Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive52

Table of maintenance tasks and who does them?

Anyone know if there's a more or less complete list of maintenance activities anywhere and who does them? Seems like there could be a table with daily/weekly things that need to get done with a list of folks (or bots) who do them. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I've started a list at Wikipedia:Maintenance/tasklist. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Undeletion of article "Jason Soroski"

Jason Soroski is a regional artist in Southeast Texas, and I was approached to enter an article about him, as he is growing in interest here lately. When I heard the article no longer existed, and verifyid it myself, I was a bit confused. He is not a "national" act, but does deserve recognition to the local scene in Texas and Missouri. I am unaware as to whether anyone else edited the page but myself. Please let me know if this article can be restored. Thank you.

Arthur Kransboldt kransboldt@yahoo.com

From the deletion log, the article was deleted by user:Mushroom because it did not assert the signficance of the subject. To get it undeleted, please see Wikipedia:Undeletion policy (it might be best to talk to user:Mushroom about it first). -- Rick Block (talk) 03:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Who "approached" you, and why was it you that was approached? Is this some PR campaign? Could you please review WP:BIO to see if the subject meets our guidelines? User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Yaihr (talk · contribs)

How should I deal with this user? They're new, but they refuse to respond to my questions on their talkpage, upload unsourced images, write articles of questionable notability (does a special DVD edition of an album deserve an article?) and erase my deletion tags. Someone help!--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 20:28, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

External links - buy.at

For info, User:88.107.111.55 altered the external links on 13 articles about companies/products in order to introduce links which earn a revenue via users.buy.at. I have reverted all the edits before this post, but having not seen or heard of this before I thought it might be worth flagging up. Ian3055 22:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I burned the links out O2 plc or 3 (telecommunications) by User:87.113.12.67 and User:87.114.10.152. I asked and mindspillage said he blacklisted .at/aaoffers, which is the common spam set for them. Spam of that nature is particularlly nasty because they're replacing real, legitimate links, with spam links without altering the link description, so that 'official site' links go to spam sites rather than the real ones. As for the IPs themselves, they're dynamic and the spammer is probably on a different IP by now. I have some doubts about an admin blocking it, as its a dynamic IP, and spam bots come and go, but at least some more spam has been flushed down the hole where it belongs. Kevin_b_er 03:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Editing by corporate IP

Would you be able to investigate the editing of the Turnbull & Asser web page by the ip user 80.168.52.51 which according to this site belongs to Turnbull & Asser. You will find a number of contributions to the article here. As you will notice these are severely POV and you can understand why I went and did a WHOIS search. Thanks for any assistance you can muster. MyNameIsNotBob 23:11, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• You realize we're not exactly shy about doing WHOIS searches, I mean we have a template that does actually does them for you--172.131.172.185 23:17, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do realise this, but am wondering whether there is a place where this information should be made public - not every WHOIS search directs to corporate IPs muddling with information. MyNameIsNotBob 23:38, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I tend to tag IP editor's talk pages with the information from a $whois [IP ADDRESS] using a template I created {{ispinfo}}. To use the template you just type in {{subst:ispinfo|COPIED AND PASTED WHOIS INFO}} and that way editors can quickly glance at the talk page to see if a pattern corresponding to the ISP of the IP user and their edits is evident. I've just tagged this IPs talk page using it. (→Netscott) 00:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

For that matter, there are WHOIS links at the bottom of every IP talkpage anyway. ~Kylu (u|t) 02:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

User:WillC

For the page of Job (professional wrestling), I made a discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Professional wrestling over a disputed section in the List of jobbers heading. User:WillC has been adamant that because his edits are valid, that they should be kept, when there are users against his inclusions (including RobJ1981, who made an edit that WillC reverted, which I reverted back, as it was valid). WillC put two messages on my talk page, quoted, “removing true information is not a valid edit.” And “STOP REVERTING MY EDITS FOR NO REASON; YOU ARE REMOVING TRUTHFUL, USEFUL INFORMATION.” And put a message on the wikiproject page saying “Burgerworldz: stop deleting information on the jobber page; you are deleting truthful information; stop this stupid revert war. i will contact an administrator. you at least need to justify your reverts with a valid explanation”. He has also put other inflammatory info about me on the talk page at the wikiproject, and has also included in his edit summaries: “don't edit comments i have left, violator” and “burgwerworldz is deleting/editing comments i have made on this page; he has no right or authority to do so. GROW UP!”, which are in violation of WP:CIVIL. I’ve seen a long range of disruptive behavior on the part of WillC, including several bans, and I think another short ban should be considered to avoid disruption of the issue we are trying to remedy at Wikiproject Professional wrestling. Burgwerworldz 23:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Dispute resolution is → Over there. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

MascotGuy alert

He seems to be at it heavy today. I've added 3 to the long term alerts page we have on him. So be on the lookout. And if you block any of his socks, be sure to list them on the long term alert page. --Woohookitty^(meow) 01:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Adding future tags

Hello, hope this is the right place to post this. There is a user adding future tags to just about everything that may have something ever happen again with the subject. I don't know what to tell him or if it is appropriated. I reverted him twice before I saw he did/is doing it a lot. What should be done? Here are the user's contributions. The user is User:Aafm. Thanks, Newnam^(talk) 04:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The template he's adding is {{Future spaceflight}} and the selection of articles he's adding it to looks just fine to me. All it shows is this:

This article or section contains information regarding current or future spaceflight. Due to the nature of the content, details may change dramatically as the launch date approaches and more information becomes available. Delays are also common as launches are sometimes cancelled.

Can you be more specific about what aspect of this you object to? Reswobslc 04:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the response. I was concerned with the addition of the tag to all of the space shuttles and space agencies. It can be a little misleading to have the tag on a shuttle that is not currently on or will soon be on a mission. With the space agencies, if the tag is needed now, then it will always be needed (until the agency goes defunct), and therefore, IMO, isn't appropriate because the "future" aspect of the subject is integral enough to the subject to not have an alert at the top of the page. Each space shuttle will have a time when it speculates on a future flight, but for most of them, that time is not yet, and for that reason the tag is miseading on those pages. If I am way off-base, let me know...it just seems that the tag (as most on WP) is being overused. Sorry for the rambling, and thanks for the imput, Newnam^(talk) 05:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Have you tried discussing it with him? Perhaps he might agree with you. It is not as though he is vandalizing those pages or trying to disrupt. Reswobslc 05:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Hasty Blocking by Some Administrators

The trend to use blocks more liberally has been here for a while and, generally, I view it as a good thing. When I came here, 3RR and ArbCom was about the only source of blocks. Wikipedia changed and the policies written originally became outdated. This is all fine and understandable. Admins now issue blocks at once when the bad-faith behavior seems obvious to them or even for other less clear-cut reason. Again, I don't object to this trend. With more and more editors involved in Wikipedia, the danger of loosing potential edits became of lesser priority but the benefit from preventing the disruption outweighs the cost. However, certain blocks alarm me and I request trigger-happy admins, as well as anyone interested to calmly consider the following case-studies below. Recently, four valuable editors have received some short and medium blocks: Lysy (talk · contribs), Mikkalai (talk · contribs), Ghirlandajo (talk · contribs) and Piotrus (talk · contribs).

The first user in the list (blocked now for 8 hours) have shown some clear head and good judgement despite his having rather strong views on the issues. The other three (each of them having their own issues no doubt) are WIkipedia's Golden Contributors, true treasures of Wikipedia by the amount of the exceptional quality content they add to it on the daily basis. Take out those three and perhaps 10 more people, and Wikipedia would lose about half of its value. Since, according to WP:BLOCK the blocks of users with substantial history of valuable contributions are "always controversial", proper examination of these blocks should not be taken as an offense by the admins involved.

Let's have a quick look at these 4 block histories:

• Lysy (talk · contribs) was involved in the edit war today over Erika Steinbach article. User:Donnog reverted there 4 times but Lysy reverted three times. Lysy was assisted by user:Halibutt who reverted once, thus getting an advantage in the revert war. Lysy reported the violation to 3RR board and following which Stifle (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (status held since March 2006) blocked both for 8 hours. Lysy, now grossly offended, requests an apology and the one doesn't seem coming. Lysy is obviously aggravated. The polite warning to him would have certainly have the effect without aggravation.
• Mikkalai (talk · contribs) was involved into an edit conflict with Nixer (talk · contribs · checkuser · block user · block log · edit count) at the Bolshevik article this June (see this). Nixer has been a problem user for Wikipedia most of the time which is not an excuse for Mikka but should have be taken into account in making a decision on acting against Mikka. Also, an extremely high value of Mikka's contributions is unquestionable. Mikka was blocked at the time by Samuel Blanning (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) in status also only since March 2006. Mikka takes a block lightly and the issue is closed. Mikka's previous block, much more controversial was issued by Ronline (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), a newbie at the time. That block caused quite a stir, especially since Mikka was reverting Bonaparte (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who was abusing the articles though open proxies IPs to avoid 3RR. Many people remember that block, Mikka behaved as really and seriously offended and demanded an apology, which was never issued. I was very much afraid that we are loosing this invaluable Wikipedian. Thanks god, things cooled off and Mikka is around, one of the most valuable editors and no-nonsense admins
• Ghirlandajo (talk · contribs) was involved today in the edit conflict with Circeus (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) over the Spanish baroque, an especially fine article Ghirla wrote single handedly. A word needs to be said about Ghirla. For his contributions see his userpage. His value of one of the most knowledgeable, dedicated and prolific editor is unquestionable. At the same time, the user is often rather opinionated and, at times, even rude. His immense positive impact overall is no excuse for the occasionally short temper, which I am pointing out myself before someone comes here and starts to deflect the discussion into the civility issues. I do acknowledge them. Now, back to the issue. Following the edit conflict, and a unnecessary harsh reaction of Ghirla (which I don't condone) to the meaningless (IMO) edit of Circeus (talk · contribs), the latter places a "template:Civil" warning to Ghirla's talk. Now, this action is easy to perceive a provocation. The patronizing templates like "test", "vand", "civil" were not intended to be used to communicate to anyone but the newbies. Furious Ghirla responded by calling the template placement "trollish" and Circeus who feels offended responds with a block(!). An angry dialog ensues and more is said at WP:AN here. Judging from the reaction, several users found the block unnecessary. It is also notable that Circeus, like the admins above, is a relative newbie, who said himself on this matter "It's mostly that I haven't been doing much user-related stuff since becoming an admin, so I preferred to get some guidances". However, the natural thing to do in such case, especially if one feels like the guidance would be helpful, is posting a notification of the problem to WP:ANI. This wasn't done. Block was issued and only then the guidance was sought. Please read the entire section "Third Opinion Please" above.
• Piotrus (talk · contribs) is one of the most prolific and knowledgeable contributor to the Polish topics, also one of more neutral ones (we can only be neutral to a degree when writing about own nation). Last April he was blocked for an edit conflict at the Red Army. The conflict was obviously with a Sock, a new account that did nothing but edit warred with Piotrus and quickly ran to WP:3RR with a report. [That block was issued by William M. Connolley (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), not exactly a newbie Admin but known for being exceptionally stern in throwing blocks including the lengthy ones (I do not consider that bad per se, to the contrary, old policies with soft approach are outdated). However, the admin did not bother to check what was going on, to see that a conflicting party was an obvious sock, something he must have done when dealing with an editor like Piotrus. Also, why was a polite warning not sufficient?
• A little different case, but on the same topic. In April Bonaparte (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who though blocked, keeps returning through new open proxies and sockpuppets, produced a false report on myself alleging a 3RR violation at Uprising of Khotin. Those 4 edits he produced where not within a 24 hour time frame to begin with, of those only two were reverts, and reverts were not about the content dispute, but on the POV-tag the sock was reinserting to a well sourced article refusing to give a required by the tag explanation at talk. A detailed analysis is here but the overall issue is similar. There were plenty of red flags to give a complaint a detailed analysis (submitted by a non-use IP accountr, time stamps in complaint missing, etc) and still the analysis was not done.

I could see how nice it could feel to decide who to punish and who to spare, but getting into judging the issues requires an utmost responsible and careful approach. Studying the matter carefully instead of making a hasty decision should be a must. Yes, people are busy, but no one requires from any admin to frequently check WP:3R and WP:ANI and impose blocks on the problem users. If one doesn't have time to do it with care, better not do it. There are plenty of other admins. If one takes upon himself to enforce the rules whose misapplication is emotionally sensitive to the editors involved, he should take an extra time to study the matter. We've seen the aggravation of some very respected editors for being illegitimately blocked or chastised on the sock/troll provocation or by the conflict co-participant or otherwise inappropriately when the blocking Admin didn't care to study the matter or was too eager to exercise the powers, or lost his temper or because those powers were newfound or because they were acquired too long ago to remember about the responsibilities that come with them.

Summary. To summarize, I do not advocate any special treatment for anyone just because of his past contributions. Violators should be punished. I also do not advocate the return to softer treatment times. Blocks by judgement are necessary. However, no block should be issued in haste or when someone's own head is hot. Such a common sense rule as studying the matter, especially when the user is established enough to be sure he knew what he was doing (perhaps there were reasons), is no less necessary as before when the blocks were more rare. I submit these thoughts hoping they would help to decrease an amount of future aggravations for all of us. --Irpen 06:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to add that a day or two after posting this, Irpen was blocked himself for the first time during his long stay in Wikipedia, evidently as a punishment for Irpen's having started this thread. Another typical case of a controversial block, which should not be undertaken without proper consideration, as per blocking policy. After such a long stay in WP Irpen is getting blocked for the first time... for what?.. has he violated 3RR? nope, his edits were not even reverts, strictly speaking. He just did not care to get adminship early enough and now he will be blocked at whim. I suggest all prolific contributors on Eastern European topics should leave this project to the mercy of trolls, nationalists, rogue admins, and Polish Cabal. Amen, Ghirla ^-трёп- 07:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no WP:CABAL of administrators, Ghirla, just as there is no 'Polish cabal'. Such offensive remarks are not going to change people's opinion of you for the better, I am afraid.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Note to admins: It's a good read --mboverload@ 06:17, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. I have unblocked Lysy, but it is mostly a symbolic gesture as his block was about to expire anyway. I do not think he deserved this block anyway. In the other three cases the blocks have expired, so now we have to mend the hurt feelings of the extremely productive users. People who work more on Wikipedia then on their paid jobs see us, admins, as the people who owe them some gratitude and respect, it is worth to spend a few more minutes before taking an administrative action if we can make solve a problem in a more respectful way. It is easier say than done, obviously ( I am afraid I am guilty in a harsh 3RR block as well), but lets try. abakharev 06:45, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that many young admins are too trigger-happy and prefer to exercise their tools on those who have lots more wikiexperience than themselves, rather than focus on vandals and trolls. I believe Ronline, when blocking Mikka back in December, felt like one of those rogue referees at the World Cup, hoping to assert his authority by handing our a red card to Zidane. Too many admins think that blocking the most prolific editors around is great fun. Unfortunately, there is no working mechanism to stop their antics. And never will be, as long as lack of responsibility is in the interest of other admins. When I pointed out to these concerns following Mikka's block half a year ago, there followed WP:AAP, and that's where the matter ended, as best I know. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• I will make one comment on factual matters, that is that Lysy requested an apology on my talk page fifteen minutes ago, and this was the very first I had heard of it so could not be expected to make one by the time of this post. Stifle (talk) 21:34, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
• After consideration, I wish to observe that blocking Lysy did not serve a useful purpose and was incorrect on my behalf. However, I remain on record as saying that he revert warred. I also wish to note that Alex Bakharev neglected to consult or even notify me about unblocking Lysy. For now, though, everything is at its desired state. Stifle (talk) 21:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Since Stifle wished to mention here that I've requested an apology on his talk page late and that Alex Bakharev neglected to consult him for unblocking me, I think it should be also noted that I've suggested an apology would be desired immediately in my unblock request while Stifle apparently was busy with other edits. I've also sent him an email asking to have another look at the case. Yet Stifle had chosen to ignore both my unblock request and my email. I could not have written in his talk page as I've been blocked at the time. I had also not emailed any other admin but the one who had blocked me. Alex Bakharev's unblock was more an act of courtesy than anything else, as I had the last hour of my block time left. I believe he could not consult Stifle at that time, as he was unavailable then. All this said, I too think that everything is at its desired state now and consider this case closed. --Lysy^talk 06:50, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Your block of Lysy is only a part of the problem. Pity, there is little interest to what I wrote from others and little feedback. If others don't see the need to avoid aggravating valuable editors unnecessarily by acting hastily and enjoy feeling great by deciding whom to spare and whom to punish without due care, we will be loosing editors that we could have kept. So be it if others don't see the problem caused by simply lack of due diligence in disposing of admin duties that has so sensitive consequence. --Irpen 04:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, come on, you found a wrong page to raise the issue. Do you seriously think that any admin will discuss the problem of admin's responsibility? Don't be naive. Rogue admins block content creators because they know that no punishment or investigation will ensue. As I said many times, there is no such thing as admin's responsibility in this project. No defrocking procedures, nothing at all. It's clear from the above summary that admins, who were given tools to counter vandals and trolls, increasingly turn them towards some of the most prolific content creators, while the others either connive or don't care. As all the above blocks are clearly in violation of the Blocking policy (see "Controversial blocks" section), they not only expose the ignorance of blocking admins in WP guidelines but also should be subjected to a detailed scrutiny in separate RfCs, not here. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

My comment is that while I agree that administrators should be careful and considerate when administering blocks, the errors or misjudgements will happen - that's understandable and expectable. I do however fully support Irpen's summary of the issue. --Lysy^talk 06:32, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Pity, there is little interest to what I wrote from others and little feedback. Maybe you were just so thorough that no-one found anything to add and so careful that no-one found anything to disagree with :) Haukur 11:46, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you can be interested in this discussion about the policy.--Pokipsy76 15:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I wish to publicly compliment Irpen for his excellent, and quite detailed analysis of the matter in his above remarks. His summary is also right on the money. For a non-Native English speaker your contributions are superb. A second reading of his remarks and some reflection on them, would do us all a lot of good. Dr. Dan 13:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Ghirla is probably right about, nothing coming of this, at least not on this page. Nevertheless, better that the idea goes "on record", at this time. Irpen, I re-translated or copyedited the title. I think this conveys your point a little better. Forgive my presumptiousness (sic), for doing so, and change it back if you think the original is better. Dr. Dan 15:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a nice summary of a problem. I probably would be harsher in describing Ghira's behaviour but then I am not objective here so I won't :) So back to the main issue: what to do? I'd suggest introducing some rule (or guideline) that when considering blocking an experienced contributor (how do we define experienced?) admin should consider warning the user instead. On the other hand, there are users who are known to completly disregard warnings, and for those, I am afraid blocking maybe the only 'shock' strong enough to make them more cooperative. Nonetheless I'd suggest that when in doubt, admin should warn the party (parties) involve, if he sees they are composed of experienced editors. Block should be the last resort, talk should always be first.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 02:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all, before even warning, double check! Maybe there is a good reason. Actually, always double check and when dealing with Piotrus, Mikka, Ghirla or alike tripple check. There is likely a reason for what you see since these users know policies. Second, do warn, unless you are crystal clear that the block is deserved. When in slightest doubt talk first and ask at WP:ANI. Third, never use admin tools or even admin clout in the edit conlict you are involved. If block of the edit conflict opponent in the conflict is warranted, use WP:ANI. --Irpen 02:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the warnings in case of 3RR violations. An experienced editor would know that he's violating the 3RR and that he should not be doing this. Certainly we can assume that an experienced editor knows the policies better than a novice does. --Lysy^talk 20:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. But what to do when user deletes warnings and his common reply to criticism is their deletion ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6])? In such a case it seems to me like blocking is the only remaining course of action, and it seems to me it had a desired effect (caused the user to rethink his position). I do hope that Ghirl returns when he has matured enough to be a civil contributor.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Lysy, exactly because experienced users usually know that they violate 3RR it is worthwhile to check that maybe there are reasons for it. For instance, they are dealing with a sock or a vandal or a sneaky vandal/sock whose account looks like a newbie's one but who apparently knows how to quickly submit a 3RR report, like the one who caused Piotrus' block or the one that caused the first Mikka's block and who managed to get myself "warned" by William who did not bother to check at that time.

Piotrus, I find your using even this very page to continue your anti-Ghirla crusade totally appalling, I am sorry. You may be happy though, since he indeed have left, at least for now. --Irpen 02:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, I think I should point out that the term like 'anti-Ghirla crusade' maybe considered a personal attack, as it creates an impression I am making remaks designed to hurt or otherwise attack Ghirla - although I am sure you didn't mean it it that way. As you have started this thread, and lumped together me, Halibutt and Mikka with Ghirla, I thought I would point out that not all cases are as similar as you make them out to be. I will not comment on my case, and I agree with your use of Halibutt and Mikka's cases to illustrate the problems with some blocks, but in case of Ghirla, I am afraid his block was long, long overdue. Still, I would much prefer the outcome that sees Ghirla educated in wikiquette and such, back here, and building encyclopedia with us then scenario involving him not being here. However, the current scenario of him being here, creating valuable content while being impolite, biting newbies, calling estabilished users trolls, engaging in revert wars and generally creating an unfriendly working atmoshere left much to be desired. Whether it is better to have an uncivil but prolific editor, or not have him at all, is a complex matter, but I think all can agree that the best outcome would be to have a civil and prolific editor. Hopefully where years of carrots and appeasment in form of talking have not worked, some ban-sticks may yet yeld that desired effect.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 06:01, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, you know I don't talk with you until you are defrocked. Your unqualified happiness at my departure is premature, as after reading all of your recent triumphant postings celebrating the successful end of your months-long anti-Ghirlandajo crusade, I may want to review my decision and to return to contributing on Polish-related topics. Take care, Ghirla ^-трёп- 07:36, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

This "threat" is exactly what I was talking about. Ghirla, I hope you come back, but I hope you will learn how to behave, too.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 14:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus and Ghirlandajo, please try to reconcile your differences. You are both valuable editors, and the English Wikipedia is best served by having both of you contribute, despite some of your differences. Under this discussion thread, please try to stay focused on the issue raised by Irpen-- hasty blocks of valuable content editors in general, which I think we all can agree is an important matter deserving serious consideration. 172 | Talk 08:15, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with 172 and could not help but point out that this exchange of spats here was started by Piotrus who carried his grudge against Ghirla even to this thread which is about a totally unrelated matter: what an admin should do when an editor like those two seems to be deserving a block.

