Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive5

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Contents: June 1, 2005 - June 30, 2005

Contents 1 Official Request for Study between the correlation of admins and freenode#wikipedia 2 Some newbie admin questions 3 Bug in Wikipedia 4 Arbitration case - final decision 5 error in current anniversaries page for June 3 6 Backlogs 7 IP blocks and User accounts 8 Sandbox 9 Another Bug 10 Are deletions broken? 11 Now Moves are failing? 12 Votes for deletion backlog 13 Wikipedia:Sandbox/Lost and Found 14 Forgotten VfD? 15 Language links on main page 16 Sockpuppet template 17 Template:Deletedpage 18 Personal attacks on controversial pages 19 Attention all admins 20 Image switching vandals 21 List of exploding animals 22 Policy proposal on dealing with disputes over names 23 is there any way of searching for words in usernames? 24 What are we doing wrong here? 24.1 What are we doing wrong (continued) 25 Inappropriate use of User: namespace? 26 Recording tough calls 27 Empty image files 28 Personal attacks 29 Block log 30 The "Enviroknot Dispute" 31 Wikipedia Inc. — trademark infringement? 32 CSD #1 33 Minor change to "selected anniversaries" 34 page move rollback 35 Minor problem 36 MediaWiki:Minoredit 37 Heya all 38 Blocking 39 Special:Listadmins 40 Edit conflicts 41 WP:VIP 42 Problems 43 AllyUnion's bots 44 IP Block options survey 45 Controversial Vfd 46 New page started - compare against the EB! 47 Arbitration case - Jguk 48 Can someone please check something?

[edit] Official Request for Study between the correlation of admins and freenode#wikipedia

I just voted on User:Linuxbeak's RfA. I hd a comment to make:

Comment: On principle, I will refuse to vote on any more RfAs until a formal study has been conducted between the correlation of the people hanging out in IRC://Freenode.net/#wikipedia and the people RfA'd in the past 12 months.

This is an official request for a study to determine how many regulars in #wikipedia have been RfA'd in the pas 12 months. My hypothesis (which can be either true or false0 is that there's a number of popele who get rfa'd mostly because they are regulars in #wikipedia, and not based on their meritocrasy status, as a free software project should be.

Project2501a 01:02, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To all: I hang around on the wikipedia channel on Freenode ( irc.freenode.net , channel #wikipedia for those interested in joining) during the 6-8 months since I got a user account. I have noticed that people who hang around the IRC channel tend to get adminship easier than anybody else. mind you: this is an objection against the process of RfA, not the people, not the channel and not the admins. Free (as in liberty) software projects hold esteem because of the meritocrasy status of the project and not on a who-knows-the-people-that-know-the-people status. In all cases, (I, for one, welcome our beer-drinking, beard-growing, long-hair-growing, computer-programming geek overlords! oh, wait, i am one.)

Philis: I've been known to be handy with a compiler/interpreter or two. BUT

 : I just read WP:POINT (which i didn't know existed before) and, well, yeah, insert( long foot, wide mouth ) and let Eris do her job. Thank you all for replying though. I apologise for any inconvience i may have caused you. :) Project2501a 10:03, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand; are you asking for advice on how to conduct the study or are you saying you want someone to conduct a study for you? I don't really know how IRC works. If there are logs, you can go through those; if not, you'll have to spend time there and take notes (and it'd have to be a prospective, not retroactive, study). You'll also have to come up with some criteria for determining who is a regular and who isn't. Also, as this isn't a randomized, controlled study, even if you were to find a correlation it wouldn't imply causation. It could be that people who spend a lot of time on Wikipedia, get to know other contributors, and enjoy working with others are the kinds of people who spend time on IRC and who also make good administrators. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:26, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I may be in the minority here, but I was made an admin in the last 12 months, and I haven't a clue what this Freenode thing is. Perhaps that means I'm not part of the secret cabal after all... Grutness.

..wha? 06:44, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• • You and me both, Grutness...I don't even know how to use IRC (and I became an administrator a few months ago). — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:04, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • You two are not alone. I'm very likely to become an adminsitrator in the next few days, and I've not got a clue about the IRC stuff (and I'm not on the mailing lists either - I simply don't have enough time to read them). Thryduulf 07:41, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm number four on this list of the ignorant/innocent. Filiocht | Blarneyman 07:53, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
        • Number five. We're half way to a minyan (I'm making assumptions about ages here, of course). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:48, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
          • Number six, so long as we're not Orthodox, because then I wouldn't count. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:11, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
            • I'm number seven then. also, I think it's perfectly normal you tend to vote for people you know and like, regardless if you know them from talkpages, irc, or meatspace. so, duh. I'll look at the study, though, for curiosity's sake. dab (ᛏ) 10:23, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I pop into IRC from time to time, (the Netscape browser makes this very easy), as do a lot of regular users. Indeed, sometimes I think there are more Wikipedia vandals on the channel than there are admins. ;-) func(talk) 07:57, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I must be fairly unusual in that I do know about the IRC channel, but in the nearly 2 years I've been an admin I've rarely used it - usually only when the 'pedia's fallen over and I want to find out how long it's going to take to come back... oh, and there was the time a few months ago when a user in Belgrade and I kept up a live conversation on that night's UEFA Cup matches, which no doubt confused many followers of the odd-shaped ball in the west! :) -- Arwel 00:47, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I suppose the easiest thing to do would be to visit Wikipedia:Recently created admins, make a list of them, and ask all of them on their talk page whether they frequent IRC or not. Radiant_* 08:29, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
• If you have moderate programming skills, and time and a minimum of bandwidth to waste, you could write a script that checks wether newly created admins were on freenode during a set period of time before their promotion. Once you have that basic functionality (you could probably do a lot of cut&paste job, since there is so much IRC scripting code available around), you could easily extend it to count the number of votes and compare it with time spent on IRC, etc. However, that would probably be overkill. As for myself, I had been on the IRC channel a grand total of 20minutes or so before I was made an admin, so I don't think it made a difference. Phils 09:12, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• I've visited wikipedia on IRC only 3 or 4 times since becoming an admin, so I'd also be on the list of the ignorant. Anyway, don't most IRC-names not correspond to wikipedia usernames? I can remember asking people who they were on wikipedia, because I didn't recognize their names. Mgm|^(talk) 22:37, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
• I'm on IRC somewhat regularly, generally for short periods of time, but almost entirely after I became an admin (last October). This will give you some idea of the most active IRC-ers. — Dan | Talk 03:27, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
• I'm sure there's correlation between IRC regulars and people who become admins, but it's not a terribly big deal. People vote for people they know and trust, and IRC is one place where you might get to know and trust someone. As for me, I've been an admin for well over a year, and have never used IRC. Isomorphic 03:55, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • "People vote for people they know and trust". I don't vote for people whose names I don't recognise. As they and I are active in different places, I have no idea whether or not they would make a good admin or not. For example I viewed the Saw article for the first time yesterday, and in the entire history the only name that I've seen anywhere on Wikipedia before is RickK whose only contribution was a disambig link to Saw (movie) which he presumably worked on. Whether any of the other editors there would make good admins I wouldn't have a clue. Thryduulf 08:39, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Some newbie admin questions

• How can you tell the difference between a page protected against editing and a page protected against page moves only? The clues of "view source" versus "edit this page" and the disappearance of the move button don't appear on the admin interface, and the logs don't help either. (In particular, WP:TFD seems to be protected against page moves only, but I only know it because the log says the protection is old and I've seen it being edited recently.)

• • Good point. I don't think there is one yet for admins. The separation of protection between the article itself and just moving it is fairly new I think. (I don't do a lot of page protections). Your option now is to log out, and if the move option is not there, but non admins can still edit the article, then it is only protected from page moves. :) You are correct, that is the case with TFD for ex. The protection from moves only is a good idea though, and I'd think a large amount of pages in the Wikipedia space such as FAC, etc. should have that. There is no reason to move those. - Taxman ^Talk 14:15, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • I think a "protected against page moves" note at the top of pages so protected would be a good idea. Do others think it worth a feature request or not? Thryduulf 11:52, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Yes certainly, non admins can tell if a page is protected from moves, we should be able to also. But it wouldn't need to be that much of a note. Even a simple (p) next to the move tab would be enough to let you know it was protected from moves. So the move tab would appear as move (p) instead. The same could be done for editing, to make it really clear what is protected and what is not. - Taxman ^Talk 15:21, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
• How can you view the wiki markup source for a deleted revision? (In particular, I wanted to see the markup source of Template:Tooinnocent to add it to BJAODN, as I found it really funny.) --cesarb 00:39, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Look for the link at the top that says "View or restore 4 deleted edits?" in small text. Unless you click on the restore button, you can look at old versions just like any other history without causing the article to be restored. - Taxman ^Talk 14:15, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • I know that, but it does not show the source, it shows the rendered output. --cesarb 15:51, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

      You could restore it, copy the code and then delete it. This link is Broken 21:43, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

      • Ah, yes you're right, sorry. For the few times it would be needed to see a deleted page's source, BrokenSegue's method seems fine to me, as you have done, I see. - Taxman ^Talk 15:21, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bug in Wikipedia

I have found a bug. I can get you to sign here [[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|~~ ~~~]] 18:00, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)]] 21:51, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC). And here [[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|~~ ~~~]] 18:00, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)]] 21:51, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC). Next person to edit this page will sign against where I put mine. E.g.

Should adminstrators be abolished

Yes [[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|~~ ~~~]] 18:00, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)]] 21:51, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No [[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|~~ ~~~]] 18:00, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)]] 21:51, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

And then all I, or someone else, would need to do, is remove the bits of my signature, and the other person would still be in the edit history as signing where I put their name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by -Ril- (talk • contribs) 21:51, 2 Jun 2005

• I don't think that would work. nowiki would have to be removed at the time someone made the edit. Mgm|^(talk) 23:09, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
  • It doesn't seem to work. — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:25, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, curious. Maybe they fixed it while I was adding this? [[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|~~ ~~~]] 18:00, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)]]~]] 17:59, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)]]~]] 17:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)]]~]] 17:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Test. [[User:-Ril-|~~ ~~~]] 18:00, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC) 17:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So when will it make my signature? This link is Broken

Oh my that is a bug This link is Broken 18:12, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Test —Cantus…☎ 18:27, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

It only works the once for any user not using the signature. Let me reset it so that Cantus can try. Here you go - [[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|smoddy 21:07, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)]]~]] 21:06, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)]]~]] 21:05, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)]]~]] 21:05, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is the second time I am editing after that link, so it should appear again in the original. [[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|smoddy 21:07, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)]]~]] 21:06, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)]]~]] 21:05, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

And this will be the third. After this edit I will change my signature back to something safer.[[User:-Ril-|[[User:-Ril-|smoddy 21:07, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)]]~]] 21:06, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oh, here is a more explicit example:

• Please sign here if you are a gay nazi
  • I, 22:35, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC) 22:31, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC), am a gay nazi

    Well I'm not, but does this edit fix it? JRM · Talk 21:57, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

    Yep. :-) JRM · Talk 21:58, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

Any edit that explicitely overwrites it will obviously prevent it happening.

