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[edit] I am creating a doppleganger account

Shortly, I am creating User:WikiTeke, which will redirect to User:Teke. WikiTeke is my IRC handle, so it's to make lookups a bit easier. Just a friendly heads up that both accounts are mine. Teke 01:43, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

More for future reference than this specific case, you can make this notification by putting {{doppleganger|YourUsername}} on the userpage before or shortly after creating the account. Make sure you do it from your main account so it doesn't look like an imposter trying not to get blocked. Essjay (Talk) 06:16, 30 July 2006 (UTC)




[edit] Mama's Family

Doesn't appear to be still going. WP:3RR would have been appropriate. Left {{3RR}} warnings on both their pages. ViridaeTalk 09:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Philadelphia and other places by User:Kramden4700

Kramden4700 (talk • contribs) seems to have decided that the longstanding redirect Philadelphia (with over 4000 links to it) should be changed from pointing to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Philadelphia (disambiguation). Several users (including me) have reverted the edits and attempted to reason with the user. The result has been to expand his/her edits to do the same thing to all the articles that have been used as examples, with no attempt to clean up the thousands of articles that did point (via redirect) to the right article, but would now point to a disambig instead. I have reverted many of these, but seek confirmation if I'm doing the right thing, and what more should be done (by me or others) if it continues. I think the user did not start with intent to vandalise or disrupt, but does not seem to accept reasoned discussion. --Scott Davis Talk 08:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The user definitely has an axe to grind with the USA for some reason. I have watchlisted all the redirects mentioned and will revert until a consensus against their current redirect is reached. --mboverload@ 11:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Thankyou. I got involved trying to reason with him before I discovered the extent of the issue. --Scott Davis Talk 13:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
This user has also been putting speedy deletion tags on articles to which they obviously don't apply. It's a bit of a grey area, though, because some of them do seem to be used appropriately. Ardric47 23:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
The changing of links is continuing at a rapid-fire pace. Also, his or her talk page has been moved to User talk:Kramden4700/1, and a new one started. Ardric47 23:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I wish I had learned about this post sooner. At Talk:Philadelphia, I suggested the links that he should look at, to try to get him to look at the consequences of changing those links, and to get him to think that it's a bigger issue than he thought. He saw the consequences with his editing, and thought that others were vandalizing his edits (in my view), so the edit war escalated. Because I saw similar behavior from another user, User:Wrath of Roth, I (wrongfully) opened a sockpuppet case against him (Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Kramden4700). It apparently scared him enough that he stopped editing for a while. Then I offered an apology, and he accepted. (his response) I think he's acting in good faith now, but only time will tell if I feel that way in the future. I'm not happy with my own behavior in this incident, but I want to put this issue to rest. Tinlinkin 12:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
According to the user page User:Kramden4700, he or she is not only the same as Wrath of Roth, but also more than 30 others (Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Spotteddogsdotorg). Ardric47 19:56, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Organised POV-pushing on Israel/Hezbollah articles?

I noticed a story in today's London Times which I thought would be of interest to people here:

Israel’s Government has thrown its weight behind efforts by supporters to counter what it believes to be negative bias and a tide of pro-Arab propaganda. The Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages.
In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special “megaphone” software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate. [1]

I've no idea if this effort has had any impact on Wikipedia yet, but I would think it would be pretty easy to spot - i.e. a sudden influx of new/anonymous editors pushing one side's line on articles related to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. We should certainly expect to be targeted given Wikipedia's high profile these days. At any rate, it might be worth putting 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict and related articles (Hezbollah, Lebanon, Roles of non-combatant State and non-State actors in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, Timeline of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, Military operations of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict and others?) on our watchlists for the next few weeks. -- ChrisO 21:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I've no idea if it's intentional. but the article's opener is already hopelessly unbalanced, referring to "attacks on civilian population centers and infrastructure by both sides in this conflict" without referring to the massive population movements in Lebanon and the extremely high collateral damage sustained by the Lebanese civilians under Israeli bombardment. --Tony Sidaway 00:44, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Bias alert: No mention by Tony of massive population movements in Israel and the extremely high collateral damage sustained by the israeli civilians under Hezbula bombardment" Zeq 04:43, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
      • If we have a reliable source for "massive population movements" within Israel as a result of the Hezbollah missile bombardment, then we should write about them. If we have a reliable source for "extremely high collateral damage" sustained by the Israeli population, we should write about it. I certainly don't want to start debating that here; just giving my impression of the article's principal fault: that in equivocating the effects of the conflict on the populations, it unduly distorts the relative scale of the conflict. --Tony Sidaway
  • We're not here to put our own views into articles, but to report what reliable sources are reporting. The death ratios as neither here nor there: if Israel were suddenly today to have more killed, would it score extra points on some equality scale? SlimVirgin (talk) 02:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Not that this is the place to argue this, but a roughly 10-to-1 ratio of Lebanese to Israeli civilians -- as well as the similiar ratio for civilians displaced -- should strike an objective observer as being wildly unbalanced enough to not require the automatic utterances of exact equivalency when bringing up the events to avoid actual claims of bias. --Calton | Talk 06:01, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Although reporting that Hezbollah's missiles are full of metal pellets designed to do maximum damage to human bodies would apparently be POV? User:Zoe|(talk) 01:55, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Who suggested it would be? POV can be where emphasis is laid (and not laid). Perhaps if the design of these missiles is described along side the capabilities of some of Israel's weaponry, it would be perfectly NPOV... --Oldak Quill 02:49, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be biased to say this if it were to imply that Israeli armaments (and indeed the armaments of most nations) are not also designed to distribute shrapnel. --Tony Sidaway 11:37, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

..sudden influx of new/anonymous editors pushing one side's line on articles related to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. We should certainly expect to be targeted... As Zeq's bit of screaming axe-grinding above ought to remind anyone, there's no need to watch for a "sudden influx", since Zeq and his cohorts are already here and have been for a long time. --Calton | Talk 06:01, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

This is very unfair to the majority of editors who, while sympathetic to Israeli interests, nevertheless edit in good faith. Zeq is not typical. On another point, I have seen no influx of POV editors with a pro-Israeli viewpoint. I simply see editors who are concerned that Israel not be trashed. Fred Bauder 11:23, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't mean to go off-topic, but what makes you think the majority of editors are "sympathetic to Israeli interests"? Or are you saying that the majority of editors who are "sympathetic to the Israeli interests", edit in good faith? Just want some clarification. --Oldak Quill 11:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
The latter. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
As the above conversation suggests, we're quite capable as Wikipedia editors of holding quite broad views on this conflict. Some of us view Hezbollah as intrinsically terrorist, others as a primarily defensive force. Some of us are sympathetic to Israel, others are not. As long as we recognise our biases and work to minimise them, working with Verifiability and Reliable sources should see us through. Interlopers should be easy enough to recognise and deal with. --Tony Sidaway 12:02, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
The Israel-related articles are under constant attack from anti-Israel POV pushers and usually poor editors. If the Israeli Foreign Ministry has indeed helped to organize "networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists" they have overlooked Wikipedia. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

A few days ago, I created an article about the Megaphone desktop tool mentioned in the article. You can see what blogs and polls are being targeted; there's a web page for that.. Also an RSS feed. Today's target blogs include the Drudge Report and Salon. Wikipedia isn't listed. So we can relax for now. --John Nagle 17:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Can someone protect Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and inform User:PaulWicks how to deal sock puppets? -Ravedave 23:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Done the semiprotection part. Socks are already blocked abakharev 23:41, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Beacause the IP range is blocked I have unprotected the article back abakharev 00:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Possible WP:OWN problem

User:KMEG has proclaimed themselves "The OFFICIAL editor of KMEG", along with it being a WP:OWN problem, it could lead to NPOV disputes. --CFIF (talk to me) 00:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Request for Help

Could an administrator please complete the merge requested by the consensus of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Animals in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. CrazyRussian was the closing admin but he refuses to implement the consensus reached. Thanks. --Hetar 01:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:TFD

Someone needsd to close and archive a lot of TfD entries. Most of the ones from July 12 are still active! I've closed the TfD on one userbox which had already been WP:GUS'ed, but I can't help on the others, since I don't have admin rights. If there is a clear consensus for keep I will close the TfD, but I doubt I'll find many of those. Fredil Yupigo 03:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll do it tomorrow later today (Stupid UTC!) RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 06:49, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Both July 19 and 20 are now fully closed, but I have to go to work soon. RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 19:55, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
TfDs are now closed back to July 15. RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 05:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Closed and removed from TfD mainpage dating back to July 12. RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 03:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Coordinates on Infobox_stadium

Hello, A few days ago, I discovered a neat way to add coordinates to the stadium infobox. I added it to the infobox and it worked well. I have spent the last 5 days of my life adding coordinates to all the psorts arenas. Now, someone has found a way to add coordinates to the top (such as PETCO Park) and tehy have found a way to disable the coordiante settings I have put in the infobox. They did this without an audit trail. I feel this was the wrong way to go about things for the following reasons...

1. It has been the standard way that coordinates show up in the infobox for other types of infoboxes.

2. The new coordinates on the pages work differenly than the coordinates that (were) in the sports arena infoboxs. For instance they do not pull up links to googel maps.

3. Some stadiums that I had added coordinates to in the info box (such as Giants Stadium now have no coordinates for them what so ever.

4. Nobody cared about coordinates until I added this and nobody contacted me before adding the coordinates the other way. I have spent 5 days of my life working on this and strongly feel I should have at least been consulted. Somehow they have screwed up my ability to even add it back to the stadium infobox even though infoboxes such as the "protect areas" infobox have coordinate settings. They have stifled my innovation.

Please let me know. I put a lot of mental energy into figuring this out and feel I have a lot more to contribute along these lines to wikipedia. If somebody had only contacted me before doing it I would have been open minded to it. But I won't contribute any more if people don't talk to me before messing with something I did.--Dr who1975 02:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

  • If I understand you correctly, the template you are looking for is Template:Coor title dms. PETCO Park has the template tag near the bottom of the page, next to the Template:MLB tag. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 02:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, like Zzyzx11 said, it's part of that template. If you look at the history of the PETCO Park article, for example, you'll see it was added on July 10th with the edit summary "Adding geographical coordinates" [2]. I can't speak for why it was removed from the other template, but I would assume that it's because whoever removed it thinks it is redundant to have them both in the top corner and in the infobox. Metros232 02:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Unprotect my page

I don't see any reason for my page to continue to be semi-protected. Could someone please remove the protection. Thanks. Paul Cyr 05:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Unprotected, next time use WP:RPP. Yanksox 05:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] CapnCrack socks

A little while ago, CJ Izzy (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) (most likely a CapnCrack sock) made an edit to WP:CK introducing a long list of what were supposedly CapnCrack sockpuppets that had not yet been blocked, which read as follows:

Recently, I received a message on my talk page from a CapnCrack sock stating that these accounts had not been blocked and had made vandal edits and created bogus pages that had not yet been delt with. I'm not completely sure whether or not all of this is authentic, but I still recommend blocking these accounts (and also CJ Izzy) and checking their contributions just in case.--The Count of Monte Cristo Parley 05:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Good catch, Count. This will keep us busy for a while. I'm going thru each one, starting at the bottom. --Firsfron of Ronchester 05:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I've blocked CJIzzy as a probable sockpuppet, and the ones on the bottom of the list (bottom 12 or so) I also blocked for vandalism-only accounts. However, the rest appear to have already been blocked by Curps and others. I didn't catch any further up the list that weren't already blocked. Feel free to go thru these with a fine-toothed comb, but these were almost all blocked right away.--Firsfron of Ronchester 07:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Crown corporations of Canada

Category:Crown corporations of Canada Subcategories :BC Ferries

This is incorrect as BC Ferries is no longer a CC, please remove.

--Cahk

Removed. In the near future, here is what you can do to remove subcategories from categories. Click the category name, then press the edit button. Delete the entry and press save. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 06:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Did you know?

Could an admin please update Did you know, its not been updated in 22 hours. Cheers, Highway Return to Oz... 22:00, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Updated -- Samir धर्म 01:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Cheers, Highway Return to Oz... 10:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] First Aider

Please delete the page First Aider [or redirect it to First Aid]. I created it wanting it to redirect but I can't get it to.

--Cahk

It's redirecting fine. Don't worry — it looks like you figured it out. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:27, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Son of a Peach (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log)

When I welcomed this user to wikipedia, I warned him about his username, as it may be easily confused with the powerful insult son of a b*tch. Since then, this user has been blocked for trolling, and has since been warned becuase he has continued. Ixfd64 (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves) also has an inquiry about his username, what do you think? Myrtone (☏) 14:41, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Username's fine with me. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 14:56, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Username's perfectly fine (and actually quite witty), the trolling is not. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
The username is related to a crappy animation showing mario (from nintendo) having sex with princess peach, the filename is usually names son of a peach) -- Drini 21:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, User:Ixfd64 asked; the response was only a sig. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 00:55, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

That realtion itself is exactly what Ixfd64 more or less pointed out and is itself another reason why he should change it here. Myrtone (☏) 00:49, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the username's altogether fine and concur in Deathphoenix' formulation. Another relevant question, though, is whether the username is likely to impair the user's cordial collaboration with others and by extension to disrupt the project; notwithstanding that two users have expresed being off-put by the username (although perhaps only in view of policy), there doesn't seem to be anything to suggest that those users or any others have refrained from working/corresponding with Peach in view of his name. Joe 19:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi, this is a sockpuppet of me. Thank you for the comment about it being witty! And by the way, that Newgrounds animation wasn't crappy, it was hilarious. And "son of a bitch" is not a powerful insult, this is a powerful insult. Just putting in my two cents. ~ Flameviper 16:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Easily detecting copyvios

I thought it might be of interest to some people who frequent this board that Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations is now being updated with an automated bot that attempts to identify copyright violations from newly created articles.

(Note: if this is not the appropriate place to announce this, feel free to remove this message). -- Where 23:42, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

No, this is very interesting. Please do keep us up-to-date on how this works out. Jkelly 23:55, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Seconded. I've only ever found a few copyvios, and I suspect we have many more that haven't been caught. A copyvio bot would be really cool. :)--Firsfron of Ronchester 05:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
This bot has a high false-alarm rate, because it's picking up copies of US Government-created material, which is not copyrightable. Bios of government officials are being rejected as copyvios, for example. I've put a note on the bot's talk page. --John Nagle 18:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Trees!!!!!

If you block this user it will block me. I have the same Ip. As user ??.???.???.??

We got thee same compute. same time. same retailer. same harddrive. same ip. same duplex. enjoy! Your Friends,

--Qho·(talk)·(contribs) 19:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC) --70.233.181.36 Wikipedia:Doppelganger account --QH0


[edit] Bad Nenndorf

please see [3] thanx in advance I like Burke's Peerage 14:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

All 3RR violations should go here. And is it just me, or does this situation smack of the ANI troll? --Mr. Lefty Talk to me! 16:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User talk:Pegasus1138

Should we indefblock this user? - CrazyRussian talk/email 15:46, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I really don't think that's a good idea. Fredil Yupigo 16:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Do you mean block the account Pegasus1138 in case it is cracked and abused in the future (also Pegasusbot should be blocked becuase it has a bot flag)? Or to block the person behind the account because they are setting up a new account to possibly circumvent Requests for adminship? --Commander Keane 21:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Don't be ridiculous. There is no problem whatsoever in a user deciding to leave and start a new account. If they get adminship on the new account, more power to them. JoshuaZ 22:21, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Blocking me or my bot is probably not really needed, I'm not an admin or bureaucrat or developer so it would be easier for someone to create a new account than try to crack mine (and more effective) I have requested on IRC and if a bureaucrat sees this here please also remove the bot status on User:Pegasusbot and/or indef. block it (without autoblocker preferably). Also I am not creating a sockpuppet in violation of policy and I don't think it's possible to "circumvent RFA" so that as well would be unecessary and against blocking policy. Pegasus1138 22:17, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree that there is no reason for a block here. We don't block admins who leave, and there would be more risk there. Nor is there any abusive sockpuppetry here. And you never know, just this morening a user who had not posted in 8 months suddenly returned. NoSeptember 22:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The only thing Peg is doing is closing those accounts, which have no discipline problems or anything, and moving to a new account which he would like to keep private. --mboverload@ 22:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I've removed bot status as requested above; as the others have already stated, there is no policy against leaving one account for another, it's only when you have two accounts and use them against policy (voting in the same RfA with both, having two that are admins, etc.) that is prohibited. Essjay (Talk) 22:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Has there even been a case where someone was caught with more than one sysop account? Now that would be something- build community trust and recognition with two accounts. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 22:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't know of a case where anyone had two at the same time, though I believe there have been cases of a sysop's second account being nominated for adminship. The proper course would be to either decline the nomination or request desysopping on the second account. Essjay (Talk) 00:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] User:Fatalserpent

Can someone take a look at the copyright notice on the userpage of Fatalserpent (talk • contribs). It sounds vaguely GFDL compliant, but does not mention it explicitly. Thanks, --TeaDrinker 20:36, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] User:Bobby Boulders

See WP:LTA and Wikipedia talk:CVU for information about this vandal. I reported two Spam links that he likes to post to the Spam Blacklist at Meta-Wiki, but they have remained unblacklisted. Could someone who is a Meta-Wiki administrator please blacklist them, as this might help prevent his vandalism?--The Count of Monte Cristo Parley 22:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

If you'll list them here with some difflinks, sure. I'm not going to go hunt them down though. Essjay (Talk) 00:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Here is a diff that is an example of him spamming pages with weblinks. I have reported two links to the Spam Blacklist, (imwithbobby@yahoo.com) and (myspace.com/bobbyboulders).--The Count of Monte Cristo Parley 01:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] My Game

Hi. I'm wondering if my new game Wikipedia:Sandbox/The Or Game can be added to the list of 4 or 5 games on the sandbox template. (sandbox heading) Thanks. QuizQuick 01:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dealing with user talk erasure and incivility

(Moved from the help desk.)

