Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive78

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Contents 1 CAT:PER severely backlogged yet again 2 Another backlog... 3 Talk:South_Tyrol#Requested_move 4 Spam whitelist 5 New template for compromised accounts 6 Where do I report an administrator abuse case? 7 An IP running a bot 8 Possible serious copyright/policy violation 9 brian d foy rename 10 deviantART 11 APNIC redux 12 odd account creation 13 New admin action review 14 Template:Db-meta 15 User:Kaaveh Ahangar 16 Possible legal threat 17 Page protection question 18 Backlog at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion 19 Need advice about speedy deleting images with dubious license 20 Mike Garcia 21 Legal Concerns 22 If this a personal attack 23 Attention please 24 Magonaritus and sockpuppetry 25 The Kate McAuliffe person is back 26 More Mike Church 27 Community noticeboard 28 ongoing edit war over inclusion of a category 29 Noticeboard Proposal. 30 Strange users. 31 Reposting from Wikipedia talk:Community noticeboard 32 Wikiwatch (talk · contribs) 33 Sockpuppets 34 Help please 35 Reverting removal of vandalism warnings by the vandal -- is it vandalism? 36 Possible problem AfD 37 Straw poll on credentials and identification in wake of Essjay scandal 38 Covert edit war in progress 39 Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Draft 40 Bios of banned people, contributions from them 41 Snake bgd 42 Possible serious copyright/policy violation 43 WP:AMA 44 Clearing WP:AIV 45 Gordon Watts... 46 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Robert Prechter 47 Request for deletion of an image revision containing accidental personal data 48 Incivility and assuming bad faith from User:SmokeyJoe 49 Page move issue 50 User warning templates strawpoll 51 Burninators required - speedies overflowing 52 Updated community ban language at WP:BAN 53 Huntsville, Ohio 54 Page move issue - again 55 serious backlog at WP:AIV 56 Coral Reef High School page move 57 Advice requested: procedure to follow 58 Account Removal Please 59 Attack page? 60 Persistent multi-page spamming by User:Reader contributor 61 Royal hoax? 62 Two week 3RR block on Pigsonthewing wholly invalid - but not reversed - why? 63 Repeated incivility by Overlord 64 Disgusting Personal attack by BaseballDetective (talk · contribs) 65 Henchman 2000 (talk · contribs) and RobJ1981 (talk · contribs) 66 Deletion review 67 Backlog at WP:AIV 68 Proposed policy: Template prod 69 AIV Backlog 70 Edit war on article Bharathanatyam 70.1 Blanking of sections and removal of valid sources 70.2 How to cite material from Tamilnation 70.2.1 Option 1 70.2.2 Option 2 71 Mike Church and legal/personal threats 72 Copy and paste merges from deleted articles 73 Elvis Impersonator 74 Odd? Or am I just a Luddite? 75 Simon Gipson 76 Need assistance in IDing possible sock 77 Delete AfD in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sexual repression 78 Image changes in 3ds Max 79 Ed 80 Wikipedia:Userboxes/Profession 81 TFD backlog is over a week back 82 Spot the difference 83 WP:Attribution 84 Help with AfD listing

[edit] CAT:PER severely backlogged yet again

Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests has now reeached 21 entries; it's been backlogged for over a week now. --ais523 11:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I dealt with some, now at 13. Sandstein 08:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another backlog...

...at requested moves. Sorry to be a bother. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

We need more administrators! Luigi30 (Taλk) 17:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd love to help, but it ain't happening. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Oppose, 100 user talk space project image reversion edits —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Luigi30 (talk • contribs) 17:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

People just don't have the balls to nominate themselves - which I've now decided to do next time - and don't want to shop for nominators. Hence shortage of candidates. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 17:43, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I was always told it would reflect poorly on you to nominate yourself.--Crossmr 00:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I've gotten the impression that it doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on you, but that the standards are a bit higher. But I haven't scrutinized RfA ever, so that could be completely off-base. Natalie 00:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

People certainly do succeed when nominating themselves. I did nominate Jeff, but he was shouted down due to being an inclusionist. Guy (Help!) 08:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I nominated myself, but that's only because I'm my only fan :) CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 08:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:South_Tyrol#Requested_move

I have little experience in dealing with the controversial nature of a discussion such as this, and I wondered if a more experienced hand at dealing with it could take a look. As a summary, most users seem to agree that the name South Tyrol has got to go. However, the conversation has dissolved into discussing and straw polling into creating up to four forks for the article. A move is agreed, but to what name? Miles to go. I'd love to learn how to handle this. Teke ^(talk) 06:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Looks to me like consensus is still changing over there. Guy (Help!) 13:32, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spam whitelist

Things tend to go on the spam whitelist and get forgotten. I started looking through it and found several sites which were not linked, some which were no longer on the blacklist anyway, some entries which simply serve to override the blacklist for entire domains (why?), some which have no place in the project anyway (e.g. ad-riddled fansites). I have made a review page at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist/review and am looking through them. I've excluded the latest ones, which at least have comments stating why they are on the list, and added links to show "mainspace" and "all" linksearch. I did not do this with the expectation of anyone but me reviewing it, but it is going to take a looooong time so if anyone else wants to help please do pitch in. Guy (Help!) 19:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed; that page has always been in need of more eyes, metaphorically speaking, but the addition of the log appears to be a good improvement. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 04:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Splendid idea Guy. I've started reviewing some of the pages. I think a bit of context for the netfirms batch is in order... when the netfirms domain was blacklisted a while back there was consern that the many legitimate sites being referenced or linked to. Since there was a huge number of them it was decided that all the pages currently being linked to from articles on wikipedia would be "grandfathered" in. However, a careful review of those pages isn't a bad idea. Since the blacklisting/whitelisting many of those pages have gone dead or the outbound links have been replaced.

As some have noticed Eagle and myself have worked fairly hard to catchup on the backlog on that page. Any help in keeping an eye on the page would be appreciated. It may not be obvious at a glance, but the whitelist is an important tool in our anti-spam efforts. It can help turn the blacklist from a sword into a scalpel. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 06:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we should also include a few hits; for example, whitelisting sites solely for linking from userspace might be a courtesy but is probably not a good use of resources. Guy (Help!) 08:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

So far I have rejected two "it's my personal homepage" type requests at the whitelist. I don't realy have a problem leaving the ones that are already there or granting a few under special circumstances, but I agree that it makes for a bad precedence. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 15:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New template for compromised accounts

I noticed that sometimes accounts are hijacked and must be blocked indefinitely (e.g. RaccoonFox (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) and Raccoon Fox (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log). Therefore, I created {{Compromised account}}. Could other administrators review this template and my actions so far with it? Thanks. Jesse Viviano 15:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks good; comments about the template itself on its talk page. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-11 00:13Z

• Discussion at Template talk:Compromised account.

[edit] Where do I report an administrator abuse case?

Would somebody point me to the page where I could make an official complaint on administrator's conduct and request that admin to be stripped of their privileges? I've been on Wikibreak for several months and forgot some procedures... Thanks, Ukrained 11:10, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

If you have a concrete, urgent case, you might try WP:AN/I. For longer-term problems, see WP:DR. --Stephan Schulz 11:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's neither urgent, nor long-term; but certainly concrete. Any other thoughts? Ukrained 11:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:RFC is the place to start. But do read WP:ROUGE first :o) Looking at it, you are demanding that a block be removed from history (it won't be, that never happens) and complaining that it was invalid (which I dispute, it looks as if you have major problems with attitude and collaborative working). I think you need to read NPOV and MPOV and understand the difference. Guy (Help!) 12:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments like "And we all must do our best to block Mr.Khoikhoi from his adminship (detailed plan will be presented via E-mail)" are worrying. --pgk 13:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Yup. Looks like a wikilife that may be "nasty, brutish and short". I asked Piotrus if he could help out, since he can be pretty good with that kind of bias. Guy (Help!) 16:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the user is unhappy about the outcome of events outlined at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive212#Personal Attacks by User:Ukrained. If anyone clicks on the diffs presented in that thread, the picture would be more complete. --Irpen 22:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An IP running a bot

Not that it seems to be doing anything wrong, but how is this possible?--Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 00:10, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Probably a regular bot that got accidentally logged out. There's nothing technical that stops bots; bot flags are only human approval. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-11 00:12Z

[edit] Possible serious copyright/policy violation

I was checking the icon Image:Vista-file-manager.png. It's saying that the image is released under GPL, and a reference to a source at http://sa-ki.deviantart.com. Why they have been specified as GPL here (and on countless other wiki-projects, including commons), is probably because that on http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=28352 it's specified as GPL.

The problem arise when looking on the authors own page about these icons http://www.iconsdesigns.com/?page_id=44. There it's a notice saying:

“

These free icons are provided to be used as a replacement icon theme for your operating system only. You can also use them on your open source projects. For non open source projects such as commercial ones, products website, personal website, blog, commercial or personal applications, documentation, etc. asking a permission to use them is mandatory and you will have to give credit for them. Thank you!”