The point is that someone could sign half way up the page, and you wouldn't notice it had added you there instead of them if you were editing towards the base of the article. JRM · Talk 22:31, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I concur with the previous poster, even if he's not me, and did add two tildes too many. JRM · Talk 22:35, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

Since I'm still not perfectly sure how you're doing this, it would be greatly appreciated if you filed a bug report or provided the link here if you've already done so. JRM · Talk 22:35, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

Basically, just set your signature (via preferences) to four tildes. That simple. When you save the page, it replaces the three/four tildes you add with the four tildes from your signature, so the next user will be signing instead. I am extremely surprised no-one thought of this before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by -Ril- (talk • contribs) 22:48, 4 Jun 2005. N.b. deliberately unsigned so as to avoid the bug.

Yes, but then again you could also just fake the other user's signature. Both will show up as forgeries if you diff a single version. Having expansion done in signatures would be wonderful for other reasons though. --W(t) 23:03, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

Actually, if you do the diffs, it is, for example, Smoddy, who is marked as having signed the relevant sections above, even though it was me, utilising the bug, and Smoddy signed elsewhere. Check the edit history. 09:29, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC) ~~~~

Nope, the diff shows that there was already a ~~~~ there and that Smoddy's edit merely expanded it. --W(t) 09:31, 2005 Jun 5 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration case - final decision

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/LevelCheck is now closed. The account "User:LevelCheck is to be blocked indefinitely as a disruptive potential sockpuppet. Please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/LevelCheck#Final decision for further details and the full decision. -- sannse (talk) 22:31, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OK, I'm trying to not let this bother me too much, but A) the behavior I see looks pretty harmless and B) I don't see how you can distinguish a sockpuppet from a quick learner without technical evidence. I don't understand how a ruling like this does any good at all. Everyking 14:37, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What part of the concept of "disruptive" do you not understand? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:33, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Um, how many potentially "disruptive" people are there on Wikipedia, really? By that logic we would be permablocking 500 users a day. Phils 21:35, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Drink! --Calton | Talk 21:43, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree I have a tough time with that concept. I don't consider it a simple thing. A person can be disruptive, but there are varying degrees of it, and moreover one might have some good work to one's credit which outweighs it. For example, Calton's frequent snide and insulting comments on various matters could be considered disruptive, but I don't think that alone is sufficient to ban him. Everyking 22:15, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Calton's frequent snide and insulting comments See Psychological projection. --Calton | Talk 06:29, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, you use that insult a lot. Everyking 11:31, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. Snarkiness and smartassedness per se are not disruption -- they are, rather, annoyance. Disruption is when snarkiness and smartassedness (not to mention malice) pour over into the mainspace. It's pretty easy for most people to make the distinction. Those people that can't learn the distinction or refuse to make the distinction are the ones that are made officially unwelcome. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 03:05, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, I guess that means I'm marked. Uh-oh! Everyking 07:04, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] error in current anniversaries page for June 3

In the selected anniversaries page for June 3, in the entry about the first long-distance power line, there is an extra e in the word "between". Would someone with administrative access be able to fix that? The page appears to be protected. Graham 08:55, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That has been fixed. Now the pedant in me wants to change the word 'to' in the line: between Willamette Falls to downtown Portland, Oregon, to an and. Maybe i'm crazy, but ... Graham 11:01, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Backlogs

Please take a look at Category:Wikipedia backlog; this is intended to list areas that require admin attention for cleaning up a backlog, such as WP:VIP presently. Radiant_* 13:58, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] IP blocks and User accounts

Under what circumstances do editing blocks on IP addresses affect users who have accounts, and try to log in? I'd understood that opening an account meant that you weren't affected by IP-address blocks, but it seems that that's not always the case (my recent block of 207.35.188.13 (talk · contribs) stopped Seahen (talk · contribs) from being able to edit). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:00, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, IP blocks also block user accounts from that IP. See Bugzilla Bug 550 for the wish to change this behaviour to just block account creation from blocked IPs. andy 10:32, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This needs to be made better known, I think, as I've seen many editors telling anon users of blocked IP-addresses that they can avoid being blocked by opening an account, and I've followed suit. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:23, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sandbox

Hi all; please be on the lookout for changes in the wikipedia sandbox. We've got a bunch of spammers advertising this site called "matchstickcats.com". After the phrase was banned in Wikimedia, the spammers started pushing another site which is directly connected to matchstickcats. Just be on the lookout; that's all. Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk 04:45, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

Hey everyone, just to let you know that we've got a spinoff called newsburp.com. If you go to the site, it says itself that it's a spinoff from matchstickcats.com. I think we're getting the problem under control, but I'll keep a tally here of how many times these sites are mentioned. Cheers! Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk 10:56, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I own newsburp.com (formerly matchstickcats.com) and I've just found this page accidentally through google. It appears you people, whoever you are, have been talking about me here for some time and alleging that I or someone associated with my site is a "spammer". If I had seen this before I might have been in a postition to contribute to this debate and defend myself against these outgrageous and mis-informed accusations, which you have made in public and without my knowledge. However it appears to be too late as your comments have been up here since June of last year, and any damage you have done to my reputation is presumabely now irreversible, despite the full story not having been told. In future if there is some issue about me or my site that arises, kindly do me the courtesy of lettimg me know, rather than letting me come accross it accidentally on a search engine seven months later. WTF?????? 5th Feb 2006

[edit] Another Bug

Why is there only one entry on the history of Dean poulton, when I didn't make the article, I only added the delete notice? ~~~~ 19:03, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• the 1 entry in the history
• the diff clearly showing two entries

I'm not sure if this happened in this case, but sometimes this happens, in this order, all within the space of a couple minutes:

1. Editor #1 creates a nonsense article;
2. Editor #2 edits it to tag it with a speedy;
3. Admin #1 deletes the nonsense article;
4. Editor #2 saves the speedy-tagged version.

This happened a couple of times yesterday. The result is a history containing only one edit, which includes a speedy tag. An admin can see, however, that there is at least one deleted edit. Antandrus (talk) 19:11, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Another possibility is that you were seeing the result of replication lags to slave database servers, which sometimes causes histories to be messed up. FWIW, the history of the now-deleted article shows two entries:

19:01, 5 Jun 2005 . . -Ril- ()

18:42, 5 Jun 2005 . . 81.178.223.187 ()

These messed-up histories can sometimes persist for quite a while, until the cached history is purged. Noel (talk) 21:20, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Are deletions broken?

I have now tried to delete Ben Wyrosdick ten times, and have gotten the ERROR message each and every time. Am I the only one this is happening to, or is there a problem with deletions? RickK 22:40, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

Update:I have created User:RickK/Test and it deleted with no problems. RickK 22:43, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

I got Ben Wyrosdick on my second try, but deletions do seem to be failing more often than they should. It makes clearing out VfD/Old especially annoying. - SimonP 23:06, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

This has been happening to me a lot lately, but today has been very bad. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:11, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

And today it is even worse, usually takes up to one hour of retry until a deletion is performed. See also Bugilla Bug 2195 andy 18:10, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it's a good time to ressurect our good old friend, the template which was called {{pending deletion}}. ☺ --cesarb 21:55, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Now Moves are failing?

I was trying to move Felis Concolor back to Puma just before the database was locked, but kept getting the usual ERROR message. Now I've just tried five times and keep getting the ERROR. This is the same problem we were having with Deletes earlier in the week. Is anybody else having problems with moves? RickK 04:11, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

I've periodically had this problem with quite a few operations (edits, deletes, moves, just about everything but simply viewing a page). It comes and goes, perhaps depending on the load the servers are under. But it doesn't seem to be consistently impossible, the way deletions were earlier. --Michael Snow 04:36, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Finally got the move to work, after about 25 tries off and on. RickK 06:40, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

I've been seeing this error message on and off with all sorts of operations: edits, histories, what-links, etc. I had a case a couple of days ago with an undelete operation - I just couldn't get it to go through, even though I kept trying. It's definitely load-related (i.e. happens more when the system is loaded), but it seems to occur even at times of low load (e.g. I saw it at 3AM East Coast time). It's strange, because it seems like operations either finish quickly, or take forever and timeout, and they are intermixed like that - a failure is followed right away by an instant success. Which makes it seem like what's happening is the Apaches are losing the request, or perhaps the Squids are sending the request to an Apache which is hung, or busy, or something. We should try and get a better characterization of the symptoms, and let the developers know. Anyone know if a bug report has been filed on this? Noel (talk) 08:48, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Votes for deletion backlog

Currently the backlog on WP:VFD is just over two weeks. Help would be welcome closing the discussions, deleting what must be deleted, etc. Please see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Old. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:26, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think part of the issue is there is a 25 step process for closing a VFD. If it weren't so work intensive, it might not get so backlogged. Yes I'm exxaggerating, and yes I should probably just go learn the steps, but it is certainly not appealing. Any way to simplify the procedure? - Taxman ^Talk 19:38, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

If I knew how, I would already have done it. I agree with your plan. Learn the steps, do a dozen or so and be bold in proposing changes to the procedure. Maybe new eyes will see new possibilities. We're always looking for help controlling the backlog. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 21:53, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I will be starting to help out with the backlog when I get back from my business trip. I would appreciate if someone could meet me on IRC this weekend or next week so I have someone to walk me through the first few. Kelly Martin 22:46, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Ok so its a date, er group class? How about 17:00 or 18:00 UTC[1] this saturday? We can open a new channel for VFD learning and get the hang of it and slog through a few hundred. Later on Sat would be fine too. - Taxman ^Talk 23:15, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

