Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive116

In furtherance of Jimbo's efforts to decrease drama

In furtherance of Jimbo's efforts to decrease drama, I present here a comment by User:Moulton placed on another site:

Removed

---

WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:15, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

While the sentiments expressed are perhaps admirable, I'm not sure how you expect to accomplish a decrease in wikidrama by reproducing something posted to that particular "another site" (well, at least you didn't link to it). I am disappointed, though, that you left out the wonderful bit of alliteration "..." —Random832 17:21, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Trying to get the drama out of human interaction is like trying to get stink out of a turd. 1 != 2 17:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's all froth. While a minority "wiki-war" (what a nice phrase) a vast (peaceful) army in the background is quietly getting on with building the encyclopedia. Some articles are casualties in the wiki-wars, but many more articles survive than die, and they can all be ressurected at some point. Though some are honey-pots, forever attracting drama and zombifying onwards towards the hypothetical end scenario. Carcharoth (talk) 17:31, 13 December 2007 (UTC) There, some nice random rambling metaphorical philosophy to wash down the (actually rather insightful) post above.

edit conflict I've replaced it to a diff link of when you posted it, partially to reduce the effort that would be needed if (as I cynically suppose is likely to happen) it is determined it should be oversighted, and partially because you've given no indication of permission from User:Moulton. —Random832 17:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Just a question: Does his GFDL permission lapse if he is blocked indef? --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 17:53, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

No, the GFDL's grant of permissions is explicitly perpetual (and says nothing about Wikipedia's blocking policy in any case). — Gavia immer (talk) 18:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Right, but WAS 4.250 is not the author of the piece, and Moulton did not post it to Wikipedia. —Random832 18:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 18:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, we have no reason to believe we can repost that text, though perhaps a link to the original would be informative. 1 != 2 18:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec × ∞)Ah. Yes, I spaced out on Moulton not being the poster. So, I guess the answer is "maybe, maybe not". Glad I could clear that up. — Gavia immer (talk) 18:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The original, however, is posted to a thread which also contains posts that can be interpreted as attacks on users.—Random832 18:46, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

We already have an article on this: six phases of any big project. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Articles with unsupported characters

• [[WP::-)]]
• [[WP::LBT]]
• [[WP::P]]

These need deleting. These pages exist, brackets won't show up and it shows up on the list of all articles as something that has text on it (3rd and 4th lines). — Save_Us_229 17:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk to a developer. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WP::P&action=delete fails. —Random832 17:41, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm contacting someone to deal with it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Moved to WP:WP::-), WP:WP::LBT and WP:WP::P. Do with them as you will. -- Tim Starling (talk) 18:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Deleted. These were to WP:FRIENDLY, WP:LBT, and WP:FUN, respectively. Someone will have to find and clean up inbound links manually; whatlinkshere does not work with broken titles. —Random832 18:40, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I deleted an inbound link to [[WP:]] today (=WP:SHORTCUTS), since it was no longer working. I wonder if the database could still have the list of pages containing these links. -- lucasbfr ^talk 21:47, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

User talk:Jlhess and Jon Hess

User repeatedly vandalizes the article with unverified, original research and POV material. User appears to be the subject of the article. I've asked user to remove things they consider untrue, but instead user insists on a flatter piece for the article. User also appears to be using sock puppets, and has made threats and personal insults towards me, as well as challenging me to a fight. --Mista-X (talk) 20:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

More Congressional Edits

I noticed an article at Slashdot (found here) that discussed further congressional edits to Wikipedia, particularly at 2003 Invasion of Iraq, highlighting this diff. I had a look at the contributions from the IP in question, User:143.231.249.141, and noticed a significant number of recent edits to the article on Congressman Donald M. Payne. In particular, this material, which was added today, appears to be a direct copy of the congressman's official website, found here. As it's a government source, does copyvio apply? If not, does the article still need to be re-worded to avoid directly copying the text of a government website?

Since there is attention being given to this (US House of Representatives) IP and its contributions, and since it's 5:00 here and I need to leave for a while, I thought it prudent to note the issue here. Please move this comment to the correct noticeboard, if it does not belong here. Thanks! ZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 22:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that information produced by a federal government employee and/or released by the federal government is considered public domain and exempt from copyright protection. Pages of members of Congres edited by known Congressional IP addresses (particularly if they can be linked to that members staff) need a CoI tag. Avruch^Talk 23:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The article has already been tagged, so I will add the above notice to the talk page describing the conflict of interest. Thanks, ZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 18:40, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Page move

Resolved

 – Page moved

Can someone move Swing of the Quad Cities back to Quad City River Bandits. I tried, but since the River Bandits was a page it won't let me move it. The team again changed names, cause they can't figure out what they want to be called i guess. Here is a ref. if necessary [1] Ctjf83 ^talk 23:38, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

• Done. BLACKKITE 00:39, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "Swing of the Quad Cities" is the oddest team name I've ever come across. Chick Bowen 04:06, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

AfD backlog

There is a long backlog on AfD right now going back to December 4. See WP:AFD. Admin attention would be appreciated. JoshuaZ (talk) 02:08, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I've got some time, I'll see what I can do to help. Resolute 02:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Down to 170, we've made a dent at least. It was 230+ when I started working on it. Mr.Z-man 05:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

*collapses* - down to ~150. Mr.Z-man 07:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:UAA

Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention is kinda gettin' clogged. Can an admin please go and "unclog" it? --EoL talk 02:39, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Unclogged. - auburnpilot talk 02:45, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

A point about the delete-a-page dialog

• The delete-a-page dialog shows two entries with typing boxes: "Reason for deletion" and "Other/additional reason". As "Other/additional reason" is often full of a copy of the start of the page's text, it would be useful if two more alternatives were added to "Reason for deletion": "To allow incoming move" and "Temporarily for history-merge or history-split". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Or, you could just delete the auto-inserted text, which is what I do. I'm actually not a fan of the existing deletion page, as the summary comes before the dropdown when I tab through them... very frustrating. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Harassing someone while hiding behind a screen name is now a criminal offense.

Resolved

 – WR troll Will ^(talk) 10:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

A federal law was signed on January 5, 2006 by President Bush. Section 113 of the "Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act" states that when you harass someone on the Internet, you must disclose your identity. Here's the relevant language:

"Whoever ... utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet ... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person ... who receives the communications ... shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

The law is correct to target abusive Internet behavior that hides behind anonymity. Wikipedia's procedures should be overhauled in light of this new law. Every screen-name signature should always show the originating IP address next to it on Wikipedia, and those who open accounts should provide a verified email address. These addresses should be available to anyone on request (but behind a captcha to keep spambots from harvesting them). This is a minimum requirement for Wikipedia if it ever hopes to restore its good name. 211.30.63.158 (talk) 08:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

You're assuming that everyone on Wikipedia's intent is to "annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass". Your logic fails. JuJube (talk) 08:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Judging from the title of the act, I believe that only applies if we're harassing women or the Department of Justice, as well -- men who are not employees of the US DOJ appear to be fair game. More to the point, that suggestion makes little apparent sense; an IP address, in and of itself, hardly identifies a specific person. Privacy policy already contains elements to deal legal requests like subpoenas. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:49, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's not forget that all Wikimedia projects are international, and are not subject to interpersonal laws to much degree. If someone in Mumbai was being specifically harassed by another user who happens to be in Perth, then the law doesn't do any good.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Removing the public's right for being anonymous is too harsh a step to take for dealing with a small number of users who "annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass". Od Mishehu עוד מישהו 09:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why you're all taking this post so seriously. This, along with Section 230 discussion, is the oldest trick in the WR book. Will ^(talk) 10:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not know what the post directly above means but this seems to indicate that this new law is real while this is an example of how this type of laws can (in my opinion) be mis-used to control speech and media. I do not think anyone here can/should do anything at all about these intrusions (again,my opinion) on freedoms and liberties but it might be worth a discussion somewhere on wikipedia. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 12:17, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a minimum requirement for Wikipedia if it ever hopes to restore its good name lol Jackaranga (talk) 12:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Community ban of spammer

Moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Webgeek because this is 38kb of wikitext, 201kb post-expand, and literally half the rendered page.'

Executive summary: Webgeek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and numerous IPs added many links to sites apparently run by him. —Random832 19:29, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Image for deletion

Resolved

Hello, Image:Inkou.jpg is up for speedy deletion as of December 1, but the category has been deleted (because it was empty, the tag had been removed against policy though, after the expiry date) , can someone please look at the image and delete it if necessary thanks. Jackaranga (talk) 22:39, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the uploader adequately addressed the issue. Using the DVD cover as an example in order to illustrate porn in Japan, falls within the scope of fair use, and I think other admins felt the same. Otherwise, the image would have been deleted. Your revert however (which removed part of the fair use rational), labeling the removal of the template as vandalism, does not show good faith. The template states "Please remove this template if you have successfully addressed the concern." That is what he did, so I have removed the template. — Edokter • Talk • 23:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

You can see at WP:CSD and the user warning {{uw-speedy}} how removing a speedy deletion tag from a page you created yourself is against policy, and considered vandalism (thus the warnings), also you can see at WP:NFC Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary). Anyway if you accept to be the admin who is refusing deletion, please drop me a note so I can start a DRV as this is a common type of problem and a DRV on this kind of one would be useful, thanks. Jackaranga (talk) 23:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, but the image was never tagged with a CSD template, but with a disputed fair-use template; uw-speedy does not apply here, and you totally misread the policy and the templates. Now you have sent it to deletion review, while there is nothing to review. The proper action would have been to nominate it for deletion at Wikipedia:Images for deletion. Can someone close the DRV? — Edokter • Talk • 12:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Coredesat 12:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Please examine the behavior of User:Quantumentanglement

He placed a wildly inappropriate "warning" on Mongo's talkpage here. This was after QE had been placing inappropriate fact tags (which Mongo reverted) over several 9/11-related pages. His contributions, such as they are have been disruptive, as he has called an established editor a "vandal" numerous times, and refuses to retract when others tell him this is inappropriate. He lashes out at anyone who dares question his reasoning. I have warned him about this disruption. I think it would be appropriate for a user with the tools to keep an eye on this guy, and block him if he refuses to discontinue his disruptive behavior. Mr Which??? 07:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks MrWhich...he is just a new editor or recreated editor who is only here to support the "alternate storyline". I've asked him to cite what sources he is using to try and refute what the article states and maybe he will...one never knows.--MONGO (talk) 08:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it's the jolly old disruptive single-purpose account again. He's only been here 4 days and he's progressed to edit-warring, fringe theory advocacy, biased editing, incivility, personal attacks, templating the regulars - crikey. How far wrong can you go? Can someone with more patience than I explain why he needs to do everything completely differently from now on? Thank you. Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 11:27, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

MiguelL0pz

Resolved

 – Blocked MiguelL0pz Guy (Help!) 17:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I have posted the following in Nikki311's talk page and on Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism

• MiguelL0pz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) The editor is begging to be blocked by continuing to make vanfalism. ClueBot has warned him, but he still continues. The user has not made one single edit which is constructive. Lex ^T/_C Guest Book 17:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Here are his edits:

[2]	He writes: (A statement that violates biography of living persons policy has been removed.)
[3]	He wrote that the ECW Champion is Kelly Kelly and she won it on the December 10 edition of ECW.
[4]	He wrote that the WWE Champion is Melina, the Womens Champion is Candice Michelle and the World Tag Team Champions are Candice Michelle and Hanna Montana
[5]	Removed all dates for the General Managers of Smackdown
[6]	Again... removed all the GM's dates.
[7]	Here he wrote that the WWE Champion is Candice Michelle, the Womens Champion is Candice Michelle, the Intercontinental Champion is Candice Michelle and the World Tag Team Champions are... you guessed it: Candice Michelle and Candice Michelle!
[8]	Removed all authority figures in Friday Night Smackdown article.
[9]	All the champions are Candice Michelle again, but this time, Candice's tag team champion partner is Cody Rhodes... (at least he got 1/2 champion right)
[10]	Blanked the GMs again... what's his deal with the SD GMS?
[11]	Orginally saying that Vickie is the present GM... he replaced it with: (A terrible insult)
[12]	He made it as so there are 2 women champions in the WWE, them being Melina and... CANDICE (go figure)
[13]	He wrote that SD's current GM is Stacy Keibler.
[14]	Wrote that Kelly Kelly is the current ECW Champion.
[15]	Replaced Kelly Kelly's win from September to December 11
[16]	He wrote that (A statement that violates biography of living persons policy has been removed.)
[17]	Replaced Stratus' real name with (A statement that violates biography of living persons policy has been removed.)

There are many other edits, but you can't suppose I'd write them all down here. Please see to this ASAP. Lex ^T/_C Guest Book 17:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Rex Germanus

I'm getting quite fed up with User:Rex Germanus. Since I'm definitely not neutral on this (involved gradually in different editing disputes with him), I am bringing this here for general consideration (since the CSN board is closed down), to see what (if anything) should be done.

Since his return from a month long block on November 13, Rex has continued his disruptive behaviour, but is now supported by a number of IP adresses, including 145.93.125.93, 145.93.123.60, 145.93.126.83 and 145.93.124.84, all coming from Fontys Hogescholen. I have no idea if this is a sock- or meatpuppet, but it makes the situation even worse.

Problems are: asking for references without ever providing some themselves (e.g. on Dutchland[18], West Flemish[19], or Van Beethoven family[20]). Instead of replacing German with Dutch, his new topic is replacing Flemish with Dutch, even when it is incorrect, as in Jean Bart[21]. He moved Dunkirkers to Dunkirk Raiders, and was unwilling to consider that he was wrong even when presented with references, and (again) without presenting any counterreferences himself, only his assertions (see User Talk:Rex Germanus#Dunkirkers). In these and other discussions, his (and the IP's) discussion and edit summaries where very often uncivil and personal, and very rarely constructive. Talk:West Flemish#Y vs. IJ is a good illustration of this.

Finally, edits like this one[22] are to me unacceptable.

This is a complicated situation in which I am a party, but I seriously doubt if Rex has changed a bit since his last block, and if he is beneficial to Wikipedia. I have not issued any formal warnings, since (coming from me) they would probably only inflame the situation, instead of helping. Fram (talk) 10:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Since he's been warned off editing German topics, Rex certainly seems to have acquired a bee in his bonnet about all things Flemish. The disruption is at a much lower intensity than before, but it's still there. --Folantin (talk) 10:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

All edits made displayed here where either because I had (better) sources or because others lacked them. I stand by all of them.

'Disrupted Topic' according to Fram:

Jean Bart: Being Dutch-born, ethnic sense, (Dunkirk being almost completely etnically Dutch at the time of his birth) doesn't say anything about nationality; the source of your confusion as noted in your edits.

Dunkirkers: Explained at my talkpage, point of concern? 'Dunkirkers' also refers to people from Dunkirk in general. Simple as that.

Van Beethoven Family: In the Beethoven question, which I've dropped as announced on the talk page) I proved my point that Flemish meant Dutch in beethovens time (and his ancestors times). Fran/Folentin demanded something more specific (what could cover my point more I ask myself). If that's 'not ever providing sources' then I don't know what that is.

For example Another false accusation to add to my list. I do use sources, more than any of the people mentioned above. This report to me is just a clear example of how these people try to push their changes on wikipedia without referencing. A small step from unfounded opinions, to personal attacks and allegations and now ... and attempt to block or similar. Sad, if you think you're right, go to library and find out for sure.Rex (talk) 15:28, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, I deny all accusations made by Erik Warmelink who accuses me of using sock/meatpuppets. I have never used them and never will. Just because an IP (I assume it is the same person) disagrees with you and supports me doesn't make it a sock, it just makes 2 vs 1.Rex (talk) 15:30, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Well then, quote the starting 10 words of the entry on "beethof" on http://www.etymologie.nl/ (I get: Lemma niet gevonden! Dit deel van het Etymologisch Woordenboek van …, crude translation: Lemma not found! This part of the etymological glossary of …), give a reliable source that links "van Beethoven" with Beets or the Betuwe, give a source that "van Beethoven" was ever used as a familyname in the Netherlands, give a reliable source that "proves" that Flemish meant Dutch in Beethovens time. Just because several IPs agree with you, doesn't make them socks; if all they do is agreeing with you (even repeating your accusation that I would lie) and reverting to your versions (without interwiki's that were added and with spelling errors that were corrected), appearances are against you. Also explain this edit summary. Erik Warmelink (talk) 16:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I invite everyone to look at the edits linked, and compare them with the actual statements by Rex Germanus. E.g. the Van Beethoven family edit I linked has nothing to do with the Flemish vs. Dutch dispute, and Rex Germanus ignores the other, more recent pages listed (e.g. Dutchland is a very nice example, and West Flemish, where Rex Germanus makes even this evening clearly invalid statements on the talk page[23]). Perhaps Rex uses sources, but he certainly doesn't provide them. Fram (talk) 21:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Do not confuse yourself with me. I do provide sources. Look at Dutch people, over 110 references, nearly all added by me, I know how to reference.Rex (talk) 10:02, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

You have not provided sources for any of the disputes mentioned here: I'm glad that you know how to do it, but that doesn't excuse your behaviour in the last month. Why do you say here that "some people love fights" while going from a more to a less correct page?[24]. Why do you make such clearly invalid statements like this one?[25] Why did you change from one unsourced spelling to another unsourced one[26], but then accuse me of OR when I provide an independent but unreliable source (which of course is not OR at all), while not providing any source at all to support your version?[27] And why are you so uncivil in nearly all your edits and edit summaries (when you use them)? Fram (talk) 13:37, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

What's less correct Fram? Explain that to me. That note on West Flemish is really a cry for help for your behavior. Your 'arguments' were/are completely discredited on talk and still you revert to your version. Also you did not, hence no links, in the entire West Flemish discussion provide any reference. So don't make it seem you did.Rex (talk) 14:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Good grief, are we still dealing with this guy? How many kilobytes of AN and ANI discussion have been devoted to his antics? When is enough provocation enough? Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Keep your good griefs to yourself and focus on what's presented, not how many times a name comes up on a page you happen to watch.Rex (talk) 00:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd move for a ban to stop Rex wasting any more of our time. He's just a Dutch nationalist logic-chopper with a grudge against Germans and, now it seems, the Flemish. --Folantin (talk) 09:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

You people can go on making more melodramatic comments here for as long as you want, in every case here I provided references, others did and an the contributions button will show anyone that Erik Warmelink started all this with his on purpose nonsense reverts. He even stated against an IP how much he hates me. Ridiculous. I'm off continuing referenced editing. Some of you ought to try that too sometimes.Rex (talk) 10:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

That's an interesting way to summarize I don't hate Rex Germanus and No, I don't hate Rex Germanus. Erik Warmelink (talk) 00:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

This really is nonsense. If someone askes references? or if he is a little bit nationalistic? Dit kinse toch neet meer geluive. --Ooswesthoesbes (talk) 16:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Rex I have met you editing for over a year now, and most of it you have been engaged in one or more disputes. Although I have had my own disputes in that time, and made a comparable number of edits as you in that year, I have never been accused of any gross violation, no official complaint was ever listed against me. It cannot be only other editors bad-faith towards you that cause you being involved in so many formal procedures; it can only mean you are doing something wrong. Please consider this. Arnoutf (talk) 19:00, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

A clear cut example. The first adress of Erik Warmelink on talk was not a plea for his own version and why it was better, but a direct personal attack. A rant about how many blocks I've had. How do you see any good faith in that?Rex (talk) 19:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

From my POV, it started with this edit. My edit was after my additions[28][29] to Talk:Van Beethoven family#Meertens reference, which Rex Germanus ignored. Erik Warmelink (talk) 00:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Community ban discussion