If this hold, then the icons is not compatible with the rules for images used on the projects. _→AzaToth 02:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

That is correct anyone know a commons admin to zap it. You will want to rip it out of the relivant templates first.Geni 02:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

If a replacement image is needed, Image:Crystal Clear app file-manager.png should do the trick. WjBscribe 02:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm no law-talking person. However, the user uploaded the icon set under the GPL, and the package itself contains a copy of the license, even if he states in another location and seemingly at a later time that it is under a more restrictive license. Isn't this somewhat like the Wikipedia disclaimer that "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL."? What's relevant are the conditions when he originally released the file; you can't "take back" licenses. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Problem is we can't prove he every did release under pure GPL.Geni 02:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Except that GNOME-Look says that (the uploader sets the license there), and if you download the package from there you'll note that it does contain a copy of the GPL with no added restrictions. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

but who was the uploader?Geni 03:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

saki. The same person who has the deviantART page, and the IconsDesigns.com page. He links directly to and from the various websites. The one and only download address is at GNOME-Looks, and that package has a copy of the GPL inside of it and is stated as being GPL-licensed on the download page. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a great alternative. Might as well give the filing cabinet a coat of paint anyway. :) Garrett^Talk 03:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Eef. Image:Crystal Clear app file-manager.png makes me weep, it really does. I know it's a matter of taste, but can I offer Image:Replacement filing cabinet.svg as a stopgap until this is resolved? I'm a complete novice at Inkscape, but that's my own ham-fisted attempt at a filing cabinet icon (completely from scratch), and you can have it for nothing. — mholland 22:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

As a derivative work, it wouldn't have any affect on the copyright status. That is, if it's a violation it's still a violation. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 08:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

My image isn't a derivative work: I drew it from scratch from brown polygons. It looks the same, but then so would a lot of images at 40px. — mholland 15:17, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

See the definition at [1]. Redrawing an image doesn't create a new copyright, regardless of the method in which you did it, or even if there are minute differences. You therefore shouldn't be claiming it as public domain either. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I have read and understand the definition of a derivative work. I remain confident that the image I drew is not based upon Image:Vista-file-manager.png in any way which attracts copyright rights. No part of the original image is reproduced, dimensions or colours. I had, however, looked at Vista-file-manager before I started drawing. It is my understanding that you can't copyright the idea of a square, brown, two drawer filing cabinet, drawn in perspective with a shadow beneath it; however, my experience in this field is limited to UK copyright law, and I gladly and humbly apologise if my understanding of US law is faulty.

I have removed the image from this page and from Template:Archive box. I have not removed the PD claim from the image's summary, but I'll gladly do so (or endorse another's doing so) if someone would like to confirm that the image is derivative under US law, and for simplicity's sake (given that the original image is of uncertain copyright status) request its deletion myself. — mholland 01:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone tried to contact the author? --Random832 19:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have sent an email via the Gnome-Look interface, havn't got any replies. _→AzaToth 19:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Was looking up the crystal icons also, and it seems that they are allowed by the author to be used on wikipedia commons:Template talk:Crystal clear, simlar here, as the "author" have posted them as LGPL on kde-looks. _→AzaToth 15:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] brian d foy rename

I saw brian d foy (previously at Brian D. Foy) at WP:RM, and after reading the discussion, concluded that the consensus was to move the article. There was the issue that a lot of the support arguments were made by anonymous users and uses with very few edits, but I was sure to take that into account. Now, User:Chriscf has come to me saying that my conclusion that there was consensus is incorrect: User talk:Enochlau#brian_d_foy. I've discussed it a little with him, and I still think that there was consensus, and I respect his disagreement with my decision - but I would like some more feedback. Without commenting on whether the article should be at one title or another, I was wondering if other administrators could comment on whether they think there is consensus to move, or whether it should be "no consensus" or even consensus to keep at the old name. enochlau (talk) 02:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to chip in here, so as not to feel like I'm pressuring Enochlau on their talk page. To cut a long story short, this is my perspective on it:

• WP:MOS#Identity refers to words people use to describe themselves, and the only thing you could derive from it about name is that if someone has a professional alias and prefers to be so referred, we use that (e.g. use of "Elton John" vs "Reg Dwight" - in this case, we include the meaningless "D", as we have for Richard E Grant).
• Mention of WP:NCON is a red herring since semantically the two forms are identical - it is only the rendering in capitals or lower-case that was contested at the move.
• The examples that were provided were themselves anomalous (one was even incorrect), and were cited by supporters of the move as "precedent" - the exception was put forward as being the rule.
• With all things considered, the only arguments left were "Support, brian prefers it that way" vs. "Oppose, per the rules of English".
• As far as I am aware, judging the consensus position on Wikipedia involves weighing up the arguments, not the numbers (such that 200 turkeys cannot block one person's proposal in favour of Christmas).

This just about sums it up. I'm also somewhat confused, since I also don't know where we go when a WP:RM comes out clearly wrong. Chris cheese whine 02:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

The most relevant guideline is WP:NCP, not the MoS. You can boil our naming conventions down to "the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" (I'm quoting that directly). While not specifically addressing pen names that contravene grammar, it does specify that pen names should be used rather than legal names if that is what the person is better known as, which I think is the case here. At any rate, enochlau asked us to chime in on whether he/she read the consensus correctly, and I believe that it was. With all due respect Chris, the arguments in favor were not invalid, as it appears you believe (?) — in fact, most were directly in line with the naming conventions. My $0.02. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 02:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It would appear that his legal name is actually "Brian Foy", so the pen name thing is something of a red herring too. Chris cheese whine 03:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

You use the term "red herring" quite a bit, but I don't think it means what you think it means. No one was trying to change the subject or divert the discussion. They simply disagree with you.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.17.96.168 (talk • contribs).

[edit] deviantART

A recent, almost trivial, mediation case about the naming of the naming of the deviantART article closed with little action at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-02-22 deviantART. However, one of the editors involved is obviously not happy with the outcome and is tagging DeviantArt for speedy deletion so that he can move DeviantART there. I've twice removed the speedy and suggested he reopen the case, but he seems a little set. Can someone have a look, as I'm not going to get a 3RR over this. --Steve _(Slf67) ^talk 03:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

In the interests of the mediation case, wouldn't it be best if everything were left at the status quo (namely, at their original names)? enochlau (talk) 05:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] APNIC redux

Lucianne Goldberg appears not to be on very many watchlists, as a vandal — actually the same person as the Cheri DiNovo vandal — edited it on March 6 to claim that Lyndon B. Johnson was Jonah Goldberg's actual biological father; this didn't get reverted until I caught it four days later on March 10. Could a few people watchlist it? Thanks. They've also inserted the same claim into Jonah Goldberg's article numerous times, although it's been reverted quickly in that case.

Note also that the anon still hasn't actually ceased making DiNovo-related attack edits. It's been four months now — does anybody have any new ideas as to how to make it stop? Bearcat 03:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] odd account creation

Jack Malakian (talk · contribs) has created John Arwel Hephaestos Parry (talk · contribs), who created Johnny the Swedish Person (talk · contribs), who created John Glover Robinson (talk · contribs), who created John G. Hephaestos (talk · contribs), who created Hephaestossucksatfreeq.com (talk · contribs). I'm not sure exactly what's going on here, but someone with blocking ability might want to keep an eye on this. Natalie 05:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Appears they've been blocked, and rightfully so. It's obviously Johnny the Vandal, who has an obsession with retired administrator User:Hephaestos. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 05:08, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the background. Natalie 05:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New admin action review

I recently move protected Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) due to an apparent move war. One of the users involved is protesting my action claiming my protection is an endorsement of the current title. I've told them they need to work it out on the talk page. Opinions? John Reaves (talk) 05:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course you were biased and did it out of spite. See m:The Wrong Version. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 05:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep I sure am, Heimstern left me link on the talk page. Thanks for the feedback. John Reaves (talk) 05:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Db-meta

There's a request on the talk page to fix up the template so the automatic deletion summary works. Since the problem is currently breaking every instance of {{db}} with a space or punctuation in the reason, could this get fixed quickly? -Amarkov moo! 06:42, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Kaaveh Ahangar

This user is blocked on persian wikipedia because of persistent violation of NPOV policy [2](I'm an admin on fa.wiki). Now on english wikipedia he lied about an article on persian wikipedia. He knows very well that we don't have any Featured Article on persian wikipedia yet but he added "fa" as a Featured Article on Bahá'u'lláh and when User:Jeff3000 asked him about this matter he again didn't tell the truth about FA articles on persian wikipedia. Then in several edits he attacked users on persian wikipedia. I think he should be blocked or at least be warned for these uncivil acts. Regards. Hessam 10:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

For more information see Basij. He was previously blocked on persian wikipedia for calling others Basiji. This way of general accusation is uncivil either. Hessam 11:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible legal threat

Stopterror (talk · contribs) left this on my talk page. It's in relation to my reversions of their additions to Khalistan Liberation Force as seen here and in the history and 69.158.156.87 (talk • contribs • info • WHOIS) was making the same edit. Because of the edit summary I don't think that I should be replying to this editor so if someone else could have a word. Thanks. Oh and if you were wondering I'm more an Urban Guerrilla than a "terrorist sympathiser". CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

This "Please be aware that any ,misrepresentation by wikipedia may be dealt with a lawsiut on behalf of terror victims in Canada" (bolding mine) is defintely a legal threat. --`/aksha 10:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:44, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page protection question

Is it technically possible to protect a deleted page ("salt") the page without the "deleted page" notice appearing? A situation has arisen in which this would be desirable for privacy reasons. Newyorkbrad 20:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