As for the issue itself, I already suggested the answer: do block, but not without a thorough investigation, because perhaps, what may seem like a block-deserving behavior may turn out to be a legitimate dealing with a sock, vandal, troll or WP:BRD. I would like to point out that Piotrus, along with several other valuable content creators, is frequently my opponent over various article's. Many times we went through WP:BRD-type development, and when this was going on, the discussions at talk pages were intense but the articles were edited intensely too. Never did I go back to check the article's history to find out whether Piotrus or Halibutt or Balcer (or myself) produced anything that may be suitable for WP:3RR report because I would never try this on those editors and I was sure no one of the users above would try doing this to me. If, however, an uninvolved admin would have just reigned in with a bunch of blocks, instead of looking more carefully at the matter, it would have been utterly useless for the article and utterly harmful for the editors involved. --Irpen 02:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

What grudge? What spats? I agree with you almost completly, with the exception that I think Ghirla deserved his block, and you are doing yourself a disservice by using example of Ghirla, a user warned by ArbCom about his behaviour, in arguing for an otherwise worthy case which I wholeheartly support.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 02:20, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been blocked just for inquiring why I was previously blocked on Admin Nlu's discussion page. Then Nlu went back to the Administrator's noticeboard and deleted my notice of his/her violation of the 3RR rule on my discussion page. Welcome to Wikipedia. - Policeman of the Control Freak Wikipedia Admins — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcyu (talk • contribs)

This is not relevant to this thread. The three revert rule does not apply to vandalism. Werdna (talk) 08:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It is against the rules to delete a 3RR review request - if Nlu felt justified, the issue should have been addressed, not deleted. This point is relevant in that Admins have authority without having to answer to anybody, which as we all know from Stanford_prison_experiment, can be counterproductive. - Policeman of the Control Freak Wikipedia Admins

This looks to me like a content dispute spilling over onto this page. I cannot see any comments by you to either his talk page or the administrator's noticeboard for 3RR violations. Checking the deletion log, I cannot see any comments that have been "deleted" by him, either. I am therefore forced to believe that you are (a) Lying; and (b) Unjustified in using this space as a soapbox. Werdna (talk) 09:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Another example, then - I was just threatened with a block by Nlu for not using my signature on his user page - he claims it is an act of vandalism. I can find nowhere on the wiki site that not leaving your signature can be construed as an act of vandalism. I think this is a clear abuse of admin powers. And I like my signature the way it is, Werdna648, so please stop changing it. Wikipedia allows me to use an unlinked signature - it it wasn't allowed, it wouldn't be made a standard option on my setup screen. -Policeman of the Control Freak Wikipedia Admins — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcyu (talk • contribs)

Role Account - User:Hydnjo

I don't want to do this. They are great users who've been around for a while. But, it goes without saying that User:Hydnjo is a role account. Period. Thus, shouldn't they be blocked? The answer is yes, of course, but I haven't blocked them yet because these are two very nice users that folks generally seem to like, who have never hidden that the account was shared (although, unless I've missed something, it hasn't really been pointed out that it is technically a role account) and who contribute good work to the project. This is a tough call: We have a job to do, which will risk losing two great users, or we have a job to ignore, which makes our jobs harder in the future. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 00:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• A husband and wife role account, I say not to block as they are good faith editors, and it's not like they share their account with a group of friends, etc. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 00:42, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• No. Apply common sense. They're good, nay superb, editors. Antandrus (talk) 00:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
• Exactly, no. The only reason we block role accounts is that it we don't know exactly who mades which edit, for GFDL purposes; but in these cases, where two individuals are closely connected, there is an extremely low probability of any trouble if the exact person is not identified. (Is the husband going to sue the wife for a misatributed Wikipedia edit? No. Come on.) As they are not causing any trouble, but the contrary is true, there is no reason to block. Titoxd^(?!?) 00:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• Nothing on meta about GFDL issues, although even Hydnjo's contributions could be a theoretical concern if GFDL is an issue. I think a bigger picture needs to be reviewed here: does allowing the first and so far only non-Foundation role account force the community into creating a process of role-account-approval? Because, you know, what's good for the goose... --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 00:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
  • It is most likely not the first shared account, nor will it be the last; it's just being pointed out right now. We do not suggest using accounts this way ever, but no harm no foul. What's the worst case scenario here, they get divorced and havea custody battle for their edit attributions? — xaosflux ^Talk 01:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, if you 'don't want to do this'...then don't. For one, it's bordering on disrupting Wikipedia to make a POINT. To wit, "If you wish to change an existing procedure or guideline...don't push the existing rule to its limits in an attempt to prove it wrong..."; "[one should not]use...Wikipedia rules to thwart Wikipedia policy." Suggesting that we ban two perfectly good and highly productive editors because you believe that there has been a breach of a technicality is...well, how about you tell me? What do you hope to accomplish by this?

Second, it's only a rather ungenerous reading of the rules that would demand that the account be blocked anyway. From WP:SOCK#Role accounts (my emphasis):

Role accounts, accounts which are used by multiple people, are only officially sanctioned on en: Wikipedia in exceptional cases at this time. The one currently permitted role account on en: is User:Schwartz PR, the account for a public relations firm working closely with the Foundation. If you run an account with multiple users, it is likely to be blocked.

We should congratulate the exceptional editors Hydnjo for their unofficially sanctioned role account that, despite the likelihood that it would be blocked, hasn't been.

Finally, Wikipedia policies are descriptive, not prescriptive. If the sockpuppet policy lags a bit behind actual practice, or fails to exhaustively describe and consider all possible situations, we ought to update the policy or – perhaps more wisely – simply acknowledge that this project's rules are necessarily flexible sometimes. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

If it's a husband and wife team and they're good editors then let them be. I think it's sweet. Ask yourself WWJD? ("What would Jimbo do?") --mboverload@ 02:28, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

What is the reasoning behind the current role account policy? ~ PseudoSudo 02:31, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Umm *blush*, if this is of any help, I'll add that I (Joe) have been doing all of the keyboarding (see [7] [8] [9] [10]). Although the username in question is indeed a neologism constructed from our names, and although many first person references are plural, I find no evidence that this problem is anything more than a tribute to my wife's inspiration to and patience with my WP contributions. In that way, she feels a part of the goings on around here and I see nothing wrong or confusing about that. Thanks to all for your kind words of support. --hydnjo talk 03:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate Jeffrey Gustafson sharing his concerns; that is the correct action, of course. However, I agree with the others that I don't feel any further action is necessary. I believe following the spirit of our policies is far more important than following the letter; they are not laws which we must abide by (nor is the lack of a policy automatically make an action acceptable). I think this is just one of the areas we use our judgment; I've been aware of Heidi and Joe's shared account for quite some time now (and I consider them wiki-friends), but I am quite comfortable in my assessment that community opinion would favor their continuing. I don't really see how GFDL could be a concern if we allow edits from unregistered users. Of course, I'd be unlikely to support a shared account gaining access to administrator privileges. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is any problem here. In my opinion anything which helps blind people contribute is probably a good thing. Haukur 10:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the support for Hydnjo. A husband providing all the keyboarding for himself and a legally-blind wife who would have some difficulty keyboarding otherwise is a very different situation from a dozen employees using an account to edit an article on their company (for example). --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

In my view, this account is technically really only used by Joe... it is just that Heidi gives him most of the suggestions and advice... Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The circumstances here are unique. There appears to be no problem whatsoever, and no likelihood of a problem. Consensus is obviously strongly in approval. The blindness issue mentioned demands special dispensation. There are always exceptions - this is one of them, but it should be noted it is a very specific exception. Tyrenius 22:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

In the words of Judge Mills Lane "I'll allow it." User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 22:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I see absolutely no problem with this account. Everything posted to Wikipedia from that account is posted by Joe. As I see it, he (they?) chose the name Hydnjo to emphasize the sharedness of their thoughts, since Heidi is blind and cannot post messages herself. It's not as if Heidi logs on on Monday and Joe on Tuesday. Nor do I think that Joe types his own posts on one occasion and has Heidi dictate to him what to say on another. As far as I know, every use of first person singular referred to Joe, but he used the username to acknowledge the influence she has on his thoughts. AnnH ♫ 22:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

If anyone blocks this account, I will unblock it and block the block-ity block block blocker for being a total blockhead. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Seconded, as it goes against an obvious community consensus for special dispensation. Tyrenius 09:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you think we can say that this is our "officially sanctioned" role account, and if so, could we ammend the role account section to include this account? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 09:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not a role account. If only one person is doing the posting, then it is a one person account. There is no rule against allowing others to look over your shoulder. Even if it were a role account, obviously it is non-abusive and should not be blocked. NoSeptember 09:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

---

I thank one and all - Jarandal, Antandrus, Titoxd, Xaosflux, TenOfAllTrades, mboverload, PseudoSudo, Knowledge Seeker, Haukurth, Deathphoenix, Zzyzx11, Tyrenius, Zscout370, AnnH, Rick Block, Tyrenius (again), Zscout370 (again) and NoSeptember for your support.

To Jeffrey O. Gustafson who initiated this block request I ask why? We have had no interaction until now so how do you come to this requested action at WP:AN? Did you come across my account during your own research or are you acting as a proxy for another admin/user with whom I've caused to be angry with me? In reviewing your contributions I see no such "letter of the law" before now and so I feel singled out by you and I have no clue as to why - that to me is most disturbing. If you've come to this action on your own then should I be always wary of another admin challenging the legitimacy of my account?

For TenOfAllTrades who advised me not to worry and Rick who made me laugh I give special thanks, you've helped me to not take this so personally. And to Jeff, thanks for being courteous in informing me of your action and for letting me feel that your heart wasn't for blocking me.
Except for my one explanation above, I haven't edited for a few days now so as to allow y'all to comment about this based on my history of contribution rather than my reaction to it.

I wanted to say all of this before it all goes to archive heaven. I still have a lingering concern that this may arise again and don't want to go through WP life looking over my shoulder or worrying that I might piss-off some admin and cause another inquiry about the legitimacy of my account. If any of you who have been so gracious as to take the time to support me here have any suggestions to prevent such an action, please drop your thoughts on my talk or by email.

Finally, on a personal note to all, I never ever expected so much supportive response from all of you. I know that I've been moody at times and have spoken in ways that I have regretted the next day. I hoped otherwise but it seemed that those unfortunate responses might end up being my legacy as they were the foremost in my mind. And so far as this being a "role account", I think that I'll let the descriptions of AnnH and NoSeptember (both above) stand as the most intuitive descriptions of this account. My (and our) warmest regards to all of you for your understanding and outward support for the continuation of hydnjo's user account and future contributions. Again, my delighted and humble thanks :-) --hydnjo talk 02:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

addendum: Jeff, I was confused at the outset in that I wasn't aware of the "role account" policy and then after becoming aware I was frustrated that I had made so many edits which could mislead someone to the conclusion that my account was a role account. I'm sorry that in my zeal to understand your actions that I posed the possibility that you were acting at someone else's behest. I have no evidence of that and it was improper of me to even mention that such a bizarre conspiracy was possible. I find myself guilty of "blaming the messenger" and posting an inappropriate comment about your motivation.

As for my account, I want to state that it is not a role account and I apologize for leaving the impression that it is one. "hydnjo" is the signature that I commonly use for much of my correspondence and thought it to be appropriate when I first started my WP account. The portmanteau is an acknowledgment of our shared existence and not an indication that Heidi and I share in editing at WP.

I thank you for your courtesy in informing me at the outset of the discussion at WP:AN and for your compliments about my contributions. The comments in my response were made in the shadow of my own frustration with my having left a trail of edits that could easily be construed as having come from either Heidi or myself. I sincerely apologize to you for making any suggestion as to your motivation in bringing up a legitimate policy question. You have a genuine concern for the orderly behavior of our editors and I thank you for initiating this discussion and providing me the opportunity to explain the nature of my account. --hydnjo talk 18:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

---

Hi, Why exactly does User:152.163.100.7 have a 1 week block applied?

152.163.100.7 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) It seems like people have gone a bit crazy with AOL IP blocks in the last few days. Just because you can give an insanely long IP block doesn't mean you have to--152.163.100.200 00:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

HAsn't there been a vandalbot attack from AOL ranges recently? That might explain it.Circeus 00:31, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

There's always one form of attack or another, but whatever vandal was using that IP probably continued to use it for about 5 or 6 minutes before passing it on, which means about 6 days, and 23 hours worth of needless collateral damage--152.163.100.200 00:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't consider preventing AOLers from editing anonymously to be much in the way of collateral damage. As long as the block was applied properly registered users can still edit. Thatcher131 02:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm not the vandal, and it would have (and did) prevent me from editing, several times in a row, long after the vandal had moved on I'm sure, that does seem like collateral damage.--152.163.100.200 02:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Are there any reasons for you to not work as a registered user? abakharev 03:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

It was my block. I have removed it now. Frankly I was impressed by the amount of vandalism from this particular IP and by a complete absence of productive edits. Still assuming that allocation of IPs by AOL is not completely random and that the number of determined vandals using AOL as an open proxy is low, then long blocks on a few AOL IPs would significantly reduce the amount of vandalism from there. The only collateral damage will be that some users would have to spend a few seconds to register. abakharev 03:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Or, god forbid, change ISPs. No one has a right to edit Wikipedia, it is a privilege granted by the foundation and its agents. If it turns out that we gain more by blocking AOL, then so be it. If it means that much to you, then change ISPs. This isn't the mid-90s anymore - there are more than enough ISPs for anyone in any location in America to choose from. --Golbez 02:25, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I must promote here local ISPs. They tend to have a small IP pool and not have many Wikipedians on them. Also, because they're small, collateral damage inflictors don't focus on them. Using a local ISP, I've never been autoblocked. ~crazytales56297 18:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Antichrist

Can someone look into this user? His username appears to be in violation of our username policy. This user has been here for a while, but nothing has been done about it. — The King of Kings 17:55 July 16 '06

Wow. King of Kings vs. the Antichrist. - Jmabel | Talk 17:59, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Thats ironic, but my signature isn't a religious referance, its a referance to a song. — The King of Kings 18:03 July 16 '06

Which specific part of the policy is violated? Do you have any evidence that the user is disrupting the project? I briefly reviewed his/her contributions, and didn't see anything obviously amiss. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Specifically, WP:USERNAME which the policy states:

Inflammatory usernames: Wikipedia does not allow potentially inflammatory or offensive user names. Inflammatory usernames are needlessly discouraging to other contributors, and disrupt and distract from our task of creating an encyclopedia. Inflammatory usernames consist of names like... and Names of religious figures such as "God", "Jehovah", "Buddha", or "Allah", which may offend other people's beliefs.

— The King of Kings 18:13 July 16 '06

The characters listed are pretty major, the heads of various religions. The 'antichrist' is only referenced in one part of the bible and isn't actually an 'end boss'. What's the level of religious notoriety we should stick to? Would User:Thomas or User:Peter be subject to this as well? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 21:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Um.. no. Peter and Thomas are common names, the name "Anti-christ", is not. I think that Christ is just a big a "character" as you said as God, Allah, Jehovah or Buddah. Point is, Christ, and being anti-, could offend editors religious beliefs as could saying being anti-god, anti-buddah, etc. and policy says username blocks can be applyed to said names. At the least, he should be encouraged to change his username. — The King of Kings 21:26 July 16 '06

The user name is wholly inappropriate. It is synonymous with using "Satan" as a user name, and any argument about how that's just an angel and only some people think it's the source of evil would just be silly. We rule out usernames where people cleverly try multilingual puns and numerical combinations to get to "fart" or "lesbians are yummy" or similar, so this is well past the line. Geogre 03:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with user:Jmabel that I see zero difference between the offensiveness potential of Antichrist and King of Kings. Both users are quite consciously flouting the letter while disingenously arguing no intent to flout the spirit of the rule. Both the letter and spirit of the rule are to avoid user names that a large proportion of readers are likely to take as a religious allusion, either positively or negatively. All we need is an accumulation of names chosen to press others' buttons! I really doubt the veracity of those who claim that they are unaware of the religious connotation but who don't cheerfully say "oops, didn't mean that, i'll pick a name that doesn't annoy people" when it is pointed out. alteripse 03:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Alterprise, if you bothered to see my comment above that the name King of Kings which is just my signature, is in reference to the King of Kings song, not a religious reference. I did know about the religious reference it was never intended on being it nor do I want it to be because of annoyances like this. — The King of Kings 15:03 July 17 '06

Of course I "bothered to read" your comment. Your "I didn't intend it as a religious reference" defense was exactly what I was referring to. There is no point asking people not to use a certain class of username if the user can say "oh I wasn't referring to that Mohammed" or that banned user. I, and this policy, don't really care what you had in mind, if to a large proportion of our readers it immediately conjures a holy or an unholy or a politically offensive name. If it was chosen in good faith and you didn't intend the religious allusion, then why not actually prove the good faith by changing it? If you really don't understand what your username means to most of us, just google "king of kings" and see what more than 90% of the hits refer to. So we either have a policy of asking people not to choose religious names, or misleading names, or banned names, or politically offensive names, or names that immediately suggest any of those to most of our readers, or we don't. But it makes no sense to have a policy that can be evaded by saying "mohammed really refers to the name of my neighbors' iguana". I don't really care whether you keep it or not, but the hypocrisy when you supported the policy against another username made comment irresistible. alteripse 02:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think your assume good faith switch has been disengaged. You and the policy don't care? I do believe it's just you that doesn't care. In good faith, I would and have asked everyone who had a problem with it to ignore it, and if you really had a problem with it, I would refractor on their talk page if I chose to comment there. I think changing my signature would only prove that I was pressured and bullied into something I didn't want to do, in which I won't change. I won't change my signature because of a Motorhead reference, if you don't like it, I ask you to look the other way because policy doesn't say anything about not making a reference to a song. 90% of the google results show that King of Kings probably refers to the religious reference because it's been around since BC times. The song I make reference to has been popular since March of this year. Theres a few hundred thousand years differance between our topics. The "Mohammed the iguana" comment you made was a little irrelevant, eh? Mohammed the iguana doesn't have an article on Wikipedia, but does the topic in which my signature is based upon? Yes there is an article. The "song reference" isn't something I just pulled out my ass. Its a popular song by a popular band, so live with it. Now excuse me while I puke to your Ad hominem attacks. — The King of Kings 03:58 July 18 '06

Wow. Do you do realize, Moe, that fighting fire with fire doesn't actually put that first fire out? Alteripse is, to some degree, correct. Your name is not as inappropriate as Antichrist's, but the correlation is nothing short of ironic. However, the name Muhammad is not even close to comprable to what we have here. Muhammad is a very popular name (the most popular in the world) and so signing up as Muhammad (which, by the way, no one has done) is not necessarily an insult to Islam (unless the editor is making anti-Islamic statements). Likewise, having the username "Jesus" does not necessarily warrant a block either since it's a popular name (note User:Jesus is not indefinitely blocked, or is that in error?). But Buddha, Allah, God, Antichrist... those are almost always religious references and so, based on the policy and the idea that they may offend easily, they should not be allowed. On "King of Kings", I think it wouldn't be a bad idea for Moe to change it, but I'm not going to make a fuss over it; the song it actually refers to, as far as I know, does not make religious references and the King of Kings article takes awhile to get to the religious references. Regarding the idea Alteripse tried to convey with the iguana example, I agree that we can't just allow people to say "oh I wasn't referring to that [insert religious figure here]", but I think we need to look at each instance individually and try to discern the intention of the user in question. Having a song by the same name does not automatically make a username okay. Yes, there is a song entitled "King of Kings". But there is also a song entitled "God", but "God" is certainly not a reasonable username. -- joturner 04:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Crossing out "Antichrist". I'll take a wait-and-see approach on this person. -- joturner 04:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

But, responding to you, even if someone made a reference to the song God it would still be making a religious reference because its a religious song by a Christian group. Motorhead is far from a religious musical group. — The King of Kings 05:31 July 18 '06

I think both King of Kings and The Antichrist are not generally innapropriate, yes some people might find them innapropriate but they aren't generally considered innapropriate nor do they really fall under the famous people or inflammatory sections of it, I'd suggest this be taken to RFC for wider commment, unless of course there's enough comments from people here. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 07:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

"King of kings" can be a reference to God or Jesus, yes, but hundreds of rulers both BC and AD have also taken that title: see King of kings. "Antichrist" can only refer to the Biblical figure. --Carnildo 18:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

And a multitude of other things, King of Kings (disambiguation), in which mine is a Motörhead reference. — The King of Kings 21:38 July 17 '06

Irreguardless of "King of Kings" being inflammatory or not (not even a username in this case even), "Antichrist has come to mean a person, image of a person, or other entity that is the embodiment of evil and utterly opposed to truth". So yeah, a self-procolaimation of being pure evil and a liar. Its basically the devil/satan to christians. Politics and flame wars, like to throw this term around as an insult to the opposing side. Vandals like to redirect articles about people, like George W. Bush, to Antichrist or Adolf Hitler or something silly. Don't see how it can't be taken as being potentially inflammatory. So then, can the Ad hominem on the person starting this conversation be avoided? All that need be discussed here is wether or not that name is potentially inflammatory. Kevin_b_er 02:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This user's sparse list of contributions suggests for a moment that he edited Qif conditionals, which would put him a level above the average teen, but actually he just added a blank line and then deleted it. In Til Death (film) he pointed out that heroin is something that everybody hates (which may come as news to its consumers). Nobody's going to think he's the antichrist, and I haven't heard of any worshippers of the antichrist who are likely to be offended. Yes of course his name is potentially inflammatory, as we're in a culture where the small-minded imagine slights everywhere: consider for example the signature "Kevin_b_er", for the significance of whose underscores some very silly and simple people could imagine anything. -- The Antihoary of the Antihoaries 02:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

As above: if we stick to the subject under consideration, "antichrist" is an inappropriate user name. Forget examining the trees when you're looking for the forest, please. "King of kings" is a common self-appointed title throughout history. "Prince of peace" is not. "Antichrist" absolutely is not. There can be no ambiguity, there. Geogre 02:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

What about User:False Prophet, who has been contributing for nearly four months? Now, we have a problem. We can't possibly say "Anti-Christ" is inappropriate and not say "False Prophet" is inappropriate. -- joturner 04:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

You are again pointing at the trees. The question is whether this particular user name is inappropriate. It is. Arguing by analogy for precedent won't do much good for the conversation. The analogy is invalid as precedent in this case because one can be "a" false prophet, whereas there is only "the" antichrist. Anyone who pretends to be speaking for God and isn't is a false prophet, and the world is and has always been lousy with them. On the other hand, being the antichrist is specifically to claim to be or speak for the son of Satan. It's an entirely different world. One is silly, and the other is infuriating to fundamentalist Christians. Still, we needn't argue by analogy at all. There is one question here: is this an invalid username? Yes, it is. Geogre 11:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Look, all I wanted was a second opinion on the situation and apparently there are others who feel indifferant about it. I don't care if he's blocked or not, all I wanted was another opnion. I would appriciate it if this conversation just died out now. — The King of Kings 05:27 July 18 '06

What to do if a move poll is determined by partisan reasons?