I'm having some issues with users who are removing messages and warnings from their talk pages, and either deleting them altogether, or putting them into an archive immediately. In both cases, the user has also been uncivil in his or her response, and both have engaged in personal attacks. Because Wikipedia:Removing warnings is only proposed policy, I'm afraid to push too hard in telling the users that they shouldn't be removing legitimate warnings from their talk pages, and I'm also having difficulties finding the best way to deal with their other misbehavior, much of which seems to be trolling. A request for comment might seem applicable in both cases, but I know I'm supposed to try to find a better solution first, and would like to. Neither user seems cooperative, however, so I'm somewhat at a loss in terms of how to proceed. --Emufarmers(T/C) 06:41, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking at your contribs in user talk space, it's not obvious to me which user you are referring to. Just zis Guy you know? 20:00, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Alright: The first individual is User:Snake Liquid; his current user page alone is reason enough for some concern, but more troubling is his treatment of his talk page: He has routinely removed warnings from his talk page (search back through the history if you want to see the sequence of things), and has made numerous personal attacks on User:RandyWang and User:A Man In Black, referring to each as "robots," among other things; someone else has posted a Wikiquette alert regarding him already. He has also made personal attacks against User:Ptkfgs, despite Ptkfgs's apparent attempts to steer the conversation towards civility.
The other person is User:Cshay; I posted a Wikiquette alert on him already. He has made several personal attacks and threats against User:AbsolutDan, such as here, here, here, and when Dan moved in to try to reconcile matters most recently, he erased the message from his talk page, and moved it to Dan's. He removes or archives messages and warnings almost immediately, and has done so several times, and appears to have some problems with leaving any messages which he doesn't like on his talk page. He also refers to other editors as "rogue". I don't really know what more to say. ----Emufarmers(T/C) 05:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm. There was a fight going on there but it may well be over by now. Just zis Guy you know? 11:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Cshay seems to have calmed down a bit, although he is still removing messages from his talk page without even archiving them. Snake Liquid appears to be trying to escalate things further. --Emufarmers(T/C) 20:27, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
There is now an RfC relating to Snake Liquid. --Emufarmers(T/C) 05:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] confusing TFD

At WP:TFD, on the holding cell (where templates that have been orphaned and are ready for deletion wait for their final day, Template:Njt-sta is marked as untranscluded and on the final row. However, this shows otherwise and the tfd log is VERY confusing (the result is

The result of the debate wasOut of process Delete by SPUI (already subst'd and replaced) --William Allen Simpson 00:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

which I can't really parse (and it's not substed and replaced anyway). So, what's going on here? -- Drini 23:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

How can SPUI delete anything? He isn't an admin, and hopefully, never will be. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that the meaning of that close was that the debate was closed because SPUI did not follow proper process in the nomination. And no, SPUI is not an admin. I sincerely doubt that that would happen. alphaChimp laudare 05:27, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Sealy

F00P (talk • contribs) recently made a little mess out of the Sealy Mattress Company article by preforming a Copy/paste move to Sealy Corporation. I was hoping I could get an admin to delete the new article and revert the old one and then do a proper move? I don't think the move is correct, but thats not the point:) ---J.S (t|c) 00:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I've fixed the cut-and-paste and done a proper move. The article is currently at Sealy Corporation, but if the title is in question it should probably be discussed before re-moving it again. -- Natalya 02:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:WikiWoo

WikiWoo (talk • contribs) has been making a bit of a name for himself; having gone through the accounts WikiRoo (talk • contribs) and WikiDoo (talk • contribs) he finally settled on WikiWoo and is now intent on publicising how corrupt the government of Peel, Ontario is. Worse than the Nazis, apparently (or so he implies on his Talk page today). After numerous warnings and attempts by several people to get him to calm down and stop creating (and re-creating) articles with little other than original research I finally blocked him for 24h, but it seems likely that he might carry on and possibly get worse. No action needed here and now, just letting everybody know and inviting other sets of eyes. Just zis Guy you know? 17:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hassan Abbasi

Can an administrator please help this mess I created. After reading comments that confirmed my belief that I may have confused two people, I moved Hassan Abbasi to Mohammad-Hassan Abbasi then realized I moved the article to the wrong person's name. Can you please move Mohammad-Hassan Abbasi back to Hassan Abbasi. Thank you very much and sorry for the confusion. --HResearcher 10:20, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Taken care of. :) -- Natalya 11:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Nice! Thanks Natalya. --HResearcher 20:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you please move the talk page also, it is still at the wrong place. Talk:Mohammad-Hassan Abbasi needs to be moved to Talk:Hassan Abbasi. --HResearcher 20:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. -- JLaTondre 22:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Haha... oops. Thanks for taking care of that, JLaTondre. -- Natalya 22:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you!! :D --HResearcher 08:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] User:Patchouli

This article was copied from forbes website (All rights reserved!). I used copyvio template on that page but User:Patchouli did this. Caliming that I'm an agent of Islamid republic... I can't tolerate this way of editing wikipedia. This is not the first time I see this user use these words for whatever he don't like. Please consider that copyright violation and the way that user treats others. (sorry for my poor english) Hessam 08:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The Akbar Mohammadi article looks different from the Forbes story. I can't see that it's a copyright violation. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 09:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Please take a look at this diff. Article was a cut & paste from forbes (recheck it. first four paragraph). I don't say anything about new revisions. I want you consider that old version and what this user says about any kind of activity that he don't like. Hessam 09:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
It was close to being so at first but it's not now. Also I removed the inflammatory and incorrect tag. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 09:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

this is another example. Please warn that user for Assuming good faith policy and accusing other contributers. Thanks again for your attention. Hessam 11:03, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Long term abuse/General Tojo

Due to long term vandalism, sockpuppetry, threats, stalking, and release of personal information I have blocked the IP Range of Tiscali UK Limited for one week for IP editing. Details on Wikipedia:Long term abuse/General Tojo and Wikipedia talk:Long term abuse/General Tojo -- Chris 73 | Talk 23:50, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Tiscali are a pretty mayjor ISP. A weel block is likely to have some serious colateral.Geni 01:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
It looks like he blocked anons and account creation but not registered users. Might work without too much collateral. Thatcher131 (talk) 04:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, registered users can continue to work as usual. Has anybody experience in contacting the provider to report abuse? -- Chris 73 | Talk 04:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I have undone the blocks. A user called "robertbfc" requested the unblock on behalf of himself and others, as Tiscali is a major ISP in the UK. Active users in #wikipedia agreed that this was a good idea. I will help watch for General Tojo-related vandalism; I understand the problem, but blocking an entire ISP is, in my opinion, a bit heavy-handed. --Slowking Man 13:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes - There are thousands of Tiscali UK members, it's the 3rd largest ISP in Europe. To be honest, I am peeved at Chris 73's tactics:
•He didn't discuss such a major block before carrying it out.
•He doesn't appear to know who Tiscali are - he says Has anybody experience in contacting the provider to report abuse? on the Administrators' noticeboard.
•But anyway, no matter how big the ISP, he is ignoring the principle and punishing the majority for the immature actions of the few.
•He leaves legitimate editors with no way to continue editing, as he has blocked new account creations.
•He did not show the length of the block on the page that the blocked IPs recieve.
In short, it is not what I would expect of an admin. 88.105.35.203 14:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

How would we go about making a formal complaint regarding this action? - 15:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand and to a large extent agree with the complaints from Tiscali users. However, we have a very persistent and frequent vandal in General Tojo (take a look at the history of user PaulWicks personal pages and contributions), and it appears our tools for dealing with such vindictiveness and spite are limited. The results will be that editors such as Paul and myself will grow discouraged; the amount of time and tediousness of trotting around scooping feces behind General Tojo ensures that. It appears that a time honored tactic is to wait for the vandal to move on to other things & grow bored, but in the few cases where that doesn't apply, it looks as though there's very little in the way of tactics in the Wikipedia administrative toolbox. Chris 73 has inconvenienced a large number of people apparently, although I'm not understanding why ability to edit anonymously or for long term editors to create new accounts is necessary. Nevertheless, if you Tiscali subscribers would take a moment to take a look at the nature of our problem and suggest solutions, we would appreciate it. --Dan 16:30, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, why should one stupid user from an ISP be held against all legitimate editors from the same ISP? In Chris 73's actions, he was holding majority accountable to the actions of the minority.
In reply to Dan, this was a great inconvience - it affected people who wished to edit anonymously, of which their are many, as he should take note of. Also may I point out that the ban on account creation meant legitimate editors who hadn't got an account were prevented from carrying out any more of their work. Finally, perhaps he should consider that Tiscali members know no more about this vandal than he does, and that in the statement if you Tiscali subscribers would take a moment to take a look at the nature of our problem and suggest solutions he himself is holding the majority accountable for actions which they have no control over. 88.105.35.203 17:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

My apologies to the anonymous editors of Tiscali for their inconvenience. As for my reason and defense:

  • General Tojo is by now a bigger problem on Wikipedia
  • Another admin also initiated a block of the Tiscali range before to address this problem, and only for technical reasons the block did not come into effect (See Wikipedia:Long term abuse/General Tojo#Range Blocks if you want to know the details)
  • The Tojo problem and the block was discussed extensively before
  • I added a range block only after other options did not work
  • The block was also announced on the WP:AN, where it drew only minor response. I do not know a way of contacting the anonymous IP'S of Tscali, as some users above suggested.
  • The block blocked only anonymous users and account creation, and had no effect on logged in users.
  • I was monitoring my Wikipedia email, but up to date have not received any comments regarding the block. The first feedback I received was by User:Victor Greenstreet on my talk page.

Overall, this obviously did not work, and I will not block the range again. I would welcome suggestions on how to handle the General Tojo problem on Wikipedia talk:Long term abuse/General Tojo. Thanks, and again my apologies -- Chris 73 | Talk 23:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Possible vandal only account

BobbyBoulders Rules (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) as seen by the proclamations on User talk:BobbyBoulders Rules. Might bear watching. ViridaeTalk 01:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

  • The guy is already indefinitely blocked abakharev 23:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Merging of two talk pages

User:Fabartus has asked for my help regarding a talkpage (Talk:United States Armed Forces) but this is not my area of expertise. I'm not really sure if United States Armed Forces was originally moved to Military of the United States or if two articles existed and later merged. Anyhow we have one article and two talk pages, one of them inactive. What is the correct procedure for material like this? Should this talkpage have been moved or merged with the other page or it such a page normally left behind? Regards. Valentinian (talk) 21:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] back up at aiv

Is anyone available, the vandals are overwhelming. Thanks :) Dlohcierekim 21:59, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Was going to say the same thing. ViridaeTalk 00:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Page histories need merging

Hey, I've already talked abit to JD_UK (I thought he was an admin, heh!) about this, but User:Kaisuan had copied, redirected, and renamed Wikipedia:Searching to a vanity article about himself, Kaisuan. I've since put all the data back into place (including talk page), but there are a few lingering redirects to Kaisuan from Wikipedia Searching (or was it the other way around? I dunno). The other problem is that the user created the Kaisuan page from a double redirect (or something that used to be good redirected to a new page)(Which either I failed to notice or was something crazy impossible), and now the history for Wikipedia:Searching is on the Kaisuan page. Someone with oversight or deletion abilities (Administrators in general) might need to take a look at this in the near future (There are huge vandalism backlogs right now, so I'm probably really low on the list...)

I should give out barnstars for this one... Sincerely, Logical2u 00:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 00:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alerts

Elephant (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)will someone please protect this article, if the elephant population keeps tripling there won't be any room left on wikipedia [sic] sprotection hasn't done much of anything, as registered users are now doing it too. And it doesn't help much that RUs are being allowed to vandalize an article and only getting 1 hour blocks for it--64.12.116.200 15:59, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Why has vprot been repeatedly downgraded to sprot? I spy a wheel war! Just zis Guy you know? 09:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Note: It was started by Stephen Colbert, who invited people to vandalise wikipedia on television. - Richardcavell 03:25, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Then it's a good thing we already blocked Stephen Colbert (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log)--152.163.100.200 03:27, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Homepage error...

The israeli airstrike still has at least 57 dead listed, where only 28 have been verified and most likely the final number...inside the article it is correct, but right on homepage a statistical error shows bad credibility,,,,and i love wiki—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Teddyhaarz (talk • contribs).

[edit] Block that should probably be lifted

While User:Mattisse may have accidentally broken some rules, it seems pretty clear to me that she has not had any bad intentions; part of the problem, as can easily be seen from her talk page and from her interactions with my on my user talk page, is that she's not very savvy on Web culture (she says she's a woman in her mid 60s, and I am inclined to believe that is true). She's apparently been accused of operating sockpuppets; she wrote to me saying that User:Orangehead is not a sockpuppet but is her junior-high-school aged granddaughter, who is staying at her house. Either that is true, and something is being blown far out of proportion, or that is not, and she is perpetrating fraud. I'd be inclined to presume good faith: I don't see any evidence that she is out there wreaking havoc. (It is possible that she was at times "coaching" her granddaughter; I don't think that is necessarily out of line, unless it is an ongoing pattern over time, especially insofar as it becomes a doubling up on votes.)

I have a feeling a lot of this had to do with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kent-Meridian High School, where Mattisse, operating under her former account name KarenAnn, made what seems to me to have been a reasobable nomination for deletion; someone definitely spammed to get a rush of inclusionists into the discussion; several people then improved the article, making edits that demonstrated notability; then several people, notably User:Capit, made ad hominem attacks on her for nominating it in the first place. User:Metros232 appropriately cut the discussion short, since with the changes the article was a clear keep and the AFD had no further use other than mudslinging.

Wikipedia needs to be a welcoming environment for people other than just 20-something geekboys (BTW, I'm not by any means a 20-something, and not particularly a geekboy). I think some benefit of the doubt needs to be extended here, and possibly some mentoring, but I think there has been an overreaction and some "piling on". - Jmabel | Talk 17:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

It is worth noting that Capit is also a sockpuppet of KarenAnn/Mattisse. This apparently puzzled Mackensen as well and he spent more time than usual checking it, plus he asked for review from another checkuser, see Wikipedia talk:Requests for checkuser/Case/Listerin. If KarenAnn created a persona to attack herself, it is not out of the realm of possibility that she also created a teenaged granddaughter. Also note that Orangehead has about 120 contribs, mostly to AfD, which hardly seems like typical behavior for a teenager. At this point, Mattisse is editing again. If she wants to create a second account to keep AfD separate from her edits, that's permissable as long as the streams don't cross (quoting Mackensen). Her granddaughter can create a new account, same principle applies. Thatcher131 (talk) 21:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
This is getting too weird for me. - Jmabel | Talk 16:03, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Return of User:Crabcan?