If someone drops me a message to tell me what IRC is, I'll try to join as well. I have to drop out. Will be out of town that day. Rossami (talk) 02:50, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've run over the deletion process with a weedwhacker. I did away with the redundant archiving of the day logs, which are by far the least easily searched VfD archives, in favor of keeping the deletion pages themselves and the standard posting to talk pages. This let me do away with the templates. The result is a six step process with no substeps. Much less instructionally creepy. I look forward to being reverted for undoing a bunch of changes that were made without gathering consensus prior to gathering consensus. Snowspinner 01:40, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Good work, this brings the system back to more like it was a year ago. I'm not sure how it happened, but in the same period that VfD tripled in size we also tripled the amount of work it took to deal with each vote. All we seem to have lost in your changes are the not very useful daily log pages. Something I would also like to see is going back to the old system of moving the votes directly to the talk page. It was impossible to do this and to keep the log pages, but now that the log pages are gone we are free to go back to the old system. Moving the templates would eliminate the linking to the closed debate, which is one of the more time consuming parts of the processes. Returning the closed votes to a more prominent position on the talk page is also a good idea as editors should generally read through them before working on the article. - SimonP 02:16, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Snowspinner's changes on Wikipedia:Deletion process were reverted, but only because it is a significant unilateral change that should be discussed beforehand. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 03:15, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I have nothing against the 25+ step process -- it fine for me. My problem is dealing with those discussions that have such a relatively huge number of voters that it takes too long to determine whether or not there is a real consensus and confirming who are sock puppets. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 02:29, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • By the way, is Template:Oldvfd well publicized? Zzyzx11 (Talk) 02:40, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • No, it's not. And Template:Oldvfdfull is probably better. --cesarb 14:10, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I didn't even know there *was* supposed to be a procedure for closing. I just close them. It's not rocket science. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:16, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Sandbox/Lost and Found

Answering to a plea for help at the Village pump, I found the article Mixedfolks discussed about here some time ago. It was originally Wikipedia:Tutorial (Formatting)/sandbox, which was moved by Dontblush (talk · contribs) to a broken article title, and then moved to its final title by someone else.

I managed to move it to Wikipedia:Sandbox/Lost and Found and split off the contributions intended for Mixedfolks. In the process, I managed to somehow duplicate what I believe is every revision except the last (shouldn't it be an atomic transaction?).

My question is, what should I do with the 2177 remaining revisions? Keep them deleted? Undelete and keep them there? Undelete and merge with the page history of Wikipedia:Tutorial (Formatting)/sandbox? Ask Brion to fix the duplication? Or something else?

--cesarb 20:42, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Forgotten VfD?

Not really an incident, I know, so apologies in advance (I don't know where else to raise it!). Has Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Turkish Holocaust Chronological Index been forgotten about? It's been open since 29 May, but hasn't been closed or acted on. I should note that the user who created the article in question has an RfA open against him which includes evidence of sockpuppetry and the repeated use of open proxies, so caution should be exercised in determining whether the votes of anon IPs and new users should be considered. -- ChrisO 21:01, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Old. There is a considerable backlog, and so far, even debates as old as May 25 are not all resolved. --Dmcdevit 21:14, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Hmm. Okay, I'll see if I can lend a hand to get the backlog down. -- ChrisO 21:25, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• We're up to May 29 now. Any help from admins with closing VfDs is always welcome. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:35, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Language links on main page

Hi, I'm not sure this is the right place to post this, but the main page http://www.wikipedia.org/ needs some updating, as several languages passed the 10,000 article border (according to the milestone page Korean did, Hungarian is well above 11,000 and it seems the Bahasa Indonesian is over 10,000 too.) Thanks. -- Alensha 16:19, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The problem is the official stats page appears not to have been updated in a bit. Also, the portal is not a wiki page, so it would require contacting a developer. Admin's can't do it. - Taxman ^Talk 12:13, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Someone did it. Thanks! Alensha 22:17, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I guess "they" watch here too. :) - Taxman ^Talk 23:28, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, all it needs is a Meta administrator, since it can be edited from the protected m:Www.wikipedia.org template. — Dan | Talk 12:42, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppet template

Grace Note (talk · contribs) seems to have launched a personal crusade against the sockpuppet template, removing it from the User pages of people like Elkabong (talk · contribs), and calling editors who place it there "vandals". Given that Wikipedia policy is to place the template when there is, for example, evidence of IP address-sharing, etc. (as there is in the Kainthescion/Elkabong/Enviroknot case), could someone explain the Grace Note that he's misunderstood the situation? He bears some animus towards me, so it would be good if someone else explained it to him. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:03, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That is clearly disruptive behaviour. I would recommend a warning and then blocking him/her for a short period. After this, gather evidence and then take them to the ArbCom. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:06, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I see. Harassing a user is fine but disagreeing with an admin is a blockable offence. Take me to the arbcom? You guys are demented. You are so keen on pursuing your personal campaigns against editors you do not like that you'll consider any lengths, and witchhunt anyone who disagrees with you.Grace Note 02:16, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Harassing whom? If you are implying that I have harassed you, I doubt that. If you are implying that the sock puppet template is harassment, allow me to introduce you to User:Choosedreams, er User:Cheesedreams, ummm... User:Cheese Dreams, no no that's not right... maybe User:Cheese Dreams, uh... User:Cheese-Dreams? Actually, the real account is User:CheeseDreams. So much for harassment. As for disruptive behaviour, are you denying that you removed the sock puppet template from user pages? If you have, this is clearly disruptive behaviour, and for this you risk getting blocked by an admin. We are not your personal playpen. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:08, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I seem to recall David Gerard saying something about their sockpuppetry; maybe you should ask him? Radiant_>|< 09:21, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Ah, there you go. "Enviroknot = ElKabong = KaintheScion. But while he behaves himself (i.e. not spouting personal abuse under whatever name), people are mostly willing to put up with him and take his edits as they come - David Gerard 10:50, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)", from his talk page. Radiant_>|< 11:55, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, the evidence is certainly up to the standard demanded on the policy page. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:44, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What evidence? "Dave Gerard says so" is not actually evidence. Grace Note 02:16, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

David Gerard has the power to do IP checks of users, so yes, "Dave [sic] Gerard says so" is actually evidence. --Calton | Talk 14:40, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, sorry man, it isn't. He didn't produce any evidence. He just suggested they were the same. Even using the same IP does not make two people the same person. I think it's better to be circumspect about accusations of sockpuppetry, especially when it doesn't actually matter! It's the behaviour that counts, not the user. Grace Note 07:24, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The constant pushing of this template and nonsensical attacks against an innocent user by Mel Etitis and his various lackeys/sockpuppets need to end. Bravo to Grace Note for finally doing something about it.

As a side note, the fact that Etitis was given admin powers at all proves what a shit-poor process adminship is. (Comment by User:136.145.54.123, known vandal (and probably a sockpuppet of Enviroknot) --Calton | Talk 20:59, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC))

It's certainly at the same level as Enviroknot's usual contributions. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:44, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to know under what policy you propose to block me. Disagreeing with an admin is not, so far as I know, a blockable offence. Unfortunately, while harassing other users ought to be, it is not. Grace Note 02:16, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You are removing a template which was placed in accordance with Wikipedia policy; the fact that you're making personal attacks on editors who placed the template in good faith is aggravating, but not the central point; they're not vandalising the pages by placing the template, but by removing it for no good reason, you are behaving like a vandal. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:11, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Removing a template is not a blockable offence. Disagreeing with you isn't either, unless you've written a new policy that I'm not aware of. Harassing a user by attacking their user page is vandalism. Go and read the policy. I have, and it's there in black and white. I am removing the template for very good reason. I think it is being used to harass a user. I certainly haven't made a personal attack on you, Mel. Disagreeing with you, or with your behaviour, isn't one of those either. Grace Note 07:24, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Deletedpage

What's the deal with this template? I thought the common way of protecting a page against recreation was to lock it onto a blank page? This is presently in use on a couple of heavily disputed things, e.g. hellenic genocide, but also on some deleted vanity pages. Radiant_>|< 10:00, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

• This template was debated on TFD to a no consensus result and the discussion is archived here. Those that voted keep argued that this template is an alternative to the blank page which may be confusing to new users. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 10:45, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Personal attacks on controversial pages

I would like to propose that the following message box, at Template:Personal, be added to articles deemed controversial and where there is a history of editors making inflammatory remarks and personal attacks:

No personal attacks

This talk page pertains to an article about a highly controversial topic. Insults do not assist in improving its factuality, verifiability or neutrality. In the interest of being civil and productive, all members of the Wikipedia community are expected to review and follow Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, follow good wiki etiquette, and abstain from personal attacks. Failure to do so on this talk page may result in being blocked from editing for a short period of time. There will be no additional warnings.

The very first article I would add this to is Jihad. Last year I had my first taste of just how bad things could get, now after a year I have gone back and found the article in just as bad (if not worse) a state with even more inflammatory comments and personal attacks which have caused editing to come to an almost complete halt. Warnings do not work here, with at least one user being blocked for 24 hours for violation of the 3RR by User:SlimVirgin, but who has just created a sockpuppet account and also started editing anonymously. I feel that the only way to deal with this sort of bad faith is to give a global warning on the top of the talk page and then start blocking those who feel the need to make personal attacks. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:48, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Sounds like a solid idea, go for it. Radiant_>|< 11:59, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd say yes, too. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:41, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• I'd say a qualified yes. (Incidentally, for the specific situation described I thought that admins were permitted to shoot the sock on sight; it's being used to circumvent a preexisting block, yes?) In order to avoid WP:AN/I turning into a river of flame, there will need to be specific consensus-driven changes to the blocking policy outlining circumstances under which the template can be added to an article, when blocks are justified (this may require modifications to WP:NPA, too), and the duration of block permitted. To avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest, it should be emphasized that admins directly involved in a conflict should not place the block. --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:54, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I am asking for policy ammendments on WP:BP and WP:NPA. Check their talk pages and comment there if necessary. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:40, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I support this. A number of Islam-related talk pages have been reduced to chaos recently by anon IPs, sockpuppets, and some regular users making personal attacks. We can block the ones who've made no useful contributions for disruption, but we can't block editors who've contributed properly in the past. Even short blocks of a couple of hours until they'd calmed down would help a lot. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:48, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