Last time we discussed Rex Germanus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) on October 13, I blocked him for one month and suggested that further disruption should result in an indefinite block. Rex Germanus' long block log is strong evidence that he has worn out the community's patience. Before placing an indefinite block, I would like to run a checkuser to see if there is any sockpuppetry involved, and I'd also like to see a concise list of diffs showing disruption since the most recent block. - Jehochman ^Talk 19:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I have filed Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Rex Germanus, and here is a set of diffs that demonstrate edit warring if these IP's are in fact Rex Germanus: [30] [31] [32] [33] -- [34] [35] [36] [37] If not, there may be other evidence sufficient to justify a community ban. - Jehochman ^Talk 20:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Wie een hond wil slaan, vindt licht een stok. Go find your stick Jehochman. Surprise me.Rex (talk) 20:20, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you know anything about the IP editor(s) who have been supporting you in these content disputes? - Jehochman ^Talk 20:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Clearly they/he/she must be insane, rude and nationalistic assholes. Why else would the IP(s) support me? I can't even comprehend that myself, I can only imagine how you felt in all your biased glory when you saw them! Poor you. Rex (talk) 20:53, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

• (ec) The checkuser result is "Possible". Given the identical point of view of the IP's and Rex Germanus, and the lack of technical evidence to the contrary, I am inclined to accept the assertions made by Fram (talk · contribs). Rex Germanus has apparently returned to his previous editing style which has resulted in approximately 15 different blocks, placed by diverse members of the Wikipedia admin corps. I think Rex Germanus has expended the community's patience and the time has come to ask him, politely but firmly, to leave the project. (add) Rude comments won't help your cause, Rex Germanus. - Jehochman ^Talk 21:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

• This diff shows an IP removing properly sourced content, using an deceptive "Interwiki" edit summary: [38] The IP is Rex Germanus: [39] [40] - Jehochman ^Talk 22:17, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Good catch. And if that IP is Rex, we have at the very least a breach of the revert parole, as he repeated the same revert under his account the next day ([41], [42]). However, that IP is not from the same range as the others, from a university in Tilburg. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:28, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

(Unindent) Editing at home, school/work, and a cafe will result in different IPs. I think we should mainly consider the styles of editing, and the tone of Rex Germanus' comments on this very thread. - Jehochman ^Talk 23:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC) (Keep thread open. 22:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC))

To be fair the editor was simply importing material from the Dutch version of the same page - summarizing this as "interwiki" might not have been entirely bad faith. --Paularblaster (talk) 00:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, Rex was deleting material, and then as shown above, he subsequently repeated the edit with his own account the next day. This is evidence of gaming his revert parole. - Jehochman ^Talk 02:18, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The edit didn't import, it reverted to a previous version by Rex Germanus[43] and re-added cy:Ffleminiaid which was added[44] by User:AlleborgoBot (AlleborgoBot did add in alfabetical order, though). Erik Warmelink (talk) 16:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• I've been asked to comment here. I haven't had time to look into this in detail, but there does appear to be a case here for an indefinite block. Before supporting that, I'd like to ask if there is any case for a repeated one month block, or a longer block (with people watching out for block evasion) or a topic ban? The evidence above that Rex has been evading his revert parole should also be followed up. I'd also urge Rex (and others) to speak up if any of these blocks were inappropriate. Carcharoth (talk) 23:44, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

• Given the repeated incidents of revert warring and POV pushing, compounded by the use of IP accounts to evade scrutiny, proven in one case, and very likely in at least three other cases, plus incivility by Rex Germanus right here in this thread, I suggest a 1 year ban. We've had 15 prior blocks, but Rex Germanus hasn't gotten the message yet. It's time to protect our editors. - Jehochman ^Talk 14:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Dear Jehochman. You can stop stalling the block/bann process in order to make it seem fair to outsiders, I've beaten you to it. Have a nice life, or whatever you call it.Rex (talk) 16:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for blocking indefinitely here. Rex is a long-term problem editor, who has had multiple last chances, has sockpuppeted to avoid his parole, and has a net negative effect on Wikipedia in general. Neıl ☎ 16:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I've placed an indefinite block, and added the user account to Wikipedia:List of banned users#Banned by the Wikipedia community. If any administrator would like to refactor the block and ban, you have my permission to do so. - Jehochman ^Talk 17:00, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Good. --Folantin (talk) 17:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Fram (talk) 20:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Ambivalent. --Van helsing (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Ambivalent too. Arnoutf (talk) 23:08, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Good, considering the absence of the entry "beethof" on etymology.nl. Erik Warmelink (talk) 13:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I am in support of the ban. Bearian (talk) 22:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Since I might be willing to unblock Rex after the new year, he's not community banned just yet. I will not unblock Rex without Jehochman's agreement, nor without Rex's agreement to a broad topic ban, &c. All purely hypothetical. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:47, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I am willing to support that solution. If Rex Germanus wishes to return, subject to editing restrictions that will keep him away from topics where he has had past problems, then he can be unblocked.- Jehochman ^Talk 11:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what the point of this is. The guy spent his credit here long, long ago. He's had umpteen chances already. He also claims to have left Wikipedia of his own accord. --Folantin (talk) 12:12, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Rex has both contributed positively and negatively to Wikipedia, with the former recently being more and more often overshadowed by the the latter. If Rex were willing to return, I'd strongly suggest a compulsory mentorship by an neutral and experienced administrator. His mentor then could help Rex reinforce his good behavior (i.e. his contributions) while providing an external check against the problematic one (i.e. POV and civility issues) - and, if necessary, in an emerging dispute, either support Rex and curb potential trolling and incivility or encourage Rex to back down (if he doesn't) - as this is Rex's weak point; his edits might be ok (even if not "correct") but instead of a quick and painless discussion, it quickly turns into a "my way or the highway" scenario where Rex won't accept that he might be wrong nor will back down. An experienced mentor with the power to repel trolls (he did manage to accumulate a number of enemies) might just help him get back and stay on the right path. CharonX/talk 16:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Rex has entirely exhausted my patience, and I suspect the community's as well. Ask yourselves - is this really an editor we need? For me, that's a resounding "NO". Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 16:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Without making any comments on the rest of this section, I am willing to mentor Rex if he is allowed back (which I am not saying *should* happen - I'm staying neutral). I am a new adminsitrator, and I feel up to the challenge. JERRY ^talk _contribs 01:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

User talk:Joejoebilly

Resolved

Look at that. And his contribs! The has repetedly recreated Pandapede and has been warned for it. User should be blocked. —Coastergeekperson04^{'s talk}@11/27/2007 04:18

User:Pegasus got him. east.718 at 04:34, November 27, 2007

Signed to allow archiving. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 08:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Death threats, privacy, telephone numbers

This is an alternate account. I am an administrator here on the Wikipedia. A checkuser may be performed on this account to verify the truthfulness of this statement but I do ask that the sockpuppeteer account name not be revealed except with my permission. This account is not a violation of WP:SOCK. In my time here, I have received numerous personal attacks and more than one threat of a lawsuit. More troublingly, I have received the occasional death threat. My real name and photograph has been posted on the attack sites, along with my location, though not my exact address. Recently, I have started receiving telephone calls that have their caller ID blocked. These are the typical "hang-up" calls and I am no longer answering the phone to numbers I do not already recognize. Occasionally, I get voice mails though these are always blank. I do not consider any of the death threats I have received to be at all serious. None that I am aware of were made by someone in the same country as me and I never had any reason to believe this was more significant than a teenage vandal ticked off because I blocked him or her. And it is entirely possible (indeed, almost certain) that these telephone calls which have started in the past week are entirely coincidental. I am less happy with my real name and location, along with stolen photographs that are quite possibly not fair-use, being posted on attack sites. I'm considering changing my telephone number. Is this worth the effort? What other steps should I be considering? --Okay Bignose (talk) 17:27, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Checkuser confirms the above does belong to an admin. Raul654 (talk) 00:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Jeez. Whats the point, honestly. I don't understand people sometimes. Honestly, I would suggest a wikibreak, at least in terms of your admin acct. Let the storm die down. Sad it has to come to that, but it is what it is.↔NMajdan•talk 17:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

It's been done before to disappear from one account and then reappear as an admin under another account. I suggest you contact one of the higher authorities if you would like to regain your admin access while remaining anonymous. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 18:27, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, a user gaining admin access without an RfA would stand out like a sore thumb. If an admin is going to drop and come back, I'm afraid that they should work back through the ranks to become an admin again. Yes, it really sucks, but it's also the only way to avoid a red flag on the account. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. In two examples some people on a certain site were able to figure out which admin had recently disappeared and then compared the editing patterns to figure out who it was. Maybe you could continue making edits with both accounts to throw them off the scent, though that there's a very fine line on what kinds of edits are allowable.. hbdragon88 (talk) 01:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk to your telephone company about logging the calls (they record the details) and your local police for advice regarding the caller(s) - that is what you pay your taxes for - especially in conjunction with the death threats. Talk to the service provider about the site publicising your details; if they do not have permission from the copyright holder they should not be able to post your picture (unless it was released under GDFL) and they may be violating their terms of service in publishing your information without permission (same problem about GDFL, though) or in a manner which might cause you distress. The perhaps co-incidental receipt of the silent phone calls and death threats can be cited.

On-wiki, I suggest you WP:IGNORE/DENY, or take a break per Nmajdan. I wouldn't change account names - a new admin popping up without going through RfA is likely to attract attention, and there will not be that many recently inactive admins to sift through, from the off-Wiki sites. Sorry about your experiences, and I hope this has helped. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

If you aren't already in contact with WMF, please communicate with them. Also I'd be glad to talk to you under whatever account you wish. Suggest you set up a gmail account for use in connection with Wikipedia volunteering because your location can't be traced from the headers. Best regards, Durova^Charge! 23:43, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

• Please send email to me using your admin account. I am interested in this case, and I have some friends who are also interested. Guy (Help!) 23:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'll contact the WMF in the next couple of days. EVula has a very good point, I talked to another admin who changed account names earlier this year and it didn't really do much to help protect his identity. For the record, I have never used an alternate account other than this one. I'll also start star-69'ing the dropped calls, though I doubt this will give me much information. Does that even work if the person only lets it ring once or twice and I don't pick up? To the best of my knowledge, my telephone number has never been posted in relation to my Wikipedia account, not anywhere. And I haven't had any hang-up calls today so hopefully it was all just a false alarm, though I am still concerned. I'll please ask people (including those off-wiki) not to speculate about my identity. I am sure I am not the only Wikipedia editor who has been in this situation. Also, while I am not thrilled with so-called attack sites posting my personal information or using pictures without my consent, I am far more concerned with what third parties do with that information. Anyway, if I choose to start editing with a new account, I will check with a couple of trusted people to make sure I am not being abusive. --Okay Bignose (talk) 02:31, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

You can refuse calls that are callerid blocked, I would contact your phone provider about that. Prodego ^talk 02:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

In the United States, at least, you can arrange a trap with the phone company if you get a civil restraining order. You'd document the exact time of each harassing call and you'd need to synchronize your own clock so it's accurate to the minute. I suggest you contact an expert for advice about the details. Durova^Charge! 02:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I thought the timing issue was a myth, and the phone company knows regardless of when the call was. Prodego ^talk 02:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a question of correlating particular events. In the past I've had two weeks of evidence tossed out by the police because my clock wasn't synchronized with official time. They probably could have correlated it rather easily by shifting all the data two or three minutes, but some people refused to take that effort. Some jurisdictions try any excuse to avoid paperwork. While I was filing a report once I saw a woman turned away even though she was reporting a death threat. A minute later I spoke to her outside, we compared the fine print on our restraining orders, and she marched right back and compelled the clerk to take her report when she realized his excuse was invalid. Durova^Charge! 04:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Reading this account, & having worked with real phone switch logs, I suspect the problem is that either no one in authority understands how this works -- or don't care. Excuse me while I talk about some stuff that has little to do with either WP:AN or Wikipedia in general, but explains how this information gets recorded.

Phone switches are in effect computer servers, & keep a very detailed log of all of the calls that are handled by a given central office. The record is kept so that at the end of the month the phone company can bill you. However, to get access to these logs for any reason other than billing, there are many barriers. To start with, most of the information is stored on 9-track tape, & the tape drives that could be used to read the data are in use; companies only have the minimum number of tape drives they need. Further, for various reasons (primarily to conserve space) those logs are encrypted, so they can't read them with a text editor like notepad or vi. (When I handled these records, I used a perl script that did the decoding, then search-&-printed all of the records in question -- which took as long as a couple of hours.) Despite all of this, it is theoretically possible to find out who called you many years before -- or as long as the phone company keeps the records. However, phone companies are not organized to provide that information at a moment's notice. (Remember: those companies are set up to handle providing customer service, & think about how well they do that.) In many cases, the people who handle the initial requests about calling info don't even know who handles all of those logs. I'm sure that's why a court order is needed -- to get the attention of a manager who has the clout to get the information. That's probably why most law enforcement agencies would trace calls -- it was far, far quicker than delving into the phone company beauracracy.

As for the question about "dropped calls", if I understand telecomm technology correctly, until you pick up the phone, no billing information is written. However, ISTR anecdotes about people being billed for calls they never answered; so if that if correct when some phones ring for a certain number of seconds, then a token charge will be written to the billing log on the switch. (There are several models of phone switches, all of which handle billing and pass voice data in different ways. And use one of the most unusual operating system I have encountered.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Have you eliminated the more mundane possibility of telemarketers using Predictive dialers that dial too many numbers, leading to "call abandonment"? Do you get a lot of telemarketing calls? If you live in a country with an equivalent to the United States National Do Not Call Registry and have not yet added your name to it, perhaps you could do so as a test (though there might be a delay before it takes effect). I apologize if this idea is off base. Cardamon (talk) 07:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not offbase. Actually, I was just about to suggest that as the most likely cause. Hangup calls, blank voice messages, it fits the description of certain dialers perfectly. I had that problem for short while; a friend is an engineer for the phone company and confirmed. El_C 13:20, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

See Predictive_dialer#Silent_calls. The half-life of these dialer stalking can be between three to six months, if I recall correctly (but sometimes it will only last a week or two, as was the case for me), so changing one's phone number needs to be weighed accordingly. El_C 13:35, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Many phone companies allow automatic rejection (or voicemail) for unidentified calls. My preferred VoIP carrier also allows me to shunt specific numbers directly to voicemail. - Jehochman ^Talk 13:58, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I have been asked if I have eliminated the mundane possibility of telemarketers. I have generally not ruled out possibilities like this, though I receive fewer than four telemarketing calls a year on my telephone. That makes it less likely. I do have another question, though. If I decide to set up a new account with the goal of eventually receiving adminship on that new account, I would obviously have to be very careful not to violate WP:SOCK. Would anyone consider it inappropriate if I did not disclose a relationship between the two accounts even during a request for adminship? I would happily inform the Foundation in advance (and would consider informing a couple of admins I particularly trust, if people believe it necessary) and would of course give up the admin bit on my current account in a manner which I felt did not interfere with my privacy. Specifically, not on the same day but in a manner which adheres to the spirit of the law, at the very least. Again, I'm well aware that setting up a second account imposes significant restrictions on what I can do under WP:SOCK. --Okay Bignose (talk) 19:53, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I would expect that, were you to notify the 'crats in advance (by email, obviously), the issue will not even be raised. Given that'd you'd vanish from one account while in good standing, there would be no problem whatsoever. Personally, however, I think this sucks beyond words. sigh. We have to start comming down MUCH harder on harassment. — Coren ^(talk) 15:54, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Carolyn Doran

This is the subject of a current ongoing controversy regarding a former employee of the Wikimedia Foundation. The article is at Carolyn Doran and it should be watched for vandalism in reaction to the Register article. Avruch^Talk 04:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Related to this matter, I've fully-protected User:Carolyn-WMF‎ and semi-protected User talk:Carolyn-WMF‎, as both had already seen some vandalism (it didn't help that the Wikinews article linked directly to her userpage, which I've since fixed). EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:50, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I tagged the talk page and two redirects as speedy deletes if someone wants to get them. [45] [46] Lawrence Cohen 06:39, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I really have a problem with the talk page being deleted. From what I looked at it, there was nothing in the talk page that warranted a speedy deletion. At least restore it to allow talk about the article, if one should exist. At least have it for a week or two. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 06:42, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk page restored by another admin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zscout370 (talk • contribs) 06:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Even though I have expressed genuine doubts about the notability of the subject of the article, it is probably wise to keep at least the talk page undeleted for a day or two simply to diffuse the inevitable drama. Risker (talk) 06:54, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

And a soft redirect was made to Wikinews. I issued the protection to the soft protected article, so it is up to Wikinews now. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 06:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I did a double-take on the soft-redirect due to the fact that at this time there's not enough reliable source for us to link to the Wikinews article. (If Washington Post runs a story blowing the whistle, I wouldn't hesitate to link to Wikinews--- I'd even say that we could probably write an article for C.D!) - Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 07:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, the Wikimedia Foundation article is sadly out of date and currently gives the impression that Doran is still an employee, doesn't mention Sue Gardner or her position, etc. If someone is in a position to clean that up using reliable sources, this might be a good time to do it. Risker (talk) 15:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Since Risker's post, the problem he described has been fixed -- although I'd argue that the changes he advocated were not controversial & did not need reliable sources. -- llywrch (talk) 22:06, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Everything needs reliable sources. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 07:41, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Be my guest & start flagging non-controversial statements like "London is a city in the United Kingdom" or "Wyoming is one of the United States" with {{fact}}, & see how long it is before someone starts invoking WP:POINT at you. ;) Now if you want to find a reliable source for those statements (I guess the Congressional act which made Wyoming a state would work for the second example), & add them to the article, I'd be honestly surprised if anyone objected. But now this thread is drifting into the hypothetical. -- llywrch (talk) 19:21, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I would have been fine with someone who actually knew the information considering themself a reliable source. I didn't know to the degree of certainty required to change the article, and find that there are often conflicting sources of information for the Foundation, so better that someone else make the edits. Hence my post. Risker (talk) 14:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

PimpUigi account

Hey guys.

I'm PimpUigi, and I noticed there is no email address attached to my username. I can't log in, or change my password, or anything.

Can you assign my email address to it?

I should be able prove I am PimpUigi, as I have accounts on tons of other forums, and many people on those forums even know me in person.

To my knowledge I am not blocked.

My email address is <redacted> or <redacted> It may be better to use the second one, as it will get CC'd to both email addresses that way.

Thank you for your assistance, and any info you can provide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.201.149.217 (talk) 05:24, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean Pimpuigi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? If you've lost the password, it would require a developer to change it, which they would not want to do since that account has only five edits, all from July. Why don't you just create a new account? Chick Bowen 06:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, since there is no e-mail attached to your username, there is no way to get back your account (for obvious security reasons). Sorry. -- lucasbfr ^talk 07:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. That's strange, as I've never edited anything. I have no idea why my account would lose it's email either. To my knowledge, I signed up, but never edited anything. I just kind of signed up, and forgot about it. Can you delete the name, and then I can remake it????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.201.149.217 (talk) 13:54, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the five things it said I contributed to, and I've never seen them before in my life. I'm worried my account has been compromised, or someone was impersonating me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.201.149.217 (talk) 19:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we have no way whatsoever to tell if you are telling the truth, since those edits are months old and the IP logs have likely expired. Sorry. Just ignore it and make a new account; if that one starts being bad, we'll block it, with no harm to you. --Golbez (talk) 21:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure you guys wouldn't like it either if someone somehow took your account name. I can prove that I am PimpUigi. I can't prove I didn't make those edits, but I can indeed prove I am PimpUigi. And since I can prove I'm PimpUigi, you guys should attach my email address to my name. I have no idea how it would get unattached to begin with.

http://www.smashwiki.com/wiki/Pimpuigi http://razerblueprints.net/index.php/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,99/action,profile/ http://smashboards.com/member.php?u=14397 http://forums.newdoom.com/member.php?u=10757

You can see that my info at all of these places will sync up. If you need more proof, I'll be happy to oblige. But I won't be happy with the possibility of someone impersonating me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.201.149.217 (talk) 17:46, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I would still like this to be taken care of...