I'm rather troubled by the problems which KimvdLinde has reported over at WP:ANI#Battle of Deir Yassin/Deir Yassin massacre: move poll closure review requested. As I've posted there, the article's current title of "Battle of Deir Yassin" violates Wikipedia:Naming conventions, Wikipedia:Naming conflict and Wikipedia:No original research (it's a novel term with negligible use outside Wikipedia - only 81 hits versus over 21,000 for the alternative "Deir Yassin massacre"). It also probably violates Wikipedia:NPOV, as it seems to be a novel and minority-POV term for an historical incident which is generally known by a different name. (It's comparable, for instance, to renaming Srebrenica massacre to "Battle of Srebrenica" or American War of Independence to "War of American Aggression".)

In the light of these issues I would normally simply move the article myself. However, the page has already had a move war today and sparking another wouldn't be helpful. Ordinarily, a move poll would be a good alternative. However, there has already been a move poll in which the participants deadlocked, with many on both sides explicitly stating POV reasons for their votes (see Talk:Deir Yassin massacre#Clarification). There seems to have been relatively little consideration of what Wikipedia policy and guidelines require. Starting a new move poll would undoubtedly bring out the POV warriors again and, unfortunately, it's more than likely that they will again ignore policy and vote for their personal POVs. Are there any other alternatives short of taking the whole thing to the Arbitration Committee? -- ChrisO 23:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, this is why voting in the main namespace is a bad plan. :-/ Each time people have to find out the hard way. <sigh> Requested Moves should be strongly discouraged as a means for well, anything. Oh well.

Perhaps something can still be salvaged? You can look at who is supporting and opposing, and start a discussion with each, one at a time. Perhaps a more neutral name is possible? Kim Bruning 00:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately I've found in instances like this (Republic of Macedonia comes to mind) that POV warriors usually won't agree to anything other than their own POV. Am I right to think that the Mediation Committee can't do binding mediations? Perhaps this is where we need some sort of intermediate stage between the Mediation Committee (non-binding) and Arbitration Committee (binding but not usually dealing with content disputes). We really need to have some way of dealing with these disputes that would involve taking them away from the POV warriors and giving them to neutral editors or administrators who know, understand and respect Wikipedia policies. -- ChrisO 00:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Although formal mediation isn't binding, I think most editors would respect the conclusions of it. I think the key in this case is to use the term most often used by academic historians i.e. academics who are actually employed as historians by universities. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 11:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The quick and dirty method is to attract as many uninvolved editors as quickly as possible, because POV warriors work by fighting in packs and outnumbering their opponents. But polls like that are almost always confrontational, so it would be better to try some form of mediation (formal or informal) as Kim suggested. Even if it fails then it's something to show to other users who can determine for themselves what caused it to fail, if it's because someone wasn't cooperating then that will be detrimental to them. A good first step would be to do a survey of the academic literature to see what name is more commonly used, Google is unlikely to settle this one. --bainer (talk) 01:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I've done a quick check on the literature using Google Books/Google Scholar, Amazon's "search inside" feature and a number of encyclopedias on Xreferplus. It almost exclusively refers to the events at Deir Yassin as the "Deir Yassin massacre", the massacre at Deir Yassin and similar formulations. None use "Battle of Deir Yassin". So it seems plain enough that the article's current title is a novel term. The problem is, of course, that the POV warriors don't care about WP:NOR, WP:NC and all the rest. Mediation is certainly appropriate though I wonder if it's ever likely to work in a situation where the participants are riding roughshod over Wikipedia's fundamental policies. I suspect it'll probably end up in arbitration, one way or another. -- ChrisO 07:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I thionk is a main problem for wikipedia, as the focus is consensus and prevention of disruption, and not so much upholding basic policies (Such as NPOV of which Jimbo states: NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable."). However, in practise, NPOV is negotiated, just as other unnegotiable policies such as WP:NOR. The bigger question is, can these policies be enforced, or are they negotiable? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 09:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Kim Bruning is right. Discussion is the solution. As an experienced mediator, Kim is likely picking up on the fact that you are in too big of a hurry to settle the dispute. Having an article in the The Wrong Version is going to happen for some of the parties in the dispute. Mediators (and experienced editors) need to reinforce the idea that Wikipedia is not going to be ruined by having an article in the The Wrong Version. IMO, mediation goes astray once you began reverting or making moves based on the idea that there is a wrong version. Patience and discussion are mediation's friend.  : - ) FloNight ^talk 10:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Does this mean that unnegotiable policies are negotiable? And if mediation is not working because people insist on violating NPOV, ArbCom? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 11:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem here is that you hold a particular POV, you got involved in the dispute, you got an editor banned from the page, and then you moved the page as an admin, so that has helped to entrench positions and increase hostility and suspicion. It would be a good idea if you would remove yourself from the debate entirely and allow the matter to be discussed by editors who were not involved in it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 11:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, your opinion about me is clear. Thank you. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 11:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It isn't just my opinion. I don't see that you have any support for what has gone on here. You've caused trouble first at Israeli apartheid and now here by acting as an editor/mediator/admin as and when it suits you, mixing up the roles in pursuit of a particular POV. It's a textbook example of what admins shouldn't do, and yet at the same time you take process fetishism to new heights when you think it'll help you. It's not on, it really isn't. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:04, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

For those uninvolved, SlimVirgin and I are both involved in the same ArbCom case: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israeli apartheid. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 13:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Kim, the existence of WP:NPOV as a policy which must be followed is what Jimbo is describing as non-negotiable. Obviously the process of reaching a result which is considered NPOV involves some form of negotiation. When we talk about "enforcing" NPOV, we mean taking measures to make sure that editors work together with the ultimate goal of achieving NPOV content. --bainer (talk) 13:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Kim van der Linde at venus I mean that impartial experienced editors do no care if the articles is temporarily The Wrong Version. This dispute is one of many daily editing disputes that occur on Wikipedia. You are involved in it so it seems extra important to you. If I can make a suggestion. I think you need to take a break from this topic. Perhaps some distance from these articles will help. There are 1,261,193 articles in English. Many of them are in desperate need of editing by an experienced editors/admin. FloNight ^talk 12:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

FloNight, I share your idea about "The Wrong Version". -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 13:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm copying this to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Battle_of_Deir_Yassin.2FDeir_Yassin_massacre:_move_poll_closure_review_requested. Please continue any discussion there. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 13:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Probably if the matter is reported to the Admins' noticeboard, one of the admins will use their "resolve conflict" button. -Splash - tk 13:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Dated categories for Deletedpages and Copyright violations

In order to facilitate resolving or deleting old copyright violations (Template:Copyvio) and resolving or eliminating old deletedpages (Template:Deletedpage) that no longer warrant protection (for discussion about deletedpages, see also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Protected, deleted pages & Template talk:Deletedpage#How temporary is this?), I ask that dated categories in the vein of CAT:PROD be created for them. This requires changes to a bot (User:DumbBOT is what handles CAT:PROD) and someone with template ability, and in the case of Template:Deletedpage, someone who can edit protected pages. —Centrx→talk • 00:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Instead of having automatically added subcategories for dates, each page could be included in the category sorted by date, like [[Category:Possible copyright violations|20060718]], which would only requiring changing the templates and would no worse than the monolithic categories we already have. This I just conceived. Is there a reason why PROD done the other way? —Centrx→talk • 11:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletion backlog

Would a few admins take a bit to look at the backlog at CAT:SPEEDY? It was tagged as an admin backlog about 20 hours ago and hasn't been fully addressed yet. Right now there's about 68 articles, 2 categories, and 25 images to be examined. Thanks, Metros232 14:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Tis clear. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 15:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Help with nomination for adminship needed!

Would someone with experience mind helping me nominate someone for adminship? I'd like to nominate User: Catamorphism, but I can't seem to get it right. I've left my nomination at the bottom of my talk page under the message "Consider it done." When some kind soul has done this, would he or she notify me that it has been done so that I may give my heart-felt thanks? Erik the Rude 15:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. — Mike (talk • contribs) 15:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Spam / phishing by Herringdoppler

Has anyone else been spammed / sent phishing emails by Herringdoppler (talk · contribs)? Today, he sent me an email via wikipedia which says:

have figured out a way to make profit on wikpda with only a one-time time investment of about 10 minutes. If you are interested, please respond with a blank email message to frustrated_wiki_user@yahoo.com

Perhaps we could buy you a new laptop.

Herringdoppler

If this guy is mass spamming / phishing via wikipedia, an immediate indef block is necessary. --Ragib 17:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm not certain how we approach such off-Wiki activity by registered users but, since I, too, have received this e-mail, I've indef-blocked the user (whose e-mail address indicates he's frustrated with Wikipedia) as a spammer. Feel free to review. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 18:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that will stop him from using his Wikipedia email. I was under the impression that the Wikipedia email function still works when blocked. JoshuaZ 18:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to send him an email on my non-WP address and see what happens. Fredil Yupigo 18:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Request temporary lock on Jimi Hendrix

Can someone please put a temporary lock on the Jimi_Hendrix article? There seems to be a tug of war going on with the main infobox picture. The Jimi_hendrix.jpg image (Jimi smoking a cig) seems to be the concensus and longest standing photo, but some folks (and/or their sock puppets) insist on changing it, often to untagged and/or poor quality images. Coupled with the usual torrent of vandalism that occurs there, I think there's enough justification to lock it up for a while. --Zig 17:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Try WP:RFPP. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I semiprotected the page to a pre-edit-war state. Will (message me!) 19:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Irongaard (offensive name)

The name User:Irongaard is based (at least in part) on the Iron Guard according to the User's talk page. The Iron Guard was, according to our article, an "ultra-nationalist anti-Semitic, fascist movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II." When in power the Iron Guard were enthusiastic participants in the Holocaust, so much so that, according to Raul Hilberg "There were... instances when the Germans actually had to step in to restrain and slow down the pace of the Romanian measures." They also instigated the Bucharest Pogrom in January 1941 in which 125 Jews were murdered and the Iaşi pogrom in July 1941 in which 10,000 Jews died. Homey 01:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and his user page also states "I, for reasons that will not be disclosed at this time, feverently hope that the University of Chicago burns to the ground and that the entire student body and faculty, especially the members of the admissions office, disappear". Disappear links to Forced disappearance which is defined in the following manner: A forced disappearance occurs when an organization forces a person to vanish from public view, either by murder or by simple sequestration. The victim is first kidnapped, then illegally detained in concentration camps, often tortured, and finally executed and their corpse hidden.. Homey 01:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The userpage message about the University of Chicago is a little disturbing, but apart from that, a random sampling of the user's contributions shows some pretty good, level-headed edits. His userpage claim about the name is that it derives from the Iron Guard and Søren Kierkegaard. I personally don't see grounds for taking action against this username - he seems more interested in the history of German militarism than in being a fascist. Gwernol 01:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Personally, as a Romanian Jew, I think calling onself User:Irongaard is as offensive as calling oneself User:Al-Quaeda, User:Nazi Stormtrooper or User:Ustashe. I'm not quarreling with the user's edits but his username (though I also find calling for the torturing and execution of all students, faculty and admission officers at the University of Chicago somewhat creepy.) Homey 01:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It has to go. He's got good edits, but not a good user name. This will be very offensive to some people, e.g. whose relatives were murdered by the Iron Guard, to which we now know this is a reference. We have to be sensitive to its implications. Tyrenius 01:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm still not 100% convinced, although clearly there are good arguments against the username. Would GenghisRussell be an offensive username? If so, what about BertrandKhan? The word Iron is clearly not offensive, is the word Khan? We are surely not objecting to Kierkegaard right, so we must be objecting to the word Iron, I guess. Tyrenius reminds me of tyrant, how do I know that wasn't part of your thought process when choosing it? Homey is an offensive term in Australian, so I hope if you push this through, you'll be changing your signature, HOTR? What is Gwernol was an ax murderer from China that I haven't heard of. What it Gwern was? I agree that the Iron Guard were a hateful bunch of murdering fascists. I agree that we shouldn't offend people. I just am not sure that forcing a changename on this user is going to improve Wikipedia. Gwernol 02:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I can put your mind at rest by reassuring you that the word Tyrant was not part of my thought process, when choosing my user namer, nor for that matter were the words Tyre or Rant, ahem, nor has anybody commented to this effect previously. I think if the Australian offensiveness of Homey had been pointed out at an early stage, then it probably would have been changed. However, there have been cases where something established (which has not been objected to) has been allowed to continue, even though a new use of it would not be allowed. Tyrenius 13:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

For one thing "Irongaard" sounds exactly like "Iron Guard" so a more accurage analogy would be say GenghisCahn for the Mongolian leader and American actor Edward Cahn. As for the offensiveness of Genghis Khan, for it to be an accurate analogy we'll have to wait about 1000 years - AFAIK none of Genghis victims or their children are still alive. The same isn't the case for the victims of the Iron Guard. Homey 02:30, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear cut. Its not the terms iron or Kierkegaard that's offensive, it's the combination of those names with clear intent to invoke the term Iron Guard. The fact that the words standing alone don't have offensive meanings is not relevant, just as writing out the alphabet doesn't imply all the offensive things I could use those letters to make. We can surmise about whether the motivation for Tyrenius' username comes from tyrant (not that tyrant is clearly objectionable in the same way); and we can note that many word may have offensive meaning in another language, but here we know specifically that the name is a play on Iron Guard from the horses mouth. The mens rea behind the name is everything.--Fuhghettaboutit 02:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Would we accept a user with a username such as some variant or pun on Schutzstaffel? As a general principle, I don't think naming oneself after a Second World War fascist organisation would be appropriate in any circumstances. -- ChrisO 07:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Well if mens rea is everything, then that would imply: a) users should only be offended if they read Irongaard's userpage and find out he meant to invoke Iron Guard, and: b) given that his intention appears to be historical rather than supportive we have to be careful what we read into it. However, I do agree with HOTR's latest point about recency. I think we should ask Irongaard to voluntarily change his username. This seems like a situation where politely pointing out the issues and asking him to change will yield better results than imposing a decision. Gwernol 11:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I misspoke then. The letter of the naming policy doesn't require intent. Names can be offensive to users regardless of intent. But only in the case of a user who can claim that the name is coincidental does there seem to be any argument that the policy should be excepted. A person whose name was actually aid-off-hittiteler (cruel, insane parents) probably still should not be able to use that username, but would have no excuse if he indicated that his name was based on a fascination with the hittites and nazi Germany (even if he wasn't a nazi sympathizer) and the name was meant as a play on Adolph Hitler. The name alone brings him within the letter of the naming policy prohibition; the admission that it's intentional destroys any excuse that "it has nothing to do with the offensive thing it sounds like" argument.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The point is that offensive user names are not allowed, and this name has already been found offensive, or this discussion wouldn't have started. Tyrenius 13:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

So if I'm an Italian-American who is offended by your stereotypical username, I can get you to change yours involuntarily as well? I think we need a *little* bit of perspective here; if a user has a questionable username but no questionable edits, then they should be given the benefit of the doubt. -- nae'blis _(talk) 13:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no line in the sand but I hope we can agree that comparing a name which someone out there might theoretically find offensive and a name which could offend a few million people are wholly apples and oranges.--Fuhghettaboutit 14:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

So there aren't a few million Italians or Italian-Americans who would be offended by stereotypical mafia references? --Zig 17:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Fughettaboutit also. The idea that it is at all acceptable under the policy to have a user name based on a facist group whose stated goal was large scale genocide is simply ridiculous. If we are going to have any sort of restriction on offensive user names, this would have to be included. JoshuaZ 18:25, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Fuhghettaboutit is not a mafia term, it is a commonplace ethnic expression. But even if it were, say, a clear reference to mafia, as you thought, the comparison would still be completely unbalanced. --Fuhghettaboutit 20:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• I've asked him to remove his offensive statement, and he's declined. I am reluctant to block him given that he has given us some positive contributions, but agree wholeheartedly that the username must change, and feel strongly that his intent to keep that material on his userpage is unacceptable here. For these reasons, I'm applying an indefinite block on the user and blanking his userpage. If anyone has any better ideas, I won't be bothered by a reversal of this decision, but any solution must deal both with the offensive username and keeping appropriate content on his userpage. --Improv 21:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
  • This has been resolved -- he'll get a username change and remove the statement, and continue to edit. --Improv 23:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Good work, Improv. An excellent resolution for all concerned, I believe. Gwernol 23:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

To me, all the whining and witchhunts over "offensive usernames" reminds me of the idiocy of FCC activity against "broadcast indecency", where people got their panties in a wad over stuff like Janet Jackson's breasts or some idiot celebrity saying a cuss word during an awards show or sports event. Is there really any point to going out of your way to be offended by something and insist it be suppressed, instead of just ignoring it? *Dan T.* 23:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

That's not an apt comparison, because the "broadcast" of wiki (i.e. the articles) are not censored. We are talking about the infrastructure.Tyrenius 00:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

MascotGuy

What are the telltale signs of a MascotGuy account? I think I've come across a few, but his supposed edits are always so non-sequitir that I can never tell. I might need to apply for a block if this is confirmed. 68.179.134.228 01:25, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Here ya go. --Woohookitty^(meow) 06:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Open proxies

Begin Public Service Announcement

Just to let you know that the huge backlog of Open proxies project was nuked the past week. New requests will be handled quicker, don't forget to add a description summary when requesting. -- Drini 07:05, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

End Public Service Announcement

(stolen from above)

AOL soft blocks

With soft blocks now implemented, I am wondering whether it is now acceptable to block AOL addresses for long durations with soft blocks. Thoughts? --Nlu (talk) 09:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• well, people are doing it anyway, but for the most part people seem to not quite know how to use them, or don't care to, many people are applying very long IP blocks without using anon-only blocks, and a few others are even selecting prevent account creation. Even worse, forcing all the vandals to register names seems to have caused the amount of autoblocks to sky rocket--AOL user 11:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• That's not to say there isn't a silver lining, if an AOL range stays blocked, and account creation stays disabled for the duration (hours, days, weeks) it does prevent people from creating accounts, and of course, prevents them from triggering autoblocks, but that's pretty much only a good solution for people who had accounts prior to the existance of anon-only-blocks--AOL user 11:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• Any AOL user that finds themselves permanently blocked from creating an account at home still only has to go to a library, a cybercaf� or a friend's house once to create an account, then they can use that wherever they like. Of course, even having to go to another IP once is an inconvenience, but personally I don't lie awake at night worrying about AOL users being deterred from using Wikipedia.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Samuel Blanning (talk • contribs)

• yes, well, I realize that most people would simply block all AOL users regardless of whether they're registered or not, no one left at the end of the day to actually complain about it--AOL user 12:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I had thought, when this innovation came along, that it wouldn't be a substantial benefit to AOL users, because most of the vandals (probably "most") are using named accounts. However, our IP editors of virtue from AOL (recognize them? they're the ones you don't see because they're helping us along) are going to get blasted anyway. If they tire of being IP's and want to sign up to get the benefits of this innovation, they're going to find that they can't. As for Sam Blanning's recommendation, let's stop with tarring an ISP this large because some of the users are dufuses. We don't do that with other ISP's, and we shouldn't do it here. Saying, "Well, they can just move to another town and buy new equipment and change ISP's" (not what Sam said exactly) is to say, essentially, "We are for the elites." I'm no longer an AOL ISP-owned dialup, but the fact is that the turds vandalizing us are getting their way by getting us to block the helpful with them. Geogre 14:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why not simply uncheck the box next to "prevent creation of new accounts"? The indef block should be used to prevent anonymous vandalism only, if anyone wants to create an account or log into an existing account, that should still be possible. I'm all for placing this kind of soft block on shared IPs. --woggly 17:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not soft. You can't edit through it. If a new editor comes across a comma needing fixing, they'll possibly not bother because to go through the registration process (they won't be likely to click the link to see how easy it is) is much more work than the comma-fix itself. Don't kid yourself that any block is at all "soft". It just doesn't affect some people at all; it's as hard as ever on those it hits, and harder still if account creation is blocked also. -Splash - tk 21:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking of the interests of registered users only. How does this form of blocking negatively affect registered users? I see only the upside. Whereas in the past, registered users, even admins, who edited from shared IPs, would find themselves autoblocked because of a vandal using the same IP, now it is possible for registered users to continue editing even if the IP is blocked. Isn't this a vast improvement? Honestly, I'm willing to sacrifice the occasional anonymous comma fix in order to prevent massive amounts of anonymous vandalism. Requiring registration from some (by no means all!) users is really not that big a deal. --woggly 05:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Registered users still get hit by autoblocks, only now there are more vandals with registered usernames, causing twice as many autoblocks, even more, some people seem OK with AOL range blocks, but refuse to use anon only blocks, and equally refuse to allow account creation from blocked ranges--205.188.116.200 13:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The only group of people this is actually an improvment for is the vandals, who are now pretty much imune to IP blocks, and can go through dozens of throwaway accounts before finally giving up--205.188.116.200 13:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Reconfirmation of adminship