No, we don't need a special template telling people to obey the rules. When you get in your car, you don't see signs telling you which side of the road to drive on -- you're SUPPOSED to follow the rule, even if there's no sign around telling you to. →Raul654 02:02, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Years ago, I was on holiday in the UK, and we rented a car and drove on the divided highway from London to Dover. Near Dover, where the cross-channel ferry docked and let off European drivers who were used to driving on the right instead of the left, we passed several highway signs facing the other direction. The reversed signs, it turned out, warned drivers -- in 4 languages -- that they were driving in the wrong direction and should immediately turn around. The furthest out, as I recall, was at least ten miles away from Dover. I don't see why Wikipedia can't be at least as cautious as the Ministry of Transport. --Calton | Talk 03:59, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Raul, could I ask what rule you are referring to? You should be aware that we don't currently have a blocking rule that immediately blocks personal attacks, nor should we. People must get a warning. However, on certain controversial articles, such as Jihad, there are editors who create sock puppets and edit anonymously - all done on purpose. They target these articles and therefore I feel that a specific warning should be added to the article that we won't accept personal attacks in the article. This would be the warning that editors are given, and will mean that they have no excuse for making personal attacks - excuses like "But you never warned me!". - Ta bu shi da yu 02:13, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Can't we just ignore them? Remove the attacks if you want and just move on. What purpose does it serve to block users and then have them abuse you? What is likely to happen is that someone says something to an admin that they don't like, they call in a buddy, and the person who disagrees with them is blocked. Meanwhile, the admins will have absolute impunity, because no one will block them, and in those cases that they do, they will have others who unblock them for some reason or other. There are damned good reasons for not making "personal attacks" a blockable offence. We are all surely aware of them. Ultimately, why don't you just leave Jihad alone, Ta bu? Do you know anything about it? Do you actually have anything to add? Given your POV on religion, which you've often expressed, you'd probably be better advised not to work on that article anyway. Grace Note 02:22, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would strongly disagree with you on this one. No, we cannot just "ignore them", because these POV pushers basically ruin any discussion relating to controversial topics. Also, just out of interest, what is my "POV on religion"? I would be most interested in finding out what this might be. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:27, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I have not been editing that article, I have made one comment in many months, and that was to respond to a self-admitted sock puppet. However, I have every right to read the damn thing: what else do you think our encyclopedia is here for, for goodness sake! Incidently, do you think that the article as it stands is well-written and neutral?! I don't. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:51, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Speaking of personal attacks, care to explain this, where you call Kapil a "right wing troll", or perhaps this, where you wrote: "I'll stick to calling you a cunt in future, since you feel that that is a more reasonable epithet to use."? Or maybe where you wrote, "By the way, I'll be referring to you as a "rightist troll" until the day you are banned, Kapil, because that is without doubt what you are, and I'll refer to your reincarnation as one as soon as you come back." Methinks you would be one of the first beneficiaries of this proposed policy. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:04, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is this unneccesarily specific? Obviously there are cases where personal attacks are the crisis of the moment, but what about generalizing it to address Wikiquette more generally, something like:

Stay Calm

This article pertains to a highly controversial topic. It can be very difficult to write neutrally about it, and insults and personal comments do not assist in improving its factuality, verifiability or neutrality. In the interest of civility and productivity, all participants are expected to review and follow Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. By participating here, you agree to respect these rules, follow good wiki editquette and abstain from personal attacks. Failure to do so may result in an administrator blocking you from editting for a short period of time. There will be no additional warnings.

I've removed the "should not be construed..." as I feel it is superfluous, since I can't see any honest editor imagining the policies only apply to controversial issues and I can't see the dishonest ones being deterred by it. Also, I'm not sure about the virtue of saying notices will appear at WP:AN. Seems to me that you put it on the user's talk page and potentially the talk page for the subject in the dispute and after that the user wouldn't care where else you put it. Most of the other edits reflect my desire to frame this as a more general admonition towards good behavior. Obviously, changes to the blocking policy would still be needed to address things in the way Tu bu shi da yu intends. Dragons flight 03:41, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

The point of WP:AN being on the message box is to give admins the ability to reverse decisions: this gives some checks and balances to the system. - Ta bu shi da yu 23:37, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Attention all admins

I believe you would all like to express your reactions to Wikipedia:Administrators_cannot_vote. I know it won't pass, but for that to happen, we need the reactions. Come and reply, please. Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk 13:49, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Don't feed the trolls: stuff like this is best ignored. Filiocht | Blarneyman 15:00, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

It's on VfD. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:28, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Maybe it's not trolling. Maybe it's just a proposal. Don't poison the atmosphere. Everyking 02:40, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That page comes to us courtesy of User:MARMOT, who has <50 edits, few if any of which are useful contributions to articles. Enough said. Isomorphic 03:02, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Even if it passed, it would not be valid because, as we all know, admins are just editors with some special powers, it's not a big deal, yadda yadda blah blah blah, and therefore should be treated as editors. Taking away the rights of admins to vote and participate on Wikipedia would therefore not be valid. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:23, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image switching vandals

What is the current policy on blocking vandals who switch images for vulgar versions?

I've just had an incident with User:72.25.94.106 switching the Pic of the day. Is it the usual escalating warnings leading to a block, or should I just go straight for the block.

Its not on the front page, but as its gaining visibility. I guess we will need to look at protecting some of the templates used etc. -- Solipsist 10:32, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean uploading vulgar images over existing ones, or do you mean switching the wikimarkup for including the image? --Carnildo 17:39, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I guess both, but in this case it was switching the wikimarkup. -- Solipsist 22:45, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of exploding animals

I have just started off this list. Any admins who want it deleted, please use VfD, as should have happened in the first place. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:49, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Er, excuse me, but how is this not redundant with Category:Exploding animals? Radiant_>|< 07:44, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • And template exploding animals.--nixie 07:51, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • You can't really reorder the category. Nonetheless, I don't have a problem with someone listing this on VfD. If that had been done to the original article in the first place, then we would have all these lists. Do you know how confusing it is to have that list on WP:VFD and on Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion?! I must say that the title wasn't very accurate, however. I'm not disputing the redundancy, only the way it was deleted. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:52, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It was invalidly speedied. I restored it and added cat and {{listdev}}. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:26, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Both are now on VFD, that should clean up the bureaucracy :) Radiant_>|< 09:53, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Policy proposal on dealing with disputes over names

We seem to have a lot of nationalist edit wars over placenames. I'm sure not many people will have forgotten the Gdansk/Danzig fiasco. A similar row is going on at Talk:Macedonian Slavs (Greeks and ex-Yugoslavs fighting over names, again). I'm sure we'll have similar arguments about other disputed names in future.

I believe that what we need is a consistent approach to dealing with such issues. I've put together a proposal at User:ChrisO/Naming disputes which sets out some criteria for resolving naming disputes. These boil down to:

• The most common use in English of a name takes precedence;
• If the common name conflicts with the official name, use the common name except for conflicting scientific and dialect names;
• If neither the common name nor the official name is prevalent, use the name (or a translation thereof) that the subject uses to describe itself or themselves.

Objective criteria that should be considered are:

• Is the name in common usage in English?
• Is it the official current name of the subject (official in terms of being used in a legal context, e.g. a constitution?)
• Is it the name used by the subject to describe itself or themselves?
• If an historic name is mentioned in the article, is it in an accurate context?

Subjective criteria that should not be used are:

• Does the subject have a moral right to use the name?
• Does the subject have a legal right to use the name?
• Does the name infringe on someone else's legal or moral rights?
• Is the use of the name politically unacceptable?

Of course, there's more to it than that - notably that really intractable disputes should be resolved by a neutral committee of administrators (not the ArbCom), rather than being put to votes which will just end up being pissing contests between rival partisans.

Comments to User talk:ChrisO/Naming disputes, please... -- ChrisO 22:50, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] is there any way of searching for words in usernames?

I noticed on [[2]] that there was an acount called User:!!My password is vand I scrambled the password by I wounder is there were any other user names out there that included thier password in there name. IS there any way of cheacking? Geni 23:57, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What are we doing wrong here?

Okay, seriously, we are really doing something entirely wrong here. In just a couple of days, three strong contributors (User:Jguk, User:RickK and User:Coolcat) decide to leave the project, potentially forever. Of course they all have their reasons and their controversies attached. But I do think we should seriously analyze our ways here and see what we're doing wrong to cause such WikiStress in people. Are we being too harsh? Too lenient? Too bickerative? Too inconsistent? How can we make the Wiki a better place and keep well-intending people from running off? Radiant_>|< 08:47, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Make it smaller. But that's not an option. Also, make people more patient, but that's an option either. Finally, temper enthusiasm with professional detachment, but... well, you get the idea by now. As Mark Twain said, "nothing needs changing so much as the habits of others." And there's no silver bullet. But maybe I lack vision. JRM · Talk

Having pondered an extended wikibreak over the weekend myself, my interim view is that we (by we I mean the admins and most especially the active ones) are becoming overly legalistic and confrontational and more concerned with process than with product. I think the whole range of admin tools needs to be looked at closely. Specifically, I believe A) that the 3RR rule as currently constituted needs major overhauling to encourage discussion and common sense and discourage calls for banning as the court of first appeal. B) that all substantive discussion of major issues and presentation of "evidence" must happen on Wikipedia and not on IRC and the mailing list. Many of us do not use these fora at all. C) All of us (and I am specifically including myself) need to become much more reflective and much less given to the knee-jerk reaction when dealing with what we see as attacks, either on ourselves or on the project; fighting fire with fire will just burn the whole house down. Filiocht | Blarneyman 09:10, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Also: ForestFire, FlameWar, VestedContributor, CommunityMayNotScale and just about everything else on MeatballWiki (which should be mandatory reading material for admins, but that's another matter.) JRM · Talk 09:25, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

From meatball:VestedContributor:

Prevention is the best way to address the problem. Make it clear up front that volunteering to work on behalf of the community is just that -- volunteering. Reward volunteers through recognition alone, e.g. BarnStars. Watch out for double standards, and don't allow unplanned hierarchies to develop within the community. Make equality among participants and members a core value. If there are administrative roles that incorporate special priviledges, e.g. BuildingJanitor, set term limits and rotate the roles among members.

(Emphasis mine.) Can you imagine something like that happening on Wikipedia? No, I thought so. JRM · Talk 09:58, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

see also WP:RFAr/RFC. We'll need tighter policies at some point. WP just doesn't scale indefinitely. dab (ᛏ) 10:12, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

One problem is that admins are increasingly being targeted for attack by various trolls, vandals, and fellow-travellers; that inevitably makes admins more defensive, and that leads to more confrontations. The attacks are usually petty and made in transparently bad faith, but there are enough editors who enjoy piling into such matters (on both sides) that the result drags on, and becomes more and more Byzantine and acrimonious. I've no idea how to deal with that; making it more difficult to criticise admins is clearly not the way to god, but is another layer of bureacracy in the form of some sort of panel that assesses criticisms any better? Perhaps. I've recently been the target of a a number of apparently unconnected attacks, in which I've been accused (vaguely, and with no evidence or even details) of abusing my admin powers. It would be nice to to be able to say: "Go to such-and-such a page, and complain there; they'll decide whether I've any case to answer". At the moment, the only such place is this, and this is just a free for all, which often serves merely to muddy the water as I described above.