Doom characters

Please check the relevance of this article. Other characters like Arlene Sanders from Doom are available on Wikipedia. I'd be glad if Sergeant Kelly would also be acceptable. D@rk ^talk 18:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

...why should we have the article, though? I appears that Kelly only appears in a single game, whereas Sanders at least appears in multiple books set in the Doom universe. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:33, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Those books are horrible and their mere mention on Wikipedia is a blight upon all mankind. Er, ahem, I mean, uh, just because she's in four horrible books that collectively probably sold less than a single video game (in this case, Doom 3) does not make that character inherently more notable than Sergeant Kelly. Quantity alone does not infer more notability. Personally, I'd nuke both articles - redirects are sufficient. --Golbez (talk) 21:29, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll admit that it's been almost 15 years since I played Doom, & that this entire thread properly belongs elsewhere, but I have to ask -- there were characters in that game? I thought the cast consisted of one guy with at least one firearm, & the creatures he killed. There was no plot to get in the way of the story! Merge, redirect, & insist on reliable sources for everything else. -- llywrch (talk) 22:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

There were no characters in the first two games. There we characters in the horrid books, and in Doom 3. --Golbez (talk) 00:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Those books were awesome. Jtrainor (talk) 00:52, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Awesomely bad. The first one was marginally entertaining, the second two were bad, and the fourth killed my puppy. --Golbez (talk) 22:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The fifth would have raised it from the dead as a mindless zombie. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 08:32, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Geonotice

I've commented it out from Mediawiki:Common.js, as when toolserver is down, it IS down, usually for weeks. _→AzaToth 14:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The toolserver is alive and well. east.718 at 02:12, December 17, 2007

AWB approvals

It say to drop by here and leave a gentle reminder, so.....Hi! How's it going? Anyone want to come and visit the AWB request for approvals at their convenience? Thank you so much!! KellyAna (talk) 15:14, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

 Done - sorry for the inconvenience. Keilana 18:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom lifted User:Certified.Gangsta edit restriction

The arbitration committee has lifeted the editing restriction on this user. See here...for the committee... — Rlevse • Talk • 18:13, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Important reminder

Hello, can I please remind everyone that removal of speedy deletion tags from pages you have created yourself is a violation of policy. I just realised many users do this, including admins, I may have myself also I can't remember, please be careful of this. I reworded the user warnings {{uw-speedy1}} (2,3,4) to change article to page in order to conform with WP:CSD. Any user who is not the creator of a page may remove a speedy tag from it. The creator may not do this. Often for example BetacommandBot tags images for speedy deletion, and users remove the warning themselves after having corrected the problem, however this is not allowed and is as bad as removing the speedy deletion tag from an article you created because you think you found reliable sources. good example, bad example I think the confusion stems from the fact that sometimes users believe they know about fair-use images. They think "I have 10,000 edits I just made a typo in the article name, I will correct it", however there may subsist other problems (for example missing copyright holder name... many experienced users forget this). So I think we should just follow what the consensus on WP:CSD tells us: correct the problem, place {{hangon}} on the page and ask Betacommand if he will reconsider. Jackaranga (talk) 22:59, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Is this a joke? 81.153.124.23 (talk) 23:01, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok I will admit not all the tags are speedy deletion tags, some are "relative-speedy" deletion, so perhaps this doesn't apply to those ones. But for example invalid fair-use claim as well as missing rationale are, see WP:CSD#Images and media, invalid fair-use rationale is not one however, so perhaps the problem is not as big as I thought, but still something to remember. If a page creator could remove the speedy deletion tag himself we might as well scrap the whole speedy deletion idea, so not a joke, but I did perhaps overstate the problem a bit. Jackaranga (talk) 23:12, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I've never had a problem with people removing "speedy deletion" tags from images after they have fixed the problem. --EoL talk 23:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, it's only when all you do is remove the speedy tag that it becomes a problem; if an article is tagged with {{db-bio}} and the author removes it and inserts a valid assertion of notability, that's perfectly fine (and if the policy says it isn't, then the policy is wrong). EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:38, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

True, but you must remember it's the consensus that no distinction is made, so we must try to abide by it if possible even if we disagree personally. Jackaranga (talk) 23:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that is the consensus; EVula's description is closer to what has been standard practice by long precedent. Remember that policy pages are descriptive rather than prescriptive. Chick Bowen 01:40, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

How about removing wrongly-added speedy tags? DuncanHill (talk) 01:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

One of only many examples, yes. Jackaranga's original example, a bot-added tag about a specific problem with an image, is actually a good example of a situation in which the author's removing a tag is clearly acceptable. Chick Bowen 01:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, if you fix a problem with your images, please remove the deletion tags. It saves a lot of time when going through and deleting the non-compliant ones. Mr.Z-man 02:33, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

for images, removing the tag oneself makes good sense--there seems to be already an excessive amount of overhead in dealing with images. For articles, however, I disagree with EVula, Most cases i see of authors removing the tags are at least questionable. We should revert Jackaranga's change, restoring the reading 'article' and enforce it. i would have no hesitation in supporting the blocking of an admin who removed a speedy tag from a article he had created, and further action if it continued. It's almost as bad as protecting or blocking in ones own edit dispute--it amounts to the same principle. We dont change CSD policy here. DGG (talk) 22:20, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall deleted, now on DRV

Just posting a notification here of the DRV, as this is directly relevant to admins. Lawrence Cohen 17:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

That's very nice. Message posted here at 17:15 UTC, DRV closed at 18:48 UTC. Time to MfD Wikipedia:There is no deadline perhaps? Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:07, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

<sarcasm>Angus, you should consider yourself lucky to have been told at all.</sarcasm> It appears that the trout whacking category was restored unilaterally, without going to DRV.... --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 20:36, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Earl Paulk BLP issues

Could a few other's more familiar with bios and BLP please visit Earl Paulk. I've posted to Bio's but I'm concerned we need some quick and more authoritative action on this bio. Benjiboi 17:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem seems to be that people don't know how to use the ref citations inline and that they have to cite every possible thing. I am concerned about a possible bias as someone decided to conveniently ignore the fact that Paulk actually denied the allegations (a serious point of his). -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Admin trial periods

Has a system ever been used where trusted editors (who desire to become admins) are given admin tools for a trial period (a month for example), in order to test whether they would make good admins? If there is a more appropriate place to ask this question, let me know and I'll move it :). Seraphim ^Whipp 02:18, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

This has often been suggested, but never seems to get any agreement.--Doc^g 02:24, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I would think it useful if it were implemented. RfA is based around presuming what sort of admin a person would be...if they were given a trial for a week, their actions as an admin for that week could be reviewed and adminship decided on that trial period. There are negatives but I haven't fully thought them through. Seraphim ^Whipp 02:31, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Would probably create more problems than be a benifit to wikipedia. Admin school seems to address using the tools, in an environment that will not harm the encyclopedia. see →Wikipedia:New admin school--Hu12 (talk) 02:33, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

All someone has to do is not do anything outrageous in the week they're a trial admin. Once it passes, they can go wild... EVula // talk // ☯ // 02:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem I see is that it would create a system where people have to go through 2 RFAs. Since we can't just hand out the tools to anyone who asks, we would need some sort of approval process both before and the process after to evaluate. Mr.Z-man 02:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

(five edit conflicts - is this a record)I think it is a good idea and that existing admins should be subject to periodic review too. DuncanHill (talk) 02:38, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec)All excellent points. It could be difficult to judge who to approve...and become too complicated. Periodic review sounds like a good idea though. Seraphim ^Whipp 02:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Make it automatic: If you've been around for at least three months, have racked up at least a thousand edits, and ask for the tools, you get them for a month. After that month, there's an RFA to see if you should keep them. If you abuse the tools during the trial period, it's grounds for an immediate and permanent de-sysopping. --Carnildo (talk) 04:14, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

This is actually an important issue. There is a huge backlog of admin hopefuls/candidates looking for mentorship, going back as far as October, from what I see. But there also seems to be little take-up from existing admins to adopt them. I look at RfAs, and see very few people I recognise. That, in itself, is no bad thing, because a lot of admin work, particularly clearing backlogs, does not show up on the radar of an average editor. However, I can see that a case can be made for "trusted editors" having limited tools to deal with patent vandalism either by blocking or page protection; this would release "full admins" to deal with issues such as sock-puppetry, edit-warring and the like, where a greater depth of experience would be useful. However, the position at present is that the admin tools are indivisible. It is difficult, and ultimately nugatory, to propose a hierarchy of admins; however, a little responsibility, properly transferred to editors in good standing, and subject to appropriate review, would be no bad thing, in that it would relieve admins of what is, ultimately, voluntary responsibility, and minimise some of the drama that seems to occur on a daily basis. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 02:56, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with EVula. — Rlevse • Talk • 03:01, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Up to a point. But all you have to do to become an admin is keep your nose clean. After that, as long as you don't hit the radar, you're home and away. Is that what we really want? --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 03:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

EVula makes a good point about requiring the RfA process. But the idea of bifurcating admin duties seems interesting. For instance banning a user or deleting a page are very serious actions, since if done wrongly, they can prevent useful content or users from participating. On the other hand, page-protection and semi-protection is easily reviewable and users of that feature could probably do with less scrutiny then those trusted with the block and ban buttons. Viewing deleted data and editing mediawiki pages is probably somewhere in between, since deleted data can have copyvio issues and mediawiki pages impact the entire encyclopedia. Also, I suspect the first comment will be that a less-vetted page-protection policy will lead to the main page constantly getting deleted. In that case, removal of full protection could be left to regular admins and addition of it and all semi-protections to "trusted editors", whatever that term may mean. Mbisanz (talk) 03:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll just add that banning an editor is not an admin function; it is that no admin is prepared to unblock an editor; so it is effectively a collective decision, not an individual decision. Deleting a page varies in seriousness, depending upon the page. Closing an AfD on apparent consensus may be, in the short term, serious to its creator. Salting it, certainly is. Deleting a User page is certainly serious, as in the recent User:PresterJohn situation. Even if an article page is deleted as a result of AfD, there is always deletion review. There are checks and balances built in, sufficient in general to limit the actions of out of policy mavericks. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 03:27, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I certainly agree that we hav good checks and balances, due process stuff in place, but some things take more discretion than other and some discretions are (IMHO) more serious than others. I could easily imagine the problems of setting a level of 2000 edits and presto your a trusted editor who could block. Even with containmment, many good new users could be turned off to the whole thing. On the other hand, I don't see reckless page protection as serious as an issue since its unlikely to have the same psychological aspect. And as you point out, there are more processes a person can screw up in deletions (userspace, CSD/PROD/AFD/DRV, copyvio, NPOV) than in protections.

Or we could just ask Jimbo to follow up on his famous quote and make a "bunch of people who have been around for awhile sysops"; that could help dispel the notion of being an admin as passing the RfA test :) Mbisanz (talk) 03:45, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Imagine what a huge disaster that would be. Prodego ^talk 05:06, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The flaw with Carnildo's suggestions is that blocks are personal, and cause drama. Even bad undeletions can be quickly reversed, but bad blocks sit in the logs of users (not articles) forever and they are a source of drama. I could almost agree to a system of users-with-three-months-2000-edits-nothing-bad-and-no-administrator-disagrees system (maybe they'd have to post their name on a page for seventy-two hours and if no administrator objects they get two weeks' +sysop) getting temporary +sysop where their actions are clearly marked with a link to distinguish them as actions by a temporary sysop in their trial period, normal administrators can overturn their actions and not be reversed by a temporary administrator, they do not have access to Special:Blockip (or, even better: they can only block people who don't meet the technical threshold for being "autoconfirmed"), and they can be desysopped on the request of any administrator. But people will argue that it's too bureaucratic, probably, but anything less will result in mayhem and drama everywhere. Daniel 10:18, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

It's hard enough to become an admin already with all the garbage snowballing on RFA. I can't say I support anything that lengthens the process. Luigi30 (Taλk) 15:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

User:HandsomeDave

I just blocked the above user as a sockpuppet of User:HandsomeJerry. They both created List of Important Subjects, several times, and have the same user page. Also based on User talk:NawlinWiki/Archive 5#I do not understand, User talk:NawlinWiki/Archive 5#Grammar, User talk:CambridgeBayWeather#List of Important Subjects and User talk:CambridgeBayWeather#Re: Handsome Dave I think that their actions resemble that of a troll but at least they are really polite. Anyway the cats in the bed again and I have to go shift her so I can get some sleep. If you feel I'm in the wrong then please feel free to revert my actions, talk about me while I'm out of earshot, question my manhood, etc. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 07:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

One note to be added is that while User:HandsomeDave is indefblocked as a abusive sockpuppet of HandsomeJerry, User:HandsomeJerry is not blocked himself. — Save_Us_229 12:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Please file these at WP:SSP in the future. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets is for discussing suspected sock puppets. I didn't suspect that he was, I knew he was, and posted this here for a review of my blocking him. I left HandsomeJerry unblocked just on the off chance that the editor was not a troll but misunderstanding of the way Wikipedia works. If he is just trolling then he will certainly show that. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 16:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a fair point - SSP is usually for administrators who don't feel comfortable in the field of sock puppetry, and would prefer one who works more in that area to handle a situation, or for non-administrators who don't have the buttons necessary to handle those situations. Thanks for dropping a note here, anyway - second opinions are always a good thing. Anthøny 16:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

History of the British penny (1901-1970) vandalism

Resolved

Could someone roll back the article to a pre-vandalized version? I'd rather not do 12 separate undos. 66.93.12.46 (talk) 21:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Done. Davewild (talk) 21:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

12 separate undos? What ever happened to just clicking on the pre-vandalized version, clicking edit, and then save? Carcharoth (talk) 01:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

For that matter, undo itself now works on diffs spanning multiple revisions (I don't know when it was fixed, but it works now.) —Random832 14:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Dominionism, List of people and organizations related to Dominionism, and TheocracyWatch

A couple of users continue to reinsert BLP infracting material to these articles. Could we get some eyes on them? Thank you. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 06:54, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Cheers for raising this. For convenience, I've drew up a list of the relevant pages:

• Dominionism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• List of people and organizations associated with Dominionism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• TheocracyWatch (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Category:Dominionism

– Anthøny 16:05, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

70.48.245.15

Resolved

Hello fellow admins. I discovered User:70.48.245.15 removing various sock puppetry allegations from user profiles, as well as particpating in a discussion that leads me to believe that this IP is involved in the same sock puppetry. I went ahead and blocked the IP indefinitely. I, not having much experience in situations such as this exact one, wanted to post this here for everyone to review. Thanks in advance. Brianga (talk) 08:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not an admin. However, I'm pretty sure that IPs are almost never blocked indefinitely. JuJube (talk) 08:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

JuJube is right: of course it is a sock, but it's a dynamic IP, so indef-blocking is no use and potentially harmful. In general, we almost never do indef blocks on IPs, and any IP block longer than a few days (except perhaps with open proxies) should be done only where we are reasonably certain the IP is static. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I have changed the expiration to 3 hours. If there are any other actions required, please let me know. Brianga (talk) 08:51, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

3 hours is probably too little ;) 3 days is probably more appropriate ~ Riana ⁂ 09:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, depends what history it has. If there is no history at all then I tend to give it longer (less chance of colateral damage), otherwise I look at the contribs and try to guess the likely time between reassignments. Mostly a period of about 2 weeks feels right to me, and that accords with my experiences before I changed to an ISP that gives static IPs. Usually an IP will not be reassigned for a month or so but it depends on the ISP and how many addresses they have. Guy (Help!) 15:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

For what it is worth, this block has now expired - the individual has probably moved onto another address, anyway. I've tagged this thread as {{resolved}}. Anthøny 16:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Protecting archives

Resolved

 – 15:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate of me to protect Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Totient function/Proofs given the fact that it has been slashdotted. Several editors have now offered their opinions despite it having been archived. Would it be a COI for me to protect it? Is it even allowed. Thanks. Woody (talk) 11:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

To avoid a COI, for you, I've protected it myself :) MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 12:14, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou. Woody (talk) 12:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Please Delete protected page Hood Surgeon

Resolved

Hello, The page Hood Surgeon failed AfD last week and was deleted and immediately recreated, but is now protected from editing because it is "transcluded in the following pages, which are protected with the "cascading" option: Wikipedia:Protected titles/Twinkle". It failed AfD, it needs to be deleted.--CastAStone/^/(talk) 17:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

 Done -- lucasbfr ^talk 17:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Slashdotted: Guantanamo editors removed content from Wikipedia

The Story. There are already people commenting on the IP's talk page. I have semied the page for 7 days. Any thoughts? -- lucasbfr ^talk 17:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Isn't there a risk to attract minpeace's attention if we go around interfering with mintruth's work? — Coren ^(talk) 17:59, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, the Ministry of Peace and Ministry of Truth already are watching us. Are you implying that we don't all love Big Brother? That would be badthink! --Orange Mike | Talk 18:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Orange, my man, we all know that's doubleplusungood think. There is no such thing as "bad" in Airstrip One. hbdragon88 (talk) 23:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

One unfortunate side effect to keep in mind is that semi-protecting the page also locks the IP from editing its own talk page in the process :/ --krimpet✽ 18:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a reason why I am commenting here. But the IP seldom edits. -- lucasbfr ^talk 18:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Without the semi-protection, we would be sure to see many more wonderfully-expressed sentiments from around the world. Although it won't prevent inappropriate comments from established accounts, east.718 has already started a dialogue with one of them. — Satori Son 18:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

TVRage.com redux

This site has previously been the subject of multiple deletion and spam blacklist discussions, sometimes heated.

Another admin has stated it may be time to reevaluate this domain and remove it from the blacklist. The discussion is at:

• MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#www.tvrage.com

--A. B. ^(talk) 23:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Please let me see Megan McArdle

Would someone please restore Megan McArdle to my user space so I can take a look at it? I have found some recent commentary on her work which would might lift her in to the notability category, but I can't even see if it was in the article when it is deleted. Also, please leave a note on my talk page so I can have a notice when it is ready. Many thanks. (P.S. I asked at the deleting admin's talk page and then saw that he had a sort-of-away notice.) MilesAgain (talk) 00:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Done (User:MilesAgain/Sandbox) Woody (talk) 01:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! MilesAgain (talk) 01:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Sfacets

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

This user has been blocked by, at my count, nine different admins, plus one extension of a block due to sockpuppetry. According tot he user, this is because everybody else is biased, especially all the admins. He's made it pretty clear he'll pick up the cudgels again when his latest block expires. Is this user redeemable, do we think? Guy (Help!) 17:30, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if he's redeemable in an absolute sense. But it has become clear that the effort required by the community to redeem him against his will is disproportionate to any benefit. Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry is unproven. Andries (talk) 17:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Two accounts making identically POV edits to the self-same subjects, with the newer account active only when Sfacets is blocked. Oh, it could be innocent, but it's pretty unlikely. Guy (Help!) 22:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I've worked with Sfacets for two years now, and I'd say he gives "POV pushers" a bad name. He's exhibited a range of tendentious editing behaviors that include ownership of articles, disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate points, harassment of editors, false accusations about other editors, unfulfilled promises to reform, and more reverts than I've seen from any other editor. He claims that all the blocks he's received were "unwarranted, and the reasons given were shams like 'civility'".[47] I also believe that he's incorrectly claimed to have created some of the images that he's uploaded. Regarding user:Yogasun, the sock designation and block were made by one uninvolved admin and confirmed by another. That account picked up right where Sfacets left off and made virtually identical edits. No matter if it's a meat puppet or a sock puppet, the account was only used to continue the edit dispute which led to one of Sfacets' blocks. I can't speak for the community, but my patience with Sfacets has already been exhausted. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand, but it would be inappropriate to punish Sfacets for unproven sockpuppetry. Andries (talk) 12:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

For the purposes of the sockpuppetry policies, two users who "just happen" to be editing identically are deemed to be the same editor. "Proving" the puppet via CU is neither required nor necessary. In any case, all I did is reset the then only day-old 10 day block— Sfacets is working very hard at exhausting everyone's patience and is creeping closer to a ban every time he edits.