See WP:PT. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 20:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, a deleted page notice appears for that too, it is coded into the interface. I suppose you will need to create the page, and blank it if you really want to avoid the deleted page message. May I ask what page? Prodego ^talk 02:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

It's the userpage of an editor (not an admin) who wants to change to a less identifying name for privacy reasons. Feel free to e-mail if you are interested in more specifics. Newyorkbrad 02:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

That is enough :). Is there an actual need for protection at all then? Why not just delete the page? I think Special:BlockIP is the tool to defend the page with, if you keep having that problem. Prodego ^talk 02:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

At this point, the situation appears stable, but I wanted to know the answer in case the problem recurs. Thanks for your interest. Newyorkbrad 03:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Backlog at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion

Theres a considerable backlog at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Just thought I would post a notice here. --24fan24 (talk) 02:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need advice about speedy deleting images with dubious license

I need some thoughts about Lazauk (talk • contribs • count • logs • page moves • block log • email) upload log. Apparently, he uploaded images with an incompatible license, got them deleted, and then reuploaded them with a license that implies he is the creator of the image. I am sending four to copyright problems, but since there seems to be a bunch of them, I am thinking a variation of I3 could be applied to them all (uploaded under a wrong license originally), or maybe even IAR. Anyone agreeing with me? -- ReyBrujo 04:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

A last thing: I am guessing those images are free because they are military ones (probably US army), but there is no source for them that I see. -- ReyBrujo 04:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I have blocked this account for 24 hours to try to get their attention. Continuing to upload images the way he is is disruptive and it needs to stop... one way or another. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

No, they are images of Burma - I rather doubt they are genuine.. from what I understand it's hard to get a camera out of that country. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mike Garcia

Through the usual vandalism that seems to hit the standard pages, I have indefinitely blocked Johnny89 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) who is the source for all of the "Johnny the Vandal" activity in the past few months. By going through the user creation logs of the following, I was able to deduce that a user who originally claimed that he was not Mike Garcia to be Mike Garcia. The following is a full list of the users involved.

• AHephaestossucksatfreeq.com (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• John G. Hephaestos (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• John Glover Robinson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Johnny the Swedish Person (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• John Arwel Hephaestos Parry (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Jack Malakian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Johnny89 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• John G. Tankian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Samuel Tankian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Trent Liles (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• John G. Odadjian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• John G. Kernigan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Robert Kernigan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• John G. Mayer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Charles Danell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Tommy G. Lee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Michael Ness (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Charlie Danell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Jack Parry (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Arwel (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Johnny Michael (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• A. Parry (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Thomas G. Jackson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Michael Kernigan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (User creation log)
• Jack Odadjian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

These are all that I have found by going through these logs. As such, I have indefinitely blocked the home-base IP.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• As a side note, I have fully protected User talk:Johnny89 as he pulled the same bullshit that he usually does when he gets blocked.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Super duper kudos. Viridae^Talk 06:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Ry, you should have filed a check user case to confirm these users are confirmed sockpuppets of a banned user, in order to lessen collateral damage. My 2 cents. Real96 08:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

All of these users were created from a single account. If you go from Johnny89 you can get to Jack Odadjian through the creation of other usernames by an account, not an IP. That is why I linked them all. And there were checkusers run that show that these come from a single IP that I blocked tonight that was only unblocked under good faith because Johnny89 claimed he was not Mike Garcia, which was a blatant lie.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• This seems to demonstrate that updating a block to an IP only block should not be done lightly. I notice the IP in question was blocked via checkuser and had a block message indicating not to unblock without reference to the blocking admins, I would guess if this had been done they would have said not to believe the sob stories from that IP. The second part of this is that the IP only block takes precedence over any auto blocks, hence the ability to perpetuate this without being impacted by autoblocks. Don't think that changing to IP only is a low risk option, it isn't. It also shows another issue, but per WP:BEANS I won't reveal that just yet --pgk 16:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• Many thanks for taking action against this idiot. As one of those who he's been stalking for something like three years now, I'm getting fed up of his activities. He threw away no fewer than 27 named accounts last week alone attacking my talk page, in the latest upsurge in his activities after being quiet for a few months. All his accounts should be permanently blocked instantly they're noticed. -- Arwel (talk) 12:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Legal Concerns

In the Vintage Nude Photographs section on wikicommons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Vintage_nude_photographs I am concerned about several photos that I believe consitute Child Pornography. I believe that these photos should be removed to avoid potential legal trouble for wikipedia. -Vcelloho 02:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Though I am no legal expert, I believe that child pornography is defined in American law as visual depictions of minors in explicit sexual acts (or similar wording). These do not resemble overt sexual depictions, and hence are not legally defined as child porn. I am in no way defending or lawyering on child porn, however. —²¹⁰physicq (c) 02:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Acording to United States vs. Dost the six qualifiers are.

1. whether the focal point of the visual depiction is on the child's genital, pubic or anal areas
2. whether the setting of the visual depiction is sexually suggestive, i.e., in a place or pose generally associated with sexual activity
3. whether the child is depicted in an unnatural pose, or in inappropriate attire, considering the age of the child
4. whether the child is fully or partially clothed, or nude
5. whether the visual depiction suggests sexual coyness or a willingness to engage in sexual activity
6. whether the visual depiction is intended or designed to elicit a sexual response in the viewer.

I believe that qualifiers 1,2,3,4,in my opinion 5, and in my opinion 6. Due to this I belive that It constitues child pornography. I am meerly concerned about a potential legal issue that could be caused by three of the photos. -Vcelloho 02:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be discussed over at commons? They are more well-versed in image stuff than most of us here. PTO 02:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not very well versed on commons and I was much more familliar with wikipedia. -Vcelloho 02:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Has the WP:OFFICE been consulted on these issues? Newyorkbrad 02:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

No I didn't know about that. -Vcelloho 02:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I've looked for the Wikicommons administrators but I couldn't find them so I posted to the village pump. -Vcelloho 02:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You are looking for commons:COM:AN. Prodego ^talk 02:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks -Vcelloho 02:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Should I notify WP:OFFICE? -Vcelloho 03:11, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The folks at Commons may know whether the Office has already been consulted. Newyorkbrad 03:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Nothing was raised at the Commons yet, but since many of us who admin at the Commons also admin here (like myself), I think it would be best to ask for OFFICE support, since I am starting to agree on some of the points Vcelloho has discussed. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Since Vcelloho did not specify which photographs out of the large number in that category that he was speaking about, I assume he was talking about the works of Gaudenzio Marconi whom is a notable early photographer. Personally I think you'd have to be a quite a pervert to see anything sexual about his pictures of children. --Gmaxwell 03:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments like that stifle debate. I think some of these images sexualise children, so you've just called me a pervert. Hesperian 03:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You said it, not me. --Gmaxwell 04:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Calling people "perverted" or "(insert phobia here)-phobic" is absolutely inappropriate. Congratulations. You've stifled conversation by deeming somone to be unsound of mind, thereby creating a wall between that person and the other people who would engage in conversation but don't for fear of being labelled likewise. --Iamunknown 04:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

shrugs I don't know what else to call someone who thinks an image is sexual because it has nudity and children. --Gmaxwell 04:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You had an opportunity there to withdraw or refactor your comment, and you chose instead to re-iterate it. I was disappointed that you called me and anyone else who disagrees with you a pervert. Now I am absolutely disgusted with you. Hesperian 04:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thats okay. I can cope with you being disgusted with me. Now you have an opportunity to cope with me suspecting that you might be a pervert because you're more willing to see images of children as sexual than I am. --Gmaxwell 04:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I hope that one of the admins on this board takes a stand against this; you've made a very serious personal attack. Leaving that aside, I never said that "an image is sexual because it has nudity and children", nor do I think it. But I do think that one of these images sexualises its subject. Hesperian 04:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm surprised. In your conversations with User:Tony1 about fair use media, you seemed so civil; now, you seem so...not. --Iamunknown 04:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Geesh, I'm not trying to be rude. It's my view that folks who would view random images of naked kids as objects of sexual interest have issues. It was a general statement, don't blame me that Hesperian decided to jump in after the fact and turn it into something personal with his first comment on the subject. Take a step back and consider what I found here, ... enwikipedia going nuts and talking about urgently calling the office over some 130 year old photographs. You might not agree with me that it's ridiculous, but I hope you can understand why I might see it that way. --Gmaxwell 04:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, your original statement was "you'd have to be a quite a pervert to see anything sexual about his pictures of children." That's light years away from "folks who would view random images of naked kids as objects of sexual interest have issues". Its easy to accuse someone of over-reacting if you revise your brutal attack down to a perfectly reasonable statement.

Secondly, sometimes I see these discussions and think "Gosh, that user is protesting way too much; maybe has some personal issues there" or whatnot... but that ain't nowhere near publicly declaring folks to be perverts. As for me "turning it into something personal", you don't get to claim the moral high ground just because your attack was originally aimed at anyone and everyone who is worried about these images. All I did was give your target a face by publicly declaring myself to be one of the people you're attacking.