  • Hmm, wasn't sure if blocked users were supposed to be able to edit at all, so this made me wonder [4]. And the IP edits over here too may be related. — MrDolomite | Talk 13:09, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Blocked users can edit their own user-talk pages; otherwise {{unblock}} would be useless. --ais523 14:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Signature transclusion

Developers stopped signature transclusion to some degree, but it is still possible to get around it. User:Adam the atom uses User:Adam_the_atom/signature, which currently looks like:

adam the atom T E C

Generated from:

<small><font face="Century Gothic">'''[[User:Adam_the_atom|<span style="padding: 0px 2px 0px 2px; border: 1px solid #FFBB11; cursor: crosshair; background: black; color: #FFBB11">adam the atom</span>]]<span style="cursor: crosshair"> </span>[[User_talk:Adam_the_atom|<span style="padding: 0px 3px 0px 3px; border: 1px solid #FFBB11; cursor: crosshair; background: black; color: #FFBB11">T</span>]]<span style="cursor: crosshair"> </span>[[Special:Emailuser/Adam_the_atom|<span style="padding: 0px 3px 0px 3px; border: 1px solid #FFBB11; cursor: crosshair; background: black; color: #FFBB11">E</span>]]<span style="cursor: crosshair">&;nbsp;</span>[[Special:Contributions/Adam_the_atom|<span style="padding: 0px 1px 0px 1px; border: 1px solid #FFBB11; cursor: crosshair; background: black; color: #FFBB11">C</span>]]'''</font></small>

To me this is excessive (especially the cursor change), and I have told him so. He hasn't changed it, so I am opening it to the floor - should he change it or does it not matter? violet/riga (t) 15:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is one of the longest signatures I've ever seen and is a blatant violation of the signature guidelines. Also having it stored in the user space and not substituting it instead is likely to cause unnecessary server load.--Andeh 15:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
That's definitely over the top. It actually slowed down this computer to load it. Would it be improper to enter his userspace and change it to Adam the atom? alphaChimp laudare 15:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes it would be improper, it'd be a little invasive. Best approach would probably be to link them to signature guidelines and quote exact parts from it which his current signature violates.--Andeh 15:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right. I suspect that he already knows the guidelines. Transcluding your signature and getting around the signature limits suggest some degree of Wikipedia knowledge.alphaChimp laudare 16:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Ergh. I never did find an existing bugzilla report on this, but I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago; CrnaGora has been doing the same thing with the forward slash transclusion, to less egregious effect. -- nae'blis 16:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I fixed this signature -Tony Sidaway 19:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.18.13.80 (talk • contribs) 19:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Heads up

A copy and paste move of MDAC was done to Microsoft Data Access Components. The editor who did this was most likely not aware that they were destroying page histories, and killing the histories of talk pages for that matter, but can admins please keep an eye on those articles? I did a considerable amount of (largely unrecognised) work on those articles, and I was quite suprised to see that my hard work in the history had been largely hidden from view! - Ta bu shi da yu 15:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Phillip the Moose / Airport Vandal

The new thing in AOL denial of service work. They create multiple socks, and always create at least one AOL autoblock per block, usually 20 or 30 minutes after they're blocked, they seem to be deliberate dos vandals. Only without the long string of autoblocks, no one seems willing to believe that they are indeed causing massive amounts of AOL Collateral damage.--64.12.116.200 16:21, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

  • btw, you may notice a string of anti vandalism coming from this AOL range, that's because I'm running Lupin's anti-vandal tool while logged out, as best I can, given all the autoblocks--64.12.116.200 16:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Maybe I should use this page to create a list of all sorts of blatent vandalism that I can't roll back due to a nice big random Airport Vandal autoblock--64.12.116.200 16:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I've turned into an anti-vandal bird dog, I can see the vandalism, I can see the vandals, but all I can do is bark and point at them--64.12.116.200 17:03, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
1 user + a dozen autoblocks, people come running to remove them
A dozen users + 1 or 2 autoblocks per user, nada, I'm stuck reporting vandals here, instead of reverting them--64.12.116.200 17:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:TWA Flight 800

I just noticed this user name registered. Is it appropriate? See TWA Flight 800, it was a plane crash in 1996 that killed 230 people outside New York City. Metros232 17:55, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

indefblocked at 17:49 for username. Syrthiss 17:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, weird, it wasn't coming up in the block log for some reason, maybe I just missed it somehow. Thanks, Metros232 17:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good block?

blocked —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 152.163.100.200 (talk • contribs • WHOIS) .

Looks fine to me. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Looks out-of-line to me. There is absolutely no justification for this block and it should be overturned if it's still in effect.  Grue  22:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not still in effect. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 22:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Admins working on untagged images: Please read this

A user has been making POV insertions of {{unknown}} into 2 images of the Nanking Massacre, which caused one of them to be deleted by an unsuspecting admin. The two images are Image:Body everywhere.jpg and Image:Nanjing ditch.jpg. Fortunately I discovered that recently media file undeletion has been enabled, so there was no permanent damage. If you are working on untagged/unsourced images, please keep these 2 in mind and refrain from deleting them. Thanks. -- Миборовский 01:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems that we don't actually know what the copyright status of Image:Body everywhere.jpg is, or much of anything else about the image. The second one is also at Commons, so is not in danger of image cleanup procedures here, and is also tagged as lacking copyright information there. Jkelly 16:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Everything published in China more than 50 years ago is PD. There is no question about the licensing of these 2 images, though many could have a field day arguing whether it's authentic of Chinese government propaganda or whatnot. -- Миборовский 01:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
We know for certain when it was first published? Jkelly 01:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] User_talk:Stephencolbert

The evening of the Colbert Conflaguration, a group of admins working the question of what to do about User:Stephencolbert got together on teh sekret irc and we came to a quick consensus on how to handle one element of the event, the existance of User:Stephencolbert. I have realized, upon reflection, that we may have failed to document our findings on the wiki (unless it's on another page that I don't monitor), an oversight for which I apologize. As has been covered elsewhere, Tawker blocked the user for possible impersonation (not incitement, a popular misconception). We met on #wikipedia-en-admins and agreed that while it was possible that it could be SC, the nature of the internet and the visibility of the situation made it appropriate to block and request external confirmation. Tawker emailed and called the Colbert show and left a message requesting followup, and to my knowledge, has not yet received a response. We hashed out the message that is currently on User_talk:Stephencolbert (requesting confirmation). Our intention was to provide a clean, unified response if it _was_ SC. Jaranda's welcome message was left up, followed by our request. Since then, a number of folks have worked together to keep the page in its current form (ie, removing "zomg i luv you steeeeephen!" messages). Ryulong suggested yesterday that we semi-protect the page, and at the time, I demurred, saying that the workload of reverting it wasn't high and that if we semi'd it, the actual user wouldn't be able to respond there. Time has passed, and I now feel that Ryulong's idea is sound, especially considering both the volume of traffic to the page as well as the fact that other means exist for the user to contact us. As such, I'd like to semi or fully protect it. Thoughts? I'd like to request that we put the issue of whether or not we think this COULD be SC aside for now, I move that the standard of evidence on this must necessarily be higher than mere possibility. Thanks! - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:21, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, when requesting confirmation emails from such folks, it's much better to have them email WP:OTRS on info-en-q@wikimedia.org - that way the request is handled officially (I'm guessing a famous person will be rather unwilling to correspond with some hotmail account), it's archived (so if the real SC came along in six months and said we'd allowed an impersonator, the foundation could pull out the email from him - they can't do that if the email just went to Tawker), and it's handled in accordance with the foundation's privacy policy. We need a boilerplate template for this, which says essentially what your note to him does, but also mentions WP:USERNAME (which is the underlying policy which allows you to block such cases). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:31, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! The message we used actually _does_ link to WP:USERNAME, but the OTRS link is an excellent idea. We provided Tawker's email address because he had already launched a request mail, but I support updating the text to make appropriate use of OTRS if we can confirm that whoever is on the other end of the mail will recognize the confirmation when it comes in and let us know. Thanks! - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

It should be noted that Stephen Colbert is playing a character (described by Colbert as "an idiot") whose advice to vandalize Wikipedia articles was purely satirical. I seriously doubt that he would register an account and act out this one-off comedy bit in real life.

Of course, while the likelihood that this username belongs to a misguided fan of "The Colbert Report" is roughly 99.9%, the attempt to contact the show for verification is entirely appropriate. —David Levy 19:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Um...Why not just let them be? Karmafist 22:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
If it's not SC, then this is a violation of WP:USERNAME. All we're requesting is confirmation. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:23, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

"especially considering ..... the volume of traffic to the page" <-- I do not understand why every edit of the page is being reverted. We only need to revert vandalism, right? I think many people are watching this page and if only vandalism were reverted then there would not be a "problem". --JWSchmidt 22:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi there! I apologize if I wasn't clearer above, what I meant to communicate is that the admins that got together during the firestorm decided that on the off chance it _was_ SC, we wanted to keep the page limited to the welcome and the 'why you were blocked and how to fix it' message to maintain a single unified WP response. This is why I have brought this here as followup, to make sure that admin consensus on this extends outside of the immediate group that worked the issue initially. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 23:24, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Followup: Per my initial message here, I've protected the page for now. If there's any objection, go ahead and unprotect, just doing it because I haven't seen any "AARGH NO!!"'s yet. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 23:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there has been some vandalism of both User:Stephencolbert and its associated talk page. However, with respect to User talk:Stephencolbert, some of the edits appear to be attempts by Wikipedians to communicate with User:Stephencolbert and some of these edits have been reverted as if they are obvious vandalism. I will be watching these pages and I am available to revert vandalism, so I will probably try taking off the page protection. I believe that Wikipedians should be allowed to edit User talk:Stephencolbert according to normal policy. --JWSchmidt 01:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Incongruousness

User:Ageo020 claims to be an administrator, but he appears neither on the regular list nor the other official sysop list. Are the lists incorect, or his claim to adminship false? Dar-Ape 19:20, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Using Interiot's tool, it lists him as a member of 'user' and not 'sysop'. I understand that Interiot's data is no longer 100% accurate for EN, but unless he is a recent new admin, this suggests that the claim is false. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 19:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Never mind that, he's got less than 500 edits. Nobody would get adminship with that amount of edits nowadays. --Lord Deskana (talk) 19:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I've left a note on the user's talk page. I suspect that the user made his user page based off of someone else's and included that userbox accidentally. JoshuaZ 19:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Why not just remove it? --mboverload@ 20:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
He actually invites people to remove things that are out of place on the page. Removed. alphaChimp laudare 20:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. In retrospect, I realize I should have just posted on his talk page, waited, and removed it if he didn't answer. Next time. Dar-Ape 20:31, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Talk:Derek_Smart#Why_I_reverted

I feel that User:Supreme_Cmdr may have reached an unacceptable level of incivility and/or personal attacks on this talk page, but am not in a position to issue warnings myself. Could someone else have a look and see if they agree? Stifle (talk) 20:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

On a quick read of that section, I saw some exclamation points and whatnot, but didn't immediately see any real incivility or NPA violations. Could you provide some specific examples? It might help in reviewing this situation. If it's obvious and I missed it, I apoligize and will have my glasses prescription adjusted. Thanks! - CHAIRBOY (☎) 21:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] articles by User:Iasson

Hello everybody. As Jkelly advised me, I would like to hear your opinions regarding my course of action against the articles created by the sockpuppets of user:Iasson, a user permanently banned for his endless creation of socks (see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Iasson). This user for sport, not for any agenda, appears to take pleasure in creating through his always reborn socks much false info and many new articles. After discussing the question with Jkelly, I'm oriented to delete all the articles he has lately created by his socks; but while a certain number of these accounts have been ascertained as socks of Iasson by the Checkuser, others have been blocked without passing through checkuser because it was quite obvious they were socks of Iasson. Now, regarding the obvious but not ascertained socks, would you find it correct to delete the articles so created, as I and Jkelly believe as the only measure to stop Iasson and banned users like him, or have you some doubts. Please tell me your thoughts.--Aldux 20:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

If we're certain enough to block the accounts, we should be certain enough to delete their articles. JoshuaZ 20:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Tyrenius 21:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I prodded one of them, however, as a way of detecting his next sock, if he's imprudent enough to unprod. This may be sufficient. Septentrionalis 21:26, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Good idea, but probably best not to advertise your tactics to the enemy! :) Tyrenius 01:30, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Link problem at Wikipedia:Copyright problems

I think there is an error in the embedded link for "Go to today's section and add..." instruction on the Wikipedia:Copyright problems page. If you click the link, it incorrectly takes you here to make your addition [5]. I don't want to try to fix it in fear of breaking it further. Can a familiar admin fix it? Thanks. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 19:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I've inserted a workaround. Luckily, this is the English Wikipedia, and in English the genitive for 'August' is the same as the nominative: 'August'. In other languages we wouldn't be so lucky. --ais523 07:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] User:T. Moitie "and/or" User:Fullstop

A few hours after User:Fullstop reported me and i reported him to the Personal attack intervention noticeboard for personal attacks and vandalizing(deleting categories and removing sourced material), without receiving any post from Fullstop or any other user, or having edit or been in any of the articles which he or me worked on, Moitie sent this post on Fullstop's talk page: [6], words taken out from it is: Spahbod. It is very clear to me that Fullstop has not been Uncivil to you in any way. You however seem to be using sarcastic, somewhat childish remarks to counter his/her statements. Then again: That is childish. Afterwards he actually reported me for personal attack, the very same behavior Fullstop showed. It is very clear that T. Moitie which made his/her account on 18th July 200(just a day after Parsi article revert wars began) is a sockpuppet of Fullstop.

Also Fullstop has not received one single warning for his attacks after my report with words like:Sad assertion, nasty piece of trolling, Spahbod's sad assertion, quite sad really. But i on the other hand recieved warning from another admin. --Spahbod ☼ 01:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Disinclined to stick up for someone making such personal attacks, I have researched into the matter. I have been through 250 of Fullstop's edit summaries, and although not all have been filled out, none have had personal attacks. I have checked every talk page that he's edited since July 18, and as far as I can see, he hasn't been uncivil, nor said what Spahbod has just accused him of. Again, Spahbod hasn't given any actual evidence to back up his claim of Personal attack. --T. Moitie [talk] 02:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Moitie wrote: I have researched into the matter. I have been through 250 of Fullstop's edit summaries Lol, there is no need to comment on that, i believe you just made my job easier once again by proving my point. And once again you left false and untrue statement about me not showing evidence, i showed you the link to his or your attacks on Fullstop's talk page, which is in the Parsi article, among many insulting and provoking words these words included: Spahbod's sad assertion, quite sad really, nasty piece of trolling. Then your own or should i say your other account's attacks which is on Fullstop's talk page: sarcastic, somewhat childish remarks to counter his/her statements

On top of that kind of behavior, he is constantly deleting categories like persian gods category from a persian god article: [7], changing the texts and removing wholes of sections like he did in the Parsi article.

Do i really need to say more, inspite of all this he actually goes around reporting me to every admin board, request for protection, personal attack board etc, there is. And even for some reason he thinks it will help him, he sends personal attack warning messages with numbers on them, on my talk page after i reverted his wrong doings lol :).