Every now and again, Zeq tells me that I'm doing something wrong by blocking me, and that he'll try to get me de-adminned. A few other people I block also say I should be deadminned. I would like to see what the community as a whole think of my adminship, and whether it should be reconfirmed. (If this is the wrong place, move it. Hey, this is an admins' noticeboard) Will (message me!) 14:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

My only complaint Will is your having blocked me for 15 minutes when I vandalized your vandalism page. There's no doubt about that one, your block was indeed quite inappropriate. (→Netscott) 18:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It was on my vandalism page, true, but it was your intention to spill onto my userpage (as it's transcluded, it's similar to someone vandalising {{Infobox country}}). Will (message me!) 18:15, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

You're wrong, on my Mac OS X system there was no spillage. Had I noticed any sort of an effect I would have self-reverted. You simply blocked me without inquiring. That is very wrong. (→Netscott) 18:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

There was temporarily spillage. Will (message me!) 18:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know anything about whatever Sceptre/Zeq history exists, but blocks (particularly against established editors) should be used as a last resort and only when neccessary. And, blocking a user without leaving them a message explaining why is just plain wrong. Blocks are for damage control, not punishment. Friday (talk) 18:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, I only became aware of the what occurred thanks to another established user who was kind enough to explain to me what happened. On my system I never saw any "temporary spillage"... nothing... normal page... the only page affected was the "Vandalism" page. Unless I get an apology I'm inclined to agree with others who are talking about de-admining. (→Netscott) 18:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Sadly, we have no means of de-adminning. Ideally, any admin that was asked to step down by established editors would voluntarily do so (and stand again if they wished). Of course, those who would voluntarily do so aren't the problem, are they? Friday (talk) 18:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This, of course, is excellent support for my thesis that vandalism sections on userpages are monumentally stupid and should be gotten rid of site-wide. --Cyde↔Weys 18:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, they add nothing to the encyclopedia, nor do they inform us of the editor's areas of expertise or bias. They are inherently silly and disruptive. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, you may have a point there. — Nathan ^(talk) _{/ 19:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)}

If there are four more people who agree I should stand for adminship again before lunchtime (11:15 UTC) tommorrow (I have a holiday to pack for and the basic stuff for most of the week) , I'll request a desysop from a steward and nominate myself. Will (message me!) 19:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't do it. Good admins always pick up enemies as part of the job, they can easily defeat you in an RfA if you have enemies. Just look at the history of desysopped admins' RfAs. Leave it to ArbCom to remove the truly bad admins. NoSeptember 19:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with NoSeptember, don't do it. — Nathan ^(talk) _{/ 19:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)}

Indeed, certain folks have been known to be motivated to work against RfAs particularly when they've been demonstrably wronged by an editor requesting adminship and never received an apology. (→Netscott) 20:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I dunno. He writes that "good admins always pick up enemies as part of the job..." I Would like to think I am a good admin, and as far as I know, I don't have any real enemies. I can think of a couple of others probably in my same boat. You can be a good admin and not cause a ruckus. Perhaps "admins that block people or make hard, controversial decisions always pick up enemies..." Maybe I just haven't been around long enough. Whatever. :-) --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

You'll know when you've been an admin long enough when the Review start complaining. Will (message me!) 20:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

LV, you're doing the good protection and deletion work that needs to get done, good job, but I noticed you've only made 4 blocks in the last 3 months. I should hope you have few enemies ;). (note: I am also not all that active in blocking, it takes all types, I wish folks at RfA would remember that not all admins have to be vandal focused) NoSeptember 20:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, calling me out, eh? Looks like I just found my number one enemy! --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Ha! 2 of the 4 oppose voters on your RfA are now indef blocked. You had bigger enemies before you even became an admin. NoSeptember 21:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Just look at Sean Black's RFA ... once you've been an admin for awhile you collect enough random enemies who will come out of the woodwork to oppose. The whole adminship confirmation thing is a fundamentally flawed process. --Cyde↔Weys 20:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Please Sceptre, don't look to get desysopped, you're a good admin IMO. If something really questionable is brought up, theres other ways to dispute resolution than a desysopping. I think as long as your admin, theres always going to be a dispute regarding your actions, but what admin wouldn't potentially have that that problem? — The King of Kings 20:10 July 18 '06

You know when an admin doesn't know how to apologize when something they've done wrong has been demonstrated to them and there's a pattern of that then maybe de-sysoping might not be such a bad idea. (→Netscott) 20:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Scott, don't kick him while he's down. I think the only thing that should be suggested to him is to follow his heart regarding if he wants to re-run for adminship or not. — The King of Kings 20:22 July 18 '06

You're kidding? Whose kicking him when "he's down". Is it not clear that my having been blocked was wrong? (→Netscott) 20:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not joking. He's already suggesting not being an admin anymore which is "down" enough for me. You were blocked by him for 15 minutes, a fairly short time. Although blocks should be a last resort, to him, he had a legitimate reason when doing so and wasn't misusing admin powers when doing it. If you had a problem with your 15 minute block, I suggest taking it to an RFC rather than suggest a desysopping. Desysopping is't exactly something that happens over little matters like this. — The King of Kings 20:34 July 18 '06

The block would have been correct if I had been actively vandalizing his user page directly (and not his actual vandalism page). Are you familiar with the "blocks are not punative" clause of the blocking policy? If you were then you'd know that regardless of wether or not my "vandalism" was bad faith or not (and I assure you it was not) blocking was wrong. Blocks are not to be handed out lightly particularly as they stay in one's record permanently. Again, short of an apology I'm inclined to agree with those who're talking about de-admining. (→Netscott) 21:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am familiar with policy as I stated it should be a last resort, which I was refering to the same policy that states blocks shouldn't be a punishment. He had a reason, and it wasn't for punishment. I would like for you to look, at this [11]. This is the block log of admin Evilphoenix. He has only had one block and it was a 17 second block by Titoxd. I think that situation is very similar to yours, except he had a clean block log and yours was already to say the least, very unclean. I suggest you did what Evilphoenix did and deal with it. It was a month ago, let it go. Theres no reason to continue on about nothing. — The King of Kings 21:10 July 18 '06

Both invalid blocks. I'm inclined to agree with Cyde just get rid of all "vandalism" sections particularly if they result in unwarranted blocks. He had no valid reason to block me. (→Netscott) 21:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I know it's an invalid block, but you have to have a sense of humor about some things. Did you happen to notice the summary he gave for your block? Geez, lighten up. But I agree with Cyde, vandalism sections don't provide much. — The King of Kings 21:21 July 18 '06

Re:"Just look at Sean Black's RFA ... once you've been an admin for awhile you collect enough random enemies who will come out of the woodwork to oppose" I opposed and i would not call my self an enemy. We had barely intereacted. I did look at his record though. The fact is that whenever you run for an RfA you are seen by a new set of eyes and by people with a different set of criteria. Personally, i would not rerun for admin. Many who vote do not give great feed back and certainly it gives the trolls a great chance to cause havoc. David D. (Talk) 20:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure Cyde was not implying that all of the opposes on that particular RfA are enemies, merely that that may be the case for some of the opposes. On the more general discussion here, admins are often chosen as the people who are capable of making the hard decisions. Whenever you make those decisions, there are always people on both sides of the argument who are likely to get upset with your choice. (See m:Wrong version, for example) EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 20:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

To clarify i don't believe Cyde was accusing me of being an enemy. But the sentence makes it sound as if there are few legitimate opposes. i would like to think that many of those opposing were not his 'enemy'. I do agree with Cyde, that the RfA is flawed, and running the gauntlet may not even give one the feedback that is useful. Self reflection and discussion at pages like this are much more productive. And if one has really gone OTT then I am sure ArbCom will waste no time. Leave the desysopping to them. David D. (Talk) 21:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all your comments, good and bad. Zeq himself has said I'm good at times, just that I act impulsively. Will (message me!) 10:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Range-blocking AOL

Do we want to use the new blocking system to range-block all of AOL?

Current system:

• Registered AOL users frequently get hit by autoblocks
• AOL anons frequently get hit by autoblocks
• AOL vandals rarely get hit by autoblocks

Blocking AOL with allow registered editors/allow registration:

• Registered AOL users never get hit by autoblocks
• AOL anons can never edit
• AOL vandals never get hit by autoblocks

Which do we want? --Carnildo 07:34, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd prefer not to jump through all the whining that goes with blocking usernames. Blocking AOL ips when required is easier and has less opposition. Since we can now block each user specifically, I don't see the use of range blocks as preventive measures. --mboverload@ 07:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll second that. Range blocks just cause too much grief. --Woohookitty^(meow) 11:24, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Francis Schuckardt

This arbitration case is closed and the final decision has been published at the link above.

The decision takes account of the fact that the editors in question are new to Wikipedia and cannot be expected to be fully conversant with our rules and culture.

The Francis Schuckardt article is placed on probation for three months. During article probation any Wikipedia administrator may briefly ban (from the article or its talk page) any editor of the article or its talk page who violates Civility, No personal attacks, or who engages in tendentious (biased) editing. No permanent or lengthy bans shall be made during the period of probation. Probation may be extended for additional periods after review by the Arbitration Committee. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Francis Schuckardt#Log of blocks and bans.

For the arbitration committee. --Tony Sidaway 09:01, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Close Waldorf Education AfD

Low priority on this... but the AfD at Waldorf Education is not a valid AfD. This should have been taken to WP:RM or RfD. I've informed the nominator. Could someone close the AfD (and perhaps facilitate a move from Waldorf-education to Waldorf education by deleting Waldorf Education, thus solving the problem)?--Isotope23 13:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Messed with monobook.js in wiki:es

I was trying to install the Monobook-Suite and I did something wrong with the monobook.js of wikipedia in spanish monobook.js because now I'm not able to login at es.wikipedia.org...please help!!! --cybedu 13:25, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Not saying that nobody here can help, but please know that administrators on en are not automatically administrators on other wiki projects. You might have better luck posting on es's version of AN, though leave your post here in case someone with multiple admin wanders by. Syrthiss 13:29, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try to find an admin with multiple admin rights then.--cybedu 13:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Help needed

On Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2006 July 10, it was decided to replace all instances of Image:Octagon-warning.gif with Image:Octagon-warning.png. However, it's part of {{blocked}} and thus has been subst'ed on nearly 1000 pages. I've done about 400 pages using AWB but would appreciate some help doing this as it's really tedious. If a few other fellow admins could chip in and take care of say, 50 instances each (doesn't take that long), that would greatly help me out. Thanks. howcheng {chat} 21:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah crap, I just noticed that there's a freakin' SVG version too and we should be using that one instead. Grrr. howcheng {chat} 21:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Can't you redirect an image? Wouldn't that do the trick? ---J.S (t|c) 22:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

No, you can't redirect Images, well.. you can, but you're not supposed to. — The King of Kings 03:45 July 19 '06

What's the point? They all look the same.… ⇒ JarlaxleArtemis 01:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

We don't usually keep redundant images like the 3 above. There is a .svg, .gif and .png version of those Images and we only need one. Thats why he is substituting the Images out for only one of them. — The King of Kings 03:45 July 19 '06

Good in prinicple, not so good in practice. You're talking hours and hours of work to save a few kb of server space. Just change the templates that use it and tag the image itself as deprecated. 128.151.71.18 14:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

small dispute out of hand

please come to Batmobile to help iron this out before it becomes messy--205.188.116.200 23:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Please see dispute resolution. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 14:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

TfD

I don't understand the hold up on the deletion of the template on Tfd here [12]. There is an overwhelming consensus of established users to delete this tag, and the tag is already creating new disruption almost each day. It should be deleted now. 172 | Talk 04:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand your comment "established users" are you implying that the opinion of someone that has only been around for a month is not as good as a opinion of someone that has been around for a year? That doesn't sound very wiki like to me. ILovePlankton 05:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Experience matters everywhere, and Wikipedia is no exception. Yes, established users are more likely to understand whether a template is going to be disruptive on Wikipedia. The particular TfD listed may sound helpful in principle, but it will be disruptive and redundant in practice. Expeirenced users are more likely to grasp this problems than ones who have been around for less than a month. 172 | Talk 18:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Know what's funny?

looking through some of the older, inactive AOL IP talk pages, it seems like back in 2004 AOL still gave out semi-static IPs to its 64, 149, 152, 205, and 207 ranges, similar to the 172 ranges currently. This means either A) They cheaped out and stopped doing it, or B) eventually they use up all the possible static IPs in a given range, and then move on, which means the 172 range may not stay semi static forever--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 16:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

More Amorrow

Today's weird Andrew Morrow event: Andrew Morrow created a bio article about me (at John Nagle) and sent me an e-mail about it. Since I don't think I'm notable enough for Wikipedia (there's not enough info on the web about me for a useful bio), I put a {{db-bio}} on it. I'm not sure what the whole "Amorrow" story is, but I gather it's an ongoing problem. --John Nagle 17:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It's an ongoing problem all right- I have no idea whether or not you're notable, but anything created by a banned user after they were banned is speediable, and he's really, really, really banned. As such I've deleted the article and blocked him. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 17:25, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Really? Wow. That is like, REALLY banned. -- 75.28.164.218 23:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Impersonation case moved from WP:AIV

This was up at WP:AIV, but I'm moving it here since it's not really a vandalism case. Anybody who feels like dealing with it, please do so. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• EH MD (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Apparently this user is impersonating User:ED MD. ED MD is in a position to be impersonated, apparently, because he recently started editing from the username ED MD instead of ER MD. If an admin with checkuser priveleges could deal with this situation (that ER MD = ED MD and that EH MD is neither of these) and make sure that everything is kosher, that would be keen. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 16:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

AOL Blocks

I've noticed that more so than in the past, AOL IPs are winding up blocked based on warnings that are anywhere from weeks, to months, and even years old, in some cases blocks are even being issued on IPs that haven't edited in days. Would it be possible for someone to have their bot sweep through all the AOL shared talk pages, and remove all the old warnings? There's really no reason to keep a random collection of warnings, especially since AOL users can't actually receive talk page messages anyway. Having them there just usually leads to confusion, both on the part of AOL users, and on the part of Vandalism Patrollers--205.188.116.200 14:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• The only hard part would be doing this on the almost 500 active AOL talk pages--205.188.116.200 14:48, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• Actually, that's not so many, I'll try and do it by hand using this account--205.188.116.200 14:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• Of course I've now been blocked for impersonating an AOL user, myself specifically, so I either won't be doing this, or will be using a different account--205.188.116.200 15:07, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• Nevermind then--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 15:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• New problem, I accidently cleared Template_talk:SharedIP, and now the spam filter won't let me revert myself?--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 15:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• and once again, nevermind, bad link removed--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 15:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so it turns out there are well over a 1000 tagged AOL users on wikipedia, I forgot about {{sharedip|AOL}}--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 17:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• Ok, all done............with THE single most tedious thing I've ever done--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 17:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually at least some of these changes are problematic. You should not blindly revert all warnings - I've seen at least one example where you removed warnings relating to active or just completed blocks. Removing these is very unhelpful. Its also worth noting that AOL warnings are useful information (even if of less use than on most IP talk pages) and removing them currently considered vandalism. Gwernol 18:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

They're of absolutely no use, and nothing over 5 or 6 minutes old has any chance of even drawing their attention, removing them is not considered vandalism--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 18:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, this is, of course, your opinion. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

But an opinion that makes a lot of sense :) — Adrian~enwiki (talk) 07:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Requested moves - speedy version?

I just filed a request at Wikipedia:Requested_moves#19_July_2006 (see Talk:Charles Breton Huggins for details), but I see that most of the requests on that page involve disputed or unclear name cases. Is there not a place for speedy page moves to be performed by admins? There should be if there isn't, as simple spelling typos (in this case blocked by a redirect) should be dealt with quickly, rather than having to wait for the backlog at Requested Moves to be cleared. Carcharoth 16:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. The one case I can image where a deletion-for-move could be done speedily would be in a case where someone made a page move accidentally and wanted to undo it. Technically, the could already do that, I suppose, by using {{db-author}} on the resulting redirect. Mangojuice^talk 18:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying that typos blocked by a redirect are not suitable for speedy moves? (Though for the record, it wasn't a typo, just a perpetuation of an earlier mistake which presumably was a typo). Carcharoth 22:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Recreation of GridCC

I noticed that GridCC was speedily deleted per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GridCC as spam and a copyvio. However, the article is back. I don't have access to the previous version of the article to tell if the new article is the same as the old one. I was going to slap a {{db-repost}} tag on it, but it's possible that the new article is enough of a rewrite that it doesn't fit WP:CSD G4. Any comments? --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 16:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It's almost entirely different now. I'd say db-repost wouldn't apply. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Does recreation of an article that was speedied still fall under {{db-repost}}? My understanding was that this was only for AfD deletions, where a discussion was held. I thought you simply re-tag CSD-recreated articles with whichever CSD tag they qualify under. BigNate37_T·C 07:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Help in unblocking.

I recently logged on to see that my IP Address had been blocked for someone creating an account that had a corporate name in it. Why can that one user not be banned instead of the whole IP? Please help. CharlesM 21:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• It's probably an autoblock, if you give your IP to the blocking admin they should be able to remove it--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 21:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Block templates

I think we should aim for more consistency and utility in block templates. I started a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Block_templates. Just zis Guy you know? 21:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Honest, I didn't make up the "not a soapbox" and "not a crystal ball" rules

Would someone besides me, preferably someone more diplomatic (though I certainly don't think I was being confrontational by saying things like "notability first, mention in the encyclopedia later") please contact User:3rdman re: User talk:Jmabel#Regarding the "Radical Middle" logo and User talk:Jmabel#Thanks, It was Nice Talking With You Too... and clarify to him that I am not just pulling things out of thin air, that we really do have policies and guidelines that say you can't just make up a logo for a political current/movement (Radical middle) and put it in an article (nor can you link from the article to your non-notable logo). The user is clearly a good graphic designer, and people in this movement might be well advised to use his logo, but Wikipedia is not the place to promote it to try to get them to adopt it. His statement "I thought Wikipedia was precisely the place to post both new and/or recognized items for discussion and review" really suggests that he does, genuinely, in good faith misunderstand about this; he clearly thinks I have a stick up my ass and/or that I am somehow hostile to him or his logo, since he replied with things like "DELETE my account if it makes you feel important, OK Mr. Admistrator?" - Jmabel | Talk 22:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

User_talk:3rdman#Hey --mboverload@ 23:01, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice try, but his response was apparently to write to me "Fine I'll stop altogether... You won! You should be happy you smug piece of shit... Go rule over your crummy little world. Wikipedia is GROSSLY OVER-MODERATED! I don't know why Wikipedia allows user contributions AT ALL if they're constantly watching, editing and deleting user contributions. It kind of defeats the entire purpose."

I suspect he's gone for good, which was certainly not at all my intent. If anyone wants to ask him back, feel free, but obviously I should not. - Jmabel | Talk 00:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well he stated he has multiple mental problems, which should be a factor to consider in his behavior. --mboverload@ 02:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOT-therapy, and I say that as an individual with an Axis-I diagnosis. Essjay (Talk) 02:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

"…stated he has multiple mental problems…": I had no idea. Was this on his user page? This started from my removing an inappropriate message from an article, after which he messaged me back on my user talk page and I answered on his. Oh well. - Jmabel | Talk 03:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes Essjay, I know, I was refering to why he did it. A regular editor would not have behaved as he did (and what's an axis-1 diagnosis?). Yes, It was on his userpage. --mboverload@ 03:25, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The diagnosis of mental illness via the DSM-IV grades illnesses into five axes, with Axis I being the most serious disorders. It was intended as a note that while I know very well what it's like to have a mental illness (mine is bipolar), having a mental illness != being incapable of controlling ones-self, and if it does, you need a mental health professional, not an internet encyclopedia. Essjay (Talk) 06:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. --mboverload@ 06:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Meanwhile... while the various logos he has made are good graphic design, is there any reason to think any of them are encyclopedic? For example, the image he added to Third way (centrism): he says explicitly that this is something he designed. I this actually in use, and therefore encyclopedic, or is this another unencyclopedic logo he is simply proposing? And if I've found two, I bet there are others. - Jmabel | Talk 03:39, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Did you know???