Another problem is that Wikipedia is seeing a gradual increase in the number of editors with personal agendas and very narrow interests; that affects us all, admins and non-admins alike, and it can be intensely wearing, but it's even less clear what can be done about that (or even whether anything should be done about it). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:11, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

you want to chnage the 3RR system. Sure just show that you have a consensus for whatever changes you make.Geni 12:17, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In fact I hadn't thought of changing 3RR; what did you have in mind? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:24, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I can think of two solutions to Mel's problem... first, sockchecking. Some new accounts are obviously role accounts, which is ok except if they're abusive. As generally agreed on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet/Proposal, if an account is permablocked it may be worthwhile to check if it happens to be a sock, and if so, to censure the foot owner. The main problem here is that David Gerard and Tim Starling have better things to do.
• Second, new users are generally good, but sometimes trouble (e.g. trolling, deliberate vandalism, petty revenge role accounts, etc). While we should be very careful about blocking valuable editors, it may be worthwhile to create some policy that makes it easier and not controversial to permablock a new user, within certain specific limits. I'll think on the entire issue some more though. Radiant_>|< 12:23, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
• yes, we need access to the IPs. No editor in good faith has reason to hide his IP, and many in bad faith positively refuse to hide their IP. That's absurd. As it is stated on Template:blocked proxy, If you have such a severe personal situation that editing Wikipedia with the level of anonymity provided by an IP number is dangerous to you, then we recommend that you refrain from editing Wikipedia. There. I have no opinion if all editor should be able to view IPs, or only admins. But I insist that your IP is not part of your privacy. You give away your IP to every site you visit, and the site maintainers are under no obligation not to publish their logs (many sites have them public). I think this sockpuppetry circus consumes just too much energy, and we are positively encouraging it by this exaggerated secrecy about contributers' IPs. dab (ᛏ) 12:40, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• IP cheacking is not a cure all. what if their IP is AOL? Or if they match but come from a uni IP (I know other people have edited from my uni IP). IP cheacks are not some magic sword of truth but even if they are it would be trivial to beat them and we will just see socks get more sophisticated.Geni 12:49, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• • Sockchecking is more complicated than IP checking. Presently, a small subsection of admins can do sockchecks. It may be worthwhile to increase that subsection from two users to about five. Giving all admins sockchecking rights is probably more trouble than it's worth. The whole point is - presently it's too easy to create a sock. If we add some levels of security, we will likely have a couple of socks that fall through anyway (as Geni claims). However, it will result in far fewer socks. Radiant_>|< 13:00, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
    • None of this has much to do with why the three people you originally cited left, though, right? Pcb21| Pete 13:21, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC) (via edit conflict)
      • Okay, good point, I got sidetracked. Very well, then what would you suggest doing to improve the WikiAtmosphere? Radiant_>|< 13:24, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
      • yes. I don't think it is a cure-all. I think it is a way to take away some stress, we are at the moment needlessly creating for ourselves. People will leave for overall wikistress, not because of one particular issue. Sockchecks are impossible without the IPs. Yes, you need to include the editing pattern, and the browser string. But that's all information we get. The IP. The browser string. The time. The edit itself. All "sockchecks" will be based on this. But ok, the problem may lie deeper. It's all about making life harder for bad faith editors, easier for good faith editors, without creating bureaucracy or benevolent dictators. dab (ᛏ) 13:29, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The original post here was to do with what we are doing that is driving away good editors. If you check on the 3 names mentioned, none of them cited socks as a reason, as far as I can see. So why are we suddenly talking about socks? The question is "What are we doing wrong?" "We're not. It's them." is the wrong answer. Maybe we should do away with user names and have everybody identified by their IP, then we could talk about other things. Filiocht | Blarneyman 13:16, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

if we want to remain "the encyclopedia anyone can edit", we'll have to put up with people as they come. I.e. there will be jerks, hatemonger, and simply immature, whiny, aggressive, arrogant and reckless editors. As we grow, they become more. Ergo, we cannot afford to put each of them through months of evidence collecting, rfc'ing, arbitrating, appealing, injunctioning and, babysitting them all. We need clear guidelines on how to deal with people who cannot behave, without scaring away people who do, and without draconian measures against perfectly good users who maybe say "you are an idiot" sometimes when they disagree with you. dab (ᛏ) 13:35, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Volunteer wikipedians are facing a reality that professional journalists have faced for a long time - it's unpleasant to hear loud criticism from strangers about your work - except that it's exaggerated by wiki-editing. This is where wikipedia will either fizzle, because the stress will fatally harm participation, or bloom, because it will develop new ways to cope that were never developed by people who can take solace in a paycheck. The only ideas I have, alas, are to make us more of a traditional, hierarchical, top-down information-processing organization, but I don't think that's the right approach. I hopefully await magical concepts bubbling up from below. - DavidWBrooks 13:38, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I like to think that WP is a hivemind, and individual users don't matter. If you're used up, WP tosses you away. You will think that the system is flawed, but WP in reality has sucked your energy into itself, and continues to thrive. I don't know if this is really a consolation, and it assumes that there is an endless supply of fresh drones. dab (ᛏ) 13:45, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I like dab's explanation the best. Kaldari 05:23, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we should take comfort from the thought that many more bad editors leave than good. I don't know if that's true, but we could still take comfort in it... Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:24, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if this is a solution or anything, but I think we should keep in mind what this project is supposed to be. We're supposed to be a free encyclopedia, providing information for people who wish to learn about stuff. The last few days, I've been reading more than editing, and it's giving me some insight as a user rather than a Wikipedian. Jguk's case, for example, involved the dates changed from BC/AD and BC/BCE. Will the user prefer BC/AD over BC/BCE? Is the primary function of Wikipedia to educate in a responsible manner, or to not offend anyone? We need balance, and we certainly need to be correct, but I don't think we need to carry this to extremes such that we detract from the value of the encyclopedia as a whole. For example, technical communicators try to write documentation as they feel the end-user will want to read it (they usually focus on task-based documentation), not as the engineers or product developers want to write it (they usually focus on feature-based documentaion). I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should focus on what the end-user would want to see in an encyclopedia. --Deathphoenix 14:56, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hence the need for editors to go on wikibreaks. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:03, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well put. Rossami (talk) 16:06, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Vide "professional detachment". While sound advice, it doesn't really work as advice, because problems arise exactly when people forget this. They sink not just their pride but their whole ego into the encyclopedia, and whatever is done unto their edits is done unto them. When a group of such people disagree, that's when the trouble really starts. Wiki's open nature is ideal for perfectly mirroring arguments: you edit "me", I edit "you" right back. Now mix in administrators: when I'm an administrator, this also means my judgement is better than yours because the community said so, so you will automatically lose the argument if I keep it up long enough. Unless the community stabs me in the back by disagreeing with me, of course—but that's what we have friends for... Etcetera. Now apply some external heat in the form of a rapidly growing user base and a rapidly improving article base (leaving that much more room for behavior that actually hurts), let it simmer, and behold Wikipedia as it is today. Who's to blame? No-one and everyone. JRM · Talk 16:22, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Deathphoenix. The biggest problem I have with Wikipedia is the large number of people who have lost sight of (or were completely unaware to begin with of) the fact that we are here above all else to write an encyclopaedia. Anything that stops us doing this or makes Wikipedia a worse encyclopaedia is inherently bad. We've become both increasingly bureaucratic and increasingly politically correct, and neither of these helps us to be a better encyclopaedia — bureaucracy means that the editors with the most experience and available time spend their time here writing and enforcing rules and debating policy rather than writing articles; and political correctness is not our job to enforce, as we're not here to decide on whether things are offensive or not, merely to reflect common usage (the BC/AD/BCE/CE debate is a prime example of us doing precisely the wrong thing in this regard, with editors openly saying that they want to ignore common usage to promote something they find preferable). I sympathise completely with jguk, and I wish I could plead with him to come back, but I can't. All the faults he points out are true, and he has been so unfairly treated as to justify completely his departure from the project. We don't deserve to have him here. I wish I could tell him it will get better, but it just seems to be getting worse, and unless something serious happens to change the way we do things, all I can see in the future is the departure of yet more dedicated editors who can no longer cope with what Wikipedia has become. Proteus (Talk) 16:34, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Fair points, all, but I must set one thing straight: I knew that my judgement was better than other people's long before I became an admin... Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:34, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's alright. It's the ability to suffer fools that admins with impeccable judgement must hone. JRM · Talk 16:46, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

"...we are here above all else to write an encyclopaedia." Is that why I've been quitely adding, verifying and correcting data about railroad history as well as participating in the WP:FAC process all this time? We had a discussion on the FAC talk page a while back about editors taking ownership (or at least trying to) of articles that they create and submit for FA status. The consensus there was that we need to further encourage collaboration (and everything that that involves) and not solitary writing. The various Collaboration of the week subprojects work wonders in this manner; for example, Indian Railways was nowhere near the quality that it is now than before it was the Indian COTW. slambo 17:26, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What are we doing wrong (continued)

section break added to facilitate editing

To be honest, I'm not here first and foremost to write an encyclopedia. I'm here first and foremost because I'm a Wikipediholic. I actually started out as just a reader, so I suppose that's why I'm trying to keep the reader in mind. There are some excellent points above. It's okay for people to take pride in their work, but I try to ignore my own contributions and focus on whether someone adds value to an article. I've seem some people change my edits with insulting (or insulted) edit summaries questioning the quality of the article (whether it's my own edits or not). I don't take such things personally because I see my work edited and disparaged all the time. I'm not saying we should just lie down and give in to anyone that comes and changes our work. I'm just saying that we should look at people's edits and see if it adds value to the article from the end-user's point of view. Will the end-user reading both versions of the article think that the current version is better? Can I edit the current version so the end-user will think that the newest version is even better? If I can, I do it. If not, it's time for a revert. --Deathphoenix 18:43, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Filiocht that we're becoming too legalistic and too focused on process rather than the end result. That leads to a number of problems, the most painful one is the constant bickering. What people don't reallize is there are ways to diffuse disagreements instead of escalating them. It's easier to escalate them so people do. Focusing on the end result, and what is in the best interests of the project tends to limit the bad feelings, and we need a rebirth of that. The legalistic issue arises because we are a growing (in popularity, traffic, content, etc.) and increasingly high quality site that allows anyone to edit. That is going to attract people who want to do good, and people who don't. So increasingly, in order to be fair, we follow policy down to the wire to make sure we do the right thing in sanctioning users. That's great and we should always do our best, but it also leads to ever increasing policy requirements to try to plug all the loopholes. We are witnessing a legal system growing organically. Maybe we should simplify the ban policy to "if a consensus of administrators thinks you are not editing in good faith you may be banned for a period of time or indefinitely."