I am sorry for my long reply. I don't like reporting people for every problem i have, there has been many times people violated 3RR, i instead of reporting ask them to selfrevert, but i just could not stand while this guy goes around spreading false statements all over anymore. --Spahbod ☼ 07:04, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No more preteen category/userbox

Following the CFD on "Category:Preteen Wikipedian" Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 25 , I nuked the category. But by common sense, and being bold, I also killed Template:User pre-teen due to the same arguments used to kill the category. Just so people know and don't accuse of me being rogue. -- Drini 23:01, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry I missed the discussion on deleting this category. I think perhaps we ought to reconsider. The discussion mentioned concerns that it violates the Childrens Internet Protection Act, but it doesn't -- that primarily involves filtering on public computers (e.g. libraries) to get public funding, and ensuring that personal identifying information isn't disclosed deliberately or accidentally [8]. There's no good reason not to let kids self-identify on Wikipedia; it's not like we're a hotbed of preteen activity, and we're actually safer than most places since there is NO personal information anywhere, not even through hacking into the site (unless someone actually POSTS it, which could happen anywhere). (Last week Congress extended CIPA limitations to chat rooms and social sites like MySpace, which I personally find grossly excessive. Let's not jump on the paranoia bandwagon. One of our main tenents is "assume good faith.")
WIkipedia is an encyclopedia, not a social ntworking site. You've just proved my point about the possible exploitability of it. -- Drini 20:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Obviously if an individual is using WP primarily as a chat room/bulletin board, we'd want to step in. And having the preteen category would actually make it easier to check on those user pages to make sure that's not happening.
Oh, and for what it's worth -- I'm 40 years old, so I don't have a vested interest :) --Bookgrrl 12:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Another point is that unlike MySpace or other chat areas where pages are open only to "friends," anything posted on a Wikipedia user page is open to the public; that would certainly discourage any potential child stalkers/abusers from using them as a way to contact potential victims. --Bookgrrl 15:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. They could still contact through Wikipedia email which leaves no public record. JoshuaZ 15:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I have seen attempts at pedophilic behavior, but the users are almost immediately banned and the changes are oversighted out. alphaChimp laudare 15:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I DISAGREE. A healthy amound of preteens were there. I,myself used it as a messaging system of sorts to contact and recruit people to join User:Wizkid357/Wiki Preteen. Our goal was to get to know each other more and collaberate. Threre were probably 20-50 preteens on the list. I just thought we'd like to know each other and stuff. Not really give personal information but collaberate. Meh, hopefully we can make this work out. Julz
  • *sigh*, the discussion said "It may not necessarily violate the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 in the United States, but it is still a rather convenient list for unscrupulous individuals to potentially find and exploit minors". So it says the opposite of what you say". The discussion says that it possible does violates the act, but still a bad idea. I acted according to consensus and thus it's gone. -- Drini 18:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Exactly - and the lack of concern for their safety and a proper discussion of precautions to take by the participants confirms to me that this is a wise decision. --Trödel 19:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Meh, I misunderstood, my mistake. Anyway, it's fine, noones really exploiting us. My safety is fine, I'm not going to talk to some random guy exploiting me. Julz
Sorry, I just saw the discussion about it. Well, if that's your verdict... people keep rejoinin the list anyway. Julz
There are other categories under Category:Wikipedians by generation that might work. Powers 12:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] User:Spahbod

I was idling in #wikipedia-en and a rather flustered person came on asking for help with a problem on his User talk page (User talk:Fullstop). On it was a discussion going on between Fullstop and Spahbod. It seemed that Spahbod was unhappy about certain changes Fullstop has been making to a certain article, resulting in an edit war. Since that edit war, it seems Spahbod has been stalking Fullstop and reverting most changes. When I last checked, 7 of 10 changes to the Wikipedia mainspace that Fullstop had made had been reverted by Spahbod, on claims of vandalism, NPOV, and in 2 cases, the only rv reason was "sad". It seems that every time someone counters his points, he accuses the person with accusations of incivility, personal attack and more interestingly sock puppetry. I've check the diffs, and Fullstops edits have been far from Vandalism, nor NPOV. The diffs of the unsubstantiated reverts can be found on Fullstop's talk page.

I regret, now, joining the discussion in this conflit, as since then I have been twice accused of Incivility, once for Personal attack (see the history for WP:PAIN), and also for sock puppetry (you can checkuser me if you want, I only have one other account which I stopped using before I created this account).

This isn't the only incident involving Spahbod. He, at the moment is part of an Request for Arbitration, in which he is defending himself with uncited accusations of incivility.

Please can an an administrator resolve this issue. Fullstop is at a loss on what to do, and I believe it is unfair on Fullstop as an editor of Wikipedia to have to deal with this.

Many thanks, --T. Moitie [talk] 01:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

He has been blocked. Yanksox 11:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Request for transfer of adminship

I just want to notify you about the request to transfer adminship I posted on Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship. Electionworld = Wilfried (talk 09:11, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Category:Candidates for speedy deletion is backed up

Just as an FYI to any administrator who may be interested, Category:Candidates for speedy deletion has some images that have been tagged for nearly two days awaiting deletion. BigDT 11:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sneaky vandalism

It seems like there are some sneaky vandalism by two users here, who wanna claim fake things to Norway with no sources for it. I'm pretty new here and don't know how things work yet and how to deal with this kind of vandalism here on wikipedia. In the article "Normans". The two Norwegian users, Inge and Barend keep putting Norway or Norwegians in the article from no where. I have asked them like 5 times in the discussion, what the sources are. Of course they refuse to answer, since there are is no source for it. Here the fake claiming started. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Normans&diff=27008966&oldid=26282705 Thanks --Comanche cph 15:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

It is not an incident, it's a non stop norwegian pro-claiming. Look at the history: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Normans&action=history Thanks --Comanche cph 16:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Comanche cph is a long time problem user and has the tactic of accusing anyone disagreeing with him of vandalism as part of his repertoir. Please see this entry at the incidents page and [edit history]. Any long term administrator involvement is highly welcome (short peeps have not been effective). Inge 02:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh really. Funny that Inge don't answer the simple question then. WHERE IS THE SOURCES. You need source for editing on history pages. Else it called vandalism. This is a part of Inge's attacking moves again me, tcamouflage the simple question about sources Inge refusing to answer. --Comanche cph 07:32, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Your questions have been answered exhaustingly and sources have been given. Inge 11:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

No they haven't. The Hrolf Gange theory is not a answer to this issue. This is about who the Normans was. And you need source for your history rewrite. So what is the source??? --Comanche cph 14:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I would like to add my voice to Inge's complaint. Comanche_cph seems utterly unable to conduct a reasoned debate about points of contention, instead he resorts to constant reverts, ad hominem attacks, and abuse, as most recently evidenced on the discussion page for the article on Normans. --Barend 15:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz

Yesterday I noticed that some users have started adding "ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz" to many links on every Wikipedia page they visit. It has the effect of totally killing many of the external links on the page. Check out RonStoppable's 1st edit on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pradip Somasundaran. I removed the edits and reposted them without the url. His next edit, however, reinserted the url. RonStoppable was indefinitely banned for other conduct, but the ezproxy issue remains. I'm fairly certain that I've seen other users adding ezproxy links over the last 24 hours. My suspicion is that the addition is being done by whatever proxy software they're using on their computer. This whole thing could possibly be resolved by simply blocking their proxy.

In my time here, I haven't seen anything like this. I suspect that we haven't seen the last of it. It might be helpful to search for instances of ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz just to see how endemic the issue is. Anyone else seen this strange behavior? alphaChimp laudare 12:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] User:Abscissa

I do not believe that this user has been treating me with proper respect. The first incident of this that I can recall was during a nomination for deletion of the article "List of shock sites", which has since been merged with Shock site. He posted a comment which brought up the suggestion that I had nominated it for deletion simply because I was Catholic and found the content inappropriate. In my proposition for the article's deletion, I never once stated that religious had to do with my wanting the article deleted, and I think that it it was unacceptable for Abscissa to allege that my real reasons for wanting the article deleted were religious ones. (And also, after viewing the most recent version of his userpage, I find it somewhat ironic that he would accuse me of editing with POV.) Another memorable incident occured after a fairly recent situation in which I was blocked for creating accounts with offensive usernames and reporting them myself pretending that they were created by trolls (see here for details). Abscissa posted a provocative comment on my talk page, stating that he found the names "funny" after the "List of shock sites debacle" (why he refered to it as a "debacle", I do not know, as it resulted in the article being drastically improved) and another refering to what I did as a "vandalism fiasco" (which is inaccurate since virtually no edits were made whatsoever with any of the accounts I created, though regardless, what I did was completely inexcusible). And finally, here the most recent example of what I have been talking about.

Forgive me if I sound extreme, but I have come under the impression that this user is stalking me and I am tired of it. I ask Abscissa to please not continue to try to intimidate other users.--The Count of Monte Cristo Parley 19:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Will someone please get rid of this image?

Image:Delhi ITO Bridge Traffic Jam.jpg used under fair use, but it clearly fails point #1 of the fair use criteria: it's just a generic photo of a traffic jam, one that anyone in the area with a camera could replace. The problem is that all my attempts to get it deleted have been reverted: the uploader believes that the only requirement for fair use is that it be low resolution and credit be given, and has actively removed all attempts to tag the image as "no rationale", "fair use disputed", "speedy delete", or "ifd". --Carnildo 20:22, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted it with the following deletion summary: "Fails WP:FUC #1, no fair use rationale provided, and is being replaced into articles while licensing status is disputed." Jkelly 20:27, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I have deleted it again, and left a friendly warning at the uploader's talk page. Eugène van der Pijll 21:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Indefinitely blocked template

I thought that the indefinitely blocked template {{indefblock}} should be put on a user page so that the account will be identified as indefinitely blocked and it will put the account in the indefinitely blocked category of the month. Also, I thought that the template was supposed to be added to the user page, not the user talk page. I am talking about choosing which one to add it to if you are only going to add it one, not whether there is no harm in adding it to both (Although I would think that adding it to both would be bad since it would create duplicates in the category. Perhaps a different template should be used for talk pages that would inform people the user was blocked, but not put the page in a category. I suggest {{indefblocktalk}} for the name). The reason that I am asking is that I have come across the user and user talk pages of indefinitely blocked users that are marked with a personal message, marked on the talk page but not the user page, and marked on both pages. Also, sometimes admins place a sockpuppet template on the user page and a indefinitely blocked template on the talk page. Most of them are placed or not placed by just a few admins. You can see examples at Category:Wikipedia users indefinitely blocked in July 2006. If I am correct, it would be sweet if a bot could put the templates on user pages of accounts that only have them on the talk page, remove them from talk pages, and possibly add a different indefinitely blocked template for talk pages. I am in favor of a talk page notice because it would help prevent people from unintentionally adding comments after the user was indefinitely blocked. -- Kjkolb 12:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Right now we just have random users (Bigtop for one) running around adding indefblock templates to userpages. It would probably be pretty easy to have a bot add the block templates. Is it really necessary though? alphaChimp laudare 12:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I always add the template to the userpage because if it's added to the talk page, the blocked user can edit it and remove it. --Sam Blanning(talk) 22:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Mike18xx and the Allende article

I'm moderately involved in the Salvador Allende article, so I'm probably not the best person to facilitate matters related to that article from an administrative position. I'm in danger of losing my temper; I already more or less did once. It seems to me that User:Mike18xx has been involved in a lot of POV-pushing and that, just in general, he isn't "playing fair", in that he is holding others to standards of neutrality of sources that he has no intention of obeying himself. He seems to reject as politically biased any source that he characterizes as Marxist (and when I pointed out that "clearly your definition of Marxist is wide enough to embrace people who don't even call themselves such" he responded by saying "Most US Republicans are Marxist without knowing it…", a remark that I think speaks more about him than about the sources we are using); meanwhile, he cites David Horowitz's FrontPageMag, hardly a beacon of objectivity.

Since his comments on that page and on his user talk page suggest a guy who likes to argue rather than discuss and who moves pretty easily over the line into personal attacks (both on authors of sources and on Wikipedians), I don't think I would help matters by trying to engage him further. But I think the situation is in need of attention. I'm very open to possibilities on how to proceed. - Jmabel | Talk 21:30, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A curiosity

I have been looking through Category:Living Traditionalist Catholic Bishops. Almost all of them are one-liners, bereft of any substantive encyclopaedic information. This looks like a directory dump to me, supporting the vocal but largely insignificant dissenting traditionalist Catholic minority. What do others think? Just zis Guy you know? 11:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The first 2 or 3 that I went to were actually several paragraphs long. It's likely that the other stub information was just obtained from an external source, but it's probably not a commercial content provider. alphaChimp laudare 11:55, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Most were created by the same user, but I doubt there is any copyvio involved. On the other hand, I think most of the one-liners (and a few of the longer ones) are not really notable. I brought this up on WP:BIO a while back without a resolution. Gimmetrow 13:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Massive upload of possibly unfree image

User:Benzmit has uploaded over 100 images in the last couple of days[10], all with nonsense edit summaries ("cfgcjfld ew sfdsggvv", "qwqewdfdsaDADSA", etc.) and claiming to be the creator, when they look like copyrighted images... Those I checked were all orphans. Maybe some admin could somehow take care of this; I currently don't have the energy to put them all up at WP:PUI. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 18:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I have listed those which have not already been tagged at WP:PUI (see Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images#August_4)and added {{PUIdisputed}} to all. I left a note on the user's page, although he had been previously warned about uploading images with incorrect tags. Several are prima facia not free, including a few trading cards. Most were highly suspect. Some non-image edits were probable vandalism. --TeaDrinker 03:49, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 09:30, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Miniclip - minor legal threat

An anon is displeased that the Miniclip article mentions hostile code reported by two security firms in Miniclip's downloadable games. There's been a minor legal threat at Talk:Miniclip:

Nagle, if you now re-post this inaccurate article of yours, you would now knowingly and willingly, with reckless disregard, publish inaccurate material, making you (and any associates) automatically liable and obviously severely degrade your reputation as a publisher on Wikipedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.7.31.54 (talk • contribs).

There are sources for the reports, and they've been in the article for months, but the anon remains unhappy. He occasionally removes the reports, and I or someone else puts them back.

This probably doesn't require action, but because there was a legal threat, I'm putting a note here. --John Nagle 19:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Article watched --mboverload@ 20:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
If it's a legal threat, then the user should be blocked until the threat is withdrawn. (User is currently blocked for 3RR.) However, at the moment, strictly speaking, it reads as a caution, not a threat, as there is no statement of intent to act, even though that might reasonably be taken as the implication, especially regarding the legalese. Tyrenius 01:41, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like pseudo-legal language used by someone who doesn't know much about the law. Winstonwolfe 00:04, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] admin aid needed

user- 88.155.198.100 has removed several information sections apparently out of personal reasons he has ignored requests for talkpage usage and broken the 3RR rule. the majority of his removals have been under the casualty section of the Battle of Bint Jbeil. where he removes the more recent casualty counts provided by msn cnn ny times (as recent as aug-2) and replaced them with much older information from websites, and insists that the newer cnn sources are "BULLSHIT" with out giving details. as a inexperienced editor I need some sort of admin help with this. his frequent removals have brought aditions to the page down to a halt.--68.211.220.109 00:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

88.155.198.100 was found to be in the wrong, but had not been properly warned by the other anon. As 88.155.198.100 had stopped editing, at least for the moment, I simply issued a stern warning rather than any punitive action. RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 01:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

it's me the same guy as before and I would like to say that, the edit waring does not stop. the major news outlet suported stats are either removed or listed as being only values claimed by hezbola. it also seems the 3rr rule may have been broken--68.215.134.176 04:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any additional editing by said anon, so I'm not clear what the specific further complaint is. If any single edit has reverted more than three times (including via sockpuppets if you have reason to suspect that), please file at WP:AN/3RR. Given that this is such a topical issue, protection doesn't seem like a good option, and presumably you'd not be too happy were it semi-protected... Alai 04:52, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I personaly bellive that User talk:Flayer is a sockpupet of 88. if semiprotecting is all you can do go ahead (even if it locks me out.) so long as you do something about the sock pupets. (I'll get a named user acount as soon as this is over.)

That seems a far from an obvious conclusion to make, and even if true, doesn't appear to be a clear-cut 3RR. I suggest resorting to the article talk-page to convince other editors your presentation is the superior one. Alai 06:22, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

The articles flayer removed were from sources that included MSNBC, CNN& the Guardian, so their removal was cerntanly unjustified. aditionaly it seeems flayer has gone about removing information he dislikes(but is sourced.) in other pages.--208.61.16.41 16:59, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I’ve seen what’s happened in that page my self Flayer appears to never use the talk page, or answer to requests for dialogue, so talk won’t work. He also goes about removing information without leaving a suitable message. (often nothing or, done under the guise of NPOV.) and replaces the information with dubious claims, or removes it totally. A quick check to his talk-page User talk:Flayer, (and contrib. page.) shows that he hasn’t just defaced Lebanon related articles but also articles as unrelated as house keeping. I strongly advocate that an administrator take action. (.BTW a look at the time data on the articles in question does seem to reinforce the view held by 68.215.134.176 that he operates a sock puppet under an IP address around 88.155.198.100.)--Freepsbane 19:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppets aside he has broken the 3rr rule (after I've already warned him.)

for mor info see :http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Bint_Jbeil&action=history --Freepsbane 20:13, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Take that to WP:AN/3RR. alphaChimp laudare 20:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

can you do it for me.--Freepsbane 20:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Help with user removing dispute tags

GJRFMorelligu (talk • contribs) has for weeks been uploading large numbers of images and when deletion, license, no source, or unfree image tags are added simply removing them. I have tagged dozens of them and tried to discuss the issues with him; however even that discussion has been removed and the actions continue. Could someone new try something? What is the current policy on removing such tags? Rmhermen 02:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

What a mess. I left a last warning and bot-rollbacked the image edits. The account needs to be blocked if the user continues. Jkelly 02:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
It seems that this user also edits as 201.208.126.185 and Morelligu (though the latter account hasn't edited since the middle of April). —Bkell (talk) 04:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and blocked the account indefinitely; we ain't got time to deal with people like him. Just remove his images and eventually delete them. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 23:35, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] harris salomon

the entry for harris salomon has been repeatedly vandalized with slanderous personal attacks. can you please protect it. the version of august 4(the first one) should be the one used. thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.107.79.82 (talk • contribs).