His stunts on his talk page (before yet another admin got tired of them an protected it) show no willingness to work the encyclopedia, and no admission that his behavior is disruptive. Frankly, I'm surprised he isn't already indef blocked. — Coren ^(talk) 15:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

They're on opposite sides of the world actually..(CU)..Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:10, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Sfacets has said repeatedly that he splits his time between Australia and western Europe. It's quite possible that he has recruited proxies (either human or internet). Even if it is a separate person WP:MEAT says, "A new user who engages in the same behavior as another user in the same context, and who appears to be editing Wikipedia solely for that purpose, shall be subject to the remedies applied to the user whose behavior they are joining.". Separately, Sfacets' now-baned editing partner, Sahajhist (talk · contribs), may be back editing under a new name, Yogiwallah (talk · contribs). CU? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• See also this edit, where he rmeoves my comments from his carefully-laundered talk page with the edit summary "Remove harassing vandal." Anyone here think it's acceptable to call an admin a "harassing vandal" when they respond to posts on yo9ur talk page? Guy (Help!) 23:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I really can't resist that - Guy's edit summaries when blanking content from his own talk page are at times no less uncivil. DuncanHill (talk) 23:53, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

That might be relevant if this were a reciprocal situation, but that's not in an issue in this case. Sfacets has a history of calling good faith edits "vandalism", and of using vandal-fighting tools in edit conflicts. There are numerous complaints on his talk page about mislabelling edits or editors. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

And how is that relevant? Corvus cornix_talk 05:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

It's an element of the problematic behavior of this user. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 06:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

You're saying that Guy's behavior is problematic. How is that relevant to the question of Sfacets's disruption? Corvus cornix_talk 23:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying that. DuncanHill is saying that, and I told him I didn't think his comments is relevant. Can we get back to the topic now? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:54, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

(Undent) Overall, if the net effect of a given user is more crap than good, indefinite blocking or a siteban is a pretty sensible option. Does he make constructive edits? Seems like no. Does he make garbage edits? Seems like yes. Therefore, his harm to WP is greater than his potential benefit, so we block. ♠PMC♠ 07:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Snow Day

I'm not sure if this is worth noting, but many schools tomorrow in the northeast United States have a snow day. Thus, no school, more vandalism. Get ready... Icestorm815 (talk) 00:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I think KoS, Oxymoron, Cremepuff and Animum can handle them - they do all the reverting anyway :/ Will ^(talk) 01:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Oddly enough, when UK schools had snow days last February, there was actually less vandalism. Having said that, our "snow days" don't involve enough snow to actually stop you going outside :) BLACKKITE 01:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that some schools being closed will probably equate to less vandalism rather than more, for the same reason we get more vandalism on weekdays than on weekends. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thought I'd give you the heads up. Where I live, we got hit pretty bad. They wrote an article about the storms here, if your interested. Well, I guess it makes sense because most people would rather enjoy the snow than be inside editing the 'pedia. Icestorm815 (talk) 01:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The article Snow day (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is teh suck, 90% of it reads as OR based on some kids' interpretations of something that happened when school was closed one day.

I've merged the whole thing into weather-related cancellation as it was a load of OR rubbish. Neıl ☎ 11:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

We look okay so far. Eyes out, everybody, anyway. Anthøny 16:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Living people category removal

Resolved

Hi, an editor has removed the category living people from a BLP and I'm wondering if I missed something and that category is no longer valid? The category talk makes no mention so am I missing something here? Benjiboi 01:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
It looks like it might be an isolated incident as the category is untouched in many of their other edits. Will follow up if there is anything more to it. Benjiboi 02:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Look closer - that article was in that category twice. Ask the editor first next time, thank you. --Golbez (talk) 02:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was there twice and I've now re-alphasorted the categories on the article so it showed where it had previously been. my apologies. Benjiboi 11:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible copyvio? I dunno...

Naresh Sonee, in and amongst the cruft that's collecting, has a complete poem by the author. In describing the poem, the article says "Poetry is still not published by Naresh Sonee –but he has granted his permission only to wikipedia to publish the same." Besides being self-referential, do we have such a thing? Isn't OTRS for that, and if so, how does one go about checking on that? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 06:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

No, we don't have such a thing. Unless the poem is used in an illustrative manner that is described in detail of the article, it does not belong. As a copyright violation it further does not belong, they need to email the foundation and get an OTRS ticket to issue it under the GFDL. Akin to song lyrics. I'd remove the text and leave the inserter a talk note about how to email the foundation, as well as what qualifies for inclusion in an encyclopedic article. Keegan^talk 06:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission may also be useful to throw at them. Daniel 06:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Note also that "granted his permission only to wikipedia" is not acceptable (it's even an automatic speedy criteria for images), per our policies. -- lucasbfr ^talk 12:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

BLP subject ambiguity

This could apply to any BLP subject and may benefit from wider awareness.

We might routinely get problems whereby some "John Smith" tells us that the article "John Smith" points to a mass murderer, or other person that makes them look bad. In such cases please be aware of Template:AmbiguousBio, which can be placed at the top of a BLP article and looks like this:

{{AmbiguousBio|John Smith|an officer at Enron}}

The template takes a name, a brief description of the article subject, and an (optional) disambiguation page for others with similar names if such a page exists. For an example see Russell Bishop (sex offender). FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:45, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Someone should probably go through and try to find all the controversial bios that use the less noticeable {{otheruses}} type templates. Mr.Z-man 20:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

That format of template for non fixable problems is not acceptable. IF you really need something write it in hatnotes format. If people find that this is not enough there is little we can do about them.Geni 10:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. If anything, this giant banner just draws attention to the "problem" and it can also work the other way, as in "No, this article is about John Doe the politician, not John Doe the convicted baby-eater. Don't ever make the association with these two individuals. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME PEOPLE, ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT. Oh damn, I don't think this is working. You know what? Just forget we ever brought this up." =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 15:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Is the feeling then that it should go to TfD?DGG (talk) 10:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Personally, yes. ➔ REDVEЯS likes kittens... and you 10:34, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not know whether my reply belongs here, but what about defamatory links? This thing reminds me of Aman Tuleyev, which used to have a redlink to "Viktor Tikhonov, a double Olympics champion", who was sentenced to four years for plotting to murder Tuleyev. Then a month later someone wrote an article about the four-times Olympics champion, Viktor Tikhonov. In fact, the Viktor Tikhonov who got a prison sentence was the brother of biathlonist (and double Olympics champion) Alexander Tikhonov, who was also involved but got amnestied. The ice-hockey player and coach we had an article on was unrelated and had nothing to do with it, but the reference to Olympics champion must have convinced a lot of readers that this was indeed the same guy. This link was in Wikipedia for about one year. Any suggestions how that could have been avoided? --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 15:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Beside forbidding the inclusion of redlinks, not much beside changing the links as soon as the problem is discovered. -- lucasbfr ^talk 18:54, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Power structure problems

I would like to suggest a total revamping of the entire hierarchical structure of this project. It has become somewhat obvious to me that there are several users who hold high ranking positions of power within the project (I'm not naming any names at this stage yet) who appear more intent on arbitrarily blocking other users and exercising their own power, than actually helping to contribute to this project. Such users are bearing grudges against others and taking unreasonable punitive measures, without the best interests of the encyclopedia at heart. These same users are ignoring votes for consensus, and abusing their powers to push their points of view into certain articles, removing or changing the valid contributions of others. I find this extremely counter productive, and it is not at all what this site stands for in my humble opinion. I feel that this project would benefit from considerably more equitable standings between users, where useful discussion, acceptance and tolerance would be the code of practice, rather than a power ranking system that arbitrarily blocks out the so called "enemies" of those perched on the higher rungs of the power ladder. Please take time to consider my post here and I would be more than happy to discuss this issue with many of you. 91.108.241.252 (talk) 19:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Heh, just realised what a foolish title I initially chose considering I want users here to take me seriously! 91.108.241.252 (talk) 19:55, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, the people who have power are the ones who are most feverent in denying that there is a power structure. It's hard to fix something nobody will admit exists. -Amarkov moo! 20:18, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Very true, Amarkov. DuncanHill (talk) 20:27, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

total revamping of the entire hierarchical structure from an unknown person. Right. Try creating a few articles to prove you are here to help create an encyclopedia. Or improve some articles with new sourced information. Strangers telling us how to spend our unpaid time does not fly. WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:31, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I'm a total stranger here, and I think that the OP made some good points. DuncanHill (talk) 20:39, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Isn't there something, somewhere, along the lines of "comment on the content, not the contributor"? DuncanHill (talk) 22:40, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, what power structure? The technical one, or the social one? We can't change social at this point, in fact, you never really can. As far as a technical power structure goes, it is pretty set in, and doesn't really match to the social structure. Prodego ^talk 20:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The technical/official structure could be spread out (multiple admin levels) but the community is mostly against that and the more we divide tasks the more bureaucracy we need to maintain the divisions. Mr.Z-man 20:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

<redacted comment by banned user>—Ryūlóng (竜龍)

I think IP 91 should come out and tell us who he really is. He's obviously not a new user. On the other hand there are extremely influential users who ignore problems. But, I disagree with IP 91 in that I feel a total revamping is not needed. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:38, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• There is no hierarchical structure. That makes it a bit difficult to revamp it. Guy (Help!) 22:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

  Indeed, officially it works exactly as 91 says it should. In practice, there are deviations from the ideal, but I see no easy way to fix those by "revamping the power structure" - the easiest way to fix them is to take the abusers to ArbCom. --Tango (talk) 23:38, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I kind of agree with 91. Administrators are immune to consequences for most of the actions they take, in my experience, which in turn leads some ofthem to be some of the most egregrious edit warriors. I also definitely disagree that he should reveal himself at this juncture-- given his opinion, it is reasonable to believe that he himself might be a controversial figure and as such wishes to post his argument without bias being imposed upon it by who he is. Jtrainor (talk) 06:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Abject nonsense. There have been desysoppings in the last week. Guy (Help!) 12:14, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I've commented before that I think the admin process might work better if users were eased into it, being trusted with certain tools before others. But, Z-man makes the good point that it would just create more divisions in the community (imagine having to go through multiple RFAs). And we are here to write an encyclopedia, so as long as the structural system isn't broken (we don't see 20 day backlogs are RfD or unreverted vandalism to the main page), I'm going to focus my attention on my personal pet peeves, poor spelling and formatting in articles. Mbisanz (talk) 06:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Seeing as the IP is unwilling to give any specific examples (quite possibly as a banned user), I will do so myself.

1. The way that no one is willing to reverse an administrator action through policy. X administrator makes Y questionable decision. This is appealed through policy. Most people disagree with the decision, would never have made it in the first place, but don't want to reverse it.
2. The way that it is overlooked when an administrator reverses an action outside of policy. X administrator does Y, and Z administrator gets mad and undoes X. This is wheel warring, and happens all the time. Thus, in combination with (1) above, it's nearly impossible to get something reversed, no matter how lousy the decision, unless you can get an administrator to actually care about the issue. Case in point: [48]. People care about that issue, so they're fine wheel-warring there. But
3. The way that WP puts up with trolls. Case in point: I recently saw on ANI [49] that a user was being quite uncivil, was wildly reverting in order to get his own page version protected (only one to break 3RR, and reverting against everyone else), etc. etc. The response? Protect the page again (with said user's version), not blocking for 3RR because ("it would be punitive, not protective", as if he won't just go back and do it yet again). And no one even bothered to block him for incivility. In combination with (1) and (2), this assures that the a) people can get away with pretty much any form of trolling as long as b) they don't piss off an administrator (administrators rarely care enough to actually look into real problems posted at AN or ANI; they'd rather process wonk about where User:White Cat gets to place his signature). Users can be uncivil to other users, but don't they dare to so to an admin. The Evil Spartan (talk) 07:04, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, in regard to example #3 at least, User:Davidruben actually did block the editor in question, partly, I believe, in response to your comments and perhaps mine at the time. As to users not daring to be uncivil to an admin, my talk page contains several examples to the contrary :) MastCell ^Talk 16:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with a revamp being needed. I am not afraid to say it either, I have read quite a few articles that have been thrashed or thier contributers blocked unfairly based upon reasonable reading of the fact as I see them. The problem is there is no true check for this type of power abuse. Some admins aren't even aware they are committing bad actions, take Ioeth for instance, I have seen that bot on more then one occasion fueling an argument between a real person and a contributer and the contrib getting so stressed out they blame the admin. That bot is out of control and that I will admit is not the admin in the discussions fault however they are the person blamed. Point in time, person requests unblock, not trying to abuse anything, admin will not hear reason at all and leave the user with no clarity as to why or is short or rude. The user attempts to make a second plea in which the admin comes back with a clearer message that the user can answer and solve the problem. The user attempts to solve the problem by responding with the information needed but the bot takes over and blocks the contrib spiraling a small situation into a really bad situation of mistrust and distrust of the community. Look at block logs and you'll see what I mean. Second there are some admins who are out right unreasonable and counter productive to the community. they block articles or contributers immediately, or they call vandalism on an entry on a users talk page when the user is discussing thier role civily and on more then one occasion they in turn leave bad remarks for the rest of the community to read in tail leaving and or vandalizing that users talk page. then when the user is blocked they are effectively vandalized shamed and blocked when as funny as it sounds, though rare but has happened recently, they were innocent. Finnally the most destructive thing I have seen an admin do is remove an entry proving evidence on an article or fact. If a person is citing resources and cites not one but many resources, then an admin should not be blindly removing the sources when they are evidence towards an article. Once again, the bot is to blame as I have seen last entries removed from the page now with full sources by a bot that blocks some poor contribs activity. I suppose this may really mostly be a problem with bots now that I read back through this. Except there are the occasional offensive or seemingly offensive admins such as Coren who is listed below and may or may not be, Has anyone checked? I doubt so, but it is all the buzz, actions are cycling down. I don't mean to single Coren out but see http://www.digg.com/tech_news/Wikipedia_admin_caught_lying_posting_anonymous_attacks_and_making_coverup or http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=7b657f5e50e1362102ef699ff4aeaac2&showtopic=13187&pid=54655&st=0&#entry54655 or http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=11025&st=0 or [Lying Wikipedia Admins] or the list goes on and on and on, there are 100 million returns in yahoo which in my point of view would indicate a problem. As to Corens case, he seems like a pretty good admin from what I have read but he doesn't warn contribs nor does he block for a week, he doesn't allow {ref} additions or listen to points of view when he sets himself as being right. But he rarely does this which points to the fact that everyone has a bad day. Is it right that admins who abuse or are accused of abusing authority go on and in fact remove statments made against themselves? Not on this page its not right but i have seen that too with more then one admin. The point is, it still should recieve some consideration as to a revamp. Admins are not following the rules and are getting away with questionable activites to the point it is being followed and ending up in major US newspapers. Benjamin Kenobe (talk) 05:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)OBE-1

What are you talking about? None of those links seems to mention Coren at all, and seem to be barely related to each other. What does this have to do with anything? Coren has only been an admin for a month. As far as admins refusing to allow sources into articles, could you provide some evidence of that? And what are you talking about with the "bots?" Do you mean the anti-vandalism bots that all have a place where you can report false positives? If you want people to take your advice seriously, you'll need to provide a little more evidence. Mr.Z-man 05:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

OK Will do, i was reading another page and was following the links on it and didnt see I ended up on a different page. I will get those for you and post them here.Benjamin Kenobe (talk) 05:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)OBE-1

Request for administrator feedback

Myself and editor DJ Clayworth are having a conversation in which we disagree.

I would like to get some admin feedback about this, either at the Talk page involved or my own talk page.

The conversation is at Talk:Book of Mormon#Reversal of Changes.

Note that Book of Mormon is a controversial, "please discuss substantial changes", article.

In brief, the situation is that DJ Clayworth made a bunch of ten changes to the parts of the article. I reversed them all as a batch, because of the process, not the substance of the changes. We disagree as to whether it was appropriate for me to do this.

I think the conversation at Talk:Book of Mormon#Reversal of Changes is fairly clear. I will be glad to provide more information if asked.

Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 20:10, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Just in case it wasn't clear, Wanderer57 has not given me any reason why my edits might be bad. He did the same thing to a previous user. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Try WP:3O. Durova^Charge! 21:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I have also noticed a need for this admin to be reviewed DJ Clayworth, I suggest this admin discussion be reviewed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Benjamin Kenobe (talk • contribs) 05:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

unfair block ?

Hello, is the block of User:81.23.48.12 not a bit harsh ? He did not vandalise after a warning, and he only vandalised twice. He made these 2 edits (diff and diff). I think the administrator may have overstepped his rights. I gave him a warning after the second vandalism (he wasn't warned for the first 1). Then quarter of an hour later the admin gave him a uw-vand4 warning for the same vandalism apparently, and immediately blocked him, even though he hadn't edited since. Just wanted to check if this is normal, as the IP had made constructive edits yesterday and the day before, someone else may want to make constructive edits from it tomorrow, but would not be able to. What I'm saying is that a user was blocked even though he hadn't edited for 15 minutes and hadn't vandalised after a warning. Jackaranga (talk) 22:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Note this is not ANI, so I was just wondering about this, not asking for anything to be done about the admin, as we are not here to be playing snakes and ladders with vandals. Jackaranga (talk) 22:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I apologize if a 24 hour block was a bit harsh, but I felt blatant vandalism of today's featured article (as linked above) was too much. I did not hesitate to add an additional warning over a previously un-cited edit. And, given the previous warnings on his page and brazenness of going after the day's FA (and reverting a vandal bot) I decided to institute a 24 hour block. While I think this block is totally ineffective in actually stopping vandalism (I assume most vandals aren't even online during 24 hour blocks to even know they were blocked), it serves as a notice for editors who might be revisiting the talk page of this anon-IP that it has a history of blatant vandalism and should be noted as a potential problem. It may not be a perfectly fair system we work under, but I personally want to know if an account has a history of vandalism before I take any action. Incidentally, I would have happily discussed this on my talk page. I will not oppose, though I might personally disagree, a reversal of my actions by another admin. --Bobak (talk) 23:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Can see where Bobak was coming from, although that does strike me as a bit quick, at first glance -- I think the perception of this block hinges on whether or not we believe the user editing on previous dates was the same user editing on this date (the answer to this question is not clear to me, so I personally am inclined to AGF on that count) (also granted there are some good/decent edits in the past, from this IP). Probably not much to be done, at this point; an hour later, the person has probably left their computer or moved on to other things, anyway. Just for future reference, a shorter block for just a few minutes, with some friendly (but stern) message to the effect of "Hey, please don't blank our articles," might have worked well -- if not, easy enough to reblock. Just my two cents. – Luna Santin (talk) 23:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Good advice, I will use that for similar --not quite a vandal spree-- issues such as this. --Bobak (talk) 18:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

This potentially could have been done with a bot, please check block logs / bots. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Benjamin Kenobe (talk • contribs) 05:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Feedback, block on Kitia

Recently Kitia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) posted an {{unblock-auto}} request, but it appears that on top of prior difficulties, this user was very likely running one or more sockpuppet accounts, and several attempts to request explanations have turned up nothing concrete. I've currently applied an indefinite block, but wonder if that might be too harsh. Sanity check? – Luna Santin (talk) 23:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with the indef block; the user is obviously unrepentant, and "because I felt like it" as justification for creating an account with the password posted on the user page is not conductive to assuming good faith. Unless and until they decide to rectify their behavior, the block is justified. — Coren ^(talk) 23:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec'd)Based on third party personal interaction (if there is such a thing) a disruptive account with precious little positives by the looks of it. Pedro :  Chat  23:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Duck season, fire! JuJube (talk) 23:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I have had a lot of encounters with Kitia over the last six weeks, and they have mostly been very frustrating: some of that debris is evident on Kitia's talk and in my report to ANI at the weekend. The problems were numerous, but can be summarised as Kitia rarely communicating, not understanding much about policies or guidelines, and not appear to care much when he did understand. So as a much-involved party, I have to say I'm rather relieved to see Kitia blocked, and that the use of sockpuppets to manipulate AfDs is seriously disruptive (even the sockpuppets were doing their own canvassing[50]).