I'm putting out a call to all interested administrators. Recently, Template:Did you know has been falling far behind the times. Currently there are plans to have an update roughly every six hours. At this moment-in-time, it has been roughly 20 hours since the last update. If there are perhaps one or two interested Admins that would be willing to help out with updates in the next few days, we could really give some of the regulars (For example, in no particular order: MGM, Lar, Brian, Cactus.man) a break. There are easy enough instructions to follow on the talk page and the guide and bold updaters would be appreciated. Let's pitch in and give these guys and gals a hand! Thanks. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 00:11, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The template is now updated, but more helping hands are always welcome :-) --Cactus.man ✍ 10:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll second this call. DYK is an important program and the more admins we have updating it, the better. For many new authors this is their first chance at "fame" and it often can set the hook to convert an occasional editor to a solid contributor. The old hands will help you out so please, give it a try, we have loads of great articles waiting for selection and as I speak, the template is eligible for update. ++Lar: t/c 15:12, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

We are once again getting a big backlog of great suggestions and increasing the frequency of update is the way to ensure more great articles get a chance at some visibility. Once again, if you're an admin and want to help out, consider doing an update. It's not hard, although it does take a little time. Thanks for your consideration! ++Lar: t/c 13:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Voting when relisting AfDs

I know we're not supposed to vote in AfD debates that we close... but what about ones we decide should be relisted for further consensus? Since it seems that people are willing to close relisted debates whenever they show a consensus, it's not like there's a conflict. Thoughts? Mangojuice^talk 00:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it'd be altogether fine for one to participate in an AfD debate he has relisted, especially since those AfDs that require relisting often fail to elicit much participation, such that it is often useful that he who determines insufficient participation exists toward the determining of consensus (which, after all, isn't really a disposition of the AfD) himself analyzes the AfD. As Mango, then, I can't imagine that there's anything wrong with one's relisting and then participating in an AfD (to which the closest analogue, I think, is an admin's properly formatting an AfD another editor has unsuccessfully listed and subsequently participating in the discussion). Joe 04:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

you are NOT supposed to vote in ANY AFD at all, relisted or not.. You don't "vote in a debate". -- Drini 06:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

(rolls eyes) "participate in the discussion", then. :P Mangojuice^talk 12:29, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think if you have a strong opinion and wish to express it when relisting, I think it's fine to make a relisting comment or to make a !vote. If you make a !vote, it's probably a good idea not to close the AfD unless the post-relisting !votes are pretty overwhelming in favour of one position. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Unfair and Wide-Ranging Blocks

User:Curps has blocked User:203.87.64.214 indefinitely for no reason as a Blocked proxy or zombie when the address is a home computer, not a proxy, and NO VANDALISM or any post was made at all. Being blocked for NOT making posts? Hasty blocking like this is uncalled for. 09:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

That was in April, and Antandrus, who also initially blocked indef at the same time as Curps, reduced the block to 24 hours almost as soon it was put on. (log). Is there any particular reason to bring this up now? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 10:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Our ANI troll branching out? Syrthiss 12:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know which block you are referring to, the one in question shows User:203.87.64.214 has been blocked by Curps for the following reason (see our blocking policy): Autoblocked because your IP address... and then no reason is mentioned, only "reason for block is...user..." and no reason is provided at all. Don't ICCPR standards require all people to be informed of the charge against them? This block is still current, and no reason is given at all. 14:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I actually know what happened. See the edit summary for a block usually reads user if it was a usernameblock (most of the time). If it's indefinantly, thats probably it. As to how it affected the IP address, it's because of a new blocking function that was enabled. If a user is blocked, theres the function of not allowing the IP to create new accounts anymore and the IP's get the same block the username came from. If it was an autoblock, it should tell you the name of the user it's coming from, can you repeat it here? — The King of Kings 14:16 July 20 '06

Says "autoblocked by Curps" or using the name Xtra_Homophobic. Autoblocked by Curps. Will it remain indefinite?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.112.129.166 (talk • contribs)

No such autoblock, no such user, Xtra_Homophobic (talk • contribs • page moves • Current Autoblocks • block log), check your spelling?--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 15:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, Curps hasn't blocked anyone since June, and autoblocks only last 24 hours, I smell a hoax--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 15:04, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Each block is just 24 hours but an autoblock can occur time and time again from the one original block. --pgk^(talk) 15:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

It appears not to be a hoax, the username is User:Xtra homophobic and he is autoblocked [13] so I can safely assume not a hoax. — The King of Kings 15:17 July 20 '06

Ah, didn't occur to me to search under Blocker instead of Blockie, Xtra homophobic (talk • contribs • page moves • Current Autoblocks • block log) was blocked in April, odd that they'd come back now--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 15:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Does seem odd, maybe a side effect from the new block function? I'm unsure though. It appears the other users that are currently autoblocked by Curps were also blocked some time ago, around May, so I'm unsure why autoblocks coming in now. — The King of Kings 15:28 July 20 '06

Nope it has always worked like this. See WP:AUTOBLOCK "In the case of an indefinite block, autoblocks may continue to be set by the software weeks or months after the initial block has been set." --pgk^(talk) 15:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, wasn't aware much of how autoblocks worked. Thanks for explaning. — The King of Kings 15:44 July 20 '06

Edit war in the Carpool lane

This is going to boil into an edit war between me and SighSighSigh so I thought I'd post here before continuing. The general consensus is to remove all links to specific carpooling sites. SighSighSigh keeps wanting to add a link to Texas A&M's carpooling site, and he's also adding what I see as unnecessarily POV commentary. I mentioned spamlinks once, but he has not engaged in any more conversation on the talk page and is now simply reverting my edits. Can a neutral admin please look at the article and possibly protect the page so we can engage in discussion? Thanks, Deathphoenix ʕ 12:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks like User:SighSighSigh is reverting back to the same version over and over, undoing all the changes you and others have made, which strikes me as not good. But I looked at the talk page and more discussion may not be beneficial if there is no understanding. I'd hope that protection (or semi) is not needed, that a request to discuss further before edit warring more would be sufficient. I find myself in agreement that this A&M link has not been shown to be significant. Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 14:25, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Lar beat me to it. However, I don't think that links to carpool services should be provided unless they provide information that increases understanding about the subject of carpooling. Wikipedia articles are for education, not to promote activities, no matter how beneficial they may be. Also, if the links provide have no value other than advertising that carpooling organization, you will have no end to the links being added and/or arguing of which links should be included. -- Kjkolb 14:45, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that, mate! I commented on the talk page as well. Deathphoenix, please let us know if we can be of further help, and happy editing! ++Lar: t/c 14:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll resume reverting his reverts until he engages in dialogue or makes useful edits. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't fall afoul of 3RR dude, call for help... ++Lar: t/c 16:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry, I'm not quite that dull (yet). Looks like the page got protected, though, so it's moot (for now). --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:35, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Image:Smstarfleetacademy.png

I recently retagged this image as {{logo}} because I concluded this image was a derivative work of Image:Sf academy.jpg. I also removed the image from the userbox it was used in. Subsequent to this, I tagged the image as {{orfud}} because it was only used in userspace, and is redundant to Image:Sf academy.jpg. This morning, I was accused of vandalism of the image and of the userbox it was in, and my edits were reverted, with some discussion ensuing on my talk page. Part of the justification for this image not being copyrighted by Paramount is that the source image is from an image located at deviantART. To me, I find it impossible to imagine that this source image is not a derivative work of art from the original Paramount image. I've also taken Image:Smstarfleetacademy.png, and scaled it (retaining aspect ratio) to the same size as Image:Sf academy.jpg. The resulting two images are virtually identical. Since I am now being accused of vandalism and find myself in conflict with this editor, I'd like other administrators to have a look and either support my actions or that of the person who reverted my edits to the image and the userbox it was in. Thank you, --Durin 13:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The images are differnt (colours + pixel aligments -- i perosnaly checked) -- if there is a concesous that this should be tagged as fair use then i will step down, however i do not believe fair use can be claimed on this as it was not created by paramount. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 13:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

If I was to take a legendary painting, change one colour, would it really be mine? I don't know enough about copyright law to state whether that painting is legally mine in that situation, but the image in question here certainly a violation of someone else's personal property. This image should be retagged. --Lord Deskana (talk) 13:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not a lawyer but I think this is a derivative work of the original. Secretlondon 13:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I am also not a lawyer, but it is clear to me that the image is, for all purposes, being used as a "replica" of the original logo. This seems to be circumventing our policies; by simply changing the tint or minor pixel orientations, you cannot call the work your own. In addition, please don't accuse people of "vandalism" when they are making good-faith (and proper, I might add) enforcement of fair use policy - no matter what you think, vandalism applies to bad-faith edits intended to harm the encyclopedia. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 13:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Copyright on a derivative work belongs to the creator but the underlying copyright still applies and the creator can not use it without permission from the original copyright holder. In the case of a "legendary" piece of artwork, assuming it is more than 100 years old and thus public domain, you could make a derivative version (think Warhol) and own the copyright to it. In this case, the starfleet logo is either copyright or trademarked to Paramount, and the fact that it may have been altered does not change the underlying ownership of the original, so the provisions of Fair Use must apply. Thatcher131 13:51, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Since it seems like most people here agree, I've reverted the image back to Durin's version, tagging it as an orphaned fair use image. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 13:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• For demonstration purposes, I created Image:Sflogosmall.png. To create this image, I used Image:Sf academy.jpg as the source image. I resized the image to be close to Image:Smstarfleetacademy.png's size, changed the hue of the red triangle to a slightly darker red, changed the hue of the yellow interspersed in the image, and added an orangish blob in the lower right and orangish swath through the image from lower left to upper right. This image is essentially identical to the image we're discussing. As such, regardless of the source of the image we are discussing, it is a derivative work of Image:Sf academy.jpg. --Durin 13:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Since the concensous seems to be that it should be fair use, ill step down then. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 14:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Late to the party, sorry, but one more voice saying it looks derivative to me and that Durin acted appropriately. ++Lar: t/c 14:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Possible solution for AOL talk pages, that will make everyone happy

Now that there's a definitive list of all AOL users, active on Wikipedia, literally every last one, would it be possible to have Crypticbot archive all of these talk pages on a regular basis to prevent a build up of irrelevant comments, warnings, etc..? I did it once, by hand, and did my best to guage the age/relevancy of the comments, but it's very time consuming, and imperfect when done by hand.--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 01:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

"I did it once" you say. No, you didn't archive them all once by hand. You deleted them all. There's a difference between archiving and deleting. Metros232 01:35, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Alright, archiving AOL talk pages is pointless, which is why those sorts of archives are usually deleted or ignored, that doesn't mean Crypticbot couldn't be used to remove old/irrelevant comments from a talk page--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 01:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Two problems avec your plan: Crypticbot has been dead for two weeks, and we don't have source code for it. Essjay (Talk) 02:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Cryptic has offered the source I think. Secretlondon 13:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed; I offered to set it up on the toolserver if someone could walk me through it, but never heard back, and that I know of, Cryptic has only offered the source, but never actually provided it. If anyone has a copy, please let me know (talk page, preferably), as I'd like to set it up. Essjay (Talk) 00:02, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Essjay is, of course, correct, but I hope that AOL account (205.188.116.200) won't thence infer that others don't appreciate the nature of the various problems relative to AOL; there simply, as has been noted passim, aren't readily actionable solutions. Joe 04:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

werdnabot (talk · contribs) Werdna talk criticism 11:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure we can get a bot to delete comments, if necessary. I think that Werdna is suggesting his bot could do so. However, I think that getting people to stop putting comments on AOL talk pages is the primary way to handle it. Even if the comments are deleted, they still cause harm by being added because they are almost always received by the wrong person. I suggest that the warning about not posting comments on {{AOL}} be made even more explicit and noticeable. Anyway, I appreciate the effort that you have put into this, AOL account (205.188.116.200). Also, I'm glad that you deleted the comments rather than archiving. While there might be a couple of extraordinary situations, it almost never makes sense to archive an anonymous talk page. If there is something that future visitors should know, a note can be left after blanking the page. -- Kjkolb 14:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Correctly closing AfD by non-admin

The AfD for "List of slogans and chants opposing the Iraq War" was recently closed-- and marked for deletion. However, as the editor who closed it was not actually an admin (not unprecedented, but unusual), the article itself has not been dealt with. Please note that the AfD also included the associated List_of_slogans_and_chants_supporting_immigration (as noted in the nom) and thus both should be handled together. --Leflyman^Talk 19:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Taken care of. Sasquatch t|c 19:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Not having checked the deletion policy/process pages lately, I may end up eating my words here, but it used to be the case that non-admins were not supposed to close AFD's where the result was delete because of the possibility of the article not being deleted. If this is no longer the case, please ignore me. If it is, consider putting it in bold. ;) Essjay (Talk) 21:39, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

You're right. It says non-admins are only meant to close (near-)unanimous keeps. Tyrenius 21:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• It was taken for granted that a non-admin wouldn't close the AfD that I didn't even check Mostly_Rainy's status -- in this case, it's an editor with an extremely low edit count, which is particularly surprising. Perhaps someone should keep an eye on the situation and put a stronger note on his talk page if he continues? (As I see he's been cautioned about it previously.)--Leflyman^Talk 00:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Linkspamming

User:202.54.61.99 has been spamming quite a few pages recently. Havardk 22:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

fake edit

I'm not sure this is the right venue for this, but in default of a better, I thought I'd best bring it up in an informed and more or less authoritative context. Talk:Garbology includes an edit yesterday I can't remember making and can't find on my contibutions list. This suggests some possibilities, among which are: I've have been cloned, probably illegally in light of recent politicla events in the US, or that WP user access controls have suffered a mischief. In either case, something untoward has happened. If it involved US$0.75, I think I'd be very concerned, but as it is, I don't think I can identify a proper level of concern. Does anyone here have an idea, or should I start talking to the folks who maintain Mediawiki? ww 23:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Its nothing as serious as that. Take a look at the Garbology page history here. You'll see that the July 19th. edit was made by User:Violacadenza. I'll warn the user for impersonating you, but this is not a MediaWiki problem, you have not been cloned :-) Gwernol 23:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Can somebody close Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_June_30#Template:POV-because

The discussion is going for 20+ days, and has attracted an unusual (for TfD) attention, now it is time to close it one way or another. I am a participant, so I cannot do it myself abakharev 23:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've closed it, deleted the template, and depopulated the mainspace transclusions. Another admin more familliar with TfD will have to put the appropriate header and footer in the discussion section around my decision to finish the deal, as I don't know what to put. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 01:02, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Warren Kinsella

I need a lot of help there. Today's activity included a dozen reverts, a hundred talk page messages, a few P.A.'s, one block, on RFCU request, and lots of heartache. - CrazyRussian talk/email 04:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, between all the Canadian ISPs, the possibility that Ellis is Mark Bourrie himself, the Pete/Pierre allegation, violations of WP:OWN, WP:BLP, WP:NLT and WP:AUTO, and the shenanigans that occurred when Kinsella's blog linked here, I'm surprised no one has filed an RFAR to get the whole group banned from the topic. Thatcher131 11:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

RfAr was filed. - CrazyRussian talk/email 02:31, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I am being stalked

User "AOL account" is stalking me, putting up a tag on my userpage saying I am a sockpuppet. I have only reverted vandalism, and now I got a message saying I was blocked by Pilotguy when I tried to edit my own userpage to revert the libelous vandalism. Can someone please help me?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Xanax is my FRIEND (talk • contribs)

*sigh*--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 17:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Someone, anyone? WatchtowerJihad sock, needs blocking..--AOL account (205.188.116.200) 17:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Can you fill me in on the proof of that? I only see them reverting a vandalism from an anon and then wrangling here and on their userpage. Syrthiss 17:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's a legal threat. That, in itself, is blockable. --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 17:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Please get this guy off my back. I am a new user, and yes, I use AOL. Look at the history of my edits, and look at how he keeps changing my userpage. If he is some kind of administrator here, he is a bit of a cowboy, and needs to cool off.Xanax is my FRIEND 17:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

*sigh louder*--AOL account 17:25, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

You should really be more patient with new users not knowing wiki-ettiquette. If I violated a rule with a legal threat, then I apologize. However, I want to know if libel is against the rules. Is libel blockable? Xanax is my FRIEND 17:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the contributions of User:Xanax is my FRIEND and User:WatchtowerJihad and I don't see the connection. AOL Account, can you please give us some evidence to back up your accusation? I agree that Xanax should not have made a legal threat, by the way. Gwernol 18:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• There's the entire contents of this category, if you want to compare those too, or if you'd rather stick with your first impression of me, then that's fine too--AOL account 18:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

(after ec) - Listen to what I'm asking: They removed the colon cleansing edit, and removed the anon edit to Ambuj in exile's page that had been reverted to over the block notice (which was placed inappropriately). I need more proof of this, like a RFCU. I'm not saying they are a new user, since they clearly have found plenty of places to complain about this...but I'm not seeing the watchtower jihad thing. Syrthiss 19:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't originally convinced 100% myself, that's why I removed the AIV report last night, and watchlisted, instead of pursuing the matter further--AOL account 19:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The fact that Xanax is my FRIEND knew to come to this particular page after purportedly contributing to the project only two days belies his claims of being new. I'm inclined to defer to AOL account's call on this. FeloniousMonk 18:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

AOL Account, I don't know what you mean by "or if you'd rather stick with your first impression of me, then that's fine too" but I don't think its unreasonable to ask you to produce some evidence of this very serious accusation. This has nothing to do with my impressions of you and everything to do with needing evidence to support the indefinite banning of a user. Gwernol 19:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

It managed to find more yet more WatchtowerJihad vandalism within 3 minutes of registration, not to mention this game, they were playing on Talk:South Central Farm, where one would vandalize, and then the other would revert to yet another version of vandalism, and they'd go back and forth until a dozen AOL talk pages were lighting up vandalism warnings--AOL account 19:13, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the Xanax is my FRIEND undid two of the WatchtowerJihad vandal edits, but that account appears never to have touched the Talk:South Central Farm page. Gwernol 19:25, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Right, but how did it find both of those edits so quickly--AOL account 19:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Claiming to be stalked? Xanax is my FRIEND found his way to Personal attack intervention noticeboard board today too. [14] It is possible that it is the wrong puppetmaster, but looks like a sockpuppet to me. Defer to those that know the particulars for the ID. FloNight ^talk 19:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I've unblocked Xanax is my FRIEND and notified both him and AOL account. This whole thing seems to be based on a misunderstanding; let's just try to move on and stop it from escalating further. (FWIW, I do agree with FloNight that Xanax is my FRIEND seems to be quite familiar with Wikipedia, and is likely either a sockpuppet or an established user with a new identity. Then again, the same is true of AOL account as well. I'm nonetheless going to assume good faith with both of them.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your kindness, Ilmari Karonem. I am still unclear as to AOL account's status. Is he some sort of administrator here? Perhaps a vigilante? I had been following the whole drama of WatchtowerJihad for some days, and finally registered to do something about the lack of reverting the vandalism of the African-American page. He seems obsessed with colons.

I would also like to offer my profound personal apology to AOL account for my hasty legal threat. Will you accept my apology? Xanax is my FRIEND 07:10, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Karwynn

I've blocked Karwynn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) for three hours for trolling after I asked him to take down some speculation that appeared to me to be an attempt to identify an editor's IP number. He said he'd take it down if I confirmed that it was a known IP of this editor (I know no such thing). As far as I'm aware, there is no credible allegation of abuse and the editor in question has a right to privacy.

I submit this block for review, and suggest that a longer block period be considered in view of Karwynn's recent history. --Tony Sidaway 17:15, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The editor says he has removed the IP numbers in question and I have unblocked him on the understanding that he will not engage in fishing expeditions to find the IP numbers of other editors. --Tony Sidaway 17:21, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Strawmen aside for a moment, it's not like people knowing anyone elses IP is a violation of anything--205.188.116.200 17:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Going on fishing expeditions to try to find someone's IP number by social engineering, or trying to imply that they're engaging in wrongdoing in order to find their IP number, is harassment.

I've deleted an attack page created by Karwynn. --Tony Sidaway 17:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Attack page? Do you mean User:Karwynn/Compiling Evidence/data dump to be sorted, which is being discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Karwynn/Compiling Evidence/data dump to be sorted? They may be things in there you don't like, but a casual glance reveals that someone is compiled diffs and whatnot, to what end I cannot say. Attack pages are generally things that have no purpose other than to be an attack page. Deleting criticism of yourself just plain looks bad. Are you sure this is the impression you want to give others of your editing behavior? Friday (talk) 19:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway has completely ignored my repeated claims that it is not an attack page. If there is some reason why this does not apply to the description I put up here, I need to hear it. Karwynn (talk) 19:44, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Posting_personal_details for validity of block. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid you misunderstand. He asked me to remove the IP. I did it. Then he blocked me. I'm quite aware of policy now, no thanks at all to any admins, who choose defeating me over informing me. Karwynn (talk) 19:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the last version I see (16:46, 20 July 2006 - edit by you), still has the IP stuff. Where'd you remove it? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

He blocked me for having it on another page, seen here (go to discussion). In that very page he asked me to get rid of it. I did. Then he blocked me and made this heading, saying I didn't. Then he pretended his unblock was "giving me a second chance". Karwynn (talk) 20:44, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

How many times am I supposed to have blocked you over this issue? --Tony Sidaway 22:04, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

He was already blocked once before by you for messing around with my talk page, and looking at his userpage I see, ""Die." - Hilarious quote from PennyGWoods, unfairly permabanned for "threatening the life of Woohookitty". Unite against admin abuse, hyperbole exaggeraton and straw man bannings!", plus Karwynn seems it's sad about what can read from BigDaddy777 yapping page about how awful it was that BigDaddy777, was banned...and the lovely link to encyclopedia dramatica where "The best way to entertain yourself is to watch for articles about Wikipedia editors, it can really bring people to their knees!"...block all time wasting trolls I say...hasta la vista.--MONGO 22:13, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

What?!--64.12.116.200 22:18, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand anybody's reluctance to block people who are working so hard to try to reveal Wikipedia editors' identities. This kind of stalking is unacceptable and should cause immediate blocks to be performed. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:46, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

User Netscott removing evidence from his own AFD

Netscott (talk · contribs) started and AFD and has constantly been removing any evidence to support the site's sources. Recent example. He's also made innacurate claims and removed information that disputes them in the article's history. Most deletion votes were because there weren't sources and now that there is one, Netscott is out to remove it from the AFD. Nobody reads the talk page, so the voters won't see it. Hardvice 02:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

You're repeating content that you copied from the article's talk page. Why not simply link to the talk page discussion? Then people will know where to look, and have some hope of actually reading the AfD page. --bainer (talk) 02:55, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your logical commentary... bainer. (→Netscott) 03:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

As I had already mentioned, nobody reads the talk page. Elaborating: People see the article. It had no source before so that's what they see. The article is protected so nobody can add the source. What about putting the sources at the top of the AFD, is that reasonable? Thebainer, you have to admit the AFD is reallly really long. The talk page is longer still and the evidence is burried in there. (Ironically the source is about a newspaper mentioning the website's article for the abbreviation for "too long, didn't read.") Hardvice 03:06, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Hardvice, you can link to the particular section, although I wish Netscott had just replaced your post with the requested link instead of deleting altogether. As for your characterization, hardvice, that Netscott has "constantly been removing any evidence to support the site's sources", you must admit that is an enormous exaggeration. There are many, many keep comments that remain on the AfD and he deleted your post only twice. -- joturner 03:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I've not been "hiding evidence"... that's just a false accusation to trollishly inflame passions. All that I've done is attempt to remove irrelevant and duplicious commentary from the AfD particularly in light of how big it is without such examples of bloat. (→Netscott) 03:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Well Netscott made a "Note to closing admins" section that makes a lot of unproven accusations right at the top later. Basically it says, "these people possibly are on another wiki, I don't know for sure or have prove other than one person, but I'm going to declare they all do. (note he basically just declares they all do)" and when others tried to refute it, he removed the comments repeatedly. He claimed to archive them but actually just blanked them. He did that a lot. I think someone may have days later put them in talk. It wasn't until some administrators posted questions to it, did Netscott stop blanking the comments. Hardvice 03:23, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

It's safe to say that this newly established log relative to the end of this section of WP:ANI lends weight to my earlier "trollish" remark. (→Netscott) 04:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Please Review the Proposed Spam Policy Box

At Wikipedia_talk:Spam#Internal_Spamming_Take_4 IronDuke made a great box for consideration to be included in the policy page. Check it out and comment on what you think about it. FriendOfPeace 04:40, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Technically incorrect user name?