For various reasons, people will leave the project, but I'm not sure it's something we should lament too much. Don't get me wrong, we'd of course rather keep every good user, and from a personal standpoint I'd rather they stay, but that's not ever realistic. There will always be editors that for various reasons will move on to other things, and we'll still have the good contributions they made. They can of course always come back, and many do.

So in the end, what are we doing wrong? Lots of things, every day. But as long as we do our best, and keep trying to further the aims of Wikipedia, we'll be ok, and we'll probably end up somewhere remarkable. In the end, that's more important than any one of us, so we should worry as much about the small things now. - Taxman ^Talk 19:50, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Two comments on the subject: 1) Wikipedia should be content-centered, not people centered. If you look at the contribution history of the people who get "burnt-out" and leave, their own attitude is often a big part of the problem. They take things too seriously, and get involved into huge personal disputes and discussions instead of staying cool and focusing on content. It's always sad to lose an excellent contributor, but as Taxman said, the project comes first. This is not about the people, or else we would all get credit at the end of each article; it's about the grand project of making knowledge available to all. Like in any projects, some people can't take the pressure and the criticism; people come, go, come back again, and leave again; that flow isn't necessarily bad, because wikibreaks allow contributors to lay back and think about how they relate to the project, and work even better when they come back. 2) Clique behavior, and side-channel discussions (IRC, etc...) do a great deal to undermine the community (which could be a great 'side effect' of Wikipedia) and the working behavior. This is why I am in favor of rotating privileged positions, while still maintaining authoritative bodies like ArbCom for non-content disputes only. These bodies are the only way to avoid clique-driven lynch mobs, and large groups of users cracking down on single users for sometimes harmless mistakes. Phils 20:03, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Responding to Radiant's comment way at the top, I have to wonder: do we, as individuals, hand out enough compliments to each other for their work here? I only ask this because I know I don't do this nearly enough. Maybe doing something simple like this can avoid the "hivemind" which devours Wikipedians in dab's comment above; I, for one, don;t want to be involved in something that reeks of Blake's "dark, Satanic mills". I remember from troubleshooting computers, it's always best to begin with the simple & inexpensive solutions & work the way up to more complex ones. -- llywrch 00:45, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Destroy cliques by rotating adminship among editors with 1000+ edits. Give rollback to all editors with 1000+ edits. Rotate members of a deletion panel and get rid of VfD. Discourage "sockhunting". It doesn't matter who is who's sockpuppet: it's what they do that counts. Ignore trolls. Revert vandals. Encourage real welcomes for newcomers, even if they are going wrong. Make the 3RR a 1RR, and tighten up the definition so that abusers cannot say "that wasn't a revert". Make arbcom proceedings less formal, less legalistic and keep them out of content altogether. Make it absolutely clear to admins that they can block for vandalism and breaking the 1RR but not for any other reason that does not have arbcom sanction. Make a personal attack parole a condition of anonymity. Encourage editors to edit, create content, instead of politicking. Grace Note 04:11, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Rotating adminship is a novel idea that will probably not overcome the social inertia, but I like it. It's an attractive solution. Alternatively, since MediaWiki 1.5 will allow assigning user rights more discriminatorily than just "here's the mop, the bucket, and the double-barreled shotgun", we can make everyone with 1000+ edits an admin. Just like that. Whoever is found to abuse any specific administrative power gets it stripped.

Making the 3RR a 1RR, now that I really don't know about. I abide by the 1RR voluntarily, but is it going to help making it a formal rule? Especially if you're going the route of "tighten up the definition". Forget it. The tighter the definition, the easier it is to game it. But the looser it is, the less appropriate shooting people for two reverts becomes. The current 3RR implementation is a circus, but a workable one. We can't force anyone to act sensibly and discuss instead of reverting; the 3RR is just there to prevent them from continuing the state of war indefinitely, which is harmful to the article(s) involved.

Keeping the ArbCom out of content? Some problems really will fester forever if you do that. Some things never resolve through discussion. If admins can't block for persistent POV pushing and being an all-round jerk, and the ArbCom can no longer pass judgement on content, what's the recourse? Accept that Wikipedia is screwed where a particular article is concerned?

Encourage editors to edit, create content, instead of politicking. Yes, this is the heart of the matter, isn't it? It's when people start to disagree over what content should be created how that the politicking starts. You can try to minimize politicking, but it will never go away, because being bold cannot solve everything. At least not within our lifetimes. JRM · Talk 04:23, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

By tighten up the definition, I simply mean to define more things as reverts, rather than fewer as you have inferred. We all know what one is and yet the rules lawyer will say "that first one wasn't a revert because I didn't click on a previous version and save it" or some such. I think the notion that it's okay to revert up to a point is what's problematic in that particular area. A concept that was something like "have your say but don't keep pushing the point" might be better.

The ArbCom are quite happy to decide who the jerks are and at least they have a process. I'm not so keen on someone who five people okayed three years ago deciding for themselves who ought to be banned. If adminship were rotated, so that there were no permanent powerholders, I think it would be much more reasonable for them to have broader powers, or as you suggest, if all 1000+ editors were made admins and deadminning became less of a big deal. Most blocking of dickheads isn't all that controversial anyway -- it tends to be cases where those involved are all working on the same article that cause heatedness.

The ArbCom should definitely not decide issues of content. That's what the wiki is for. It's behaviour that is generally the problem. Where they have involved themselves in content, they've tended to be partisan, and that's caused more ill-feeling than it's prevented.Grace Note 04:21, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't use my admin abilities much, but I would be seriously irked if I couldn't delete redirects to move articles anymore, just because this will somehow "destroy cliques." The problem of cliques has nothing do with whether people are admins or not. john k 18:46, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Let me add that I think many of the problems of wikipedia revolve around it being too lax with problem users, not over-bureaucratization (although I think the latter is a problem as well). Any solution which deals with the latter problem in a way that makes the former problem much worse seems like a bad idea to me. john k 18:48, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If we are more strict on problem users then we will be more prone to scaring away new users (who only looked like trolls). If people didn't take things so seriously then we wouldn't need stricter rules. People don't seem to have any perspective. If an article has one small error at the bottom of the page for 2 hours it isn't the end of the world. Instead of edit warring leave the comment and discuss it. In the end you can only be driven away if you take things very seriously and let thing get to you. This link is Broken 11:46, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• While your observation is correct, I'm afraid it's not a very practical remedy to state that there wouldn't be any problem if people didn't take things so seriously. Fact is that people do take things (far too) seriously here, and we should work on a solution from that premise. People aren't going to change their behavior en masse. Radiant_>|< 11:57, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • So your solution to some people's needing to chill out a bit is to indulge them and encourage them not to chill out? Grace Note 04:21, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Why do I contribute to Wikipedia? Because I have information that I want others to see. Why else would I write about a topic like Btrieve or Common Unix Printing System? Because I wanted others to know about these topics, from a source that is as neutral and as factual as possible. This site gives me the chance to inform others. I have a friend, for instance, who found the CUPS article very useful. This is what drives me on: that someone, somewhere, will find the information in Wikipedia useful and give them an understanding of a topic I know something about! Why do you think I keep asking for sources in articles like Zoroastrianism? It's because I want the quality of the article to improve, to address any potential issues with neutrality and factuality and to improve the comprehensiveness of the article. Many see me as trying to push a POV: I see myself asking for better information so that people gain greater understanding of a topic. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:24, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It appears to me that the general level of user-to-user interaction is becoming increasingly confrontational. This goes hand-in-hand with a growing suspicion of new users and a willingness to ignore the "Don't bite the newbie" principle. This may well stem from bitter experience of encountering disruptive newbies, but also seems to contain at least an element of possessibeness on the part of more established users like myself. I have no idea what to do about this, other than remind ourselves of Wikilove as often as possible, and to be sure to take deep breaths before hitting the keyboard. Filiocht | Talk 11:40, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think the main point being made here is that we've gotten away from the content–we're building an encyclopedia. We aren't here as a vehicle for social change or advocacy. We aren't here as an experiment in web-democracy, web-anarchy, or even web-aristocracy (sadly). We aren't here to win final victory for someone's pet political persuasion. We're here to build a encyclopedia written in the English language for the benefit of humankind. Our first principle should be this: the content comes first. Our second? Anyone who works against the first principle stands in opposition to the encyclopedia and its aims.

There's a lot of rules-lawyering on this encyclopedia, centered around the points I mentioned above. It's sheer waste. If pages of talk are generated without solving the content problem, then the problem has grown worse. If the problem wasn't content-centric in the first place, then someone is wasting our time and needs to get his or her crap together. Anyone who has to be brought before the Arbitration Committee, after at least one RFC, because of behavioral problems, is taking up the valuable time and energy of dozens of contributors.

The problem, as I see it, is that there exists no simple mechanism for defusing these content debates and allowing editors to get back to work. This shouldn't be a serious problem. When writing for a Neutral Point of View, it should be taken for granted that the view point you write is not your own. Given that, the most important thing for Wikipedia is to establish what the Neutral Point of View is on a given issue so that editors know what that POV is and can write accordingly. This happens hundreds of times everyday, and usually without incident. Those times don't concern us. The problems tend to occur where multiple editors representing divergent points of view collide. The serious problem of Gdansk comes to mind. It took months (arguably a year) to settle the matter, and caused much acrimony on all sides. This is not a viable model.

I have a suggestion, however. I confess that it involves more bureaucracy, but the goal is to ultimately reduce the amount of time spent edit-warring. We already have an Arbitration Committee, but its bailiwick specifically excludes content-disputes. I would propose the creation of an Content Committee, or some such, staffed by Wikipedians known for the following traits: educational depth, scrupulous honesty, and commitment to a neutral point of view. If something like Gdansk, or the BC/BCE dispute arose, it could be brought before this committee. Evidence backing each POV would be presented, and an opinion rendered. Barring the development of new information, this opinion would stand. Editors who violated the ruling repeatedly would be warned and then blocked.