Hesperian 05:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe we are drifting further and further off the issue at hand... ~ UBeR 05:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

It isn't wikipedian's we have to wrry about being perverts but the courts. See Paul_Reubens#Arrests.Geni 16:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think vintage black and white nude photography counts as child porn ... Cyde Weys 03:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I have not looked at the pictures, however, if these are nude photos of actual children, I cannot see how it would not qualify. As far as I know, the controversy is about drawings of children, not photos of real children. — Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 03:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be important to note that these photos are well over 130 years old. That being said, the general purpose of the child pornography laws is to protect the children. These laws were created in the 1990's and given that the subjects of these photos would be at least 135 years old (and thus are long gone), I don't feel that this qualifies as "child pornography". Also since the works could be works of art and in the public domain only compounds the unlikeliness. Per the info above, in my opinion, I feel only maybe number 3 (and obviously number 4) apply, but I still don't think it qualifies. _{Disclaimer: I'm no lawyer.} --MPD ^{T / C} 04:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you serious? I see them meeting the fourth criterion, but no reasonable person would say that these are sexually suggestive photos or are focused on the anal or genital area. —ptk✰fgs 04:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I really honestly don't see any big deal here. These pictures are 130 years old. Pick up any decent book on art history and start counting pictures, paintings, sculptures of naked children, going all the way back to antiquity. They're everywhere. Some of them even have wings. Antandrus (talk) 05:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Hear, hear! That was a funny comment in the middle of a hectic day. :D --Iamunknown 05:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Much ado about nothing. ~ UBeR 05:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Hows this for stifling debate: Take this to commons. Wikipedia can not make policy decisions for wikicommons. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Per UBeR above, "I believe we are drifting further and further off the issue at hand," let's get back to actual thougths. I really appreciate the citation from United States vs. Dost. Unfortunately, criteria #2, #3, #5 and #6 are rather subjective. Arguably the visual depiction is sexually suggestive, but arguably it is not. Opinions can be tossed back and forth, but how is this defined objectively? Criterion #3 is a bit less subjective; personally, I feel that the children, who seem to be standing in somewhat natural poses, are not necessarily in unnatural poses. I consider criterion #5 kind of as a double standard: the children do seem coy, but not willing to or leading up to engagement in sexual activity. Criterion #6 is also subjective: I personally did not feel a sexual response to the images, but I can see that someone -- for whatever reason, or maybe simply not because of any particular reason -- could feel a sexual response. In general, I think that because these images are important artistically and historically, the Wikimedia Foundation or the uploaders of the photographs should not worry about pending litigation. Arguably the images are child pornography, but arguably they are not. It is inappropriate to enforce one's values on others -- and, as is apparent, some people consider these images pornographic and others do not -- and since these are not as blatant as children engaged in sexual activity, I consider it appropriate not to delete them. One last thing, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. --Iamunknown 05:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

J.smith is right: Wikipedia.en does not have oversight over Commons. All we can do is refer the concern to three places: Commons, Meta, or the Foundation. Durova^Charge! 15:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

well there are the long standing potential worries on wikipeida. Fortunelty someone else would likely get into trouble before we did:

Child_Bride#The_skinny_dipping_scene

Virgin Killer

Geni 16:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Geni, the two links your provided and the additional one above are interesting. I hope that no related controversy befalls the Wikimedia Foundation. I like to think that you're correct, however, that someone else would get into trouble before us. --Iamunknown 17:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] If this a personal attack

I would like everyone to consider this. I have a content dispute over Politkovskaya article with user Biophys. I have inserted criticism of Politkovskaya which was constantly deleted by Biophys who claims that it violates BLP policies, although the source is respectable Russian newspaper published in English - Moscow News. Afterwards, article was rightly protected by Alex Bakharev who wrote that we should reach consensus.

Then, here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Biophys&oldid=114456838#Other_important_edits, Biophys wrote that Politkovskaya article "(***) Articles currently vandalized by a wikistalker. Please help!".

Moreover, Biophys has a long history of bad relations with me. His friend Colchicum filed the RfC on me here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Vlad_fedorov, but it failed, since their third collegue had withdrawn his signature, after administrators wrote comments not supporting their allegations.

Could anyone stop this witchhunt waged by Biophys? When I add something to the article he deletes it and writes it violates BLP policy, or writes it is unreliable source. It's really stupid, my sources are awlays wrong and unreliable, according to Biophys. And everything I do here - he's calling vandalism, just see his edit comments where he adds comments like "rv vandalism by Vlad fedorov" and etc. Vlad fedorov 04:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

diff-links that support your allegations would be much appreciated. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep, here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Biophys&diff=prev&oldid=111852221. Vlad fedorov 05:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

O'K, this is all removed. Note that I did not say in this message who I am talking about. It was Vlad who decided that he is the "wikistalker" because Colchicum and me indeed complained about his behavior: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Vlad_fedorov#New_episodes_of_wikistalking_by_Vlad Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Vlad_fedorov#Statement_of_the_disputeBiophys 15:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attention please

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kittybrewster/VK_rfc —The preceding unsigned comment was added by David Lauder (talk • contribs) 15:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

What on earth is your purpose in posting that here? It appears to be someone putting together an Rfc in their namespace, a very good idea, as one can organize, edit, and consider whether or not to proceed while doing so. In many cases editors decide not to file and simply blank or delete these "draft" Rfc's. As it is not yours, you cannot be asking for assistance in how to write an Rfc. I sincerely hope you are not trying to aggravate the situation by drawing attention to this before it is filed. In short, I am perpexed as to what possible purpose this post could serve. KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Magonaritus and sockpuppetry

The person who registered the Magonaritus (talk · contribs) account has been causing disruptions, on and off, at Upper Canada College and the relevant talk page for over a year. He/she has used a series of both IP and registered sockpuppets to influence the outcome of discussions on article content and format at talk, generally in an abrasive, uncooperative manner; all-together violating WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:AGF, WP:CIV, WP:NPA, WP:NLT, WP:NOT#SOAP, WP:VAND, WP:POINT, and, of course, WP:SOCK, leading to edit wars and the page being locked. Evidence strongly points to sockpuppetry; such evidence and connections have been outlined here. A request for checkuser was already deemed unnecessary. Could an admin please look at this case and decide whether the relevant accounts should be blocked? --G2bambino 16:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Kate McAuliffe person is back

The user creation log is starting to get clogged up with Kate McAuliffe socks again - someone with blocking powers may want to keep an eye on it for a while. Natalie 19:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

That kid is definitely persistent. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 19:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More Mike Church

(originally posted at WP:AN/I, but this seems to be the more appropriate place, as it isn't an isolated incident)

Mike Church (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) is more than one admin can handle, but apparently I'm the only one still doing anything about his vandalism after two years. I'd like to get others to be able to identify him so they can revert and block his sockpuppets.

Mike has never forgiven Wikipedia for not letting him self-promote his card game, and for years he's been engaging in admitted sneaky vandalism, which got him indefinitely blocked.

He has since created approximately a gazillion sockpuppets. A very old list of sockpuppets is at User:Jerzy/Church & Supporters or Socks, and watching that page (which Mike occasionally tries to blank or modify) is a way of identifying some of his new sockpuppets.

Three of his recent sockpuppets are named User:PWnsivander the Great, User:Rspeer drinks the haterade, and User:Rv this and get DOSpwn3d. The "DOSpwn" part presumably means he's about to increase his rate of vandalism.

Some patterns of editing that point to Mike Church:

• Use of the word "pwn", especially when stating that admins have been "pwn3d"
• Spreading memes from the AutoAdmit board, particularly about "prestige"
• Altering information about himself in Wikipedia space to try to confuse the issues (he'll probably alter this entry, so watch the history)
• Altering articles such as Prestige (sociology) and Careerism to reflect his unique worldview
• Bringing WP disputes off of Wikipedia, such as when he created the entry wikt:loser-fucker containing names of users who reverted him
• Self-promotion of his own ideas; once these focused on his card game "Ambition", but he's given up on that. Another example would be adding his own scoring system to the Gin rummy article.

If you watch some of these pages I've linked, or presumably even the edit history of this exact section, you'll be able to find more sockpuppets. I appreciate any help. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 18:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Community noticeboard

[edit] ongoing edit war over inclusion of a category

I'm not sure where to post this. For the past two weeks (since February 28 as far as I can tell) an edit war over the Category:Anti-Islam sentiment has been ongoing on the Vlaams Belang article. The first few edits declared inclusion of that category was biased (category was nominated for deletion till today, no consensus either way was found) respectively not biased. But now for several days it's simply a game of reversions. No one has yet broken the triple revert rule but the continual reverting seems disruptive. It might even involve other problems (stalking and sock puppetry). I have so far not been involved, just watching from the sidelines (except for placing a vote against deletion in the category vote). yesterday I decided to ask on the Talk:Vlaams Belang page that the waring parties try and explain why the category would be biased, or why it would not be biased in this particular case. But the article has been reverted six times since then. I have not tried to contact editors as I'd prefer not to get too involved in this issue (I won't claim to be neutral, but I don't feel strongly enough about this particular issue to wish to be drawn into that fight). At this point I don't see what else I could do and hope that maybe an administrator's intervention, or just any editor with more experience could improve matters. As a last resort the page could be fully protected (one of the edit waring parties is an annon, but semi protection would seem like taking sides in this issue) for a time to see whether the issue can be debated on the talk page.--Caranorn 15:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The anon is the blocked User:BhaiSaab. Arrow740 19:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

It's one of the things that I feared, but then that IP should be checked and if necessary banned. The current edit war is not encouraging other editors to be reasonable.--Caranorn 21:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

And the annon has now broken the triple revert rule.--Caranorn 21:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Noticeboard Proposal.