Use WP:RFPP for page protect requests. alphaChimp laudare 16:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Joe Arpaio history merge assistence needed

Earlier today, the article Joe Arpaio was tagged as a copyvio by Kaszeta [11]. I looked at the text and noted that the copyright violations were not too terrible and could be easily fixed. I noted this on the article's talk page [12]. I followed the instructions and created a new page at Talk:Joe Arpaio/Temp where I proceeded to work on the problems as outlined in the talk page. While I was working on these problems, Wikibofh reverted the copyvio tag and struck the copyvio entry [13]. At that point, I copied the worked I had done on Talk:Joe Arpaio/Temp into Joe Arpaio and tagged it with {{db-histmerge}} to merge the histories of the original article and the copyvio fixes I had done in /Temp. Later, FrancisTyers deleted the article under CSD#G6 (which is correct), but then nothing else has been done for several hours. I left a note on his talk page [14] but have gotten no reply. I assume he has left WP for the day. Essentially, the page has been deleted and needs to be recovered so that a proper history merge can be done. Thank you for your assistence. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. I went to bed, sorry about that! :) - FrancisTyers · 10:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Francis! -- ShinmaWa(talk) 16:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] I need help

that about say it all, I need help reverting all the crap. The user is already indef blocked. Sasquatch t|c 22:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone who helped clear it up :-) Sasquatch t|c 22:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stamps wrongly claimed as Fair use: serious copyright problem

This is not a small, but quite serious problem regarding fair use guidelines. I noticed that Category:Fair_use_stamp_images has close to 500+ images of stamps, all tagged with {{Stamp}}, and are supposed to be under Fair use. However, the fair use criteria as defined in WP:FAIR#Images clearly states that this usage is only allowable "for identification". Furthermore, the guidelines in Category:Fair use stamp images state that "stamp images in this category should not be used solely as a cheap way to illustrate articles. In addition to the problem that images are often altered for artistic reasons and thus may not be factually accurate representations of their subject, Wikipedia:Fair use criteria does not allow for it."

However, *most* of the images under the category are being used for identifying the *subject* rather than the stamp itself. This is, as described above, not allowable under the fair use criteria.

I did check some of the images, and found that almost all of them (save a few used in philatellic articles) are being used in biography pages, or pages related to the building or the thing shown in the stamp. This is not fair use, and it should be dealt accordingly.

Since IANAL, could others with knowledge of the US fair use law clarify whether the usage of stamps in this case is ok or not? If the usage of stamps in biography or other such pages is not fair use, then the stamp images should be removed from those articles. If it IS fair use, then the criteria should specify this.

Since copyright is a big issue, and according to the recent zero-tolerance policies about non-licensed or non-sourced images, we should take care of this immediately. A related problem is the {{Currency}} tagged images. I found today that Grimm brothers contains the image of Image:1000-DEM-OBV-178x83.jpg i.e. the 1000 Deutsche mark, claiming fair use. I don't think the claim is valid. --Ragib 01:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Re. stamps, it's not fair use to illustrate the subject of the biography, unless the biography specifically deals with the fact that the subject has been honoured with a stamp. Ditto currency. (Unless in both cases there is anything like US Federal PD in operation.) Tyrenius 01:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
So, you mean, adding a sentence to the biography page saying that "A commemorative stamp on <insert personname> have been issued by <insert country name>" would make it fair use? --Ragib 01:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
A bit more context as to why that stamp issue was intersting would also help the fair use argument.--Peta 01:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I was hoping I would see a bunch of incorrectly-tagged pre-1978 US postage stamps and pre-1956 Canadian stamps in that cat, but most of these stamps seeem to be very recently issued. There seem to be a remarkable number of Indian and Irish stamps. It does look like a big cleanup job. Jkelly 01:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I tried to remove the non-fair use of these stamp images, but after cleaning up 10 or so, I have to give up. It sure is a huge cleanup job, as most of the 500 or so images are improperly used as fair use images in biography pages. A little help would be great. --Ragib 20:40, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure orphaning 500+ images by hand is something that one or two admins can expect to get done in a reasonable amount of time. I'm going to ask User:Carnildo if OrphanBot can do this, and then we can hand-revert the cases that comply with policy. Jkelly 21:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Can do. I'll get to it in a few hours. Should OrphanBot tag the images as "orphaned fair-use" while it's at it? --Carnildo 22:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Better that than doing it by hand. We can remove the template when we reinsert the compliant ones. Jkelly 22:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
The bot's running now. If the category really is around 500 images, it should be done in about two and a half hours. --Carnildo 01:26, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I'll check the mainspace contribs and make sure that any actual postage articles have their images replaced. Jkelly 01:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
How do we request a person to review the fair use claim on one of these stamps? Gimmetrow 02:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Request for clarification: What if I wanted to mention that the Greek state wanted to honour Panagiotis Kanellopoulos by issuing a stamp and wanted to show the Image:Kanellopoulos.jpg of the stamp in the Panagiotis Kanellopoulos article? Thanks. Dr.K. 04:41, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Link to a the website of the copyholder if it is just to help readers see what the stamp looks like. If you're discussing the use of subtle shading in philately and how it was radically altered for this memorable stamp, claim Wikipedia:Fair use and show that change. Jkelly 04:45, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your fast reply. Dr.K. 05:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Bot's done running now. It had the usual problem with special requests, where it didn't realize it was finished, and kept going over the category again and again. --Carnildo 06:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

This OrphanBot is a real PITA for editors like me who are using stamp images correctly as fair use in article about postage stamps. So do I have to go back and reinstate each one AND remove the orphan tag or is User:Jkelly really going to do this for me? The only listed possible tag for use one these fair use stamps is {{Stamp}} and I already had tagged the appropriate images with this tag as per policy. ww2censor 05:07, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the inconvenience. I've replaced all the images in articles about stamps and stripped the orphaned template from them. Jkelly 17:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
About how much of the category was valid? --Carnildo 19:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I touched fourteen image description pages to remove orphan tags. Some stamp articles were using the same image because it was a particularly important one, so that is less than the number of clickthroughs. Another dozen or so had already been done before I began. I did not replace unfree stamps in "List of people appearing on stamps" articles, so the total number of articles I edited was nine. Again, there were also articles that had already had their stamps replaced before I began. Jkelly 19:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Whoa Nelly that was bold. But my ongoing process of reviewing fair-use stamp images individually was going slowly, so can't complain... :-) Stan 13:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] IP address wrongly listed as zombie computer

66.99.246.226 is wrongly listed as a zombie computer. It is actually the IP of Cary Public Library. Because the library has about 20 computers with an internet connection, many different people use this address. But there are a handful of legit accounts using these computers. Please take note. Vuy 18:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Public library machines can be zombies, and zombies can be cleaned up. Are we trying to track the status of individual machines, and why? Jkelly 19:01, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Weren't a lot of the machines used by the Squidward vandal from public libraries? Perhaps this was caught under the umbrella of "block anything used by Squidward as a proxy/zombie"? Essjay (Talk) 08:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Wasn't used by squidward, but it does have port 80 and 8080 open, thought they are both currently password protected so probably a false positive on a proxy check. --pgk(talk) 08:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Backlog at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old

There's a fair backlog at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old, with one AfD over a week past its sell by date - a mass AfD of what looks like over three dozen articles which seems to have ended in your standard vague merge/delete result with no-one troubling to say what should be merged. Can't imagine why no-one's touched that - I recommend whoever closes it does a "redirect all and anyone who wants to merge can go into the history", personally, I'd do it myself if it wasn't the wrong side of half one in the morning. Most of the due days have less than 10 articles left - if everyone reading this does one it'll probably be gone by the time I wake up tomorrow.--Sam Blanning(talk) 00:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

  • On an unrelated note, article:Old actually exists, would the entire universe collapse into a supper massive blackhole if someone tried to AFD Old? Cats and Dogs living together, the laws of physics all backwards!! Or am I just being excessively melodramatic?--152.163.100.200 04:51, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Good point. I always wondered what we'd do if someone made a notable film called Main Page. Obviously it would go at Main Page (film), but would we have to put a disambig notice at the top of our main page for all eternity? --Sam Blanning(talk) 12:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

I'll bite, why is AN/i protected?--152.163.100.200 04:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Its not... ViridaeTalk 04:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Says unprotect, so must be. --DanielCD 04:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, sprotect, same difference for me--152.163.100.200 04:56, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Only admins can see that tab. Ask User:Antandrus, he did the protect. --DanielCD 04:56, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I still see no sign of WP:ANI being protected at all...? ViridaeTalk 04:59, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
It was sprotected from yesterday: I unprotected it just now (it's still protected from moves, of course) Antandrus (talk) 04:59, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Still can' work out why it wasn't showing up as sprotected. Oh well. ViridaeTalk 08:45, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Male Domination?

During my time on English Wikipedia, I’ve come to realize just how male dominated it is (I myself am male). Seriously, how many Wikipedians are female? If these legendary creatures do exist, they would be classified as “rare and endangered”. But perhaps they are more common than I think, as it is difficult to tell and we tend to assume the user is male. But I digress; Female Wikipedians are few and far between. Unfortunately - we need Female Wikipedians, to continue effectively as an encyclopedia, as they can offer insights that males cannot. Male/female insights and interest differ radically. Compare:

The truth lies within the Article quality. How can we overcome this?

If I am wrong, and every second editor is female – correct me. I also apologize for stereotyping and generalizing. I am also unsure of how Wikipedia’s Homosexual community rates in this.

User:Dfrg.msc 07:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, how many Wikipedians are female? The recent New Yorker article claims 20% -- not parity, but it could be worse. Consideration of these sorts of issues, by the way, are not new, hence Wikipedia:Countering systemic bias, not to mention a variety of other Wikiprojects that have sprung up to attempt to fix gaps. Check those out. --Calton | Talk 08:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, wikipedia tends to attract really non-typical populations. Lots of technogeeks as some people would say. And many of them are male. Although this is important to consider, I'm not sure if this is the place to do it. Maybe write an essay in your user space on the issue. The Ungovernable Force 08:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I'm the only one, but "Who cares?" If women aren't as geeky as men that's not our problem to solve or be concerned with. --mboverload@ 09:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I suspect this is dfrg.msc attention-seeking again. Just zis Guy you know? 13:20, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

We have several female admins, and several female editors who are not admins. I do, however, agree that several more female editors would be a good thing. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Several... we have more than 1000 admins, and a LOAD of editors. "Several" isn't a lot. -- Миборовский 01:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Gender isn't specified and is not necessarily revealed so there is no way of telling the relative proportions, nor can one rely on names. Don't forget the small number of "non gendered". Tyrenius 01:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The post was actually put up on the Village Pump [15] 19 minutes before the one here, but without the admin bit. This is not necessary here and would be better on RfA talk. PS I haven't checked, but I expect it's there already as well. :)Tyrenius 01:51, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

  • There are quite possibly lots of wikipedians who don't go around advertising whehter or not we are female and we frequently get mistaken (wrongly in my case) for being male. I also don't tell everybody what television show I watch or which way I vote, or even how old I am. I expect to be judged on my edits and the content I add should be able to measure up against wikipedia's policies - nothing more or less. There is probably a dispropritionate number of Australians compared with say people from Kazakhstan - the nature of an English language resource using technology. Since people can and do mislead others on the internet, I would say we have no way of finding out what the proportions are. Not sure it would be useful anyway - there are all sorts of biasses - income level, against those who are too time-poor to contribute or don't have access to the technology as well of course based on language and country.--A Y Arktos\talk 02:21, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the thrust of what you are saying, but I think the examples could be better - the F-35 is to my mind clearly more important than Madonna, (if you buy market economics for example, the way the cost overruns and albums sales are going, a single F-35 will soon be worth more than she is :-). While I play netball and I am certain that soccer IS NOT football, RUGBY is, even I can see given the relative size of the two sports, soccer deserves the bigger article, (marginally, and it should be rewritten to explain it is a form of Irish dance cum competitve amatuer dramatics death scene acting, in which no one ever scores :-). Winstonwolfe 03:48, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

So, to illustrate your point that there are small numbers of female editors here, you compared the quality of articles on stereotypically male and stereotypically female interests? I imagine you'd find that there are more women here than you think, but their distribution of interests is not so identifiably "female". (This also is a bit of an odd place for this discussion, but oh well.) Opabinia regalis 16:46, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:AIV...jr.

(I can't edit the real thing due to an Airport Vandal Autoblock)


[edit] Uncategorized categories?

User:ProveIt regularily combs through Special:Uncategorizedcategories and tries to categorize the uncategorized, and he left me a note saying that the page hadn't been updated on its normal schedule. I suspect that it is a product of the quasi mystical (to me at least) developer beings, but thought I'd drop a note here in case I could help him out by going to some page and hitting a button as an admin flagged account. Otherwise, if its just someone on vacation / toolserver being down / reducing the frequency of the updates / someone's going away party where everyone had too much to drink and went back to snooze in their cubicles and it will be returning shortly, then not a problem. Syrthiss 11:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you to whoever fixed it ... -- ProveIt (talk) 22:05, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Requesting block review

I blocked Shakim67 for 1 month as it is an admitted sockpuppet account of Can't Nobody Step To Me, which was blocked for 1 month for personal attacks both on-wiki and through the registered email address both accounts share. It has been reviewd once and upheld. I would like some other admins to weigh in so that this user doesn't feel like the evil cabal is out to get him. Thanks. —WAvegetarian•(talk) 20:02, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

It actually looks a little more complex than that, the account User:Shakim67 has previously been blocked for personal attacks, it was prior to that block expiring that User:Can't Nobody Step To Me was created (under a different name initially, but subsequently renamed). Can't Nobody Step To Me has now been blocked for engaging in personal attacks and now the user is trying to use User:Shakim67 to evade that block... --pgk(talk) 20:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Well yes, there was User:Shinemygrillz, and a couple of other connected accounts which claim to be siblings. They keep leaving themselves logged in/stealing passwords/not keeping passwords secret. All of them have abused {{helpme}} and are very familiar to regulars of #wikipedia-bootcamp. I have felt at times like blocking them all for effectively being unauthorized group accounts.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 20:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes User:Shinemygrillz was the the pre-rename name of User:Can't Nobody Step To Me, I haven't kept track of all the others. --pgk(talk) 21:36, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I also ran into Shakim67 a while ago when he was removing warnings, claiming more edits than he had made, claiming he was older than he had previously claimed, etc. —Quarl (talk) 2006-08-07 18:34Z

[edit] RealityBoy

This user is on a photo upload rampage. All of his uploads are copyvios from other websites and don't include copyright tags or other information. Despite being warned he is still uploading massive amounts of images. --Hetar 03:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, Ryjgqm seems to be on a simillar rampage. He claims his photos are gfdl-self but they are obviously not. He has already been warned and shows no signs of stopping. Any help greatly appreciated. --Hetar 05:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

RealityBoy was blocked indefinitely by somebody else. I blocked Ryjgqm for 24 hours, for now. I think that he or she should probably be blocked indefinitely. The user has uploaded 54 pictures, many of which are the same picture with a different name, and all of which appear copyrighted. Most of the article edits are to insert the pictures into them. The account has almost no useful edits. -- Kjkolb 08:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I made the block indefinite. If someone disagrees, they can change it if they want to, although providing the reasoning would be helpful. -- Kjkolb 05:36, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Watchlisting/blacklisting users as part of user sub page (unofficial wikiproject)

I just wanted to make a note of the page, seemingly a personal wikiproject, at User:AMbroodEY/Fundy_Watch. What concerns me is the venomous accusation and watchlisting of several users at the watchlist page of the project User:AMbroodEY/Fundy_Watch/Watch_List. Though the project states its goal to promote NPOV, the watchlists, and adjectives given to users (see diff) makes it appear otherwise.

