Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive100

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Contents 1 Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles) 2 User:IPSOS, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and overturning consensus as one user 3 Administrator category proposal 4 Stuck with bad coding halfway through a SOCK 5 I'm in-between a rock and a hard place. 6 Fidelfair (talk · contribs) 7 How to deal with anon with dynamic IP 8 How many articles does Wikipedia delete per day? 9 User:TTN performing large-scale AWB edits, merges and redirects without clear consensus 10 Merge Disscussion for I-35W Mississippi River bridge <- Replacement I-35W Mississippi River bridge 11 Plagiarizing from Wikipedia? 12 User:RonaldBot 13 Help in moving page 14 Help about a page in Category:Empty pages for speedy deletion 15 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zacheus-jkb 16 Railpage article 17 User:LightningCurrent 18 BCBot and commons 19 Non-free images in project space 20 Restored Edits disappearing 21 User:Brian.gratwicke and his edits to Robert Mugabe and my Talk Page 22 Reapplication of IP block 23 Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard needs more sysops! 24 Fox news block 25 User:Alx 91 26 Statistics on protected edit requests 27 Looking for more eyes to review an interesting question 28 Help on promoting BetaWiki 29 Crafting a response to attempted GFDL revocations 30 Sherzo 31 DNSstuff no longer permitting Wikipedia WHOIS requests 32 Vandalism bot block length 33 Username imposter or spoof -- policy? 34 Rebelstar 35 cryptic content readded to BLP-relevant article 36 Threatened sockpuppetry by User:24.169.235.56 37 What is acceptable article tagging behaviour? 38 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus closed 39 Concerning Image:7674564574788.jpg 40 Having trouble with a stubborn vandal 41 3 editors 'tag teaming' to keep false charges againt me 42 Talk page blanking 43 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jeffrey O. Gustafson 44 George Clooney EL 45 Minor edit war 46 Proxy Puppets 47 A user to keep an eye on 48 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing 2 49 WP:SNOW 50 AfD needs attention 51 I've made a mess 52 Sockpuppet 53 72.68.1.110 54 AfD nonsenSe 55 WP:BJAODN MFD closure 56 Possibly needing oversight 57 Found this link 58 9/11 conspiracy theories lag conspiracy 59 Unclosed TFDs 60 Attack page 61 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jmfangio-Chrisjnelson opened 62 XxTrillvillexX9 63 User:Nasirkashmiri 64 Error trying to delete pages 65 Oscar lara 66 My userpage history 67 Reverting edits of blocked user? 68 Attack sites-related proposal 69 Deleted Page 70 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/List of Republics 71 Template:!/doc 72 User indoctrinating new users 73 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Artaxerex opened 74 Template:Infobox Philippine mythology 75 Account access problem 76 Using the "orphanBacklinksOnSpeedyDelete" feature on Twinkle 77 Help! Very long PUI backlog! 78 "Mentorship" account SpecialJane blocked, no reason given 79 Aggressive Anon IP - first edits but very familiar with WP 80 Experienced admin needed to close AfD 81 Numerous unfree image uploads by user Condering12 82 User:الفراشه 83 Image use on the Spice Girls article... 84 User:Runtshit 85 User:81.0.68.145 86 Bowling for Columbine 87 GFDL violation 88 Is AN3 broken? 88.1 micro-summary 88.2 AN3 and WP:KETTLE 88.3 [[WP:AN1+n]]

[edit] Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles)

This Talk Page is well overdue for consideration. Please could the issues raised there be addressed. Otherwise everyone is wasting their time posting there. David Lauder 17:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:IPSOS, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and overturning consensus as one user

Established editors have determined to delete The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Inc. and enforced the decision in deletion review: [1]. However, without consensus or any comment on the talk page, user:IPSOS has now unlilaterally merged the majority of what was that article into the main Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn article and reversed a decision made by editors previous in consideration for the neutrality of Wikipedia made a year ago here: Talk:Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn/Archive 3 . It seems clear to me that user:IPSOS is more interested in portraying a partisan view of the contemporary direction of the historical organization (which bears no direct historical relation to the original Order)rather than in reaching a stance of neutrality for Wikipedia and for the main article, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. As it even says at the top of the article "this article is about the historical organization of the 19th century." I take that back. User:IPSOS has now changed this as well against previous consensus. He says on the talk page that consensus can change, but one user is not enough for consensus. He didn't even start a discussion on it before making such edits which I would consider disruptive. Can someone take a look at this behavior? Kephera975 18:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Administrator category proposal

I edit mostly science articles, and I don’t know how many times I’ve had to go looking for a science-related admin to help with a page move, topic specific help, or what-ever. With this in mind, I would suggest grouping admins by category (as well as by the alphabetized list). Basically, a Wikipedia:List of administrators of 1,100+ admins really doesn’t help editors find the help they need. In addition, with the growing number of admins, I would suggest that there is some effort using (requiring to have) admins that are knowledgeable in certain articles (or afds) to resolve issues (or close) in those areas to which they edit in or have knowledge in. An admin who was a degree in the history of science, for instance, would be well-trained to close on science history related afds, rather than random admins. In sum, I suggest that admins be categorized in some way and that there be some effort in the future to have admins close on afds to which he or she has knowledge in. In this manner, countless hours of volunteer work of well-intentioned editors can be spared, through needless mistakes. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 00:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

We're janitors, not golden robed priests. We don't need to be a historical expert to see that an AfD on The Ascent of Austrian Royalty shows a strong consensus to keep, etc. Categorizing by skills like 'history merges', 'AFD closers', 'Speedy deleters', etc would be more useful, if you were to do such. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 05:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest asking at the relevant wikiproject; most of those have a bunch of admins involved. >Radiant< 09:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Gosh, Radiant and I agree on something. Yeah! Find the appropriate project from the project list and ask them for help. Start here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Directory.Rlevse 10:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the loose ideas. The issue, however, is not just about afds; a grouping would be useful for subtleties, e.g. admins who like doing cleanup in the image categories, admins who like doing page moves, admins who can see the sub-topic (i.e. topic specific) issues in drawn-out edit wars, admins who like doing page protects, etc. I spend enough time as it is on project pages, this really doesn’t help speed the process. A good point to start would be a proposal to have all admins categorize themselves, beyond the standard:

• Category:Wikipedia administrators
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (science)
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (who like doing page protects)
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (who like to mediate)
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (history)
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (who like to help in troll issues)
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (images)

These are just rough ideas, but aren’t editors and administrators supposed to work together? Thus, when I see comments such as “maybe we should hide our mops for a while”, etc., I see an elusive wall building. Adding categories would help break down the wall, i.e. bring more of a connection between administrators and the editors. This is an idea (clean-up project) that I was hoping that one or two admins would take the lead on and get the other admins involved. --Sadi Carnot 17:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's a very terrible idea, but I suppose the bureacracy watchers will disagree? :) Seriously though - if you asked me about page moves or history merges I'd have to point you to someone else, but I can more or less deal with vandalism, page protections and images, for example. ~ Riana ⁂ 17:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any harm in administrators categorising themselves as such, as long as there is no requirement to do so. I wouldn't say this is bureaucratic if there are no requirements or prerequisites to placing yourself in such a category. Of course, we'd have to work on the above names, as calling an administrator to help with a "troll" might be quite insulting if such a person isn't a troll. WP:CREEP wouldn't apply... as they're on categories, not instructions. --Deskana (banana) 17:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Might I suggest: Category:Wikipedia administrators (who dislike being in categories) ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I really don't see the purpose of more categories. Everyone knows I'm an admin, that should be enough... besides, there's very little a regular editor can't do when it comes to plain article editing. An expert user is the same as an expert admin. David Fuchs ^(talk) 18:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

My inner smartass couldn't resist.[2] Durova^Charge! 06:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Here’s an example of where an editor was looking for Iranian admins to ask for a Farsi spelling. From the discussion, we see that admin categories are very useful for users (or serious editors) in need of janitorial assistance, i.e. clean-up things they can’t do on their own, because they don’t have admin tools. As User:Lar (admin) puts it: "It is useful to know who the admins are and categories have advantages over lists". --Sadi Carnot 13:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

One wonders why said user could not have asked a normal editor at WP:IRAN if he was after someone who spoke Farsi. Oh indeed checked Category:User fa. Is there some reason why only administrators are fit to pronounce on spellings? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 14:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

One doesn't need administrative tools to do translations, though. Couldn't such questions be addressed by, say, the Languages Reference Desk? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't like this idea at all. --Cyde Weys 14:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

What is the point of being an admin then if you’re not willing to make yourself available (by category) for users who need your help? --Sadi Carnot 14:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

There's no reason not to have some categories,, just as for admins who will userify articles on request. DGG (talk) 21:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Being an admin has nothing to do with specific knowledge categories. Admins have the special ability to do a few special things, none of which have to do with actual content. I don't see the point, what is worse is that I see people taking an admin's(science) opinion of a user's(science) opinion.

The categories relating to specific type of behavioral problems may be handy, I seem to remember there was a cat for admins who would deal with heated issues, forgot what it is though. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 21:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stuck with bad coding halfway through a SOCK

I'm sorry to bother you but I am halfway through filing a WP:SOCK and cannot finish the process because the title is messed up. I am at the point where I now need to label the puppet pages and the puppetmaster page with the templates. However, the title is fouled up somehow -- instead of reading "Jebbrady (2nd)" it's got brackets and whatnot, see here. Please, if anyone can fix it so it reads correctly, I can finish this process by giving the puppetmaster/puppets a good working link via the mandatory templates, which I've been struggling with for more than an hour. I'm sorry if I should have gone somewhere else instead of WP:AN. -- Lisasmall 20:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Better? --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

AnonEMouse, there are no words for my gratitude; thank you so much. -- Lisasmall 20:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! is pretty good. LessHeard vanU 22:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I'm in-between a rock and a hard place.

There's a member named Vanilla2, who wants to change his/her signature. But he/she can't figure it out. So what User:Hornetman16 wants to do is send an e-mail and get his/her password and do it for him/her. Would this be OK? Cheers, JetLover ^(talk) 21:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I hope it is.--Hornetman16 ^(talk) 21:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Giving away your password is not a good thing to do. Also, instructions can be found at WP:SIG#Customizing_your_signature. Good luck, Navou ^banter 23:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

We know it's not a good idea or thing to do but is it against policy is what we want to know.--Hornetman16 ^(talk) 02:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It's probably just a bad idea. Something to consider is creating a sandbox for code/examples, and asking the user to copy and paste the code into their signature preferences. Do you know exactly what issues from WP:SIG#Customizing your signature the user is having a hard time with?-Andrew c ^[talk] 02:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

From the looks of Vanilla2's talk page, this is basically resolved. An admin is already involved there, so this discussion can probably be closed, and no need for password sharing.-Andrew c ^[talk] 02:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fidelfair (talk · contribs)

The above user has uploaded numerous non-free images without rationales. I tagged several today, which resulted in a discussion on my talk page. At first, the user was deleting the 'no rationale' tags from the images, now the user has begun changing the dates on the tags to 70 years in the future so they don't come up in the deletion categories. I don't want to get into an edit war and would appreciate some help. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 00:19, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted the date changes. Possibly one image is appropriate under fair use for identification of the game, but the remainder most likely won't. Cheers Kevin 00:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Houston, we may have a problem. My "friendly reminder" on the user's talk page does not seem to have worked. User:Fidelfair has now proposed WP:FURG for deletion three times, accusing another editor of "vandalism" for removing the tag. See [3] and [4]. Also proposed Category:All images with no fair use rationale for deletion here. The user seems to be motivated by a genuine belief that tagging and/or speedy deletion is inappropriate for articles with no fair use rationales...a legitimate point we have been discussing. But I'm afraid they need to be warned or stopped before making a mess out of the guideline pages. Also urged to discuss and work with the system rather than break policy as a form of protest. I'm a non-admin so this goes beyond my expertise and authority. Please help before it gets any worse. Thanks, Wikidemo 01:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How to deal with anon with dynamic IP

Please examine the history of Roe v. Wade. Ever since the 12, and IP address from a Verizon account in Boston, Mass. has been adding the word "corrupt" to the lead. At least 7 different IP addresses have made the edit (all starting with 71.124.xxx.xx) I've only been an admin for a month an a half, so I'm still learning (and I probably won't stop learning either). Anyway, I've decided to semi-protect the page, at least for the next 48 hours as a measure to prevent those edits. I was wondering if this is what other admins would have done, and I'm also curious what can be done when it comes to dynamic IPs (say, if someone had reported a 3RR on this page). Thanks for the advice.-Andrew c ^[talk] 04:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• That's kinda what semi-protection is for. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 05:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How many articles does Wikipedia delete per day?

A few months ago I recall a stastic that this site deletes around 5000 pages a day. Been looking for confirmation of that and can't find it anywhere. I'll accept estimates from the CSD regulars if that's the best we can do. Would appreciate help! Durova^Charge! 14:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

This (warning, may take a while to load) shows that the last 5000 deletions (including images, pages, categories, templates, redirects, and so on) took place over a span of last 24 hours 55 minutes. 5000 pages in 24 hours is probably a little high based on that (although it tends to be higher when school is in, thanks to the friends of gays). Maybe 4000 a day. Neil ム 14:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Here are the stats for all of august:

+---------------------+----------------------+
| date(log_timestamp) | count(log_timestamp) |
+---------------------+----------------------+
| 2007-08-01          |                 5375 | 
| 2007-08-02          |                 5042 | 
| 2007-08-03          |                 7971 | 
| 2007-08-04          |                 3733 | 
| 2007-08-05          |                 5767 | 
| 2007-08-06          |                 9873 | 
| 2007-08-07          |                 4379 | 
| 2007-08-08          |                 3551 | 
| 2007-08-09          |                 4240 | 
| 2007-08-10          |                 7756 | 
| 2007-08-11          |                 4273 | 
| 2007-08-12          |                 7056 | 
| 2007-08-13          |                 5546 | 
| 2007-08-14          |                 4425 | 
| 2007-08-15          |                 3214 | 
+---------------------+----------------------+
15 rows in set (31.88 sec)

August '05 we were deleting about 1000 per day, August '06 averaging 3000, and 6 months ago averaging 5000. --ST47Talk·Desk 15:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Beautiful! Thank you very much for the breakdown. Durova^Charge! 15:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

But how much if NawlinWiki went on break... --W.marsh 18:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

That user only has bout 200/day, so not much of en effect - not even if our #1 admin in terms of deletions, misza13, left would there be much of a dent  :) --ST47Talk·Desk 19:24, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Any thoughts about breaking this down by ns? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 19:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Miszabot deletes mostly images though, right? I thought we were talking about articles. NawlinWiki's stats there are pretty staggering. --W.marsh 19:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually,Miszabot archives talk pages. Misza13 does deletions, but is presumably a real person. Natalie 22:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm making an effort to get the word out and address this on the non-Wikipedian side of the equation. When more people understand the scope of this project we may succeed in reversing the trend. Durova^Charge! 22:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Think about all the wasted effort that goes into creating pages that get deleted (and the admin efforts to delete them). Granted, some are created as vandalism. But I'm sure many if not most are due to users not creating appropriate articles/uploading inappropriate images. It is rather staggering. I guess that's what your hinting at Durova? Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 23:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Very much so. :) Durova^Charge! 04:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

There you go, per namespace:

date	(Main)	Talk	User	_talk	Wikipedia	_talk	Image	_talk	Template	_talk	Category	_talk
2007-08-01	1584	273	162	64	8	1	3015	56	39	16	141	11
2007-08-02	1376	907	104	83	12	3	2272	39	103	11	122	7
2007-08-03	1406	3790	143	63	9	0	2366	47	56	8	76	7
2007-08-04	1272	336	98	53	30	7	1498	27	62	1	344	5
2007-08-05	1295	2166	99	24	18	6	1914	70	39	4	120	12
2007-08-06	1462	5834	208	171	20	2	1926	124	56	17	51	2
2007-08-07	1352	242	205	232	15	6	2188	34	28	2	68	6
2007-08-08	1378	244	164	164	7	7	1407	16	41	13	100	9
2007-08-09	1661	293	227	250	14	5	1281	26	350	15	108	10
2007-08-10	1359	4379	227	48	10	3	1137	14	36	18	499	23
2007-08-11	1166	235	122	153	21	11	2153	201	35	0	168	3
2007-08-12	1031	3398	145	72	8	3	1841	38	378	8	118	16
2007-08-13	1562	2230	256	184	13	1	931	80	122	56	88	22
2007-08-14	1458	253	115	66	192	45	1650	24	329	65	178	28
2007-08-15	1501	769	142	78	8	6	2131	35	37	3	84	14

Images seem to be most active, although my bot does at most one third of that. Mainspace is less fluctuating. Talk: stats are tained by DerHexer occasionally mass-deleting talk pages of redirects. There's also the BJAODN spike in Wikipedia: on 14th. Cheers, Миша13 20:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC) (I tweaked the table headings a bit to make them narrower. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC))

Thanks, that's interesting. I think that the image numbers are true for this period also, as opposed to most of July when we were clearing the 30 day backlog. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 23:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

If these are straight log counts, one small tweak is needed to adjust the numbers. Restorations are in the deletion log, and are effectively a -1 to the pages deleted per day count. In January, when I last did a detailed review, restores were runing about 1.1% of all log activity. This was down from ~2% in December 2006. So net deletions is about probably about 96% to 98% of the numbers. (User space, followed by Main space were the spaces with the highest restore rate, but even user space was below 4%.) GRBerry 13:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• I once asked what was the total number of deleted pages in total. Ever. I never got an answer, but I think it is safe to say that the dead (pages) on Wikipedia outnumber the living (pages). Carcharoth 00:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:TTN performing large-scale AWB edits, merges and redirects without clear consensus

This needs administrator attention but I don't know where to report it. I'm posting here on the advice of User:Parsifal after getting his opinion on the matter. TTN (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights) has been making hundreds of high-speed AWB edits to add merge or move tags, then doing the redirects himself soon after with edit summaries that claim there is consensus or no discussion. In many cases, he did not allow sufficient time for consensus discussion to take place, or did not make a good enough effort to verify that people were aware of the discussion in the first place. I don't believe he is necessarily violating policies - in fact, he appears to be interpreting several of them (most notably WP:FICT, WP:BRD and WP:N), but his merges are clearly disruptive to a large number of editors (as can be seen on his talk page), and my attempts to talk to him about this have not appeared to help matters at all.

