was Jim's behaviour. The way you talk, Guy, everything is a content dispute, as I hardly can think of a conflict not related to content in some way. For me the case is closed, so don't reply here. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 16:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Possible sock?

Tyresias (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Anyone want to weigh in on whether this user is a sock, and/or if a RFCU is indicated? KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:50, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Editing a policy page as your first edit may indicate that you've been banned and are pursuing an agenda, or it may indicate that you've been editing as an anon, have gotten interested in policy articles, want to make a change and have realised, correctly, that you're not likely to be taken seriously editing a cornerstone policy page unless you create an account. If you're willing to name a sockpuppeteer, please go ahead and then we can compare the two accounts' contributions and request a Checkuser if necessary, but I don't see any proof of sockpuppetry based on this account's contributions alone. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 15:10, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding curt, I already knew that, as do most readers of this page. My hope was that if the user is a sock, someone would recognise the pattern and speak up. I have one sneaking suspician but would prefer others take a look and see if they see a similarity with any of the NOR edit warriors. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Never mind - someone else noticed, and he is indeed who I suspected and is now blocked. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:55, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

And I agree as well. Seems this one is haviong a bit of trouble leaving, despite his repeated assertions to the contrary. Guy 17:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we can get JA and JG together - the one knows Truth because he wrote the book (novel) on it, and the other knows Truth because he got it directly from God - and they're both banned sockpuppeting trolls. They have so much in common! KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:21, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism in article: Lebanon

The entire contents of the article Lebanon have been deleted and replaced with the content of the article Canada. The IP address responsible is 139.142.154.129. Please revert the page move/deletion and block vandal. LestatdeLioncourt 16:16, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Requests for mediation has ground to a halt

Requests for mediation seems to have ground to a halt. There are 30 cases listed pending decisions to accept or reject, about 10 accepted cases that have not been assigned, and no substantive edits to the page in almost 2 months. Essjay, current chair of Medcom, hasn't edited anything in a month. I don't personally have anything pending but I noticed this through comments on Essjay's talk page, which I have watchlisted. Are there some former mediators who can take over temporarily and get things moving along again? It seems like a big part of the dispute resolution process is not functioning at the moment. Thatcher131 17:44, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not part of Medcom, but I've watched how they worked in the past, and I'm kind of wandering aimlessly looking for a Wikipurpose at the moment. If X number of admins are willing to sign off on it, I'd be happy to step in on an interim basis to do the clerical work and try to stir up the active Medcom members to elect someone else. --Aaron 01:44, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, Medcom is kind of a closed club, with a closed mailing list and special procedures for accepting new members. I'm kind of hoping one of the mediators emeriti listed on the page will jump in as acting chair and get things going. If on the other hand there is no action in a few days and you fell like being bold, the worst thing that can happen is you'll stir someone else to action. Thatcher131 01:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if I might stir someone else to toss me into arbitration. Heh, could be interesting, couldn't it? I'll watch the page; if nothing at all happens after a few days, I'll come back and seek some sort of semiofficial sanction for my coup attempt. Hopefully they'll take care of it on their own, but it's already been an awfully long time for all those Medcom members to just sit on their hands, waiting for a sign from somewhere else. If nothing else, it's a sign that a couple of new rules should be enacted about the workflow, IMHO. --Aaron 02:02, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Is Essjay gone? He has not edited anything in a month.... -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Essjay has not edited meta since August 7th, I think. Sugarpinet/c 03:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

He mentioned some real life issues, including the start of the school year and having more responsibilities. My gut tells me its more than that, though. Thatcher131 04:36, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

According to WP:MW, he's currently overseeing the Board election. Scobell302 21:44, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• I've pointed a few current mediators here to see the discussion. Hiding Talk 19:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi. First of all, I'd like to thank you for covering for ^demon in the Lost episodes mediation. I know its technically against procedure for someone who is neither a member nor a nominee of the MedCom to take MedCom cases, but considering the circumstances, I'm glad you did.

As for who should accept/reject cases, it was my understanding that MedCom came to some sort of consensus (presumably by mailing list), and some member of the committee (which for some reason always happens to be Essjay) accepted/rejected the case on behalf of the committee as a whole. But, not having been on the committee for very long, I've never actually been part of this process, so maybe I have it all wrong.

There are six cases listed as "unassigned" on the open tasks, and of those, three have received offers from a mediator (two from Drini, one from me), but are still pending agreement of the parties to that mediator. If there are accepted cases missing from that list, maybe you could add them? Or I could try looking around.

— Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 22:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello as well. To start, I do apologize for the current backlog in mediation cases. As mentioned above, Essjay, who is our chair and does invaluable work, has currently been busy and inactive for a while now; I, too, have also been too busy to do much until recently. This has led to a large number of cases piled up - we've been postponing the (now) inevitable task of finding someone in the committee to temporarily do his duties. I will personally address these issues on our mailing list — it is our goal to serve the community, and we need to get the ball rolling again. Again, apologies for our lack of activity. In addition, I encourage any trusted users who wish to help to join us: we always are looking for new mediators to help us! Finally, a word of great thanks to the Mediation Cabal and other groups for doing their best in helping resolve disputes. Thanks again! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

IP request

First, sorry if this is in the wrong place. I really can't figure out where it should go.

I was wondering if I could request the user IP 150.101.113.199 be unblocked for people who sign in.

This is a school computer, so I can't really control what people use it to edit (especially since it's a k to 12 school), but it's dissapointing that I can't edit some articles.

Anyway, that's all. Thank you.

Reblocked 1 month with anonymous only and account creation enabled. Naconkantari;; 03:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

We should probably block account creation from this address as well, but allow pre-registered accounts, otherwise there isn't much point in blocking the IP; it just makes our job more difficult to track abuse. In my opinion, the system administator should be contacted before blocks are released on educational networks which are proven as constant sources of vandlaism. Yamaguchi先生 10:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zer0faults

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above. Zer0faults is placed on Probation. He may be banned for an appropriate period of time from an article or set of articles which he disrupts by tendentious editing or edit warring. All bans to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zer0faults#Log of blocks and bans. For the Arbitration Committee. FloNight 02:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Anyone watching WP:PAIN tonight?

There is a clear npa violation, with requisite diffs, warnings, etc. at WP:PAIN right now (Éponyme) that has been open for nearly four hours now without any administrator attention thus far. Anyone want to take a look at it? · j e r s y k o talk · 03:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah--totally one-sided. Make them choose sides, especially the easiest side being that which has many numbers of apathetic lynchmobbers. Nobody has empathic Devil's Advocacy! Éponyme 03:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It was taken care of. Thanks. · j e r s y k o talk · 20:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

User:John Spikowski

Myself a other editors of the Panorama Tools (software), Panotools, and PanoTools articles are having quite a bit of trouble with user John Spikowski. If you go through the history of those pages, the user pages, the user talk pages, and other related pages, you will find repetitive acts of vandalism in the form of spam, attention-seeking, user-page vandalism, talk-page vandalism, changing people's comments, and the list just goes on and on. It's not hard to spot once you check out some of the pages. This user has also made personal attacks to User talk:Wuz. It's pretty out of control and I ask the admins for advice on the subject. Never asked for anyone to be blocked before, but I think this case is extreme enough to ask for this request. We could really use some help right now. Thoughts? Roguegeek 06:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Quick note. I feel like myself and other contributing editors have made an effort in trying to understand the reasons for John Spikowski editing and have attempted to communicate intention rationally. The user simply resorts to defamation of others are removing comments all together. Please advise. Roguegeek 06:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:PAIN

Anyone for the idea that it should be redirected here? I seem to be one of just a couple of admins that even look at it. I removed alerts tonight that hadn't been acted on in over a *week*. What's the point? --Woohookitty^(meow) 09:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I worked their a bit, but the request are often not well formatted and require heavy research and context, so I tend to think "meh...let someone else do it".Voice-of-All 20:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I confess I also rarely visit that page. I have it it watchlisted, but many of the complaints are not only badly formatted, they are... well, not actually personal attacks being listed. Others are one foul-mouthed troll posting an alert about another foul mouthed troll, and frankly, I get enough trolling and accusations of heavy-handedness already. *sigh* I'll try to help out there more. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

In the same category as KC. JoshuaZ 00:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

So I think we should redirect it here. More admins can see the requests that way. Separate page for it is a great idea but I just don't think it's worked out well. Just not enough people working on it. --Woohookitty^(meow) 10:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Here, or AN/I since most of the things reported are incidents, aren't they? Support the notion that if it is thinly covered, better to point to the less specific place that does have coverage. ++Lar: t/c 12:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Redirect (to either page). I've never been a supporter of the page from the start, as I've argued several times, and redirecting here seems more appropriate. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Redirecting is probably best. This seemed (and still seems) like a good idea. It might be useful to try to understand why it did not take off. Tom Harrison ^Talk 20:25, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Issue surrounding Islamic Emirate of Waziristan

This article, which was created a week ago and had a fact in DYK a couple days ago is being claimed to be completely baseless. I'm mentioning it here and not in an AfD because it looks like it might be somewhat of a public relations issue. This article [23] on a site which is set up like a newspaper (although whether there's a hard-copy version I do not know), appears to be claiming that an official in the Pakistani government has announced that the page is a hoax. There is, however, no question that there is some kind of local control of Waziristan, and that an agreement was made, but whether it's enough to be called a de facto state is another issue. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 22:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Babychum

Given this edit, there is reason to believe that User:Babychum is a user that is evading a block or ban by creating another account. Is there a way to use Checkuser to determine if this is true? I have no idea what the blocked or banned account might be. --Richard 04:58, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

• Right you are, thanks. He's blocked, and I found and blocked one of his puppets, if there are others they'll turn up soon enough. Herostratus 08:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Bazzajf

Bazzajf (talk · contribs) came back from a month-long block to a sanction imposed by Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/8bitJake. His first action was two uncivil user talk edits, so I blocked him. Part of his beef was a protected talk page, so I unprotected that. I've been talking to hiom, trying to eb patient, but I can't seem to make much headway. This user has many prodiuctive edits as well as many bad ones, can someone please help? I do want to unblock him but he seems to think that asking for an assurance he won't reoffend is some kind of effront, and I'm not very good at calm conversations with the pasionate. Guy 12:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

He does have a way with words, doesn't he... from (presumably his) latest post to the unblock mailing list:

Three Admins have enforced the block, one was responsible for imposing it and another was on the receiving end of one of my comments which was deemed incivil in this circumstance. I do not dispute the findings of the arbitration case, but if you analysed my two comments since, they were not personal attacks so I am paying heed to the findings of the case. Furthermore, I am sorry that only 190 edits are too paltry a number for you reflect kindly on but some us have a busy day job too and a social life after work. Is that understood? Good.

So... I'm not sure I'd counsel anything more than letting him ride out the block. ++Lar: t/c 13:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

He's currently indefinitely blocked. The block he returned from was mine, and I don't think it's coincidence that shortly after he was blocked there were a couple of anonymous edits to my page from someone obsessed with gay sex and using an Irish dialup account. There was also a pathetically transparent attempt at sockpuppetry to evade the block, not his first attempt at that sort of thing. See User:62.77.181.16, User:Starsweep and Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets/Bazzajf. There is the possibility that he might learn some manners and start acting like a reasonable person, but I wouldn't hold my breath. --ajn (talk) 22:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

My feeling is that this project will be a better place without Bazzajf. From my first encounter with him where he was changing another user's userpage because some userbox there said "This user is from the British Isles" and that was apparently "horribly POV against Irish", which quickly devolved into him ranting "Syrthiss is a byword for inept!" on my talkpage (in archive 5's history now). He has troubles with civility, harassment, and wikilawyering. Someone could offer to mentor him, but I don't think he'd listen to the mentor and they'd end up blocking him again. Syrthiss 22:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussing Special pages

I've been trying to find a way to discuss some textual changes to the Special:Categories page, but it (obviously) doesn't have a talk page. After some investigation, I found an old discussion here noting that some (but not all) Special pages indeed have custom talk pages. For example, Special:Mostcategories can be discussed at Wikipedia talk:Special:Mostcategories. Shall we go ahead and create custom talk pages for those Special pages which lack them?

Further, how do changes in Special pages actually occur? Back to my original concern, I'd like to change the opening text on Special:Categories to state "This is an alphabetical list of all the categories in Wikipedia." In lieu of a talk page, where should such a request be directed? --ZimZalaBim (talk) 14:39, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I have changed MediaWiki:Categoriespagetext to include "alphabetical". Kusma (討論) 15:04, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The talk page for that message is at MediaWiki talk:Categoriespagetext. (The best way to find the appropriate MediaWiki page is to go to Special:Allmessages and use your browser's search-on-page function.) You can request an edit by placing an {{editprotected}} tag there, and administrators can make the edit by editing MediaWiki:Categoriespagetext. --ais523 15:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

To your other concerns: Most texts displayed on Special pages are in the MediaWiki namespace. Some can be seen at Special:Allmessages (not this particular one, I found it by searching for the displayed string). Kusma (討論) 15:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, this one can be found there, I was just too stupid to search. Kusma (討論) 15:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

(2 edit conflicts) It seems that due to edit conflicts, Kusma and I have ended up repeating each other. Still, we could do with more people knowing about the MediaWiki namespace... --ais523 15:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

thanks to both! Didn't know that much special page text is managed via the MediaWiki namespace... --ZimZalaBim (talk) 15:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Tom Ellard

Apparently on Sept 19, Tom Ellard asked people to add spurious information to his page here. Needless to say, they have done so, and I can no longer tell what on the page is real and what isn't. If someone would like to sort it out, delete the crap, protect it, etc., such actions might be in order. --Bachrach44 16:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Reverted to the version before the anon edit on 19 September, protected. If anyone wants to find a better version in the history it can be changed to another wrong version. Guy 16:17, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've been checking the entire edit history since then (it probably ought to be BJAODNd; some of it's quite amusing, especially seeing how after a bit the erroneous statements get further vandalised); it seems there was an image Image:Tte.jpg uploaded for the page that should probably be deleted. What would be the BLP considerations of BJAODNing this revision? --ais523 17:18, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

OMG... Atmomic enema? It gets my vote for BJAODN. I don't think (as its labeled "nonsense" we need be concerned about BLP, which applies to actual articles. Please correct me if I am in error. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Eigomanga and related articles

Can I get some other administrators to keep an eye on Eigomanga, its Talk page, Austin Osueke and its deletion nomination, and related articles? A bunch of anons and newly registered accounts seem to be on a campaign to exorcise all potentially negative material and process from the articles: see here, here, here, and here, as well as the articles' edit history. Moreover, the IPs all resolve to the Bay Area (see: [24], [25], [26]), where Eigomanga's offices are located, raising the possibility of an attempt by the company to sanitize its content on Wikipedia. --Slowking Man 20:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Formalization of Wikipedia:Community probation

Since one user now has been placed on "community probation", the following proposal is intended to formalize the procedure: Wikipedia:Community probation/Proposal. Note that this is a power many believe that admins already have, pursuant to the existing power to impose community bans on editors. --EngineerScotty 23:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

commons ticker

Many projects have a commons ticker (as described here: m:User:Duesentrieb/CommonsTicker) as, for example implemented at wikinews... some of the projects include other language wikipedias. Is there interest in having such a ticker here? I am willing to work with Duesentrieb to get it set up and be the responsible admin as outlined on his page. If there is no significant objection I will implement it. Also posted at the Village Pump proposals, where discussion should be held. ++Lar: t/c 03:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Have you talked to Duesentrieb about this? I think if he's running it off the toolserver, as it appears he is, that it would be impossible at this point, since the toolserver doesn't have a real-time copy of our database like it does for other projects. Ral315 (talk) 19:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that Ral's correct in this -- we can't implement the ticker until the toolserver issue is solved. Jkelly 19:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppet

I'm being accussed of sockpuppets on my RFA. See Makemi's talkpage and my talkpage. Anyone to investigate it? Sugarpinet/c 03:28, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I've requested a checkuser at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/ForestH2. I'm not sure what Sugarpine wants investigated. Mak (talk) 03:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The RFCU revealed that ForestH2 was indeed a puppetmaster. Mak (talk) 21:02, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Spam or no spam?