• On the Special:Log/newusers page, I noticed this entry and it immediately struck me as odd, compared to the following one.

• 01:44, July 21, 2006 Anthonymariner ( talk, (Talk | ) New user account
• 01:43, July 21, 2006 Hf abarth (Talk | contribs) New user account

• It would appear that a user named "Anthonymariner (Talk" or "Anthonymariner ( talk," or some variation thereof, was created. In the spirit of WP:AGF, this could just be a copy/paste typo, but I thought I would pass the info along, just in case. After all, it was just dumb luck that I saw the name, considering how many new users are created. :) -- MrDolomite | Talk 06:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The account User:Anthonymariner looks ok to me, assuming the only account this user has attempted to create is the account created immediately after User:Hf abarth. I can see the problems with your paste above, but the logs checks out fine. -- Longhair 07:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Kurdish people

Please see this edits [15] [16] [17]. User:Helgurd and User:Wirya have removed my sourced edits several times now despite discussion on Talk:Kurdish people. This is against policy to do this, removing my edits which are sourced and leaving misleading edit summary. Please do something. They have reverted everything I have added to the article because of nationalistic reasons. In the meantime I have added a totallydisputed tag to the article to raise attention because of 3RR (I have reverted twice). Khorshid 12:25, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately he is not correct, and I wonder how he accuse me of being nationalistic while this is Kurdish nationalist and even racist organizations who seek and claim an Aryan origin for Kurds. Wirya 12:33, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Offensive

Freerick created a user box with the message "someone thinks this user is fuckable" and a corresponding category. Not only are these most likely to be offensive, they are also likely to be sexual harrassment. The user has placed them only on 3 pages (besides his own).[18][19][20]. I have deleted all instances, the template and the category. This would seem to be an aberrant lapse of judgement on the part of Freerick, (intended, he says, as a compliment), and there is no immediate evidence of similar previous behaviour, so I have placed a strong warning. I am posting this in the interests of transparency over this matter and my actions. Tyrenius 00:11, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Good call. -- Francs2000 00:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it'd be okay if "fuckable" were changed to "attractive". Deco 03:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I, the author of the content in question, strongly disagree with Tyrenius' assesment of this situation as described above and I am disappointed that he chose to deprive me of my right to freedom of expression by censoring content that I created and that I have used and distributed in a manner that does not interfere with the rights of others. First I'd like to address content that I place on my own user page: since that page is created by me and its primary purpose is to relay information about me its cannot be considered sexually harrassing to me, or anyone else. The reader is under no obligation to visit my user page. Moreover, profanity is not banned on Wikipedia, instead it acceptable per Wikipedia's policy on profanity.

As far as other users' pages are concerned, users may remove the content that I put on their user pages at will. I will not re-instate content on another user's page after the user in question, _or_anyone_else_, for that matter, has deleted the content. I may advise the user, however, that someone has deleted content that I placed on their user page. The user in question has the option to keep the content or discard it. My actions, therefore, are in no way harrassing or offensive. The allegation of (sexual) harrassment would be justified if I distributed content in a discriminatory, derogatory or otherwise demeaning manner, and if I did so clearly against the will of others, or pervasively, even after specific complaints have been received. So far no one has complained, except Tyrenius, and I did not modify his user page in any way or associate my content with his account. I have made it clear, as Tyrenius contends, that the content I authored is gender-neutral, not meant offensively, and intended as a compliment. To underscore my point that the content in question is not offensive, please note that the content in question has remained on the users' pages for a long time, with the users' full knowledge, as I have made them aware of the situation in some cases via their talk page or the edit summary. The user(s) in question had every opportunity to remove the material, address the appropriateness with me, appeal to an administrator or take other remedial actions. None of this, however, has occurred.

I feel that Tyrenius' actions not only encroach on my rights to freely express myself, I find that they also create a chilling effect, discouraging myself, as well as others, to continue to contribute to Wikipedia with an open mind, for fear of being expelled from the Wikipedia community, should their views not be in line with those of the administrators. Specifically, Tyrenius' threat to block my account in spite of my obviously positive contributions to Wikipedia underscores the chilling effect that his action has on the community.

Unless I receive a specific request from someone who finds my material offensive or harrassing, I believe that I have the right to distribute it freely, so long as it does not interfere with the rights of others. Should that situation occur, the affected user, admin or guest should address the issue on my talk page, rather than executing an arbitrary summary judgement.

Since, as I stated above, I respect other users' rights to edit their own user pages, or any other pages, for that matter, as they please, I will not revert deletion of my content from other users' pages. However, I believe that I share the same right as other users to include the content that I want on my own user page. Therefore, I disagree with Tyrenius' decision to remove benign content that he personally happens to finds offensive, but does not violate Wikipedia policy. If we cannot reach an acceptable consensus, I do intend to appeal his decision and would like to thank him for his candor and forthcomingness when explaining his decision. (Patrick 05:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC))

Wikipedia is not a forum for free speech, and your suggestion that removing a userbox, which could easily be taken as offensive/harrassing (if you don't think that walking up to someone and saying "hey, you're fuckable" might be taken as an offense, you have severe social problems), may discourage people to "continue to contribute to Wikipedia with an open mind" is nothing less than utter bollocks. Wikipedia is not Myspace, it's an encyclopaedia. We don't want this kind of 'contribution'. I think Tyrenius' warning was lenient and you are severely pushing your luck with this ridiculous defence. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 11:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Fellow Wkipedian, please note that according to the page you refer to above, Wikipedia is not censored and "...may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive." Sam, are you suggesting that defending my position on this is grounds for suspension of account privileges? I cannot conceive that Wikipedia has any policy that would support such a stance, so if such a policy does exist, kindly point me to it. In addition, your comment above starting with "We don't want this kind of 'contribution'. [...]" suggests that you believe you are speaking on behalf of *all* Wikipedians, which I do not believe to be the case. If you have evidence to the contrary, however, please let me know.

As far as potentially offensive content is concerned, I am only referring to content I posted in user space, not content in name space, which should certainly be kept encyclopedic. In user space, Wikipedia policy traditionally provides an outlet for editors to post on a wide range of topics, including their own opinions, even if such views may be unpopular. I noticed that the supporters of censoring material in user space who commented above use ad hominem attacks and threats of suspension in an attempt to possibly discourage those with opposing views from speaking up or perhaps to shield their arguments from public scrutiny. This is understandable, since conformity by the masses is an essential requirement for authoritarian leaders. Please be advised, however, that such arguments may provoke and encourage those with opposing views from yours to enter the discussion.

In order to provide a fair playing field for other Wikipedians, please refrain from personal attacks and threats, especially if you are advocating to other users to refrain from distributing offensive content. Thanks!

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.” (Avram Noam Chomsky)

(Patrick 04:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC))

You say "I noticed that the supporters of censoring material in user space who commented above use ad hominem attacks and threats of suspension in an attempt to possibly discourage those with opposing views from speaking up or perhaps to shield their arguments from public scrutiny." I would be grateful for an apology over this use of the plural, which obviously included me in a sweeping statement, as I opened this discussion in the first place precisely for people to speak up and express opposing views if they wished. Tyrenius 04:38, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree with userbox removal. -- Samir धर्म 10:20, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Tyrenius, indeed, I'm sorry that I wasn't precise with my language above. I should have said "...the supporters of censoring material in user space who commented above and use ad hominem..." (emphasis added, of course). Again, I do appreciate that you mentioned the matter here in order for others to comment; this shows that you believe that your decision was justified and that you acted in good faith. (Patrick 20:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC))

Samir, Tyrenius, Sam, et. al, I don't have the consensus needed to keep the userbox content that I created but I disagree nonethless with the decision to prohibit me (or anyone) from posting this (or any) content on my user page, so long as its removal is not absolutely necessary (e.g. as required by law), and even in such extreme circumstances such a decision might frustrate me and I would most likely raise questions regarding the justification of said action. I'd like to again emphasize that I feel that even the suggestion that stating my position regarding this matter, even if it is the dissenting position, would warrant expulsion or other repercussions, does not contribute to a positive and efficient working environment. On the contrary, and without regard to the content discussed above, such a suggestion discourages editors from making statements (in user space or elsewhere) that may not be popular, but valid, nonetheless. Many editors, especially those who are newer members of the community, may not see themselves in a position to withstand a personal attack, or the threat of a summary judgement by an opposed admin, which may result in, possibly unwarranted, blocking. Unless this is disputed, I think it is necessary to clarify here that a user ought not be banned or otherwise reprimanded for stating his viewpoint in discussion, in the appropriate space therefore provided, regardless of the matter that is dicussed or the position that is taken. (Patrick 20:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC))

I don't think Samuel Blanning is threatening to block you for expressing your opinion in a forum which is available for comment, more a figure of speech to indicate how strongly he feels you've got it wrong. We can all make mistakes, and an apology clears the record. The very first use of it caused offense,[21] for which you have not apologised to the user. To continue to argue for it so vehemently is now reducing your credibility, when third parties have pointed out how unacceptable it is.Tyrenius 12:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Free speech is free speech, and if you think that saying that another person is 'fuckable' means you lack social skills, then perhaps you've never been to a bar before. Or perhaps no one thinks you are fuckable. Regardless, I agree that the userbox could be construed as offensive. However, simply being offensive does not seem to be enough to warrent its total deletion and threats regarding account suspension. (Toaster 06:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC))

This comment was posted by 72.197.178.213 who has 2 edits -- Tyrenius 05:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

The context in a bar is entirely different from the context here: People who go to bars do so because they want to drink and play darts and meet members of the opposite sex. People who come to Wikipedia do so because they want to write an encyclopedia. If you went to a bar and asked a random girl there to write you an article on Gustav Doré, she'd think you were deranged. Why is it a surprise that the inverse is true here? It was inappropriate, and one of the first people who "received" the box immediately (and unsurprisingly) took offense, whether offense was intended or not. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 17:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

A few thoughts:

• I went up to a girl in a bar and asked her to write an article on Gustav Doré. She said she doesn't know much of him and remembers not liking the prevalence of dark tones in his engravings. She is, however, working on a dissertation on some works by Henri Matiss and says she "could use some help". Whether or not I actually am deranged was never brought into question and didn't seem to matter much to her...
• Besides: not everyone who goes to a bar does so for the reasons that you have stated. Some people, for example, go there to work. And you obviously left out a lot of activities that Wikipedians do on Wikipedia. Are you suggesting that users of Wikipedia are not allowed to use it as a medium for interpersonal communication or, as a result of this, even, meeting members of the opposite sex? THAT'S definetely censorship. The userbox removal was kind of a gray area because of ceratin decensy laws, user agreements, and such, in addition to the fact that a removal, is constitutionally as equally protected as the speech removed.
• I did not receive a peronal complaint from any user personally, so I did not feel the need to issue an apology. If such a complaint has indded been sent to me, with the properties that you imply, I am assuming that you have a copy of said compalind and are ready to sent it to me.
• I'm not making myself less credible by defending a point that is no held by the majority. It was my intention for the readers of my previous comment to infer that I feel more strongly about the importance of having a free forum of discussion, rather than the material that was discussed prior. That's why I started said paragraph with "I don't have the consensus needed to keep the userbox content that I created but"... but maybe I was a little too vague. (Patrick 15:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC))

Please sign your talk posts with ~~~~. You're giving the appearance of wikilawyering here with your arguments, which have all been refuted already. Railing about censorship is not really a good approach, as there is no right to free speech here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place to hook up or to be sociable, and everything you do here should be able to be shown (without twisted or torturous logic) to support the project itself. Your box was inappropriate for the collegial atmosphere that is desired here. Internalise that and move on. ++Lar: t/c 10:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't signed my prior post. I've never heard the term "Wikilawyering" but it sounds really depressing. I've already "internalized" everything that has been posted and I haven't mentioned recreating the user box. I do disagree that there is no free speech here. Either there is free speech or there is not. If there is no free speech, people's constitutional rights may be violated. It's important to detect such a trend early on, before it becomes wide-spread. (Patrick 15:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC))

Exactly whose constitution is Wikipedia governed under? Syrthiss 16:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be confusing a right to free speech with a right to have anything you like published by whoever you like. --pgk^(talk) 19:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Well said, pgk. Everything you write on Wikipedia is being published by the WikiMedia foundation, and your "right" to say things here is actually a privilege granted by the site's owners because it seems like a good way to get an encyclopedia written. If you use that privilege to do something other than write an encyclopedia, you shouldn't be too surprised when someone asks you to stop. If you think Wikipedia should be a free webhost, or a social networking service, why not address that point directly, instead of feeding us red herrings about free speech, as if Wikipedia were a nation-state or something. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Son of a Peach (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Son of a Peach has been engaged in some vandalism[22], including editing other users' comments[23], what do you think? Myrtone

In regard to the second edit, I would recommend that he not change another person's comments in that manner. However, I would not go so far as to call it vandalism. I do not think that his posting of "W00t f0r j00, dr4g0nf1y!" after DragonFly31's comment would qualify as vandalism, either. I believe that he was just expressing his support for DragonFly31's position. I looked through a couple of his edits and did not find any vandalism, but I did not make an exhaustive search. I think that politely requesting that he not modify the content of your comments would be okay. -- Kjkolb 14:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

"W00t f0r j00, dr4g0nf1y!" The reason I regarded this as vandalism and threfore removed it is becuase it looks like gibberish (I have no idea what it means). Myrtone (☏):-(

I think it means "W00t for you, Dragonfly." -- Kjkolb 20:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggest watching [155.9.10.2 ]

Suggest watching 155.9.10.2 (talk · contribs). Edits with a rather strong point of view about the causes of inflation have been made to several relevant articles. That IP address has had previous warnings and blocks. The edits are not vandalism, but some watchfulness might be in order. Thanks. --John Nagle 07:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopædia Dramatica

I received the following as an email. It appears to relate mainly to an article Encyclopedia Dramatica that looks like it describes a somewhat peripheral Internet phenomenon, the kind of article I really don't care either way whether we have or not. It also contains miscellaneous allegations of Admin abuse. On the whole the picture I get is that the sender of this has most likely been repeatedly blocked/banned, has not been willing to deal with any of our usual procedures as a way to try to get unbanned, and instead keeps creating new accounts, behaving in at least a mildly abusive manner (maybe worse - I gave this about 10 minutes, and obviously the person is unlikely to point to his/her most egregious actions), and then getting blocked on those new accounts.

Still, having sampled a few of these, there might be some inappropriate admin actions, which is why I am posting this here. Admins, especially when acting in their capacity as admins, should not be calling people "retarded" and telling them to "fuck off". I've certainly dealt with "contributors" who make me want to do that, and I fully sympathize with the frustration, but venting it this way is, at best, troll-feeding.

I don't tend to watch this page a lot, so if someone wants to ask me any questions on this, please "ping" me on my user talk page. Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 17:20, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

E-mail commented out, please don't "feed the trolls"... the text herein has been SPAMMED to many admins/others in e-mail. Thanks. (→Netscott) 17:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I also received this exact same email and concur with User:Jmabel's analysis. - FrancisTyers · 17:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I've gotten it twice, from two different accounts. The first version didn't have the first two lines. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

From what I've seen surrounding all of this, posting this e-mail here would be a fine example of "feeding the troll". (→Netscott) 17:34, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I got it too. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 17:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Also received the email. Phish much? Although I somewhat disagree. As far as I can tell, there isn't much of a case here. Yes, there was some incivility and personal attacks, but no administrator abuse. MONGO, et al. have every right to delete an image whose use is to attack or disparage the subject. He has every right to remove banned users' (+ socks') edits. He has every right to remove his personal information that someone else has put on the wiki. And we are not the keepers of ED; if there is vandalism there, they have to deal with it. I just got done writing MONGO an email letting him know we have a phisher. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 17:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Also got it, looks like he spammed admins...? I responded that it was an inappropriate venue and told him to bring it to the project. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Got it too. My response was basically "What do you want me to do with this?" --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 19:59, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if there's anyone who didn't get it? -- Natalya 20:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm getting tired of these emails. I'm getting 1 wikispam almost every day ... yesterday it was a phisher, today, it's a sneaky complainant. I propose blocks on such mass spammers. --Ragib 20:25, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Generally unenforceable. Even if the spammer self identifies, there's no guarantee that it's actually who they say they are. If the mass block was policy, it would be a simple matter to impersonate a target to get them removed from the project. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 21:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• Well what do you know. I got the spam too. So I went to the AfD and voted with my conscience, which is precisely what I urge everyone else to do. Review the article, it's cited sources, its potential for further reliable sources, and above all its stated aim of becoming the next GNAA, and decide what role Wikipedia should play in helping them to achieve that aim. Do check for mentions on Google News and your favourite newspaper sites (with and without the diphthong). Just zis Guy you know? 21:36, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I did as well, JzG. And I got the spam... Will (message me!) 22:07, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I was spammed with this crap too just after I voted. — Nathan ^(talk) _{/ 22:08, 19 July 2006 (UTC)}

I did not even do anything, yet I got this. I believe it should be a sanctionable offense, but with the comments other gave, it could be just giving people tickets to remove people from WP. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 22:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• I feel left out...I never got one! Darn it...I feel rejected. Pout time.--MONGO 22:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry. The way things are going we'll soon have an article on the email itself. ;-) Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, my issue was that administrators should not be calling people "retarded" and telling them to "fuck off". - Jmabel | Talk 22:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Based upon this diff I'm beginning to think that hardvice (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is our culprit here. (→Netscott) 01:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I asked the sender why the e-mail was sent, and I got this response:

I have been unable to report abuse through proper channels. I have tried repeatedly and my comments are removed and I am banned. If I put them on my talk page, it is reverted, locked, and deleted. I have tried multiple times to contact others about this. Even if I ask one single person for help, someone comes along and reverts it and bans me. It took me a endless hours doing it by hand, but I want to help improve wikipedia.

--MichaelZimmer (talk) 02:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

At the risk of beating a dead horse, and I promise it is the last time I'll say this in this discussion, but am I really the only one here who thinks there is a problem with an administrator calling another user "retarded" and telling them to "fuck off"? Instead, everybody is flaming about the spammer. I've certainly felt that way toward several users myself; that's when I come here and see if some other admin will take over from me in dealing with that person, because I have obviously gotten too engaged to do so dispassionately. - Jmabel | Talk 07:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course, it is a bad thing, and the admin who said it should face some kind of sanction, but regardless of what the admin did, the spammer should have tried to contain the issue within its' current locations, instead of trying to spam everyone about it in their inboxes. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 07:23, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Everyone hates spammers with a passion. Once you start acting like a dick, any claim against another user is null and void in most people's eyes. --mboverload@ 07:26, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Calling someone "retarded" and telling them to "fuck off" certainly seems to be "acting like a dick"... yet your axiom strangely doesn't seem to hold in such cases. When an admin acts like a troll, and using terminology clearly intended to insult is certainly 'trollish' behaviour, they share in the responsibility for the bad behaviour of the person they abused and provoked. Saying, 'the admin was annoyed so it is understandable' is a cop-out/double-standard... the regular user was equally annoyed and their behaviour equally 'understandable'. But 'understandable' doesn't equal 'acceptable'... for either party. Admins ought to be better than trolls... and when they aren't we should say so and tell them not to do it again. --CBD 13:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Repmart evading block

User:Repmart is evading his block to stalk me and leave yet more abusive (and inaccurate) messages on my talk page. He is checking my user contributions and undoing some of my edits -- some giving the reason "editing for the sake of editing". He seems to be editing under a range of dynamic IPs. The user may be familar to some as the author of an threatening email to User:Zoe, which the latter mentioned on here a few days back. The JPS^{talk to me} 22:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Give me some links and I'll be more than happy to block them. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:42, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's much point; several IPs were used last night, often with only one edit each. User:195.153.183.3; User:86.29.116.166; User:86.29.127.112; User:86.29.117.184. The latter especially illustrates how he's trawled my contribs., The JPS^{talk to me} 10:25, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Delete lines from deletion log archive

Hello,

Is it possible that someone delete lines from deletion log archive or just comments in brackets?

These are actual persons and would like their names removed from wikipedia's deletion log archive because it is showing in google search.