The watchlist also contains phrases like "not really islamist but bible thumpers", "Has religious implications. Edited by ultra-right Christian fundamentalist HolyWarrior and dbachman, biased because I think he might be Witzel's student", "User:Dbachmann Potentially dangerous anti-Hindu. he is an admin! He has abused his priviledges to make POV edits to Michael Witzel article by removing all criticisms of witzel." etc. in relation to several articles and editors.

Also related is the MFD : Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:AMbroodEY/Fundy Watch.

Thanks. --Ragib 06:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

If there is anything on wikipedia that makes me annoyed - that does. What happened to WP:NPOV and WP:NPA. ViridaeTalk 08:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
NPOV is for mainspace and templates --mboverload@ 11:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I realise that and thats what I am talking about (look further at the pages). Oh and I forgot WP:AGF before (look at the watch list). ViridaeTalk 11:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Though then again It could be argued that I am in violation of WP:AGF with this one. ViridaeTalk 11:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


Now, it seems like voting on the MFD yields even more venom from the members of the group, who denigrate the voters with personal attacks like "Comment -- User:Ragib is in cahoots with one of the watchees ([[User:Holywarrior]).Bakaman%% 15:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)" or "Comment - Comment made by a supporter of Witzel. Witzel's views on Hinduism (lets just say they're negative) are documented. Timothy Usher's friend User:Dbachmann has threatened Netaji many times, and has made personal attacks. Usher still supports the wild admin. Bakaman%% 15:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)". This just proves the point once again. --Ragib 16:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


Update: while this is under MFD, it has spawned copies of the "Enemies' list" in guise of "guilds" -- see Category:Patriotic Indian Wikipedian's Guild. --Ragib 05:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Mirosław Vitali

Was deleted as a possible copyvio. The creator of the article, User:Syrenab says it was his own work, based on his web site. Is there any way to get the thing undeleted? Thanks. :) Dlohcierekim 15:59, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Not unless the contents of his website are released under GFDL. Assuming this is the website in question, the material is "Copyright © 2006 Syrena". He can either replace the copyright notice on that webpage with a GFDL notice, or rewrite the biography for Wikipedia, but as long as he holds copyright to it then he can't release it under the GFDL, and can't post it on Wikipedia. --Sam Blanning(talk) 16:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
The GFDL is a license; it does not relinquish copyright. If the material truly belongs to the user in question, they are allowed to release it under as many different licenses as they wish. There's no need to replace the copyright notice on the site. Isomorphic 18:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I think you're a bit off the mark there. One can hold a copyright and decide to release the material under GFDL (or copyrighted free use or other free licences). Releasing material which the user owns the copyright to under GFDL in no way means he must change or remove a copyright notice from an existing copy of similar material. -- Infrogmation 18:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I undeleted it and reverted to pre speedy tag version. Article still needs cleaning up to Wiki formats. -- Infrogmation 19:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
He still has to prove that he's the copyright owner, just claiming it is not verification. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:21, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
So, perhaps should go to WP:CP rather than speedy, I suppose. -- Infrogmation 23:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with speed deleting any copyvio on sight. If it's truly their information to release, they can do so and recreate the article. --mboverload@ 05:24, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] forwarded from my talk

Please block User:125.236.44.42 Would it be possible to allow people to create accounts from this IP address, but to block people from making unsigned-in edits from there? That is a little less severe than blocking the IP outright, but even that would seem to be justified.

By the way, what is this - a school for delinquent kids? All of the edits that I looked at from this IP (roughly 40) were either acts of vandalism or fixing that vandalism. One only has to look at the User:talk page to see how rife the problem is.Paulgush 03:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

yes, that'd be possible, but I'll post it at WP:AN so other admins can comment -- Drini 03:05, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I'll bite. 1 month. [16] Wikibofh(talk) 04:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikibofh, does the block allow account creation, as requested? If so, should that be noted on the talk page? -- Kjkolb 05:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
It does not block account creation. I'm loathe to block both anon and account creation. Blocking anon is normally enough since people have to actually do something to create an account. Wikibofh(talk) 14:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Microsoft screenshots

Someone on IRC asked about a particular image (Image:Windows_Vista_5472_desktop.png, mentioning that Microsoft's licensing [17] specifically says you should not use screenshots of beta software. Do we care? Comments? --Golbez 10:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

That means we don't have their permission to use the screenshots, but we don't have permission to use any of the fair use stuff we present. That's the essence of fair use - we're claiming we have an encyclopedic need to present a given image, in moderation, to support our article about its subject, and we do so without the permission of the copyright owner. If they really feel that such a screenshot is the fruit of someone breaking a click-through licence, let 'em write to the foundation - there's no need to prior-restrain ourselves on the theory that they might. We do, of course, still have to stick to our WP:FAIR policies properly (which, among other things, means we shouldn't be displaying the image inline here). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 10:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
But they should definitely be resized to lower resolutions. They being "fair use" they shouldn't have a resolution much higher than it's needed on the articles. Articles don't need more than 300px or so, so images should be downsized to that. -- Drini 17:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Urgent: User:MagentaThompson is a sock of User:PennyGWoods and is threatening me...again

This is just a heads up. A few months ago, Penny was indefinitely blocked for personal attacks and (literally) death threats involving the Halle Berry page. Well in the last few days, she has returned as User:MagentaThompson. I didn't catch it until she used the exact same language and style as Penny. Here is an edit by Magenta and here is an edit by Penny. And here is a long convo I had with Penny in which she uses the same style as Magenta. Anyway, I blocked Magenta indefinitely since she's a banned user trying to get around the ban by starting a new account. She then she used an IP and essentially admitted that she was the same person. I'm writing this as a heads up since she extensively used sockpuppets the last time she was blocked, so please watch out for it. If we can get as many people as we can watchlisting Halle Berry and Nona Gaye, that'd be great. Thanks. --Woohookitty(meow) 12:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Wonderful. And she just gave me another veiled death threat. --Woohookitty(meow) 12:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
And now [this]. --Woohookitty(meow) 12:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
blocked indefinitely by Syrthiss (talk • contribs) (who beat me to it). dab (ᛏ) 14:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
So so far, we have MagentaThompson, MThompson and MagThompson. Jeez. --Woohookitty(meow) 14:16, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] user recreating deleted category: Category:Gangster Wikipedian

I closed yesterday a CFD on Category:Gangster Wikipedians. Linky: Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_30 notice the date of the CFD (july 30) and I deleted it on august 7. However someone had already opened a second CFD at august 6 (even before the 1st one was closed). I didn't noticed this and it was pointed to me. Since the 1st CFD was valid and had more than a week of course, with good participation, I closed it and acted according that consensus, thus removed the cateogry and speeedy closed the 2nd spurious cfd. It seems there's a single user insisting on the category to be created, since he's the only one that uses. I don't consider the DRV on august 6 to be valid, since the CFD was still open and I closed it on 7th. Moreover, DRV should only disucss wether the closing was valid or not. It's NOT a vote to overturn deletion discussions when an users is unhappy about the outcome. Consensus was achieved on the July30-August7 and thus it's a valid closing.

User:syphonbyte is the user who keeps recreating CFDs, the one that does the DRV, (which closed BEFORE I closed the CFD) and the ony one that uses the category. -- Drini 16:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Allende stamps

I don't know the answer to that, but I think Allende stamps makes an interesting test case for where the border of fair use might lie on this issue; it's probably right on the border for fair use, in that contrasting Cuban and Chilean stamps were being used to illustrate different commemorations on the 10th anniversary of the 1973 Chilean coup. I'd be interested to hear whether people think that was fair use or not. The (somewhat stubby) article makes no sense without the illustrations, but perhaps that is an argument against having the article. - Jmabel | Talk 03:58, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

That article is just a list of unfree images with a little prose, but there's no reason why it couldn't be a real article. It is a curious case. Probably best to merge any WP:V information until such a time an article can be written that does some real analysis. Jkelly 04:01, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Another case: Image:GLKStamps.jpg. These stamps were issued by a micronation. Fair use rationale was given in the image description (why doesn't OrphanBot parse for that?), and the article text mentions the assertion of the micronation that the stamps have philatelic value. Is this fair use? Also, some editors want to remove the claim of philatelic value as advertising, leaving only the statement that stamps were printed. I think that leaves fair use of the image on shaky grounds, and would like an outside opinion. (Original uploader thinks these stamp images are public domain, but I have been unable to verify that and am doubtful.) Gimmetrow 12:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

OrphanBot doesn't check for a fair-use rationale because it can't tell the difference between a valid rationale and a bunch of words that somebody once heard used in the context of copyright law. --Carnildo 19:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
It could however check the description for a validly formatted rationale with a section header containing an article name, and not remove it from that article. WP:AGF. Gimmetrow 19:14, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Assuming good faith doesn't work here. I believe that almost every rationale put on an image description page was put there in good faith. But it doesn't change the fact that upwards of 95% of all fair-use rationales don't cover the points they need to cover, and of those that do, many aren't correct. --Carnildo 20:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Please help, as in particular cases the stamps are needed anyway, and the articles have been modified where applicable. On seven national Scouting articles-five in Africa which the Scouting WikiProject had to save from afd earlier this year, plus Lithuania and Turkmenistan, the stamps don't illustrate the subject, they prove the existence of the subject, and so are an integral and structural part of the article. They provide a visual record where no other exists at present. There has to be some way fair use and article content can both be satisfied. Chris 01:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] User:Intangible and recategorization of hundreds of pages

User:Intangible is in the process of recategorizing hundreds of pages, despite the fact that Intangible is in arbitration over this very issue. I have asked for a temporary injunction, See:request for injunction. I raise this here because so many pages are being edited, and I felt someone should at least glance at what is going on and decide if it is OK or not. I am obviously biased, and think the recategorization is POV, idiosyncratic, and ultimately destuctive of the work of scores of editors.--Cberlet 12:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll admit, I don't always agree with User:Intangible, but I've read your request for injunction, and I have to say, that could apply to myself as well. What is the specific problem? Category:Politics? Unless I'm completely missing something, it looks like Intangible cleaned the mess up. --Kbdank71 20:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
If you believe Intangible has acted improperly while an arbitration case is pending you should take this to Arbcom, by adding evidence to the case or making a motion that he be required to stop until the case is resolved. Thatcher131 (talk) 13:06, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I did, there is no response.--Cberlet 23:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Sarastro777

I've deleted a lot of material from this person's userpage as per this diff. I don't know if this person has any previous history of being discussed in this forum. Basically, he and some others claim that various admins are agents of the Israeli government or simply resolute Zionists determined to crush any criticism of Israel. I expect that I'll now be added to the list. If no one else is doing so already, could some others keep an eye on this user? Sorry if this is old news; I've been a bit out of circulation just lately. Metamagician3000 13:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I have suggested to him that the material is likely to be taken as an attack on Jewish and Israeli users, and asked him to remove it. He declines to do so. Any thoughts? Tom Harrison Talk 17:37, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Despite his/her protests, at least his/her userpage no longer has a list of "rogue admins" who are supposedly pawns of Israel. Metamagician3000 00:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] undeleet

please uneleet wikichat after reading the "holdon"! JosephK19 15:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Creating an article "for all wikipedian's who love to chat!" [sic] is not appropriate. Wikipedia is not a discussion forum or a social networking site. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 15:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Troll. Nobody speels that badly unless it's intentional. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] CAT:ORFU cleanup automation

I have started a thread considering a possible automation of CAT:ORFU cleanup at the Village Pump. Comments are welcome. Misza13 T C 20:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] All is explained

Benford's law of controversy. Spookily accurate... Just zis Guy you know? 21:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I love pressing Special:Random every once in a while. :D Killfest2—Daniel.Bryant 23:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Lions Clubs International

Speaking as a Lion I would like to say, "nice article." However, there is one small problem with images linked to that page. They are pictures taken of LCIF logos. LCIF actively enforces its copyrights, and they might consider these images copy vios. Please let me know. If there isn't a problem, I will certainly look forward to using them on my user page. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 22:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your efforts, but this isn't the place to discuss general problems with specific articles. Try Wikipedia:Copyrights, there are several ways to report copyright concerns. - Taxman Talk 22:35, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TIME Magazine covers:similar issue as with stamps

They are usually used not, as proclaimed in the {{TIME}}, "to illustrate an article, or part of an article, which specifically describes the issue in question or its cover". For example, such a cover is the main image in the Ho Chi Minh article, although that magazine issue even nowhere mentioned in the article. They are also used in a similar way in a number of other places, inluding Julius Nyerere, Aleksei Leonov, etc. If our certain people were so strict to fair use stamps, even those of a defunct state (Soviet ones), then should we give OrphanBot one more "little work": dealing with problematic usage of TIME magazine covers? Cmapm 22:09, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Funny that you should mention TIME magazine covers... Oh, and please don't call people "Nazis". Jkelly 22:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
What is funny, is this not a similar problem? I've heard that phrase a number of times here in Wiki, this word is quite widely used in such cases. Cmapm 22:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
And Godwin's Law is thusly proven. Q.E.D. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 22:18, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
This is easy, the comment may be refactored by people, who feel abused. But still you refrain from the answer to my question. Cmapm 22:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
ec Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ta bu shi da yu 2. And calling people "Nazi" may be offensive to both the people you're addressing, who may not enjoy the comparison, and those that aren't happy about trivialising genocide. Jkelly 22:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Provided, that such an issue already arose in the past, it's even more strange for me that the copyright tag's use don't correspond to its proclaimed purpose in {{TIME}} in many cases. Was that victory against overall remover a justification of all future copyright problems with the template? Cmapm 22:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the most relevant question is whether it is likely that Time Warner, the parent company, is likely to place Wikipedia high on its list of those infringing on copyright whom it desires to stop. Because of the caprice inherent in adjudging the likelihood of a given copyright holder's demanding the removal of material for which he holds the copyright (or initiating legal action), and in view of our general favoring of free content, we almost haven't a choice but to phrase our copyright policy in the fashion we have, but in individual situations it is, I think, fair to weigh the costs attendant to a prospective legal undertaking (multiplied, of course, against the likelihood of such undertaking) against the value of the copyrighted material to an article. With respect to Soviet stamps, for example, a general policy to the contrary notwithstanding, we can be fairly certain that we may infringe on copyright with impunity; can there be any valid reason for us not to do so? Joe 02:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Two reasons. The first is our core principles, one if which is free reusability, and the other, and less interesting, one is that people have worried that our engaging in infringement that we know we can get away with could be used as an argument against us in a hypothetical suit. Jkelly 02:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC) Joe 03:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I supposed I meant cursorily to dispose of the former with my general favoring of free content, by which I meant to express the extent to which I think we inappropriately elevate the import of non-free non-textual media. I suppose under my formulation, though, where we would treat essentially as free those media that we know to be copyrighted but nevertheless use other than consistent with fair use law, such that the reusability concern wouldn't entail. The latter is, at least to me, a more persuasive argument, and it is one, I suppose, that highlights the problems to which I alluded and the salience of Jkelly's objections. Joe 03:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not touching those images without a mandate from IFD, TFD, or the Foundation. I have no desire to be the target of a lynch mob, virtual or otherwise. --Carnildo 23:06, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I did so, because I believe I've been a target of a virtual lynch mob, who removed 15 or so images of Soviet stamps, scanned by me, without a separate explanation in each case. It's much easier for me to give up uploading images at all, than do the work, that may be so quickly broken on somebody's request. Cmapm 23:22, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Cmapm, do you want me to take a look at the specific images that you are talking about? Are they obvious in your contribs? I do suggest that people shouldn't invest too much time, energy or ownership in unfreely-licensed content. Jkelly 23:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I see that you added two unfree images next to the "See also" section of Antarctica. I'm curious about why you did that, as you seem to be clear that is the kind of usage we just needed a bot run to remove. Jkelly 23:27, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
No. The Bulgarian image was not added by me and it seems to be a free one. The first image was readded by me after retagging it with PD-Soviet (as it is pre-1973) after your bot's task. Now I see, how all that decisions on bot's hiring are made... I see this not to be honest, but leaving it on that people's conscience. Cmapm 12:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] User threatening large scale removal of material

[18], should his block be extended or shoud someone who is uninvolved give him a polite note explaining to that "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL." means what it says? JoshuaZ 21:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed the explitive per Wikipedia:Profanity. Need an actual admin to go and decide what to do with this user. Killfest2—Daniel.Bryant 23:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Since nobody else has left him a message I did, but other admins still need to talk to him, keep his contributions on suicide watch, etc. Ashibaka tock 02:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Walter Granger

I ran across this page which read like it was copied from somewhere, and found a page via Google which it was copied from. When I contacted the poster, User:GrangerLore, they claimed copyright ownership. I pointed them to Wikipedia:Copyright problems and how they can prove they own teh material, they absolutely refused to do so. I've communicated with the editor several times, and have explained that we need verification of copyright ownership, but they just keep claiming ownership without even making an attempt to provide any proof. I have in the meantime deleted the material. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I can agree with this. Anyone can claim they own anything. --mboverload@ 01:21, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Yup, well done. :) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 02:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
  1. Support your deletion.--Andeh 12:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] User page link spam?