Could someone please take a look at the contributions of User:Johncooper, please? He's adding links to a commercial website all over the place, but some of them seem to link to actual information and not just to the commercial part of the site. I've removed the blatantly commercial links, but I'm uncertain as to the validity of the others. I'd appreciate another set of eyes. Thanks. Tony Fox (arf!) 05:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I blocked the account indefinitely because its only edits have been to add an external link to articles. If he wants to make constructive edits, I'll unblock him. -- Kjkolb 12:01, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Can an Admin from meta.wiki e-mail me

Please. I need an edit deleted. Thanks --ZimZalaBim (talk) 13:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Please email me an I'll see what I can do. Naconkantari 20:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Unblock request by Spamming IP

I recently blocked 169.132.18.248 (talk · contribs) due to spamming. This user was going around and adding links to a blog rosnersquared.com on various sites. Spammer also used different IPs, including 141.150.50.229 (talk · contribs), 141.150.50.225 (talk · contribs), 69.114.129.95 (talk · contribs). I've just received an e-mail from 169.132.18.248 stating:

I was recently using this IP and linking to rosnersquared.com. I did not understand what the issue was and I apologize if I caused any trouble. This IP address is a shared IP and is used by many other people. Please unblock. While I think that rosnersquared offered accurate commentary on what I was linking to, I will refrain from doing so in the future.

I'm inclined to deny the unblock request, as user was warned numerous times yet persisted, and shown little intent for constructive edits. But I thought I'd get some community reaction first. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 14:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm tempted to say release it. We wanted to get their attention so they'd stop spamming, and it looks like we got it. If they begin again then we can always reblock and add their blog to the spam blacklist. Is there some part I'm not seeing, like their IP being listed on a spam blocklist site (in which case I'd say let it stand). Syrthiss 14:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

No, you're not missing anything. I guess I'm just in a less generous mood today. I'll release, and watch.... --ZimZalaBim (talk) 14:47, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm just in an uncharacteristic AGF'y mood today. ;) Syrthiss 14:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:AIV backlogged

There's currently a huge backlog at WP:AIV with around 15 entries. It's been 2 hours since anyone listed there was blocked. Could a few of you guys clean it up? —Whomp ^(myedits) 20:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Well done to those trusty mop-wielders who have by now cleared the backlog. Guy 21:22, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Comedy corner

[27]Tyrenius 00:43, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• tsk* Always knew something was wrong there... *headshake* Tony Fox (arf!) 01:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Comedy Gold. Torinir _{( Ding my phone My support calls E-Support Options )} 01:31, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

They've caught me :/ alphaChimp^(talk) 01:34, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

request for protection Thirteenth floor

repeated IP attacks, the current protection doesn't seem to be working .... ? Desertsky85451 01:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The article was not protected, it only had the sprotected template on it, I blocked the IP for 24 hours. In the future, please use Wikipedia:Requests for page protection for these kind of requests. --Conti|✉ 01:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

FWIW I've sprotected this, but the link above is the place to request these. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

My bad > there are just too many places to report stuff and the request for protection page isn't linked off of the Admin Noticeboard page, hence me posting here for lack of an alternative I could find. Now its been bookmarked. Thanks!Desertsky85451 01:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Indefinite ban of Karwynn

I have indefinitely banned Karwynn following recent CheckUser revelations that he was using a slew of sockpuppet accounts for some rather malicious vandalism. The sockpuppet accounts blocked include ShintoSabe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Rostafar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Mai Ling (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), GomeonaFinnigan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and Juan Gonzales (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). It has become rather obvious that Karwynn is nothing but an ED troll trying to raise a ruckus on Wikipedia, and his long good-bye statement from last week where he gave us all the finger and told us to "sit and spin, bitches" is going to be his last statement. --Cyde Weys 02:17, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I was unfortunately very wrong about this user. Endorse block. JoshuaZ 02:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Finally, an end to a monumentally huge waste of time. Thanks, Cyde.--MONGO 05:08, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Endorse, we really shouldn't take sooo long to rid ourselves of patent trolls. As MONGO says, this stuff really does waste the time and patience of good users. --Doc 09:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Endorse block. AnnH ♫ 09:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Block endorsed. Glad it was blocked and the sock farm detected. --LiverpoolCommander 22:37, 18 September 2006 (UTC) indef blocked as sock of User:TheM62Manchester -- Tyrenius 23:43, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow, interesting how users can show completely different faces depending on what username they're using. Powers ^T 12:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Meh, I always saw the same face from Karwynn. Granted, he was talking out the side of his mouth most of the time, but the horrible visage of a bridge-dweller remained constant throughout. --Cyde Weys 22:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit (second nomination) Remain Fully Protected?

Approximately ten days ago, I made a request for the unprotection of this page at WP:RFPP so that I could remove comments made by an indefinitely banned vandal while he was banned, per Wikipedia:Banning_policy#Enforcement_by_reverting_edits-- see Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Dr_Chatterjee. So far, the request has been neither granted nor denied. Since retaining comments made by an indefinitely banned vandal while he was banned seems to encourage other such users to violate their bans, how would one go about getting this page unprotected? John254 01:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

In this case, the disruption from the banned user has already occurred and removing the comments that are integral to an existing archive would cause more disruption than their remaining and would gut the archive. The person already got his laughs; selectively removing the comments isn't going nullify the effect of him violating his ban. —Centrx→talk • 01:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course the comments by the banned vandal have already had some effect, but preserving the trolling contained in these comments indefinitely would seem to magnify their impact -- the comments were offered in a deliberate attempt to disrupt Wikipedia by weakening its defenses against vandalism [28]. Avoidance of future disruption that might flow from these comments seems far more important than preserving the coherence of an archived MFD discussion initiated by a banned user. It might actually be advisable to delete all revisions of the discussion that contain the comments, to prevent them from being reinstated later. In any case, as Centrx protected this page himself, I wanted a "second opinion" on this matter. John254 02:10, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

If you could please point to the edits you want removed, that would help someone to give a second opinion. Note also that there's no need to unprotect, you can ask for an {{editprotected}} and if it's necessary an admin can edit the page accordingly. --bainer (talk) 03:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I removed the comments by the banned user in this edit. John254 05:23, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Some of those comments are part of discussions with other users. Taking out the comments breaks the discussion and makes it seem as if those other users are talking to themselves, so I don't think removing them would be the best option. --bainer (talk) 07:18, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Just use a placeholder, something like 'comment by banned user removed per banning policy', and the discussion will look fine. --ais523 13:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

In which case anyone who actually wants to use the archive will just wants to read it will just go to the history; anyone who doesn't want to use the archive isn't going to read it anyway or care. The reason for removing the edits of banned users is because there is no reason to examine every possible POV pushing, subtle vandalism, etc. edit to articles from such a user to be examined closely, or to bother deciding about borderline personal attacks, but it doesn't mean gutting an entire conversation thread that will otherwise be let remain. —Centrx→talk • 00:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I see a lot of this "remove comments by banned users" stuff. I understand what people are saying, but this is tantamount to violating free speech. The implication is that Wikipedia users can't think for themselves, and will be 'contaminated' by what banned users say. You really should have more faith in the Wiki process to reject arguments that are wrong. If they are wrong, then people will point out why they are wrong. If they are correct, then the points should remain there, regardless of whether they are by a banned user or not. WP:NOT censorship. I am about to bring up a deletion review based on a similar case. I'll try and remember to add a link here. Carcharoth 09:53, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Edit war on Anus

There is an ongoing edit war on the Anus article with people removing an appropriate image repeatedly from the page. The page is supposedly protected, but anons have been editing it. How is this possible? User:Zoe|(talk) 03:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I found the explanation. It was only protected from page moves. I have now fully protected it for a while. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

And how many links do you have to click from that page before you end up with an arsecruft article? I count approximately one... Guy 14:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Lovely. Since everyone's got one of their own, just why do we need to see a picture? I'm also wondering if it's appropriate for an admin to protect her preferred version of the article? ("removing an appropriate image") Sandy 14:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I reverted to the version prior to the edit war, thank you. Discuss on the Talk page. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:50, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Some people can't see theirs? Sorry, this may not have been a particularly helpful comment. . . – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 15:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggesting deletion of an image for reasons of "yuck" will always trigger citations to WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_censored. See under WP:LAME#Pictures (no worries, not illustrated) for an example. Newyorkbrad 15:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I won't wade into this edit war (edit wars over pictures are pretty lame), but that picture almost had me yakking my meal all over the keyboard. Yuck. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, heck, maybe someone can add a photo to Decapitation while we're not censoring. That's one I've never seen. There must be a point at which an image is not needed, helpful, or tasteful. (Sorry about your breakfast, DP.) Sandy 16:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Just an aside - Nick Berg did have a picture of his severed head, although it no longer does, and does have a link to the severing video. Personally I'd caution against ever saying "surely we wouldn't do xxx" out loud as either we already do, or saying so will make someone try it. Our photon torpedo article jumped from a substub to an epic when somone said in VfD "surely there can't be any more to say about this". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think a basic part of anatomy qualifies as tasteless and not needed, though. It's true, you really can't see your own anus, and an image does add to the article. --Cyde Weys 00:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Is this like how you can't 'see' your own eyes? Funny that, when I look in the mirror, I have no trouble seeing my eyes. Now what is difficult to see is the inside of the body. Yucky imges of the internal anatomy of the body would be a great boon to Wikipedia. Sadly, it seems all such images are copyrighted on medical websites. And medical students are probably not allowed to photograph the dissections they do. So most of the Wikipedia articles on internal body anatomy have drawings (usually the Grey's Anatomy ones). I did find a labelled sheep's liver though, at liver. Carcharoth 00:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time imagining the requisite setup of mirrors that would allow one to see one's own anus. I humbly submit that just looking at a picture in a web browser might be easier. --Cyde Weys 01:29, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Surely there are a lot of anuses in the world that look better than the one on the anus page... (tries to look in the mirror)... well, certainly not here. There's gotta be better anuses in the sea. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:48, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Whatever happened with photographs of living models guideline? Are we sure that the anus in question really has released all right to Wikipedia? (I kid!!) TheronJ 13:28, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Ya'll should just spend more time changing diapers -- easiest way to see a much cuter anus than that thing in the picture, and won't cost you your breakfast. Sandy 15:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Speak for yourself on the breakfast, especially if the diaper is being changed out of necessity. I'd much rather see a picture of a clean one than view a dirty one in real life. Powers ^T 16:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

A compromise usually is that the picture is linked to and not shown. The anus pic borders on goatse. Anomo 06:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

or a drawing (medical textbook style). Or at the very least a normal specimen (there is a lot of leeway between a detached anatomic presentation of an average anus and goatse. We should definitely lean towards the former. I don't dare look just now, but I gather the image in question is closer to the goatse end of the scale than it should be). dab (ᛏ) 08:43, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not even close. It's a completely normal, if hairy, anus. Powers ^T 13:59, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I have reviewed lots of human anatomy articles, and the general state of the articles is if the object is on the outside of the body and easily photographed, then someone has uploaded a photograph to Wikipedia. Unfortunately, many of these are of very poor standard, and would be laughed out of any publishing house or professional photography review forum. I would say that drawings are better until people can produce better images (better composition, better lighting, etc). At the moment, it just looks very amateurish. "Look! We can photograph this thing so we have - aren't we clever?" Carcharoth 10:40, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

How is this issue in any way different from images of a penis or of breasts in their respective articles? Anatomy articles generally include an image of the relevant anatomical features. Why does this discussion focus on the correctness of including this image, instead of on the repeated and largely unexplained removal of this image by anonymous editors? The edit war referred to in the title should be the topic of discussion here. Please discuss the quality and nature of the image at Talk:Anus. Thank you. -- Ec5618 16:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I am generalising to try and pin down an "anatomy" policy. It is already obvious that external body shots are included only because it is possible for amateur photographers to do so, with no thoughts for anatomical presentation. They tend to point the camera and click, and then think their pic of whatever is great. Most times the verdict should be "send back to photographer - try harder next time". If you were preparing an anatomy encyclopedia, you would commission a set of consistent pictures of human anatomy, both external and internal. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia way is to throw together a hodge-podge of pictures from multiple sources, with precious little organisation.

As for the edit war, yes, that should be addressed, and hopefully an admin will come along and help you. Sorry for going off-topic. Carcharoth 18:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Emmalina

I had an old post here (long archived now) requesting that revisions containing the subject's birthday be removed. Some were removed, but most of them weren't, presumably due to GFDL concerns. After asking about it on Jimbo's user talk page, someone posted the solution [29] - simply credit everybody who had worked on the article. So I put everybody's name in two edit smummaries [30] [31]. Done. Now, is it possible to trash all the revisions from July 2 to September 5, or do I have to jump through some more hoops to get this done? Hbdragon88 04:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, can soemone delete these revisons as well (from talk page): all revisions from 05:52 to 06:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC time). Hbdragon88 04:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Both have been done. I made another edit summary that tells people that the people mentioned were contributors, since someone who comes along might not know what they mean otherwise. I wish there was a better way to do this, since it comes up every once in a while. -- Kjkolb 12:23, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmm...those names that I just listed were only the contributors from July 2 to September 6; I didn't account for the rest of them - the ones who worked on the article from early June to July... Hbdragon88 03:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, the edits before and after have been restored, except some edits that added inappropriate links and mean stuff that got removed anyway. -- Kjkolb 09:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much. Boy did I laugh when I saw this revision [32] - the result of so many lost revisions. Hbdragon88 23:54, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Gregory Lauder-Frost

After a period of intense brouhaha including legal threats, forum shopping, WP:OFFICE, indefinite blockings and all the other accoutrements of low drama Wikipedia style, we finally have cautious agreement from the Foundation to write a neutral biography on this minor figure in British right-wing politics.

The latest act in this little play, though, is a message to User:Edchilvers stating that the subject is suffering from a very serious illness. Given that the neutral statement of certain facts (check the talk page archive) apparently causes the subject great distress, and taking the information and request at face value, it would seem to be decently respectful to stub or delete the article. Frankly I don't think this person's notability is worth the effort expended and I am all for deleting it anyway, but impassioned defence earlier in its life makes this a controversial move.