The pages he's moving relate to multiple WikiProjects, including WikiProject Video games (which I'm participating in actively). Many editors on the Wikiproject page have expressed concerns about his behavior and approach, but he refuses to stop. Most of the time, he counters by citing WP policies (even in the face of questions about how he's interpreting those policies), and in some cases stating that he's going to continue on his campaign because he knows what's right. (Here's an example of such a statement: [5]) His AWB tag placements and mass redirects and are easy to see in his contribs because there are so many of them. There is also a long discussion on the CVGProj Talk page, where we basically made almost no headway and in which I repeatedly advised him to slow down and be patient with the discussion. (His general tone came across to me as "Can I merge it now? Can I? Huh?")

Would someone please take a look and either ask him to stop and respect consensus, or advise me where the correct place is for me to post this notice? I thought about WP:AIV, but I wasn't sure if this would be considered vandalism or not. I also considered WP:RFC or WP:RFC/U but he is moving so fast with the automated edits, by the time an RFC could do anything, the damage would be unrecoverable.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated. Thanks! — KieferSkunk (talk) — 21:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Would you mind giving an example or two of where he went ahead and performed a merge against consensus? Where there was a discussion, and the proposal was defeated, but he merged anyway? i ^said 00:12, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to get these together as I have time. I haven't done a great deal of research into this (haven't had the time, and I'm on a tight time budget now as well), but here's some evidence of his tendency to push things through:

• "There is no discussing this part" (preceded and followed by reverts)
• Merge discussion on Talk:Scrubs (TV series) - please read TTN's replies to the discussion. So far, everyone who has responded to the initial merge proposal has opposed it, and TTN has insisted on pushing through a merge anyway.
  • This seems to be the pattern in almost every merge discussion TTN takes part in.
• I cannot find a specific example where TTN violated a clear consensus, but see this diff and a few diffs following that one (linked to the CVGProj discussion) where he merged without a clear consensus.
  • That discussion also has at least one user calling out TTN's apparent general practice of discounting the opinions of people who have dropped out of the discussion or haven't been able to reply in a timely manner.

I hope this will help. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 01:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

For the first diff that was ok per WP:BOLD, and it was reverted without discussion. There should have been discussion by the reverter, and there was not. In the Scrubs discussion, TTN is backed by policy and guideline, (WP:NN, WP:V, WP:WAF) the opposes were WP:ILIKEIT or similar related opinions. As for Goomba, I read the discussion and when TTN merged them, he had asked at least twice for anyone else objecting, and no one did. The converstation had waned. The following revert war (including an admin) was awful. I personally agree with TTN on most matters relating to cruft, but I do agree he is a bit more agressive than he needs to be. i ^said 01:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to address some points the next time I have some time, but quickly I agree that I am fairly harsh and pushy, but there really is no alternative way to go about it sometimes. People are used to the current state of the site. They think it is fine to cover topics without establishing some sort of real world notability, so they either ignore the set, totally non-disputed policies and guidelines, really cannot grasp them at all, or they just completely avoid the topic all together, usually throwing comments back at me any way that they can (usually about the merging).

I have to make it clear to those who ignore them that they cannot be ignored or passed off as nothing, explain it to the people that just don't get it, and deal with the turnabout people without trying to stab myself. They don't take it very well at all, and they are the majority of the people that I deal with. That requires constant pushing (or else everything just somehow falls apart), so sometimes that may leak into normal discussions that actually deal with how the articles can fit the guidelines and policies. I should probably watch that a little more, but otherwise, there really is no actual alternative other than just dropping any sort of merging/redirecting, which I don't plan on doing. TTN 02:12, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It appears that more people support TTN's merging, and as pointed out, there doesn't appear to be any clear violation of policy or consensus going on, so I withdraw my notice. Thanks. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• I support genuine mergers, but not mindless redirects. The JPS^{talk to me} 09:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Disscussion for I-35W Mississippi River bridge <- Replacement I-35W Mississippi River bridge

The discussion has been going on for 9 days and seems to have slow down. I think it is time to close it. The discussion is taking place here at Talk:Replacement I-35W Mississippi River bridge. Since I am not a Administrator here I don't think I should close it and risk getting blocked. so I a administrator to close it for me and determain the outcome and make the merger or not. Sawblade05 18:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. There is no consensus, with slightly more opposed to a merger. (Current count: 13 keep two articles [with some qualifications], 12 merge.) In the absence of consensus, should the "default" position be to retain two articles? Kablammo 10:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarizing from Wikipedia?

Hi. I wasn't sure where else to put this, but I know that the Times of India's wholesale plagiarism was reported here, but I don't know whatever became of that discussion. Anyway, I was reading this article from The Daily Telegraph (Australia) about a Chinese couple wanting to name their child "@." One thing I found peculiar is that they wrote, ". . . the symbol may have a different name (see below)," even though there was nothing below. So I went to check out what Wikipedia had to say about the at sign, and the intro looked particularly similar... ~ UBeR 00:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Good catch, and one for the Signpost I would think. Have you tipped them off? -- But|seriously|folks  02:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

...see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions for more information! :) Cbrown1023 talk 01:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:RonaldBot

Appears to be an automated account that is violating numerous WP:BOT policies. Q ^{T C} 09:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes that does look odd. I've blocked for now and will inquire to its apparent owner. —Wknight94 (talk) 09:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Can administrators please check WP:BRFA before blocking bots that are apparently unauthorized? When bots are in trial, they are not required to have a bot flag as implied by the blocking administrator's summary ("Bot running without bot privilege per http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&diff=152012199&oldid=152008617"). They are required only to limit their edit rate to two edits per minute and to do only what the operator said they would do. Granted, User:RonaldBot did not have a user page that was explicit enough regarding its function, and I'll talk to the operator about that. But please look into these things before interrupting trials.

Thanks! — madman bum and angel 00:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 01:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help in moving page

Someone has moved La Ronde (1950 film) to Roundabout (movie). I'm not bothered whether "La Ronde" or "Roundabout" is used, but there are two films called "Roundabout". Roundabout (film) already redirects to Roundabout (disambiguation), and Roundabout (movie) should do the same to avoid confusion. However, I can't move the article back to Roundabout (1950 film) as that already exists (it's a redirect made during a previous move).

In short; I'd like

• The 1950 film to be moved to either La Ronde (1950 film) or Roundabout (1950 film), and
• Roundabout (movie) to be a redirect to Roundabout (disambiguation).

Fourohfour 11:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It's messed up. The correct title is "La Ronde", as the Arthur Schnitzler and IMDB article will attest. While this is the English Wikipedia, this doesn't stretch to renaming books and movies like that (imagine if that happened to La Cage aux Folles. I'll see if I can fix it - Alison ☺ 12:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok - fixed (I hope!) How does it look now? - Alison ☺ 12:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help about a page in Category:Empty pages for speedy deletion

Currently, in Category:Empty pages for speedy deletion, the page Talk:Lucario is listed (even after a purge); however, nowhere in this page does the SD tag appear, nor does the category. Despite a purge of the category, the page is still here. Anyone has any idea what is happening (or what I am missing) ? Schutz 16:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Gone now. Problem solved, but I am still wondering what this was. Schutz 16:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I just purged the talk page itself, because of Talk:Lucario/to_do -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict, I should reply before fixing ^^)I don't know what triggered it (probably a template that was marked as {{db-empty}}), but there's a simple work around: just edit the page and save it again, that forces the page to be rebuilt and removes the incorrect category. -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zacheus-jkb

This arbitration case has now closed and the decision may be found at the link above. -jkb- and Zacheus are admonished for their behaviour, and directed to refrain from importing outside disputes into the English Wikipedia, disclosing real names or other identifying personal information on-wiki, and from making personal attacks and uncivil remarks. For the arbitration committee, David Mestel^(Talk) 21:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Railpage article

Please note that I have raised a COI issue about the following user on the COI noticeboard. User:Doctorjbeam. There are other issues too, including the silly listings for deletion which no person who seriously wanted the page modified or deleted would do, and the second nomination for deletion which is not what it seems. I suspect a Railpage version of the Lernaean Hydra. Can an administrator look into this, I can PM my other concerns.Tezza1 23:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Why is this article full-protected with constant unpleasant discussion on the Talk page? From a perusal of the various AfDs, Railpage Australia seems to be above the notability cutoff, and it is not terribly written. (I would shorten it about 20% if given a free hand). The article has existed for 15 months and attracted plenty of editors. Any remaining activity by editors with a conflict of interest (company employees and not just rail forum members) hardly looms large. User:Doctorjbeam, who may be an employee of a company connected to the site, has edited Railpage Australia a total of five times, and I didn't see him voting in any of the AFDs. (He added some rather boring information about the site servers). Thus the COI angle seems way overstated. I'd still advise Doctorjbeam to volunteer his affiliation on his user page, now that he's outed himself with an image upload. EdJohnston 00:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:LightningCurrent

Obvious sockpuppet of User:Light current, see edit history even aside from name. Maybe I'm supposed to report this elsewhere, but I need to get to bed. Matchups 01:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sockie. Blocked indef - Alison ☺ 01:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BCBot and commons

Ive started a bot to move images to commons please see User:Betacommand/Commons β^_command 05:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Your list is broken at "Wikihermit", FYI. Incidentally, how did you make that list? I see I am on there. I have not had too much involvement in images, and it doesn't look like enough to be all admins. Prodego ^talk 05:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It started out as a subset of admins, (admins that I know) and then I tossed a few non-admins that I know I can trust. then there was the approval process. β^_command 13:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Where was the discussion, apart from the Bot approval discussion? Was there a discussion at Wikipedia:Images (or where-ever the most active image area is)? Not everyone watches the Bot approval process. Also, when you say you've "started a bot", I think you might mean you have plans for a bot. The bot has been approved for trials (50 edits or 7 days), but doesn't seem to be running yet. You might want to word things differently, as I, for one, read "Ive started a bot", to mean that you were in the process of running it and operating it. Carcharoth 01:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Well the bot is currently operating, it transwikis images per the instructions. β^_command 09:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

From what I can see, this is still just a trial run. Can you point us to where the results of the trial run will be discussed? Thanks. Carcharoth 00:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

At the BRFA page... Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot Task 7. Cbrown1023 talk 01:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Would it be OK to post links at the BRFA page to the discussions about this function? Carcharoth 11:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Why wouldn't it be? :-D Cbrown1023 talk 17:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non-free images in project space

The archives for Wikipedia:Today's featured article contain numerous non-free images in violation of WP:NFCC#9 - a couple of examples would be Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 15, 2006 and Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 21, 2006. The pages are fully protected, so only administrators can remove the noncompliant images. Looks like a big cleanup effort is required. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 03:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are, I think, two issues here. First, to the extent that TFA archives are, one supposes, accurately to record, wherever possible, what a particular TFA looked like when it was transcluded on the main page, it might be useful for the community to confer on old TFA pages an NFCC exemption (the requisite fair use explanation may, of course, for those images that continue to appear in the articles they illustrated in TFA, is the same as that already properly given on the talk page of each image, and it is unlikely that the diminution in article length is sufficient to render inappropriate any fair use claim); indeed, I would suggest that a consensus to that effect likely already exists. Second, it is not clear, I think, that the community ultimately will not countenance TFA's being granted an NFCC exemption (see, e.g., this discussion), such that a removal of all of the TFA-archived non-free images might be undone in the not-too-distant future. It may be that amongst the TFA archives are non-free images the use of which would be disfavored even in mainspace, and those ought probably to be removed, but on the whole I guess I mean to suggest that this should be about 9000th on our things to do; inlining images is rather trivial and may in fact be counseled by NFCC, etc., but I think one might, in view of the relative insignificance of this potential NFCC violation, do well to wait for the community to determine whether an exemption might be conferred. Joe 05:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The "what it looked like on the Main Page" argument holds no water, as it can still appear in the page's history, so there's no need to leave it active. I do agree, however, that there should be an exception, but I also have a much more liberal attitude towards Fair Use images anyway (generally because my primary articles I edit are all of fictional characters or concepts, where there's no possibility for Free Use imagery to be used). EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

This problem has been raised before. A few months ago (May this year), I discovered that many of the archives for TFA had redlinks for images that had been deleted. I then replaced many of those redlinks with free pictures. While doing this, I noticed that many non-free images still remained, and raised this point. It seems that nothing got done. See Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article#Tidying up archives from 2005, Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article#Rest of archives checked (2004, 2006 and 2007), and Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article#Replacing deleted images in the archives. There are two main points to consider: (1) Should the pages of the TFA archives that people browse show what the blurb and pic looked like on the day (remember that sometimes the pic changes during the actual day itself) - I think people should link to dated versions in the page history for historical purposes. (2) Should the pics in the archives be updated, removing non-free pics, adding free pics where available, and replacing poor quality free pics with better free pics? I think such updating should occur, because the content at the TFA archives is randomly re-used at Portal:Featured content. It is this ongoing re-use of old FA blurbs that leads me to agree with Videmus that a clean-up is needed, but I would urge Videmus and others to use {{editprotected}} to (a) request removal of the pics in question, and (b) suggest a free image that could replace it. See here for an example of around 20 edit requests I made. Carcharoth 12:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• Here is an example of ongoing updating of the TFA archives. An image was deleted on Commons, the Commons delinker removed the image link at the TFA archives, and someone replaced it with a free pic. Carcharoth 12:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I've been going through the archives from 2004 to 2006, and in most cases the pages are not fully protected. I am currently compiling lists of (a) TFA blurbs using non-free images; (b) TFA blurbs with red-link images; (c) TFA blurbs without pictures. This should only take a couple of hours. I will post the results at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article. It looks like a big cleanup effort will not be required - I can probably do most of this myself. I'd appreciate it if others held off until I've finished, as otherwise we will just duplicate efforts. Thanks. Carcharoth 12:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• Update: Please see Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article#Images in TFA archives (redux). Carcharoth 13:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restored Edits disappearing

A while back I deleted the history of User talk:XavierVE, as he's an indef banned user and the page is full of various personal attacks and links to attack sites and the like. Another user has requested I restore the talk page history as best I can (there is clearly some shit in there that needs to stay deleted), so I started to go through it revision by revision to restore whichever edits I could - but those edits I tried to restore just disappeared. They no longer appear in the article history or in the deleted edits history. Does anyone know what's going on? WilyD 13:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes it takes a little while for the cache to to catchup with a restore... give it 5 min or so and check again. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 15:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Brian.gratwicke and his edits to Robert Mugabe and my Talk Page

There is persistent vandalism of Robert Mugabe. Since he is a living person, I presume the special care as pointed out in WP:BLP applies. In the last case of vandalism, User:Brian.gratwicke inserted the term "illegitimate" in the description of him as the president of Zimbabwe. I removed it, and, because he has been warned for his edits before, and has been on wikipedia for quite a while, I issued him with a "uw-vandalism4im" warning given the nature of the vandalism to a living person's article. He objected to this on my talk page, and I replied stating that if he wanted to claim that the election was rigged, he should be able to come up with the appropriate references. His reply was to accuse me of being a troll. I take this to be an extremely serious accusation as to my credibility without any supporting evidence, and certainly was not my motivation and never has been as one can see by my previous work on wikipedia. I would like to request some immediate action taken to deal with this problem. He is "demanding" that i withdraw the accusation of vandalism and has now repeated the accusation that I am a troll. He is attempting to escalate the matter, by alluding to an idea that I may be a ZANUPF stooge, which is clearly insulting and derogatory and without foundation,but I am refraining from replying.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:00, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you went too far by giving a vandalism warning to an established editor for a good faith and legitimate edit (even though the edit was POV). Mugabe's last election was heavily criticized as unfair and he is seen as a dictator by a number of people around the world; the use of the word "illegitimate" is therefore valid (although such a POV word should have references to support it, along with wording like "seen by opponents as illegitimate". Either way, this wasn't vandalism and you shouldn't have accused him of such.--Alabamaboy 17:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It is possible that it was not vandalism, but the edits here indicate a previous history of unreferenced and inflammatory content added to the article. The editor has been around long enough to realise what you said about POV pushing, especially to an article about a living person. However, the issue of the accusation that I am a troll and the allusion to me possibly being a ZANUPF stooge remain, which I note you have not commented on (yet).  DDStretch  (talk) 17:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reapplication of IP block

• 66.90.151.114 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log)

I'm bringing this to AN as it's not an incident per se - while it hasn't edited, there are plenty of reasons why the IP should be blocked for as long as possible:

• Self-confessed IP of banned user Sixty Six (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• IP appears to be static
• IP is near-certain to be the person responsible for the (frankly sickening) ED biography on me.

I should elaborate on the third point - Sheneequa (talk · contribs), an ED admin, had performed a checkuser on my behalf and told me that the ED biographer, "Die clown die", had edited from two ISPs - one being RoadRunner (which was used by sock/meatpuppet Geoffrey Mitchell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)), the other being Grande Communications, a small Texan ISP that Sixty Six had edited from (WHOIS the IP if you don't believe me). The username "Die clown die" was most likely because of CSCWEM's block of the IP, so given the harassment of multiple admin and users in good standing, he should not edit Wikipedia under any circumstances. Will ^(talk) 01:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Usually we don't block until there has been abuse... While I am quite familiar with the abuse that SixSixty and his socks have dished out (to myself and others) I don't feel comfortable with the potential collateral damage until there is some abuse. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard needs more sysops!