If so, please delete lines starting with (or everything in brackets after the texts):

12:44, 28 Oct 2004 Ahoerstemeier deleted "Vojmil

12:21, 28 Oct 2004 Rdsmith4 deleted "Verica

12:20, 28 Oct 2004 Rdsmith4 deleted "Silvio ross"

12:20, 28 Oct 2004 Rdsmith4 deleted "Vojmil

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Glaskonc (talk • contribs) 12:18, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Should we just blank all pages linked from Wikipedia:Deletion log? That way, the log data is available in the history but won't be cached by Google. Kusma (討論) 12:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Isn't there just a way with meta tags in HTML to tell a robot not to index...? Sasquatch t|c 02:32, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Yup, google for meta robots noindex nofollow for instructions. Who can edit the HTML of Special:Log/delete? Weregerbil 19:34, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

They can be added to /robots.txt, like is done with AfD. --cesarb 00:40, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

What good reason is there for hiding/obfuscating records from the system? rootology 19:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind, I misread. rootology 19:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

"Broken" pages in the deletion log

What's with all of the "Broken" User and Talk pages in the Deletion Log? User:Zoe|^(talk) 03:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

There's been some funky stuff going on with the database, so who knows. --Woohookitty^(meow) 06:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

For about 40 minutes last night, all activity was going to the wrong database server, and wasn't being recorded by the master database server. That's been fixed, and the article edits during that time have been copied over, but other activity such as creating new accounts and moving pages didn't get copied. I suspect this is cleanup from that. --Carnildo 07:40, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

A lot of the deletions were of redirects from one User page to another that had been made months, if not years, ago. It seemed like a lot of them were redirects from Lir's sockpuppet pages to Lir's main account. User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

As I already explained at User talk:Titoxd#"Broken" talk pages, these pages are ones which had an invalid title, and were renamed by a maintenance script. I rescued everything useful and deleted the rest. It's not related to database problems; it's instead related to (in some cases very old) bugs in the PHP part of the code which allowed the creation of pages with invalid titles. --cesarb 00:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Re-opened AfD

I've re-opened Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Angry Nintendo Nerd as I have concerns that it was improperly closed by a non-admin as "no consensus". The closer simply counted keeps vs. deletes, while I feel that those expressing a "keep" opinion did not have well-founded grounds to do so. Could another admin who has not been part of this AfD please review the debate and close it properly? I am recusing myself from further action here to avoid any potential conflict of interest. Thanks, Gwernol 14:17, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I've never felt that it's the job of an AfD closer to review the reasoning of a given "voter": people believe all kinds of crazy things, generally for bad reasons. It is, however, the job of the AfD closer to check for sock/meat puppetry and votestuffing - of those who voted keep, I can only find MostlyRainy who has a worthwhile wikipedia track record. As to the rest of the "keep"ers, frankly I've no regard whatever for the opinion of someone who has a handful of contributions - theirs is not an informed opinion as to what should or should not be a wikipedia article. On that basis, there's something in the neighbourhood of ten deletes, to one keep. That's a nice solid delete. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

• Closed. - Mailer Diablo 20:31, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks all, much appreciated. Gwernol 20:33, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Pickelbarrel does not seem to understand tha WikiPedia.Org is a real Encyclopædia.

---

I am Ŭalabio‽. Unfortunately, I have have much going on in meatspace and another major project in cyberspace, [24] so have not been around here much. I hope to be back to editing soon.

Unfortunately, I came across evidence that Pickelbarrel does not understand that WikiPedia.Org is a serious project:

• ⁃ [25]

Pickelbarrel admits to placing nonsense in articles. I suggest that someone explain to Pickelbarrel that WikiPedia.Org is a serious project, point Pickelbarrel to Uncyclopedia.org, [26] and audit the contributions of Pickelbarrel. I have done the first two, but as much as I wish to do the latter myself, I do not currently have the time.

—

— Ŭalabio‽ 00:09, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

---

In AD 2006, War was beginning.

What happen?

Somebody set up us the bomb.

We get email.

What !!

Email open.

It's you !!

How are you gentlemen !!

MONGO blanked our article.

You are on the way to vandalism.

What you say !!

The article will survive, waste your time.

Ha ha ha.

Jimbo !!

Delete every article.

You know what you doing.

Delete article.

For great justice...

/me gets hit by cats Will (message me!) 22:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

*mboverload@'s brain explodes due to high-pressure awesomeness*

It seems to be peaceful. But it is incorrect. --Lord Deskana (talk) 23:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Missing one key line, all your article are belong to us. (→Netscott) 23:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

That'd be "Mongo blanked our article". But I liked yours better :) Will (message me!) 08:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The original version is here: User:Yelyos/AYB. The image version is somewhere, I can't find it just now. --bainer (talk) 03:13, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Back to business, the mailer responded to me: I have been unable to report abuse through proper channels. I have tried repeatedly and my comments are removed and I am banned. If I put them on my talk page, it is reverted, locked, and deleted. I have tried multiple times to contact others about this. Even if I ask one single person for help, someone comes along and reverts it and bans me. It took me a endless hours doing it by hand, but I want to help improve wikipedia.

I responded with the following: This issue is being discussed at the following address. Use it, not email. Emailing this issue is absolutely inappropriate. The mass-mailing you did is doubly so, and whatever merits your case might have, you may have irreperably damaged your chances of presenting them to an accepting audience by your methods. Your only chance is to participate in this discussion: (then the link to here). I missed a chance to say "if you do not participate here, you have no chance to survive, make your time". Ah, sadness. Regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 04:45, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• The email may be getting copied and pasted from this usersubpage...[27]--MONGO 09:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Re-opening AfD

I have re-opened Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Diane Kunz which has been closed as keep twice now by VivianDarkbloom in spite of a clear consensus to delete. VivianDarkbloom has also failed to assume good faith in calling the re-openings vandalism. Perhaps someone here can take a look. Kevin 01:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Only administrators can close AFDs, from what I know. Is VivianDarkbloom one? -- ReyBrujo 01:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

There are a limited set of circumstances under which non-admins may close AfD's, however closing a clear delete as keep isn't one of them. Even and admin closing this one as keep would be improper given the clear consensus to delete. Kevin 01:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Vivian has made it pretty clear on her user page that she is willing to violate the rules to get her way. To that I say oi vey. --Woohookitty^(meow) 02:26, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict, reply to Kevin) I have just received my weekly lesson about Wikipedia, thanks :) -- ReyBrujo 02:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and closed it as delete, article gone. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 02:56, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Edit war in the GraalOnline article

The general consensus has been to remove all links to specific fan sites on the GraalOnline article but a group of people including User:Warcaptain User:Di4gram are reverting all change because they want to put advertising link to a forum (UGCC). But they also use GraalOnline critics section to make personal attacks against some administrator of the game. Lot of work has been made by the company managing graalonline and a group of player to make a good and neutral wikipedia article but this group of people banned from the game for not respect rule of conduct are using wikipedia to take a revange and are vandalizing the article. The war will never finish. Can a neutral admin please look at the article and possibly protect the page so we can engage in discussion? Thanks, Bingolice 03:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Informal mediation has been offered and accepted by all the currently-online participants, excluding above (as they are offline at present). Killfest2 ^(Talk) 03:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Legal threat on Anil Bhoyrul?

Someone signing as Anil Bhoyrul (IP is from UAE) has issued a legal threat [28] regarding the contents of this article. I noticed it while RC patrolling and reverted it. I thought it was the right thing to do but I do not know what the procedure is to deal with the legal threats issue. Regards, E Asterion ^{u talking to me?} 12:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The same user who is making the threats is the one who's been adding some childish vandalism to the article. Bar the junk added by that IP range, the article is uncontentious and makes claims supported by the cited sources. The contributor can be blocked either for vandalism or making legal threats (but as he's clearly moving between IPs, only short blocks are currently indicated). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Glad to learn that. E Asterion ^{u talking to me?} 13:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Trey Stone Appeal

This case has been closed without a decision because the restrictions on Trey Stone expire in a few weeks. For the Arbitration Committee. --Tony Sidaway 16:17, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

User:AlexWilkes

This user is still ignoring messages on his talk page and adding excessive headings to articles. His actions have been brought up before, here and here. Can something be done? I'm getting fed up of reverting him all the time. His talk page has several complaints on it but he continues to ignore them. -- AnemoneProjectors (talk) 17:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Essjay (talk · contribs) block of CovenantD (talk · contribs)

Moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents##.7B.7BUser.7CEssjay.7D.7D_block_of_.7B.7BUser.7CCovenantD.7D.7D Hiding Talk 22:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Policy for undeletion of Images

I was just asked about undeleting an image. As this is a new policy and I have not done this before, I went looking for guidelines for admins about undeleting images. I didn't find any. If this has been discussed, can someone point me to the discussions? I'm assuming for now that if a single admin deleted an image because it was incorrectly tagged and sourced, another admin could undelete the image if presented with the correct tag and source info. I think this should be handled with a template. If someone wants an image undeleted, they could edit the "Image" page and add the correct tags and source information. They would also post a template {{ImageUndeleteRequest}} which would categorized the image into Category:Requests to undelete images. This way any admin could look at the category, examine the tags and source info and undelete images when appropriate. -- Samuel Wantman 22:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Shougiku Wine (talk · contribs)

Moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Shougiku Wine (talk • contribs). Circeus 01:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Daniel.Bryant/GraalOnline

Can you please unprotect User:Daniel.Bryant/GraalOnline, as I (the mediator) am ready to give my mediation statement. Killfest2|Daniel.Bryant ^(Talk) 00:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. -- Longhair 00:55, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

User:84.169.185.88 - threats, attacks, etc.

User talk:84.169.185.88, which I just stumbled across in RC patrol, is rather fascinating in its threats, personal attacks and general unpleasantness... should perhaps be looked at. (Yes, I'm a master of understatement. =P ) Tony Fox (speak) 06:08, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed the attacks from his talk page as that was the only place he/she was posting. Leaving a comment too.--MONGO 06:14, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked the account for a week, just in case. Used only for PA abakharev 06:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Only one week? How understated. User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

He has continued making comments on his talk page. I therefore took the liberty of semi-protecting it. JoshuaZ 06:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

User talk:Dictyosiphonaceae

User talk:Dictyosiphonaceae was deleted at Dictyosiphonaceae's request. However, user talk pages are not normally deleted. I have seen some exceptions when the editor is being harassed, the editor is a vandal who promises to leave if his or her talk page is deleted, the editor wishes to leave and there are only a couple of posts to the talk page, and when the editor is a long-time contributor and the talk page is deleted, or not recreated if the editor is an admin and deleted it, as a favor. Jimbo or another influential person, or an aggressive admin who is a friend, may get involved in the last one to keep it deleted. See this, this, this and this for vandal, long-time contributor and short-time contributor deletions in no particular order. I know of harassment deletions, but did not list them because there is a small chance that it would aid in harassment. Since Dictyosiphonaceae does not meet any of the criteria, I suggest that the talk page be undeleted. Either that, or we make it fair for those without powerful friends and let user talk pages be deleted upon request, unless there is a good reason not to delete the talk page of a particular editor. -- Kjkolb 02:55, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

• It did not even apply for {{db-userreq}} requirements. Maybe this user just didn't know how to archive? Since he hasn't edited since, I am venturing he wanted to erase all tracesof hispassage for whatever reason, which does not seem a good reason either. Circeus 03:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Vast User account creation

Last 2/3 minutes massive account creation, anyone got tabs on it? (No more bongos 04:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC))

user:AdilBaguirov making attacks

I merely point something out on the discussion page and user:AdilBaguirov attacks me and my nationality. He then insults my country men as shown here [[29]]

I mention something for academic reasons on Talk:Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic and he decides to attack me and insult me by attacking my nationality. Iran's human rights records had nothing to do and no relavancy to the subject at hand. Basically he was telling me to shut up becuase he did not like what I had to say. Good thing I am not a blind nationalist, I am upset though becuase it was clearly a personal attack. I reacted calmly and told him to keep comments directed towards edits and not editors.

It must also be noted that this user has almost consistantly been the subject of conterversal behaviour including uncivil behaviour, disruption, and ongoing edit wars. Here is one example of what he has been up to recently [[30]].

He really needs to cool down and be handled by someone. If the information I have provided needs further clarification, please do not hesitate in contacting me. Thank you. 69.196.164.190

This line is to timestamp this section so that it will be automatically archived. 08:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

RegExTypoFix - the precursor to Skynet? John Connor hopes not

RegExTypoFix (Regular Expression Typographical error Fixer, or WP:RETF) is a set of regular expression strings formatted in the AutoWikiBrowser XML settings style used to automatically fix typos in articles. Anyone who can use AutoWikiBrowser can use RegExTypoFix. It is also easily ported into any application that supports regular expression strings.

This is the official launch of the project, it's been in development and active use by multiple users. I know a lot of admins use AWB, and fixing spelling problems while you do your admin thing is just efficient. It's easily integrated into your existing AWB settings file. So - yay.

It's ready for download from sourceforge.net--mboverload@ 11:39, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

What about when the misspellings are intentional, or not in English, etc.? Ardric47 23:51, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

It skips articles with [sic] in them, and yes, check before you save. --mboverload@ 06:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Caution users to carefully check what they're trying to fix before pressing "Save page" Hbdragon88 01:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I wish there were a Macintosh version, AWB seems pretty sweet. -- Kjkolb 08:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Link spam

Would these qualify as linkspam? [31].

Of the worst sort - it's a useless spammy ad-infested linkfarm. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Will McBride (candidate)

Someone is looking to make Wikipedia a soapbox for their candidate - User:Pcaruso originally put information on this candidate at Will McBride, over-writing without discussion an existing article on a clearly notable award-winning photographer by that name.[32] After I moved what was verifiable and NPOV of this information to a separate article (Will McBride (candidate)), User:Pcaruso quickly restored the POV pro-candidate spin (removing the sourced, verifiable information in the process).[33] The subject of this article, as a serious candidate for a major party Senate nomination, is notable. His poll numbers are above single digits, his leading competitor for the nomination appears to be faltering, and the articles to which I added links indicate that he has some potentially valuable connections. However, I would like to see an informative NPOV article maintained in this space, and not a campaign ad. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Note - User:Pcaruso responded to my admonition with respect to the above with a threat to "end" me.[34] I've blocked him for 24, but I am quite concerned about his tone. bd2412 T 20:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Circeus and Ghirlandajo, again

I'd like to get some external input on Talk:Pella Palace. The dispute has to do with his insistent removal of an image caption, as ridiculous as it may sound. I am suspecting that Ghirla is either reverting me out of pure spite for the block I gave him back on July 7 or due to his complete inability to accept that he doesn't have editorial fiat over articles. Note that with this revert (without any given justification whatsoever, too), he has violated the 3RR, too, after reverting my edit 3 times, which has been duely reported. His insistance that I justify my edit with policy is laughable at best, as it is the reverter's duty to provide justification other than the "whimsicality" of the edit. Circeus 20:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all, there was no 3RR violation, let's just get the facts straight to begin with. Circeus in his "3RR report" lumped up the edits from 4 days to come up with four reverts. While, any number of reverts over any period of time is ideally too many, care is need as each case is different

Besides, Circeus (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)' summary above is not complete and one-sided. First of all, Ghirla's argument is not laughable, even if Circeus claims so. Second, Circeus forgets to give a full context of their previous skirmish, the edit conflict (not flawless by both parties) which Circeus "won" in the end of the day by simply blocking an opponent. The nearest to the detailed description of that conflict could be found in the archive of this board at:

• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive52#Hasty Blocking by Some Administrators
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive50#Third opinion please. --

--Irpen 20:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the caption that Circeus wants to add and Ghirlandajo wants to remove is a comment Ghirlandajo added when he [35] uploaded the image in the first place. It is completely beyond me why a text he wrote in the first place would now be unacceptable as a caption, and I think Ghirlandajo is the one that should give a good reason not to include it and not the other way around. Fram 20:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I have admited that the 3RR report was mistakenly done: Ghirla's first revert occured on July 21, although most of the reverting occured today. I will continue tostand by my July 7 block. That Ghirla's attitude can be sanctionned by his edits (the quality and quantity of which I certainly won't deny) is beyond me. He is regurlarly uncivil (when not threading near personal attacks) and constantly maintain strict dogwatch over articles he works on, in adition to his general confrontational attitude. Those are the gripes I have with him, and I am not the only one to have found his a stressful editor to deal with. Circeus 21:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, it might be better to submit such things to a review first. Like Irpen rightfully pointed out in one of his threads, that was considered a good reading by some people, such kind of actions must be reviewed first, preferably by a third party, instead of making a hasty 3RR report that turns out (in good faith of course) to be a simple revert.

Incidentally, even if the block you're mentioning about is old, it still created a precedent, because it raises the utility of a review. Maybe a review would prevent all this story... :( -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:29, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Why do you think I am seeking third opinions in this matter before it escalates further? Circeus 21:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

"This is a good thing" (tm) :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Politician editing entry

Gil_Gutknecht edits, Gutknecht01 (talk · contribs) last edit comment "Edited on the authority of Congressman Gil Gutknecht's Office". Oviosuly POV edits, I don't wanna touch this issue with a 10 ft pole. Can someone step in and revert and leave this guy a good message? -Ravedave 21:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Jonathunder (talk · contribs) reverted but left no message. Anyone wanna handle that part? I think this matter should be handled with care. -Ravedave 22:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I left a message. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 22:58, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Do we really want to take the word of a newbie that they are whom they claim to be? What if it's Gutknecht's opponents trying to make him and his staff look bad? User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:AGF, also it can't hurt to treat the person with respect lest they decide they want to sue WP. -Ravedave 01:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Raphael1

This arbitration case is closed, and the final decision has been published at the link above.

• Raphael1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is banned from editing Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy and its talk page and related articles for one year.
• Raphael1 is placed on Probation for one year. He may be banned by any administrator from any page which he disrupts by tendentious editing, edit warring, or incivility. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Raphael1#Log of blocks and bans.
• Raphael1 is placed on general Probation. Any three administrators for good cause may ban him from Wikipedia for an appropriate period of time. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Raphael1#Log_of_blocks_and_bans.

For the Arbitration Committee. --Tony Sidaway 23:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Is anybody in charge here?

User:Ferick I need someone to clear my account and unblock me once and for all. I am getting sick and tired of this. Nobody seems to care. I have no been blocked for over a week for no apparent reason pleading my case with administrator after administrator. Is anybody in charge here?24.31.228.254 06:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Nobody is "in charge". It doesn't work that way. You could try to appeal to User:Jimbo Wales is you would like. --Woohookitty^(meow) 10:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually it would be better to appeal to the arbitration committee, but since you're unblocked now it seems that the issue is resolved. Stifle (talk) 10:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Usernames consisting of email addresses

I brought this up on Wikipedia talk:Username, where I got two responses. However, since administrators are the ones who do the blocking, I'm bringing it here for more discussion.

It is my perception that editors with email addresses for usernames are always blocked, eventually. Such usernames are often blocked before they make a single edit, but all of the rest are blocked once an admin who blocks for this reason notices it.

The username policy currently just discourages the creation of usernames that are email addresses. I propose that such usernames be prohibited so that the username policy matches blocking practice. I think that it is misleading to suggest that such usernames are a bad idea, but that they will not be blocked. Editors who feel misled may leave the project rather than signing up with a new username, since they just joined and have no strong attachment to it yet. The current wording may also create additional work if the account has made some contributions before being blocked and the editor wants to transfer the edits to their new account.

One way of preventing email addresses from being used as usernames would be to technically prohibit @ from being used in usernames. I think that this is the best solution, especially since not all editors read the username policy before choosing a username. However, this would prevent users from using @ in non-email address usernames, like matt@new york. Also, editors may try to use "at" in the place of @ for usernames containing email addresses, like "matt at yahoo.com". If they do this, there is also the question of whether such usernames should be blocked. I think that these problems are relatively minor, though. This technical solution may take a while to implement, if it can be done at all. For now, I suggest that the username policy simply be modified. -- Kjkolb 21:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

This sounds pretty fair. We have warned people in the past about not using email addresses for their usernames, and I can see several times a day people doing this very thing. While I have not blocked any of those names in recent memory, it would be a good idea too. As for the edit reassignment, I have no idea how it would work. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 21:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced of the need to block them, it seems to be for their own protection rather than any particular WP issue. However I do think whatever we do we should amend MediaWiki:Signupend to make it clearer that either they aren't allowed or are not a good idea. (They text is way at the bottom and I guess not visible for most unless they scroll down on the signup screen). --pgk^(talk) 21:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see a need to protect users from themselves by blocking them. Leave them a note or an e-mail, make sure they're aware of possible issues, and let them make up their mind to switch if they so desire. I don't believe policy prohibits people from having bad ideas, yet. Preventing new registrations of such is fine; existing ones should be grandfathered.

— Adrian~enwiki (talk) 20:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Problem to login

Hello, I am registered in other Wikipedia portals using WikipediaMaster as user name and thought I used the same name in the English portal before, but I don't remember the password, so I tried to get it back by email, but I never get an email with the password and I can't find any other article using this name. What's the reason, and can I or how can I get back into this account? user:WikipediaMaster--217.228.56.168 16:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Can a admin please check and give me an answer here? Thanks in advance! --217.228.30.190 19:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no email account specified for this username. (see here). Unfortunately if you cannot remember your password, the only thing that can be done is to create a new account. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 20:39, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The username arguably falls foul of the username policy in giving the impression of an official capacity, probably best to choose another. --pgk^(talk) 21:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

But why is it possible to use this name in other Wikipedia portals then? [[36]] --217.228.47.171 21:10, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Policy varies from wiki to wiki, they aren't uniform. --pgk^(talk) 21:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Not only does policy vary, so does the level of enforcement. ---J.S (t|c) 21:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Alleged Wikistalking (User:Anomicene and User:IronDuke)

I (User:anomicene) have been accused by admin User:SlimVirgin of wikistalking User:IronDuke[37], and threatened with being blocked[38]. This is partly based on an alleged incident which occurred over two months ago[39]. However, the "wikistalking" edits have been to only two pages (Mike Hawash and Global Relief Foundation), and the edits have not been challenged as NPOV, nor have there been any allegations of personal attacks, and the pattern of edits has not been heavy: on Mike Hawash, one spate of edits every 10-12 days, and on Global Relief Foundation, only one set of edits, uncontested and uncommented-upon. As an aside, User:IronDuke is supporting User:SlimVirgin in the current ArbCom case against her (and others), and thus it might be suggested that SlimVirgin is not unbiased in this case. My question is whether this pattern of editing really meets the definition of "wikistalking". Please comment. -- Anomicene 20:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Not mentioned here is Anomicene's vote here against my position on an article he'd had nothing to do with previously. Also not mentioned here is Anomicene's sock puppet that was used to harass me. IronDuke 20:25, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed on this page before, so I'll try to find the previous one rather than rehash the details. In brief, Ironduke has been stalked by User:Gnetwerker, User:Anomicene, User:Gomi-no-sensei, and possibly User:BlindVenetian, who are either the same person or (as one of them told me by e-mail) an employer and employee(s). One of them posted some personal details about Ironduke, others created attack accounts, and there have been various shenanigans like constantly reverting his edits, changing his user page, and so on, all very immature behavior. The Gomi-no-sensei and BlindVenetian accounts are currently blocked, and the Gnetwerker account has stayed away from the disputed articles, so the only problem left is Anomicene. I asked him a few weeks ago to stay away from articles he can see Ironduke has recently edited, but he recently followed ID to an article the latter had created, so I've told him if he doesn't stay away from ID, this account will be blocked too. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Check user confirmed that Anomicene and Gomi-no-sensei appeared to be the same person. Some details here and at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Gomi-no-sensei. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:50, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I've always been curious about this: There was never a checkuser request (or answer) on WP:RFCU. So there is actually no record of this. While I've stipulated that User:Gomi-no-sensei and I work for the same company, behind the same firewall, so it could easily show the same ip, but that situation smacks of the same lack of process as this one. Also, that situation ocurred months ago, and there is no evidence of any harrasment by me since then.