However, I think it's also only fair to point out that so far as I know, Kitia is about 15 years old, and I don't usually find it terribly wise to expect mature behaviour from teenagers. ;) I can't make up my mind what to conclude from that age issue: part of me says that if people of any age are not mature enough to participate constructively, then their departure is no loss to wikipedia, and that those who generate unnecessary wikidrama suck up a lot of energy from people who could be participating constructively … but I also believe that some of these people are capable of reform.

In Kitia's case, I think the root of the problem is that he has fallen under the wing of the indef-blocked editor Ryoung122 (talk · contribs). Young, a researcher with the Gerontology Research Group had been mentoring and encouraging Kitia in creating all the unreferenced/original research stubs on supercentenarians, and since his blocking has used sockpuppets and meatpuppets, and through his mailing list has been encouraging editors to sign up to wikipedia and do his bidding.

I think that in many ways Kitia has shown some good skills for a 15-year-old, and that if he could stop acting as Young's emissary, he might well be able to learn how to participate constructively. The only way I can see that happening is if Kitia accepts a mentor, an idea which I suggested at the previous ANI discussion on Kitia and on Kitia's talk page (see User talk:Kitia#Polite_suggestion)

I suggest that if Kitia will agree to mentorship on his return, and if a mentor is willing to take on the case, then the block should be reduced to about one week. I will suggest this on Kitia's talk page and see what the response is. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

See User talk:Kitia#Mentorship_suggestion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I looked into the history a bit here. Kitia has been around for about a year and a half and has made thousands of good edits. He was previously blocked for 'vandalism' in creating a user page for someone who didn't want one, but unblocked after saying that he didn't realize the person didn't want a user page. Recently he's been having trouble with BrownHairedGirl because he has been systematically creating and updating articles on people over 110 years old and she has been systematically AfD'ing them. Nobody likes seeing lots of hard work on something they care about deleted, and when it is one person going after everything you do it is easy to take it personally - which Kitia apparently has. Actually, in my experience, BHG just goes through categories and tries to 'clean up' everything she thinks doesn't belong. That can certainly be irritating to people who disagree with her assessment, but isn't malicious or 'wrong' (though I think leaving things to natural attrition, rather than focused eradication, might be less stressful for all involved). The recent block BHG placed for 'copyright violation' wasn't good because they'd been edit warring over the text and it, in fact, wasn't a copyright violation. Insisting that the block was valid anyway (because the three or so messages Kitia sent on the issue 'were not communicative enough'), rather than apologizing, probably didn't help either. Now Kitia has committed what seems like a fairly obvious case of sockpuppet abuse (it wasn't exactly a great triumph in covert operations).

So what do we do? We've got a user who has basically been productively contributing to the encyclopedia for months, but is now pissed off and disrupting things because one of the projects they've worked at is being shredded and they think BHG is 'picking on them'. Since people above keep talking about trying to get Kitia's response to various suggestions for moving forward, I'm going to unprotect his talk page. I'll ask him not to repost the 'unblock' template since people seem to like to cut off all on-wiki communication when that goes up more than once. A block for sockpuppet abuse was appropriate here, but we really need to get better at handling these things. Sometimes it seems like we go out of our way to turn productive users into angry vandals and Wikipedia Review denizens. --CBD 12:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

CBD, may I just return to the copyvio problem. The text in question clearly was substantially the same as that on an external website, which is prima facie evidence of a copyvio. Eventually, research by me and by Mangojuice showed that the copyvio was the other way round, but at the point when Kitia persisted in restoring the material, Kitia had no evidence of that. That's why the lack of communication was a problem: rather than trying to get to the bottom of the copyvio issue, Kitia preferred to just revert and to reinstate material which had been identified as a copyvio, without any justification for retaining it. That's edit-warring, and it's not the way to resolve a situation: discussion is how these things are resolved, and if you check Kitia's talk page you will find countless attempts by me to discuss with Kitia which elicited no response.

The policy at WP:V#Burden_of_evidence is quite clear about the importance of justifying the inclusion of content, and one of the reasons that these issues sometimes become more fraught than they need to be is because of a view in some quarters that content not important enough to risk offending editors who haven't full taken on board policies. That's why someone like me who engages in a tidyup can be described as unhelpful, because of a culture in some quarters that verifiability and notability are nice, but not worth rocking the boat over. I'm disappointed to see a contribution here which appears to suggest that the problem lies in the attempt to tidyup a systematic process of adding unsourced material to wikipedia (much of it original research): that seems to me to be an inversion of priorities.

As to CBD's suggestion of a better way, I have suggested mentorship. It would have been helpful for CBD to comment on that suggestion, because there is nothing else on the table for now apart from a continue indefinite block. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Look at it from the point of view of someone who is being accused of copyright violation and knows they didn't get it from another website (and the accusations are coming from someone who's had a prior dispute with them). How would you react? —Random832 17:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I would try to find out why the article I had copied it from was apparently a copvio. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Uh - oh. Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Kitia has just been completed - Alison ^❤ 17:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

And checkuser has confirmed that I'll bust your beak! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was also a sockpuppet of Kitia, also used for double-voting in AfDs (see e.g. Betsy Baker). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Erik Moeller was just hired as Wikimedia Deputy Director

Sue Gardner says she just hired Erik Moeller as Wikimedia Deputy Director. I think this is wonderful news. Erik Moeller says:

[...] our mission and vision is to empower everyone to share in the sum of human knowledge. And that desire is leading us to a new morning, a new beginning. We're not just a Foundation to host servers. We are a charity of free knowledge. [...] Our relocation, our new hires, the first systematic budget, all these are requirements for growing up: not sufficient, but necessary. [...] Sue, you've brought an unprecedented level of professionalism to WMF, and I consider it a pleasure and an honor to be given the opportunity to work with you. Planet Earth hungers for knowledge. We have a lot of work cut out for us - let's get to it![51]

I agree completely. We can all be confident that WikiMedia's governance structure is finally achieving the kind of professionalism that will prevent a repeat of the kind of amateurish mistakes that have embarrassed us recently. WikiMedia is evolving into a professional organization capable of successfully integrating with other non-profits[52][53], attaining significant grants, and working with experts to bring ever increasing reliability to our work.

I know it sometimes doesn't seem like it, but look at the sum total of WikiMedia's free educational offerings at any one point and one year earlier - every year we are better. WAS 4.250 (talk) 15:54, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that's User:Eloquence, creator of the MediaWiki flower logo. -- SEWilco (talk) 16:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I thought Anthere came up with the flower. NoSeptember 16:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, I looked it up: "Logo by Eloquence, flower by Anthere" NoSeptember 16:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[[fact provided]] :-) -- SEWilco (talk) 16:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Is Erik remaining on the board? Chick Bowen 16:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

That is the first thing I thought about as well. Some positions should preclude serving in both them and on the board. I don't know if this is such a position. NoSeptember 16:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe it was announced earlier this week that Erik is leaving his Board position. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow, already things are falling into place for you to join the board this year. Good show :). NoSeptember 16:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• See this notice from the 17th; "Erik Moeller has decided to resign from the board". --JWSchmidt (talk)

• And the Signpost article here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:27, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Note the Erik decided to reorient his activities in other directions, and I hope we'll continue to be able to work together constructively from here on. Weird, did he change his mind? -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, Kelly's blogged about it. Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 16:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Is this a paid position? I didn't see any mention of that in the announcement above. Mahalo. --Ali'i 17:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is a paid position. That's why he had to resign from the Board of Trustees before he could be hired. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Google's new knol project

It would be good to think about how to handle knol links and content before editors start adding them. I've started a discussion to get editors' opinions:

• Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#knol's implication for policies and guidelines

Your inputs there are welcome. --A. B. ^(talk) 19:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

*thinking face* Cheers for the notification ;) Anthøny 19:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• Wants careful, handling, a lot of disgruntled rebuffed POV-pushers seem to be latching onto it as Wikipedia's nemesis, which may be indicative of the likely future accuracy... or perhaps they'll be kicked from there as well and join the Brandt "Googlipedia Is Evil" conspiracy theory axis :-) Guy (Help!) 20:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Ron Paul "linkspam"

I've noticed that Special:Whatlinkshere/Ron Paul has ballooned to massive proportions. Apparantly, users have been finding links between subjects and Ron Paul and adding them to the article, no matter how tenuous they are or relevant to the article. My guess is that they're trying to make Ron Paul appear higher in the Google rankings than other pages when searching for Ron Paul. Some examples: Nolan Ryan has a sentence saying he campaigned for him in '96, Letter of marque has a paragraph on Ron Paul saying that 9/11 was an act of air piracy. I don't know if it qualifies as linkspam, but what should we do about this? Luigi30 (Taλk) 20:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Remove them unless they're of central importance reasonably relevant to the encyclopedic nature of the topic. Thatcher131 20:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Something tells me this shouldn't be here anymore, either. Luigi30 (Taλk) 20:32, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Already took care of that. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 20:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

How would google handle internal wikilinks? I know external link are 'nofollow' so Google ignores those, but I don't know about wikilinks. — Edokter • Talk • 20:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

internal links are not nofollow. Hard to say exactly how google treats them though.Geni 23:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• Wow! What a lot of "and Ron Paul thinks this too!" junk. Guy (Help!) 20:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
  • See Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_20#Moneybomb. Durova^Charge! 21:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate "CT" label

A general observation that the Conspiracy_theory label is often used and personalized by administrators on contentious article pages. It seems to me to often be brought into the discussions as little more than a strawman and for that reason, as well as the obvious deflective and discussion stifling result of using such a label, I think administrators,at the least, should use the Wikipedia:Fringe theories label for diminishing the value of such an argument and certainly should not be personalizing the concept toward an editor anymore than calling someone arguing in support of an official government theory a GT (Government Theorist). I don't mean to single out this one instance because it happens literally all the time and is almost always a complete misuse of the term Conspiracy_theory as in this case. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 11:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• They are conspiracy theories, as in theories of conspiracies, identified as such by multiple independent sources. What was your account prior to Mr.grantevans (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? It's pretty clear that was not your first experience of Wikipedia. Guy (Help!) 15:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Is this a new way of chasing people away? Some sort of assume bad faith interrogation? Check my edits before being suspicious about me; you'll see they are all constructive, cooperative and assume good faith. Can you say the same? I have no idea because I haven't even looked at your history nor do I see any reason why I should. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 15:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

(e.c.) JzG, is that really relevant? If a user wishes to raise an observation to the community, then that should be respected, rather than answered with a blunt enquiry as to previous experience on Wikipedia. That simply serves to bring the individual raising the point into disrepute, rather than actually tackling the problem. Having said that, Grantevans - you haven't really provided much examples of the hypothetical problem you are raising. Could you be more specific? Anthøny 15:59, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll put a few examples together later in the day. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 16:03, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's relevant. We are talking here about a topic area that has seen numerous editors sanctioned for pushing the pro-conspiracy-theory POV, and one important part of that POV is challenging the dominant view that the conspiracy theories are just that - conspiracy theories. I am, as must people will be aware, a jaded and cynical type, and when I see editors with around 100 mainspace edits popping up here to raise something that's already been done to death, my sceptical filter is immediately engaged. Guy (Help!) 17:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

This is an example for Anthony where the label was used a bit out of context I think. I have no problems with the CT term when its use fits our own Wikipedia definition but mostly it is used where it does not fit as with the matter of whether or not Arabs were on that flight (a matter about which I have no opinion). I surely do not think it is constructive to ever personalize a concept though unless the person calls themselves that same term. Hell, some people might be offended if called a "conservative" or "liberal" on the basis of a few comments on Wikipedia not to mention the label might be completely wrong for that person's general POV. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 19:59, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

If an editor is little more than a single purpose account and is continuously trying to add fringe beliefs to articles, then we are probably better off if they are banned. Wikipedia is not a soapbox and yes, fringe theories that have little or no basis in facts are routinely known as conspiracy theories, depending on the subject matter of course.--MONGO (talk) 19:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, Mongo, but this discussion that you and I both participated in addressed the fringe theories and I think it was a useful discussion so I fail to see why such a perjorative label as CT needs to be used at all. Just because Fox and CNN overuse the term doesn't mean we should as well. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 19:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the discussion referenced above was an abysmal waste of time. The user was duly advised regarding OR, RS, V, FRINGE, and TE, and he/she should have been blocked for wasting our time. Rklawton (talk) 20:29, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you might be referring to a different sub topic as you did not participate in the one I link to above. Nonetheless, I learned a lot from that discussion as I also did from the one about no Arabs on the passenger lists which I still find very hard to believe if true. Maybe others here already knew all this stuff but I surely did not, so speaking only for myself, these discussion topics have been educational. I think an encyclopedia is supposed to educate and for me these discussions have been accomplishing that purpose so I can not agree that they were a waste of time. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 20:51, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

It is not a "pejorative" when it is applied correctly. People who believe that the US government falsified videos of Bin Laden, lied about the presence of terrorists on board the hijacked planes, or believe that a plane did not hit the Pentagon are not naive waifs, merely questioning the ideas handed down to them from on high. The belief that someone has systematically conspired to create the largest single deception in world history, however you may characterize it, is a conspiracy theory and the ridiculous belief that if you just pretend that you're "just asking questions" long enough makes it anything different is ridiculous. People routinely pretend to "just ask questions" about the historical veracity of the Holocaust — but that doesn't make their actions anymore distant, discernible, or disruptive than those of a holocaust denier. --Haemo (talk) 01:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, but I am particularly concerned about the personalization of the term as was done whenthis topic brought out the CT label against Quantumentanglement as a person. Also, I do not see where he/she claimed in that discussion "that someone has systematically conspired". I also do not see how ever using that label is any more constructive than using the terms "communist sympathizer" or "nazi"; either of which might appear to be accurate based upon someone's edits and either of which might be offensive or not to the person so labeled. I just think labels are a lazy way to address unusual arguments or unusual information. Strangely, I have not much of a problem with "fringe theories" maybe because the phrase is exact and accurate, but I still think all non-self described viewpoint labels, and especially personalized labels that attempt to reduce someone's way of thinking into a little 1 or 2 word description, are useless, harmful and do not promote progressive thinking and often serve to discredit the person so labeled. It is a serious thing, I think, to label someone personally or their way of thinking as something not wanted by the majority and can become a slippery slope pretty quick, as with House Un-American Activities Committee. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 02:38, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I try not to label people, and I tend to agree that it is generally a good idea to avoid it. I'll keep this in mind when watching over discussions in that page. --Haemo (talk) 05:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

And as the person referenced above using the term CT'er I admit that it's something to stay away from (I apologized in that very section). As disruptive as that user was, it's something that needs to be kept on a pretty short leash. On the other hand, sometimes a spade is a spade and labeling people in that manner is more of a problem when it disrupts a conversation than hurting the feelings of a disruptive single issue POV warrior. I would hope those bring this complaint here and agreeing with it have the same attitude towards people calling editors Bushies, stooges or whatever. It works both ways and there's been quite a lot of insults tossed in the other direction. I doubt if the editor bringing this complaint here would have brought the same complaint if he had seen someone called a CIA agent or whatever on the same page. It has to work both ways or it's just more POV pushing. RxS (talk) 15:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

(To Evans) QU was a disruptive editor, attempting to push a POV that there were no Arabs on the planes. He even dropped a vandal warning on an editor who reverted a few of his POV edits. He refused to stop. He was blocked. This disingenuous, "But I'm just asking questions" approach is barely a step above what he was doing. Calling a conspiracy theory a "conspiracy theory" is a straightforward example of calling a spade a spade. Mr Which??? 15:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Not to belabor the issue but I just think CT is a silly term which is more often used to dismiss a fringe theory than in reference to a truly secret conspiracy. Also, it is a concept which is so broad and vague that it is useless from a communication standpoint. Our own article about CT says: "A conspiracy theory usually attributes the ultimate cause of an event or chain of events (usually political, social, pop cultural or historical events), or the concealment of such causes from public knowledge, to a secret, and often deceptive plot by a cabal of powerful or influential people or organizations." By that definition, the books about the Watergate Cover-up and this CNN article could be called a "conspiracy theory". The concept is so vague and pejorative in its essence that it is impossible to describe in a way that makes it useful in objective conversation. Also, what if something that is initially called a conspiracy theory later turns out to be true, as in this case. Is it still to be called a conspiracy theory after verification? Also, why does any crazy unproven theory coming from a western government administration get a free pass with this term? What about the allegations by the Bush administration that Saddam's Iraq might have been working with al-Queda? Why was that never called a "conspiracy theory"? What about the crystal ball theory that Iran is really gearing up to make a nuclear bomb rather than just exercising its right to have nuclear energy? Is that a "conspiracy theory"? However, this is only my opinion about the CT term and I do believe strongly in free speech, so if others feel it has constructive usages then by all means continue with it. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 12:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Militants or terrorists?

I have reverted this change three times in the last few hours as it seems to be a blatant violation of the NPOV policy. I'm tempted to continue reverting as often as necessary, but I suspect that this bit of tendentious editing on the part of the anon, however devoid of good faith it is, probably doesn't qualify for the "obvious vandalism" exemption to 3RR. Thoughts? Help? —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 18:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I semiprotected for a week to lift the pressure a bit, hopefully you can get the anon talking and explain things to him/her. Guy (Help!) 18:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a fair call, JzG. Your wise to pick up on the possible revert warring that your undoing of the introduction of "terrorist" could constitute... watch out for that, and request a block (on WP:AN, perhaps?) if the individual keeps it up. Regards, Anthøny 19:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The user simply logged in and continued the revert war. I left a message on his talk page. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 20:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Me too. What you said was quite correct; we should use the language of our reliable source. --John (talk) 20:38, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It may be used in WP:NPOV as an example, but in any case, "terrorist" is a POV term. A suitable NPOV term might be "paramilitary" or "paramilitary operative", depending on whether you need an adjective or noun. - Jehochman ^Talk 20:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Any derogatory term may only be used in quotes, and cited to a reliable source. Crum375 (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

This is always a POV issue, for example Al-Qaeda is an international alliance of Islamic militant, terrorist organizations without quotes. I guess it depends on which source labels the individuals/groups. -- lucasbfr ^talk 22:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

And how many. There is a substantial body of support for the idea that Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organisation. Guy (Help!) 23:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

There is also a NPOV tag on the article. --John (talk) 00:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

As example, the current Abu Nidal entry says:

Abu Nidal (Arabic: أبو نضال) May 1937[1]–August 16, 2002), born Sabri Khalil al-Banna,[2] (Arabic: صبري خليل البنا) was a Palestinian political leader, mercenary, and the founder of Fatah — the Revolutionary Council (Arabic: فتح المجلس الثوري), more commonly known as the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO).[3] At the height of his power in the 1970s and 1980s, Abu Nidal, or "father of the struggle," [4] was widely regarded as the world's most dangerous terrorist leader.[5][emphasis added]

I think that "widely regarded as a terrorist group[1][2][3]" would be acceptable, assuming we have multiple high quality published secondary or tertiary sources supporting that statement. Crum375 (talk) 15:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) A similar semantic battle took place on Yasser Arafat when it was a FA last week. Caknuck (talk) 16:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

When in doubt, especially with contentious subjects, we just need to closely adhere to the reliable sources, with the right weighting, per NPOV and UNDUE. Crum375 (talk) 16:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Heads up re: Mormon The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints article

Seems to me there are several important aspects of the Mormon religion which are not easy to find in the article if they are there at all. Since Romney is running for president of the USA this article needs to be watched closely I think. I am trying to give some of these items some exposure in the article so we'll see how it goes; I have already(quite quickly) been told that it's ok to call a resurrected person (Moroni) an "angel" within the article because "Mormon theology" sees it that way.

These are important distinctions which should be right up front in the article, I think.