With all the news this week, conflict of interest is a big thing. The conflict of interest noticeboard is flagged for backlog and has 99 open cases. Please pitch in. And if you aren't a sysop, you can still help by investigating and posting warnings or making recommendations. Durova^Charge! 20:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fox news block

I must make a comment about a recent Fox News IP block by User:Adam Cuerden. It was universally agreed that a block of this IP was not at all appropriate here; however, Adam Cuerden went ahead and blocked it anyway here. As this is certainly an office issue, someone pointed out to Adam that he should do something. However, Adam has not been willing to respond to my comments on his talk page that the community thought a block was inappropriate; nor, for all I can tell, did he make a mention to the Communiations Committee. I ask for someone to address this, as the block was clearly overzealous, and Adam has not discussed the issue. The Evil Spartan 17:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this is a bad block to place without notifying the Communications Committee. Major government organizations and corporations need to be reported for abuse so the Foundation can take care of any implications that may arrive. — Moe ε 18:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, FoxNews has its own Abuse address, I'm sure. If we're talking about a very brief block, it's probably pre-emptive, but a long block of a range of IP's? No. Has anyone lifted the block? Evil Spartan, have you notified the blocking admin that this discussion is taking place? It looks questionable to block a whole IP range, but he should present his reasoning in terms of policy violations. (I cannot imagine any good coming from FoxNews, except a test pattern, but that doesn't matter.) Geogre 12:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I have unblock the IP, no vandalism or POV-pushing for quite a while Alex Bakharev 13:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I had two people, one telling me to remove it, the other asking me not to. I decided to let them fight it out. Adam Cuerden ^talk 16:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

You "decided to let them fight it out"? Seriously? Did it occur to you to thoughtfully consider their rationales and seek additional input from the community (which you should have sought in the first place) instead of washing your hands of the matter by simply ignoring it? —David Levy 17:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Speechless. Sarah 15:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DNSstuff no longer permitting Wikipedia WHOIS requests

The IPvandal and other Wikipedia tools for WHOIS lookups went to the DNSstuff website, and they are now redirecting such requests to a subscription page. THF 22:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

You could try http://samspade.org// ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

WORKSFORME, I don't have a problem when I click the WHOIS link or any of the other ones. Cbrown1023 talk 22:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Also works for me, perhaps you have exceeded the number of permitted lookups. Check the dnsstuff banning info. Navou ^banter 23:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not admin, but just telling you that it still works for me, and I've looked up info like that like 100 times now. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 23:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

See MediaWiki talk:Anontalkpagetext for more (brief) discussion related to this. It seems to be working for some, but not for all. Might be best to find a site that accepts everyone. - auburnpilot talk 01:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Does this explain the recent abrupt inquiry at my talkpage, perhaps? --Wetman 01:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, it works for me on one IP address, and not at the one where I do the vast majority of my Wiki edits, so it suggests that it is a cookie issue of exceeding the number of permitted lookups. Though that in itself is a potential problem. THF 14:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you figure out which cookie it is and remove it from your computer? Corvus cornix 16:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I would expect it is done server-side with IP addresses, not client-side with cookies. --Tango 18:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Whatever is causing the problem, something needs to be done. It makes it quite difficult to review vandals and unblock requests when the linked WHOIS doesn't work. - auburnpilot talk 22:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism bot block length

Just to get everybody else's feedback, to what length do you think we should be blocking these slew of vandalism bots that have been appearing? An example is 201.219.13.252 (talk · contribs). I've seen other admins do indef, 1 year, 1 month, and 1 week. I've also seen different block reasons. Can we settle (or at least try) on a particular block length and reason? I don't mind what we settle on, just thought we should settle on something standard. -- Gogo Dodo 05:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

They are usually proxies or zombie computers, so indefinite should cover it. If ever a real person starts using the IP, they can always request unblocking on the talk page. Neil ム 08:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Umm, just make sure they are really proxies first. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 13:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

They are all open proxies, but the IPs are sometimes dynamic. I opt for five years where there is evidence that the proxy has been around for a while (tagged with {{blocked proxy}}), and six months where the IP is probably dynamic or the proxy is short-lived (tagged 'vandalbot'). I've seen blocks for one week and one month which is probably OK for short-term proxies. The only way this bot edits is through open proxies. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 13:40, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Any automated vandal editing earns an automatic indefinite block as far as I'm concerned. The computer may not be an open proxy, but if not it is a zombie computer and will continue to do as much damage either way. Dynamic IPs do throw a minor wrench into things, but that's what {{unblock}} is for. (ESkog)^(Talk) 15:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

That's what I said. I always knew ESkog was a smart guy. ;) Neil ム 15:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I would go with 6 months. Is the risk of one of these IP addresses vandalising in 6 months time really much higher than any other address? I don't expect so. If they are open proxies, then by all means block indefinitely, but zombie computers aren't necessarily going to remain zombies over a long period. In fact, a 1 week block is probably enough for most, since zombie's rarely have static IPs. --Tango 18:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Generally I agree with Neil and ESkog, though I'd suggest after the initial block to stop the vandalism in progress, WHOIS the IP and if it is dynamic you could probably drop it to 24/48 hours just so unblock list isn't getting inundated with IP unblock requests where the original vandal is long gone.--Isotope23 ^talk 19:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Username imposter or spoof -- policy?

Is there a specific policy which addresses someone coding/typing a sig line with intent to deceive -- to intentionally appear as if they were some other specific user? The policy at confusing usernames doesn't quite seem to cover this; the typed name doesn't "closely resemble" someone else's username, it is someone else's user name (if the IP plus-typed-name user and the regular User:Example are two different people; they seem to be so far). I'm trying an informal approach first to ask the IP user if they are User:Example, though the contrib histories suggest strongly they are not. While this is still informal, I'd like to be able to point the possible offender to the right policy against spoofing someone else's legit name, or using a fake sig to further an imposture. Thank you. -- Lisasmall | Talk 17:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

imping (the activity of pretending to be another user) I would think counts as disruption. --Rocksanddirt 18:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, impersonation is disruptive. Blocking is one of the appropriate solutions to disruptions. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Definitely blockable, it's fraud, deception, and disruptive.Rlevse 23:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Falsifying definitely counts as disruption. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

(reset indents) Thank you all. Right now, WP:IMP and WP:Imp take you somewhere else. WP:Impersonate and Wikipedia:Impersonate take you nowhere. The section at WP:USERNAME on disruptive usernames includes Usernames that are similar to those previously used by persistent vandals or banned users but doesn't have Usernames that are, or appear to be, identical to those in use by other users. Since WP:USERNAME is a policy page, I'll make a suggestions about this to its talk page, WT:U. Thanks very much for the guidance. -- Lisasmall | Talk 01:35, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:SIG#Customizing your signature is relevant here; "In no circumstance should a signature be used to impersonate another user: in particular, a signature should not be identical to the actual username of another existing user. While not an absolute requirement, it is common practice for a signature to resemble to some degree the username it represents." Was that what you were looking for? --ais523 16:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rebelstar

I just got a bot message saying that the image I'd uploaded for use on this page [Image:RebelStarcover.jpg] was orphaned. I went to the page to check it out and found it had been turned into a redirect. I went to the original Rebelstar page and all the content I wrote has vanished. There's nothing in the history apart from the redirect creation, and the page logs are empty. What's going on here??? Exxolon 01:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• A cached copy of the previous content can be seen here [7].Exxolon 01:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The page history shows the page was moved to Rebelstar (series), which includes your original edits [8]. - auburnpilot talk 01:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Discussion continued on WP:ANI. Exxolon 02:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] cryptic content readded to BLP-relevant article

I am in a quandary over how to handle the editing of the Bob Casey, Jr. page. The vast majority of its last 50-100 edits are dealing wih this issue, so for now I don't have an diffs; the History page is pretty self explanatory.

The page had a Trivia section (discouraged of course) containing simply the sentence "Mr. Casey is proud of the fact that he knows how many bars of soap are provided for patrons of the Red Roof Inn in an interview on the Pennsylvania Cable Network." or something very similar. This content was added some time ago, and the Talk page shows other editors had issues with it before me. I added a "trivia" tag to that section.

Then the removals began, mostly by anons although also by User:Pittsburgh1. I put the tag back a few times, usually (but not always) mentioning something on the respective usertalk pages. With no responses forthcoming, I removed the material. Anons kept putting it back. Finally, I posted to the articles talk page, being firmer in that this needed to be (better) sourced and placed in some kind of context. I smile as I say this "helped", because then an anon put the info into a pre-existing section, but still with no context whatsoever(!). I kept the content but added a "fansite" tag as some of its language seemed to apply (excessive trivia, lack of context, irrelevant criticism(?) etc.). Well, it was removed. Currently I put it back.

I would like some comment as to whether indeed this material needs to be better sourced and better incorporated to the article (context etc.). My assumption all along was that 1) if it stays, it is much better not in a trivia section 2) Without good sourcing and context, it could be deleted without difficulty per BLP issues, albeit not severe ones.

So I ask, can I have some feedback as to whether my actions are justified? If it is not clearcut, I do not wish to edit-war, nor come across like I own the article. I bring this here rather than AIV (still within radius of good-faith) or BLP noticeboard (the proper action might be page protection). I will point out that I would be much more flexible if there was any feedback from the editors who inserted the content and removed tags. There was none.

Thanks, Baccyak4H (Yak!) 03:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with removing the sentence. Unless the fact that he made the statement has been commented on by other publications, I don't see how it is relevant or notable of itself. I think the BLP noticeboard is a more suitable place for these issues though. Cheers Kevin 04:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Threatened sockpuppetry by User:24.169.235.56

I just blocked this anon for the usual 24 hours for vandalism to Mike Morgan, Ray King and User talk:CruiserBob. On the talk page he more or less threatens to continue with sockpuppets. I semi-protected the three pages above, but any vandalism to other baseball relief pitchers' pages or my user and talk pages by anons should probably be considered to be socks of this user.

Just a heads-up. Daniel Case 05:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What is acceptable article tagging behaviour?

I'd like some opinions on whether it is acceptable to engage in mass-tagging of articles within a particular topic area, as opposed to raising general issues and concerns at a WikiProject talk page (if one exists)? I am referring to a series of edits by User:Guest9999. See Special:Contributions/Guest9999 for details, and in particular this series of 302 edits on 18 August. During that series of edits, Guest9999 placed many tags on Middle-earth related articles: 45 PROD tags were followed by nominating 24 articles for deletion at 2 umbrella AfDs, followed by placing 193 notability tags. The tagging seems fairly indiscriminate, as minor places were tagged along with major locations such as Rivendell, Rohan and Lothlorien. I have raised this at the user's talk page (several discussions there are also relevant, from here onwards), and pointed out that there is a WikiProject trying to rectify the problems with Middle-earth-related articles. I would be the first to admit that these problems exist. I've asked the user if they will consider raising their concerns at the WikiProject talk page, instead of putting notability tags on hundreds of separate articles, behaviour that I think borders on being disruptive. The user has replied to me, but the issue still remains as to whether this behaviour is disruptive or not, and I'd welcome second opinions. User:IronGargoyle has since reverted most of the tagging. Guest9999 has explained his tagging here and here. It looks like this particular case is being resolved amicably (and is possibly due to inexperience as regards the best way to flag up such issues), but advice on the general case of how to deal with mass tagging that disrupts the efforts of a WikiProject to carry out long-term merging and sourcing on a group of articles, would be welcomed. Thanks. Carcharoth 00:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

My own view is that the mass tagger believes he or she is doing the good thing, and such a tagger is probably not a newbie, but an intermedie, as it were. True newbies put two tags up and see what happens. Oldsters know about the sore spots and don't tag unless they want a fight. It's the sophomoric that are problematic. Until notified of the inappropriateness of what they're doing, they're trying to help. If they keep going after that, then we're looking at disruption.

The problem is the volume. 302 edits before being notified? Wow. Anyone who gets in 300+ edits in very short order probably (it's just probability) trying to say something, is probably highly motivated, and that kind of messianic impulse could be problematic in another context.

Short version: notify them. Until you notify them, AGF means believing they're trying to help. After notifying, weigh the intent -- is it to "fix Wikipedia" or "help Wikipedia?" The latter is wholly good. The former...maybe not so much. Geogre 12:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Excellent answer. Very insightful. :-) FloNight 22:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Thanks, Geogre. Intermedie? That's a new one for the book. Carcharoth 23:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Just assume good faith. If no rules were broken, try considering whether the tags accurately represent the article and its current needs, and try to address it on the talk page or fixing the article. ~ UBeR 01:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it wasn't the appropriateness of the tags, more the volume and switching from one set to another, instead of starting a general discussion, but it's all sorted now, anyway (well, apart from the clean-up work on the articles, which is still needed). Carcharoth 13:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

As the user in question I would just like to say that my aim was not to prove a point, disrupt Wikipedia or push my own POV. I am learning from experience that mass anything (deletions, nominations, tagging) on Wikipedia don't seem to go down well. I still think that most of the articles that I tagged should have remained tagged (although I did accidentally mess up the formatting on a few articles) and that the tags shouldn't have been removed without providing some evidence of notability - however that is not the point. I see now that the way that I acted was not the correct way to go about things in a project which is based largely on community consensus although I would say that I was acting in the way layed out by WP:BOLD, and that I did try to co-operate by withdawing the AfDs that I originally started when asked. [[Guest9999 22:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)]]

Absolutely. I agree that the problems you raised were very real, but as you now say, your method probably wasn't the best way to draw attention to the problems, though in some ways it was a bit of a wake-up call - a literal prod to carry on cleaning up those articles! I apologise if you felt my response slighted your contributions in any way, and I'd like to thank you for drawing attention to the issues. Please feel free to help out or come back later and see how we (WikiProject Middle-earth) are getting on. Carcharoth 13:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus closed

The above case is closed. A general amnesty for editors involved in Eastern Europe-related articles is extended, with the expectation that further editing will adhere to Wikipedia's policies. Future behavior problems may be addressed by the Arbitration Committee on the motion of any Arbitrator or upon acceptance of a request for inquiry by any user who edits in this area. For the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 19:14, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

...So, we had pages and pages of evidence that everyone is deliberately obstructing each other, plotting onwiki disruption offwiki, the findings of fact included "In the course of these disputes, many of the editors involved have acted in some manner that violates Wikipedia policy; this includes both occasional editors as well as some of the primary producers of content on the topic", and the result was the long awaited...amnesty. In short, Arbcom intends to do nothing until someone decides to file another case, which, because as the Arbcom itself pointed out, the Eastern Europe articles suffer from "long-standing personal enmity between some of the editors working in the area, as well as by the broader historical and cultural circumstances of the region", is only a matter of time. So, if Arbcom has decided to let abuses go unpunished even when they acknowledge they're there, what's the point of having it anymore? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, this will show up again, but such is the ruling at the present time with the present ArbCom, and the result shows as much the difficulties of consensus among ArbCom members as anything else. I'm speculating, but probably some arbitrators thought, "Well, I'm sure they're not going to do it again," and some thought, "This isn't clear cut," and some thought, "It's clearly his fault (or his, or his, or his)." There is a value to a second case. I'm sure it seems to the involved parties like this is a rolling horror show that repeats every day, but just keep a cool head, keep vigilant, be polite, and abide by the ruling such as it is. Geogre 20:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes, before you lance a boil you have to let it fully form (so all the poison can be extracted). Just a thought. LessHeard vanU 20:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Extremely unfortunate choice of image, I'm afraid. I don't think the sores will look any better, and I don't think the people are the cankers. Geogre 02:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe they're hoping the editors will let bygones be bygones and work things out, with the understanding that a second arbitration would result in much harsher remedies. Durova^Charge! 20:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I should think so, but the participants have every reason to believe that it's going to happen again. I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping that they're wrong. If there really are masses of throw-away accounts being used, gaming of the policies, etc., then we'll have see it again. I hope not. (I think about the "my garden" rule. What you do in your yard, saying that your roses are beautiful, is fine, so long as you don't go into my garden to say that my roses are weeds. The problem is that the garden walls have shifted back and forth, and each gardener wants to claim the waste, and my metaphor just broke in half.) Geogre 02:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, it was better than the boil metaphor. That brought back memories of the contremps that led to a different arbitration case. Carcharoth 14:06, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Concerning Image:7674564574788.jpg

Hi! I'm an admin from Commons. Image:7674564574788.jpg was deleted on en: as a copyvio. The very same picture is now on Commons, where it's marked as PD-user-en, the author being a Richard Arthur Norton. I'd like to know what the original description was, and if possible what motivated the deletion here. Thanks in advance, Jastrow (Λέγετε) 18:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's the page history.