So: the matter of principle haivng been settled (yes we should paint the picture warts and all), should the matter of ordinary human decency now come into play here? My immediate reaction is that it should, and Ed Chilvers (who God knows has no reason to love Lauder-Frost) also seems persuaded. I'm somewhat reluctant to make this call on my own, though, being an involved party. Guy 20:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Given the previous legal threats and associated other problems, I see no reason why we should believe that the ilness claim isn't just another tactic. It seem well within the junk that we have already gotten from Frost and his compatriots. JoshuaZ 20:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

What he said. That claim ought to be subject to the same standard of verfication/reliable sources as facts put into living person's biography (even if not put into the article). My cursory reading of the talk pages tells me that if these people say/this person says it's raining, look out the window to check. --Calton | Talk 22:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

This information is already in the article (albeit indirectly, it mentions the 1995 accident which led to the illness), and it was added well before Lauder-Frost's people ever mentioned it. The source is a local newspaper (not online) and I don't think there's any reason to think it's a fabrication. --bainer (talk) 01:52, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm still not convinced that this isn't an excuse given their previous behavior. Being sick doesn't mean he is so sick as to treat him as a goseis. Just to clarify since we don't seem to have a wiki article on the term yet (and I'm not convinced its notable enough for me to write a stub about) a goseis(sp? in English) is a person who in halachah is so close to dying to that we don't interfere with them in any way lest we hasten their death. The metaphor might be a bit weak. JoshuaZ 01:57, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

What does his illness have to do with whether or not we write an accurate biography about him? If he's so sick that he's going to die next week, and wants us to wait until after his death to write the bio, that's one thing, but I don't think that's what he's claiming. --tjstrf 02:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I wish Mr. Lauder-Frost a full recovery. In the light of his serious illness, I am surprised that the subject has time or inclination to bother with this article. However, I suggest that he does not read it, if it causes distress to him. If material is in the public domain, then it is too late to put Pandora back into the box. I would also request editors to handle discussions, as on this page, with suitable sensitivity as we are talking about a living person. Tyrenius 02:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Amen. Being ill is bad. It has nothing to do with anything else, though, and his illness would only mean that he personally has trouble editing Wikipedia. Since he really shouldn't be editing his own article anyway, the illness is irrelevant to the article. I'm sure that we all wish him well, however. Geogre 09:43, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Warning for administrators

It seem that Robert Fuller (and his IP : 154.20.46.132 and 154.20.43.99) is a pure provocative vandal playing with wiki-commons democratic rules. He upload only sex files on commons (In fact probably his own sex).
My own enquiry show that Robert Fuller use at less this 3 "accounts" to spread his dozen of sex pictures accross wikipedias. His contributions are only and at 100% to spread this sex pictures across the wiki en/pt/es/it/fr/ca/vi. Then, he come back to commons-deletion page saying "Look, wikipedians use my pics : you can't delete it." His strategy is pretty good and he will probably do so again.
I have the conviction that this user know what he is doing, play with our rules, and upload such ambigius sex files [and only this] with the clear aim to launch edition wars and to hurt wikipedia's reputation.
Seeing a strategy like that when many others work to build a good wikipedia, I think this user and his IP have to be block on every wiki, that his pic should be move into the talk_pages, and then let other users peacely choice if these pics are need or not. I encourage administrators to do so (block him + move pics). Do nothing means "Welcome Robert Fuller".
Yug, administrator on commons. 22:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

May be using the username User:Duskanddawn - see this report. CovenantD 06:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Foo generation Pokémon

Can someone please set a bot on the task of removing [[Category:First generation Pokémon]], [[Category:Second generation Pokémon]], [[Category:Third generation Pokémon]], and [[Category:Fourth generation Pokémon]] from any articles? The Pokémon species template has automatically added these categories to articles for quite a while now, and nobody has gotten around to removing the manually-added links. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

All done. :-) the wub "?!" 13:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Much appreciated. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:50, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/SqueakBox and Zapatancas

On August 21 by community consensus, the remedies in place in this case (article ban and personal attack parole) were extended to Hagiographer (talk · contribs) [33]. Jayjg has determined that Hagiographer is a sockpuppet of MJGR (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and has indef blocked Hagiographer. [34] Therefore (and with Jayjg's agreement [35]) I have extended the remedies in this case to MJGR as well. Thatcher131 13:18, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:External links

Can a few eyes have a look at this. Both me and User:I already forgot have reverted changes made by User:David.Kane, who is blindly reverting. I'm not getting involved in an edit war, so I'm walking away, but I don't think the actions by User:David.Kane are helpful. Hiding Talk 13:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Request for help: Change a redirect to a rename

I am the editor who created and developed the page "Roe vs. Wade for Men". User:Interlingua found the page and (correctly) tried to change the name to "Roe v. Wade for Men". However, he did this using a redirect rather than a rename. He expresses here his concern that by using the redirect, the history of the page did not move to the new name. I also share that concern because the work I did in creating the page is not listed in the history with the new name. We both would like the change made (see our discussion), but based on what I could determine by reading WP:MOVE, we would need an administrator to do so.

There have only been two edits since the redirect: the adding of italics by Interlingua and one small typo correction. If someone could please remove the current Roe v. Wade for Men and then rename the version of Roe vs. Wade for Men from before the redirect to "Roe v. Wade for Men", it would be very much appreciated, and it would be something over which there is a consensus among everyone involved.

Then, the two edits would have to be made and a redirect from Roe vs. Wade for Men to the renamed Roe v. Wade for Men would have to be created, which I would be happy to do, or you could do, too.

Thanks so much, HalfDome 14:53, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• Fixed. Uncle G 15:32, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! HalfDome 16:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Can some admins keep watch of Habbo Hotel

I can't believe that even with semi-protection, that there was an absolutely ridiculous section on "Habbo Raids". That kind of bullshit is saved for crap like encyclopedia dramatica, they're just forum invasions of a chat room. You have 4chan clowns and YTMND and encyclopedia dramatica people trying to spam their forum invasions, and even the established editors there don't seem to care. I also removed an image advertising 4chan's noble events from the article, that image is Image:Habboraid11sep.PNG. I've tagged it as an orphaned fair use image, but if it could be speedied then that would be great. - Hahnchen 14:54, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Deletion backlog

Hello administrators. There are days worth of Prodded articles which have passed the 5 day mark and are waiting around to be deleted. Please find someone to handle this, or alternatively make me an administrator so I can clean these out. Thank you. Have a nice day. --Xyzzyplugh 15:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm on it. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:30, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:EL

Several users are continuously attempting to make far-reaching changes to this important WP guideline, which can have very disruptive effects for Wikipedia. While the discussion on the talk page now got difficult to follow for non-participants (and some participants as well), the major problem now is the self-appointed edit by one of the users, which he refuses to revert, and a group of users hampers all effort to restore the original form of the guideline. Therefore, I believe, administrator attention is highly necessary. Regards, Bravada, talk - 22:17, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

This isn't the first time there's been an edit war on this page. I've protected it until an agreement can be reached. Naconkantari 23:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Irishpunktom: Article ban lifted from Peter Tatchell for Dbiv and replaced with probation

In Irishpunktom case a motion passed and is published at the above link.

The article ban (remedy 1) for Dbiv (talk · contribs) and Irishpunktom (talk · contribs) from Peter Tatchell is lifted, and replaced with Probation for Dbiv also. Any administrator, in the exercise of their judgement for reasonable cause, may ban Dbiv from any page which he disrupts by inappropriate editing. He must be notified on his talk page of any bans, and a note must also placed on WP:AN/I. Violations of these bans or paroles imposed shall be enforced by appropriate blocks, up to a month in the event of repeat violations. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Irishpunktom#Log of blocks and bans.

For the Arbitration Committee FloNight 22:52, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Bravo to the ArbCom! :-) (→Netscott) 22:58, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Very straightforward move

Would someone mind moving Antonio Prohias to Antonio Prohías? I couldn't do so only because the latter used to be a redirect pointing to itself, but it hardly seems worth listing at Requested moves. Thanks. blameless 00:03, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. But next time, still use Requested moves though. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 00:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks. blameless 00:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

You can use {{db-move}} - post it to the redirect page. I've done it numerous times, although what seems to happen is that the admin merely deletes the page and lets you mvoe it over. Hbdragon88 04:49, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

4 removes of the afd notice

See: Christ's Church Cathedral (Hamilton) Arbusto 02:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Left a {{drmafd3}} and will block if removed again. Please use WP:AIV for incidents like this in the future. Thanks, Naconkantari 02:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

What is going on with this user?[36] Arbusto 02:53, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I have left them a final warning. Naconkantari 02:54, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Portland Movement

Can an admin take a look at this AfD and make a decision on it? It's a bit of a wild one, with only a few actual votes (most of them for deletion), and a whole ton of followers of the article's subject making long, rambling arguments about how it's notable because of it's growth, and not offering any verfiable evidence on this religious movement's notability. Not sure if the lack of votes means it should be relisted, or if a decision can be made on the article. Just would like to have this matter closed considering it's way past the 5-day period to discuss an AfD. NeoChaosX [talk | contribs] 03:19, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I am making a decision now. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 03:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I made the decision; deletion. I ran Copyscape and it told me that nearly 800 words were lifted from an article at [37]. The problems with this article before was copyvios, so I just nuked it and protected the article from recreation. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks. NeoChaosX [talk | contribs] 03:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

My decision (timestamped 3 minutes after ZScouts deletion) stands against the recreation of an original article. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 03:50, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

That is why I also locked it, though I should have waited for you to finish your stuff before I used copyscape. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 04:28, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Werdnabot

Werdnabot — I've recently discovered an issue in a script I used on two archive runs, affecting some 93 edits, which caused Werdnabot to archive pages to the wrong destinations, often taking the whole page. I've temporarily suspended all future Werdnabot runs until the edits have been rectified. The problematic edits are those which are tagged as minor, in the past week. Any assistance would be much much much appreciated. Thanks, — Werdna talk criticism 06:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Rollback? —Centrx→talk • 06:14, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Werdnabot is the only contributor to many of the affected pages. It needs to be a simple revert — but not all of the contribs are on-top, either. — Werdna talk criticism 06:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Desg

I am sorry, I am very, very green and I doubt I am doing this correctly, but there it is.

This user is a spammer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Desg

All his contributions are adding his commercial links to Wiki pages.

In particular, on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stained_glass

He has removed a very valuable link about stained glass restoration and replaced it with a link to his newly formed forum. He has added a very plain stained glass window of his in the middle of the world's best examples, with a link to his commercial site.

On this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_came_and_copper_foil_glasswork

He added a link to a tool he sells and did a similar trick with the external links as he did for the page above.

Most importantly, after the pages were restored, he promptly returned to spam the Wiki pages again, and added his spammy links once more.

I understand there is some sort of warning system but I am not confident enough to do this, I cannot be sure I will do it right.

I would appreciate if someone could oversee this matter. Thank you.

Recommend adding downeaststainedglass.com on the spam blacklist. Hbdragon88 06:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

With spammers, you usually warn them incrementally with templates {{spam}}, {{spam2}}, {{spam3}}, {{spam4}} each time they return to their activity. Use their talk page for that. If they persist, you report them at WP:AIV. See WP:UTM for other warning templates. Conscious 07:45, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

He is also spamming with stainedglassville.com and free-recipe-site.com RogerJ 09:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This person Roger J has a personal hatred for me and is attempting to destroy my credentials. Please call me by phone to discuss further if you have any questions. My phone # is at the bottom of my website Down East Stained Glass I can produce legal harrassment papers to back my claims. DESG

Whether or not this is the case (it is certainly odd that his only contributions here are related to you), for the most part he is correctly interpreting Wikipedia standards. Our External links policy strongly discourages editors from adding links to their own sites and/or to commercial sites. FreplySpang 14:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Please note that this user has removed warnings to his talk page with this edit. I have restored the warnings and added {{subst:Wr0}} as appropriate, as it appears this user may not understand our policies regarding talk pages but did not appear to remove the warnings in a botched archiving attempt or as part of a formatting error. Captainktainer * Talk 15:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

He's been temporarily blocked for violating 3RR. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 18:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Presently he seems to be testing the limits of tolerance of Wikipedians regarding linking to his website. The new strategy involves gratuitious mentions of his website accompanied with a link to some page or other of downeaststainedglass.com [[38]], [[39]], [[40]], [[41]]. Given his past behavior I suspect he is curious as to how many times he can insert his link outside of the "External Links" sections before being warned. I also suspect he is venting his frustration about being caught spamming with a NPOV dispute on this page Lead_came_and_copper_foil_glasswork. It's a lot of work to protect the Wiki pages from his dogged pursuance of a personal and commercial agenda. Assistance from the community would be much appreciated. RogerJ 13:18, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. I don't know enough about stained glass to evaluate whether he is an eeeevil spammer or a good-faith contributor with valuable information on the subject. Dispute resolution is the way to bring in people who are experienced with Wikipedia (and hopefully even some with stained glass experience) to look over the situation. This page is not for dispute resolution; please do not try to carry out the argument here. FreplySpang 15:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

SPAMMING: After this spamming incident [[42]], last warning given [[43]], and still spamming continues [[44]]. Please intervene. He won't stop. RogerJ 11:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

ZimZalaBim has now dealt with this and warned Desg. In fairness the other two links on the page are the same (if not worse) with regard to adverts and I feel that if they are acceptable Desg's site should be as well. --Spartaz 12:28, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

the Giano thread

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Giano

Split to Giano. This is causing problems to us not on broadband when editing this page. It's huge, so I'm opening a subpage for it. /Giano -- Drini 20:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, but half the thread had already been archived. Since some things in the archived bit are still "hot" and keep being referred to, I'm moving that part to the subpage also. Apologies if that makes the subpage itself problematically long! In that case somebody'd better revert my action. Bishonen | talk 20:31, 20 September 2006 (UTC).

The rest of the thread has been moved to the subpage, except for the Arbitration notice below. NoSeptember 16:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Arbitration

I may, in fact, not be right in the head, but I believe what I'm doing to be the right thing. I've submitted an arbitration case to review the actions surrounding these events. Anyone may view the case here. --InkSplotch 18:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow, tree arbcom members alreayd accepted it? This is legendary. this is like the pedophilia userbox wheel war one. Hbdragon88 07:15, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Copyright issue -- appropriate use of admin tools?

Hi. I'd like to ask my fellow admins for some advice. It has been demonstrated, after months of discussion and research both here and at Commons, that our reasoning behind Template:PD-USSR was wrong. People interested in the ins and outs of the copyright issue can read the template talk pages here and at Commons. Some of the images so classified are PD for other reasons, some of them we will need to claim Wikipedia:Fair use on. The admin issue is that there is a small number of users who believe that the copyright issue is irrelevant and that the cleanup project is politically motivated (as I understand the complaint -- there is an incoherent RfC on the subject). What I want to see happen is that the template be changed to explain the problem, so that we begin resorting all of the effected images and, importantly, not acquire any more of them. Any such change to the template, however, is going to be reverted. Given the situation, should I protect the template on the explanatory version, or do we continue to go on giving bad copyirght information because editors who don't care about the copyright issue have set up camp at the template and will edit war, or do I write a "please come help us" letter to User:Brad Patrick or User:Jimbo Wales? I'd really appreciate some feedback. Jkelly 17:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I am going to copy the Commons version of the template on the EN and then begin the long process of sorting this out. I will also protect it too. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 18:30, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

BTW, Brad is out and Jimbo is in Poland, so they are quite busy now. I went ahead and did what I said above. I still do not think we should go out on a deletion spree, but make this calculated and rational. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 18:36, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that deletion is going to be necessary for most of these images. We just need to not make the image cleanup problem worse by acquiring more of them. Jkelly 18:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually I suspect that a significant number of images will need deletion. If the en. images are anything like the Commons ones (I've reviewed a fair number of those) this tag has generally poor sourcing.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:52, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, but that's an entirely separate issue from whether or not we can begin resorting these images. Even if we had originally been right about the copyright issue, unsourced images still need deleting. Jkelly 18:56, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am afraid that blunt use of protection is the only way forward. This has been dragged out for months because of historical national grievances that have nothing to do with copyright and license concerns for Wikimedia. Jkelly 18:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I've updated OrphanBot to deal with new uploads. It will mark them as {{nld}}, and will inform the uploader that the tag is deprecated. --Carnildo 18:54, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Carnildo. Jkelly 18:56, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• Let's wait till we have an authoritative legal opinion from the Foundations lawyer before undertaking massive deletions. No harm in that. El_C 19:39, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

No one at en is talking about "massive deletions". We're talking about resorting images that are currently incorrectly labelled. If you think that you have information about USSR copyright that has not come up in the several-month-long discussion, please feel free to contribute. Jkelly 19:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Here is my contribution: I want the legal opinion of the Foundation lawyer. El_C 21:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it's not interesting why you want that. Email is probably better than leaving a message at User talk:Brad Patrick. Jkelly 21:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm more interested in public statements than private correspondence. El_C 21:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

You can ask, but there is something that people rarely keep in mind that needs saying. Brad doesn't work for us. He works for Jimbo and the Board, and exists to help keep the Foundation out of legal trouble. There are many legal questions that we could desire to ask him where publicly providing his interpretation of the law, either in support or in opposition, has the potential to expose the Foundation to greater liability than if he simply did not answer. The reason is that providing an opinion pierces the seperation between the Foundation and the community, and it is exactly that seperation that is in many cases the best shield that the Foundation has against suits brought because of editors' actions. If trying to help us could expose the Foundation to greater legal liability, then I have every expectation that he will ignore us (and rightfully so). Hence, while you can ask (and the answer might be informative), I think it is unlikely that Brad will actually step in to try and settle this (or any other) copyright question. Dragons flight 21:54, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a good answer, so perhaps it's best that I dropped that part altogether. My main concern is not knowing how massive the ultimate deletion is going to be and under which criteria articles are to be included as candidates for said (at some point) image deletion drive. El_C 22:22, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Step 1 is definitely not to make the problem any worse, so deprecating the template and claim of PD for future uploads - even if we later reverse that - makes obvious sense. Guy 20:49, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

My thanks to Lupo, Jkelly, Zscout and others for doing something proactive about this. As a general rule, I think we owe it to ourselves and reusers to ensure that copyright tags are unambiguously correct. In my opinion, any tag that draws such protracted dispute should have been taken out of circulation long ago, even before reaching a final conclusion about its objective truth. This goes a small way toward plugging the mess of holes in Wikipedia's treatment of foreign copyrights. (Probably the biggest hole is the assumption that being in the public domain in the country of origin is always a sufficient condition to be in the public domain in the US.) Dragons flight 21:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