I am well aware that AN is not the place for listing proposals, but I believe that listing this one here is more legitimate than my listing here of my previous proposal. My new proposal is called User: Acalamari/IWN, and is designed to help reduce certain cases on other noticeboards, including this one. Acalamari 17:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I personally think we have too many noticeboards already. -- Renesis (talk) 17:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

We could have a noticeboard for every little thing, lets not. Inappropriate warnings can be handled through WP:DR. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I propose creating a new noticeboard where people can propose new noticeboards. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:53, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Discussion for that would go to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Noticeboards/Meta/Recursive. Or its talk page, but only if you wanted to discuss restructuring the process for proposing recursive meta-noticeboards, not if you simply want to make a proposal for a new recursive meta-noticeboard. --tjstrf talk 21:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

o_O. I sarcastically proposed exactly this as an example of the massive creep that would occur with attempting to sanction users for removing warnings from their talk page... and now it's an actual proposal. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 19:08, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have said that discussion on this proposal should take place on it's talk page; but if all it's going to generate is nothing at all, then I should have the page speedy deleted in a couple of days time (that's an ironic statement in that last bit). Acalamari 19:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strange users.

I posted the following message to Natalie Erin's talk page:

:This isn't the only weird case I've been looking at; Abbopa left this weird message on my talk page. I looked at this user's contributions, and was led to a strange user/user talk page, as well as three other odd things: Tsubasa wings, Weird Wetland and the user Aboppa mentioned: Jimmy's bananooz (look at their talk pages). Do you think these are odd or not? I plan to take this to AN so some other users can take a look. Acalamari 20:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

What do other users think about this? Aboppa also posted a message on Pschemp's talk page just before posting that other message on mine. Aboppa's edits are odd too. I'm not assuming bad faith here, it's just that this is a strange situation. Acalamari 20:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Definitely strange... but if they're keeping it in the user & user talk namespaces, I'm not as concerned. It may be a problem if they start seriously bothering other users, although it doesn't sounds as if there are any complaints at this point. --Ginkgo100^talk 21:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll still keep an eye on it though. Acalamari 22:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reposting from Wikipedia talk:Community noticeboard

I've been doing my best to raise some significant issues proactively and the lack of response is frustrating. Reposting the following here so more eyes will see it (and, I hope, address matters before they become serious problems). Durova^Charge! 21:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

---

<rant>When this board first opened I started threads both here and at WP:AN requesting discussion and improvement for the header. Nobody paid attention. Finally I dug in and did something myself. It wasn't perfect, but frankly the way this whole situation has been unfolding has me quite disappointed because those threads I started got ignored, then people tried rash and unilateral action because the community hadn't addressed those issues in an appropriate manner.

There's a similar propose discussion...ignore...fester... dynamic happening again at this board, at WP:RFAR, and Wikipedia talk:Banning policy: developing precedents and needed refinements aren't getting discussed and written into WP:BAN and WP:DE the way they ought to be. Two proproposed cases now before ArbCom seek to appeal their community bans in part because the community banned editors were already indef blocked when the community ban discussion opened and weren't notified while the relevant ban discussion was ongoing. Hence, they were effectively denied the means of defense. Yet the current policy language actually instructs sysops to ban first and ask questions later. We ought to address these matters on the community level because one of those requests for arbitration is on the verge of acceptance and if the community abandons its collective obligation to discuss and refine procedures in a timely and appropriate manner the Committee might make those decisions for us. Yet no one has made a topical response to my two threads on the subject - and the thread I initiated to this noticeboard got deleted without making it into the archives. Neither the policy nor the guideline has been updated to reflect this important precedent that establishes the community's right to topic ban or to reflect other valid concerns are showing up at ArbCom's doorstep. Community banning was meant to lighten their workload, not add to it.

If it seems like I'm getting testy about this, I am. I've been thinking far enough ahead to ask the arbitration clerks to archive rejected community ban discussions, and doing more than my share to initiate discussion in a timely manner, yet it's my userpage that gets vandalized repeatedly because a disgruntled editor chooses target me after the community sticks its head in the sand while I do my best to raise these issues. At this point I'm tempted per WP:BOLD to update the policy myself. I can reasonably argue that discussion has been open long enough and no one has disagreed. Yet instead of topical discussion the knee jerk action - in the embarrassing WP:PAIN and WP:RFI tradition - is blame the noticeboard. This is not the way to handle things.</rant> Durova^Charge! 20:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiwatch (talk · contribs)

Hey, I'm a bit worried about this user. A quick perusal of their contributions shows that all edits have been done concerning things with the New York Times; what's more, they all seem to be trying to put the Times in a better light. I'm quite worried this is a roll account. I would say more, but I really gtg. Someone please look into this. I know we've had some major bruhahas in the past over roll accounts, and this one reeks pretty badly, especially given the username seems to say as much - unfortunately, it is a registered user, so we can't see via the IP if it's a roll account or not. This is particularly harmful becuase the user has frequently changed the New York Times article to take out any suggestions that something might be wrong (e.g., frequent removal of liberal bias comments and a move of the Jason Blair scandal from modern to historical scandals). Part Deux 22:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppets

I just blocked Ziwhtam (talk · contribs) as a sockpuppet of Wikipedian64 (talk · contribs) based on this followed by this. Yesterday Wikipedian64 created Lucky 6.9, Talk:Lucky 6.9 and recreated User:Lucky 6.9 and User talk:Lucky 6.9 all of which I deleted. Today I get this on my talk page followed by this. Just posting this for a review as to the block and a heads up to what looks like a odd situation. By the way, it's not at all true that I blocked Ziwhtam for calling me a woman, I only do that on Thursdays. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 22:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help please

Urgent Administrator assistance is required in the case of User:Vintagekits who is causing grief. Please see: User:Kittybrewster/VK rfc. David Lauder 23:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Forgive my directness, but which is it? Is it urgent administrator assistance, or is it a request for comment? If it is the former, I think you need to specify the disruption being caused and request a specific action. If it is the latter, then just file the RFC according to the rubric on the index page and see what comments come in. Sam Blacketer 23:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

(Please note that David Lauder has since been blocked for a personal attack on Vintagekits, so is now unable to respond. Sam Blacketer 00:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Reverting removal of vandalism warnings by the vandal -- is it vandalism?

Several users are arguing about this issue. My opinion is that if a vandal removes warning from his page, then he is interfering with the process of keeping track of his vandalism so that appropriate warnings or blocks can be made. Thus his removal is vandalism; and we should revert it and give him another warning. MrDarcy (talk · contribs) (who is apparently an administrator), claims that such reversion and additional warning would itself be vandalism by the "enforcer". And he is threatening to give warnings and blocks to those who do that. What is the policy on this matter? Thanks for your help. JRSpriggs 07:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Up until recently there were specific warning templates advising vandals that removing legitimate warning templates was also vandalism. I agree that it is necessary for legitimate warnings to stay on vandals' pages, so others on vandal patrol can see the prior offenses without having to dig through the history. It is almost always the worst vandals who promptly remove the warnings, often doubling the workload for those of us trying to stop them. ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 07:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Those templates were intentionally deleted because many people agree with MrDarcy (though perhaps with weaker language) that reverting vandalism warnings is generally inappropriate. While I understand your concern about tracking the worst vandals, allowing such reversions also encourages harassment of generally good users that simply make mistakes. The amount of problems they were creating was disproportionate to the amount of good a little extra tracking was doing since any admin worth his title ought to already be reviewing histories. Dragons flight 07:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

P.S. An archive of the deletion review regarding warning removal templates can be seen here. Dragons flight 07:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The discussion here seems to me to show strong consensus that valid warnings need to stay on a vandal's page, and that removing them is wrong. ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 07:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Mine is far more recent. That poll (which I helped create) does not reflect current policy. As WP:VAND, "removing warnings from one's own talk page is often frowned upon" replaced the statements that removing warnings was vandalism. While removing warnings might be a cause for further dispute resolution, it is not presently considered a form of vandalism and should not be indiscriminately reverted. Dragons flight 08:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It's so easy to solve, just make sure your edit summary reflects the fact you gave them a warning. Then it will not matter if they remove it and the next person will just need to look at the history page and not go though several revisions. Wikipedia:Use common sense applies. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Just chiming in as another admin strongly against edit-warring in an attempt to force the talk page display of material a user does not want. Talk pages exist to facilitate >communication< with the user. Not to serve as a perpetual 'wall of shame' for every condemnation that any random user chooses to place there. If you want to review past problems check the page history and/or the block log... that is their purpose, not the talk page's. --CBD 12:04, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with CBD, and would just like to point out that if vandalism comes from an IP, that IP could be used the next day by a completely different person who is adding useful content. If it comes from a registered user, I imagine that in most cases, the account should be blocked indefinitely. I'm basing that on my feeling that there would be very few registered users who add the word "poop" to the article about George W. Bush today and add useful content to the article on contact lenses tomorrow. But surely a user should not be forced to display warnings that annoy or embarrass him. If that were the case, we'd need to change the titles from "user warnings" to "user black marks". When I send a warning, I'm careful to put something like "uw-vandalism2" in the edit summary, so that an admin can look briefly at the history, without checking the diffs, and see that someone has been warned. I'd hope, in any case, that an admin would check for vandalism carried out by the vandal before blocking, rather than warnings issued to the vandal, as I'm sure there are some who might misuse the warning templates if they disagree with an edit or want to harass someone. Just my two cents. ElinorD (talk) 12:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Remember the point in the warnings is to get them to stop vandalising, if they just blank the warning and do nothing then it worked. If they continue just add the next warning if appropriate, most who are intent on vandalising will just continue and It'll get to a blockable level reasonably quickly. If it comes to an AIV report you can note that warnings were removed. The other side to consider is that of attention seeking, some of those involved in this are incapable of gaining attention for positive contributions and would rather gain attention from the negative, edit warring over warnings is just feeding that attention seeking. If they are replacing the warning with taunts, abuse etc. then keep cool and if need be ask for an admin to see about protecting the page/blocking. --pgk 12:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I think there is definitely some gray area here. Maybe there should be some sort of time period that warnings are expected to remain. If an editor is removing current (24 hours for logged in users, less for IPs) warnings and continuing the actions that led to the warning in the first place, I would consider the removal as an additional act of vandalism. /shrug. --Onorem 12:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