This seems harsh, but the alternative, I think, is to wage a losing battle against POV-pushers and revert-warriors. I've watched disputes go back and forth for months, with nothing new being said. These battles are tiring for all involved, and ought to be unnecessary. Once a difficult issue is settled, it should be settled, and settled quickly. That way, we can all get back to writing the encyclopedia. We shouldn't have to waste hours upon hours with people who won't abide by our standards and work with us towards the common goals of the project. Mackensen (talk) 00:04, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The "neutral point of view"? I suggest you read the policy, which much more clearly understands there to be no such thing. You are suggesting there should be a committee to decide which POV should win! But the NPOV policy, which is fundamental to Wikipedia, says that all POVs must be presented fairly. None ought to win.Grace Note 04:21, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I started reading the above, but there is an awful lot of it; could someone please summarize what points have been raised about what we might be doing wrong and might want to change? Then, maybe, we can continue the discussion on each separate topic, instead of on something so amorphous. -- Jmabel | Talk June 28, 2005 04:50 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate use of User: namespace?

User:John-1107 did a chained move of his user and talk pages to elsewhere in the User: namespace, leaving a trail of redirects in his wake. The places he moved his pages to do not "belong" to any user (the User contributions link is not active). Should they be moved back? --cesarb 20:08, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That or ask the user to register the other username so that nobody else will register and find somebody else's user page there. Joe D (t) 20:19, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

He has moved it back to a subpage of his, I will nuke the redirects. --cesarb 20:45, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Recording tough calls

Most blocks don't need more than a one-line comment. We can all read about it at the block log.

Tough calls should be recorded at Wikipedia:Policy enforcement so everyone can see that it was a tough call. I created it as a protected page, to discourage debates, "gaming the system" and other delaying tactics.

If the person is clearly subverting Wikipedia policy - like NPOV or civility, suspend them first and discuss it later. If you're wrong, you (or another admin) can always undo the suspension - and you can apologize! But if you're right, we'll all breathe a little easier and can go on with our work. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 02:28, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

All further discussion of this page has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Policy enforcement#Other threads

[edit] Empty image files

Why is the Category:Candidates_for_speedy_deletion suddenly filled with empty image files, was there a server glitch in July 2004, or did something more recent happened that made images disappear? - Mgm|^(talk) 10:34, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Personal attacks

The recent discussions here and at AN/I got me thinking about personal attacks. If people sometimes leave our project, then the overall atmosphere is a plausible reason for their departure, and the most obvious poisoning of the atmosphere is childish namecalling and the like. On a related note, we have a huge backlog on WP:VIP. It seems most admins prefer not to work at there. And a plausible reason for that would be retaliation if they block a vandal - again in the form of personal attacks9 e.g. Marmots immature reaction to Linuxbeak on AN/I). This leads to the age-old question, why do we tolerate personal attacks in the first place?.

I believe the answer to that is, simply, because we haven't seen a suitable wording of such a policy yet, that would not lead to abuse (such as calling a mere disagreement an attack, and blocking concurrently). However, it would be in our best benefit to create such. First, I don't believe that any right-thinking person would want personal attacks here. Second, the sheer fact that people get away with it encourages other people to behave similarly. On the contrary, if we had a policy that allowed blocking in such a way that it rarely occured, then still the threat of that policy would discourage people from making personal attacks. Psychology works.

Thus, I'd like to have some people join me in brainstorming on Wikipedia:Blocking policy/Personal attacks. The first thing that comes to mind would be some sort of warning template that can be sent to the attacker but not by the victim, and if a person has received a number of those for separate occasions and by separate people within a week or so, he can be blocked.

As usual, thoughts welcome. Radiant_>|< 17:32, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

All further discussion of this page has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy/Personal attacks#From Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

[edit] Block log

I found this entry near the top of ipblocklist... what's up with that? Specifically, who did that?

"20:41, Jun 23, 2005, User: blocked 66.235.184.242 (expires indefinite) (contribs) (unblock) (Auto-added for persistent vandalism; possible open proxy.)"

Radiant_>|< 01:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Hm, interesting. Do a search with your browser. There are others, with the same broken User: link, and the exact same block reason. --cesarb 02:23, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Found an explanation about these misterious entries at de:Benutzer Diskussion:SORBS DNSBL#Ipblocklist. --cesarb 02:57, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

En inglés? --Carnildo 04:14, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Suspected open proxy by the SORBS listing... - 131.211.210.16 07:02, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• "I didn't know this either, but I've asked User:Brion VIBBER, and he knew the answer. To wit, this is unrelated to SORBS. These entries are created, when one of the developers uses a shell script to block addresses directly from the server (Brion calls this a crude hack). This is done when the developers learn of addresses that are primarily used as proxy by vandals. The addresses are hand-entered; they're not from the SORBS or any other data bank. When a good reason exists, any admin can unblock these addresses. It would probably be good if such blocks would be attributed to a 'pseudo-user', so that there would be a location where this all can be documented. This will hopefully be implemented sometime." Radiant_>|< 08:35, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks. Babblefish was worse than usual at translating that. --Carnildo 19:09, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The "Enviroknot Dispute"

Was Vandalizing my user page, My user page, once again vandalized and A message for Dab

This entire discussion has been purged into page history as of 03:24, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC). In accordance with the Dispute resolution paragraph at the top of this page, "these pages aren't the place to bring disputes over content, or reports of abusive behaviour". Please feel free to copy the record of the dispute out of the page history and into the appropriate dispute-resolution page if you are so inclined. You may also add a link to that dispute page here but the dispute itself belongs somewhere else. (The affected parties may make their own decision as to the best place.) Rossami (talk) 03:24, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Inc. — trademark infringement?

Want to work for "Wikipedia Inc."? User:Lotsofissues pointed this out on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous). It's a Japanese company, apparently established in February of this year. It looks to me to be blatant trademark infringement; I'm not sure whom to mention this to so I'm crossposting it here and on Jimbo's talk page. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:07, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wow. Words fail me. Either they suddenly came up with the word Wikipedia (coincidentally, even though they do no wiki wiki development) as the name of their company, or... never mind. I'm sure something will be done. --Deathphoenix 04:29, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] CSD #1

That would be "very short articles with little or no context". A proposal for modifying the criteria for speedy deletion (in an attempt to streamline VFD by speedying types of articles that appear often and always get a strong consensus to delete) is being discussed here. As part of the discussion, people suggested that the (overly vague) criterion #1 should be deprecated in favor of a couple more strictly worded criteria. Thus, I'd like to ask for examples, what do people delete under criterion #1. Radiant_>|< 12:16, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

(please comment here rather than on this page)

[edit] Minor change to "selected anniversaries"

I don't know if anyone actively monitors Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/June 26 (that would be a lot of pageson someone's watchlist...), however one of the links on the frontdoor is pointing to the wrong antipope. Though, I can't imagine anyone else noticing... Where is the right place to put notes like this for future reference? Here? Just leave it on the talk there? JRP 14:18, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• The talk page, probably (and arguably, the talk page of either or both antipopes). This particular page has a rather high mailflow, so your notice would disappear in the mists of history. Radiant_>|< 19:33, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] page move rollback

takes 2 clicks and leaves a redirect behind which will need to be deleted. Still looks good.Geni 01:16, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Minor problem

I've noticed a problem in the new system, or whatever it's called, in that sometimes I don't get a rollback option on an edit and I have to go into the page history and revert vandalism the old fashioned way. (Although I can still rollback if I go to the user contributions log.) Anybody else having this problem? I can't figure out if it's related to what Geni mentions above or not. Everyking 28 June 2005 08:54 (UTC)

I have yet to see a single rollback - for the 20+ pages I checked on my watchlist recently I didn't have a single rollback option. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 28 June 2005 19:53 (UTC)

My rollbacks seem to be working fine. Could it be that you're getting logged out without noticing? (A few other people have complained of that issue since the upgrade, though I don't know if it's related.) — Dan | Talk 28 June 2005 19:57 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki:Minoredit

A full stop appears to have appeared at the end of the minor edit tickbox, apparently during the upgrade. Not a major thing I know, but it does look a bit odd. sjorford →•← 28 June 2005 09:08 (UTC)

[edit] Heya all

I'm finally an admin - right in time for a brand new, shiny Wikipedia! I promise to leave Dalek alone. :-) Ta bu shi da yu 28 June 2005 09:10 (UTC)

• And broke the record for most supporting votes, I see. Congrats! Radiant_>|< June 28, 2005 09:22 (UTC)
• You promise not to block me for a week now? Everyking 28 June 2005 10:00 (UTC)
  • Sure. You promise to play nicely on the Ashlee Simpson article? - Ta bu shi da yu 29 June 2005 02:50 (UTC)

[edit] Blocking

Special:Blockip includes this text now, "Please keep blocks in these ranges to 15 minutes or less (notice: since the upgrade, you won't be able to block for less than 2 hours)". Since this is self-contradictory, how should we fix this? Radiant_>|< June 28, 2005 11:49 (UTC)

I really dislike that it's necessary to choose the expire time from a list. It often made sense to block for 6 or 12 hours and that now seems to be impossible. In fact, there's only one choice (2 hours) that's less than 24 hours. I'd highly recommend allowing admins to specify any expire time, as in the previous version. Carbonite | Talk 28 June 2005 12:04 (UTC)

The block length examples are also incorrect: "e.g. "1 hour", "2 days", "next Wednesday", "1 January 2017". "Indefinite" or "infinite" also worked." The only one of those choices that's still available is "infinite". I'm hoping that the previous functionality will return shortly. Carbonite | Talk 28 June 2005 12:09 (UTC)

I quite agree with Carbonite on this one. The length of a block should not be fixed by what can be selected in a menu. Many times I think it is appropriate to block for something between 2 and 24 hours. Radiant is also correct that the possibility for short blocks to AOL should be reinstated. Sjakkalle (Check!) 28 June 2005 12:10 (UTC)

I also agree. There needs to be much more flexibility, especially for shorter blocks. Filiocht | Talk June 28, 2005 12:12 (UTC)

I also agree, the drop-down list is a complete misfeature. I just had to do a 2 hours range block while half an hour would likely have been sufficient. Who designed this regression into the software? Please revert to the old interface ASAP. jni 28 June 2005 12:14 (UTC)

Yikes, that's horrible! If I need to block someone for more than two hours, I have to block them for a whole day. That's very wrong. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 28 June 2005 12:21 (UTC)

I kinda figure if you're gonna block somebody, you either do it or don't. Anytime I do a vandal block I just set it at 24 hours. Blocking somebody is a pretty serious insult; I don't think of it in increments. The very fact of the block is serious enough and should be restricted to extreme cases. I think if somebody hasn't done something bad enough to warrant 24 hours, they probably don't deserve to be blocked at all. I mean you have special short blocks to accommodate range IPs and that kind of thing, but there's no sense in 3 hour blocks, 5 hours, 9, 13, 18... Everyking 28 June 2005 12:45 (UTC)