• 1: Mormons believe Jesus went to South America to teach South Americans after his resurrection.
• 2: There is no "holy trinity". There are 3 separate physical beings.
• 3: Temple marriage is forever as in forever; even if divorced.
• 4: Good Mormons can achieve the status of God with power over their own planet after death. Hence, Mormons believe there are many Gods. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 03:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

And you have the need for urgent administrative intervention on conduct issues because...? —Kurykh 03:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

You are correct; my mistake, on second thought I was just going to remove the topic. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 03:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

And why do those issues need extra coverage in the article? Mr.Z-man 03:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

As Kurykh points out, this is probably not appropriate for this noticeboard. I'll work with the editors at the article's talk page. But to answer your question, in the 3rd. paragraph a sentence begins "The church has distinguished itself from other Christian denominations by their belief that..." and these 4 substantial belief distinctions were not included there as I feel they should be. I have since edited that section and brought it up on the article's talk page. In retrospect I obviously goofed by bringing this non-issue to this noticeboard, I just got a bit excited. Sorry to waste your time. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 11:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Advice required.

I am fairly sure that User:Lil'Khan is the same person as User:99.234.129.56. I have only noticed this as she falsely accused me of vandalism a while ago and I now times pop by her page to be nosey! The anonymous IP address seems to be amending the named user page, giving it awards etc, and this frankly doesn't seem right? Is there anything we can do? Thanks. Apologies if I am in error. Paste (talk) 14:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Socking to give yourself baubles (if that's what she's doing) is very sad, but not disruptive.--Doc^g 15:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it does sound like something a twelve year old would do ... --Kralizec! (talk) 15:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Feeling the need to thank oneself is... pathetic but not problematic. It's not like there's a cash reward with those trinkets.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 16:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

What?!? No cash reward? But ... show me teh money! --Kralizec! (talk) 16:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection for calendar date pages?

I'm getting frustrated with all of the addition of nonnotable people to the "births" section of each page about calendar dates. As everyone knows, there is a separate page for each date in the calendar year, from January 1 through December 31. These pages include events that occurred on this day, plus births and deaths of notable people on this day.

No individual page gets vandalized often enough to warrant semi-protection. Taken as a whole, however, the rate of bad edits to these pages is unacceptable. I'm tired of seeing these edits on recent changes.

I suggest semi-protection of these pages on an experimental basis for a week or two, and maybe to continue it indefinitely. I'm quite certain that this suggestion will be shot down for all the usual reasons, but I'm raising it anyway. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 19:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• I think the vandalism on these pages is being handled in a timely manner. Since the level of vandalism is not that high to begin with, I don't think protection is not even needed, since it's quite manageable. Nishkid64 (talk) 20:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
  • If there is a consensus to do this, I can arrange that, provided someone gives me links to every page for example here. Maxim_(talk) 20:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
• Editors without accounts make valuable contributions too. Anonymity does not equal bad faith. Never lose sight of the Foundation issues. Uncle G (talk) 20:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• Generally agree with Uncle G's sentiment -- I prefer semi-protection only in cases where the vast majority of contributions from new users are negative, or other similar circumstances where maintaining a page becomes prohibitively difficult. Certainly we can apply spot protection in problem cases -- in the interest of brainstorming, we can semi-protect some of these articles without protecting all of them (say, the current day might be one to consider, it tends to get more edits I think). – Luna Santin (talk) 21:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I also don't think semi-protection is needed at this point. These article are on quite a few watchlists as honeypots (I have about a dozen or so). Specifically, Mufka probably has all 366 of them watched, is very active, and does a pretty damn good job of keeping them cleaned up. — Satori Son 21:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Though they're definitely worth keeping an eye on, yes. ;) – Luna Santin (talk) 21:51, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. In fact, if anyone thinks there are some that aren't getting enough love, please drop by my talk and let me know which ones - I'll be happy to add them to my embarrassingly overpopulated watchlist. — Satori Son 22:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

If a group of us were to each keep an eye on their date of birth, that would probably speed things up... I find that I tend to notice when that page gets altered. Accounting4Taste:talk 22:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I watch several dates and also several years, including some future years. I encourage other editors to watch these pages as well. They all receive many anon edits, often well-intentioned. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• I have a cunning and devious plan: if every admin and experienced editor watches the page for their birthday, we'll probably have them all covered :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by JzG (talk • contribs) 23:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Of course, that depends on how many are active. if 400 users are actively watching one page each, selected randomly (assuming e.g. birthdays are evenly distributed) any given day has a 33% chance of not being watched, and February 29 has a 57% chance. Since I don't like those odds, I'm going to watch February 29 even though it's not my birthday. —Random832 19:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I perma-semied September 11 some time ago, as it suffered from worse, I suspect, than the standard vandalism these date pages get. My sanity rose greatly afterwards. --Golbez (talk) 02:32, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Questions

Is there a criteria for deleting RFAs that seem to have been created as a joke? I found Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/LisaTierney and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Simba on my trawls through new pages yesterday. I was wondering how a LisaTierney seems to know so much about Simba even though they have made no edits? Is it some sort of joke? I have left a note on User talk:LisaTierney but was just wondering what to do, if anything? Woody (talk) 13:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Not within WP:CSD, apparently, unless you want to stretch WP:Vandalism. Probably WP:SNOW applies. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 13:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

What about Lisa? I am tempted just to assume good faith, if Simba hasn't edited, there isn't really a problem. Woody (talk) 14:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The LisaTierney nom appears to have sat since Mid-October. Since it's a self-nom, it's presumed to include the acceptance of the nom, and - since it would have been scheduled to close on 24 October 2007, it could probably be closed now as No Consensus (!). Simba has not yet accepted the other nom, but I imagine WP:SNOW would come into play there. ZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 14:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no user named Simba, so it should fall under G1 as nonsense, or G2 as a test page. Merry Christmas _{from Sasha} 14:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the Simba one. LisaTierney (talk · contribs) had created pages at User:Simba and User talk:Simba, whioh I've also deleted. According to the user creation log, there's no user of that name (which surprised me, personally, you would think someone would have picked the name, which is Swahili for "lion", thus an awesome name, even without the Lion King connection). Neıl ☎ 14:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Good call on the deletions, especially since the account has no contributions. However, Simba does show up on the List of Users. Not sure what that means, especially without a User Creation Log. Maybe an old, old, old name that's been long abandoned? I note that Jimbo Wales has no User Creation log, either, and his account is certainly one of the older ones. ZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 14:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The new user log was only created in September 2005 so any usernames created before then will not appear there. It was created before article creation was restricted to logged-in editors so there wasn't as much of an insentive to create an account. I'd say at least 300,000 users aren't listed in the new user log. Graham87 02:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Simba is already taken. 76.212.75.165 (talk) 07:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Simba is one of the dozens of accounts created before new accounts were logged, no contribs - used to run into those at WP:ACC before I was sysopped when a request for an account similar to oe of those was requested. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:23, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Widespread Tip of the Day GFDL Violations

The Tip of the day, which appears in the Community portal among other places, seems to have a massive GFDL violation problem. Namely, all of the content in each day's tip was written by users, but the history of the writing of that content was removed when the pages were moved improperly - deleting the pages histories - in late 2006. Part of the GFDL, as I understand it, is that all content must be attributable; this is not. My apologies if this is the wrong place to post this.--CastAStone/^/(talk) 20:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Does the history exist anywhere? A link could be provided in the template. —Random832 20:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is with each specific day's tip - the history was deleted along with the original pages. For instance Wikipedia:Tip of the day/December 19 was originally Wikipedia:Tip of the day/Yearless/December 19 and prior to that was archived here, but who wrote it originally has to exist somewhere...--CastAStone/^/(talk) 21:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

For that specific example, the deleted history Special:Undelete/Wikipedia:Tip_of_the_day/Yearless/December_19 contains nothing but a redirect as the result of a page move. The deleted history has a different username from the current versions at Wikipedia:Tip of the day/December 19 due to the user being renamed (user renames do not change the username on deleted contributions). It looks like the 2004-era tips were created inline at Template:Totd (whose history from that era is now at Template:Tip of the day), I'll ask User:Eloquence about this.—Random832 14:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't find anywhere likely in Eloquence's contribs or deleted contribs from 2004, and he was pretty heavily involved in the tip of the day / community portal at the time. It looks like they were created in place at Mediawiki:Totd/Template:Totd. —Random832 14:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm impressed you found them! So then how do we get the proper history into the proper tips of the day?--CastAStone/^/(talk) 15:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

AfDs need closing

The Soul Society and Hueco Mundo AfDs have been open for 10 days. Consensus seems fairly solid for the both of them, so I'm requesting a close. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

 Done — Coren ^(talk) 06:40, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

While we're at it, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stewie Kills Lois is still hanging out there. I'm wondering if it was ever added to a day log. It's an article for a Family Guy episode that has since been broadcast. / edg ☺ ☭ 06:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

 Done—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 06:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! / edg ☺ ☭ 07:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Physchim62

The above Arbitration case has closed, and the final decision can be viewed there. As indicated here, Physchim's administrator access was given up under controversial circumstances, and may only be regained through normal channels.

For the Arbitration Committee,
Anthøny 17:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Sod AGF, I've got TWINKLE installed and can bite who I like!

I previously brought this subject up on AN [54], but it got derailed into a discussion of the diffs I had provided, rather than the point at hand. Which is the Wikipedia way, of course.

So now I'm back on the same hobby horse (but not quoting diffs, so you'll have to wrongly guess). In the past week I've dealt with a couple of editors who have TWINKLE installed. And it seems installing TWINKLE means you can leave commonsense and your brains behind.

You see, you can tick that damnable box "actions evidently indicate a vandalism only account". And this is being applied to editors who we last saw a month ago. And if you complain at the misuse, the reaction is either to argue that you're misusing your admin powers by not acting on the report (oh yes!) or that the TWINKLE operator didn't understand what the button meant.

For it seems that clicking "actions evidently indicate a vandalism only account" makes that sentence true, regardless of the actual facts! Yay!

So now I'm starting to seek consensus. I believe TWINKLE needs to be modified in some way. The "actions evidently indicate a vandalism only account" tick box needs to go; or needs to pop up a Big Red Box saying "Are you sure? If accounts you are reporting aren't being used for vandalism only and you repeatedly say they are, your TWINKLE access will be removed."

Similarly, TWINKLE operators are remarkably ignorant of us wanting a recent edit beyond the last recent warning, thinking that last-warning-and-report works or that edits two days before or two days after work. TWINKLE needs to pop up and say "I see you're reporting this editor to AIV. Are you sure they have edited recently and beyond a recent last warning? If not, and you repeatedly say they are, your TWINKLE access will be removed."

Of course, this is a distraction from the related point of my fellow admins blocking after a single questionable edit or 12 hours since an edit because a TWINKLE user said that "actions evidently indicate a vandalism only account" - and that if you email (some of) them to question it, you get slapped down. That's a point we can think on about later. ➔ REDVEЯS is wearing a pointy red hat 22:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Remove tick-box from TWINKLE and force people to fill out reports manually. That way they have to engage their brains. As for admins blocking too quickly, I will happily participate in that discussion later, if only to suggest that admins shouldn't be afraid to warn, instead of block, and advise, instead of chastise. Carcharoth (talk) 22:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I would agree wholeheartedly were it not for the fact that editors exist in two classes: those that will heed the first warning, and those that will ignore, whine, wikilawyer and sock around any quantity of warnings. Given that I've yet to be shown one (1) credible case of conversion from one category to the other... — Coren ^(talk) 22:54, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I've actually seen a number of editors who went from one category to the other, though I can't provide specifics. I've even seen a few editors who were on the escalating block ladder to oblivion and turned things around as well. Unfortunately, it's only a tiny percentage. I agree that most editors who start off vandalising tend not to reform, and occasionally start sockpuppeteering to get around blocks. --Yamla (talk) 23:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like more of a problem with the editors than with Twinkle. I'd be in favor of restricting access and taking away the tools from people who can't use them properly, however. -Chunky Rice (talk) 22:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

This does seem a problem with individual editors, they probably shouldn't have the tool. Could you give some names? It might be an idea to remove the tool from their monobook. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

(e/c with all of the above)One, Twinkle no longer allows IPs to be marked as vandalism only accounts; it is so rare for regular accounts to make good edits and then start blatant vandalism that I'm not sure how this is still an issue. Two, vandals are not entitled to warnings. If an IP has been repeatedly used for vandalism and/or has been previously blocked for it, they know what they are doing and should be blocked. Or if the vandalism is especially bad or ongoing - there is no reason to wait for 5 instances of vandalism. Three, the "recent editing" rules only apply to IPs where it is likely that they change owner every 24 hours or so. Registered accounts don't change owners. If the last warning to a registered account was 3 months ago, it doesn't matter, they still got it. Four, as I said the last time this was brought up; this is an attempt to blame a problem with users on the software. If they are using it improperly, tell them. If they continue to misuse it, it should be removed from their JS file. Mr.Z-man 22:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, it's not just AIV admins who have gripes with Twinkers. People have a habit of requesting protection for anything and everything using Twinkle's WP:RFPP feature and I swear someone (maybe me, I forget) suggested a large "(a) Are you sure? (b) Are you really sure?" type message for that too in the past. – Steel 22:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree about the AIV reports. I left this complaint at WP:AIV regarding someone who requested a block for a user before a final warning had been issued. I'm not sure if anyone else is going to read that. Sometimes, I get the impression that certain people use AIV and TWINKLE as a stepping-stone on their desired road to adminship. I don't think the problem is with TWINKLE -- it's with the human operating it -- but TWINKLE makes it easier to submit AIV reports and to leave all the actual analysis to the admins. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 23:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec)Isn't that the point, though? Just as with a CSD, an AIV or RFPP report is a request or recommendation. It should be up to the admin dealing with it to ensure it's well-founded. Granted, there may be too many imperfect recommendations, but assuming good faith applies too. Do admins feed back to users who leave such recommendations? By the same token, how many users check AIV or RFPP to see whether their concerns have been met? I do, and I've learnt a lot from it. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 23:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The form letter postings on WP:UAA are really annoying. We have no idea what they've picked up on in many cases, and the submitter never checks back. Secretlondon (talk) 02:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that TW should be restricted in some way, maybe in the way that VPROOF is? TW makes things easier, yes, but the problem is definately with the individual users who abuse it. If somebody abuses it, then take it away. Seems pretty simple. I doubt people think that the majority of users who use TW, use it inappropriately, do they? I've used twinkle for a long time and its a great tool. - Rjd0060 (talk) 23:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm one of the people who don't use automated tools, as I am aware of the temptation to go too fast. But many can resist the temptation. To help them do so, the first step is to modify the tools a little where appropriate to discourage the inappropriate use, and the present request seem a good first step. We also need consider individuals who need the permission withdrawn--but it is reasonable to also help discourage the incorrect use so the correct use can proceed without causing problems. DGG (talk) 23:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I have twinkle installed, I write in form letters and I've bypassed my brain. Secretlondon (talk) 23:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't look like a form letter to me... Carcharoth (talk) 23:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I have twinkle installed, I write in form letters and I've bypassed my brain. SEWilco (talk) 05:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Ooh I have seen this recently, Like the Ioeth bot I had mentioned before, i bet twinkle is the real culprit Benjamin Kenobe (talk) 05:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)OBE-1

• Seriously, here is a good example of Twinkle abuse: This article got twinkled by a user with only 200 edits, half of them today. How such new users get ahold of these things is beyond me. Is there no oversight like with VP? When a professor from MIT gets twinkled in spite of obvious notability, there is something wrong with the system. Jeffpw (talk) 15:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

And here's a lovely quote to go with the twinkle abuse: I don't care how long the page has been around or how reputable the source might be. Do we really need twinkle abusers as well as the usual run of the mill vandals? Jeffpw (talk) 15:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

While everynody else is doing it, id like to mention my gripe with twinkle. So many mindless people are using twinle for new page patrol and tagging articles less than a minute after creation and not giving any time for article expansion. I am extremely frustrated by this because I think you should give an article time for expansion if it is not OBVIOUS and BLATANT vandalism. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 15:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Good point Chris, I have seen the same thing - and the user tagging then uses the fact that they used twinkle as their reason for not attempting to point new users towards WPs policies and guidance & for having no memory of what they have done! DuncanHill (talk) 15:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I see the point about automated tools like Twinkle. I'll stop using it for a while so my edits will be evaluated on their specific merits instead of their method. As for having over 200 edits, it was a long, boring night, what can I say? :) I'm happy to discuss my edits on my talk page with whomever. -- KingNewbs (talk) 16:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Overly quick tagging of new articles isn't just a Twinkle problem. I've seen non-Twinkle users speedy things awfully quickly. {{db-nonsense}} and {{db-bio}} seem to get the most abuse. :( IMHO, a new article should only be tagged with a speedy if it's an irredeemable problem (along the lines of "Jake is fat and he smells"). I'm not as bothered by other tags, such as {{unref}} or {{wikify}}, as they can help newbies (who are typically the ones who create articles in multiple edits) see where an article needs improvement. (Full disclosure -- I use Twinkle regularly, but I also take full responsibility for every edit I make with both Twinkle and AWB).--Fabrictramp (talk) 18:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to turn this into a big techy discussion but Twinkle is a javascript, and anyone who can edit their monobook can add a javascript to their account, be it Twinkle, Popups or a script they write themselves. (Given that the source code for Twinkle is publicly available, it would be fairly easy to make a copy and bypass any restrictions). The only effective way of restricting this is to prevent new users from editing their monobook, and AFAIK that would require a change to the Wikimedia software, and hence take ages to implement. While the behaviour of some TW users is annoying, I don't think it's worth that much hassle - just use the bad AIV report template on their user talk page if applicable and move on. Waggers (talk) 16:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't this whole problem be solved rather easily? Restrict TW in a way where brand new users cannot use it (something like Vandalproof or AWB). Then, enforce the rules stated on TW; That being "You must understand Wikipedia policies and use this tool within these policies, or risk being blocked.", or just simply take away the tools. As pointed out above, anybody can make their own script. It seems as some people here want to "ban twinkle", but that theory is virtually impossible. - Rjd0060 (talk) 17:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This sounds very reasonable to me. It seems like I end up declining at least 20% of AIV reports ... with the majority of those being from TW users who either did not understand or follow the complex two-step criteria for making AIV reports. --Kralizec! (talk) 17:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I am sure there are several inappropriate reports to AIV/UAA/RFP and pages inappropriately marked as meeting CSD, all from TW users. I don't know what REDVEЯS is trying to achieve here. I use twinkle, and I use it responsibly. It is a great tool, but it can be, and it is easily abused. For every editor that abuses TW, I am sure there are several who do not, so just deal with the minority here, and do not allow them to use TW. - Rjd0060 (talk) 19:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It all really I believe depends on ones own interpretation of the article, personally if you are uploading a Resume I will consider it to be a Non-Notable individual to others pure vandalism. As well restricting ones access to TWINKLE is taking it a little to far. I can see it if the user continually, But I do have to agree ticking the vandal only account button every time is really bad. There should be a regulation. I believe that the proper route would be to have TWINKLE check how many warnings and at what times they were placed this way it will select the best warning for the moment while restricting all under the warning from being given (of course the first user to warn the vandal needs access to them all). As well it should be impossible for a user to be reported to AIV without proper warnings (with the exception of 4im warnings). I also would like to suggest that the vandalism only account check be grayed out until after a set amount of blocks. I would say after the second block that option be available but only to users with accounts (this means the warning should not be available for when it comes to reporting IPs). As well the problem seems to occur with new users. The suggestion I have has been said before but I will repeat. New Users should not be allowed to use TW. If you are under 3 months you should not have access to TW and everyone using TW right now and under 3 months should have their usage revoked. This goes for users with more than one block. Rgoodermote  19:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This is extremely reasonable. New users should learn policy and norms The Hard Way, rather than being given access to powerful automated tools. Another thing is the "using TW" edit summary, which lets newbies find it sooner than they should; perhaps that should be removed. east.718 at 20:30, December 19, 2007

Oh, drama! I like drama :) We can put it somewhat simple, it is theoretically impossible to have control of whom is using TW, so continuing arguing about adding such functionality is relatively void. But if you find something that could be better, then please, send me a patch. _→AzaToth 20:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

VP and AWB can be modded to run without approval too, but we still have approval processes. Get in touch with me on IRC if you need coding help with restricting it to autoconfirmed or whitelisted users. east.718 at 20:28, December 19, 2007