If they remove the template, then they have clearly seen it. The purpose of these templates is not to blackmark users, it is to ask (then urge, then tell, then warn) users not to vandalise (be incivil, edit war, etc). If they have seen the message, then the purpose of the template has been achieved. Reapplying such templates if the user has removed them is edit warring; it should not be done. Neil (not Proto ►) 14:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

No. I can revert a page without viewing the content. If someone has been doing something or engaging in inappropriate behaviour and sees my name as having just edited his talk page, he can easily revert it without actually reading what I wrote.--Crossmr 19:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the discussion could be narrowed to focus strictly on anonymous IP users as a starting point. The majority of vandalism comes from anonymous users. Since anonymous users do not generally have the same rights as account holders[3] and user talk pages are a community asset, not personal, it's reasonable that a pattern of vandalism should be required to stand on the talk page for a period of time. The removal of vandalism warnings slows down the enforcement process. I don't look at page history or edit summaries when placing vandalism warnings. It is a waste of time - and often time is valuable when trying to stop a rampant vandal (at least when you have to get the warnings documented before you can report to WP:AIV). What about those vandal patrollers who are using tools like VandalProof? They are likely to put a test1 on someone who has been blocked 3 times in the last month just because of a blanked page. If the user can be penalized for blanking the page, it will either act as a deterrent or demonstrate malice on the part of the user. -- Mufka ^{(user) (talk) (contribs)} 17:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

No idea how VP works, but honestly, if the page has been blanked it's fairly obvious that one has to check the history to look for previous warnings. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not about penalizing people, it's about preventing disruption, starting wars over user talk content is in itself disruptive. When dealing with a vandal you should always be checking their recent contributions anyway to revert any as yet undetected vandalism, this will tell you if they've blanked their page and if they have indeed been up to any other misdeeds recently. --pgk 18:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Its also about civility. And while on a low-traffic talk page of an IP its easy to check for previous warnings, on a busy talk page of a long-time user (yes they can still make mistakes), it can be near impossible to dig through and find those. Warnings are no different than any other kind of talk. We consider it a civility issue if someone is constantly blanking talk on his talk page without responding to it. So why should valid warnings be any different? They're still communication. There is no reason valid warnings on a talk page should be treated differently than valid communication and they can both be archived as appropriate. We've established that users don't own their talk page, even though they're given some latitude with it, its a place where a record of communication with other users is kept.--Crossmr 19:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

If one has to scan the history of a page to find warnings (and talk pages can often have lengthy histories), figuring out who to block becomes a real chore. If the warnings are left on the talk page, it becomes much easier to find out what level the vandal is at, in turn making it easier to escalate the template level when appropriate. Users don't own their talk pages, and vandals, in my opinion, should have more restrictions because of their proven malicious intents (at least persistent vandals should). If a warning is unwarranted, because the user did not perform the edit in question (the warner made a mistake), they are welcome to remove it themselves, but some users (IPs and registered users) have simply blanked their talk pages, regardless of whether or not the warnings previously displayed had been valid or read. As far as I'm concerned, archiving to a page linked from the main page is OK; blanking/deletion is not OK. — Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 22:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It would also become an issue if, for instance, a long-time user had an issue with a certain subject which he only edited occasionally. If there were warnings in relation to it, and that person consistently blanked them, any future people leaving notices in regards to some inappropriate behaviour in regards to a certain subject might never be able to notice the pattern and realize it probably needed addressed more than a simple warning.--Crossmr 00:34, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Two additional comments on this; If a user does not have an account and is therefore showing up as an anonymous IP, it should just go with the territory that the user might have vandalism warnings sitting on the talk page from a previous user. The user doesn't own the talk page. We could just have a template that explains the situation very politely to the next user of the ip. On that same idea, the majority of anon ip's don't change from day to day or even month to month. It is reasonable that a user who is vandalizing on that ip will be back on the same ip to do it again (if they do it again). The second, and perhaps more important, is that I don't want to see vandal patrollers getting scolded by an admin who believes that blanking the talk page is not a bad thing. It makes us all look stupid if we can't agree on what the policy is and how it can be enforced. -- Mufka ^{(user) (talk) (contribs)} 03:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

A template would be good. I think several exist, it would be a matter of ensuring that they get on all IP talk pages. I still can't find a "good" reason for blanking warnings when other communication is allowed to stay unless its an attempt to hide it. Thats assuming bad faith, but honestly I just cannot think of a good faith reason to blank valid warnings unless you're consistently blanking your entire talk page (which you shouldn't really be doing anyway).--Crossmr 22:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

If this is an established editor with that much throughput on their talk page that a brief viewing of the page history won't make the issue obvious, I'd say that's all the more reason to not worry about them keeping warnings visible if they don't want them. We should be looking to the bigger picture in such cases not merely counting warnings. The warning templates aren't something to bash people with, if the issue has been resolved and moved on from (i.e. they've read it and "conformed") then we don't need chanting of "unclean". --pgk 22:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually it is. Because its much easier for an established editor to cover up an issue that way. If someone doesn't seen any obvious warnings to this person they might just leave another civil1, and move on and think nothing of it. What they don't notice on this editors busy talk page is maybe he's had a half dozen of those over the last year, but its never involved the same editors, so no one picks up on it. That would be an indication that perhaps it should be taken to another level for input and possible handling of the situation. As I pointed out, there is no good reason to remove warnings if they were valid. Absolutely 100% none. And "feeling like it" isn't a good reason. If I ask you a question and you blank it, its considered uncivil. It should be no different with warnings. Its just communication. There is no reason it can't be archived in 7 days along with everything else, or whatever the regular archiving period is on that particular users talk page.--Crossmr 03:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well that fails WP:AGF, assuming it is done for "an established editor to cover an issue", doesn't cut it. Regardless of if you see it as uncivil is irrelevant, yes we want people to be civil, do we block people for being mildly uncivil, no. Which is more disruptive removing some warnings they've read and understood or Assumptions of bad faith concerning that warning and edit warring over the removal. --pgk 07:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

We don't blindly assume good faith. And if you can't provide a "good" reason for the removal of the warnings before normal archiving, I'm not violating that. If a single good scenario can't be provided for their removal, yet bad scenarios can easily be though of, AGF doesn't apply. There also wouldn't be any edit warning if we established a policy on their removal. Hence why this discussion is here. We don't block people for being mildly uncivil no. But if someone is consistently uncivil in all dealings he has with a particular subject (Lets say historical figures from a certain state, it doesn't really matter what) If a keen eyed editor notices this while leaving the individual a warning, he may try and intervene and recommend that the editor not edit those kinds of articles or if the editor ignores that and continues to be uncivil in regards to those articles, it may go to a point where the editor is officially banned from editing those kinds of articles. There are also other kinds of sneaky vandalism that long time editors could get away with by being allowed to bury warnings. There is also no assumption of bad faith in my saying that they shouldn't be allowed to wipe the warning right away. I'm simply saying that it is communication and it shouldn't be treated any differently.--Crossmr 17:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes we do blindly assume good faith, when we have some evidence of bad faith in an action then that assumption evaporates. If someone removes a warning and doesn't continue the behaviour they were warned about that is not evidence of bad faith in removal of the warning. --pgk 18:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