So long as there's a sound plan for reusability (under another ©ategory) in the main namespace for those images of historic significance. El_C 22:31, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

My first suggestions, as what Carnildo has done, is to prevent new images that could be used under this template from being used. My plan of action is to go after the duplicates, the orphans and the clear-cut casses (such as post 1973 images, I found a few of those.) Anything during the GPW should be looked at with care, since there could be PD items and some not free items. I also would begin to get rid of orphans or begin to launch emails to websites. I do not expect this taking a few days, but not everything has to be nuked. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 01:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Going for duplicates & orphans is of course good, for any set of images. My concern is about reusability. What about reusability? El_C 09:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

User:No more anonymous editing - something odd

Something smells funny here. This editor signed up and immediately started going through and reverting anon contributions, all with the edit summary "RV anon". Some of the changes look reasonable, but others are questionable. I've reverted one (at Sequencer - a link to the French article was removed), another, at Backmasking looks borderline (an anon added to one section that didn't look too bad, but I figured I'd get a second look on that one)... this smells of someone making a point in some way. Could someone look this over, please? Tony Fox (arf!) 06:34, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly what it is; most of the edits were legitimate, some excellent edits. I have rolled back his edits. I also blocked the account; even if he were to be reformed, and somehow is not a banned user, he would need a new username anyway. —Centrx→talk • 07:00, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks kindly. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Urgent block

The user:85.156.136.58 have started to erase information from articles due to his own private political agenda, see his/her contributions. This was posted in the discussion page on the Korsnäs article:

"Korsnäs have a finnish name Ristitaipale, but you dont accept it, because you are swedish bättre folk (english better people). So because you want to destroy finnish names, I will now correct finnish city articles, where swedish name is too noticeable. --85.156.136.58 12:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)"

please warn or block this user, he/she has already messed up about 20 articles today [45]. MoRsΞ 13:14, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I have asked the editor to stop for now and have suggested that a proposal be made for the changes on the Village Pump. Report back if the changes continue, as I'll be asleep soon. If I understand it correctly, he or she is upset with the prominence given to the Swedish names of Finnish cities and has unbolded or removed them from various articles. I am unfamiliar with the subject. Is there a reason why the Swedish names are included? Are they often used in Finland or in English speaking countries? If there is not a good reason, I think they should be removed. London is known by various names in other languages (see exonym and endonym), but only the English version is given in the article. In other cases, however, the editor is adding the Finnish names to articles on Finnish cities. Do some Finnish cities have foreign names that are more well known than their Finnish names? Is there a movement to rename Finnish cities that have foreign names? This type of change is also being reverted by other editors. -- Kjkolb 13:45, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

There is a native Swedish minority in Finland and viceversa.--Asterion^talk 13:50, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

The matter how the information should be included can be discussed. This has to do with the bilinguality of the country (Like in Belgium, where most cities have both French and Flemish names). This user is POV-pushing the sole mentioning of the Finnish names and/or adds false information (as in Seinäjoki and Korsnäs) because of his/her agenda. I managed to revert the damage done, but I fear he will continue when the 2 hour block ends. MoRsΞ 14:13, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Quebec bashing

A new article Quebec bashing has appeared recently. I'm not quite sure what to make of it; part of the problem is that it isn't that well written, so I'm having a hard time seeing the point it is trying to make (or even if it is trying to make a point). I've tagged it NPOV a couple of times, but it keeps being deleted - perhaps rightfully so. I think more than anything, this article needs more eyes. If there's anyone who has a good perspective, perhaps they could pop over and give their thoughts. Nfitz 17:23, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it's complete nonsense. Any article with so many occurrences of "allegedly" and "alleged" is really struggling. Guy 22:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Jason Gastrich

18:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Slow moving revert war - Duck Hunt

Some guy with a dynamic IP keeps on trying to spam his webcomic there. Check the history to see what's going on. I can not be bothered to babysit this article, if some admin wants to shoot him down then that would be nice. - Hahnchen 15:20, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I"d love to ask for sprotection, but it looks so slow that I'm sure that the request will be denied. Hbdragon88 21:17, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, sprotection (at WP:RFPP) or constant vigilance are the only two options available. I'm not an admin, but I'll keep the page on my ever-growing watchlist. I need to prune that soon... Captainktainer * Talk 21:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

there is another option. List the website on the spam blacklist. pschemp | talk 12:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

UCT causing some problems...

The University of Cape Town has a course called Eco3025: Applied International Trade Bargaining. It is a simulation of a WTO Doha Round negotiation (people are divided into countries and then compete with each other. A little bit like Model UN). (here's a link. I think this is last year's information, but you get the idea). It is a course I've done & tutored and it is extremely competitive (people have stormed out, ended friendships, punched each other etc.).

In any case, I was just chatting to a friend doing the course at the moment & she informs me at least one person (possibly more) have sneakily vandalised a number of countries' articles on Wikipedia in order to sabotage their competition (i.e. students rely on the information on Wikipedia, so some devious person has deliberately added FALSE information to gain a competitive edge). She adds this guy says the information has not yet been fixed and added that he claims to have edited all the top ten countries by GDP (see List of countries by GDP (PPP)). These edits began sometime in early August.

So... we're looking for anon edits to these articles since August that have altered economic or political aspects on the article of countries that are top ten by GDP. If it helps, I suspect most of these edits would have come from the UCT computer system. Here are some ips I know to originate from that system (as these were my ip edits when I edited from UCT): 155.232.250.19, 155.232.250.51, 155.232.250.35. -- Mikker ^(...) 23:48, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

this and this edit to Economy of Germany and Economy of Japan, respectively, by Subordinate (talk · contribs) looks suspiciously like sneaky vandalism (compare [46] and [47]). Although, both of these have been fixed as far as I can tell... Mikker ^(...) 00:08, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

It's probably the leading edge of what will be a growing problem in the future... people vandalizing Wikipedia to try to gain an advantage in some competition or other that involves knowledge of facts or trivia. *Dan T.* 00:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

This is completely unacceptable behavior of the worst sort. I would think this would be an excellent thing to make an example of by contacting the university in question and letting them know that such deliberate misinformation has occured and that we do not appreciated it. JoshuaZ 03:31, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Rodney Howard-Browne

Could someone please look at this article: different versions of it appear to either extol or condemn its subject, without any verifiable sources. I think some serious WP:BLP enforcement is needed here, but I'm not an expert on handling BLP problems... -- The Anome 13:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

After some digging, I've dealt with this by doing a bunch of reverts and issued a warning about NPOV and BLP to User:GEORGEWATTS. -- The Anome 13:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Concerns over the 9/11 set of articles

I'm not sure where to express my concerns, so am choosing here.

Inspection of the suite of articles showing the various theories, counter theories, conspiracy theories etc will show a hugely controversial area of accusations of propaganda, calls for the truth to be heard, and much "oddness" which is more of a discussion forum than an encyclopaedia.

Examples include:

• 911: In Plane Site
• Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center
• Wikipedia:Association of 9/11 All Sides Editors

and their corresponding deletion discussion pages.

To me it seems odd that this appears to be a partisan issue, human nature apart, since the various theories, counter theories and conspiracy theories are all a legitimate part of the same phenomenon, thus all within scope for encyclopaedic and neutral documentation.

I have no idea if there is a process for uninvolved admins to review both the actions of the participants and the various deletion review pages to ensure that guidance is given, where appropriate, to heavily involved editors on topics ranging from civility to editing and opining within the various Wikipedia policies, and also to ensuring that the closing admin (or admins) is (are) completely non-partisan in this set of issues when a deletion has been requested.

Fiddle Faddle 13:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

This subject is understandably a contentious one and would benefit from some fresh participants, not involved in the existing confrontations, to help maintain policy and standards of behaviour. Tyrenius 02:35, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps ongoing administrator oversight would be helpful to ensure that no one is allowed to import any partisan or nationalistic edits to these articles? The edit histories as well as the comments on the various AfDs are littered with what appear to be extremely nationalistic reasonings, which have no place. · XP · 02:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a serious situation that I tried to do something about, it has created a huge mess. Something needs to be done and I'm afraid it is beyond the user level at this point. The whole situation involves multiple users including some admins and is in violation of almost every policy out there and makes Wikipedia as a whole worse off. Shortfuse 10:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

We need to be very clear, here. In this issue I think neither "side" is blameless. Indeed some of us who have attempted simply to take a policy based and neutral view are probably not blameless either. By raising this here I have hoped to highlight this to our most experienced and impartial admins, knowing that I also may have made contentious comments. My entire point is that we must all be open to community scrutiny, and the article(s) are the better for it if we are correctly scrutinised.

I believe we have a large enough pool of admins who both have sufficient experience of Wikipedia policies and guidelines and who have absolutely no interest in the subject matter of these articles in order to bring some order to what is currently a battleground

The most important thing in this discussion is to take a step back and look at our own comments with care, despite what we may perceive as provocation. We have metrics to judge what should and should not be included, and I believe we must stick to the wholeheartedly. The current situation simply saddens me. Fiddle Faddle 12:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

These 9/11 articles are fought over between conspiracy people and people who are they complete opposite... maybe they believe there's no conspiracy... maybe they work for the government. All in all it's just point of view pushing both ways--the people who fight to have the information and those who don't have just want to push their POVs and they should be handled like that. It's not like the person who nominated the articles you listed above works for CIA or homeland security. Anomo 00:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

What you and many others continue to miss is the mere inclusion of an article on a topic in and of itself does not constitute POV pushing. Using XfD to delete everything you disagree with, does. Its just that simple. --Shortfuse 00:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

What the great majority of people appear to miss is that the documenting of the point of view of other people is not the same as documenting one's own point of view. And this is part of my concern.

As examples:

1. were I to say that, in my opinion all green haired people should be shot on sight, that is my point of view and I am pushing it.
2. However, if I were to say that, according to the following reputable sources, the following people, some of whom may and others of whom may not be notable in their own right, say that all green haired people should be shot on sight, then I create an article as part of a suite of articles on green haired people that is encyclopaedic.

The difference is very clear, and very simple to understand. Example 1 is meet for deletion, or editing to remove my personal viewpoint, arguably original research. Example 2 is probably controversial, but is factual, supportable by the facts, is notable and has its notability asserted by references. It should remain.

If a person argues for the deletion of example 2, especially if they do so vociferously, then it can be argued clearly that they are seeking to stifle genuine encyclopaedic work. An extension of this, assuming they have not simply made an error in understanding, is that they have their own agenda, which may be to remove all comments against green haired people.

I suppose I should state that I have occasionally used green hair gel and that I am not in any way opposed to green haired people, nor do I believe that they should be shot on sight. Fiddle Faddle 10:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

In case it is not obvious, in Example 2, if any of the sources are not reputable, then those sources either should not be quoted as citations, or should be grouped as "sources which do not pass the reputability test, but which endorse this opinion". In other words, "Editing the article is ok". Fiddle Faddle 10:15, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

So then there should be many conspiracy articles about 9/11 simply so a single article does not become too long. Anomo 10:32, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

No. I have never said that and I will never say it.

There should be sufficient and correct documentation of this phenomenon, both the atrocity and the phenomenon of the conspiracy theories. But the cornerstone is that the material about any part of the 9/11 incidents should be verifiable, citable, and notable.

Where it is necessary to split an article because it is unwieldy and is suitable for splitting, that is a normal and healthy clerical process, and it is absolutely removed from any discussions about points of view. Fiddle Faddle 10:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

undelete article on schlogger

Please undelete the article on schlogger. It is much more noticable than some other sites on the list of social networking sites. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Romney (talk • contribs) .

I've discussed this with Romney on his user talk page, and pointed him to WP:DRV. FreplySpang 14:33, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Unclosed Vote for Deletion from November 2004

I happened to stumble upon the VfD for Chet Anekwe today. The concensus points to delete but it was never closed and deleted. Shoudl an admin carry out that concensus or should a new AfD be made? Metros232 14:42, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

The article you linked to was created 17:05, July 23, 2005, after the VfD - I doubt the person who created it even knew the article was deleted. However, all of the arguments for deletion seem to still apply to the current article. In any case, I just redirected it to Dream Job. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 15:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Huh, that's odd, I didn't notice the creation date. I had looked in the deletion log and didn't see it in there. Are deletions from "way back when" not logged? Metros232 15:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Thats what it looks like. Syrthiss 15:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Looking back through the deletion logs of old VfDs that ended in "delete", it looks like the Deletion log goes back to sometime in December 2004. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 15:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

There's no entries in Special:Log/delete for the page (log was introduced December 23, 2004), although there are four deleted edits which are listed at Special:Undelete/Chet Anekwe. A manual log was kept before the automatic log was introduced, that's archived at Wikipedia:Deletion log. --bainer (talk) 15:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Anekwe has appeared recently in the lead in a Nigerian film called 30 Days, and has also appeared in a production of August Wilson's "Real Black Men Don't Sit Cross-legged on the Floor: A Collage in Blues", which was reviewed in the New York Times [48]. The current redirect is fine but somebody might want to expand to a stub some time in the near future. --Tony Sidaway 16:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Admins who don't edit articles

Removed cut+pasted discussion on this subject. Please keep the discussion in one place so that it doesn't develop forks. It is now at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Admins who don't edit articles, continuing into Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Some of the related ideas. FreplySpang 16:47, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

(Situation resolved.) Korean War Article has been massivly vandalized.

Korean War

Please look this over and compair it to earlier edits. The entire top has been destroyed and the nice table that was on the right side is totally gone. I think this is a major priority for revert.

magnumserpentine9-24-06

So revert it. —Centrx→talk • 17:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

was not sure I had authorization to do so. But someone else has and all is well I apologize for any problems MagnumSerpentine 9-24-06

anyone whether logged in or not can revert in good faith obvious vandalism. Reverting content once is OK if that content is not supported by a reliable source or is otherwise unencyclopedic. However, please comply with [WP:3RR]] as that is a blockable offense. Check out the [page] for more tips. --Richard 17:30, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Per WP:BLP

I have no idea if this (link removed) information is true or not, but should the version be deleted from the history regardless? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 23:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I would say yes, an Admin should delete. We also need to come up with a better procedure for dealing with this type of problem than posting to this board, as at the moment such posts, while necessary, wind up publicizing the existence of the very information that should be deleted. Newyorkbrad 23:56, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Check out Wikipedia:Requests for oversight and Wikipedia:Oversight. It's handled by email to a list of trusted users. FreplySpang 00:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I've sent it in. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 00:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, FreplySpang. I was familiar with the existence of Oversight, but not that specific page. Newyorkbrad 01:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jessica Lee Rose

I'd appreciate it if an admin would take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jessica Lee Rose. This article was closed September 24 by CharlotteWebb, who is a non-admin. As the discussion had a relatively even number of "keep" and "merge" votes, I reopened the AfD so that an admin could make a decision between those two choices. CharlotteWebb has reacted unpleasantly to this, posting a profanity-laden demand for an explanation on the Afd's talk page (which I gave her, even though I clearly explained my reasoning in the AfD itself) and a statement at Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion#WP:AFD.2FJessica_Lee_Rose_.28talk.29 accusing me of "misus[ing] AFD to create a binding decision in a content dispute" and requesting that an admin take some sort of action against me. So, if anyone has the time, could you please: 1) Check the AfD and either give it a thumbs up for a few days' more discussion or make a decision and close it (it was originally listed September 20); and 2) Let me know whether I did the right thing here or not. If the closing admin says the decision is to "merge", then that's a binding decision, isn't it? And thus, by her closure, did she not nullify all the "merge" votes in that AfD out-of-process? Thanks, --Aaron 01:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Note: I forgot to add: I voted merge in the original AfD and have made no edits to the article itself or the article to which the merger has been proposed. Also, I can find no evidence that CharlotteWebb was in any way involved in either article or the AfD, except to close it. --Aaron 01:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Leaving the main issue aside for a moment, my eyesight must be failing me - could you link to the "profanity-laden" demand from Charlotteweb? --Charlesknight 10:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

For a low-moderate threshold of "profanity-laden": [49] AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Deleting is an administrative process. Merging is an editorial process. AFD is designed to address an administrative question, namely "Should this article be deleted?" Merge decisions are not binding in AFD, simply because merge decisions are editorial rather than administrative, and AFD is not intended to address editorial questions. When I close AFD discussions which have a consensus of "Merge," my closing note is always something to the effect of "The consensus is to not delete this article. Interested parties are cordially invited to merge this article with any other relevant articles as the mood strikes them." or something of that nature. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 15:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

That's about what I was trying to explain. — CharlotteWebb 19:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Evrik

Alex Bakharev has blocked Evrik for removing warnings from his user page. I went through his contributions and he was not one engaging in personal attacks. I feel this is a case of mistaken identity. Can someone else check this and see if this user can be unblocked. Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 04:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Agree with unblock. I've left a message with Alex -- Samir धर्म 04:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Agree with unblock as well. I was reviewing the AIV report and would have not have blocked Evrik. This issue would best have been reported on AN or ANI, not AIV. — ERcheck (talk) 04:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. I have unblocked him. - Ganeshk (talk) 05:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Reason #736 to abolish that 'edit war to restore warnings' practice... even if it is used 'properly' all it accomplishes in most cases is to inflame the situation further. --CBD 13:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Can we have the Sam Vaknin Wiki entry back please ?