Bypassing approval on VP and AWB, is very, very simple. There are probably 5 different ways to do it at least, ranging from intercepting requests for the approvals page at the router, to just taking it out of the code. Yet, they're not abused. However, they aren't written in a language as easy to much with as JS. That aside, I think they've always had approval as a function, TW has not. If it went to apporoval-based, I'd assume, most folk would just go back to using the old version, as several people already do.SQL^{Query me!} 22:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Why not try adding a login function as well as making it so that it does not import until after the user confirms their ID and when they leave the TW page or refresh have it so that it deletes itself and you will have to re login. If it detects a change in code then it will not run until fixed. I think a BOT can do the deletion part easily, this solution makes it impossible to modify and impossible for a new user to run the program. This will take some time and dedication to do. But I think it possible and worth it for the integrity of Wikipedia. Rgoodermote  22:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

That would be like weeding your garden with napalm. east.718 at 22:32, December 19, 2007

I was just thinking of sledgehammers & nuts here. Better to increase the requirements for use of all tools? --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 22:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

if (!userIsInGroup("autoconfirmed")) { alert("D:"); return; } Can it be gamed? Of course. Is it worth it anyway? Sure, why not. Gracenotes^T § 22:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Like Napalm huh, some weeds. That is what we have here weeds that need to be destroyed at all cost. I love TW but has been become a problem with new users using it. Regulating vandals and their actions at the same time has become a problem. How about you set up a system like VP. An approval system, with regulations like

• One must be adopted by an experienced and trustworthy user (I.E. One of the admin)
• No more than two blocks (One block is enough to get some on track)
• Must not have been in any disputes (I.E. Edits war)

and so on. With this you do not add the link to the Monobook instead you edit it yourself. For the more experienced users you could simply put the code underneath the sign up for new users. This only works if the new users do not know about the monobook. Rgoodermote  22:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

One simple way to combat this: keep a log of each time someone abuses Twinkle (when & where), & track who are the worst violators. No need to warn/block/call them nasty names over this evidence -- just share it on WP:RfA when they ask for the Admin bit. Knowing that this will happen might force Twinkle users to use it more smartly, not more often. -- llywrch (talk) 22:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

And there we have it, "How to Make Wikipedia a Much Less Enjoyable Place to Be" tip #638: punish misguided (but good-faith) efforts to improve Wikipedia with a flood of bitter oppose votes at RFA. Gracenotes^T § 23:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Joking aside, though, you want misguided TW users to push newcomers away from the project, tag scores of articles for speedy deletion without being informed what CSD means, revert good-faith edits and call it vandalism, etc., while everyone else watches and says "tsk tsk, just wait until his RFA"? There has to be a better way than that – preferably more preventative than punitive. Gracenotes^T § 23:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

My read of this discussion was that Twinkle was being used by misguided (but good-faith) efforts to demonstrate that the user is qualified to be an Admin. I can't imagine why anyone else would want to mark large quantities of edits as "actions evidently indicate a vandalism only account" -- except to cause trouble, in which case, we have the existing remedy of blocks and community bans. -- llywrch (talk) 20:21, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the people who are using twinkle in a blatantly abusive way (the ones we are talking about here), will not try an RfA. I don't believe there is any way to log if Twinkle is used, anyways. - Rjd0060 (talk) 22:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Just for information, there is a related discussion here. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 23:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I like the RFA suggestion and I believe there is a way. Look at their contributions if that are reported. If they are being malicious in there use warn them like you would any other time. If it does not stop. Well we can always treat it like normal vandalism report them to AIV and then remove TW from their monobook. As well you are right create a database of users to watch. I can agree with it. Rgoodermote  23:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC) p; 23:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Here's a suggestion: Completely remove any options in TW to report a user for a username violation or for vandalism; use manual edits instead to report users. The same goes for edits to WP:RFPP. Any user who has made over 800 non-TW edits to the mainspace (and for that reason, we should keep the "using TW" edit summary, but remove the link, to find out whether an edit has been made using TW or not) can ask an administrator for the ability to make automated reports to AIV, UAA, and RFPP. Any user with less than 500 edits may not use TW at all, nor any other vandal-reversion tool like VP or Lupin's tool. If they do not comply with these restriction, they will recieve one (1) warning, after which they will be blocked for three hours. If they still do not comply, they will receive longer blocks (1 week). GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 23:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC) Stricken, see discussion below.

Ummm, TW helps everybody, the constructive users too. So why do you want to "punish" (for lack of a better word) them by removing the AIV/RFP features? Also, as for the rest of your suggestion, just who is going to manage the permissions for this? That job is way to big. - Rjd0060 (talk) 23:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. Proposal, although well-meant, is too prescriptive, and will remove valuable options from those who use Twinkle properly. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 23:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposal struck. GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 00:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Lets put it as simple as possible, twinkle is clean JavaScript, and as it will never work under IE, most abuse is limited by that fact. twinkle is designed to do common things simple and fast, it doesn't adhere to the "Are you really sure?" paradigm, instead it assumes the users knows what he/she is doing (that was in fact the reality back in the days). I wouldn't want to implement some restriction that would decrease the usability and performance just because some are afraid of some ghosts. lets just assume good faith and be happy. less drama please. _→AzaToth 00:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

What a marvelous idea! I remember hearing something about AGF in the past...those were the days. Joking aside, I've asked this several times, if somebody is abusing TW, why not just remove it from their monobook? Thats it. I thought it rather simple. -- Rjd0060 (talk) 00:04, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I had forgotten about the man power it would take to do all of that. Well at least there are ideas if there is a huge epidemic. 72.79.205.169 (talk) 01:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

IP was me, I forgot to login. Rgoodermote  01:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

User:KingNewbs has put speedy deletion tag on the biography of Jonathan Gruber. He is a professor at MIT and one of the raising economist in the World. He has published over 100 research articles and also received the American Society of Health Economists Inaugural Medal for the best health economist in the nation aged 40 and under. He completed his Ph.D. in 1992. So it will take time for him to be more notable. He is an economist and not an actor. Thus, he may not be notable to people who are not interested in economics. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 03:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl of course quickly removed the speedy. Turns out he is in the Insitute of Medicine as well. This is a reflection of another general problem: people thinking notability is required to pass speedy, not merely an assertion of notability. DGG (talk) 04:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

So are you guys saying if the user didn't have TW, then the user wouldn't have thought the page qualified for speedy? - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The user would have to have read the deletion policies to find out how to speedy pages. east.718 at 05:26, December 20, 2007

You don't know that. - Rjd0060 (talk) 15:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You're exactly correct, Rjd0060. It was definitely a misinformed and hasty edit when I added speedy tags to this article, but I'd have done it with or without Twinkle. I spent some time last night studying the policies on speedy deletion a little closer and have made several adjustments to my article evaluation mental checklist. I'm allowing myself to hesitate a little before tagging pages for speedy delete, which seems much more productive. Twinkle definitely makes it easier to tag pages, but this particular problem was editor error, not Twinkle-abuse. Of course, that's a matter of perspective. :) -- KingNewbs (talk) 22:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I was just wondering; is TW under maintenance right now because I can't use it to revert and warn. —BoL @ 04:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Your account is too new to use Twinkle. east.718 at 05:26, December 20, 2007

Huh? SQL^{Query me!} 05:37, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

So how "new" is "too new". I've been an editor for over 2 years. I've been an admin for almost 18 months. I've not been a TW user, but decided to install it to better understand the issues expressed here. Trying to use it, I get a "too new" message. — ERcheck (talk) 05:41, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

That was a temporary bug. Please clear your cache and tell me if you're still experiencing this problem. east.718 at 05:43, December 20, 2007

Protection

This is probably a useless complaint, but user:Versageek feels it isn't necessary to protect pages in the current version, specifically List of animals in The Simpsons. As far as i'm concerned, protecting it in the version he wants is pretty unethical. Ctjf83 ^talk 19:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Stop forum shopping and cross-posting we do not allow NFC in lists. Versageek did the right thing β^_command 19:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I protected it at the version that complies with current practices regarding the use of images in lists. Even featured lists have had all their fair use images removed. That said, I too am looking for a centralized page where this practice is defined and explained, at the moment one isn't readily locatable. Rather it seems likely that the relevant discussion is spread out among many article discussion pages. I think that being able to link to a centralized page would make situations like this much less confrontational. ..and Ctjf83, I'm really quite reasonable, so go easy on the personal jabs. --Versageek 19:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

oh wonderful, responses form the people against me, now lets get one from a neutral admin Ctjf83 ^talk 19:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Comments like

well it's not listed here so i don't care what you, and your anti-image buddies decided before i even knew about wiki Ctjf83 ^talk 19:15, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

clearly show that this user does not want to follow previous consensus and policy. β^_command 19:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

all i see at WP:PP is current version, nothing about it saying so for images in lists Ctjf83 ^talk 19:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll unprotect and reprotect the page in a form that leaves the page in full compliance with the Non Free Content policy, if you want. That should remove any concerns relating to the protection, and as I am uninvolved, I believe that qualifies as neutral. Nick (talk) 19:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

the current version that was my last edit is in compliance with WP:NFCC so it should be in that current version Ctjf83 ^talk 19:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

wrong, your version is not compliant. β^_command 19:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Beta, do you realize that you could have prevented ALL of this by just citing and linking to actual Wikipedia policy and not someone's userpage? - NeutralHomer ^T:C 19:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Neutralhomer stop trolling, and READ what I linked to, it is a summary of discussions on this topic. β^_command 19:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

(ecx2) There's nothing in WP:NFC that says FU images are point-blank prohibited in lists (but they, 99% of the time, fail criterion 8). In the case at hand, I would say that the removal of the images was right, however, I feel an adequate claim for fair use can easily be made for and only for Blinky. Will ^(talk) 19:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

again, nothing at WP:PP says anything about that, it says current version but whatever, this is a useless argument Ctjf83 ^talk 19:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Beta...One, I am not trolling....two, don't tell me what to do.....three, unless it is [[WP:insert link here]] it ain't official Wikipedia policy and a userpage ain't official Wikipedia policy and Four....I'm done. You are just pissed that someone is about to put your and your crap of a bot out of business so you are taking it out on a user and wanting to start an arguement. - NeutralHomer ^T:C 19:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:FUEXPLAIN. I dont want an argument just to enforce policy. β^_command 20:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Point of Information: WP:FUEXPLAIN is an essay, not policy.--CastAStone/^/(talk) 20:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

"again, nothing at WP:PP says anything about that, it says current version but whatever, this is a useless argument"... "Point of Information: WP:FUEXPLAIN is an essay, not policy." You seem to be operating under the mistaken presumption that something called "policy" actually exists. Policy is not prescriptive, rather it is descriptive of what is done in general cases; arguments for a particular action are justified on their merits, not by whoever throws out the most WP:EIEIOs. Many editors seem to misunderstand this and insist that good actions are not so because "policy doesn't justify it," instead of realizing that all it does is describe prior solutions. At the end of the day, a tailored solution is what's called for, and the right call was made here. east.718 at 20:14, December 20, 2007

All it was was a point of information. It was and is true. It wasn't and isn't an endorsement of either side.--CastAStone/^/(talk) 20:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

E-mail blocks 100% of the time?

Admins should only be blocking with e-mail disabled when there is evidence of e-mail abuse, correct? I'm still seeing the occasional admin who disables e-mail with each and every block. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:37, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably, though the reason may be tied to the sockpuppeteer account in cases where an admin blocks a sockpuppet, so it may not be immediately clear on first inspection. I'm not sure we have any official policy on this, mind you, and remember that blocked users can still email the unblock-en-l list even with email disabled. For the record, virtually none of my blocks are with email disabled. --Yamla (talk) 19:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it would make sense in that case. But the examples I'm seeing is where an admin is making random vandalism blocks (WP:AIV patrol), username blocks, etc., all disable e-mails. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Hard to comment specifically without seeing specific cases, but I tend to agree it should generally be rare. I've probably only set it a handful of times. Yamla's got a point about blocking sockpuppets, although in cases where we block wrongly that locks out a few avenues of appeal. Probably the largest question: should email blocking be pre-emptive? – Luna Santin (talk) 20:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I do it occationally, especially if the user is severely harrassing or something Secret ^account 21:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Pre-emptive? No. I've blocked a fair few editors and email abuse hasn't been a problem, but maybe I've been lucky so far. It's just as easy to block an address on the email end though. Some examples might help, or, better still, take it up with the admins on a one-on-one basis? --Stephen 23:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Expired Blocks

According to WP:BU, the longstanding blocks/bans for His excellency (talk · contribs · logs · block log) and Lir (talk · contribs · logs · block log) have expired, and the block logs show they have not been renewed. This is a notice, not an endorsement of renewal.--CastAStone/^/(talk) 19:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Missing featured pictures

I've just found Image:San Francisco in ruin edit2.jpg, that has in the past been promoted to FP, but has been forgotten/page deleted. What should the procedures be? is it still FP, or isn't it (i.e. would a renom be required)? Is there more FP that has been "removed" from the face of WP? _→AzaToth 20:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Appropriate FP templates re-added. Just being bold... —Kurykh 20:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted as a exact duplicate of an image on commons, and the image IS on commons. Nots ure wether it stays on the english WP as a FP after being moved. Viridae^Talk 23:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It does. en-specific stuff like that is a valid reason to have an image description page here for an image that is on commons. Deleting admin should have undeleted the IDP (and trimmed out the licensing stuff etc that belongs on the commons IDP) —Random832 03:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I need a second pair of eyes on a deleted page

Resolved

 – —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Please have a look at Wikipedia:Matchmaker, created by Coleharrisjohnson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). It's basically a request for pictures and personal information. It's probably just a misguided attempt to contribute by a new editor, but it could be something more nefarious. I briefly considered a block, but I thought that might be an overreaction, so I wanted to get some opinions here. I've deleted the page and left a level 3 page creation warning on the user's talkpage. --Bongwarrior (talk) 23:07, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

His deleted contributions don't show anything constructive. One more bit of nonsense would probably result in a long block. --Stephen 23:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we should be talking about long blocks if we haven't made the attempt to adequately explain how the edits have been disruptive. I'll review the edits and try to come up with a personal message to post to the user talk page.-Andrew c ^[talk] 23:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Defender 911

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to bring to your attention User:Defender 911.

At one point, Defender was an alright editor. However, he was blocked indefinitely in August for severe harassment and for disrespecting a fellow user's right to vanish. It was a widely endorsed block, and since no administrator was willing to overturn the block, he was banned.

Now, recently, he has requested for unblock, however it was declined. What I'm suggesting the community consider is something that I know may cause some amount of drama, but please understand that this is out of good faith.

I am suggesting we unblock Defender 911.

This is not going to be easy for the community to do. There was very serious disruption caused by this user, and it stemmed from disrespecting an editors right to vanish. However, what I suggest is that we keep a close eye on Defender, and place him on civility probation. Yes, I know this would be a tough unblock, but I'm certain if he really has reformed, he can be an asset once more.

After all, we all lose sight once in awhile. :) Maser ^(Talk!) 06:31, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I can't find where this block was "widely endorsed." I've looked through the WP:AN and WP:AN/I archives and I only found one spot where the indef block was even mentioned in passing. -- Kendrick7^talk 16:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, the decision to turn the block into a ban after two hours[55] was decided by someone who had been editing wikipedia for three weeks, and quit the project a week later.[56] - Kendrick7^talk 17:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, they'd been editing for a while using another account. Daniel 01:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I strongly, strongly oppose Defender 911 being unblocked or unbanned. His actions just prior to his banning showed a serious inability to use common sense, showed how this user could be extremely malicious and a danger to good-faithed Wikipedia editors (in the interests of privacy for those involved I can obviously not provide details), a total disregard for established users' warnings both about his userspace editing and his harassment of other editors, and a general inability to be involved in a community environment without causing excessive disturbance. Sorry, but I don't want Defender 911 to be editing Wikipedia ny time soon, both to protect users who are far more valuable than him from his harassment and also to prevent other, less noticeable yet just as effective disruption. I strongly oppose unbanning. Daniel 06:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Could we have some diffs of the example behavior which caused the ban in the first place? It's unusual for someone to be banned on first offense, as it appears so here. The Evil Spartan (talk) 06:52, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

From my understanding many have been oversighted. It would be inappropriate to rehost the harassment that resulted in the block, really. For some more tame stuff see the recent contributions (the last 100) — although, it must be said, that is only the tip of the iceberg and the end of the whole story. Furthermore, it was hardly the users' "first offence" — Defender 911 had so many warnings, so many conditional no-blocks (for a small selection see the last version of the user talk page before the block). Daniel 06:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

No. Absolutely not. --B (talk) 06:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

No. Just no. east.718 at 07:48, December 16, 2007

I don't see any reason he'd repeat the same mistake again. Since this was this user's first block, four months seems sufficient. He seems to have been helpful to the project -- received a number of barnstars, etc. Blocks are not punitive, remember? -- Kendrick7^talk 08:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to support an unblock as well. Unless there is some more clarity as to what exactly occurred, it is difficult to figure out the extent of his disruption. At the very least, some details from the admins who were directly involved would help. How about a temporary unblock to allow him to come here and discuss the issue? Anything more and it'll be clear to everyone. Would that help? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:54, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The extent of his harassment isn't evidenct from the contributions given the oversighting of certain edits. It is my personal opinion that this block should remain in place, both temporary and in the future, for the protection of all Wikipedians. However, as always, I bow to consensus. (He is free to paste messages on his user talk page to be copied here, as I noted in this message to him earlier.) Daniel 10:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Upon discussion, I think I better see the gravity of the situation and support the views of those who were primarily involved in the situation, and support continuing the block. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and asked for feedback at WT:OVER as to the extend of the oversighting here, just for the community record. -- Kendrick7^talk 11:18, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand that some of you might not want me unblocked, but all I wanted to do was help H. I did not expect a four-month block and the deletion of most of my user page space. I understand now that my disruption was wrong, and I hope that I can be reaccepted into the community. --Defender 911 (Leave a message!) 15:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

(This comment was copied from here by me) henrik•talk 16:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Barnstars notwithstanding, I just don't know if this editor is worth the hassle. Looking at his contributions, it's hard to see that he understands we're here to build an encyclopedia. Out of 1159 non-deleted contributions, only 92 are to mainspace (a shade less than 8%) and most of those are minor (at least, they ought to be flagged as such). The majority of his contributions (more than two thirds) are to user talk and his user page. His contributions in Wikipedia namespace fall largely into two categories: edits to games in the Sandbox, and attempts to create extensive new Esperanza- and CVU-type organizations: [57]. (His deleted edits are largely to these sorts of projects and userspace amusement as well.)