# 2005-07-03T05:21:20 . . Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (Talk | contribs | block)
# 2005-07-02T23:35:08 . . Chiacomo (Talk | contribs | block) (imagevio)
# 2005-01-02T02:19:26 . . Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (Talk | contribs | block) (The Portland Vase {{pd-user}})

According to the deleted history, the image is at http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/science/portland%20vase/sr-portland-p1.htm . — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict):The file here was claimed to be a copyvio of this. Also note, the uploader changed the license from PD-self to promotional. While the link is not a pixel for pixel copy, the view is the same to suggest that the source for both images is the same. Needless to say, based on the uploader's change of license, I believe it is safe to say that they do not own the copyright of the image (and since this is a sculpture, not a 2D piece of art, the PD-old rationale doesn't apply either). Therefore, I believe it is safe to delete the image from the commons. Hope this helps. I can provide more detail if necessary.-Andrew c ^[talk] 18:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Confirm, it was the original uploader here that changed the tag to {{promotional}}. GRBerry 20:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Can I nominate this image title as "one of the vaguest titles ever"? hbdragon88 03:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys for your help. I'll delete the picture on your evidence. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 07:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I prefer Image:3CABB5LJ4CAAW1OMQCAAX5I86CA74CLKECA3ATELDCA17QFLLCALHB0QJCARCNTBZCA9PMR5SCA16PX35CANC4ZUZCAJ3MJV3CA7ZWJVPCAJMMPXLCAZ030FLCAH3YVO4CA31AB2GCAE82AN8.jpg. Corvus cornix 17:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Having trouble with a stubborn vandal

User:Laughing Man clearly vandalizes here. I warn, and he removes the warnings persistently, then he accuses my of vandalizing his talk page. He won't accept the fact that he vandalized, please help. Cheers, JetLover ^(talk) 05:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

If he removes things from his talk page, that is just evidence that he has read them. If he continues to vandalize, post the relevant diffs here and he may be blocked. — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

What was pissing me off is that he was accusing me of vandalizing his talk page. Cheers, JetLover ^(talk) 05:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Your anger is fair, but don't let it distract you from writing an encyclopedia. Accusations of vandalism get thrown around. Let it roll off your back and move on.--Chaser - T 05:35, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

So, let him accuse. Laugh it off. Remember that this is one user; proceed with good practice. Geogre 12:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that he shouldn't have called your edits vandalism...but don't you think posting the warning 11 times, 9 times after he'd asked you to stop, was going a little bit overboard? --Onorem♠Dil 12:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3 editors 'tag teaming' to keep false charges againt me

[edit] Talk page blanking

Cuddlyable3 is blanking sections of talk pages against Refactoring talk page policy. They leave the blanked sections with the text WP:RPA. RPA is an essay which suggested that personal attacks should be removed from talk pages, however it isn’t and has never been policy but furthermore the content cuddlyable3 is removing isn’t personal attacks and I believe it is simply being used as an excuse. This has been pointed out around 10-15 times to the user. However, the user just continues and when a note is left on their user page warning about talk page vandalism they just remove it. Such as here: [10]. Administrator intervention would be great in this case otherwise this pathetically small but none the less incredibly aggravating issue is likely to have to go to arbitration if they will accept. Here is a typical cuddlyable3 RPA blanking: [11] Thanks for your time. WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 16:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Cuddlyable3 removes two sentences from Talk:Fuel_injection. They may, or may not, be an attack, but they don't add anything to the discussion. So you restore the material. Cuddlyable3 deletes it again and you revert within 10 minutes. Let's say that I wasn't surprised that Cuddlyable3 reverted you, albeit more than 3 hours later. All this, and dubious warnings too. It's past time for this to stop. Angus McLellan (Talk) 17:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Users may remove warnings from their talk pages per WP:TALK#User_talk_pages. It is taken to indicate that they have received the warning. Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 17:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

There are other reverts last month of more substaintail material. I suggest a more thorough read of the edit history of the user in question. Equally thats a breach of 3RR above. Even small sentences are fairly significant on the article as the general dispute was part of mediation and an ongoing dispute, so its removal is fairly important. In response to the second query I wasn't suggesting the user shouldn't remove warnings from their talk page but was rather trying to indicate the user isn't prepared to discuss the matter. We tried to go to mediation but the user backed out. I don't see why the warning was dubious in the slightest. Refactoring policy is fairly clear on this, that any material removed from a talk page should be reverted back if a user is not happy to have it removed. I'm a little dissapointed by the lack of a clear response in line with policy. WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 17:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The warning is dubious because, while an RPA may be inappropriate, it is not vandalism, and a vandalism warning for non-vandalism is inappropriate. And why edit-war to reinsert an inappropriate talk-page comment? What sort of clear response would you like? Diffs are still available to demonstrate what the original talk-page comments were. If there's a deletion of substantive talk-page comments, why did you show us a diff of a legitimate RPA? It's not immediately apparent that Cuddly is doing anything wrong other than being the other side of your edit-war. THF 18:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Note these are article talk pages, not user talk pages. Thatcher131 18:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Point taken about the diffs, although with regard to the RPA removals being vandalism we pointed out to him that in line with refactoring policy we didn't want any comments removed, irrelevant of the RPA non-policy essay, especially when its really questionable whether its even a personal attack and that further removals would be considered talk page vandalism if the user was unprepared to discuss the matter. The RPA essay itself seems to me to suggest the type of personal attacks to be removed should be more like racial insults, obvious slurs and such that are clearly a personal attack. Anyway, moving on this is a diff of a more substaintial removal, which was a shame as these [12] comments were quite central to the mediation on the article. This isn't really an edit war as I have stated on teh talk page that I am not prepared to make more than the reverts I have made now (2) today. If this method of resolving it fails then I suspect I and the other editors involved will try to take it to the arbitration comittee but it seems like such a pathetic thing to take that far, yet its incredibly irritating to have your comments removed, and persistantly removed after you've asked for them to be kept. Thanks WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 19:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Minor Update: It seems another user has found Cuddlyable3's RPA talk page removals to be vandalism and restored my original warning plus their own. WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 19:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Who is adding the uncivil "[sic]" to your talk-page comments? THF 19:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Cuddlyable3. This following edit was the user page vandalism which consists of some fairly heavy and abusive language in this edit plus the addition of [sic] tags, the talk page comments were also cuddlyable3, here are the diffs. I hope that answers your question if I understood it correctly? WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 19:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Stupid pointless crap. Final warning given. Thatcher131 19:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Thatcher131... this is a complete misuse of WP:RPA (which is only an essay); none of the text being removed is even close to a personal attack. If this was in the user talk space it would be one thing, but I don't think this needs to be tolerated in the article talkspace; it is disruptive edit warring over nothing.--Isotope23 ^talk 19:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the intervention guys. Believe it or not I think the user in question is usually well intentioned but just may be prone to getting carried away with it, i dont think this will take extreme punative measures, i'm sure they'll heed the warning and resume peacefull editing. As far as I can see this matter is now closed unless further erroneous RPA removals occur. Thanks for your time, sorry if I was not direct enough to begin with, I should have provided you with more suitable diffs. Apologies. WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 19:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree with .Isotope23, this is inapropriate use (intentional or otherwise) of WP:RPA in the article talkspace. Seems there is clear consensus that. --Hu12 20:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jeffrey O. Gustafson

This arbitration case has now closed, and the decision may be found at the link above. Jeffrey O. Gustafson's adminship is suspended for a period of 30 days. For the arbitration committee, David Mestel^(Talk) 21:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] George Clooney EL

Could some editors please add their comments to the discussion going on the George Clooney page? I have deleted Clooney Studio from the EL section for copyright violations (displaying pictures and videos without the copyright holders' permission), and they[24] continue to readd it. Wikipedia's policy states to delete any fansites that contain copyrighted material that doesn't belong to the webmaster. Clearly, this site does, and the webmaster even admits to it on the Talk page. There has been an ongoing discussion in regards to another fansite that was deleted as an external link on the grounds of copyright violatings, and this site fits the same bill. (68.45.69.184 21:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Minor edit war

Editors who seem to be strong proponents of the "real-world content" directive in WP:FICT keep reverting Battle of Yavin into a redirect, essentially deleting swathes of verifiable, if not necessarily notable, information. The article has been edited by good faith contributers for over two years now, and I think the least it deserves is a hearing at AfD. Ichormosquito 00:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proxy Puppets

A discussion has started at Wikipedia talk:Sock puppetry about the situation where a principal editors recruits another experienced editor, a proxy, to make edits on their behalf. A principal may try to do this if they have a conflict of interest or if they are concerned about public appearances. WP:MEAT focuses on new editors, not established editors. Is this sort of editing problematic, or should it be allowed? Please weigh in. We are looking for broad participation. - Jehochman ^Talk 01:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A user to keep an eye on

Could someone keep an eye on Paulie's World (talk · contribs)? He's been trolling DRV lately. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

One may see also this AN/I thread about the content of the same editor's user page and his expressed intent not to reply to messages. (This should not be taken as an expression of an opinion about any of the underlying issues; it simply seems to me that the issues raised at AN/I are not entirely irrelevant to this thread.) Joe 05:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing 2

This arbitration case has now closed and the decision may be found at the link above. Pigsonthewing's editing privileges are suspended for one year. For the arbitration committee, David Mestel^(Talk) 18:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

And once again, Mabbett shows his contempt for Wikipedia and its contributors: [13]. Andy's already been banned for a year by ArbCom, and here he is again banned for the exact same period. How long will we let this go on? Are we just going to keep going like this until we see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing 8 or higher? Heimstern Läufer (talk) 03:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Strike 1, strike 2? Maybe? --Haemo 04:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to think so, but in light of the ArbCom's unwillingness to ban for longer than a year (well, to be fair, they say they can't ban longer than this, but I've yet to see any source for this assertion), I'm hardly optimistic that strike three will mean he's out. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

There are editors who have contributed a lot, lot less excellent content than Andy, who have been far more ungracious and incivil, who we don't block for anywhere near this period of time. Neil ム 08:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, hypothetically speaking... strike 3 is simply someone getting an indefinite block from an admin that no other admin is willing to over-rule. Bear in mind that I'm speaking general theory here, not specifically to this situation as I've had only very limited contact with Andy and have no idea if anything he's done would actually warrant an indefinite block. Neil's point is valid; there are a few editors around here (and some sysops as well) that aren't exactly the model of civility, but they have extensive contributions to the project and they are still editing in spite of whatever conduct issues they may have.--Isotope23 ^talk 17:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I would think that there would have to be an admin willing to unblock at the end of that mandated one-year period; if not, it can probably be assumed that a community ban as pointed out by Isotope is in place until someone's willing to unblock. If the disruption is greater than the contributions, that would seem to be the best route to dealing with the problem. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

IIRC, the reason the ArbCom bans for a maximum of one year is due to a limitation in the software. At least that was the reason given when this issue was brought up in the past. I don't know if that is still the reason, or that the bug was fixed & the ArbCom either doesn't know or doesn't care. For the record, from what I've been told, there's never been a case of someone being disciplined by the ArbCom coming back & becoming a productive Wikipedian, so a one-year ban is practically identical to an indef ban. -- llywrch 19:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Is there any reason the community can't supplement the ArbCom ban with an indef community ban? WP:CSN, anyone? Durova^Charge! 18:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I've rather gotten the impression that there are admins willing to unblock, and if I'm right, community banning is obviously not going to work here. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 16:54, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

If he comes back and causes more trouble I'm sure the community will ban him. We might as well wait the year out. Moreschi ^Talk 16:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd certainly oppose a permanent ban as I've yet to see him in any long term/significant disagreement with users who weren't themselves being incivil, disruptive, and/or unreasonable. I've noted before that several of the people Andy was in conflict with eventually got lengthy blocks or permanent bans of their own for unrelated issues. Andy gets there faster because he edits more than most people, but the 'signal to noise ratio' of his contributions is seldom worse than those he is in conflict with, and often better. It'd be nice if everyone could resolve disputes in a relatively calm manner and without invective, but back here on planet Earth I see no reason to block only the most productive of those who don't. --CBD 14:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:SNOW

Someone has suggested an invocation of WP:SNOW on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dungeons & Dragons creatures. Before that happens, would someone please tell me: am I completely wrong about notability? I... just don't see it, and people seem to be arguing around it in a way that I've never seen in any other AfD. Sources "might be forthcoming"? Am I just out of my mind? --Eyrian 02:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I doubt the situation would be SNOW'd. It's pretty crufty, if you ask me. A SNOW AFD would be more along the lines of a speedily deletable article or an AFD on an obviously notable subject. bibliomaniac15 Prepare to be deleted! 02:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

No. People suggest Snow and Speedy keep all the time when they disagree with something strongly, and usually we don't do that anyway. A snowball keep would be more along the lines of "I nominate George Bush for deletion because I didn't vote for him", or something similarly silly. >Radiant< 08:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD needs attention

At this AfD, is it possible for an admin who speaks Polish to take a look at the notability of this person, or possibly flag it for attention from Polish Wikipedia? There are less than two days left before it can be closed proper. Graham Wellington has stated that there are articles (in Polish) that attest to the notability of this person, which he has not provided. He has also made a personal attack against me, alleging that I somehow "cherry-picked" the article for deletion and that I won't allow Polish articles on the subject, both which are far from the truth. He has, through this account and an anon (see the talk page of Simon Mol as well as the history of the AfD),been on a crusade to keep this article, on the surface because, he claims, Mol is a notable anti-apartheid journalist, author and poet. However, some SPAs have come forward with keep votes, in what I fear is a racially motivated attempt to make an "example" of Mol, a black man in Poland charged with infecting nearly 20 women with HIV. That seems to be the bulk of the article. Even the edit summary at the creation of the article: (article about a journalist, notable in Poland for spreading HIV), is suspect. A few more eyes are appreciated here. Thanks--Sethacus 02:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to link the AfD--Sethacus 02:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

You'll likely get a more informed response in Portal talk:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board. However, it is best I think just to leave a brief note informing participants of the existence of the AfD, and omit any editorializing. —David Eppstein 03:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The editorializing looks appropriate to me. If SPA's are fudging the vote, that's an administrative issue. If the debate is acrimonious, that's our issue, too. If it's an unverifiable (due to language barrier) article, then that strengthens the concerns over SPA's. The user is also concerned about being attacked by the article's defenders. Looks wholly appropriate as a report, to me, and it also looks like one of those issues where "verifiability" does not mean, "Well, if you could speak Serbo-Croat and had been in Romania on October 5, 1905, you could have verified because you would have believed that the broadsheet made by the exiled community was accurate." Someone needs to close the thing and possibly caution the overly zealous. (Seems like a news account or attack, WP:V aside.) Geogre 12:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I've made a mess

• I've made a mess of Talk:List of films noirs, which was the discussion page for List of film noirs (note difference in plural forms). I tried to make the move, but ended up with a circle of redirects without edit histories. Can you dig me out? --Dystopos 16:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dystopos, I don't think you need an admin (unless an admin already came by and fixed things, which I don't see evidence of in the logs). The full-history talk page is hiding at Talk:List of film noirs, while the article is at List of film noir. You can just move the article and talk page to wherever you want it, and redirect all other 3 possibilities. Or, post here where you want the ending plurals to be (if any), and I'll do it. --barneca (talk) 17:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be "films noir"? Natalie 17:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Natalie, if you go to the talk page, that has evidently been debated to death, multiple times, with arguments made in favor of all four possibilities. I'm still not clear on what the consensus is. Now that it has been brought up here, no doubt it will start up all over again. But since redirects are free, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. How about List of black films? :) --barneca (talk) 17:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought that the current consensus was was "film noirs", as explained in a usage note at Film noir. I think I got boogered up by starting from a redirect URL. Everything works now, but there's still a disconnect between the article's name and the name of the talk page. --Dystopos 18:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I fixed the last talk page redirect , but if you want to move the article to List of film noirs for consistency, you'll need to go to Wikipedia:Requested moves. There's a redirect there now, but it has a history of other edits, and I don't think we mere mortals can do it ourselves. --barneca (talk) 19:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppet

It looks like Todd Daring (talk · contribs) is a sockpuppet of indef-blocked User:Googler459, based on this revision and a general pattern of editing. I'm hinging on indef blocking him, but I'd like some external review first. --Haemo 02:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I reported the user to WP:AIV, but when I saw this, I removed the report. Pants^(T) 02:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocked indef, before I even saw this thread: he was vandalising and trolling. If anyone disagrees feel free to speak up. Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 02:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 72.68.1.110

Can someone decide the right thing to do about this IP address? At best he is the banned user in question using an IP address which is not of his primary computer, at worst, he is an IP address posing as a banned user whose identity he does not share. Thank you. Bobo. 03:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

What? Don't randomly make accusations.72.68.1.110 03:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, how is this IP posing as a banned user? Taking this edit summary at face value, he is just objecting to the fact that someone's user talk page edits were removed by another user. Okay, obviously it's very suspicious that some random IP should happen to stumble upon a banned user's comment and restore it, but at the moment this IP has not done much wrong. ugen64 03:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair play, ugen. Just a heads-up. Bobo. 03:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD nonsenSe

The entire set of procedures for Afds needs attention. It is too easy for an individual or groups of pals to attack and delete articles, for whatever reasons. Just look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Francis_Stronge . Nominated by a new user (I don't think) as a first edit, and a copycat of numerous other deletions supported by the same people a few months back. I refuse to get involved or vote because when I have done so in the past articles I created or made substantive contributions to were subsequently attacked. Is Wikipedia anarchic? Administrators need to show us it is not. David Lauder 19:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a democracy and so AfD isn't a pure vote. If you can raise some genuinely good reasons to keep the article (namely can prove why it meets noteability?) then I would have thought it would be kept, even if a large number of other editors disagree by forming a cabal of sorts. The thing with the article in question to me (though i'm not an administrator) seems to be the lack of much content and a large number of references. Infact there seem to be more references than sentences. I would think this information could be merged into other pages where relevant if its to be deleted. Don't feel though that you can't contribute to an AfD, like I said, I'm sure if you can present a genuinely good reason for it to stay it will be kept even if you are outnumbered by proponents of deletion. WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 19:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Possible WP:TROLL#Misuse_of_process ?--Hu12 19:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the last poster should at least explain himself. To WPProlific all I can say is that there are countless, possibly thousands, of pages of WP articles which fall into the categories he mentions. What, also, of stubs? Sometimes you can find numerous reference books which say much the same thing about an individual. Must there be umpteen pages to prove he is notable? I have come across many people whose notability can be easily slotted into one paragraph. My complaint is essentially about the abuse of process for AfDs. I have had no input (I don't think) to that article so I am a neutral party.David Lauder 20:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I'd call this abuse of process. Look, it was nominated by an extremely new editor and multiple established editors have opined keep. I'd honestly be quite surprised if this got deleted. If new accounts are being created to AFD a series of articles then that needs to be dealt with as an editor issue... but I don't see anything particularly "broken" with AFD as a process. It isn't perfect but it tends to (for the most part) get it right from what I've seen. David, can you point to some AFDs where you feel something was wrongfully deleted when it should be?--Isotope23 ^talk 20:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I nominated this article for deletion, as a result of this the article has been improved although "multiple established editors" have still questioned whether the subject meets the inclusion criteria. If nominations produce such a dramatic improvement in article quality they should be encouraged IMHO. Stramash 21:06, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm aware of Stramash's identity and hereby confirm that s/he has in no way violated any policy. Nor has the user "continually", or even frequently, nominated any articles for AFD, which is the AFD-related example WP:TROLL#Misuse_of_process gives. And anybody can see from the AFD discussion of Francis_Stronge, that that article is not obviously encyclopedic. Hu12 is advised not to post potentially baseless accusations on this board or anywhere else. Adding the word "possible" doesn't make that all right. Bishonen | talk 21:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC).