Zeraeph is currently under suspension and will probably be permanently banned for constant Wiki violations and verbally attacking others. She has a long known history for persecuting and ridiculing experts. She herself is a malignant narcissist. She and her sockpuppets are very poisonous. She obviously worked Sam Vaknin up into a frenzy as he got to perceive Wikipedia in general in the same way as Zeraeph as for a while Zeraeph had full backing from Wikipedia.

I am not in Sam Vaknin's fan club. My website barely even mentions him. He is a self professed narcissist but not a malignant one. He still runs two support groups for victims of narcissism and is generally respected on the internet. Like him or loathe him he is an important authority in the field of narcissism. I am trying to make improvements to the Workplace Bullying and related Wiki entries. There are a variety of experts relevant to this but I really find it necessary to refer to Sam Vaknin's work as one such expert. To be consistent with the way the other experts are treated (such as Robert Hare, Heinz Leymann and Tim Field with their own Wiki entries) it is not consistent for Sam Vaknin not to have his own page. NPOV in itself would be enough reason for Sam Vaknin to have his page back.

Is any mention of Sam Vaknin automatically forbidden in a Wiki entry even if a reference to his work is justifed in context, say, in bullying or narcissism Wiki entries ?

Has no-one worked out yet that what Zeraeph claimed were Sam Vaknin's sockpuppets were most likely Zeraeph's own sockpuppets ? --Penbat 10:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The AfD is here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sam Vaknin. And the page you want is deletion review, which is over there --->. Drop me a note on my Talk page if you have trouble working out how to ask for deletion review. Guy 15:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Practical process

User:David Gerard/Process essay is nearly finished; probably to be moved to "Wikipedia:Practical process" fairly soon, relinquishing all ownership and leaving it to the community's tender mercies.

I'd most welcome you all looking over it and letting me know of:

1. Anything that's clearly missing from what it says about how to do process on Wikipedia. This is supposed to be a usable guide.
2. Anything that makes you cough up a hairball.
3. - and this is the good bit - anything you spot that you think will make any other particular editor cough up a hairball. It shouldn't actually piss people off.

Talk page or hack on the essay or email to me. Thank you! - David Gerard 17:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

AFD needs closed

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jean-Paul Floru. Thanks! Stubbleboy 17:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Closed. Joelito (talk) 17:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Administrator help needed

A complicated situation has arisen with Ian White which needs admin tools of deleting to sort out. See my talk page for the background, but basically what needs to be done is:

• Delete Ian White (Ice hockey player)
• Move Ian White (licensing agent) to Ian White (Ice hockey player)

Thanks. David | Talk 19:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Done. >Radiant< 22:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• • Thanks Radiant. David | Talk 22:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Delete Old Revision Of Image/Copyright Violation

I need help from an Admin. to delete the old revision of the image on this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:UEIN_Crest.png

The current revision of the image is the correct crest for St. Christopher's Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine, as can be seen on the school's main webpage: http://www.stchrisimd.com

The old revision was a prototype that was never authorized for release to the general public by its creator and isn’t nor ever was the school crest so the copyright status on the page doesn't cover that image. It was a privately commissioned work and I would like it to be removed from Wikipedia. SpikeyPsyche 21:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. Jkelly 21:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you :) SpikeyPsyche 21:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. Jkelly 21:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Herbert_Elwood_Gilliland_III

User:Nandesuka is posting this request here on behalf of the blocked user

Herbert_Elwood_Gilliland_III (talk · contribs) would like to be reinstated.

This user is being bothered by User:Nandesuka no matter what he says, does, contributes, adds, revises, changes. This user is forced to use sock puppets to return to and modify his user page. The user was, without trial, understanding, resolution of dispute, banned from Wikipedia by a sock-puppet using Administrator, User:Nandesuka who is User:Jlambert who is User:Ehheh. Thanks. OKmrGhey 19:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This user's massive fraud is outlined in painful detail at User:Nandesuka/Young_Zaphod_Sockpuppetry. I welcome any independent review of my actions in this matter. Herb Gilliland is welcome back as an editor at any time, as long as he promises to stop spamming Wikipedia with self-promoting (and inaccurate) material about himself. To date he has been unwilling to make such a commitment. I sincerely believe that preventing him from editing until such time as he is able to do so in a way that doesn't involve unhealthy and grandiose self-promotion is not merely in Wikipedia's best interests, but in this user's best interests as well. Nandesuka 21:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• You seem to be missing the point, OKmrGhey, using sockpuppets to evade a ban is prohibited, so no one is forcing them to do that. There's proper channels to appeal a block and it's not using sockpuppets. Also, if you want any sympathy, accusing admins of sockpuppetry is not the way to go. If people act similarly, they're not neccesarily sockpuppets, they could also be (more likely in this case) all be looking out for Wikipedia's well-being. Also, there's the difference that Herbert's sockpuppetry was proven through technical means. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Unblocking

Hi guys! I just unblocked User:Miskin who recently received a 24 hour block from User:FayssalF for moving two pages without consensus. The discussion can be found here. I was first made aware of the incident on IRC in the #wikipedia channel when Mikskin, who goes as "dion" on IRC, asked for some admin help in the channel. He is not a vandal and he did not violate 3RR or anything while conducting page moves. The diff I provided shows that FayssallF might have been a bit misguided, as one doesn't need consensus to move a page. I'm aware that there's a dispute as to the page move, but Miskin seems to be very reasonable and let me know that he will attempt to work with his fellow Wikipedians on this. I just wanted to post here, as it's the first time I've undid another admin's actions and want to make sure that other admins have the opportunity to view the situation (also, feel free to revert me in this situation or in any other situation if you feel I've made a mistake). Cheers hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 23:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Did you discuss the issue with User:FayssalF first? My first port of call would be with the blocking admin. Some moves can be part of an attempt to insert a POV, and some pages are subject to move warring. A look at User:Miskin's move logs show a lot of recent page moves [50], which do seem to give some cause for concern. Note that controversial moves do need to be requested at Wikipedia:Requested moves. Hiding Talk 00:02, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually this page was moved without consensus sometime ago and me and other 2 editors agreed to move it back, as per wp:name and related conventions. A specific user (whose name is of no importance) kept reverting and "removing" in a troll-like manner, and familiar with a trick which blocked a page once it had been moved (by inserting a tag or something like that). Once this was performed several times, we couldn't move the page back without an admin's assistance. The same person who was responsible for blocking all possible article names, reported the incident and the admin involved gave out blocks in a blind and irresponsible manner that I have never encountered before. There was no policy violated, no POV-pushing and definitely not vandalism involved (which was the actual accusation). You can verify all of the above for yourself. Regards. Miskin 00:22, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "recent page moves" being subject to concern. The few moves I have performed in 2 years have preserved the names I (slash consensus) gave them. This fact alone proves that the moves I have performed so far were actual contributions. This will soon become evident for the article in question as well. Miskin 00:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• I was giving my comments on how to handle the situation to User:Hoopydink rather than commenting on your contributions. Your recent moving of pages over the last couple of weeks would have concerned me and therefore I would have investigated the reasons to ascertain any POV issues. As I am sure you can appreciate, the pages in question are related to what can be seen as sensitive issues. You seem to have taken offence at comments which were offered in a manner not intended to be judgemental to you but rather outline the thinking one would have to undertake when unblocking a user. I would hope you can appreciate almost every blocked editor requests to be unblocked, and so we need to be fully aware of why they were blocked. Page moving can sometimes lead to a block being issued. Blocked users will often describe blocks as being issued "in a blind and irresponsible manner". Hiding Talk 00:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

You also judged my editing behaviour hence I was obliged to defend myself. Administrators are only privileged users, and like all users they have to follow rules, which can be familiar even to a common editor. What I know is that there was someone out there who did a move&lock pattern and was found "innocent", yet my logs are a subject of suspicion here. If you really continue to believe that this was a wise admin judgement, then I honestly have nothing more to say to you. Anything else stated in the defence of such an incident gives a bad image to the wikipedian administration. Miskin 01:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be misreading me completely. Hopefully you can accept that. I never questioned your editing history, I said your move logs gave cause for concern. I'm sorry if you see that as a statement on your editing, it was rather a statement on the moving of those pages and that there was an underlying issue which needing resolving, something with which you agree. At no point have I condoned the block you were given or defended this incident. I have rather outlined to User:Hoopydink some areas of investigation it may be wise to look at before repealing a block. I hope you can assume good faith in my intentions. Hiding Talk 15:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Both users are now unblocked. Please note that blocking users is not our objective. It is not executed just for the sake of blocking people. If the block was meant to sort an issue out than i believe that this was achieved in our case. With respect due to Miskin intentions and Hoopydink's unblocking, please note that unilateral moves (twice or threeshold) may not be considered vandalism but it deserves the block. The block was not misguided. I also share most of Hiding's opinions. Cheers. -- Szvest 00:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

What I know is this: There are two editors trying to move an article while a third editor is opposing them by applying a move&lock trick, forcing the two former to choose different names (actually my move was realised due to a typo), resulting on all possible names to be locked by him (except the one he wanted). Then it is required to ask for administrator assistance, and just because the third person happens to be the one who contacts User:FayssalF, he choses to block the two others without asking any questions. WP:NAME is a POLICY, and if you're not sure what the dispute is about, you don't have the right to give blocks around, let alone call it an act of "vandalism". Despite what you preach in here, what you did back there was nothing but plain irresponsibility and abuse of admin privileges. But what do I know, I'm just a simple editor. Miskin 00:53, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Extra eyes needed at Talk:Oscar Nunez

If some uninvolved admins with a firm grasp of Wikipedia:Verifiability could take a look at Talk:Oscar Nunez, that would be swell.

All the best,
Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak}
02:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

This is already listed at WP:RQM. --Asterion^talk 02:39, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Autoblock locator

I'm having problems using the tool to find autoblocks. I've used this thing a hundred times before but now I can't find any blocks that I know to be operating. Is the autoblock locating tool lagging behind? Non-functional? Though the thing is really easy to use, I should note that I am suffering the tail end of a migraine and sometimes my brain doesn't work properly then. That said, I have been able to find old non-active autoblocks. --Yamla 03:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Because of downtime on the toolserver it wasn't updating until a few minutes ago when I restarted it. --pgk 06:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Laeding authorities

I have been asked by Leading_Authorities (talk · contribs) why I removed the links they added. I think that's pretty obvious from the contributions (I blocked the account a few days ago as a single purpose account and spammer). Several articles have links to leadingauthorities.com added by other editors, and I am removing them because these are not neutral biographies which can be cited as a source, they are promotional bios on a commercial website promoting the individuals as public speakers; as far as I am concerned this is not a reliable source and goes against the the external links guideline. I trust this is not controversial. Guy 08:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd even go so far as to say put it on the blacklist, but I'm a jack-booted squasher of spam links. - brenneman ^{L} 08:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Jawohl, herr Oberlinkspammenenführer :-) Guy 09:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Blocking persistant POV-pusher/sock?

I read on the signpost that two of the arbitrators on the ArbCom have resigned. This will probably slow the whole arbitration processes down. I want to ask the community, if someone can look through Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kven/Evidence, an arbitration case against a user related to Kven-articles and his multiple socks? This user should perhaps have been blocked a long time ago, and should maybe not have gone to arbitration. One of his socks were actually blocked at one time: User:Digi Wiki. Note: in the arbitration case, the user has chosen not to respond.

Is it OK to block the user and all his socks indefinitely?

Fred-Chess 08:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Given the value of his long-standing contribution to the project (i.e. tons of disruption and nothing of any objective merit I can see) I support this. Guy 09:36, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

User:George Macaca Allen

I have several problems with this user. It mimics the name of a real living person, it appears to have the sole purpose of attacking this living person, and it has posted anti-semitic comments on the talk page of the article about said living person. [51], [52], edit history. Crockspot 14:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Already indefblocked. Syrthiss 14:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks, forgot to check the block log. Crockspot 15:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

well to be fair, they weren't blocked when you made this note. ;) Syrthiss 15:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Non-admins closing AfD as "keep"

Malber (talk · contribs) brought it to my attention that non-admin Parsssseltongue (talk · contribs) closed Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Womyn as "keep." The deletion policy appears ambiguous as to whether a non-admin can close discussions as "keep." If Parssseltongue's closure of the discussion is improper, should the discussion simply be reopened? Thoughts are requested. --Nlu (talk) 17:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I was under the impression that non admins can close any non-contraversial discussion (as that one looks to be), and are only discouraged from closing afd's that end in delete because they don't have the way to follow through. Syrthiss 17:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm under the same impression as Syrthiss. In fact, I know that future admins are encouraged to gain experience by closing non-controversial AfD's (only "keeps", though). It should be noted that the closing remarks (citing WP:SNOW and the assumption of a bad faith nomination) are a bit concerning, but it seems to be a proper closing in that consensus was upheld. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 17:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I would have liked to see the discussion open at least one more day before assuming WP:SNOW. In the first day of an AfD you always get editors who have watchlisted the article and have an interest in voting keep. IMO the article has had issues with verifiability of the importance of the neologism since its creation, is a source of original research, and even if properly cleaned may never be more than a dictdef. It's not as if this isn't a controversial issue: the article itself claims the term is contraversial. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 17:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Per WP:DPR#Non-administrators closing discussions: Closing decisions are subject to review and may be reopened. If this happens, take it only as a sign that the decision was not as unambiguous as you thought. So if you're truly uncomfortable with the fast close, you can open it back up again. Just be sure to follow WP:DPR#Relisting_debates so the AfD logs don't get messed up. --Aaron 17:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I would have, but because there was an accusation of bad faith I didn't want to appear as if I was being disruptive. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 18:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The relevant policy here is WP:DPR#Non-administrators closing discussions. So long as he's making the call correctly, he's fine. --tjstrf 17:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Anyone can invoke the Snowball clause and anyone can close an obvious keeper as a keep. A bad SNOW call or a bad keep can be reversed. --Tony Sidaway 18:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and relisted it. Use of WP:SNOW in this case may be justified (no "votes" to delete other than the nominator); however the bad faith accusation on the part of the closing user (stating that Malber nominated the article in bad faith) was inappropriate. Also, the article was up for only 'bout a day. Still, I'm expecting a second SNOW keep soon. --EngineerScotty 18:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• And you've got it. Mackensen (talk) 19:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Fast, friendly service.  :) --EngineerScotty 19:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
    • That's what you always get at your fast, friendly, cheap Wikipedia. --Woohookitty^(meow) 19:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
      • I want a cookie. --Aaron 20:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Huge image backlog - a cry for help

See this massive backlog. There are some entries in there that are almost two weeks old, when images in those categories should be deleted after a week. I'd like to get some admins that can help with this monstrosity. It's really not that difficult - all you need to do is make sure the uploader hasn't put the licensing or source on there and forgot to remove the tag. Using tabs in Firefox helps make the job quicker. Thanks! --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 21:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Two troublesome AfDs