I often used less than 24 hours when blocking school IPs in the hope of limiting damage to innocent users. Also the AOL IPs should not be blocked for long periods of time at all. But otherwise I agree that 24 hours is the default for someone vandalizing from a private IP at a home computer. Anyway, keep up the good work at RC Patrol! Sjakkalle (Check!) 28 June 2005 12:55 (UTC)

What about dynamic IPs? What if someone with a dynamic IP does something serious enough, but you don't want to block every from AOL or a university for an entire day? The point is that the tools should serve the admins, not restrict them. Carbonite | Talk 28 June 2005 12:55 (UTC)

Well, I was thinking that in those cases you wouldn't want to block for more than an hour anyway...most likely the kid will have long since given up by the time the hour's over. Besides, they have classes and things to do, I don't think they can just sit around vandalizing on a school IP for very long. It's not that I can't conceive of cases where there'd be exceptions, it's just that I don't know if it's a big deal and I also figure maybe there was a good reason for making it that way. Everyking 28 June 2005 13:04 (UTC)

[edit] Special:Listadmins

Another special page that was broken in software update. Now how do I easily get the current list of users that have elevated permissions? jni 28 June 2005 12:20 (UTC)

Try this. --W(t) June 28, 2005 14:43 (UTC)

Thanks, I overlooked the combo of group names completely. It seems the displayed list is not exhaustive but one has to manually edit the URL to search for "checkuser", "developer" and "boardvote" (are there other groups?) but I can live with that. jni 28 June 2005 15:32 (UTC)

Not only that, but try searching on sysops, then click on the 500 link. You get 500 users - I know that !!!!Linuxbeakisafag (or whatever the account name is) is not an admin. Incidently, why can't we delete those accounts? - Ta bu shi da yu 29 June 2005 02:49 (UTC)

If we deleted those accounts, someone could re-create them. As is, they're blocked forever. --Carnildo 29 June 2005 05:38 (UTC)

Fair enough. Have submitted bug 2625 about the issue I found. - Ta bu shi da yu 30 June 2005 03:18 (UTC)

[edit] Edit conflicts

Be careful, since edit conflicts seem to be saving the edits instead of just showing the diff. See Wikipedia:MediaWiki 1.5 bugs#Edit conflicts not working anymore, and section edit broken; see also Template:expect edit conflicts. --cesarb 28 June 2005 15:37 (UTC)

[edit] WP:VIP

Just a heads up: WP:VIP has been drastically improved. If we can get users to start using WP:VIP again, this could prove very useful indeed. Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk June 28, 2005 23:10 (UTC)

[edit] Problems

The new system seems to be riddled with problems. RC patrol is nearly impossible and the vandals are winning. I suggest we lock things down again until all the bugs get fixed. Everyking 28 June 2005 23:56 (UTC)

• Although I'm not at the stage yet where I'd confirm that the vandals are winning, I'm tempted to agree with Everyking. There are a lot of bugs in the system and it is making admining quite difficult. -- Francs2000 | Talk 28 June 2005 23:58 (UTC)
  • Well, for me at least, they're winning in the sense that it's gotten so difficult to fight them that it's become stressful and almost more trouble than it's worth. Everyking 29 June 2005 00:17 (UTC)

I'm going to use this opportunity to shamelessly advertise the new and improved Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress. You will find that using it will come in handy in watching persistant vandals. Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk June 29, 2005 00:19 (UTC)

For God's sake, it doesn't even give me a "new message" notice anymore! I have to go find my talk page in my watchlist. Does it do that to anyone else? Everyking 1 July 2005 04:45 (UTC)

Yes. It's annoying... Until it's fixed I just watchlist my talk page and check once in a while. Antandrus (talk) 1 July 2005 04:50 (UTC)

Crikey, it's only been a few days, give the devs some time! Or would you rather they don't improve the software, and the site grind to a halt? Give them a chance! Dan100 (Talk) July 2, 2005 17:03 (UTC)

Yes, to their credit things have improved greatly as of today. Personally I don't believe we should have left things editable when the system was so buggy. It was too hard to fight vandalism, it was going unchecked for frequently long times, and if any of the vandals had got together and made up their minds to attack us during that period they could have really hurt us. Fortunately they tend to not be very bright. Everyking 2 July 2005 18:18 (UTC)

[edit] AllyUnion's bots

This is a notice to everyone that my bots are not in operation. Due to the changes in the encoding and the software upgrade, it seems that I might have to rewrite a majority of my bots over. For this, I must ask people to update and maintain the pages that were maintained by my bots until I have a chance to finish rewriting all my bot code. --AllyUnion (talk) 29 June 2005 00:07 (UTC)

Given the problems that Wikipedia is experiencing, particularly with edit conflicts, would it be helpful for all bots to be turned off until things are fixed? --Carnildo 29 June 2005 00:16 (UTC)

Any non-janitorial bot, yes, I'd would agree with that assessment. --AllyUnion (talk) 29 June 2005 11:00 (UTC)

What a shame. Those bots were so nice. Do tell us when they become operational again. This link is Broken 29 June 2005 15:13 (UTC)

[edit] IP Block options survey

Since the list of block lenghts in the drop down list on Special:Blockip are now customizable, I copied them from the defaults, added the very useful 15 minutes option, and started a survey to find out which other block lenghts are commonly used and should be in that list. Add only the block lenghts you use often, not the ones you think might be useful. --cesarb 29 June 2005 01:09 (UTC)

I have now changed the list of block lenghts based on the input from that survey. I hope you will all agree the new values are much more useful ☺. --cesarb 30 June 2005 22:44 (UTC)

[edit] Controversial Vfd

This is not an immediate issue, I just request some input on past/future Vfd's on GNAA. I know this is/was a touchy subject, please see my recent post on Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/Gay Nigger Association of America. Thank you. <>Who?¿? 29 June 2005 06:20 (UTC)

Would advise not resubmitting this to VfD again. Three times are more than enough. - Ta bu shi da yu 30 June 2005 02:59 (UTC)

I thought it had been submitted four times. --Carnildo 30 June 2005 03:06 (UTC)

Could have been. I lost track of it after a while. The GNAA will love it if we submit it to VfD again. Think about it: just by existing they cause controversy! - Ta bu shi da yu 30 June 2005 03:20 (UTC)

(via edit conflict) Actualy i think it's more like 4 or 5 (maybe?). But yes. I don't think anyone wants to do this again. At some point you just have to give up. This link is Broken 30 June 2005 03:07 (UTC)

[edit] New page started - compare against the EB!

Please forgive me for posting this to the admin page - creators rights! :P - but I have started a new page, Wikipedia:Articles that are more comprehensive than on Encyclopedia Britannica (yes, a mouthful I know). I really would like to know which articles are more comprehensive than the EB! - Ta bu shi da yu 30 June 2005 12:35 (UTC)

I wish people would stop idolizing EB. Wikipedia is a valuable encyclopedia, and I don't care about EB any more. Superm401 | Talk July 6, 2005 01:32 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration case - Jguk

A decision has been reached in the arbitration case: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk. All involved users are warned strongly to abide by our policies. Please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk#Final decision for further details and the full decision. -- sannse (talk) 30 June 2005 15:39 (UTC)

• And in more happy news, Jguk is back! And this time, it's personal! Oh, wait, wrong quote :) maybe I should parodize some backstreet boys song instead (everyboooody, write your wiki right...) Whatever. Welcome back, anyway. Radiant_>|< June 30, 2005 17:46 (UTC)
• Yeah, I believe it took a gathering storm of community outrage to save Jguk from being sentenced to wiki-death. Everyking 1 July 2005 04:49 (UTC)
  • My impression from speaking to arbitrators is that it didn't take community outrage so much as for more than one or two arbitrators to get around to looking at the case. Snowspinner July 6, 2005 01:34 (UTC)
  • So, what you're basically saying is that the ArbCom listens to community consensus? That would be a good thing, no? Radiant_>|< July 1, 2005 07:33 (UTC)
    • That is a good thing. However, it also means that the ArbCom has a set path of punishing people harshly regardless of the situation which it only deviated from in this case because people got worked up about it. My view is that ArbCom decisions should be subject to a kind of community review on a standard basis. Penalties should, if challenged, be required to get a majority vote in approval from the community to be valid. Otherwise people will continue to be routinely mistreated and only occasionally will enough outrage be generated to abort the penalties in advance. Everyking 1 July 2005 08:48 (UTC)
      • Isn't that precisely what the old Quickpolls mechanism did? As a side point, ArbCom members are elected by community for a set period of time, and can (and have) fail to be re-elected. Could you please provide evidence of a set path of punishing people harshly and people being routinely mistreated? Radiant_>|< July 1, 2005 09:03 (UTC)
  • I see no evidence whatsoever for your assertion; if anything, the concerns expressed by ArbCom members themselves were greater than any expressed by the user community. Jayjg ^(talk) 1 July 2005 07:36 (UTC)

[edit] Can someone please check something?

Can another admin (or anyone) just check something for me? Chrissie Watts - is this page protected or not? I had a problem protecting pages on Tuesday and was told it was something I was doing wrong. I'm sure this page was protected yet someone has still managed to edit it, apparently while it's still protected. Is it me or is there a bug? -- Francs2000 | Talk 30 June 2005 16:06 (UTC)

User:Thorpe unprotected it, as it shows in the history. [3] func(talk) 30 June 2005 16:59 (UTC)

Er...Thorpe isn't listed as an admin? func(talk) 30 June 2005 17:07 (UTC)

Go to protect it. It says it's already protected. Yet Thorpe and an anon have edited it. -- Francs2000 | Talk 30 June 2005 17:08 (UTC)

Possibly it's protected from page moves only - if you unprotect and protect again, it should work. — Dan | Talk 30 June 2005 17:18 (UTC)

OK, perhaps that was the case after all. My protection test worked the way it should have done... -- Francs2000 | Talk 30 June 2005 17:33 (UTC)

I had the same problem with the article on the current Pope recently, the article appears to be protected but isn't--nixie 1 July 2005 01:46 (UTC)

Likewise with the featured article templates. There's now a note at MediaWiki:Confirmprotecttext (the text that displays when you protect a page) warning admins that they don't need to check a box when protecting anymore – the checkbox is for protection from page moves only. — Dan | Talk 1 July 2005 15:30 (UTC)