Note the ? after possible in my comment, Bishonen? I'll assume you had not and your statement was in error. However, if it were an accusation, it would hardly be a baseless one to make. Its apparent this account was created as an WP:SPA for the purpose of deleteing Francis Stronge and has a rather agressive tone in his/her comments towards those who oppose it's deletion^[14][15][16]), so having a discussion on weather this is a possible WP:TROLL#Misuse_of_process, or to question weather this is a "Good hand" or "bad hand" account is perfectly appropriate on WP:AN. As for the AFD, it may not have been a "continual" nomination, but its clear the article Francis Stronge meets the inclusion criteria, which is in no way trivial. Even if this AFD deletion was only based on knighthood, An individual has to notable to be knighted in the first place. Although we are talking about an individual who lived long ago,(1856-1924), the article clearly asserts all the notable diplomatic achievements Francis Stronge has achieved. Google results^[17][18] show this also.--Hu12 23:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Read this please - British honours system#Knighthood. "Regular recipients include High Court judges and senior civil servants" (emphasis added by me), a fact recognised by more than one person commenting in the debate. No part of WP:BIO says Knights are notable, or civil servants. When nominated the article was in this state, it was a three sentence phone book entry. It is not clear at all the article meets the inclusion criteria, in fact not one person has been able to say which part of WP:BIO the article meets. That's the important piece of evidence you keep overlooking. And also you claim I have an aggressive manner?

• this AfD nomination is one of less than ten edits by this user!. Not relevant, the debate is about the article not the nominator. Smokescreen designed to poison the deletion debate, and it worked.
• On the basis of a possible WP:POINT. Nominating phone book entries with disputed notability is WP:POINT?! Not relevant, the debate is about the article not the nominator.
• Bad faith nomination. If one person can honestly say nominating a three sentence stub about a civil servant is "bad faith" they deserve whacking with a wet trout.
• Keep on the assumption that a) this is WP:POINT. The smokescreen worked, attack the motives of the nominator, and other people assume what you're saying is true.

So you've got four people who have attacked the nominator, but I don't see you saying a word in their direction. Why is that? Stramash 00:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the discussion here has largely ignored the context to this dispute; the context is a long-running, frewheeling dispute between a few Briish editors and a few Irish ones, both engaged in partisan POV-pushing. On one side, we have some editors who are associated with WikiProject Irish Republicanism, and on the other side we have editors associated with WikiProject Baronetcies. Neither group appears to be acting on behalf of these wikiprojects, but both sides seem to assume that the other project exists only to cause offence to them :(

The British editors targetted for deletion a series of IRA-related articles, and engaged in long-running efforts to insert non-neutral language into Northern Ireland related article (see, for example, the efforts to use loaded terms like "murdered" rather than "killed" or "shot" wrt to Norman Stronge). Much heated argument has been written over dozens of talk pages, user pages, and AfDs, and the Irish editors have for some time been targetting for deletion biographical articles relating to holders of British titles.

I don't know Stramash is, but it's very surprisng that an editor's first contrbution should be to stoke this tedious dispute by weighing in with an AfD, particularly when a reumption of the eletion campaign was promised only a few days ago by an editor who is now blocked.

The situation with this article was very simple. A very short article on a titled British diplomat, with no clear assertion of notability. The relevant issue was whether the diplomatic role was notable (and above all whether more info was notable), but instead there was a sterile debate on Talk:Francis Stronge, largely about a rejected set of proposed guidelines, and an equally inane effort to compare a senior diplomat with a functionary in a job centre.

It's time that these two sides were prised apart, and disptached off to work on improving articles rather than maintaining these Anglo-Irish battle. And it's very surprising that resumption of this tedious editors-war is the first edit of a new user. Whilst assuming good faith, I think it's reasonable to ask User:Stamash just why their first edit is designed to reopen a conflict. If their concern was to improve the article, why not ask a question or two on the talk page rather than going straight to AfD? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

If it were appropriate to complain that a person has been the subject of complaint, then we should quickly see that the "other side" here has such ignominy, too. In other words, the issue is content and interpretation of the deletion guideline that is out of step with the community (David Lauder and "Hu12"), where they seem to believe that borderline A1 speedy deletes are acceptable, if not vital, if they mention a "sir" or "dame," and Stramash who is going through and nominating these beasts for deletion. The garnish of "he's out to get me" is scattered chaff. Geogre 12:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

That's on way of looking at it. But nonetheless, there is a systematic process underway of targetting for deletion biographical articles which relate to titled people, predominantly run by a group of editors with long histories of POV hostility to the subjcts of these articles. Some of the articles concerned are very weak, but many have room for improvement. The problem here is that instead of querying notability, or tagging the articles for improvemnt (e.g, with a stub tag), we have a bunch of editors who show no interest in improving these articles, but great enthusiasm for deleting them. WP:POINT has a lot to say on that subject.

The pointiness of these AfDs is somewhat obscured by the tedious insistence of sone ditors that posession of a British title makes somone notable; that disruptive old chestnut shouldn't distract us from the existence of a concerted effort to misuse AfD to promote a political agenda opoosite to that of the all-titled-peopl-are-notable lobby. AfD should not be used as a battlefield in an ideological dispute. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course AfD isn't a battleground, but, if the articles fail the deletion guideline, they should be there, whether the nominator is a chum or a chud. If we try to stop or start AfD's on the politics, even wiki-politics, of the nominators, we're going to have more conflict rather than less. I might well be "against hobbyists," and I could go around looking for all the tiny articles on collectible action figures. Would that be germane?

In other words, the AfD should determine the matter. Yes, some people put tags on shabby articles. Some nominate them for deletion. Some just delete them (if admins), but all of these are acceptable if the articles warrant it. In other words, we're back, again, at the content issue. I really have never accepted the premise that nomination to AfD is an attack. If the articles are clear keeps, then the nominators can be disruptive. If they're near misses, then not. Geogre 20:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't entirely share your faith in the purity of the AFD process. It mostly works rather well, but is capable of manipulation: in the course of the battles between a small set of Irish editors and a small set of British editors, there have been far too many demonstrable incidents of misbehaviour such as the use sockpuppets; disentangling all that takes a lot of energy on the part of edits who would be much more usefully engaged in writing articles rather than going theough endless arguments over guidelines and identifying SPAs, sockpuppets, etc. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I suspect we're talking about two separate phenomena. First, user:Kittybrewster created a tremendous number of articles on exceptionally minor figures who appear to be all part of a single family. This went on for a long time. When the user was forbidden from working on his own family by a topic ban, that left us with still a great deal of cleaning up to do. user:David Lauder was an advocate of keeping the minor figures. This conflict and resolution shone a spotlight on the contributions and the subject of minor, very minor, knights and the like. Generally we remain as we have been: the figure needs to have done something, not been given a particular nomenclature. Encyclopedic inclusion is based on the actions and life of the individual. While we might well assume that anyone elevated did something to get there, the article is only appropriate if it tells this story. Essentially, this is not a novel position.

However, during the hashing out of that position, and certainly forever on AfD, some people have advocated the position that an article should exist if it's topic is potentially permissible. That, to me and many, is out of line. It would result in dumping a lexicon into Wikipedia to create "articles" at every name. An article is not a file name, and an article is not a topic.

Among those who have been trying to "clean up" the tiny articles have been some people who are British, some who have lofty positions, some who are American, some who are youngsters, etc. In other words, the real life qualifications of the people doing the cleaning vary. If some Irish editors with a beef are also engaged, that's a separate issue from this matter of nomination for AfD. If they are harassing and belittling the peerage project people, that's something that should stop. If they are merely joining in the wider project of giving a hard look to the minor peers, we can't conclude that it's Battlefield by itself, because a bunch of folks who have no real life animosity to titles or England or Scotland or any other involved part are also engaged in the same activity.

By all means, let's stop any harassment. However, this particular action doesn't look like it to me. Geogre 13:45, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:BJAODN MFD closure

It was determined by the closing administrator, User:Mailer diablo, that the MFD conclude with the following:

The result of the debate was to delete the subpages with no prejudice on BJAODN's future or restart; the BJAODN main page itself should not be touched. There is consensus from editors that the BJAODN pages present possible problems of copyright, BLP and GFDL; even those who advocate keep on cultural/historical/humour grounds (which are valid arguments) have acknowledged these issues. If a judgment on the future of BJAODN as a concept is determined now, we are going to play ping-pong between deletion review and MfD. Even if we restart BJAODN, at least if it ever returns to MfD there should be much less problems because editors would now aggressively monitor its contents for policy violations. Discussion for BJAODN's future begins here. For transparency the pages that were deleted they should be listed properly on the main page or subpage. (I learn this from WP:ESP the hard way) Whether the community chooses to restart BJAODN or not, a history of it up to now on its main page is strongly recommended. - Mailer Diablo 13:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I went to the BJAODN main page and it appeared that only two sub-pages:

• Wikipedia:More Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense
• Wikipedia:Even more Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense

have been deleted. I went to check the logs of the deletion and the last deletion/undeletion was User:Xaosflux restoring them a few days ago. Are they being oversighted? And if those two are oversighted, then why has the other 60+ sub-pages been left untouched? — Moe ε 15:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure Mailer diablo is actually closing the discussion. It looks like a "draft"... — Scientizzle 15:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Yep...that's it. It's a draft of a closure.[19]. — Scientizzle 15:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It appears your right, but I still can't make heads or tails of the two sub-pages above. — Moe ε 15:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

As consensus stands on that discussion, I would close it as a delete. Neil ム 21:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I would close it as a "delete subpages, keep main page and mark it historical". There's way too many WP:ILIKEIT and WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS in there. >Radiant< 11:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• I would close it as Delete current, allow GFDL compliant recreation, the keep votes are mostly just vote because they like it and do not address the issues. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• But it really does need to be closed. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possibly needing oversight

A user has their birthdate on their userpage, showing that they are under 18... they also provide other personal details, though none as identifying as the birthdate. Should this be reported to the oversight mailing list? It doesn't qualify for oversight, since it is self-disclosure, but I'm apprehensive about posting the link publicly. Concerned admins are welcome to e-mail me for the userpage in question. BigNate37_(T) 17:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't bother. Just do the delete-restore thing if it's a major concern. I generally ask for oversight if it's something like addresses and phone numbers of minors. Birthdates are relatively common on userpages - Alison ☺ 17:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

An option is to contact the user concerend, explain to them the dangers of displaying such material online without full consideration of the possible consequences (e.g. identity theft). Then ask them if they would like to oversight it now the dangers have been pointed out to them or alternatively if they are happy to just delete and leave it be then let them do that? Ultimately net safety is principaly an individuals concern, even a minor. WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 19:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Err, maybe you could tell that to the loads of users (including myself) who have a template transcluded on their userpage that requires you to enter your birthdate... ugen64 03:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

If you are actually enquiring as to the possibility of informing everyone with that template of the dangers of revealing their birth date then it could be done fairly quickly and easily with either an automated AWB run leaving a precaution message on a users talk page or a manual edit. However as Alison pointed out it seems that policy allows this under self-disclosure, but I would recommend to you (as I wound to anyone, not just a minor) that a birthdate is an extremely important piece of information to know about someone as its often used as a security question/verification so its not unwise to keep it private. WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 11:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Found this link

This was written by JzG, who is presently on indefinite wikibreak. Frankly, the guy has a point. (1) we are almost infinitely tolerant towards grudge-bearers and people who pick an enemy and keep hounding him forever, and (2) our only effective mechanism against POV zealots, the ArbCom, takes literally forever to reach a conclusion. These are both needless causes of endless wikistress, and are both things that we admins can do something about. I would be happy to hear suggestions. >Radiant< 13:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess it is a question of finding the right balance. In a community as diverse as Wikipedia, you are never going to satisfy everyone. A crack-down on trolls and POV-pushers could lead to more drama than it saves, and it could lead to injustices. On the other hand, it could reduce drama and make the editing environment more pleasant. Whatever is done, please draw a distinction between the harmonoius, productive areas of the encyclopedia, and the festering hotspots of controversy and (frankly) battles and outright wars. In addition to this are the completely dead areas that no-one ever visits - or hardly anyone. If anyone feels under stress due to on-wiki issues, either take a break, or find someone to talk to about the issues. If there are off-wiki stresses, just take a break. I took a long break from category work, because it is difficult to make changes stick, even when you take the time to explain them. With article work, good references usually makes a piece of text stick. Policy and guideline work is also hard to make stick, or even to muster enough momentum for any change whatsoever. Admin work, I can't say, but maybe the admins here can say which parts cause them most stress. Carcharoth 14:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with much of what JzG writes (though I'm less bothered by violations of WP:NOT#INFO than JzG is, as I find some of those guideline violations the most useful and accurate parts of Wikipedia--Wikipedia is a much better almanac than it is an encyclopedia, and I will be sad when admins get around to deleting those pages). But my personal experience is that JzG is a grudge-bearer against me, leaving hit-and-run comments bad-mouthing me in a couple of instances where I had disputes with other users where I was eventually vindicated. I wish we were quicker to block edit-warring kooks pushing chiropracty and 9/11 conspiracy theories and their pet guru, but, then, there are people who are quite happy to classify me as a kook. THF 14:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

What JzG wrote was also pointed out by others, and I'd like to number myself among them, and the solution that worked its way to the fore was the Community Noticeboard. It's not my favorite thing, not a thing I'm wholly comfortable with, but it is the faster form of community defense. I fear its use as gang warfare, but that's another matter. Geogre 14:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I too am not quite so bothered by WP:NOT#INFO; if someone wants to write 10000+ words about Pokemon and can source it as verifiable and notable, then all I can say is "meh". I'm not here to judge what other people use the encyclopedia to look up; we have policies and guidelines about this and frankly Wikipedia would appear to reflect modern human culture, which obviously cares more about Bowser than Robert Hooke. Tabloidism is annoying, but that really can be dealt with by common sense application of our existing guidelines and policies. Where Guy is spot on though is in his assessment of Wikipedia's failures dealing with POV warriors, fringe theorists, and grudge bearers. I would go beyond what THF (talk · contribs) said above and say it isn't just the kooks pushing Chiropractic, 9/11 conspiracies, and gurus... that can usually be dealt with by reasonable editors and sysops applying WP:NPOV, WP:RS, & WP:V. The problem is when you get the kooks pushing 9/11 conspiracies fighting with the kooks pushing an anti-9/11 conspiracies agenda and engaging in all sorts of disruptive gaming of WP:3RR, fishing to get their opponents blocked or banned at WP:ANI and WP:CN, and generally wikilawyering, editing tendentiously, and selectively wielding policy as a cudgel to beat down all who oppose them. This is where it starts to get frustrating from a sysop standpoint. I've seen several of these sorts of situations happen; in fact part of the reason I've curtailed my time here for a while is because I've been watching two situations in progress that are going to eventually end up at ARBCOM and I'm simply tired of dealing with the involved editors' bullshit. A substantial number of the parties involved are simply here to push an agenda and I have a hard time seeing how Wikipedia is a better encyclopedia with them editing.--Isotope23 ^talk 17:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I have a half baked thought about a way to help the problem areas, but it doesn't fit within the current NPOV and OR standards. It would be for a controverisal topic to have maybe a category or control page and places for people to put essays on the topic. Obviously the better sourced, better written essays will come to the fore, but it gives a place the reader to understand the variety of viewpoints out there better than a single article that's trying to be neutral. Then, for example the whole allegations of apartied thing would have been headed off by a series of essays discussing the actions of the various groups on either side that led to (in the case of Israel) some allegations that seem to have some merit. --Rocksanddirt 16:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

My idea to combat POV pushers would be put remedies such as probation, revert parole, and article probation (with a six-month time limit) at the discretion of admins. If 4 admins all agree that these measures should be applied, they are if no other admin objects within 24 hours. Moreschi ^Talk 16:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I like JzG, and though I've had less firsthand interaction with MONGO I see the pattern. I can think of a couple of others but won't name them because Guy doesn't. The trolls are going to work on me now: this happens with sysops who consistently take on the hard cases. (Don't worry; I'm thick skinned and good humored). If more pitched in to spread the work around this effect would dilute itself and become less of a concern. For nearly a year now I've been working toward the goal of fair, streamlined, and equitable community-based sanctions. This is not an easy balance to achive. The disruptive editing guideline, community enforceable mediation, and the community sanctions noticeboard are outgrowths of this effort. I understand that some of these are controversial. Community sanctions isn't a fun area to volunteer: a lot of people turn up only when they have a specific problem they want to solve. I urge more volunteers to make a long term commitment to the area. ArbCom was already running full steam two years ago when I became a Wikipedian. The site had 800,000 articles then and as many registered accounts. Now it has 5 million accounts and 2 million articles - somehow the site must address the increased need to deal with problem individuals who burrow into some topic and insist the moon is made of green cheese until external forces uproot them. Durova^Charge! 16:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