Could an admin take a look at the AfDs for Waspard and Pet duel? The articles are pretty clear hoaxes, but two users, Jamesr84 (talk · contribs) and Jpcrayford (talk · contribs) are trying their damnest to keep these articles, promsing to supply reliable sources about the subjects and then making constant excuses when they don't deliver such sources; and (at least in the Pet duel discussion) are implying other editors are Nazis. Can we have someone come down and deal with these discussions and/or users? NeoChaosX [talk | contribs] 21:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I speedied the Pet duel mess. I hope that helps. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that. Why let the Waspard AfD run, though? NeoChaosX [talk | contribs] 22:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The article is a clear hoax... no reason to let it linger for a week or so. --EngineerScotty 22:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I closed waspard. JDoorjam Talk 22:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that. It seems Pet duel has been recreated by Jamesr84, though. NeoChaosX [talk | contribs] 22:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

User:A Man In Black closed and locked it. JDoorjam Talk 04:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I would like to make it perfectly clear that I did not imply that any editors were members of the German National Socialist party. This was an inference made by an editor whose rhetorical skills leave much to be desired. Jamesr84 10:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC) (Sorry about the incorrect time)

The user is now moving to vandalism see edit history plus stuff like this. --Charlesknight 12:44, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

James84 indefblocked by me. Syrthiss 12:50, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Username Tomzanzig posting attacks

User:Tomzanzig posted an attack page which I marked db-attack. I assume this isn't the _real_ Thomas Zanzig, an author. I guess the page should be deleted and the user banned per WP:LIBEL. 74.128.159.12 22:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. Username / Libel block. The user has no contributions besides that attack page, and is most clearly not the author in question. 22:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Tau Kappa Epsilon vandalism

Hi, I'm not an admin but I would like to bring attention to the fact that the Tau Kappa Epsilon has been vandalized nearly half a dozen times by the same IP address 131.118.85.28. The IP address has not contributed anything beneficial to Wikipedia. I don't want to break the 3RR so it would be helpful if someone can keep an eye out. Thanks --† Ðy§ep§ion † ^{Speak your mind} 22:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• It's been a few hours, so I'm leaving the IP alone for now. I'm watching this like a fly on my beer. Teke ^(talk) 02:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted an AfD page

I have got a request from a guy named Milhail Lebedev, who in strongest possible words asked to delete Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mikhail Lebedev as having a lot of negative and personal information about him. I looked through the AfD and indeed agree with this assessment. Thus, I was bold and deleted it. What do I have to do next? Put a short summary regarding the mater, instead of the AfD? Just keep it deleted? abakharev 22:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not supporting anything one way or another, but it seems that when Jimbo gets similar (at least on the surface) complaints, he simply blanks the page. Then, on google searches, after the bot has gone buy, rude things won't come up, but the AfD is still accessible in the history to non-admins. Mak (talk) 22:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Libel/personal info, etc., should be removed from the history as well, per WP:BLP. At least that is my understanding of it. Crockspot 23:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest at least replacing the red link with an abridged form of the discussion. Just summarize, chronologically, which points were raised by which users, with the attacks removed, and a note that the full history can be viewed by admins if needed. — CharlotteWebb 23:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Might I suggest that if anyone doesn't want an AfD on their WP:AUTO, they shouldn't make the article in the first place -- Samir धर्म 00:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that the last version of the page be gotten from the history by an admin (without restoring), that the objectionable parts be removed and that whatever is left be copied and pasted to the page without restoring the history. A note about what happened should be put on the page and possibly the edit summary. If there is not a lot of text to remove, it might be helpful to indicate on the page when it is removed. If there is a lot of text to remove, then it might be a lot of work to do that. Does he have any specific objections? I read some of it and it was mostly people talking about his work and whether it was notable enough to have an article on him. -- Kjkolb 01:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

How's this? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 02:53, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Great. Thanks, Zscout abakharev 08:50, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

So will the Mikhail Lebedev article be salted then? I find it a bit problematic that the record on the reasons why the article has been deleted is being erased, while the article itself is still open for restoration. ~ trialsanderrors 19:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Question about starting over with a new account

Yshoulduknow (talk · contribs) uploaded several images under public domain claim, which were reported as unfree. He has decided to "start over" with a new account, YSHOULDUKNOW123 (talk · contribs). Should I (or anyone else, for that matter, I don't want him to think I am stalking him) inform him he needs to acknowledge the existence of his original account in the new one, or should an admin block either the original or the new one as sockpuppet? Thanks in advance. -- ReyBrujo 00:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I've seen this a couple of times, the idea that someone should acknowledge their new identity. However I had a quick skim of WP:SOCK and it seems that unless the user is engaged in certain types of activity there is no onus on them to do so? --Charlesknight 08:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

No problem with walking away from past transgressions under the circumstances, only if it happens again or if he tries to use more than one account at a time do we have a problem, I think. Guy 21:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandal / Useless page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dfhioaesdhfja Members are taking the nonsense tag off. Dfhioaesdhfja has been deleted. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Deathrocker - User under arbitration engaging in total war

In the Encyclopaedia Metallum (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article, the user Deathrocker, who I beleive is still under arbitration, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Deathrocker, has engaged in a total war against other users. Just look at Encyclopaedia Metallum's archive in the talk page, the current discussion and the discussion in Ours18's talk page. At least 5 users joined the discussion, while none supported him. I might also add that many of his posts were supported by ad hominem arguments, something that was about to make me attack him in response. I've pretty much lost any faith in discussing with him, but then I found out that he had already caused problems in Wikipedia. Thanks. Evenfiel 02:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Evenfiel blocked for 24 hours for violating 3RR. Deathrocker blocked for 24 hours for violating his 1RR parole. Please adjust if you think it's appropriate. Thatcher131 02:42, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Xanon at Adolf Hitler

One User:Xanon recently appeared at Talk:Adolf Hitler, ostensibly concerned for alleged bias and NPOV, aggressively pushing his views on the talk page. But this is not what I want to report but the fact that he recently resorts to name calling and personal attacks, as in this case: [53]. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 07:28, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Warned with {{npa2}}. If it continues, list it at WP:PAIN AnnH ♫ 10:39, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

VoABot II

User:VoABot II now was some settings that any admin can set to help revert shared IP vandalism. Consider using this when vandalism levels start to increase before using a block if possible. Thanks.Voice-of-All 17:50, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Indef block

I blocked SpikeyPsyche (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) as a reincarnation of indefinitely banned ParalelUni (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), aka "Spike". Guy 21:27, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

request for user undeletion

An article I posted under the title "33.3" (no quotes) was deleted-- I'm not exactly sure what the reasoning was, but I'd like to rework it and re-submit. Could the contents of the deleted item be posted on my talk page so I can try to salvage it?

SetsofWaves 03:02, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Restored at User:SetsofWaves/33.3. I recommend making their notability clearer before moving it back into main article space. ;-) --Stormie 03:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israel-Lebanon

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above.

Editors are cautioned that there may be exceptions to Wikipedia Guidelines and Style Guides due to unusual circumstances such as an important current event. Decisions need to be based on utility of the article to readers, not to literal compliance with Wikipedia rules. A diverse mix of blogs is recommended, but the extent and selection of specific blogs is a matter of content to be determined by the editors of the article. Any user, particularly Tasc, who engages in edit warring with respect to 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict may be banned from the article for an appropriate period. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israel-Lebanon#Log of blocks and bans.

For the Arbitration Committee. FloNight 03:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Trevor Saline

Trevor Saline (talk · contribs) has created a slew of sub-sub articles and is arguing at greatg lenght about their deletion at WP:DRV. Something about this behaviour feels familiar. Can anybody spot a parallel? Guy 21:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I was also about to leave a message regarding this. Before tempers start to fray from the frustration of dealing with this chap, it would be helpful if more people were to express their opinion. See Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2006 September 22. Thryduulf 21:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

He's nearly as bloody annoying as Jon Awbrey. We have many paragraphs and days of debate over a series of articles not one of which achieved the giddy heights of a second sentence. Guy 09:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Have I done something wrong here? These articles were deleted, as far as I can see, against the relevant policies. JzG and others have raised reasons for the deletions, and I have merely tried to debate those reasons (others have indicated that they believe tha deletions may not be valid and one article has already been recreated). Somebody else suggested that I should be blocked for "disruption". Is such debating not allowed, or is there a limit on debates? Do I just have to quietly accept a reason, when there appears to be very good grounds to question it? Trevor Saline 15:22, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Possibly spam/misuse?

I was using using Lupin's filter vandalism tool and I came across this page: User talk:Evilsai . I have no idea of what to do or how to approach this. It looks like the user and the IPs who are editing it use it like a noticeboard or chat site. Please reply here or on my talk page with some help or assistance on how to deal with this. I've asked Ta bu shi da yu about this, and he advised me to post here. Thanks -huntersquid 20:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

EngineerScotty's taken care of this. Ral315 (talk) 13:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Internet for Learning IP range.

Hi, I'd like to propose that this IP range be considered as an exceptional circumstance with regard to blocking edits.

Internet for Learning is an Internet provider that provides access for UK schools. As such all users on it are either school children or school staff in the UK. This means we have an IP range whose main users are schoolchidren and teenagers who basically have an anonymous way to post.

This IP range is, unsurprisingly, responsible for a large amount of vandalism and is regularly warned and blocked. However, warning an anonymous address used by thousands of children will have no effect whatsoever! A temporary block only temporarily solves the problem, as soon as the block is lifted, the vandalism restarts. This is, I woild say, fairly predictable.

Now that the software has been improved to ban only anonymous users, I would like to propose that the Internet for Learnig network be PERMANENTLY blocked for anonymous editing. So that teaching staff, support staff, and those pupils that wish to positively contribute to Wikipedia can still do so by siging up, but the vanmdalism is reduced.

I realise that such blocks are only used for exceptional circumstances, but would argue that this IP range IS an exceptional circumstance. Fork me 15:33, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

suggests such as this were why people were oposed to makeing it posible to block anons only. I think we have a block without warning template around which could be put on the talk pages if required.Geni 00:59, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a foundation issue. At present the only IPs that can be indefinitely blocked are open proxies. JoshuaZ 01:03, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

not quite true at least I don't think 64.228.30.0/24 is an open proxy.Geni 01:06, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

What range is that? JoshuaZ 01:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Something to do with DW from way back. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Ipblocklist&dir=prev Geni 01:17, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I had a long email exchange between the net guy at IfL several months ago, in which he agreed that anons should be blocked. Unfortunately, I haven't kept the emails, I don't even remember the date range (surely last spring or early summer), but it was discussed either in WP:AN or WP:ANI at the time. User:Zoe|(talk) 15:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC) User:Zoe|(talk) 15:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

User strangeness

ok, User:Mystrian storys, User:Kino's acounts, User:Mystrian, and User:Chat room all are the same person using the sire as a social newtork, especially User:Chat room. I think someone should ask the user to pick one and ban the rest, as User:Mystrian storys is User:Mystrian, User:Kino's acounts is worthless, and User:Chat room is a violation of WP:NOT, but I have no clue. Anything? ST47Talk 23:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh has indefinitely blocked them all. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 00:03, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

This type of thing has been happening a lot recently (relatively speaking). It's odd. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:06, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Um, wouldn't a warning to them have made some sense first? Especially since User chat room actually had an ok edit? JoshuaZ 01:13, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Aren't username violators generally banned on site (and possibly warned after)? Having the username "Chat room" might be deserving of that. In any case, the one legit edit I can see is a minor typo fix; I've seen vandalish/etc. users use these before to legitimize their account's existence. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 13:46, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused and curious about this. I first thought "what kind of a name is User:Chat room?" and I noticed the accounts have no edits except kino in his talk pae and chat room fixing a typo. What is this "sire" you speak of? Anomo 13:10, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Moving Dwayne Morrison to Duane R. Morrison

• Dwayne Morrison (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Duane R. Morrison (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The issue is that early news reports listed this murderer's name as "Dwayne" but the most recent name given by the Sheriff's office is "Duane" and includes his middle initial.

The article with the most content and context is the inital "Dwayne" article, but there has already been an article started at "Duane R. Morrison" now. Can an administrator please move "Dwayne" onto "Duane" and create the appropriate redirect? Thanks. ju66l3r 17:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

This does not require any administrative action. You can merge the information in the two articles and create the redirect yourself. —Centrx→talk • 18:05, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, if I manually move the article, then the edit history stays behind at the old article. I would have thought it'd be more prudent to do a page move to pull the history along with the article. Ok, well, I will perform the merge myself then. Thanks for the help. ju66l3r 18:16, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Stephen Colbert Bridge

User just redirected The Colbert Report to the Gay Nigger Association of America. I reverted, and was going to slap a blatantvandal tag on his talk page, but someone else beat me to it. Not a great start for his first two edits. Crockspot 19:23, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Something is brewing there. The Hugo Chávez talk page got a strange, nonsensical comment here: not sure if it's related, just thought it most strange, and noticed the Colbert topic here. Sandy 19:28, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use images in List_of_Cornell_University_people

Would someone please review all these diffs for correct application of our fair use policy and communicate s/his opinion to DoctorW (talk · contribs), who reverted the removals and it quite worked up about it. Whosoever shall do it will get five bucks. - CrazyRussian talk/email 04:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Does this really need admin's hands? Maybe directing him to Wikipedia:Fair use is better, although we are currently hearing complains about Fair use restrictions in portals. You could direct him to Wikipedia:Fair use/Fair use images in lists, though, where long discussion about images in lists was kept and appears to be the right place for this. -- ReyBrujo 04:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

It is not accurate to say I got "quite worked up about it"; but I don't agree and can't even understand the POV behind the deletions - controversial deletions which were not even explained. Here are comments I just posted on [[Talk:List_of_Cornell_University_people (where this topic has been discussed before with some controversy) under a new section heading "Use of 'fair use' pictures of people on this page":

It seems obvious to me that accompanying an educational bio of a person (as it relates to Cornell University, or to some other university on a similar page) with a fair use image that helps to illustrate (and identify) the person in question for Wikipedia readers is helpful and fully in line with the statement on the fair use template. It should be in the same category as a more comprehensive bio on the article page for that person.

I am aware that this is one of those areas that is gray, and controversial. That's why it is important for editors who are undoing the work (and associated considerable time) of other editors should provide a fuller rationale than a short, terse sentence in an edit summary.

Two administrators today did not diegn to avail themselves of the talk page to explain sweeping deletions that have a record of controversy here, even when specifically requested to do so in large print. (The title of the topic just above is "Before making massive deletions please discuss.") If you are so sure that you are right, minimal courtesy would seem to dictate that you should cite the page where the applicable Wikipedia policy may be found. -DoctorW 05:20, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I have read the summary of the discussion at Wikipedia:Fair use/Fair use images in lists, and it is clear that this is not settled Wikipedia policy; it is certainly not "non-controversial." I would like to add that the images on List_of_Cornell_University_people are not for "decoration"; they are for the reader to find and to identify more easily some of the more prominent people on the page (who as part of their entry have an educational bio in relation to the university), thus making a clear contribution to the article. -DoctorW 05:40, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

• Please read WP:FUC, in particular criteria 8. In this case its more problematic that screenshots illustrating tv shows, since the images don't really illustrate anything, they are just decorations.--Peta 05:43, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Brian Chase issue again

I noticed this article being wikilinked when reviewing another editor's contributions. When I looked at the article, it looked rather redundant to information already contained in the John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy article. So I nominated it for deletion. I didn't know that this issue had been addressed before by Jimbo himself.[54] Since this potentially conflicts with Brian Chase (drummer) I think something should be done here. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 20:45, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo redirected the page out of human dignity (and because it is better covered in the controversy article), and only someone who wants to commit administrator suicide would revert him. Instead of making it a redirect to someone who is mentioned in an article, I moved Brian Chase (drummer) there (I do not know if the drummer is very notable, but at least he has his own article). As I said on the AfD, if someone wants to put a disambiguation link at the top of the article, they can. I do not think he is notable enough, though. Generally, I think we should not have a disambiguation link for someone who is just mentioned in an article, rather than having his or her own article or being extensively covered in another article. If someone wants Brian Chase to be a redirect to the controversy article and a link to the drummer to be put at the top of the controversy article, they can do a requested move. If the drummer's article is deleted because he is non-notable, just make it a redirect or a disambiguation page with links to the controversy and the band articles. -- Kjkolb 17:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Weird comment

Someone left this comment on my talk page. Their contribution history is short and I don't particularly remember encountering them before, but it's hard to say with anons. Can anyone make heads or tails of this? - Mgm|^(talk) 21:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• Their last edit before this comment was this perfect revert which reverted the blanking that was done between those two edits. Older edits were vandalism. Either this user was reformed or a totally different person. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Random phase moonbase! Syrthiss 11:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

History tags

Any page's history currently has a header like this:

(Latest | Earliest) View (previous 50) (next 50)

I would like to change "previous" and "next" to "later" and "earlier" to make it clearer which button does what (since the 'next' button actually lists earlier revisions of the history). Since this is modifying the interface, I thought I'd ask here first if there are any objections. >Radiant< 09:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection, but I would ask at WP:VPR instead of here. —Mets501 (talk) 10:56, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

linked articles in userspace?