So you're saying if I leave a NPA warning on someone's talk page, they blank and then repeat the behaviour, it is evidence and obviously the blanking of the warning is in bad faith? At that point then, since obviously the person was acting in bad faith by blanking the warning, that warning, and probably all others can be restored? What about future blankings? If those warnings were restored, and they're immediately blanked again, do we restore them since the user has demonstrated they're willing to ignore warnings? Are you willing to keep the tally sheet on which user is allowed to blank warnings because they haven't messed up again? Quite a tangled web. Its much easier to simply say that warnings are the same as any other communication and should be treated as such.--Crossmr 20:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying you should restore warnings under any circumstances. I'm saying assuming that just removing of a warning is indicative of some "bad intent" goes against WP:AGF, if someone does remove a warning and then continues it seems go evidence of disruptive behaviour. Post a further warning for the fresh behaviour, if the disruption continues that's when we block. i.e. If I post a test2 template (or uw- whatever) on someones talk page and they remove it, and repeat the same action then any assumption that their original edit may have been a genuine mistake/test has gone out the window they certainly read the warning, there is no doubt they intend to be disruptive. "Its much easier to simply say that warnings are the same as any other communication and should be treated as such" - yep and I'm free to remove any other message I see fit from my talk page, as is any other editor, it's not vandalism, it's not something to edit war over. --pgk 20:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thats not the impression I've gotten from people. A talk page is a record of communication and you don't own your talk page. You're given some latitude with it, but in the end you don't own it. I've seen it mentioned more than once that removing messages on your talk page without responding can be seen as uncivil, and that your talk page should be archived in a useful manner (if blanked, diffs to various versions should be included) or via something like werdnabot. Editing others comments is frowned upon, regardless of the place (unless its formatting the position of the message), and blanking someone's comment, whether its a comment or a warning, would fall under that too. So while it may be your talk page, and I should assume good faith in your wanting to blank the warning right away, you should realize you don't own your talk page, and you shouldn't edit my comments. This isn't a one way street. And in the absence of any good reason for removing warnings right away, I don't see any kind of reason this should lean so heavily towards that side. The middle ground would be to allow an individual to blank warnings until they show bad faith, but I think I just covered what a gong show that would be. You assume that this would be something that would be edit warred over, but an official policy should hopefully nip a lot of that in the bud. As someone pointed out before the only policy was kind of vague.--Crossmr 21:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Users are heavily discouraged from removing messages from their talk pages, unless the message to them is a personal attack. Blanking warnings is vandalism, whether the warning has been there for one day or one year. Acalamari 23:48, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Wrong answer! Agathoclea 23:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • People can assert this as often as they want, fact is it is not consensus, and therefore not policy. And if you try to enforce it and edit-war about it, you will be in trouble. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I have a bot on the drawing board that makes archives retro-actively. Once I got a better caching routine done I will make it available. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 23:53, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Wrong answer? What do you mean? This is a discussion about vandalism, not a quiz. Acalamari 23:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

• Fut.Perf., are you saying that I would be in trouble and considered a vandal if I suggested a new policy that said that blanking talk page warnings is vandalism? Why would I be in trouble for? I would just be suggesting a policy. Acalamari 00:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I would support such a policy proposal. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 04:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I would also support such a policy proposal. ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 04:18, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I would also support such a proposal. Recently I encountered a user who receives lots of warnings. He immediately blanks all warnings and block notices, even while the blocks are active. Raymond Arritt 04:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Answer to Acamalari: No, obviously not, not for suggesting a policy. (But I'd advise you that, given the strong opposition such proposals have had in the past, you have very little chance of seeing such a proposal through. It's almost like one of those "perennial proposals". The community is pretty much split over it.) What I was saying was, you seemed to be just unilaterally declaring it a policy, and you would be in trouble if you attempted to treat it as one in practice, for instance by edit-warring on another user's page to enforce it. I thought I'd expressed myself clearly. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I always thought it was policy because several other users, including administrators, have said to me that talk page messages should not be removed without a very good reason (i.e. trolling) Acalamari 16:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

There are a lot of editors/admins who think this is a policy. I actually had to ask about it here about a week or so ago because I saw an editor get blocked for 3RR because they removed an old vandal warning and then removed the subsequent warnings they received for that action... because the admin thought he was enforcing policy. It's probably a good idea to have a more formal discussion on this. I'm not sure I want to see a hard policy on this, but a guideline may be helpful.--Isotope23 16:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I would also support such a policy proposal. -- Mufka ^{(user) (talk) (contribs)} 13:44, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

We've had such a policy in the past. It doesn't work. It encourages edit warring over the presence of the warning messages and leads to escalating disruption that is far more troubling than the mere blanking of warnings. Sorry, but no thanks. Dragons flight 13:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

So then apply it appropriately? Very simply the scenario should look like this: Regular Joe User notices user X has blanked warnings, they restore them and reminds them that that is against policy and they can archive the warnings with their regular archives. If user X continues, they've been warned about the behaviour. Make a report to AIV, an administrator can restore them, provide a final warning (because honestly if this takes more than 2 warnings to get across, there is a malfunction in the junction) and then lock the talk page. This makes sure all talk is readily available. The warnings should provide links on how to archive a talk page and links to say the village pump if the individual feels a warning is unfair, or they need help understanding it. It can also include information saying "If this warning is patently false you can remove it, but explain why in the edit summary, i.e. I never edited the article in question".--Crossmr 17:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The standing official policy says that this activity is "frowned upon". What exactly does that mean? How does one enforce "frowned upon"? The ambiguity is what is so infuriating. This debate will go on forever until that is resolved. We need to establish policy in one direction or the other. Separately, if an edit war breaks out as a result of a policy, it would be a pretty short edit war - warning1, warning2, warning3, warning4, block. -- Mufka ^{(user) (talk) (contribs)} 13:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It means that people are discouraged from doing it, but it won't (in the absense of other factors) lead to any sanction. Disruptive user that also remove warnings are more likely to be seen as trolls though. Dragons flight 17:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Consensus can change, just because did not find consensus in the past does not mean it will not now. I encourage the drafting of a proposal, it is clear there is much support for it. I don't see how it can encourage edit warring if the side removing the warnings is violating policy. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have provided a link to a proposal of mine. I provided the link further down this page, but I'll provide it here too: User: Acalamari/Warning Removals. Acalamari 18:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I see that your proposal is specifically for IP addresses, but lots of others have said this should apply to registered talk pages as well. Here's the problem: Say I'm having a dispute with User X. I am being civil and refraining from personal attacks. User X leaves an npa-2 warning on my talk page, even though it is entirely unfounded. Is removing it vandalism? If yes, can others remove it? If so, will we need to set up a noticeboard for requests for independent editors to investigate whether the warning was warranted and if not, to remove it? Obviously this would be a bigger problem with registered user talk pages, but we also have some VERY good IP editors (one in particular, of course, comes to mind). Would this policy apply to him? Why or why not? It's really not that difficult to check the history page, especially if something about the user seems fishy to you. If they are vandalizing and they blank their talk page, block 'em. That's completely in line with present policy, in which blanking warnings can only be considered disruption in the presence of other disruption (such as vandalism). My $0.02. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 19:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

My proposal is not just for IP addresses at all. Also, discussion of the proposal should take place on the proposal's talk page, not here. My apologies if this message sound slightly uncivil. Acalamari 19:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have misread. But I'm not talking specifically about your proposal, I'm talking about the idea in general, as have the above 30+ comments. Hence why I listed it here. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 19:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Oops, and I misunderstood. I saw the "your proposal" part, and assumed you meant my proposal. I'm surprised it hasn't generated any interest yet; from the messages above, everyone was saying it would be a highly-discussed topic. Acalamari 19:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

If a warning message is placed on a users talk page and its completely unfounded then it can be removed. Removing it wouldn't be vandalism. The burden of proof would be on the individual who placed the warning to provide diffs where they felt the behaviour occurred. If they can't, the warning can be removed. If its patently false, i.e. a copyvio template left about the George bush article and you've never edited that article. Remove it, and indicate that in your edit summary. If the warning template has been left by someone you're in a disagreement with, post to the village pump (this link could be included in the warning templates) or post to the users talk page and ask them to provide diffs.--Crossmr 20:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Since there is clearly going to be no change in policy on this issue, I guess we are left to simply "frown" heavily on the activity (maybe I'll create a template that says "I frown on what you did" -- sounds completely legit to me based on the policy WP:VAND). We that are addicted vandal fighters, just need to continue what we were doing (reverting the removals) while staying on the right side of WP:3RR. It is a shame that we can't come to a YES or NO answer on this but we'll just have to walk a thin line to keep ourselves from being labeled vandals. -- Mufka ^{(user) (talk) (contribs)} 14:44, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Right, there isn't going to be a change in policy because the alternative is the massive instruction creep that Crossmr mentions: if someone on vandal patrol posts a warning, he/she needs to monitor the page because if the user removes the warning as unfounded, the vandal patroller has to go back and provide diffs, right? (Otherwise, you're conceding that the warning was false, presumably). And admins and other editors can get harassed: where they remove what they think is a bogus warning, and then get presented a irrelevant diff (say, a revert they did), then what - take it to the village pump? RFC?