BTW I agree with Moreschi that community-based sanctions can and should encompass more than just sitebans and topic bans. A broader and more flexible approach may reduce the need for banning. Durova^Charge! 16:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

There's a current CSN thread on banning a user from one article. Regardless of the merits of that particular case, some more of this is what we need. Ultimately, less people would get blocked/banned. Moreschi ^Talk 17:55, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

There have been trolls who, outside their main sphere of interest, channelled their activities in such a way as to make the appearance of being helpful to the project in general. A topical ban invites the problematic editor to diversify his activities in the project, which makes the problem even more acute. Perhaps they should be banned from mainspace altogether, but allowed to continue their activity in talkspace, which in many cases is not as harmful. Anyway, this is a sensitive issue and one full of pitfalls. --Ghirla^-трёп- 11:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Durova brings up a good point. More admins involved in content dispute resolution at the article end would keep the few who like controverial topics from taking all the heat and work. I don't know how to encourage this as there is unpleasantness aplenty on some of those topics. --Rocksanddirt 18:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Durova brings up some excellent points. I just put community sanctions noticeboard on my watchlist and pledge to help out there when I can. --Alabamaboy 19:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

In many cases the Arbcom should not have to act, IMO; we should be here for the hard cases only, not for things that should be dealt with by the community & individual administrators. The arbcom could certainly be faster, but ways of fixing obvious problems before they get to us also need to be improved, IMO. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 06:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• That is a good point (and I like Moreschi's suggestion). Admins have the authority to block a blatant vandal for a week; since a topical ban is way less stringent than a full block, it does not seem unreasonable for an admin to impose a topical ban for awhile if a user is a disruptive influence there (assuming the admin is neutral and all that). We should do this more often. >Radiant< 08:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

  A topical ban is supposed to be effective in dealing with one-purpose accounts (such as the Tartu-based crowd), but it would also encourage extremist editors, once banned from their favourite topic, to switch their attention to other fields, which may be either beneficial or detrimental to the project. Their activities after the topical ban may be viewed as a litmus test for their core intentions. --Ghirla^-трёп- 11:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

  • I've found topic bans to be more effective with editors who can be productive some areas but have one hot button. The key factor we need to anticipate is scalability. If only a handful of people know that an editor is topic banned, and if there's no easy way to pull up a diff or a thread as evidence of the topic ban, then the ban itself becomes very porous. In order for community to shoulder these responsibilities in any significant volume we need a central archive to reference where community sanctions exist, how long they last, and how far they extend (as in whether the topic banned editor can still post to talk pages). In the long run I anticipate community-based remedies extending to 2RR, 1RR, civility paroles, and article paroles. It would be a lot less cumbersome than full arbitration for the simpler cases and if we get it right it could resolve some problems with a lot less frustration on all sides. Durova^Charge! 00:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

    • I guess if it the main obstacle to the topical bans I (or any bot-writer) could write a bot that would monitor contributions of users on the topical bans and raise an alarm if they edit a banned article.Then any admin can check if it was reversion of a simple vandalism and if not they could act accordingly (I guess it could be made by modifying the wikimedia software itself, but I am not familiar with its internals). Do you think such a bot would be helpful? How many topical bans we currently have in place? Alex Bakharev 02:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

      BTW I find Ghirla's idea of the namespace bans to be excellent. Many devoted wikipedians who are unfortunately are stubborn revert warriors could be saved form the total ban if we could only ban then from the article space (but not from the article talks). Similarly compulsory copyright violators could be sparred if banned from the image space. A bot could assist in implementing such a ban, although enhancing wikimedia software would be better Alex Bakharev 02:45, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Many experienced editors, after leaving, write essays about what is wrong with Wikipedia. We should read the essays, find out what the biggest problems are, and discuss how to solve them. See Wikipedia:Reform. --Kaypoh 02:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

That introduces a systamatic bias into the works... who quits and writes an essay if they are happy? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to here Radiant. There is a simple way to be "Rouge-Admin JollyRoger" and fair at the same time. WP:SPA should be taken seriously. It should be a guideline at the least minimum so SPA accounts who are NOT POV warriors can still edit. Unfortunately, it is just a mini-essay for the time being. The problem is that you get into SPA and and blatant SOCK/MEAT and still admins cannot block because we admins got no proof and there would be some people who would tell you you are fishing. Ummmm, Well, if SPA accounts can trick Wikipedia Admins then everyone would do just like Guy. Just prepare your "Me and Wikipedia II".

Let's get the facts straight. Recently, there has been an exponential increase of incidents reported at this board related to SPAs. In hundreds of cases, incidents' reporters against POV pushers are being told here that it is a conflict dispute and are shown the way to the infamous and mysterious next room at left. Nonsense. It is like if the next week POV warriors would get to a deal or consensus. I tell them the same thing myself (i.e. next door at left/right) because the stupid WP:SPA is just an essay! Is there any serious measures? I'd heartedly support Moreschi and Durova ideas as i've always supported Guy's ideals. But when and where i don't know for now. What i know is that it is time to deal w/ SPA seriously instead of wasting our time voting at WP:BJAODN. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 22:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 9/11 conspiracy theories lag conspiracy

Am I the only one suddenly unable to load diffs on this page? I have a fast connection (10mbps), and my user talk page is bigger, anyway. El_C 13:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I expect it is. Your user talk page is a disgrace! Bishonen | talk 18:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC).

That's the case for me too. Tom Harrison ^Talk 13:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I rollbacked it, just to be sure, but I'm still wondering what it was and what the case for lag was. Maybe a developer should look into it. El_C 13:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm stepping through the diffs with diffonly=1. I get an error whenever I save, and the page does not load, but the edit does seem to go through. Tom Harrison ^Talk 13:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unclosed TFDs

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 March 28 has a few unclosed discussions, including one (NJDOT) that will probably be deleted. --NE2 20:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

March 28...it might be good to relist the ones that haven't been closed. --Coredesat 22:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attack page

Somebody want to remove this page, which has been edited by a number of anon accounts today? Corvus cornix 23:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Done ElinorD (talk) 23:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I've deleted it four times now. I vaguely know how to add a page to a list of protected titles, but it would take time to look it up and figure it out. Perhaps someone more experienced could add it? ElinorD (talk) 00:06, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Salted. IrishGuy ^talk 00:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jmfangio-Chrisjnelson opened

An Arbitration case, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jmfangio-Chrisjnelson, has been opened. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jmfangio-Chrisjnelson/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jmfangio-Chrisjnelson/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Daniel 00:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] XxTrillvillexX9

Can somebody look through this user's non-deleted image uploads and take care of them? He claims to have taken at least one himself. --NE2 09:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I checked his imagespace contributions, this is what I found:

• 1 unknown
• 2 Orphaned and only 1 x 1 pixel
• 3 possibly copyvio
• 4 unknown
• 5 unknown
• 6 unknown
• 7 unknown
• 8 possibly copyvio unlicensed and style is very different to users other uploads
• 9 almost certainly copyvio
• 10 again almost certainly copyvio

Unknown might be or might not be copyvio, in my opinion most probably are but its hard to prove either way. Google searching might produce the answer. I havent done anything about these but hopefully it will save an admin some time processing it all.WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 11:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The ones that were obvious copyvios, I deleted under G12. The ones that look like web graphics (small resolution, but professional quality) I, among others, removed the previous license tag and tagged as unlicensed or some similar image use problem. While we are on the topic of users that cannot be trusted to properly license images, would other editors care to look through User:Sean-Jin's [20] I found some of this user's uploads to be copyrighted images but improperly claiming them as their own. -Andrew c ^[talk] 14:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Nasirkashmiri

I noticed this user, when I reverted a typical newbie inclusion of a NN neologism, but when I looked at his edit history (Special:Contributions/Nasirkashmiri) I thought his first two edits were most un-newbie-ish and made me somewhat suspicious. As I'll be off-wiki for much of the next few days, I wonder if some other admins could keep an eye on this user's edits. --Dweller 12:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin but I have the user watched now, doesnt seem worth the trouble of bothering an admin about it just yet. But I'll report here if anything odd happens. Its possible the two NN neologism inclusions were semi-accidental, I guess its hard to say how experienced a new editor is as they may have been lurking around as an IP editor for years. WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 13:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, it's the 3rd and 4th that bothered me, not the first two. My mistake. And, erm, I'm an admin and I'm bothered, lol! Point taken re IPs. --Dweller 13:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Error trying to delete pages

Anybody else receiving an error when trying to delete articles? I've been trying to delete Dillhole but receive the error message "Database error - A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "Article::doDeleteArticle". MySQL returned error "1054: Unknown column 'ar_page' in 'field list' (10.0.0.237)"." Can't delete anything... - auburnpilot talk 15:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I managed to delete it just fine. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 15:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm able to delete images just fine. Hopefully it's just a temporary issue. - auburnpilot talk 15:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

This was due to a database error: The name of a column was changed, then we updated the software, but there was a problem so we had to go back to an old version that didn't know that the column name was changed. Should be fixed. --ST47Talk·Desk 16:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oscar lara

This article about this non-notable teenager has been deleted and recreated four times. Could someone please salt it? Corvus cornix 18:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Sancho 18:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My userpage history

Hi, I've decided after advice on the Simple English Wikipedia that I should remove my year of birth and location from my userpage. I have done on Simple, and had the edit history removed by selected restoration. Would you be able to do that to my userpage on EN, just leaving the most recent edit on the page history? Thanks Jordanhatch 18:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll take care of it. --Eyrian 18:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reverting edits of blocked user?

Is it appropriate to revert edits made by a sockpuppet of a blocked user? Sancho 17:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

• Yes... but you only really need to do so if they were actually bad edits. --W.marsh 17:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
• If it's just a sockpuppet of a blocked user, it's fine to leave it alone, as long as it did no harm to the project. A sockpuppet of a banned editor, should be reverted without prejudice, it can be reverted back if it was a decent edit. Should you be reverting edits by a sockpuppet willy nilly? No. — Moe ε 17:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Okay, I did revert a few... they reverted back. I'll leave them be and just deal straight up with the sockpuppetry issue. (and it was just a blocked user, not a banned user). Thanks! Sancho 18:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Is the person reverting you a sockpuppet of the blocked user? In some cases, they are. Daniel 01:39, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attack sites-related proposal

A proposal to clarify existing policy related to attack sites is at Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks#External links. Please comment. --Iamunknown 18:48, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted Page

Would an admin please email me the contents of this deleted page. Its for a new, certified RfC, and the material was difficult to document, and I would not enjoy replicating it again. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 18:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/List of Republics

This arbitration case has now closed and the decision may be found at the link above. WHEELER is banned for one year. For the arbitration committee, David Mestel^(Talk) 21:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:!/doc

Template:!/doc just got vandalized, I caught it in Recent changes. This is a template which is transcluded onto Template:!, which is used all over the place and is protected. Template:!/doc should also be protected. Corvus cornix 23:45, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

As a "template guy", I'm not sure about this. One of the ideas behind having template documentation on a separate page is so that the documentation need not be protected. Any high visibility that the documentation does have is indirect, and in my opinion, the ability of a non-admin to improve the documentation outweighs the risk of vandalism. Gracenotes^T § 23:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandalizing the doc page will only cause the template page itself to look bad, not the pages where the template is used. So the documentation is a low risk page. These doc pages save a huge amount of frustration and editprotected requests by letting people edit the documentation (including interwikis and categories) without admin help. Please don't protect the doc pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. The point of having /doc pages is to not protect them, so that the documentation for HRT templates can be edited by non-administrators. If the vandalism is consistent, a semi-protect may be in order, though. Daniel 01:38, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User indoctrinating new users

User: Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles appears to be welcoming new users with overtly factionalist doctrines. See here and many others in contributions. This has persisted, though perhaps in a more subdued form, even after being warned. --Eyrian 19:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I have revised the welcome message and asked Secretlondon if the revised version is acceptable. I am awaiting his reply. Also, I hope that you are not just targetting me because of our disagreements over the popular culture articles, which other editors seem to be taking issue with as well as seen on your talk page: here, here, here, here, here, and here. In any case, I have asked Chaser, the admin who adopted me as well a Durova, the admin who had previously blocked and then unblocked me for their input as well. If Secretlondon, Chaser, and Durova have any additional insights into my welcome message, I would be happy to revise it further. I thought it would be nice to contribute to Wikipedia by adding some diversity in the welcome message and the items that I listed cover a variety of aspects that I have founded incredibly useful in my experience so far. It is absolutely not "indoctrination" and although I'd like to assume good faith, I can't help but fear that your reasoning here stems from our disagreements over popular content stuff (again, something others are challenging you as well). Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 19:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Why not just stick to the templated welcome to wikipedia messages? they are universally accepted (to avoid this kind of discussion) and in my opinion better for new editors. Seems like an odd selection of articles and things to say to me but thats just my opinion. WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 20:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm willing to do that; I just thought adding a little variety would be nice. Thanks for the feedback. --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 20:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. 18 months after landing here, I still think very little beats subst:welcome, although I'll often manually type a note to the user between the }} and the tildes (as I am normally welcoming someone I've come into through their positive contribution on an article on my watchlist). Orderinchaos 13:16, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

While I fully support adding variety and not just using the standard template, a lot of the things in your message aren't really applicable to new users. For example, why would a new user by interested in an essay about deletion policy? They need to learn what deletion policy is before they start worrying about changing it. And your comments about words to avoid in discussions needs far more explanation if it's going to remain, as it stands it will just confuse new users. --Tango 20:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. I think your suggestion regarding the criticism of AfDs article is reasonable and I have removed it from my template. Regarding the other articles, here is my logic:

• User:Cream147/essays/Why is it important to cite our sources on Wikipedia? - suggestions that will save all the time from having to up reference request tags
• User:Durova/The dark side - helpful for any editor, espcially new ones, so they don't get themselves in trouble right off the bat
• User:Fresheneesz/Don't Destroy - encouages editors to work to improve articles first
• Wikipedia:Article development - good ideas for starting articles
• Wikipedia:Civility - a cornerstone of the project
• Wikipedia:Don't always assume sockpuppetry - along with civility, this guideline will save people from getting into disputes right away
• Wikipedia:Give an article a chance - similar to Fresheneesz's suggestions
• Wikipedia:How to edit a page - good ideas on how to get started editing
• Wikipedia:Ignore all rules - a fun way to make people feel welcome
• Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers - a helpful guidelines for anyone getting started
• Wikipedia:What Isn't Grounds for Article Deletion - kind of an introduction to anyone wanting to start afds

Regarding "very," style guides caution against use of this word:

"Use this word sparingly. Where emphasis is necessary, use words strong in themselves." -William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition (New York: Allyn & Bacon, 2000), 63.

"Rather, very, little, pretty--these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one, and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then." -William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition (New York: Allyn & Bacon, 2000), 73.

With cruft and indiscrimate, I recall reading a post somewhere by editors about how these words are tossed around too much. I apologize for not having the diff on hand. I hope that helps and thanks again for the constructive feedback. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 21:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• I think some of the additional links would be confusing for new editors, particularly as they are not agreed Wikipeda policy or guideline, and are instead userspace essays; you would be better sticking to the standard templates. Neil ム 21:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Because you say "some," which ones do you think would be useful? Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 21:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I find the ones in {{welcome}} work well. Hint hint. Neil ム 21:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Same with Proto, and also with cruft and indiscrimate, why you didn't add words like it's useful and i like it, it's just as worse, we don't need n00bs to go directly to the AFD drama. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 21:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Here is the diff that sounds reasonable regarding the beating to death, overuse of "indiscriminate." Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 21:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

My main concern with the links is in introducing new editors to non-policy essays. Just a few entries above here we had a fairly irritating issue where a user presumably misunderstood WP:RPA as policy when it was actually a rejected essay, this is just one of many misunderstandings. I think for new editors its best that they (in order) 1.) Learn how to make changes to the encylopedia. 2.)Learn the policies behind the changes they are making 3.) Learn the policies and methods for more extravagant editing such as AfDs, IfDs, 4.) they are introduced to the dispute resolution system of Arbcom, RfC etc. 5.) they start to think for themselves about future policy and essays. I'd hate to think our policies are influenced by new editors who only found them because it was shoved right in front of them unessessarily. If they can't find the essay/proposal without coming across it themselves then they shouldn't be contributing, this puts them in a position where this is compromised. Again this is all just my thoughts, please don't take an offense. WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 21:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

What if I separated the policies from the essays and said something like, "here are some essays that I have personally found usefly; however, please keep in mind that they are not policies" as a means of making the welcome feel more like a friend introducing themselves in a gentle manner? Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 21:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Please bear in mind you have found them useful, but you are not a new editor. Additionally, I don't like the thought of pointing new editor towards any kind of opinion pieces - every new editor will be approaching things from a different perspective. We have literally thousands of essays in userspace - how can we select which ones would be best? Far better to keep the welcome messages to the simple, the straightforward, and the necessary (not what "might" be useful) - users discovering the richer stuff in the depths is part of the learning process towards becoming a Wikipedia editor. Short-circuiting that is counter-productive. Neil ム 21:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• I almost wish there was a delayed apprentice-level welcome template we could offer editors, which would include some of the above links. As the premier talk page post, however, I think it will scare off more contributors than it will educate. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 21:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • There seems to be a number of different templates at the welcoming comittee page. Are any preferred ones? Would it be better to move the discussion to a relevant talk page there? Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 21:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Karmafist may be helpful here. As a general rule, pushing any sort of Wiki-political line in a new user welcome is likely to be frowned upon. Kirill 21:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It was not my attention to push any lines, just to have a personalized friendly and helpful welcome. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 21:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

How about the following revision?