I know that it is sometimes practice to allow users to keep the content of deleted articles on their talkpages. However do we allow people to link categories in this manner? It seems to be an attempt to game the system and get around AFD (which those articles were)? --Charlesknight 14:54, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Hum further to my original post check this out under T and W. --Charlesknight 15:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Or it could be just people not bothering to disable the cats when they move it to userspace. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

True - I take it however there is no problem with me removing such categories links and indeed that they SHOULD be removed? --Charlesknight 15:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, yes, and with no need to ask the user since it is clear cut. User pages should not be in the same categories as articles (or have cleanup, wikify, merge or any similar tags). Also, when I clear out user pages in categories, there is often so many of them that it would be a pain to ask to have each one removed. Some users are no longer editing or edit very infrequently as well, making it infeasible to ask. -- Kjkolb 16:37, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes. User pages should not be in mainspace categories. Generally this is an oversight on the part of the editor (especially with sandboxed articles); simply disable the category by placing a colon in front of it. It's normal wiki editing (being bold), there's no need to ask. --kingboyk 16:50, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Highways poll concluded

The WP:SRNC poll has concluded (with the exception of one state, and this minor dispute has nothing to do with article name). Therefore, mass page moves pursuant to WP:USSH will be taking place. Please do not block any of these users, as these moves are not controversial. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 01:16, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

• Rschen7754
• TwinsMetsFan
• Poccil
• Northenglish
• Jeff02
• Pedriana
• Master son
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Update -- Tecmobowl

• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#I'm_being_attacked - Mgm|^(talk) 07:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm being attacked

So i'm trying to read up and keep this wiki person from attacking my pages. TV Newser is accusing me of being a sockpuppet and editing my pages consistently without reading or discussing anything. They need to be stopped as it is counter productive. Hopefully i have done this right, please don't punish someone who is not familiar with all the proper code for editing wiki.Tecmobowl 10:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

• Let's get one thing clear: no one owns a particular article. Including international information in an article on for example baseball cards is entirely appropriate. (Wikipedia:Requests for comments/All). As for the accusation, but I and Konstable have asked for further clarification. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:33, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Let me rephrase, I did not mean my pages as in i own them, i meant my user page and my talk page. That's all. YOu will notice I am the one who finally sat down and created proper international sections on the baseball card page. Thanks for helping, i'm going to get breakfast :-) Tecmobowl 11:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
• User_talk:MacGyverMagic#Tecmobowl:_Sockpuppet - Mgm|^(talk) 07:58, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I see no evidence - yet - that Tecmobowl (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) is a sock of Spotteddogsdotorg or DisplacedBrit. No edits to news articles and nothing related to CFIF (talk • contribs). To say the omission of those characteristics is just a way of throwing us off (as TV Newser has said on several people's talk pages) is an admission that there's no evidence. If this continues with no evidence, blocks may be coming soon. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:55, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

CSD A7 expanded

Consensus on WT:CSD has been reached that CSD A7 be expanded to include articles on web content that do not assert the "importance or historical significance" of the subject. These articles may now be speedily deleted, or tagged with {{db-web}}. MER-C 12:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Excellent news, this will help us improve Wikipedia considerably. Gwernol 12:54, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeeeeaaah! --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 15:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Time to celebrate. Now all we need is db-corp. =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 17:23, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

:) I'd better get deleting. alphaChimp^(talk) 19:02, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I second that db-corp thing. -- Steel 19:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Please remember that this is for articles that fail to assert notability. Articles about web stuff that do assert notability but, in reality, are not notable or not notable enough, should still be subject to PROD or AfD. That said, this is going to make CAT:CSD patrol so much easier, as this is one of the criteria that users think exists but didn't... until now. I look forward to using it with extreme prejudice. And db-corb would indeed be nice, too. db-dicdef also, although with caveats. ➨ ЯEDVERS 19:12, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think dicdefs provide enough context for expansion, personally. But that's neither here nor there. -- Steel 19:22, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

The proposed form of words - somethign along the lines of advertisements masquerading as articles, the work of single purpose accounts, should move us towards {{db-spam}} Guy 22:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

The only problem is that fact we could be deleting articles that are infact notable, but are just written in a poor manner. I urge any and all users to try PROD and AfD, and use CSD only in circumstances where there is no question. Yanksox 22:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Talking to the editors before whacking in an AFD is even better, sometimes they are just don't know the rules - we shouldn't assume that everybody makes sure they are familiar with the policies before writing their first article. Yomangani^talk 00:20, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Things to take note of at Pervez Musharraf

Over the last week or so, some things that I think should be taken notice of have been happening at the articles related to the Musharraf family of Pakistan. At the article Pervez Musharraf (the President and Army Chief of Pakistan), MrsMusharraf (talk · contribs) and BegumMusharraf (talk · contribs), who are most likely the same person, have been adding quite some negative information; would the President of Pakistan's wife really do this? Or this? Would she really identify herself as a Qadyani, a minority that has sometimes tense relations with the Sunni majority? I'm loathe to assume bad faith, but I'm going to have to go with a common sense impulse and assume that neither of them are his wife. Anyways, I'll let the administrators make their own decisions; I just wanted to bring this up. Picaroon9288 17:06, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

To clarify: Begum Sehba Musharraf is the full name of Pervez's wife, so if neither of the accounts are his wife's, then they are in violation of Wikipedia:Username#Inappropriate_usernames. Picaroon9288 17:09, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Arbcom elections 2006

The page for candidate statements is now open but elections are not for anther 2 months so no need to hurry:

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Elections/December 2006/Candidate statements

Geni 00:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

User:GhostofSuperslum

I can't think of a specific rule this edit violates, but it seems rather race-baiting. If nothing else, I suspect that this is a user worth keeping an eye on. - Jmabel | Talk 06:17, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

reporting vandalism

a comment i made on an an image talk page for a vulva from a standing position was vandalized.

i deleted the vandalism, but i didn't put back my original comment. i'm afraid of what the vandal would do the NEXT time.

Gringo300 06:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

This probably isn't the appropriate forum for reporting vandalism. For immediate, obvious vandalism after warnings, try WP:AIV. alphaChimp^(talk) 06:26, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Mass Page moving by User:Interrobamf

User:Interrobamf has been doing some mass page moving some of which doesn't comply with our polices. It's not technicaly vandalism, but it is doing damage. Hes mostly taking things in prarentases out of titles. I request some sort of admin action here. Tobyk777 05:50, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Admin edit-war!

In Pontian Greek Genocide. Flow of events:

1. The 'article title' and the 'article npov-ness' have been disputed by Turkish users since the article was created. {{fact}} tags were also dropped to every single sentence.
2. These citations were provided: scholars, international organizations, subnational entities (6 US states), plus Greece.
3. The Turkish side maintained its position by re-inserting the tags
4. Admin User:El C intervened and conducted an dispute resolution, the result of which was to remove the tags and if there are more complaints from the Turkish side, they should follow the dipute resolution procedure (WP:DR etc.) (diffs: [55], [56])
5. Turkish users kept inserting the templates, despite above procedure result.
6. Admin User:Winhunter protected the article because of edit war. He was asked to re-insert the tags, and he did. He later agreed to remove the tags, but didn't proceed due to a straw poll that was introduced in the article talk. (diff)
7. Admin User:Mets501 removed the tags upon request by use of {{Editprotected}} template.
8. Admin User:Mikkalai reinserted the tags, despite previous rulings and clear consesnus in the straw-poll towards the present name (which by the way is redunant, according to WP:NAME).
9. Greeks have been constantly requesting the Turkish users to follow the dispute resolution process. Until now, they have not. The Turkish side even expresses reluctancy in providing citation for their own thesis, in order not to make the article title 'legitimate'! (diff)
10. The article is being held hostage with these tags and no supporting user can rationally choose to move for rename! The insertion of the tags while the article is protected only helps the disputing side in continuing to harrass the article with argumentation lacking citational or wikipeadia rules qualification.

Your comments are welcome in the article talk.•NikoSilver• 21:18, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

PS. Armenian Genocide has been proposed for deletion twice. On the other hand, Assyrian genocide is not recognised by any country in the world, but is not disputed. This is going to be a tough one...

Admin vs. Librarian

I just had this thought and would like some feedback. In the Spanish wiki, admins are called bibliotecarios, meaning "librarians". I somehow prefer the term Librarian over Administrator, as I associate the latter more with bureaucrat tasks than with working towards improving an encyclopedia by different means (fighting vandalism, safeguarding NPOV, etc). It is true that neither term is completely accurate, as librarian seems to exclude intrinsecally administrative tasks, emphasising the content management aspect instead. Personally, I find the idea of Librarian more profound and poetic. Do not understand this as a call to change policy or anything. It is just something that crossed my mind and wanted to know whether I am alone on this. Regards, Asterion^talk 18:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Librarian is a cool term for what we do...but...lots and lots of admins fight vandalism and safeguard NPOV too. --Woohookitty^(meow) 19:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

May be a neat idea over at Wikibooks. Did anyone else think this thread was about a rogue admin blocking a library? Naconkantari 20:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Ahhahhahah!!! That or "This user wants to see an Administrator and a Librarian duke it out in the ring with the Librarian of Congress as the referee". (Sorry for the off topicness) 68.39.174.238 00:45, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Many aspects of Wikipedia involve editors contributing in a Librarian capacity; sourcing articles, providing references and checking facts. Other related tasks are putting the books in order on the shelves - i.e. categorising, stub sorting, etc. Editors and admins differ from Librarians in that they get involved with the data that they present to other users, whereas Librarians as impartial, fulfilling the requirements of the enquiry without bias and to the best of their ability. Librarian also connotes a professional relationship with information, one that requires a postgraduate degree/diploma in order to satify entry requirements in to bodies such as the ALA (American Library Association) and CILIP (Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals). To call admins Librarians may well be poetic but it isn't entirely fair to hang a professional tag on those who have not earned it in the same way as those who worked for their degrees in Information Science did. You can call me either, as I have both tags! Regards, (aeropagitica) 20:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

In the U.S. at least there is no requirement for any credentials to be a librarian. Still many are credentialed and trained and I am sure that there organizations would look dimly on this term being used here. And remember, several librarians have publicly "dissed" Wikipedia. Rmhermen 16:10, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I understand. Asterion^talk 20:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Anyone remember the rouge librarian from the "Name of the Rose"? 65.8.106.64 03:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

That would be either Brother Jorge, who was librarian-like, or the true librarian Malachias. As for the actual term itself, (aeropagatica) put it best. Ourai ^т _с 03:31, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, Brother Jorge thought it to be his mission to protect the integrity of his library and the faith of the monks in the scriptorium. Maybe whoever coined the term in the Spanish daughter project was something of a BOFH. 65.8.106.64 03:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Ook! Fram 09:31, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I've for a long time considered trusty to be a better name for what we are. We are like everyone else, except that we are entrusted with more powerful and potentially damaging tools. Uncle G 09:40, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

• Calling admins "trusties" would imply that others aren't. Before I was an admin, I did not mind not being one. I would have felt somewhat undervalued if I had felt the imputation that I was not trusted. The mop and bucket analogy works; why not janitors? The element of "patrol" makes me think that warden might work, too. But "admin" is fine. --RobertG ♬ talk 10:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
  • "Calling admins "trusties" would imply that others aren't." — which is a correct implication. The community's trust, that one will wield the extra tools to the project's benefit, is something that one has to earn. There exist people who haven't yet earned that trust. Uncle G 14:47, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes, but my point is that admins have only been entrusted with a small set of extra facilities; the larger trust (that of editing the encyclopedia) is open to everyone. All Wikipedians are deemed to be "trusty" (unless they forfeit that trust in some way) - that's simply WP:AGF! Perhaps my objection was also slightly coloured by the negative connotations of "trusty" - "a convict considered trustworthy and allowed special privileges," it says in Merriam Webster. You'll be glad to read that I don't feel imprisoned by Wikipedia :-) --RobertG ♬ talk 15:34, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Er, yeah. My first reaction to "trusty" was, "What, we're all prisoners??" FreplySpang 15:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

meta:Hotel Wikipedia would seem to imply as much. 68.39.174.238 00:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Some quick help, thanx.

User:Mailer Diablo deleted Plus Ultra (band) following a correct AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Plus Ultra (band), unfortunately he forgot to delete the redirect Plus Ultra (Band), and the related hoaxery, Rob Kokarinen. He then went on break. Can someone quickly remove this notorious hoaxes? Thanx. 68.39.174.238 00:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 00:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanx. 68.39.174.238 01:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

New buttons in edit window?

What's up with all these new buttons in the edit window above the Subject/headline? Have I missed the discussion somewhere? I looked on the MediaWiki All pages list and couldn't find the place where these are added. Help would be appreciated! --Spangineer^es (háblame) 05:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Mediawiki:Monobook.js / Mediawiki talk:Monobook.js is the place. Some of them may be useful but some also feel like overkill to me. For example, who really needs a button that adds "::"? Dragons flight 05:47, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Some of them have been removed already, including the "::" one. Perhaps a cache purge would do? Titoxd^(?!?) 05:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I've come across a few places ([57], [58], [59]) where it seems users have hit the "insert gallery" button by accident and left the result there. In anycase it needs to use Image:Example.jpg rather than Image:FileName.jpg within the pasted text... /wangi 05:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Are we talking about the small square ones at the top? --HappyCamper 03:28, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Tor proxies

I'm confused by what to do about Tor proxies. Are we to treat them like other open proxies and block them indef, or give them standard short blocks when we catch them vandalising? Example 80.74.148.176 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) -- currently being used for trolling/edit warring. I'm not finding anything specifically on this topic in the open proxy Wikiproject, except by implication. What do others do? Antandrus (talk) 22:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Might have answered my own question: I found this Template:Tor. Antandrus (talk) 22:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Indef block. I haven't run across any yet but Mackensen indefs them all the time at RFCU; see also WP:OPP. Thatcher131 06:42, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Second opinions

An apparently new user, Tomaswk (talk · contribs), has repeatedly added what appears to me to be at best fluffy vanity details, and at worst a sort of self-promotional spamming to Lawrence, Michigan, for example, this edit. None of these seem especially notable, and with the possible exception of Swift kick (another apparent vanity article by the same editor) and the professor parents, none of the information is referenced to reliable (i.e., independent) sources. I've removed the content a few times and I dont' want to get into a revert war over this, but I think allowing this sort of content to remain strays aways from encyclopedic content into self-promotional vanity. older ≠ wiser 18:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I can suggest that asking the user to stop with the vanity or provide references or whatever would be a good start - for all you know, he could be thinking "why is this guy reverting me edits with NPOV?" or something, and then you both think you're right but don't explain your actions, which is what edit wars usually come from. If that fails, I suppose you could look at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. —Keakealani 20:51, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not sure about the current concensus, but I don't think individual residents should be lisetd on a town's article. Articles like Los Angeles and New York would be large beyond belief. If the person beliefs they should have an article, it should be done on a separate page without the external link spam. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:08, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

EffK again

Dear admins, User:EffK, who is banned by ArbCom for a year, has resumed his earlier practice of using his user talk page to slander and insult other editors, in this case me, and whole groups of people. [60] In the past I have repeatedly asked him to desist from his unwarrant speculation about my identity and also about his bigoted statements about alleged tenets of a certain religion. The last time he aggressively did this, his talk page, which he still allowed to edit, was locked. If you need more information, I will provide it, but I think there are numerous admins familiar with EffK's disruptive behaviour on the English and other Wikipedias. 12:01, 1 October 2006 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Str1977 (talk • contribs)

The ramblings on the talk page are impossible to follow, so it doesn't look like too much of a problem. Certainly, any personal attacks in there are hard to find as the density of the wordage is such that it all seems to be stream-of-consciousness drivel. I could be wrong, of course, and you could be suffering because of this, so you might like to go back to ArbCom and ask for a clarification to allow for the locking of the page? ➨ ЯEDVERS 12:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

can someone clarify for me - if someone is a banned user why does further adminstration need to occur? why can the page not just be locked? --Charlesknight 12:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Banned for a year, not permabanned, so generally the talk page is left open. The user is still part of the community, just not able to edit. Unless ArbCom hands out exclusion from the community as part of a judgment, I wouldn't be comfortable adding the extra sanction unless they were doing something I would block-and-lock for normally anyway. If ArbCom want to add that sanction, then that would be great. Just my opinion. Your actual mileage may differ. ➨ ЯEDVERS 12:31, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The attack is included in the diff I linked to above. He speculated that I was a Jesuit (which for the record I am not) and "thus allowed to use dishonesty". He also attacked fellow Wikipedian, admin and Catholic Musical Linguist by calling her "disbarred from that order and from that general permission to lie". Formerly, he basically accused all Catholics of being Pope-controlled robots, even after the wording he based himself on was repeatedly pointed out to him. Regardless of any content disputes and any further difficulties with his behaviour, he should not be allowed to use his user talk page to attack other editors. The User talk page has been left to him in order to communicate and not to use it as a soap box - a thing he has been doing all the time, even creating such problems as his inability to archive -, let alone to attack other editors. Just for the record, after being banned here on the English WP, he has taken to appearing on other language WPs (even without speaking the language) and has been banned from several. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 16:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• Splash protected the page, and I support his actions. Commenting on someone's supposed religion and then claim someone with that religion is "allowed to use dishonesty in the defence of your pontiff." is entirely inappropriate. It judges an editor on their beliefs instead of their edits and accuses them of dishonesty because of it. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:23, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Mass Page moving by User:Interrobamf -- still no action taken

(repost by Mgm|^(talk) 10:44, 2 October 2006 (UTC)) User:Interrobamf has been doing some mass page moving some of which doesn't comply with our polices. It's not technicaly vandalism, but it is doing damage. Hes mostly taking things in prarentases out of titles. I request some sort of admin action here. Tobyk777 05:50, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• I also saw some redirection of articles going on that lost info because the content wasn't merged and removal of relevant categories. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:44, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
• A lot less problematic than I initially thought. Would still appreciate a second set of eyes. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:54, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

What next?