While I think it's fairly likely that he's always only been trying to help, his over-the-top behaviour has done more harm than good. His bull-in-a-china-shop approach to 'helping out' an editor who had left due to harrassment showed terrible judgement, and is unfortunately consistent with Defender's approach to Wikipedia. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I just find it remarkable he received two three barnstars in the 72 hours before his block alone. I've never seen a user go from hero to zero in such record time. Perhaps he managed to make enemies just as quickly as he made friends. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

This guy was a checkuser-confirmed sockpuppeteer, too. TheWikiLoner (talk · contribs) Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 18:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you link to the WP:RFCU thread? -- Kendrick7^talk 19:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Nope, that one was done privately via IRC. You'll either have to take my word for it (easiest course), get another checkuser to go through the CU logs, or take Dmcdevit's word for it (I think it was him). Really, I wouldn't tell such an obviously disprovable lie. Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 19:29, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Guy's response to Wikiloner's unblock request casts doubt on all this, though I understand he may have only been speaking off the cuff. But since it appears the ban was out of process to begin with, since no one can point to where consensus was reached, he seems only stand accused of operating a sockpuppet of a blocked user, a somewhat less serious, and perhaps forgivable, offense. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:46, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Out of process? A person is community banned if they are indefinitely blocked and no admin is willing to unblock them. That is the process. I seriously doubt any admin is going to be willing to reverse this one. --B (talk) 01:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

and the block has received due consideration by the community per WP:BAN. That's the missing ingredient. -- Kendrick7^talk 02:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems to have received due considering here in this thread, whether or not it may have been discussed before. (Has anybody checked the WP:CSN archives?) A variety of administrators with first hand knowledge have supported the block, and none have stepped forward to recommend unblocking. - Jehochman ^Talk 02:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

If it was discussed before, it wasn't discussed on anywhere in WP: space (what links here from WP to Defender 911). I don't know how relevant that is, though - if no admin is willing to unblock, the level of discussion is moot. Defender is, of course, welcome to make a request for arbitration and appeal his ban that way. --B (talk) 03:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that, if he wants to edit once more, he should bring it to ArbCom. I came here with good faith intentions for a user who behaved horribly, to try to suggest an unblock for someone who I wanted to give a second chance to, because I think everybody deserves a second chance; however, a consensus has to be built before we can do anything. It is clear the consensus is not to unblock at this time. Maser ^(Talk!) 03:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

My response to thewikiloner should not be taken as an indication of doubt cast on the CheckUser evidence, only as a statement that there was more tha one problem with that user, and addressing one problem would not fix the other. Guy (Help!) 17:14, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I think this user treated Wikipedia as a social site. See this and this. I rarely see any mainspace contributions. I agree with the support to not unblockban this user. Miranda 03:29, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with the rejection of the unblock request. I think if he wants to be able to edit again, he needs to talk to ArbCom. Considering his disruption with trying to contact a user who was harassed off of Wikipedia, EVEN after being told that the person was aware of his desire and did not desire to initiate conversation.. not good. SirFozzie (talk) 05:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

But still, the attempt to contact such user seems to have been in good faith ([...]I'm sure your efforts to track this editor down are well-intentioned[...] and I don't doubt your intentions[...]); though he committed the mistake of not stopping when told, several times, I'm confident he'll be more careful in the future. ♠TomasBat 14:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this isn't a situation where even a "one strike and you're out" probation would be appropriate. Given the circumstances that forced H's departure, I can't support an unblock in good conscience. We learned the hard way a few months back what happens when we don't take violations of our colleagues' privacy seriously enough. As to whether a discussion was needed, it seems to me that ever since H was harassed off of Wikipedia, it's been well established that if you invade another Wikipedian's privacy, you're banned--do not pass Go, do not collect $200. I wouldn't object to taking it to ArbCom, though--but given the circumstances, I think it would have to be held in camera. Blueboy96 14:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• See the edit counts. This editor has fewer than 100 mainspace contributions, and appears to have played a significant part in driving away user:H. Wariness is appropriate. Guy (Help!) 17:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Saying he "played a significant part in driving away H" doesn't seem like a justified statement given that his apparent involvement in that affair took place after that user had already left, and consisted of foolish, but apparently not malicious, attempts to contact him unwantedly. The fact that he got indefinitely banned for that, and is still being treated as an unperson months later, is just a sign of the punitive vindictiveness some on Wikipedia show toward anybody who stumbled onto their raw nerves. *Dan T.* (talk) 17:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

It turns out Daniel's claim was incorrect; there doesn't seem to be any relevant oversighting of this user's contributions, per WT:OVER#Oversighting of User:Defender 911's edits on 11 August. So there's no excuse not to be able to provide diffs here, even though they may be deleted ones from his user subpages, etc. I'd prefer someone just give this user another bite at the apple here, given he's sat out four months and we should WP:AGF that he won't inquire after user "h" again, and considering the very backroom way the quote-unquote ban was handled in the first place. However, if there's a pressing need to take up ArbCom's time on this, this user has been more than patient thus far. -- Kendrick7^talk 17:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm strongly opposed to the unbanning of Defender 911, perhaps even to the point of reblocking if a ban is enacted. This sort of behavior is unacceptable. He was given many second chances, and he was warned many times, by many people, to stop. Sean William @ 18:10, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, can you provide diffs? -- Kendrick7^talk 18:13, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

No. I agree with the consensus to keep the ban for now, indef. Sorry, but this is reckless, as we know of a substantial risk that the offending user will only abuse us again. Bearian (talk) 18:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

To try to bring a bit more sense and a bit less rush-to-judgment to this, the user in question was not the one who harassed User:H off Wikipedia; some above commentators seem to be acting like he was. Rather, this user made some attempts to get in touch with H after he had departed. These attempts were done for some reason likely fully known only to himself, supposedly for the purpose of helping H; however, this "help" was clearly unwanted, and the attempts to make this contact were pursued in an obsessive-compulsive way that got on many people's nerves. He even bit me on my talk page for noting the obsessive-compulsiveness of it at the time, so he's hardly a friend of mine. However, I'm against unfair vindictiveness being committed against anybody. This user seems to be one who did a silly thing a few months ago, not a serial harasser as he's being portrayed. *Dan T.* (talk) 18:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Ehh - can we make criticism etc without delving into diagnoses of psychiatric disorders? I'm sure few of us are qualified to make that call, and speaking as a sufferer of (mild) OCD myself... I don't think that was Defender's problem. We just got trolled, and we dealt with it as we should have. I see no valid reason to overturn this ban. ~ Riana ⁂ 19:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Once the nomenklatura of Wikipedia decides somebody's a troll or a harasser, there seems to be no way out. *Dan T.* (talk) 19:52, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Mm, putting it on AN does indeed restrict discussion to a very small subunit of the community. Sitenotice next time, please. Seriously - some people have opposed the ban and some people have endorsed it. Enough with the tin-foil crap, y'all. ~ Riana ⁂ 20:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

All he seems to have done is asked a few users discreetly on their talk pages if they knew how to contact User:H; I don't consider that "trolling" as you've labeled it or "massive disruption" as it was called by the blocking admin, and in any case he's promised not to do that anymore. Is there any actual trolling you'd like to point out? -- Kendrick7^talk 20:58, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I second Riana here. As another sufferer of (pretty bad) OCD, I point out that there is a difference between obsessively stalking somebody and having OCD. Furthermore, it's really not an excuse for disruptive behavior. Anthøny 18:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not just the fact that he persisted violating a user's privacy - it's actually because of the comments he left on user talk pages. This comment on the talk page of WJBscribe is the type of thing that got him blocked. Maser ^(Talk!) 19:54, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, I know now that Wikipedia is no community; it runs itself like a corporation. Wikipedia's only goals are for itself, with no regard for the people who contribute to it. The administrators here are no better than I was four months ago, and, to be honest, I don't even think I caused enough disruption for a ban this long. The sysops I've met are the most hateful, disrespectful, power-hungry, unforgiving people I've ever met - and I've hardly met them! They have a stunning incapacity to experience forgiveness, but an equally stunning capacity for injustise, surplus punishment, and distrust. Don't take this as a personal attack, because this is exactly how I've felt for four months!!! I ought to leave Wikipedia; I'm not wanted here. Respond if you want; it hardly matters by now. --Defender 911 (Leave a message!) 20:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Status of ban

Since the current working definition of a community ban is an indefinite block where no admin is willing to unblock, and admins here are willing to unblock, Defender is therefore not community banned, and I have removed him or her from Wikipedia:List of banned users. I would humbly request that anyone interested please comment on the future definition of community bans at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Community Bans. Mahalo. --Ali'i 21:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Who is willing to unblock? Sean William @ 21:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any administrators willing to unblock:

• Opposing unblocking (or not willing to unblock):

1. Daniel (administrator)
2. B (administrator)
3. east718 (administrator)
4. Ricky81682 (administrator)
5. TenOfAllTrades (administrator)
6. Miranda
7. SirFozzie (administrator)
8. JzG (administrator)
9. Sean William (administrator)
10. Bearian (administrator)
11. Riana (administrator emerita)
12. Raymond arritt (administrator)

• Promoting unblocking:

1. Maser (not an administrator)
2. Kendrick7 (not an administrator)
3. TomasBat (not an administrator)
4. Dtobias (not an administrator)
5. Blueboy96 (not an administrator)

I can't see the administrator willing to unblock that Ali'i mentions above. I see about a dozen administrators supporting a ban, but most importantly, no administrator promoting unbanning. That's a textbook ban. Daniel 01:54, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

If I were an admin, I would not unblock without community consent. I just wanted to see what the community thought, as I was willing to assume good faith. I think AGF is one of the greatest things an administrator can have, but mmore important is respecting consensus. Maser ^(Talk!) 03:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

And after reading this discussion, I am beginning to change my mind. Maser ^(Talk!) 03:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

(response to first post) The section is titled "[p]romoting unblocking" for that exact reason :) Daniel 03:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

True. And there are very, very convincing arguments that Defender shouldn't be unblocked due to the disruption he caused. Those who do not understand whether or not he was banned, please see Wikipedia:Banning policy#Community ban. It states that when a user is blocked, and no administrator is willing to unblock, that user is banned. There was plenty of considertion from the community, and Defender was blocked indef for harassment and disrespect of WP:RTV. No administrator is willing to unblock, and regardless of whether or not it was discussed, nobody really wanted him back. That is a de-facto ban, no matter how anybody slices it.

My intent was to see if he can become a constructive editor - he certainly has the potential to be one IMO. However, he has been disruptive to the point where the community considered oversighting some of his contributions. And after a close look at his last contributions before he was blocked, he looks to be far too willing to climb the reichstag dressed as Spiderman to prove his point. However, I don't think he'll do what he did again - at least, I HOPE not. Maser ^(Talk!) 06:09, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I haven't seen any convince arguments, and instead have been stonewalled when requesting diffs. Again, I hope you understand that there was no community discussion before this thread was begun, four months after the fact, which began with the false claims that he was already banned and that his edits had been oversighted. De-facto bans shouldn't be occurring in Wikipedia's back alleys, and when they are finally brought into the light for the communities assessment, evidence should be provided upon request. The community never considered oversighting any of his contributions; again, where are the diffs to support this assertion? -- Kendrick7^talk 21:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

My apologies for this section. I read Riana's post above stating that "some people oppose the ban", and construed it to mean that there were administrators who did. E kala mai. --Ali'i 14:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Blueboy's suggestion

I supported an indefblock since it was initially thought Defender made some edits that required oversight in this matter. But since there weren't any, I don't think an indefinite block is appropriate. That being said, however, we're still left with someone who made repeated attempts to contact a user who expressed a desire not to be contacted. I really don't think we should allow someone back right away under those circumstances.

With that being said, since he has apologized, I propose this: cut the indefinite block down to six nine months, and allow him back in April--but with the proviso that he can be rebanned with the consensus of any three admins if he steps out of line again. Does this sound reasonable? Blueboy96 21:05, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the part about leaving this up to any three admins. The problem with the current "ban" is it never went through any community vetting, which seems to me all the more reason to go through the proper routine next time around. At this point, a simple notification here at WP:AN would probably result in a WP:SNOW in favor of a ban anyway if he engages in any future dubious behavior in the near future, so I realize it's only a formality, but it's what's right. Of course, all his block history could be brought to bear in any such discussion. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

What I'm proposing here is basically a community probation ... but Kendrick does make a good point. It's obvious that this would be his absolute last chance. So strike out the idea of just a three-admin consensus, and simply note that if he steps out of line again, a simple note either here or ANI, he's done. Blueboy96 21:54, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify my proposal ... cut the current block to a nine-month ban, allowing him to come back in April. If he steps out of line again once he returns, he'll be subject to an indefinite community ban. Blueboy96 21:58, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Indefinite probation seems poorly conceived. He made one mistake, which only looks worse because he made the correct choice of discretion in a sensitive matter, and it is a mistake which, apparently after much thought, he has promised not to repeat, and many at the time even said he made that mistake with the best of intentions. I'd make the block retroactive to four months, starting from September 15th when he was caught attempting to evade his ban. I can't see at this point, since everyone just makes wild assertions and then clams up when asked for diffs, that he'd get a much different deal from ArbCom, whose time I'm disinclined to waste on this matter, but I would file a case on this user's behalf, and I believe they'd accept if only to clarify some of the irregularities involved here. If there are future problems, just handle them like this problem should have been handled in the first place, according to our policies, etc. No reason to insist this editor have to look over their shoulder for the next 40+ years because of one incident of poor judgment. -- Kendrick7^talk 23:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

No adminsitrator seems willing to unblock, hence the user is banned. Take this to the Arbitration Committee, because you aren't getting any change here. Daniel 01:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Those calling to unblock might have a point if we were dealing with an excellent contributor who made a single goof. But we're dealing with a very marginal contributor who engaged in persistent behavior that compromised an individual's privacy. The ratio of expected benefits to possible costs is unacceptable. No unblock. No way. Raymond Arritt (talk) 02:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Aside from the relative marginality of his contributions, those statements are way overblown. His "persistent behavior" lasted just a few hours, and consisted of asking for information (so any privacy violation would have been committed by anybody who responded, not by him; and nobody did respond with any privacy violations). A permanent ban is vastly overblown, and reflects the harsh, unforgiving culture that has unfortunately developed here lately. I don't particularly like the guy (one of his last actions before getting blocked was to snap at me on my user page), and I think what he did was silly, but I'm also for showing a logical sense of proportion. *Dan T.* (talk) 03:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

"Those calling to unblock might have a point if we were dealing with an excellent contributor" wow, that's kind of messed up to say. It's also a bit disturbing that no one is providing any diffs here, or evidenced of prolonged bad behavior. What happened to blocking being seen as a last step? If he gets out of line again, even just a little, block him again, but don't pretend like unblocking him is such a horrible idea. -- Ned Scott 09:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Did some more digging. -- Ned Scott 09:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I just want to stress once again that User:Defender 911, as all blocked and banned users, can appeal his ban to the arbitration committee by e-mailing any of the arbitrators or clerks. -- lucasbfr ^talk 11:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I must confess, my position isn't too far off from those who say he should stay in the Wikibrig forever. You can't get around the fact that Defender tried to contact H several times after H apparently expressed that he didn't want to be contacted. That's a very serious matter--one which for me precludes reducing the ban to time served (as Kendrick and Dan T. seem to be suggesting). But at the same time, he's publicly apologized to the community for his actions ... something which is far, far more than I've seen. Which is why I say yes, he should stay blocked--but not indef. So my question to those who want him to stay indef'd--why not cut it down to a nine-month or one-year ban? After all, it seems pretty obvious that there are at least 12 admins who would be falling all over themselves to grab the banhammer if he slipped up again. I'm willing to change my mind if I see something that convinces me that indef is the way to go here, though--but unless something was oversighted, nine months to a year is appropriate for his misbehavior. Blueboy96 13:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Also should note that I've done some digging, and it seems we've given at least one "Last Chance" for an offense more egregious than this. This is what I'm proposing ... let the block stay until either April or September, than let him come back and if he slips up again, he's a goner. It should be noted that in the example I cited, Rbj wasn't forced to cool his heels for a few months before being unblocked, as I am proposing should happen with Defender. Blueboy96 13:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I recently had a chance to look at Defender 911's contribs ... and there is a fairly large gap between his last publicly viewable contribs between 8:39 pm on August 10 and 6:31 am on August 11. The latter time is after he was blocked--and the Oversight people say that there was a large number of contributions on or about the 11th that were deleted. Having put two and two together, I must regretfully withdraw my proposal and endorse the ban. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueboy96 (talk • contribs) 14:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean the deleted contributions, or oversighted ones (since Kirill seemed to believe there were no oversighted contribs)? To be precise, I see angry edits and this MfDed page (link to the MfD for non admins), both being ill advised (perhaps because of his age?), but not much warranting a ban... What am I missing? In the current state I'd say either unblock him now or don't do it, but I see no good in making him sit on the bench for 6 months. -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

There are no regular deleted contributions during that timeframe. Call me crazy, but I would bet there's at least a decent chance he was asleep for a good chunk of the time between 8:39 pm and 6:31 am. ;) It's possible that Daniel was simply mistaken about edits being oversighted and was confusing it with another case or thought some of the social networking pages that were simply deleted had in fact been oversighted. --B (talk) 18:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

That was my impression, that he fell asleep and woke up to being banned, with no delay, no opportunity for discussion in the community, nor any evidence, etc. being presented to the community, or even an opportunity to appeal to the community since bans can only be appealed directly to ArbCom (and no one bothered to tell him that either, I gather). I wouldn't want that to happen to me. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I hope I'm not seen as flip-flopping here, but if there wasn't anything that merited his contributions being deleted, I don't see any harm in allowing him back sometime between April and September. I just want to do what's fair to everyone here. Like I said, considering the fact he engaged in conduct bordering on stalking and that he operated a sock, immediate unblocking really isn't appropriate in this case. Blueboy96 21:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Let me clarify for the non-admins in the audience that Defender 911 has numerous deleted contributions, including many in and around the suggested time frame. Mackensen (talk) 00:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's not forget that if the person behind the account Defender 911 has reformed and wants to make constructive edits to the encyclopedia, they can do so with a new account. Quite frankly, with the history behind this account, and the number of admins that would be hovering and waiting to block, this is what I'd recommend. Obviously, if the new account engages in the same sort of behaviour, it will similarly get blocked and maybe banned. And before anyone gets upset and says I'm promoting block evasion, note the reformed and constructive qualifiers. Having said that, I think the block was tweaked to enable autoblock, but I think, from reading Wikipedia:Autoblock (that's a page I'm glad I've never read before), that this always expires after 24 hours. Carcharoth (talk) 00:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I have a few things to say; firstly Carcharoth, I think your AGF is, without meaning to sound like I'm thanking someone who supports my cause, commendable. Secondly, the new start thing is extended to all but banned users, and he'd be blocked if he is found to have evaded his block/ban. Which is why I'm suggesting he gets unbanned. I honestly think we have to understand two things: 1) Every editor is human, no matter how rude, arrogant, or disrespectful they may have once been, and 2) People do change, and it's unlikely that someone who got banned will continue the same behavior that got them banned in the first place. That's my reasoning behind this discussion - one last chance to someone who lost sight of what is important. Maser ^(Talk!) 06:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Technically that is not quite true. If someone got banned under a pseudonym and started editing Wikipedia 10 years later (or even a few months later) from a different city, maybe even a different country (ie. different IP addresses), under a different account, and never mentioned their past account, then there would be no way to tie the two accounts together. Even banned editors can vanish (not m:vanish, which is a permanent departure) and reappear. The crux of the matter is the behaviour of the new account (civility, interactions, articles edited) and the lack of connection between them and previous accounts. It is sometimes possible to do deep and complex investigations, but if the new account is editing productively then there is little point. Equally, even the most productive and seemingly civil account always has a shred of doubt attached until due diligence has been done (the phrase Jimbo is using about checking the latest arbitrators) and commitment has been demonstrated. Something like actually attending a wiki-meetup, stating who you are in real life, or at least letting certain people know these things - until that happens, there is always a smidgen (or more) of doubt. I've been editing since January 2005, but (like many others) I've never shown the slightest interest in saying who I am in real life, though there are clues for location and suchlike. The point is that I could be someone who was banned before 2005. I'm not, but as long as I edit under a pseudonym, there is no way to be sure. That is why people say to respond to the edit, not the editor. Though that oversimplifies things somewhat. You often see people saying that they gave up an old account for various reasons, often as part of explaining why they seem to know their way around Wikipedia. This sort of thing obviously shouldn't be overdone, and I agree that getting unblocked is a better way to do things, but if someone feels that they've been unjustly blocked or that too much mud has been flung around and is sticking, then a new account is an option. There is probably an essay about "the right to start over with a fresh account", and when it is and isn't acceptable. Does anyone know of an essay like that? I also seem to remember some banned users being allowed to start with a new account without the knowledge of the community as long as an arbitrator has been notified and can monitor them. That applies more to arbitration committee banned users, but how would that work for community-banned editors? Carcharoth (talk) 12:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not arguing against the possibility of his return under a new account. It violates WP:BAN, but I honestly think you're right. People do change, and I'm sure Defender 911 can, and I have a feeling will, if we give it time. If he evades his ban, but helps Wikipedia in a substantial way while doing so, I commend him as the editor he'd become, not the editor he was. WP:AGF forever. Maser ^(Talk!) 03:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

In any case, this has moved on to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Defender 911. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)