=='''Welcome!'''==

Hello, Administrators' noticeboard, and welcome to Wikipedia ! Thank you for your contributions. We hope you like this website and decide to continue improving it. Here are five pages that you might find helpful:

• Wikipedia:Article development
• Wikipedia:Civility
• Wikipedia:How to edit a page
• Wikipedia:Ignore all rules
• Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers

Please also remember to write in an encyclopedic style as suggested by the following grammar tips:

===However===

"Avoid starting a sentence with however when the meaning is 'nevertheless.' The word usually serves better when not in first position. . . . When however comes first, it means 'in whatever way' or 'to whatever extent.'" -William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition (New York: Allyn & Bacon, 2000), 48-49.

===Very===

"Use this word sparingly. Where emphasis is necessary, use words strong in themselves." -William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition (New York: Allyn & Bacon, 2000), 63.

"Rather, very, little, pretty--these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one, and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then." -William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition (New York: Allyn & Bacon, 2000), 73.

===Contractions===

"Finally, contractions (for example, wasn't for 'was not' or won't for 'will not') are generally too informal for use in a history paper. Rather, you should use the expanded form." -Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History, Fifth Edition (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007), 62.

You are welcome to continue editing articles without logging in, but you may wish to create an account. Doing so is free, requires no personal information, and provides several benefits. For one thing, if you edit without a username, your IP address is used to identify you instead.

I have also personally found the following essays helpful as well and they are items that you may wish to read over at some point as you become increasingly familiar with Wikipedia, please note, however, that the below items are just essays and not official policies, i.e. just some personal favorites of mine that may be useful somewhere along the way in your times as Wikipedian:

• User:Cream147/essays/Why is it important to cite our sources on Wikipedia?
• User:Durova/The dark side
• User:Fresheneesz/Don't Destroy
• Wikipedia:Don't always assume sockpuppetry
• Wikipedia:Give an article a chance
• Wikipedia:What Isn't Grounds for Article Deletion

In any case, we hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~), as doing so will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 23:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, I have conferred with Chaser, the user who adopted me, and after reading his comments and all of yours above, I am now convinced that it probably would be easier to just go with the one Neil ム suggested above for future welcomes. I will just have the essays I like linked to instead on my user page. Thanks again for the suggestions and I'm happy that we resolved this discussion amicably. Have a great night! Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 23:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, that's a good compromise. Neil ム 10:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Artaxerex opened

An Arbitration case, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Artaxerex, has been opened. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Artaxerex/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Artaxerex/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 23:57, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Infobox Philippine mythology

Dear administrator/s, I need assistance in activating this template. There are several articles related to Philippine mythology that need this infobox for implementation. So far, I was only able to implement navigational boxes, which are of lesser "complexity" than this one. Thank you in advance... - Dragonbite 00:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Finished for the most part. — Moe ε 03:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Account access problem

I was directed here after submitting a question in the FAQ section. My problem concerns my username and password. As the email address submitted at the point of creating my account, was missplet, and I had requested a new password, as I presumed the difficulty I had in logging on was with the password rather than with the CAPITALISATION of the username, whatever new password has been sent to me, will not reach me, hence I cannot access my account. It is possible for me simply create a new account, however it means a discontinuity of engagement. It could be possible for my email details to be changed. I cannot source information concerning changing email details.

My account name is Phrygiankleinbottle, and the WRONG email address to which the new password was sent, required a .au after .com eg, @yahoo.com should read @yahoo.com.au

should I simply create a new account, or can someone assist in adding .au to my email address? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.240.147.127 (talk) 02:30, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Creating a new account is the most simple option. If the email address is available, you can try to create the yahoo.com address and then ask for a new password via the login screen. Since the account only has two edits, those are the two best options.--Chaser - T 02:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Using the "orphanBacklinksOnSpeedyDelete" feature on Twinkle

I would like to remind admins who are using the Twinkle user script to be careful when removing backlinks to pages that they have speedy deleted using this script. Sometimes a vandal or new user will click on a legitimate red link and create a speedy deletable page. Please remember that WP:RED says that "removal of red links for nonexistent topics should not be done without careful consideration of their importance or relevance." Thanks. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help! Very long PUI backlog!

Please please please see Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images ... there is an incredibly long (more than a month!) backlog. Help at the "Log pages" would especially be appreciated. Admins unfamiliar with copyrights are welcome! Ask someone familiar with copyright if you have questions; for a list of some folks, see User:Quadell#My links. --Iamunknown 06:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Mentorship" account SpecialJane blocked, no reason given

User:Specialjane is an account opened to provide help to less experienced editors. "I've set up this site just to help others. It will used just to give friendly advice and help others. Don't ask me to vote for an AFD or RFA. I won't help in that way. Regular Jane does things like that." (Mentorship has been mentioned in this connection, but has no formal existence within Wikipedia).

This account only ever made a few edits on 2 days (15th and 16th August), none of them controversial in the smallest way (that I can tell).

9 days after the last edit by this account, it has been blocked, no reason given.

It's been suggested I notify this board (not quite sure why, whatever relationship I have with the person behind this account hasn't been affected, and I'm not sure the affected editor cares either way). Would it be possible to look into this and find out what is going on? PalestineRemembered 09:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

You prolly need to ask User:Voice of All. There is a reason given, the log says the account was a sock of User:Dereks1x. Sarah 09:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

But there is no mention of User:Specialjane on Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Dereks1x. This is strange IMHO. --Raphael1 10:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes, the duck test is a lot easier and less privacy-invasive than a checkuser. It is possible that this user was blocked by a quick deduction via the duck test. Not familiar with this blocked user. x42bn6 Talk Mess 10:21, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou guys, you've provided good explanations, and satisfied me (at least) that this was an aberration. Contributions shown here, a few non-controversial edits, none in the last 9 days. Would it be possible to proceed to closure, lifting the block? PalestineRemembered 10:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought role accounts were frowned upon... ^demon^{[omg plz]} 14:23, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I think they are. I don't think this looks like it was a role account. --Onorem♠Dil 14:32, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The key issue is that for PalestineRemembered to comply with the consensus (involuntary mentorship) from the last one in the series of discussions about him, someone must now volunteer to mentor PR instead of this SpecialJane person. I guess the only open option is to go through the WP:ADOPT program. nadav (talk) 19:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

In 10 months I've endured a veritable barrage of accusations, suffered 3 long blocks, 2 CSNs (one for perma-block, one unspecified but peremptorily closed with "mentorship"), and a whole bunch of other stuff. There is even an ArbCom that bears my name - though whether it actually concerned my conduct must be a little questionable. I pleaded with the arbitrators for it to go ahead - sadly, it was dropped with no sanctions or even recommendations on anyone. I've repeatedly faced the judgement of my peers (and of my betters) and every facet of every one of my edits has been trawled over with a fine-tooth comb and a very large magnifying glass.

And yet ... in the 1,360 edits I've made in my time here, only once have I ever been fingered as posting something seriously out of order. The question/s I posed concerned an apparent conflict of interest - I leave you to guess whether the project has ever had satisfaction from the person asked. (I apologised for the question I'd put without being asked to do so). No trace of the disruption I've been so repeatedly accused of - perhaps because I've been fairly single-mindedly working towards improving the encyclopedia.

So it must be fairly clear to the passing observer that there is something else going on. There is indeed - I need to be shackled with a "mentor" who must drum into my thick skull that there are red-lines in the encyclopedia. We cannot be documenting the history of Israel as regards it's relations with the Palestinians (or indeed anyone else - the CSN perma-block concerned a well-known assassination against the UK and the WWII war-effort. After the dust had cleared, the edit stuck. There was never any real dispute that the killers were post-humously glorified).

There is something else that admins examining me and my contributions for the first time might be interested to know - the fate of two people who previously stepped forwards as "neutral" intermediaries (neither were known to me in any fashion, they couldn't be considered "supporters"). The first one did so as "Advocate" - he was publicly harrassed with aggressive questioning of his motives. The second one has now been perma-blocked, at least in their Special Purpose Account "mentoring" mode, for reasons you may now think were a bit questionable. Dozens of people who have posted "in my defense" have immediately been subject to severe personal attacks. "Due process" has not been much in evidence - you might even think it's not much in evidence this time. Nobody in their right mind would come forwards as a genuine "mentor", User:Specialjane remains blocked, apparently for nothing.

I've not documented any of the above this time, but it's never been challenged when I've done so before, and I can fish out anything you might wish to examine. PalestineRemembered 21:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Please don't unblock without hearing from User:Voice of All. Corvus cornix 19:34, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Please don't unblock at all. I'm quite certain that's a sock of Dereks1x, a sockpuppeteer whose pattern I'm familiar with. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:57, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The block on User:Specialjane is disturbing, since the account is a Single Purpose Account to policy, created for the sole purpose of "helping others" and perhaps being accepted as a Mentor. (The latter is a position not recognised in policy, but you know what I mean). If this block is maintained, then "helping others" starts to look something like a poisoned chalice. I'm sure that's not the intention of anyone here.

I did not accept the kind offer of "mentorship" from this person, and I know nothing about her (him?) other than what used to appear on her (his?) UserPage. It's certainly not in my interest to be associated with such a person, since I've always dealt with Wikipedia with scrupulous care. Long blocks on trivial/false grounds didn't lead to me cheating before, and I'm not about to start doing so now. PalestineRemembered 22:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• User:Specialjane is a checkuser-verified sockpuppet of the serial sockpuppeteer Dereks1x. There were about a dozen other Dereks1x socks on the same IP. There's not much else to say. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 22:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Hell irregardless of that, the above essay implies that the user has more than just "mentorship" on the mind, ignoring for a second that it is a role account. I support the block. PalestineRemembered, please be a little less paranoid, and a little more openminded. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 22:37, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• comment - i'm extreemly concerned by this turn of events. there were a few slip-ups by user PR since he was assigned this bogus mentor on the "Proposed Community Ban" (here's an early one^{[21],PR's page (copy)} that made me leave a complaint to the mentor^[22]) but i let them go by as they could have been regarded as "first steps of mentorship". however, now that i know these slip-ups of uncivil soapbox behavior (such as noting the same issue 4-5 times on unrelated subsections of the talk) have surely been unsupervised, i am left without words almost. i'd appreciate someone taking a serious look into this issue and suggesting the best way to resolve the problem. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 14:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aggressive Anon IP - first edits but very familiar with WP

I was monitoring recent changes by unsigned IPs last night and reverted a change to Pre-ejucalate as links to images had been removed in spite of a warning not to do so and a substantial disscussion about the images on the talk page. I thought this edit was vandalism and made it in good faith. I left a warning on the users page a few minutes later (although the user has claimed either i didn't, that it was innappropriate, or that it was posted in the wrong place). I've been accussed of bullying by them and all sorts of other accusations. The weird thing is is that this user (despite it apparently being their first edit)seems very very familiar with policy-given and their aggressive reaction i wonder if they have a previous history, as it were. their IP is 68.163.219.59 . Sock puppet didn't seem like the right place - Is this an appropriate place to flag this issue up? 3tmx 13:45, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

IP addresses can be dynamic, and people can forget or choose not to log in. For these reasons and others all IPs should be treated as if they were Jimbo himself. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 13:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Experienced admin needed to close AfD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dungeons & Dragons creatures will be closing shortly, and I'd like it to be done by someone who isn't just going to votecount and close as no consensus, as opposed to reading the substantive policy issues. I also want someone experienced enough to ignore me if they think I'm wrong in my interpretation. --Eyrian 17:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but an editor. However, I have Y Done your request. Navou ^banter 18:38, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Numerous unfree image uploads by user Condering12

Could an admin take a look at the talk page for user Condering12? They've uploaded a number of unfree images over the past two years, been warned numerous times, but have continued to do so. Thank you. Cumulus Clouds 18:44, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:الفراشه

Just a heads-up: I just blocked this user indefinitely and deleted the slew of totally random images they uploaded. Please keep an eye out for swarms of images with arabic script in case this user comes back, and remember to follow up on users you've warned for uploading lots of bad images (if possible) so it doesn't get this out of hand. Grandmasterka 22:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image use on the Spice Girls article...

Hi. Could someone in the know please take a look at the Spice Girls article and determine whether the use of album cover images is in keeping with WPs fair use policy? As far as I am concerned, the images are being used merely for visual identification and decorative purposes and should be removed, with their use restricted to the individual album articles. I've removed them myself on more than one occasion, only for them to be re-added by other users, citing other articles where album covers are prominently displayed (WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS?). Following a discussion with User:Rimmers, I thought that it would probably be a good idea to clarify the issue, as this is not something I particularly want to get involved in arguing/edit-warring over (as seems to have been happening a lot recently, WRT images). Your opinions would be much appreciated. Thanks. --Kurt Shaped Box 22:25, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion it's ok because the article goes into detail about each album which is pictured on the page. You would be right though in removing it if the album were just listed, without detail. Some of the images have no fair-use rationale at all however, and so can't be used in any article, and should be deleted Others have a rationale, but no source, so should be deleted also, not just removed from the article. I think you are perfectly in right to remove the images lacking a fair-use rationale for the page, the others however seem to be validly featured in the article. Jackaranga 22:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I tagged most of those images for relative speedy deletion. Jackaranga 22:44, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

There are no valid fair use rationales for the use of any of those images on the Spice Girls article. Corvus cornix 23:10, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

:::Could there be, what's wrong with Image:Spicegirls-spice.jpg for example ? Jackaranga 23:22, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Never mind that. Jackaranga 23:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I have placed proper rationales to these images and lowered the resolution of most of them if it wasn't done already. Thier use in these articles are proper, the only time album covers are a concern in articles are when they are used in discographies. The images in the Spice Girls ariticles provide critical commentary that give justification for the use of a non-free image. — Moe ε 00:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Runtshit

It appears that there is another IP connected to this indefinitely blocked editor that needs to be blocked. 128.241.111.213 has been blocked as a sockpuppet[23] of User:Icepicktrot2 who is, in turn, a sockpuppet of User:Runtshit. 128.241.111.213 made the exact same edits with the exact same edit summaries as 211.72.213.93, see [24] and [25]. --Strothra 22:33, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Another sysop blocked two IPs for three months as "abusing multiple accounts"; there are also autoblocks showing up. Any further mischief can be re-reported for hardblocks.--Chaser - T 01:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:81.0.68.145

User continously uses article discussion pages as a 'blog'. Have warned user multiple times. Was recommended to post about user here (from AIV) as it was not considered vandalism. Examples of misuse of article discussion pages: [26], [27], [28], [29], and [30] Scarian^Talk 23:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I've given him a "final warning" If he does it again, he should be blocked. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 23:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bowling for Columbine

There seems to be an ongoing edit war between User:ILike2BeAnonymous and User:Heqwm and both are not assuming good faith and haven't posted any complaints on the discussion page. I would suggest that the page be locked briefly and have them mull it over together. Reginmund 02:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

cf ANI here by Heqwm Rlevse 02:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GFDL violation

See http://wiki.site5.com/index.php?title=CPanel&oldid=2153 and compare to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CPanel&oldid=101864901 . Please note that this website's license is under the creative commons (http://wiki.site5.com/Site5Wiki:Copyrights), this is not compatible with the GFDL. As I can't find the proper place to report, here I am. There may or may not be other violations on that site, but you can clearly see from the history that ours was there first, and they even credit us, (kudos to them) but the licenses I don't believe are compatible anyway. (This I believe is the problem with us moving information to wikinews). —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 04:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I left a note on the talk page for the article on that Wiki. Since it's not local, it's not our problem in that there is little we can do about it (like resolve the copyright issue on that Wiki) and little reason to worry (in that our primary concern with copyright here is keeping the foundation from getting sued). Frankly, if no one has a problem with them copying our content, the technical violation (if it is one) of the GFDL doesn't seriously bother me, although this is obviously not something to be encouraged.--Chaser - T 04:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Err actually no, the authors of that article released their contributions under the GFPL not creative commons. The GFPL requires attribution to the authors. (the edit history). —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 05:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly... but unless one of those authors are willing to pay a lawer to wright a threating letter then there isn't much that can be done as far as enforcement. (wikipedia dosn't own the copyrights so wikipedia has little legal enforcement power) ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

There are some standard GFDL violation notices, requests to comply, and a tracking system in place at Wikipedia:Forks and mirrors. I've had website owners change their licencing after just one e-mail request. Of course, only one of the contributors could actually sue, but anyone can make a request. Sancho 05:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't hurt to ask. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 06:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a common problem: Wikipedia:GFDL Compliance.--Chaser - T 06:17, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is AN3 broken?