A disruptive user received a community ban, then came back as a new username. Now that the checkuser results are back, where do I go next to ensure this new username is banned as a sockpuppet of the old user? I've found WP:SSP, but it looks like I may have done things backwards since WP:SSP seems to be something you do prior to the checkuser! Thanks. --Stéphane Charette 18:41, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

To expand for the user above and give a synopsis of the situation, User:GST2006 has been active on the Conseil scolaire de district du Centre-Sud-Ouest article in recent weeks in what many editors felt was a disruptive manner; review the article talk page for information. A suggestion was made that this might be a reincarnation of User:WikiWoo, who in his first round about the block was fixated on Ontario government-related articles to the point of being blocked and finally issued a community ban, discussion of which can be found here. As indicated by the checkuser case, it is likely the two are the same editor. Check out the CU case for more detail. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Blocked. Edit pattern plus CheckUser equals sockpuppet. Guy 21:36, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Sponsored version of Wikipedia Italy?

It's right that it exists a sponsored version of wikipedia italy? I think it doesn't!!!

http://wikipedia.sapere.alice.it/wikipedia/index.html?pmk=HPcan

p.s sorry for my english...

The only problem I see with that mirror is they are using copyrighted Wimpedia/media logos. Using the content is fine because of our licences, see Wikipedia:Mirrors. In anycase this is the English language Wikipedia - this is an issue better suited to the Italian one. Thanks/wangi 13:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if they're using the logos without permission, it's a Foundation issue. I think there's a page on Meta for it, or you could try contacting the Wikimedia Foundation directly. --Carnildo 20:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

In any case, I suspect you're correct and that's NOT the "REAL" "Wikipedia". 68.39.174.238 00:53, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

This turns out to be the Italian Wikipedia put in a frame under a navigation toolbar for Alice.it's other sites. Jesse Viviano 03:41, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Problem with blockage.

I was being blocked by Lecter at the chinese wikipedia: 用户被查封 维基百科，自由的百科全书 跳转到： 导航, 搜索

您的用户名或IP地址已被Lecter封禁。理由是： 因为您与“Centurybooker”共享一个IP地址而被自动查封。理由是“破壞”。

您可以向Lecter或其他任何管理员询问。请注意您可能不能使用“Email该用户”的功能，除非您在您的用户参数设置中登记了一个有效的电子邮件地址。您使用的IP地址是“218.186.9.2”。请注意在这个地址上的对您所进行的任何意见。

I believe that this is because of my IP address and ISP. Please help me resolve this problem.Thanks. I found out when I wanted to edit this article: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%8E%E5%A7%93

lwq 13:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

We can't help you since most (all?) admins here are not admins on the Chinese Wikipedia. You need to pursue the matter there, not here. Thanks, Gwernol 14:01, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Try browsing through http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Listusers?group=sysop to find an English-speaking admin. howcheng {chat} 06:37, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Naruto episodes AfD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Naruto Episodes has been open for eight days now with a obvious consensus towards keep formed. Could someone please close this? – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 02:05, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Closed. Someone please go through and remove the afd tags from the articles affected, as I don't have the time right now. Naconkantari 03:36, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Using AWB (was there a more efficient method?) I removed 172 tags, which I think to have been all of them. Having seen more articles apropos of manga than ever I'd hoped to see, though, I'm going to pass the buck on the appending of talk page AfD messages to someone else (although I'm not at all certain such appending is necessary). Joe 04:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Nr9

Hi folks! Would people like to examine the case of User talk:Nr9? S/he was permabanned for "sockpuppet used abusively; vandalism" back in April. On looking at the diffs from that time, I see poorly-judged edits and POV-pushing, but no evidence at hand for (abusive) sockpuppetry (which is not the same as saying no (abusive) sockpuppetry). I don't know if the 5+ month break is a good sign or a bad one. The blocking editor is, from a glance at his user page, on Wikibreak (sadly).

My critical faculties have deserted me on this one, probably because of a 28-hour sleep deficit. Also a good reason to stop editing for the night. Opinions? ➨ ЯEDVERS 21:01, 2 October 2006 (UTC) On the unblock request, not on my sleep deficit. Although, if you've got a good remedy for insomnia, tell me. ➨ ЯEDVERS

I looked in the archives and didn't see any notices or discussion that would help. I guess I'd ask the other admins who commented on his original unblock request. Other than that, the worst that can happen is you unblock, he's not reformed, and you block again. Thatcher131 01:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Mygwndgn / Money for admin accounts

I don't know if this is a WP:POINT issue or what, but I just indefblocked User:Mygwndgn for repeatedly offering money for admin accounts (despite being reverted thrice on WP:ANI). Hopefully I wasn't out of line, but considering that those were his only edits, I thought it was the appropriate action. Just a heads up, in case he creates a new account and simply continues. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 23:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#I found a particularly disturbing yet interesting comment buried in WP:AN/I (and I was about to block too). Thanks/wangi 23:56, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Precious Williams

Could someone please close this afd before the sock puppetry gets out of control? Thanks. Stubbleboy 12:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Somebody closed it. --kingboyk 19:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

YTMND

Just a heads-up in case there is kickback: in response to the repeated addition of YTMNDs to mainspace articles, many of which include copyright violating soundtracks and few if any of which have any actual importance in covering the subject encyclopaedically, *.ytmnd.com has now been spam blacklisted, with www.ytmnd.com and wiki.ytmnd.com whitelisted on en. By agreement at Talk:YTMND, popular YTMNDs will be covered by linking to the YTMND wiki (which is why it was whitelisted). There are a very small number of links to YTMNDs (see Special:Linksearch/*.ytmnd.com for all links to the site) which I will now fix. Guy 14:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Half of page being cut off

Does anyone know why most of Passover is being cut off? All the text is still visible in the edit mode. It seems to have disappered after this edit. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 14:45, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The <ref></ref> tags were mismatched (2 <ref>'s instead of one of each). Naconkantari 14:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Velten blocked

This is a message related to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Eternal Equinox. At Talk:Cool (song), user:Velten (Eternal Equinox's new username) removed a link to an old AFD discussion that had been initiated in good faith. She has a history of tampering with other people's comments and attempting to conceal discussions on that talk page that contain comments with which she disagrees; see, for example, [61], [62] (note the edit summary here) and [63]. She is also continuing to harass me on the Promiscuous (song) and Loose (album) articles and has a long history of parachuting into articles barely days after I have edited them; see this message I left at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration, as well as [64]. (Velten has said that my evidence can be explained by the fact that we both edit pop music-related articles, which does absolutely nothing to explain her strange habit of parachuting into articles barely days after I have edited them, particularly as several of her "stalking" edits were related to content within my own userspace. She also has a history of harassing editors who never edit pop music articles.) Because of this behaviour, I've blocked her for three weeks.

Now Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Eternal_Equinox#Remedies says that EE/Velten can be blocked for disruption "up to a week in the event of repeat offenses". If a user is blocked for doing something and then, after removing the relevant messages from their talk page, does the same thing again as soon as they're unblocked, I'd think it would be appropriate to place a longer block. With regard to EE/Velten specifically, user:Bishonen said at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration "I request permission to ban her for more than a week from pages she disrupts. "Up to a week" is a feeble remedy for this editor" [65], to which user:Tony Sidaway replied "[you] can block a disruptive editor for as long as seems reasonable. Arbitration probations are permissive with respect to administrator action; they are not intended to limit administrator action." [66] He also said to consult on this page, which I should have done earlier but forgot. The next option after one week on the block page dropdown menu was one month, which I thought was unreasonable, so I placed a three week block instead. If anybody believes the block should be shortened to one week, then feel free to do that yourself straight away and I won't undo it. Extraordinary Machine 16:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I originally brought this to Extraordinary Machine's attention. I haven't even looked at Velten/Eternal Equinox's recent behavior yet as I haven't had time. Two things concern me. One is that the arbcom decision states that blocks may be up to a week. Second, EM may be too "involved" with Velten to make the blocks himself. He says above "Velten has a long history of parachuting into articles barely days after I have edited them." I do think that problem users can eventually wear out their welcome so the community may impose a longer block than decreed by arbcom, or even a ban. I think a review in this case would be a good idea. Thatcher131 17:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Xaosflux/UBX/User religion flying spaghetti monster not really

One other inquiry please, can this be closed per WP:SNOWBALL? Thanks again! Stubbleboy 19:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Coyote Shivers

I could use some opinions and advice on what to do about a tiny tempest, described at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Coyote_Shivers and user talk:CatherineMunro (please read for a fuller understanding of the situation). Coyote Shivers and his ex-wives Bebe Buell (and her publicist) and Pauley Perrette have all edited the various articles as anons over the last year, putting in and taking out unsourced information, but it's been sort of a slow boil; see the Shivers history for most of it. The situation has finally been documented in this news article, and both Shivers and Buell have been at work today. Buell has emailed me and asked that the edits which call her "Coyote's stalker" be removed from the Shivers history. This is obviously not something we can solve for them, but what can we do within our policy to be neutral, fair and helpful, per WP:BLP? What's the best line for me to take here? — Catherine\^talk 21:17, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Edits can in fact be removed from the history. Give me the dates/time stamps and I will do it (my talk page might be best) Thatcher131 21:32, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I think I got them all. Thatcher131 21:49, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your help, Thatcher; could you and others keep these on your watchlists for a while? I really don't want to be the focus of this man's irritation. — Catherine\^talk 01:42, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted twice already; anyone else watching?

In fact, since the sun never sets on Wikipedia, and the anon IP is based in Los Angeles, we could force him to stay awake for days just by getting an Aussie and a Brit to watch the article too. Thatcher131 03:00, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Umm, since the IP isn't changing, can't you do a block?--After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 03:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I made some minor edits so I might be considered "involved"; also I'm not sure whether this qualifies as vandalism or a content dispute so I want to be careful about such things. It's also a dsl line so it not be entirely static, if you get my drift. However, another admin can block the IP if it seems the right thing to do. Thatcher131 04:12, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I was contacted by Bebe Buell via email today due to the continuing issue with this page. While I monitor her page, I do not monitor Coyote Shivers (and with over 5000 pages on my watchlist, I'm not looking for more work). I wrote an extensive response to her which can basically be summarised as the following: don't edit his page or yours while you have an ongoing legal battle, complain about libel and slander to ANI, then the infoteam, then the Wikipedia Foundation. I also explained page protection, WP:LEGAL, etc. etc. This really is beyond my ability though I do seriously hope that my email to her was helpful. I'm mentioning it here because, well, it seems like a good idea. Any additional suggestions people have, please raise them. This issue is apparently of serious concern to Ms. Buell. Disclaimer: I'm not taking sides here, I haven't seen the edits to Coyote Shivers, etc. etc. --Yamla 01:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Today's featured article nominated for deletion

Please see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Majora's_Mask - as this is today's featured article, an admin might want to close the AfD and remove the "being considered for deletion" tag. At least until tomorrow. Carcharoth 11:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Second time this has happened in two months: not a trend, I hope. Newyorkbrad 11:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I have restored the AFD discussion (which had been deleted) - frivolous nomination it may have been, and a speedy keep it may have been, but I find it inappropriate to delete any AfD discussion, these things should be transparent. —Stormie 11:31, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I suppose there's no reason why an FA shouldn't be considered for deletion, because FA considers article quality not notability and so on. However, front page articles are our shopfront and having a deletion tag on a current front page article looks very bad. I propose we disallow nominating FAs for deletion whilst they are on the front page. --kingboyk 11:36, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

In practice, it's not going to be a big deal. That AFD was clear WP:SNOW material anyway; the article has lengthy, heavily-sourced sections on the game's creation, critical reception, status as a best-seller, and so on. Few things are going to reach WP:FA while having any problems whatsoever with establishing notability. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

So why did you delete the AfD page? I agree with Stormie - there was no reason to delete the AfD page. Is it usual for admins to delete pages like this without seeking consensus? I can understand speedy delete for article space, but speedy delete for administrative pages? That was not a subpage of your user page you were deleting, it was part of the administrative set-up of the encyclopedia. Carcharoth 11:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

There are numerous reasons for deleting a page such as that one, such as WP:BEANS (don't encourage other people to do the same), WP:POINT (the nominator was disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point), and also that the page in question was - and is - malformed and thus creates problems for other editors. AMIB's reasons for deleting the page fell across those points and it seemed reasonable to me. Others felt differently and the page was undeleted. That wasn't unreasonable either. Nothing to see here, please disperse :o) ➨ ЯEDVERS 12:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

But, I... I... <firmly being shepherded away>. OK! OK! I'm going! :-) PS. I expanded the rather cryptic warning you gave the original AfD nominator. Is there a way to check to see if it is a throwaway account created just for the AfD nomination? PPS. How is the AfD page malformed? Carcharoth 13:44, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah. I think I spy a wikignome busily correcting malformed AfD pages! :-) Carcharoth 13:46, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure that the new user is a User:NicAgent sock, Golbez blocked indef and still need opinions for the AFD page to be deleted. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 19:52, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Now we find out that the AfD nomination was by a sock puppet of a banned user. Though this is not entirely clear from User talk:James M.. For the block log, you have to go here. Is there a way to mark that user as blocked if they don't have a user page, or to mark the talk page? Anyway, this all means that the AfD page should be a speedy deletion under CSD criterion G5. Though to be fair, I should point out that I have reservations about CSD G5, as expressed at this deletion review. Those reservations do not apply in this case, though, as no great debate has sprung up. Carcharoth 23:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't not see what is wrong with the deletion of AFD nominations made in bad faith by indef blocked users. For example, I see no reason why User:NicAgent's vandalism such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ford Motor Company should be archived. I'm quite fond of WP:DENY myself and think that it should extend to these frivolous AFDs. I do not believe however, that this case of vandalism is a NicAgent sock, being that NicAgent doesn't malform his AFDs and places them at the top of the day's list. - Hahnchen 00:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

{{oldafdfull}} should be added to the article talk page, or the AFD should be deleted, don't you think? -- ReyBrujo 02:59, 4 October 2006 (UTC)