I could use opinions on whether I've found an innovative form of link spamming using user pages: I noticed that User:Arteworks created a user page for a different person's name: User:Ronmaier. This user has made no edits, and the userpage reads like an article that wouldn't pass WP:BIO. The inclusion of two external links to Ron Maier's businesses is what caused a red flag to appear, given that Arteworks is in the search engine optimization business. Am I being paranoid, or is this external link spamming? Thanks. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 14:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted the page. --Nearly Headless Nick 15:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
It's okay; he's obviously not as good at search engine manipulation as he claims. All external links on userspace pages have the rel="nofollow" attribute, so they don't affect Google PageRank. Keep an eye on this editor for future attempts at spamlinking, however. If there's any evidence of sockpuppeting, a CheckUser might root out any accounts the guy is using to try to spam our articles. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Feel free to list a user page you feel isn't appriopriate at WP:MfD. Especially user pages of owners whom haven't edited elsewhere.--Andeh 12:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Woo-hoo!

I made Hivemind :-D www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html#048. I wonder which particular blocked POV pusher nominated me? I'd like to thank them... Just zis Guy you know? 17:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

  1. Support I could have sworn he was already in the Hivemind. JoshuaZ 17:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Beat you to it! (I just discovered today) --woggly 17:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Pshaw, they let just anyone in nowadays. I didn't see Woggly in there - what are you in as? Maybe we should have a category for hiveminders :-) Just zis Guy you know? 19:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
AFAIK, you've been there for ages, dear Guy and Woggly. That's how I visited your homepage btw, Guy ;) Phaedriel ♥ The Wiki Soundtrack!♪ - 20:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Is Brandt a Scientologist? The only thing he has against Tony is that he is anti-scientology. It would certainly explain the kooky pursuit of people he disagrees with. --mboverload@ 21:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The most ironic thing about Daniel Brandt's hivemind page is that he advocates privacy on the internet, and then he goes off an publishes a plethora of personal information about all of us wikipedians... The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

All you need to do to get on the list is call Brandt a "certified kook"? Now I'm annoyed that I'm not on it. Well, here goes: Daniel Brandt is a nincompoop of the highest order, a ne'er-do-well whose egregerious buffoonery I have on good authority caused his mother to go into an early grave. Then she came out again after the local constable was called and he administered smelling salts and told her to stop being so fucking emo. Following the scandal she cut off Brandt's allowance and he now scrapes together a living at the greyhound track, sellotaping together torn-up tickets looking for winners mistakenly thrown away by short-sighted gentlemen. Take that, WP:BLP. --Sam Blanning(talk) 23:00, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Bah, I was on the list before it was cool. BrokenSegue
Getting hive-minded is, like, soooooo 2005! Get with the times Guy! I see my name there now and think, "Oh, how gauche!" --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 08:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Paid-to-edit articles

People might be interested to note User:MyWikiBiz, who seems to be described in this press release:

A new service has begun at MyWikiBiz.com. Companies and organizations that currently lack an article on Wikipedia can remedy that situation by using the services of MyWikiBiz.com. (...)

The articles of theirs I've glanced at look decent enough - no major notability issues, short simple articles, but it's probably worth keeping a close eye on them anyway. Shimgray | talk | 18:31, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

If someone knows the Wikipedia policy, style and quirks, they are likely to be able to do an excellent job of this. Provided they are prepared to reject clients who don't meet notability criteria. Notinasnaid 18:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I see two issues. First, multiple people may be editing through the account which is a nono. However, if they make an article off-wiki and then upload that would presumably be ok. Also, this doesn't seem to violate the spirit of that rule. The second issue is more serious, which is that this could set a bad precedent. JoshuaZ 18:36, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
This was mentioned at WT:CSD. I don't see a problem. They only write articles for companies that meet WP:CORP [19], which in my mind sets the best precedent we could ask for. Sure, they're unlikely to include much that reflects badly on the company, but that can be added by someone else - an incomplete article is better than nothing. The only problem I can forsee is if they also start defending articles against all criticism (even when sourced), and as far as I'm concerned we should assume good faith and wait for that to start happening. If they are indeed familiar with how things work here, they probably won't do that. And, as JoshuaZ says, User:MyWikiBiz may be a role account, so I've asked on the account's talk page whether that's the case. --Sam Blanning(talk) 22:51, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
And User:MyWikiBiz has told me that although they weren't aware of the policy, only one employee uses that account and they will make our policy theirs. [20]. --Sam Blanning(talk) 09:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sega Touring Car Championship

Someone, apparently to make a WP:POINT has AFD'ed a bunch of articles, and then created multiple socks to vote delete, based on the articles being created by the since-banned User:EnthusiastFRANCE. Can we get these speedily closed? Fan-1967 02:58, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

All been closed in one big swoop.--Andeh 12:33, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] WP:PAIN

Could I get more admins to watchlist the personal attack noticeboard please? We had 7 open cases earlier. We still have 5 and a couple are literally 2 days old. --Woohookitty(meow) 09:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

It's usually empty, I guess that's why few people look there.--Andeh 12:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Primetime socking around again

555jyj (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) admits (via his obnoxious and notorious trolling) that he's a sock of the indefinately banned User:Primetime. Is this grounds for blocking?

Nevermind, it's been taken care of. Thanx dude. 68.39.174.238 12:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Content disclaimer

Can someone with the appropriate bits, and a few spare minutes, update Wikipedia:Content disclaimer? There are several outstanding edit requests on its talk page. Thanks. —Steve Summit (talk) 12:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No page exists seen as a question mark

I notice that when a peage doesn't exist, it normally appears red, but now it is black with a red question mark. Is there currently a dicsussion for the changes? Thanks, Iolakana|T 16:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Check your My Preferences page, the Misc section. This is something that you can change yourself. You can choose to see a red link or a Question Mark link. As a matter of interest the Question Mark link was the original way of doing it but most people prefer the red links nowadays. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
And if that doesn't help, clear your browser cache (ctrl-shift-R). Kusma (討論) 16:38, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

It happens to me once in a while, randomly. I assume it's a bug in Mediawiki somewhere. It's not reproducible. —Quarl (talk) 2006-08-08 19:33Z

Gahhh. This happened to me the other day, and I tried to bother the .css page about it. Went away after a little while, though. Didn't know it was a preference.. -- nae'blis 19:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comedy Template Idea

This is for the Comedy oriented vandal:

Image of a Triangle, "flourescent"/neon yellow background, black borders of said triangle w/ a ! in it, on the upper left of the template. Message: If you are here to be funny, take your act to Uncyclopedia, where your humor is appreciated. Link is www.uncyclopedia.org. This is a encyclopedia. Continued vandalisim will get you blocked, even banned.

Of course, it has to be proven that the vandal is doing so as a comic routine, if so, send them to Uncyclopedia. On there, they can create jokes to their hearts' content.
Is this a good idea ? Martial Law 06:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
IIRC, we had something like this earlier, but was deleted. I would wait on making this. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 06:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Seems like a good idea to me. Why don't we have it anymore? The Ungovernable Force 06:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Speaking of humor, I was bored and did this. I like the template too, though. RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 06:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
That was great. :) Garion96 (talk) 13:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I like it... unfortunately there were several fair use images in there, which we can't use outside of the articles in which fair use is justified. I've removed them. Hopefully something free can be used instead. --Sam Blanning(talk) 13:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
It's a terrible idea. Uncyclopaedia don't want our vandals. Writing good humour is probably more difficult than writing factual articles. I was the one who removed it from Template:Funnybut. --Sam Blanning(talk) 13:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I was under the impression that that tag only got used for pranksters of the Uncyc. mold, not the average "...is gay" sort (Maybe there should be uncyclopedia:How to be funny and not just stupid as a noinclude ;D!) A suggestion... 68.39.174.238 11:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Ideally, yes, but it doesn't happen. I'd say most people intelligent enough to be able to contribute humour at the level that Unencyclopaedia requires would be too intelligent to vandalise. --Sam Blanning(talk) 22:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Sandbox

I'm not sure if this is the right place to report this, but I opened the Sandbox and it had been completely wrecked by a Bobby Boulder or someone, who claimed he was fighting a 'holy war' against Wikipedia. I just went back there and it was gone, but I think it still might merit investigation. LawnGnome 16:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Nah, the sandbox is always filled with garbage. -- Drini 18:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
That makes sense, but it was like ten paragraphs (with a pic or two) that talked about the mission to destroy wikipedia and all that, and had an email address to join a 'numerous society of vandals', it looked like an article. Actually, I just thought of this, if they were a *good* vandal, they probably wouldn't be stupid enough to vandalize the sandbox, since that's all that's there anyway. All right, it's prob'ly nothing, but it was a slightly impressive vandalism. LawnGnome 21:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I believe Essjaybot resets the sandbox a couple of times a day anyway. Thatcher131 (talk) 00:37, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Just go to User:EssjayBot and manually reset the sandbox. alphaChimp laudare 00:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Need fix on protected template

There's a system variable, CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN, that no longer works. It used to return August, now returns <august-gen>. It was used in a lot of places for building daily transclusion pages, like AFD. Most of the references have been fixed, but Template:Afdx still needs to be fixed, and is Protected. Just replace the value with CURRENTMONTHNAME. (See Template:Afd, which was fixed by Titoxd, for comparison.) Fan-1967 21:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 21:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] WP:AUTO problem

User:Joe Carter is an employee of the Family Research Council. I'm involved slightly in an edit conflict with him on that page so if some uninvolved admin could point him to WP:AUTO I'd appreciate it. Thanks. JoshuaZ 21:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Admin names being used to scew search results

Apparently several advertising sites such as www dot y o u r s u p e r c a r dot com have been haversting names of wiki admins [21] [22] [23] , likely in an attempt to raise their search ratings. This particular site has been shut down due to TOS violations, but if you have an unusual admin name, you might want to google yourself and see if any other odd results are appearing. — xaosflux Talk 02:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

If this form of googlebombing becomes common enough it might make sense for an official channel to mention it to google. JoshuaZ 03:09, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Checking if you are the first Google hit? Just kidding :) -- ReyBrujo 03:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't need to worry. There are advantages to common name....JoshuaZ 03:33, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Just wondering, is it really harvesting? I think they just pay to appear when search includes "car speakers" [24] -- ReyBrujo 04:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Um, that search didn't turn anything up for me, and how would they do that since google doesn't let money effect their rankings? JoshuaZ 04:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Ehem, wrong clipboard. Fixed now. I mean, if you don't search for "car speakers", you don't get their hits. I removed "car speakers" from Xaosflux's query, and I did not get their link. Unless I am missing something. -- ReyBrujo 04:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but that would be expected. Without "car speakers" the page is probably so low on the google search ranking that it doesn't bother to even list the car speaker one (or maybe lists it many pages down). JoshuaZ 04:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Why would people search admin names!?--Andeh 12:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
*shrug* I've seen mine turn up in various spammish word salad webpages, and I'm fairly sure that there aren't a lot of other FreplySpangs out there. "I market asked Client-side :FreplySpang to b612 this but she raised some homeopaths transmogrified that she did not choreograph in the cargo-handling..." Damn right I didn't choreograph those homeopaths. So what? FreplySpang 14:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The hits do show up without specifying "car speakers", just low on the list, but if you go 20, 30 pages in they start flooding, not just car speakers, I've seen lots of these, many auto related though. — xaosflux Talk 03:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Can someone who knows more about how ranking algorithms work please explain how this would alter search results in any case where one hasn't explicity searched for the name of an admin? The only thing this seems to do is make Daniel Brandt have to look at a lot of speaker adds if he wants to add anyone to the hivemind. JoshuaZ 03:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Admin names are almost certainly not being targeted. Spam sites harvest content from other websites so that they will appear to be relevant in search results and so that Google will give them as search results for the terms in the content that they harvested. They often break up the text into pieces and then jumble it around. Some phrases are still intact, but not sentences. In the old days, they copied the whole page and left it intact. For Wikipedia, however, I have found sites that have a long page of Administrators' Noticeboard comments or Articles for Deletion nominations. Also, someday, can we stop making the Internet suck and get rid of the Wikipedia mirrors in search results? We've become much worse than spam sites and link farms for many searches, especially on obscure topics. Google is clearly not up to the job, as the problem was brought to their attention years ago. The CustomizeGoogle plugin is nice, but it does not remove them from the results entirely. -- Kjkolb 07:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Unblock needs review

68.102.193.78 (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) was blocked by Freakofnurture with the summary "reinstating previous block", without contacting Essjay to understand why the user was unblocked. I attempted to contact Freak about this block and got no reply, so I have unblocked the user (who is in e-mail contact with me). To avoid the appearance of blind wheel-warring, I also post this action here for review. (ESkog)(Talk) 21:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

If you couldnt contact Freakofnurture how are you so certain he hadn't already conferred with Essjay? --pgk(talk) 06:52, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] "poor quality" v's "poor quality"

I have appealed to mediation because of a continued struggle with "poor quality" links. Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-08-07 The Potter's House

Being a bit of a newbe, what route should I take from here. Potters house 01:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Work through the mediation process first. Tyrenius 07:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:WikiWoo

Apropos of the above, one of three currently active editors whose actions I had in mind when formulating the essay: WikiWoo (talk • contribs) is making a nuisance of himself, more through crusading zeal and excessove enthusiasm than active malice, I'd say. There was an RfC under a previous name - Wikipedia:Requests for comment/WikiRoo - and his behaviour certainly hasn't improved noticeably since. He's also been WikiDoo (talk • contribs) as well as WikiRoo (talk • contribs). I have been asked for advice as to what todo next, but frankly I don't know. My gut feeling is that he might listen to ArbCom in a way he has not listened to RfC and blocks; I don't think he is unsalvageable and I do think that if he can hold himself in check he may well have a valuable contribution to make. What does the panel think? Just zis Guy you know? 12:54, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 62.66.225.5 (talk • contribs)

Can someone look at the above anon's contribs? I'm sort of suspicious of robots on IPs. I guess the modified interwiki links look okay, but just to be sure... Isopropyl 15:25, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Even though the bot is blocked, I looked over the contribs to make sure there was no vandalism involved here. It looks like the bot was adding valid transwiki links. No vandalism found. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 21:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked the account for 48 hours, with an explanation, a link to Wikipedia:Bots, and an invitation to dsicuss it on their Talk page or via email. User:Zoe|(talk) 15:51, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tendentious editing

I'm trying to come up with something I can use to alert people to things they are doing which set off the POV-pusher radar (phrases like "suppressing information" and characterising reversions of uncited edits as vandalism). My work in progress is here User:JzG/Tendentious editing. I may well be wasting my time, there is probably a much better essay somewhere else. Comments, pointers to the much better essay and so on welcome. Just zis Guy you know? 09:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned: if they can't tell when they are being a "POV DICK" they shouldn't be editing. Usually I don't buy any argument about them not knowing. They damn well know when their writing is slanted and they don't care. Putting asside my mini-rant, I think this is a well-written essay. Props JzG --mboverload@ 12:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I disagree, while this is true with most POV editors, occasionally POV editors are sincere and they learn to/how to write with less POV. This essay might be helpful in that regaard. JoshuaZ 16:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Looking at some of the text in a recent AMA case I'll be nicking some of that, as well. Just zis Guy you know? 21:23, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:User System Administrator