I'm alarmed that certain users are given a free pass on WP:AN3. There is a growing number of pretty obvious infractions that are marked as "not handled". If it is a backlog, the page should clearly say so. If there is some other reason not to implement this policy, it should be identified as well. I don't think that "does it really matter?" is an expected response to a AN3 request. It is unsettling to witness how, for a day or two, some requests are skipped by a bunch of guys who perform the blocks and then declared "historical", with no explanation at all.[31] Since the application of WP:3RR has become so awfully selective, we should either rethink the policy or just throw it out the window. --Ghirla^-трёп- 07:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that many people report someone to 3RR they are edit warring with. The more experienced edit warriors know how to game 3RR, only reverting precisely 3 times in any 24 hour period, then getting their friends to revert for them (whilst getting their "enemies" blocked for 3RR or baiting them into incivility and complain about it here, pleading absolute unblemished innocence). We need some kind of bot that flags up (say) 10 revisions in a 7 day period, showing longer term edit warring. As far as the actual operation of WP:AN3 goes, though, it seems up to date at the moment, I just did the last few reports. Neil ム 10:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Why is it that people reporting their "enemies" should be a problem? Editors are entitled to work within the rules. That's generally how our society works too. And surely it's one of the most effective ways of ensuring the rule is complied with? If I'm involved in an "edit war" on some obscure page, am I supposed to sit and hope an interested third party comes along and exclaims, "hey, I've just found more than 3 reverts in one day. Shame on them. I'll go and spend half an hour reporting it". If you have 3RR, enforce it. If someone performs more than 3 reverts in one day, and that is shown, they should get blocked or warned. If there's a concern about longer term edit warriors, have a new rule about that. But there are going to be edit conflicts on wikipedia; 3RR is about reducing their impact on mainspace. Arbitrary application of the rule promotes well ... arbitrariness and unfairness. Why is admin lottery better than solid rules when it comes to a concrete and comprehensible policy such as 3RR? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 11:51, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I always look at the history of the article in question. Quite often you find that the reporter is as guilty of breaching 3RR as the reportee. Then I block them both ... HAH! (kidding, usually I'd ask them both to stopitnow as they'd both get blocked if they continue). Neil ム 11:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If you look carefully at WP:3RR it does allow an admin to revert before the letter of the rules is broken, as 3RR is not an allowance but the upper end of the limit. That is also why we have admins, experienced editors who understand the spirit as well as the letter of the rules and guidelines. As for arbitrariness, if more editors were to realise they could be blocked before the 4th edit (depending on the whim on an admim) there might be far less gaming of the system. LessHeard vanU 12:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This philosophy is wishy-washy and misguided. Systems will always, always, always be gamed. This is just reality. You either have the rule or you don't. What the thing you're talking about promotes is fear of arbitrariness among good users making sensible reverts against POV pushers. I mean, how is the ordinary user supposed to know where the line is drawn? Premonition and psychic powers would be needed! Admins are just editors (some of them aren't even that) who got through admin votes for whatever combination of reasons, and their powers of discretion to do things like blocking should be limited when and as much as possible. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 13:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(ecx2) The trouble with AN3 is that too many reports are motivated by a desire to get even rather then to prevent disruption. Blocks are supposed to be preventative and I personally see no point blocking someone for a violation 24 hours after the revert war if the disruption has finished. By that stage the block becomes a punishment rather then a preventative measure. Likewise, one of the cases Ghirla reports above was an editor who was trying to disengage from a dispute. Blocking them for that would have simply been lame and the reporting editor later admitted on my talk page that they were simply looking to even up the score because they felt that editor was harrassing them. Unfortunately they couldn't document the complaint properly for investigation at AN/I and there we were. Personally, I think that 3RR reports are often indicators of much more serious underlying problems. Both the decisions complained about above were mine. It would have been nice to have been told about this thread or even have the decisions discussed with me one to one before this thread was opened. I'm still relatively new as an admin and very happy to take advice. Spartaz ^Humbug! 13:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Deacon of Pndapetzim - the rules on reverting are really quite simple, and are expounded on WP:BRD. You should revert just the once, and then discuss the matter. WP:3RR was devised to allow good faith reverts of vandalism without incurring the wrath of pernicious admins (the non editing kind, I assume); therefore any revert other than the first which isn't removing vandalism makes the editor liable for appropriate action. However, it has become custom to permit (or to demand) 3 reverts per 24hours where it is an edit war on a poor or incomplete understanding of 3RR. I often review reports made to AIV and will block editors who are involved in edit wars with violation of 3RR as an "other" reason. If they want to contest their block on the basis that they were not up to their allowance of three reverts/day then they are quite welcome to do so. LessHeard vanU 20:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The line is drawn at edit warring period. Wikipedia isn't a court of law. We don't have strict laws for all circumstances and we don't need them. This is just a heads-up, but whenever I end up investigating something like a 3RR report, both people end up getting blocked for edit warring, regardless of how close to meeting four reverts in 24 hours they were. So don't try to play close with the rules when I or others like me are around — you'll end up blocked all the same. --Cyde Weys 13:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This is a good example of why powers of discretion to do things like blocking should be limited when and as much as possible. I mean, I am not in any "edit wars", and it sounds like you're trying to bully me. Per above. Systems will always be gamed. Trying to counter this with random fear and admin lottery is not sensible. If 3 reverts per day is too much, lower it. If persistent triple reverting a day is a problem, have another concrete rule. Self-righteous caprice is not the answer. That's not to say that discretion should not be used of course. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 13:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Then it's all the more annoying to see people mindlessly reverting four or five times a day and then, after a report was carefully prepared and submitted, being pardoned with the summary "does it really matter". There should be some consistency in the implementation of the rules. --Ghirla^-трёп- 13:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's not very good about consistency, and I don't really see that changing. A lot of outcomes are dependent simply on chance regarding which admin happened to come along the situation first and deal with it. A lot of it has to do with Wikipedia being a volunteer administration. In an employee organization, the owners of the company can set up strict rules which the employees must follow or risk being fired. These pressures simply do not exist on Wikipedia. --Cyde Weys 13:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's not very good about consistency, and I don't really see that changing. A lot of outcomes are dependent simply on chance regarding which admin happened to come along the situation first and deal with it.

And do you like that system? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 13:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not optimal, but there isn't really any way to improve on it in an all-volunteer organization. --Cyde Weys 13:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, you could have a solid and consistent 3RR policy for a start. That'd be a way to improve it. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 14:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The only time I was blocked citing WP:3RR (and that was my first block, mind you) was when I reverted vandalism by an abusive sockpuppet of User:Bonaparte who made no secret of sockpuppetry when he reported me on WP:AN3. I don't know whether reports by anonymous editors are taken seriously these days, but I was instantly blocked (although no revert was identical) because "3RR is a big red flag", etc., etc. Then there was a period when it was fashionable to block people for two or three reverts because "they should have known better". Now we have a period when people are not punished for four or five reverts because, after two days of procrastination, their behaviour is considered "historical". This is very confusing, you know. Looks like a big mess to me. Either we have a rule on three reverts, or we don't. --Ghirla^-трёп- 13:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you asking that we block people for something they did two days ago and stopped? You might want to read WP:BLOCK. If they stopped reverting, do you just want to see them punsihed for there actions? That is by far not what blocking is for. Blocking is to stop disruption. If they have stopped themselves then why are we going to throw a block on there too to stop them from doing good?Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 13:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't "ask" for anything. I have no habit of block shopping. I welcome comments on whether the rule is still valid and, if it is, why it is applied so arbitrarily. Where's User:William M. Connolley who used to administer the blocks more or less even-handedly and in due time, rather than picking up a request on a seemingly random basis? --Ghirla^-трёп- 13:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, that makes sense. Not trying to bite anybodys head off! It is my belief that there is alot of grey area in WP:3RR. It is up to the administrator handling the case to determing the best course of action. I am sure there are lots of factors taken into account i.e. previous block history for 3RR, experience of editor, willingness to discuss. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 13:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Definitely. But then these reasons should be identified by the closing admin. The bare summary "no action" is not very informative. --Ghirla^-трёп- 14:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I wont argue with that. I think transparency is important. At least a simple note saying, "user warned, not blocked for this infraction" or something of the sort would be benificial in my opinion. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 14:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought, isn't punishment is about "deterrence"? if so, deterrence surely reduces disruption? Of course, that's only if the disrupter cares about being blocked or whatever the punishment is. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 13:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I basically agree with Cyde's approach, in that I block for disruption when it seems necessary, though rarely for fewer than four reverts. I more often protect the page if there are two people edit warring. But Ghirla has a point. Regardless of what we say the rules are, we only have the rules we enforce. Since 3rr is about the only one we do reliably enforce, we should probably keep on it. It's helpful to check AN3 once in a while, and to clear a few whenever you make a report yourself. It is tedious and uninteresting work, but it needs to be done. The people who do it deserve credit for their contribution to the project. Maybe the foundation could send William M. Connolley an engraved beer mug or something. Tom Harrison ^Talk 13:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't generally think that giving "disruption" as the primary reason for a block is a good idea, unless the disruption is obvious and unquestionable, or unless there's already been a decision made at CSN or ANI. A strict application of the 3RR rule is better. Yes, some people will game the system, but as someone pointed out above, this is inevitable in any large community. One of the biggest problems, on Wikipedia and on other wiki sites, is the arbitrary use of power by admins. "Disruption" is quite a subjective term, and, IMO, it's better to have clear-cut rules so that editors know where they stand. Even a well-intentioned admin will make mistakes in issuing blocks; far better, IMO, to enforce the 3RR rule to the letter, in order to reduce the potential for admin mistakes. Yes, some people will game the system and get around it, but that's the price we have to pay; it's more important to ensure that all editors are protected against arbitrary sanctions. Walton^One 15:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Well said. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 15:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

No one questions the validity of blocks for "revert warring" in general (that is below 3RR but still disruptive). But these are discretion blocks not quite the same league as 3RR blocks. "Discretion blocks" should be administered sensibly and, preferably, by responsible admins who write content and, thus, motivated by improvement of the WP as a source of information rather than a self-fulfilling motivation of being in a position to show who is the boss. God forbid this from becoming a "Cyde approach". Non-writing admins should not be anywhere near the block buttons.

Engagement in content writing gives some useful insights that allow to better distinguish the disruptive revert warring between two users who refuse to discuss (block) and repeated reverting (still under 3RR) of a disruptive troll (Bonaparte case in point), copyvio pusher or otherwise nutty editor.

However, reports for "revert warring in general" should go to ANI, not AN3. 3RR is a razor wire, almost an automatic block. Removing the case, like [[32] here], because no one bothered when it was urgent as it is "too late to block anyway" may even make sense when the report is indeed historic. But reports should not get historic in the first place, they should be handled, that's one. And two, seeing Spartaz being not "block happy" is heartening. But his not blocking because the maintenance system failed would have been fine if he would still have at least warned a disruptive user.

Frankly, I am sick of that fellow. Hillock65 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) goes around articles pushing the fringe Ukrainian nationalist POV for a while and this is long since tiresome. While there are plenty of poorly formed 3RR reports, often to hide the fact that the 3RR is questionable in the first place (still people get blocked for those if the backlog is handled by inexperienced or block-happy admins), it was upsetting to see my time totally wasted. I spent at least half an hour to make a report that is presented without confusion (see original) and was kind of upset to see that my time was totally wasted. Since then, I watch the fellow still editing disruptively but under 3RR and I have to waste my time with his edits.

AN3 used to be the least back-logged task. Was it because too many admins love blocking and this is the place to go when one is in a mood to kick some butts or because it requires less skill and work than updating DYK I don't know. But if now even sterile revert warriors can get off and multiple FA writers get blocked under bogus pretenses (recent example) something needs to be changed. --Irpen 15:44, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• Personally, I regard edit-warring as a symptom of a problem. It's rarely a disease in itself, though that can sometimes be the case. Sometimes I think a better approach, rather than blocking, is short protections, particularly on non-high-profile articles. It's often better to look at what's actually being written. On higher-profile articles, admittedly, protection becomes rather more evil. Example: I recently came across a nationalist POV-crankery-pushing troll and a good guy edit warring. They were both on 6RR, or something similar. Much as I would have loved to have infinibanned the troll's arse, doing that without blocking the good guy would be lynchable. Instead of blocking I locked up the article for 12 hours, and the troll got sent packing a couple of days later when he kept on reverting despite 6 different people reverting him. I'm not a huge fan of wholly mechanical 3RR blocks. Yes, edit-warring is a pain, but implementing 3RR in a completely robotic fashion will do nothing but antagonise people. Moreschi ^Talk 16:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

"Much as I would have loved to have infinibanned the troll's arse, doing that without blocking the good guy would be lynchable." That admins get lynched for blocking trolls is a problem in itself. Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, Tom. The inability to deal with trolls who know how to stay within the bounds of 3RR and around the bounds of CIVIL is frustrating as fuck. But what do you do with a bad-faith editor who doesn't break 3RR, doesn't use obvious personal attacks, but just sits around aggrivating editors who are trying to build an encyclopaedia? WilyD 19:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

That's something that may not be taught, but must be learned. Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• There is no automatic administration. If people could make automatic calls on blocks, we could have -bot overlords. The more we praise or seek automatic administrative decisions, the more we abdicate our responsibilities, abridge "community trust," and render ourselves both otiose and destructive. Therefore, investigation, judgment, and communication are de minimis for being an administrator acting in a conflict. The better the investigation, the better the administrative action (the more valid). It takes time. It takes concentration. People who have a lot of experience with writing will be better able, in general, to discern editorial issues, but it would be possible for someone to not be a top writer and yet have Solomonic discretion. It's just rare. The one thing that is absolutely moronic is the idea that something like a block can truly be "automatic." We're people, not automatonic. Geogre 16:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

A note. This was initially not about "automatic handling", also a bad thing. It was about non-handling and then archiving without even warning an editor. Agree with the rest. --Irpen 16:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Well if that was the concern, that could have been handled by a note on my talk page pointing out my error. That's a good point but the first time its been made to me. If anyone wants to know about why 3RR gets backlogged look at my talk page - the amound of time and trouble that not being block happy caused was amazing yet both cases were symptomatio of other more serious underlaying problms that would not have been addressed by a mechanical block. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: partially agree but treating the habitual revert warriors with block of increasing length does help address the problem, not of course being the only thing that needs done. Your not block-happiness is appreciated. Still, warning a disruptive editor would have been useful at that point. Finally, you should not see this thread as just a criticism of your action. The thread originator pointed out at the problem with AN3 in general, hoping that some non-block-happy and content-writing admins would go there helping you. The report on Hillock was crystal clear and he well-deserved a block. He is still around from time to time and, frankly, I am tired of dealing with his tendentious edits. Not that I can do much until he over-reverts again. --Irpen 18:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It's entirely debatable whether the 3 revert rule does more good than harm. I for one have no interest in enforcing such a rule, and I suspect many others see it the same way. Friday (talk) 19:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, even though it's not supposed to be an entitlement, many editors do think of it that way. It eliminates some of the fear of being blocked for edit warring, or even thinking of a bit of back and forth reverting as edit warring. WilyD 20:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

No one is talking about entitlement. But 3RR should not be used to block editors who don't break it, that's all.

• 3RR violation is a blockable offense. You touch the razor wire, you are sent home for 24 hours. There are exeptions, though.
• Disruption is also a blockable offense. Being on occasion close to a 3RR limit may or may not be revert warring. And does not mean the editor considers this "entitlement". Being habitually close to 3RR on a set of articles, is revert warring. WE usually mean the latter when speaking of the editors who consider 3RR "entitlement".

Being able to tell the disruption from legitimate returning the articles to normalcy, once they are attacked by a troll is what's expected from admins, we call it discretion. Content writing helps admins to be better at it. --Irpen 00:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Although I understand the argument against robotic enforcement of 3RR, I think, as I said earlier, that it's very dangerous to simply block people for "disruption" or "being a troll". In the end, terms like "disruptive" and "troll" will always be subjective to some degree. An admin coming into a situation could easily get the wrong end of the stick, and block the user they identify as a "troll" without blocking those on the other side of the conflict. While I know it's frustrating when trolls figure out how to game the system, I think that the arbitrary or unfair exercise of power is a much bigger threat. Better to enforce 3RR strictly; when both sides of the conflict violate 3RR, give both of them a 3RR block, regardless of who you think is a "good guy" or a "troll". Even-handedness and transparency are always needed, and having strict rules protects users against arbitrary exercise of power. Even a great admin with good intentions can easily make a mistake, or misunderstand a situation, and drive contributors away. Walton^One 17:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

You will note that I did deal with the matter in question completely even-handedly by blocking no one :) Also, I am capable of looking at the content in question. I become very hesitant to block anyone when one side is citing reliable, peer-reviewed academic literature and the other side is citing some random blogpage off teh internetz. These are things we should be thinking about. Overmuch of the mentality of the arbitration committee, who will not rule on content, has filtered down to the admin corps. We should use our brains. Our ultimate aim is to build an encyclopedia. Yes, revert-fighting is doubtless disruptive, but adding shitty content is even more disruptive. 3RR blocks should be made with clue, and, yes, that may involve looking at what is being written. Moreschi ^Talk 17:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] micro-summary

There seem to be two schools of thought, and two contradictory principles in action:

• It is important to be seen to be consistent and impartial in applying the 3 revert rule. Otherwise, see WP:ROUGE, WP:CABAL etc.
• Admin discretion is what prevents the smart trolls from freely edit warring, gaming 3RR and getting their opponents blocked.

I'm not saying either camp is wrong. Just trying to sum up. Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 19:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AN3 and WP:KETTLE

It would seem that if two people are edit warring and one reports the other, the proper response is not to block whomever happens to go over the line first, but to protect the article in question. >Radiant< 11:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Depends on the article, if its a busy article protection may just inconvenience third parties while doing nothing to educate the edit warriors. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, on busy articles protection is evil (certainly lengthy protection), and incredibly bitesome to the newbies. That should be avoided. On more obscure articles, however...Moreschi ^Talk 11:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Article protection is way more damaging (in many cases) then blocking two editors for 24 hours. I think Dmcdevit's thoughts on the matter are well said. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 14:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally, though I have much less unpleasant experience than some others, I think a temporary protection is almost always better. It arouses less personal resentment. I think that Radiant's approach is right, unless it is the case that one party is altogether in the wrong and disruptive quite apart from considerations of the individual article. I've yet to see the article that is harmed by being unedited for 48 hours. DGG (talk) 21:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree strongly with locking all editors out of an article to stop an edit war between two editors. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 21:53, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• Protection has its problems, but it's better than blocking one of the "two editors" you mention just because the other cried "foul" first. >Radiant< 10:52, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] [[WP:AN1+n]]

...where admins would see whether there'd be a need for a block or two or if there'd be no need to see the same report later at [WP:AN3]. Simple than that. Just redirect WP:AN3 to [WP:AN1+n]! Well, still encouraging suckpuppetry anyway but it is just like scaring the fierce edit warriors. At least you'd not be biting newcomers because there admins would check if accounts reported belong to mature edit warriors and not just cute babies. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)