This, however, obscures the basic issue: look at my edits. Is there anything wrong with them? Do they add or detract from Wikipedia? Are IronDuke's automatic reverts (accompanied by screams of harassment) in good faith? Is SlimVirgin's block threat a good faith attempt to solve an actual problem, or wreak some punishment for alleged activities two months ago? -- Anomicene 20:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

If you stay away from articles edited by ID, there will be no problem. Please just stop being so interested in him, then he'll stop commenting on your behavior, then I can stop leaving you warnings, then we'll all be a lot happier. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:05, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Believe me, I couldn't be less interested in IronDuke. As I've pointed out, you're claiming "wikistalking" when I've edited exactly two of his many, many articles. -- Anomicene 21:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, can you show some examples of problem edits? There shouldn't be a probelm if Amonicene and IronDuke are just editing some of the same articles as long as the contents of the edits isn't abusive.130.15.164.81 21:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Slim is claiming wikistalking on the basis of the edits a group of accounts that have been harassing me, including User:Gnetwerker, User:BlindVenetian and User:Gomi-no-sensei (not to mention countless edits from anonymous IPs all originating from the same area). These are, according to you, your boss and colleagues, respectively. And then you picked up where the anonymous IP's left off after Mike Hawash was sprotected. I really would count yourself lucky there's not been a ban on all those accounts yet. You say you aren't interested in me, and yet you keep following me. It's not hard to avoid articles I'm working on. It really isn't. IronDuke 21:50, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, out of the past 119 edits or so you've made over the last two months, roughly 110 of them have been to articles I've been editing (before you), articles I have created, talk I have participated in (in which you had no interest previously), or you've left messages urging sanctions against me or concerning me. In this time period, you've done little with this account other than harass me with it, roughly %93 of your edits. IronDuke 00:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The previous comment is a malicious lie, and should be evidence of IronDuke's vendetta against me, not the other way around. I have made 191 edits since I've been on Wikipedia, involving 51 different pages, 41 of them in the main article space, and only 10 in Talk, User, and Wikipedia. 45 edits have been made to Mike Hawash, 24 to Talk:Mike Hawash, and 5 edits to Global Relief Foundation, the only pages under question here. The balance of non-article space edits have simply been responding to IronDuke's constant whining to admins about the non-existant "stalking". Get your numbers right. -- Anomicene 00:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Read my post again, please. "Last two months." IronDuke 00:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Then let's be accurate. Since June 15, I have edited Mike Hawash, with only minor exceptions, none of them involving you, until July 18, when I made one set of edits to Global Relief Foundation, on which you had not been active for some time. The edits in question are NPOV, and have been retained. The remaining small number of edits were a request for mediation (you refused) and responses to your scurrilous accusations. -- Anomicene 01:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "accurate." I wasn't talking about June 15, I was using your edits starting with May 14, when you first left a message on the Gnetwerker account's talk page apprising him that he had "a problem." But fine, let's take June 15. Starting from your date and going to the time I wrote the above numbers, and using my criteria above (all of your edits that stalked/followed/complained about me), the ratio remains the same, this time 106 edits, 8 of which having nothing to do with me: roughly 93% of your edits are focused on me or the work I've done. This is a very, very bad percentage. Even half this number would be cause for grave concern. I also notice that you keep glossing over a telltale edit you made, perhaps you can say what it was that drove you to vote in this renaming poll (with which you had nothing previously to do), and to vote against me? IronDuke 01:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to have an aversion to criticism that you wrap in claims of stalking. Your endless commentary continues to try to mask one clear fact: I edited two articles involving you during the period in question. My edits were NPOV, WP:RS, and have withstood scrutiny. Your corresponding edits were mostly blind reverts, with the tag "rv stalker". Your main objection seems to be that I haven't allowed you to WP:OWN those two articles. That you have an admin going along with your outrageous "stalking" claim is what is really absurd. -- Anomicene 17:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Anomicene, please stop posting about this. ID, it's also a good idea for you not to respond. The point, Anomicene, is that two edits to articles by someone else are not the same as two edits by you. You've been accused of being part of a campaign of harassment. By rights, you shouldn't still be editing. I believe that any innocent editor would stay away from Ironduke in order to make sure they weren't viewed as part of the nonsense. That you keep thrusting yourself into it does not speak well of you. Please stop thinking about, talking about, writing about, and editing with Ironduke. If you think the allegations are unfair and ridiculous, fine, but stay away from him anyway. The longer you stay away, the more people might end up agreeing with you. But the more you go on about it, the more it looks as though are you, indeed, obsessed, so you're shooting yourself in the foot somewhat. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:46, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Since my name was drug into this above: SlimVirgin, it is one thing to issue a unilateral admin edict that I stay away from "IronDuke's pages" (whatever that means). I have and will do so (for a reasonable period of time, not necessarily defined by you). However, trying to prevent me from seeking the community's (and other admins') opinion on the matter goes too far. I have not been party to harassment of IronDuke, and I'm not interested in your (biased) opinion of what an "innocent editor" would do. At this point I am less interested in IronDuke than in your unilateral and out-of-process actions in support of him (and of course his support of you in the current ArbCom case). -- Gnetwerker 18:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I see that Anomicene has just posted above as Gnetwerker by mistake. [40] 'Nuff said. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

And quickly added "Since my name was drug into this above ..." when he realized his mistake. [41] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that editing 2 articles with non-abusive edits isn't wiki-stalking. The sockpuppetry used to harrass another user clearly isn't acceptable. He should stay away from IronDuke, but he also shouldn't be called a stalker either, there just isn't enough of a pattern or behaviour in the edits to warrant it unless there is more evidence somewhere. I'd point out that all edits to articles are articles that involve someone else unless you create it.--Crossmr 17:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

See above for the evidence. Gnetwerker/Anomicene just made the classic sockpuppet mistake of forgetting who he was logged in as. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Which is why I think he should stay away from him. But is there actual evidence that he's following him to articles and undoing his edits or otherwise damaging the articles? There is a difference. And if you suspect Gnetworker is a sockpuppet, please follow the proper procedure for verifying it, rather than just making the claim here. I'm not saying he's not. I'd just feel more comfortable with a check user to be sure. And if that is the case, then perhaps some further action may be warranted here.--Crossmr 18:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Check user has already confirmed that they appear to be the same person, but Gnetwerker insisted that Anomicene was his employee, which explained the IP evidence. However, see above, where one posted as the other by mistake; there's no explaining that away too. This has been going on for months, Crossmr, with multiple accounts and anon IPs and it has to stop. I've blocked Anomicene as a sockpuppet, and Gnetwerker for a violation of WP:SOCK by pretending to be two people. See User_talk:Anomicene#Blocked. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah okay, yes that is rather obvious then. While it may have been on going for months this discussion was new and there seemed to be a lot of information being left out which was why I asked for more information here. --Crossmr 18:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

No worries. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Re:T:DYK

Could an experienced admin update Did You Know? within the next 2 hours, since it is currently 10 hours since the last update? Cheers, Highway ^{Return to Oz...} 23:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay. BTW, HighwayCello, thanks for helping keeping T:DYKT clean, it's really quite appreciated -- Samir धर्म 23:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

It's fine, I have nothing better to do. ;) Highway ^{Return to Oz...} 23:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

poke poke. I would, but I've never done it before and my "you'll screw it up" paranoia is kicking my ass. Syrthiss 15:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

It's fine, it's the middle of the night, no one will notice. ;) BTW, can someone FIupdate DYK again? (Give Samir a break ;) Highway ^{Return to Oz...} 23:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Already done. And please... don't feel bad about updating. That's what WP:ERROR is for. Things can always be tweaked or fixed later. Just follow the guide and the instructions at the top of the suggestion page and you'll do fine. :-) --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 23:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Indefinitely banned editors still using email for harassment

I got an email sent through RogerHorne that was pure harassment. Is there any way to disable the email ability for abusive sockpuppets or other community banned recognized editors?--MONGO 18:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

It's been suggested, but has yet to be implemented. Can you block his emails from getting through to you, or, failing that (and even if you succeed at that), contact his service provider about harrassment? Be sure to include all of the headers in the email so they'll listen to you. User:Zoe|^(talk) 18:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I simply didn't reply to protect my email address from being reveiled to that person. Maybe I should submit another request with the developers. The email was sent through an anonymous email that can be set up by anyone, but my guess is that since the RogerHorne name was in the email address, it's just willy doing his thing.--MONGO 19:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

3rd opinion needed

Hello! Would another admin please review my closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Votes for deletion (2nd nomination) per concerns by User:Kusma expressed here? Feel free to revert/undeleted/unprotect my actions without notice. - CrazyRussian talk/email 19:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Kusma; a {{deletedpage}} is about the worst possible solution to this, replacing a useful selfref with an arcane and confusing selfref. Delete, fine, if that was the consensus, but leave as a redlink (and watchlist, if you're worried about it coming back). I can't conceive of any use for protecting a deleted redirect that isn't speediable (i.e. it's an attack redirect, like nigger music). -- nae'blis _(talk) 20:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I suppose we could just redlink it and use something like User:Cyde/XNR to track it. But if it keeps getting repeatedly recreated, at some point, it's just a huge waste of time to keep deleting it and the {{deleted page}} needs to come out again. --Cyde↔Weys 22:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I have now re-deleted {{deleted}} per request made at WP:DRV. Thanks to all. - CrazyRussian talk/email 23:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! If consensus is against CNRs (seems it's going that way), listing the more popular ones on a central page where it's easy to make sure they stay deleted (and warning the people re-creating them) is a good idea. I don't think it will be too much work, and (especially if there is a clear policy to point to) it will die down over time. Kusma (討論) 07:36, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Request to undelete articles per OTRS permission confirmations

Hello there, I'm now going through the permission queue of OTRS, and there's quite a lot of pages which were deleted |after| anyone noticed the permission was given. I think it would be fair to undelete them. Anyone with access to OTRS can check the tickets numbers to see the permissions. I'll list them here:

• Explorium: a Gold Rush game per Ticket#: 2006052510009541

no AFD is busy enough already.Geni 01:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delphian Records per Ticket#: 2006060510012858

Apears to have problems with a number of wikipedia policies.Geni 01:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

• Eco diving per Ticket#: 2006052610012909

As a generaly rule articles should not be writen in a question and answer format. Notice a patturn here?Geni 01:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

• Skip Williamson per Ticket#: 2006061010011438
• Bruff R.F.C. per Ticket#: 2006061410017854
• International Peace Operations Association per Ticket#: 2006061510013945
• Tees'n more per Ticket#: 2006062110011257
• Virginia Home for Boys and Girls per Ticket#: 2006062510002812
• URENIO per Ticket#: 2006062510009093
• GOLDEN per Ticket#: 2006062610000769

More to come later :) Thank you! --Timichal _{(I hope this is the right place...)}

I looked at a few of those and they're missing the all important release under the GFDL. Someone can say they're the copyright holder, but they need to clearly state their permission to release under our license or we cannot use the material. The "More specific statement of permission" template is used for these cases. Shell ^babelfish 22:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Articles that were deleted due to copyright violations may simply be re-created. However material copied straight from another website is unlikely to be NPOV or have the right tone. Even if permission is given the material may need to be rewritten. -Will Beback 23:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately I can't see the deleted article content, that's why I request the undeletion here. As for "more specific statement of permission", I'll recheck these tickets and send mails where needed. --Timichal 10:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I can see the content and as a result there is no way I will be undeleteing it.Geni 09:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Remove page

Please remove the page Provincial emergency program. It is a duplicate from the Provincial Emergency Program site.

I have made a redirect from the former to the latter. However, is this really the only program by the name - what are the other provinces corresponding programs called? Morwen - Talk 09:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Poll Close

Is there a closing date for the poll on Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło? The thing has been going for ages (since June) with pretty much the same result and no-one has come to close it. I asked this on the appropriate page, but no-one answered Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 11:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I closed the poll, moved the article and am in the process of fixing the double redirects. There is a ton of them. -- Kjkolb 12:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Diana Bianchi

Should Diana Bianchi be deleted? WAS 4.250 12:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, yes, it should be deleted. However, it survived an AfD nomination that just closed. I suggest renominating it after a few months, with a refined argument based upon the experience of the first nomination, or when there is a new development that has a significant chance of affecting the outcome. -- Kjkolb 12:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Harassing Anonyous IP

I have an harassing anonymous IP. It is 152.163.100.72. I have tried to be polite and patient. It has not worked. My patience runs thin. The user has vandalized my talkpage by pictures of penises and anuses. The user is abusive. The user makes false claims that I am an addict. In the interest of not biting the newbies, I tried to engage the user in civil discourse to no avail. The histories of the last week speak for themselves:

• - [42]
• - [43]

¡Thanks!

—

— Ŭalabio‽ 23:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I've responded to this editor's appeal. Help in dealing with the personal attacks on him would be welcome. --Tony Sidaway 19:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Restoration of the article "Joe Wood"

I am an avid contemporary art collector, and also work for the St. Louis Art Museum. One of my late colleages, Ramsey K. Kohlfinger--created the original article entitled "Joe Wood"--which gave a brief and unbiased summary of the Artist/Author Joe Wood, a native of St. Louis, Missouri.

The article was accurate, informative, and a must for those whom wish to have a general reference on this particular artist, whom has sold his work abroad as far as Sydney, Austrailia, and has his work in galleries from New York to his native St. Louis. As a collector, I too can appreciate the need for in the very least--a short biographical summary for individuals who are not only popular or successful, but create new tangents in the history of art.

Wood created a new style (a word artists usually hate) by mixing elements of retro 40s Deco, 80s graffiti, and 30s regionalism and incorporating it into a new abstract expressionist AND impressionist STYLE, yet all original.

A recent statement by a fellow collector/art critic in Brooklyn NY says it all, "Woods art is both homey and intelligent; it says truthful things, and asks hard questions we dont want to ask."

At the very least, the content of my late friend's article should also compel you of the noteworthiness by its additional and equally valid warrant of Mr. Wood's work in the world of books/African-American Revisionist History. Mr. Wood is also a writer, who has written pieces locally as a freelance editorial columnist, and has brought attention to the subject of lynching in his work, UGLY WATER, 2006--which sheds light on a forgotten lynching in St. Louis, MO, and questions the validity of traditionally taught Afro-American history.

Mr. Kohlfinger could and probably did do a better job of summing up the subject of the article that was deleted recently from wiki; JOE WOOD. But I am asking that this article be restored, and given proper respect as a valid and credible entry of a contemporary person of considerable merit. Although I don't personally own any of Mr. Wood's pieces, I know that Guy Tozzoli, of the World Trade Center Assoc. and Larry Silverstein Properties--is currently considering pieces from Mr. Wood to be installed in the new WTC site FREEDOM TOWER. I know of many other high-end art dealers who would vouch for this artists ability and note.

All in all, I ask that the article "Joe Wood" be restored, and if edits need to be done to improve the quality of the article, I can assure you that it will be done, if given the possibility.

Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,

Qiana Feemster St. Louis Ars Poetica Society

This is quite confusing indeed. Parisianartcollector (talk · contribs) is the editor who added the following text to the article when it was recreated:

Joe Wood

Inventor of the Wiki Administrator

Born: 1977

George Bush is a Great President.

I fail to understand what is the point of the above comment, given Parisianartcollector (talk · contribs)'s above edit to the article. --Ragib 06:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Qiana Feemster? The only Google hits for "Qiana Feemster" are in association with reviews of "Joe Wood"'s self-published book. And there are zero Google hits for "Ars Poetica Society", St. Louis or otherwise. All Google hits for '"Luna Studios" "joe wood"' are its own site, or self-publicity sites. All Google hits for "Futuro-Regionalism" are Wikipedia mirrors. Even the Joe Wood flack articles don't mention it. User:Zoe|^(talk) 15:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism of my User page by WegianWarrior

This user continues to place notices on my user page that I am a suspected impersonator of another user. He also makes derogatory comments in violation of wikipedia guidelines against making personal attacks against other users, in the edit descriptions.

• 1st - Makes comment '(hello sock!)'
• 2nd - Makes comment '(hello again, sock.)'
• 3rd - Makes comment '(socks can run, but not hide)'

User has also been blocked for 3rr and other similar abuse infractions on a number of other occasions.

Request this user be blocked from making any further edits to my user page. Thank-you.Kjlee 08:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Request that Lightbringer's latest WP:RFCU be expedited so he can start picking his next open proxy username.--SarekOfVulcan 15:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll second SarekOfVulcan's recuest, and would like to add the following:

• Kjlee is a suspected sockpuppet of the banned user Lightbringer - his MO fits the description on Lightbringers subpage on WP:LTA to a tee.
• Kjlee convinienly forgets to mention his 'edit' (near vandalism or vandalism) to my userpage...
• As anyone who can check my block log can see, I've been blocked for a 3RR violation excatly once - and that was for loosing my head in a revert war (I know, me bad) with a previous sockpuppet of Lightbringer on, AFAIR, the Freemasonry article.

But then, bending the truth and straight out lies are things we have come to expect of Lightbringer and his socks... WegianWarrior 18:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

You still shouldn't have made those edits IMO. I don't see how they contribute positively in any way. If he's a sock, wait for RFCU to identify it as so or ask an admin to block it... No need to feed the trolls. Sasquatch t|c 19:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Ummm... then what's the point of having the {{sockpuppet}} template at all, if you're not supposed to use it? It does provide a positive service: it lets other editors know that these contributions might be questionable -- especially since Lightbringer has been banned for a year and shouldn't be editing at all.--SarekOfVulcan 20:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed AfD notice

Per CrazyRussian's request, I am posting this here as well as Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion. I am proposing that we post a notice directly at the top of the AfD page that informs and educates editors about their other options. The current iteration of the notice is here, and I have opened a discussion about it. The primary reasons are that:

• AfD is getting too many listings that can and should be elsewhere.
• The excess of listings are not being efficiently or thoroughly discussed, resulting in re-listings and other problems.

I believe we can alleviate the situation by educating editors. For consolidation's sake, please comment here if you are so-inlined. Thanks! --Aguerriero (talk) 20:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate username

I think FURSECUTION 4EVA! is a vandalism/abuse only account to attack people associating as "furries". Has blanked Raccoon Fox's userpage once already. Viridae^Talk 23:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Blocked indef, thanks Naconkantari 23:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

No problems. Viridae^Talk 23:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

"Suspected sockpuppet tag" removal - Panairjdde.

User:Codex Sinaiticus removed twice (diff 1, diff 2) the suspected sockpuppet tag from his talk page. After the first time, (s)he was warned.--151.47.119.2 23:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The above post was made by yet another IP sock of User:Panairjdde, who also created the User:CodexVaticanus sock and is skirting a block on edit warring. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

In addition to stalking all my recent contribs and edit warring them to totally remove all AD's, Panairjdde, who was blocked and has switched to using 151.47 IP's, has repeatedly placed a spurious notice to his sockpuppet User:CodexVaticanus on my talk page. Please help! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 00:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

User:!

Based on this edit, one of three after a break of almost six months, I have indef-blocked this user as a sockpuppet of Marytrott. See users' contribs and here for evidence, and please feel free to review. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 23:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It's an inappropriate username, anyway. User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Indirect personal attack?

Hi, I've got an anon user who seems to enjoy making repeated allegations that I've insulted them or others in some fashion (diffs: [44], [45], [46]), despite my never having done anything of the kind (the closest was a comment "what is it with guys and gay jokes?" :). Does this false attribution constitute a personal attack by implication? And given that their address seems to be a roaming IP (dialup?) is there anything to be done about it? Thanks in advance, Ziggurat 23:51, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Blocked the most recent one for trolling... not much we can do on dynamic IPs though. Sasquatch t|c 00:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, but I think that User talk:88.110.25.215 is the current IP being used. Just to satisfy my curiosity, *is* this a personal attack? Something else? S/he seems to be currently pulling something similar with User:JD_UK. Ziggurat 00:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

Hi all, CAT:CSD is badly backlogged (200+ items), could a few people take a look? Stifle (talk) 17:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, like we don't need more admins... =( --mboverload@ 19:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Copyright backlogs are awful. CSD is nothing in comparison. We need more admins badly. - CrazyRussian talk/email 19:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Well admins willing to do the shitwork. My RfA failed so you're screwed =D --mboverload@ 22:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I've got a simple way to clear copyright backlogs ... just delete the copyvios on sight. That's what I've started to do. Rather than going through the rigamarole of tagging it and then waiting seven days, I just delete them immediately. --Cyde↔Weys 22:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

mboverload@ gives Cyde a Hero button

Rather than using the copyvio tag I just put it up for speedy saying it's a copyvio. It works. --mboverload@ 00:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

A8 limtis you to 48 hours for doing that.Geni 01:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm in the same situation as Mboverload, I'm willing to do that kind of work but with no adminship (and currently nobody volunteering to renom me) I guess you guys are out of luck. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 03:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Hehe =D. I know someone will renominate me, but right now the last thing I want to go through is another RfA slap-a-thon. --mboverload@ 05:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I think a willingness to do CSD type tasks should definitely be considered a plus on an admin candidate but that's just one user's opinion. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 03:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)