What's up with Template:User System Administrator? I deleted it from a non-admin's User page and he put it back, claiming he's a system administrator on another system, and therefore he has a right to use that template. I contend that only Wikipedia admins should use that template (although I don't think anybody should use all of this userbox nonsense, really), unless the template is changed to make it clear they are not talking about being a Wikipedia sysadmin. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:35, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the template should be changed, but I think it's rather clear the template is not referring to sysadmins on Wikipedia. For one, there is a rather large difference between a system administrator and sysop (sysadmins being Brion VIBBER, Tim Starling, etc.; sysops being you and I). There aren't nearly 500 sysadmins on Wikipedia, yet nearly that many use the userbox. It's also sorted under Category:Profession user templates, which would again imply that it's not talking about Wikipedia sysadmins. In either case, be it acceptable or not to use the template, I believe that User:Torinir was acting in good faith and should be unblocked. AmiDaniel (talk) 23:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Like many other templates, this one does not help the project and it might cause problems. If someone wants to say on their user page that they have certain kinds of past experience with computerers, they can do that without using a template, --JWSchmidt 23:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I have unblocked Torinir, as the block was based on an apparent mistaken assumption. I find the template harmless but irrelevant, personally. Friday (talk) 00:03, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
The block was not blocked on a mistaken assumption. It was based on his restoring the template after I deleted it from his User page because he is not a sysadmin on Wikipedia. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:39, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
That is not what the userbox implies. You're misreading it. It's describing the profession of being a system administrator, not the position of being a Wikipedia system administrator. Georgewilliamherbert 02:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
And how is one supposed to understand that distinction, unless they knew the history of the userbox and its supposed intended purpose? User:Zoe|(talk) 02:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Note that it's in the category of Profession-related userboxes, that it's used very widely by WP users who are not WP admins of any sort?
I think you're the first person who interpreted it as implying WP sysadmin status (I could be wrong but have seen no other cases). I don't think anyone thought that it had to be more clear.
This was a rather violently enthusiastic response to it... Georgewilliamherbert 03:13, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Unless the passerby just happened to click on the userbox to go to the template page, and understood the category that it was placed in, they would have absolutely no idea that that userbox was even in a category, let alone a category that makes any sense. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
The argument that a random passerby might make that mistake holds water. That argues for changing the userbox to be unambiguous.
That does not explain why you (who are not a random passerby) didn't check what categories it was in and see how it was being used, in response to the claims made that it didn't mean what you thought and were asserting that it meant. Due dilligence? Georgewilliamherbert 04:03, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I think the template needs clarity, I think Friday should have discussed the unblock with Zoe first, and I think Zoe should elaborate on this. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 02:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Admins are expected to be a check on each other. Friday (talk) 03:00, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
From Wikipedia:Wheel war: Wheel wars occur when administrators get too distressed to discuss something, or when an administrator takes it upon him or herself to undo another admin's actions without consultation. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:02, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Let's see... hmm.. looks like we're talking about it here. Friday's the one who reversed your block and I see Friday's comment right above. So, what are you talking about? Ashibaka tock 03:03, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm taling about being presented with a fait accompli and being told to lump it. Why is Friday so God-awful hurried to undo other people's actions? Avoidance of wheel wars is begun by talking about things before taking unilateral actions. This is not the first time that Friday has reverted one of my administrative actions, and not even the first time this week. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
If you think she's Wiki-stalking you, that's a case to make in general, but it doesn't make this specific incident qualify as wheel warring on her part. Ashibaka tock 03:08, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
It's uncivil and a violation of WP:AGF. And a pattern of abuse on Friday's part. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
If Toronir were to push the issue, s/he has a valid case that you repeatedly vandalized his/her page for a reason which other editors and admins are without exception finding to have been an exceptionally aggressive misinterpretation. I grant you good faith, but claiming that pushing back against you on this particular issue was abusive is silly. The block and reverts on T's page were crying out for another admin to overturn. Georgewilliamherbert 03:19, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Without discussion first? Undoing another admins action without reaching consensus first is the root of most admin conflicts that turn into wheel wars. FloNight talk 03:27, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I am not an admin, however, I would have encouraged all of:
* Zoe to have warned the user about their interpretation of the userbox before editing their userpage
* Zoe to have warned the user prior to blocking
* Friday to have asked Zoe for clarification
* Friday to have notified Zoe before the unblock
However, those were all moot points by the time the wheel war threat hit AN/I.
In an ideal world, admins neither respond to each other without prior discussion nor use admin powers on users without prior discussion and warning. Georgewilliamherbert 03:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I did warn Torinir that if he put the template back, he would be blocked. He went ahead and did it anyway. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I sit corrected. You did indeed, on Aug 2. However, there's the rather interesting question raised by that exchange, wherein Torinir said "Hey, the userbox isn't used for that". And, was correct. What research did you do to convince yourself that T was wrong on that point, before applying the block? Georgewilliamherbert 04:03, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I have to disagree with you here. If even a single reversal of an admin action is wrong, you're saying that whoever happens to act first is by definition right- and that's insane. Friday (talk) 03:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Friday, it is unlikely that you can fully understand the situation without speaking with the original admin first. You are only getting one side of the story. That is why discussion is needed. If you disagree with another admins actions, it is best to discuss it on AN/I or AN. Other admins may agree with you and then you will have consensus to reverse. This is a good preventative measure to stop wheel wars. --FloNight talk 03:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
however it slows down how long it takes for mistakes to be corrected and flys in the face of the "wiki way".Geni 10:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
This looks to me like the bold/revert/discuss model. A user was blocked, and the rationale indicated a misunderstanding. I'd not have done it myself but it is very hard to criticise Friday for unblocking a user whose block appears to have been the result of a genuine error. If, after discussion, we find that the user is playing silly buggers then we can easily re-block. I think everyone needs a nice cup of tea and a sit down, myself. Just zis Guy you know? 15:35, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
A check, certainly, I fully agree. This did not seem to me to be a clear-cut case of an erroneous block; true, it seemed punitive and, true, there seems to be a presumption of guilt by Zoe, but the block was not clear-cut wrong, IMHO. In such cases, these things need to be fully discussed, rather than saying, "Zoe, don't hate me because I know we just talked about this, but I've unblocked" and taking on the appearance of taking over. We should be bold, but we should be sure. :) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 03:09, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

The user that is insisting that they were not trying to make anyone think that they were an admin is the one that made this edit, right? It is not obvious to me from Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Hipocrite that there is no reason for concern about this user. Jkelly 03:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to understand why Friday thinks that my block of Torinir is inappropriate for claiming to be a system administrator, but at the same time, he's chiding User:MatthewFenton for claiming to be an admin. If, in fact, we are only called sysops, then MatthewFenton's actions should be completely appropriate. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

This entire situation has escalated far beyond what I ever intended, and now unrelated situations are being brought up. I'd like to wash my hands of this, yet I stand by my actions, so I'm not sure I can. If anyone disagrees strongly enough to change things, let them do so. Friday (talk) 03:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
At a wild guess, the distinctions between "chiding" and "blocking", and between "deliberating passing oneself off as a WP admin" and "using a potentially confusing userbox" both seem to be pertinent here. I think it would have been preferable had Friday explicitly consulted with Zoe beforehand, especially if there's "history" there likely to lead to friction from another such action? But: isn't review of the block implicit in the listing here in the first place? Or at least, shouldn't it have been, given how marginal the basis for it was in the first place? Nor was Friday the first person to express disagreement with the block, and that he should be unblocked. It does not seem like an appropriate block to me, if we're actually still discussing that aspect, as opposed to recasting this purely in "wheel war" terms. Alai 03:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Leaving aside the merits of the block (but noting that Zoe did not just fall off the turnip truck) none of us should undo another's admin actions without talking to them first. Unless this just had to be taken care of at once, it should have been discussed with Zoe before anyone unblocked. We need to presume competence - that the admin is probably not just being capricious, but has some reason for what she is doing. If I see an admin action that looks arbitrary, it is likely that I do not know all the facts. Tom Harrison Talk 03:48, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

You don't own articles you don't own blocks. generaly I take the view that if an admin undoes one of my admin actions whatever the problem that caused me to block becomes their responcibilty. Makes life a lot easyer.Geni 10:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Any admin making a block is obliged to explain said block on the user's talk page. If there's an arbritrary-looking block, the blocking admin did not explain adequately. All admins should act as a check on each other, and this includes (occasionally) undoing unjustified blocks. If people don't consider it a proper admin function for me to act as a check on other admins, let me know and I'll turn in my sysop bit. I have no wish to cause disharmony, only to excercise common sense. Friday (talk) 03:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

See my reply to you above. :) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 04:51, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I've added a word to the template that should clear up the whole damned mess. --Carnildo 04:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I have never seen the template used as a way to identify admins. I think that it would have been prudent to check the template, where it can clearly be seen that it is in Category:Profession user templates. Also, unlike other admin identifiers, there is no reference to Wikipedia, such as the Wikipedia logo or a link the Wikipedia:Administrators. Since Friday thought that the block was a mistake, rather than a difference in opinion, I do not think unblocking the user was a big deal, especially because the user was right, it is a profession template. Still, according to Wikipedia:Blocking policy, it should be discussed with the blocking admin first, if he or she is online, even if it is believed that the block was made in error. I think that the user's perspective should be examined. An admin removed a template from his user page and blocked him for restoring it based upon the incorrect belief that the template is for identifying Wikipedia admins, even after he let her know that the template is not used in that way. That seems like a mistake to me. Should users be blocked for disobeying the directions of an admin when they are incorrect and the admin has even been informed that they are incorrect? We have not reached that level of insanity, yet, have we. ;-) -- Kjkolb 05:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Remember when admins weren't allowed to block people unilaterally for anything other than vandalism? The fear of incidents like this was the reason why. At the time, I didn't think the fear was justified. I'm sorry to see myself proven wrong. The original block was a travesty; a hapless Wikipedian, guilty of nothing as far as I can tell, steamrolled by an admin who misunderstood the situation and wouldn't listen to explainations. I find it amazing that Zoe is still defending her actions, and even attacking Friday for undoing the block. If she truly believes her actions were acceptable for an admin on Wikipedia, I would prefer she not be one. Isomorphic 06:59, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Your opinion is noted. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
(Skipping to the end). I agree with everyone that is stating that {{User System Administrator}} is not implying sysop rights on en:, and that it's use is not misleading to editors seeking admin support. — xaosflux Talk 00:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Admins needed at Highways

At Wikipedia:State route naming conventions poll we need admins to judge... so check it out if you are interested. Thanks! --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 00:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Procedural question

The Priory of Balrogs looks speediable to me. However, it also looks like it could go in WP:BJAODN. Is speedying to BJAODN acceptable? JoshuaZ 03:23, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Probably (of course it's deleted now). But what's so funny about it? --Sam Blanning(talk) 23:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism to Windows Vista article

IP address 165.248.247.134 is repeatedly vandalising the Windows Vista. I think this IP address should be blocked. Peter Campbell Talk! 00:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:AIV is the correct place for vandalism reports :) -- Tawker 03:57, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Administrator category

I was wondering whether Administrators are required to identify themselves as such, in any specific way, on their user pages and/or talk pages?

It would make it a lot easier to determine at-a-glance, whether a user is or not, if all admins were required to add themselves to Category:Wikipedia administrators (perhaps even as the 1st category in their list). Most admins are included (primarily via the userbox), but many only mention the fact in their written self-descriptions, and a few don't mention it at all and have to be verified against the List of administrators (eg Centrx and Banno, from a random sampling).

Thanks for any thoughts. --Quiddity·(talk) 01:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we should do whatever we can to consider everyone an editor, without regard to whatever other access they have. I specifically don't explicitly mention being an admin on my user page because if there's a disagreement, I don't want anyone to think I deserve any special treatment. Friday (talk) 01:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Friday, one of the categories you're in gives you away (I guess you could put a subpage in that category if you really wanted to hide). —Quarl (talk) 2006-08-11 08:45Z
Yeah, that makes sense. I'd been considering it more in terms of reminding admins that setting a good example is expected of them, or for finding an admin to help with some particular task.
(not to advocate instruction creep... but) perhaps, that it is not required to self-identify, should/could be mentioned somewhere on the Wikipedia:Administrators page? Just a thought. Thanks. --Quiddity·(talk) 01:34, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I completely agree with Friday. -- Derek Ross | Talk 01:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not a big deal with me, but I would prefer it if every admin had the grey user box displayed. If someone is an admin, I think people should know. They can be very useful for all sorts of eventualities. I always assumed admins didn't advertise the fact to stay out of the firing line! :) Tyrenius 02:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I think we should make it obvious that there is an official list that is officially maintained. Yanksox 02:34, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
But the list is imperfect. For example, I am an admin, but you won't find my name on the list. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 02:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Or use this automatically generated list of administrators. Garion96 (talk) 03:00, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
You're not on NoSeptember's list either. How did you manage that? At least you're displaying an admin user box! Tyrenius 03:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
As per Garion96 what's the problem with Special:Listusers/sysop? --pgk(talk) 06:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I object to this in the strongest possible terms. -- Cyde Weys 17:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Could you be more specific, giving rationale. That would be helpful. Tyrenius 05:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
What specific problem is being solved by having all admins identified? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
The problem of knowing whether someone is an admin or not, presumably. Tyrenius 02:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
But why is that a problem particularly? I also don't advertise my sysop flag on my user page. Per Friday in the normal of course of things it is irrelevant the validity or otherwise of my arguments/statements is a constant irrespective of that flag. If I'm doing a specific admin action like deleting a page I'd say it was pretty obvious, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do the deletion. --pgk(talk) 06:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I think it depends on what area the admin works in and wants to work in. If it's processes like AfD, CSD etc, then it's not an issue. I've been contacted by several people to ask for help with specific problems that it needs admin powers to address, so it's essential for me to make it known I'm available for that. Tyrenius 07:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Do people really go and randomly pick user pages until they find an admin? --pgk(talk) 17:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
When I visit another wiki, I usually take a look at the delete log or the block log. That tells you who the active admins are. NoSeptember 17:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
The original task I was trying to achieve, was looking through a policy page edit history to find someone who was both familiar with the topic, and also an admin, in order to ask something or other.
Also, one can then tell from just a glance (at the userpage, which is what SIGs generally link to,) what level of wiki-familiarity vocabulary one can assume when communicating with another user.
Sorry for causing a rucus ;) --Quiddity·(talk) 07:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I personally don't see the point in forcing an admin to announce themsleves as an admin. Most of them seem to, its their choice to do so. This seems to have been blown out of all proportion - admins are just editors with a few extra tools. If you need to contact one thats what the administrator noticeboard etc is for. ViridaeTalk 07:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you're the first person that's mentioned admins being forced to announce themselves, actually. Tyrenius 09:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Was referring to the first post "required to announce it". ViridaeTalk 11:15, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
That was just an enquiry, but I take your point. Tyrenius 05:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Lets cut the ideological wishmaking. Many new users and IPs will only respect what an admin says, not a regular user. An admin is more important than a regular user. Period. They get more respect. If the admin is comfortable with it, they should have some standard way of indicating that fact so we can ask them for help. Shit, they had to go through an RfA after all. --mboverload@ 07:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

That's some of what I've been doing. An editor is trying to enforce policy like VERIFY and NOR for example and is getting ignored. Of course there's not much they can do about it, especially if they're in a minority. Of course, as an admin, I can, so I want the advantage the role gives me in that situation. If I'm acting as an editor, however, then I see myself on a level playing field. Tyrenius 09:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Let's not encourage that attitude. An admin is not more important. They may be more respected than average, but that's a prerequisite for becoming an admin. It isn't because they are an admin. Regards, Ben Aveling 09:01, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I think this post is in response to Mboverload's and not mine from time stamps (curious edit conflict). Tyrenius 09:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Why is MichaelZimmer not listed on WP:LA? He did a name change (his old name is still on the list - well only until I get to it ;). To keep the list up to date, the name change log, en.wiki user rights log, and Meta rights log have to be watched. Every several months, Rick Block runs a script that will pick up any changes that we missed (like MichaelZimmer). The last time he ran his script to update WP:LA was on May 27. If we miss a change on WP:LA, I will miss it on User:NoSeptember/List of Administrators too. I encourage anyone who changes their name or gets promoted from RfA to update the list. NoSeptember 11:59, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

As mentioned a couple of times above, what's wrong with Special:Listusers/sysop? --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Nothing. Why do we have chocolate ice cream? Isn't vanilla enough? ;) Oh, and then there is that active / semiactive / inactive information on WP:LA for what it's worth. NoSeptember 17:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
We have to bear in mind the problem for non-experienced users of finding their way around the labyrinthine structures of wikipeda. Tyrenius 06:21, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Saladin1970 appeal

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

  • Based on his personal attacks on a trusted administrator, Saladin1970 is banned from Wikipedia for one year.
  • Saladin1970 is placed indefinitely on personal attack parole. If he engages in personal attacks he may be banned by any administrator for a period consistent with the nature of the personal attacks. Links to an external site devoted to personal attacks on Wikipedia editors may result in a ban of a year or more.

For the Arbitration Committee. --Tony Sidaway 06:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

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