The reality is that Wikipedia has no processes to resolve arguments over whether a specific warning is a valid or not, and it doesn't need such processes - admins evaluate such warnings when, and only when, it appear that a block may be warranted. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion: If you're given a false warning, respond to it with your side rather than remove it and look like you're trying to hide something. I reverted a user removing 2 {{npa}} warnings given to him on his talk page in the past 24 hrs and added a note that removing warnings was frowned upon. That user is now blocked, and rightfully so, but he would have continued attacking, edit warring, and being disruptive if I had not reverted his warnings and reported him on WP:AN/I. I don't know if we need a policy on this or if common sense suffices, but I'd prefer to not be blocked for making sure a disruptive editor gets reported and taken care of. --JaimeLesMaths ^(talk!edits) 01:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If someone erases a warning on their talk page, then before you accuse them of vandalizing Wikipedia you have a responsibility to make sure that the person erased the warning in bad faith. You'd have to double-check their contributions to see whether the warning they erased is valid or not. This easily eats up more time than we save by trying to discourage people from erasing messages. It does happen that people - often new users - are warned inappropriately and then erase the warning. I came across a case recently in which an article was vandalized, someone fixed most of the vandalism, and the vandalism-fixer got blamed for the original vandalism. The person rightly blanked the nonsensical nonsensical warning from his/her talk page, and got for that another vandalism warning. If we are going to warn people who erase warnings, the least we can do is say so politely and not use the word "vandalism." Kla'quot 05:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible problem AfD

Terry Shannon has been nominated again in this AfD. The first one was a trainwreck, and the nomination's already been completely deleted from AfD once (diff) by an editor who was involved in canvassing on the first AfD (I've warned). Might be worth keeping an eye on. EliminatorJR ^Talk 02:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Straw poll on credentials and identification in wake of Essjay scandal

There is at straw poll on numerous credentials and identification proposals in the wake of the Essjay scandal at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Credential Verification. The paragraph descriptions are not all there so wait to vote until they are if you don't want to actually go the many individual proposal pages to understand the proposals involved. Thank you. WAS 4.250 06:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Specifically, this is an attempt to have a dozen or so policy/guideline proposals pass by voting upon them. That doesn't strike me as particularly useful. m:voting is evil. >Radiant< 09:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The idea behind this straw poll is that perhaps we have had enough of idea gathering and now it is time to specify the ideas in a yes/no form so a straw poll can tell us where we stand. Perhaps there will be a concensus on some of the proposals. Once the field is narrowed down we can discuss the detals. A week should be long for this straw poll so people can ask and answer questions about each proposal and everyone who wants to can have an informed !vote. The poll's instructions are to vote yes to any or all that seem similar to what is needed; and no to any or all that that are fundamentally unsound. We are weeding out stuff more than selecting a winner. Identify specific details you like or don't like if you wish. Feel free to change or add a comment to your vote at any time. Vote both yes and no with appropriate comments if that works for you. WAS 4.250 10:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Please read WP:CON with respect to what consensus is. It is not a headcount. >Radiant< 10:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Why would I want to count the number of times I get head? WAS 4.250 11:47, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• It depends. Is there a queue of people waiting to perform this useful function for you? You might want to at least keep notes in case you succumb to exhaustion... 〈REDVEЯS〉 13:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Or worse, asphyxiation. Luigi30 (Taλk) 13:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Guys...ouch! Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 13:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Covert edit war in progress

There is currently an edit war in progress on Rudolf Höß, where a user called User:Trueblood is blanking and re-blanking material about Hoess's dates of rank in the SS and his Nazi awards. Trueblood has been approached about this blanking by at least three people, and has indicated strong anti-nazi feelings with hints that he simply feels that an article about a Nazi should not be so detailed. He spreads these blankings out over several days, trying to hide them and making them appear as "cleaning up" the article of "shortening material" when it is in fact just blatant blanking. He also sometimes pretends to compromise, but in the end just keeps reblanking the same material over and over again. I teach history and think this mateiral absolutely should be in the article. It is well referenced and informative. Someone with anti-nazi feelings should not simply keep reblanking it because they don't like it being in there. As this has been going on for at least a month, and as Trueblood has ignored requests both on the article talk-page and his own talk-page to stop this, I'm asking for admin assistance. -195.229.236.214 11:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Draft

Based on complaints that the deletion policies were too lengthy, complex and convoluted, several people have revised the deletion policy page, to clarify it, remove redundancy, and incorporate material from a few related policies, in particular WP:PROD, WP:UNDEL and WP:CBLANK. This is not a change in policy, just a reworking of the relevant pages. The draft can be found at the link above; unless there are big objections, the intent is to move this over the present deletion policy as a new version; the second step would be to verify that it contains all relevant material from the related policies mentioned above, and complete the merge with a redirect. Please comment on the draft's talk page rather than here. >Radiant< 12:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bios of banned people, contributions from them

Just FYI, there is a discussion here on whether people who are banned from Wikipedia (Brandt, Schwartz, etc.) should be allowed to post/participate in discussions about their own articles despite the bans/blocking policy. - Denny 12:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Snake bgd

Snake bgd created an article (Kaminari) which falls into CSD A3. I put a {{db-nocontent}} on the page, and it was removed by Snake bgd. I put it back, with the edit summary don't remove the deletion tag yourself, and the user did anyway. I left him a message on his talk page and then restored the tag, and he removed it again. Eli Falk 13:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I've just deletedthe article for having no content, so hopefully that will sort it Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 13:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Eli Falk 13:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible serious copyright/policy violation

I was checking the icon Image:Vista-file-manager.png. It's saying that the image is released under GPL, and a reference to a source at http://sa-ki.deviantart.com. Why they have been specified as GPL here (and on countless other wiki-projects, including commons), is probably because that on http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=28352 it's specified as GPL.

The problem arise when looking on the authors own page about these icons http://www.iconsdesigns.com/?page_id=44. There it's a notice saying:

“

These free icons are provided to be used as a replacement icon theme for your operating system only. You can also use them on your open source projects. For non open source projects such as commercial ones, products website, personal website, blog, commercial or personal applications, documentation, etc. asking a permission to use them is mandatory and you will have to give credit for them. Thank you!”

If this hold, then the icons is not compatible with the rules for images used on the projects. _→AzaToth 02:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

That is correct anyone know a commons admin to zap it. You will want to rip it out of the relivant templates first.Geni 02:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

If a replacement image is needed, Image:Crystal Clear app file-manager.png should do the trick. WjBscribe 02:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm no law-talking person. However, the user uploaded the icon set under the GPL, and the package itself contains a copy of the license, even if he states in another location and seemingly at a later time that it is under a more restrictive license. Isn't this somewhat like the Wikipedia disclaimer that "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL."? What's relevant are the conditions when he originally released the file; you can't "take back" licenses. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Problem is we can't prove he every did release under pure GPL.Geni 02:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Except that GNOME-Look says that (the uploader sets the license there), and if you download the package from there you'll note that it does contain a copy of the GPL with no added restrictions. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

but who was the uploader?Geni 03:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

saki. The same person who has the deviantART page, and the IconsDesigns.com page. He links directly to and from the various websites. The one and only download address is at GNOME-Looks, and that package has a copy of the GPL inside of it and is stated as being GPL-licensed on the download page. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a great alternative. Might as well give the filing cabinet a coat of paint anyway. :) Garrett^Talk 03:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Eef. Image:Crystal Clear app file-manager.png makes me weep, it really does. I know it's a matter of taste, but can I offer Image:Replacement filing cabinet.svg as a stopgap until this is resolved? I'm a complete novice at Inkscape, but that's my own ham-fisted attempt at a filing cabinet icon (completely from scratch), and you can have it for nothing. — mholland 22:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

As a derivative work, it wouldn't have any affect on the copyright status. That is, if it's a violation it's still a violation. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 08:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

My image isn't a derivative work: I drew it from scratch from brown polygons. It looks the same, but then so would a lot of images at 40px. — mholland 15:17, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

See the definition at [4]. Redrawing an image doesn't create a new copyright, regardless of the method in which you did it, or even if there are minute differences. You therefore shouldn't be claiming it as public domain either. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I have read and understand the definition of a derivative work. I remain confident that the image I drew is not based upon Image:Vista-file-manager.png in any way which attracts copyright rights. No part of the original image is reproduced, dimensions or colours. I had, however, looked at Vista-file-manager before I started drawing. It is my understanding that you can't copyright the idea of a square, brown, two drawer filing cabinet, drawn in perspective with a shadow beneath it; however, my experience in this field is limited to UK copyright law, and I gladly and humbly apologise if my understanding of US law is faulty.

I have removed the image from this page and from Template:Archive box. I have not removed the PD claim from the image's summary, but I'll gladly do so (or endorse another's doing so) if someone would like to confirm that the image is derivative under US law, and for simplicity's sake (given that the original image is of uncertain copyright status) request its deletion myself. — mholland 01:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone tried to contact the author? --Random832 19:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have sent an email via the Gnome-Look interface, havn't got any replies. _→AzaToth 19:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Was looking up the crystal icons also, and it seems that they are allowed by the author to be used on wikipedia commons:Template talk:Crystal clear, simlar here, as the "author" have posted them as LGPL on kde-looks. _→AzaToth 15:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Readding the conversation to gain more information on the matter, and how to procedure. _→AzaToth 13:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

There are two counter issues: (1) You can release works under multiple licenses, which may be incompatible with each other; in that case a recipient may use whichever licenses they received. In case of copyleft licenses like the GPL, if the images are released under GPL and some other license, then anyone can use them under GPL if they choose. (2) It's not 100% clear in case law, but in general you can't "rescind" something you previously properly released under GPL, though what typically happens when a software author wants to use a more restrictive license is they release newer versions under a different license. Here there's no reason to believe that the author has wanted to rescind the GPL anyway, only that he has released it under a vague non-commercial/by-permission-only license in addition to GPL. Conclusion: We're fine, you can use new icons if you want (e.g. since SVG is preferred to non-SVG), but there's no pressing need to delete the old ones. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-14 10:08Z

[edit] WP:AMA

How can we fix the AMA? It's a noble and probably necessary idea: users who are banned or blocked or just don't get it need people who can hold their hand and help them through the processes of dispute resolution and mediation. Yup. What they don't need is someone who mistakes their role for that of a legal advocate. I have to say that my view of AMA is strongly coloured by the fact that user:CyclePat is an Advocate. Pat is a lovely guy, passionate about what he does, but has a positive gift for escalating disputes and rubbing people up the wrong way. There are many great uses of Pat's talents but this is not one of them. Other advocates are similarly problematic: I have seen one take a case and do nothing, leaving it there as a cesspit of argument for months, for example. We definitely need a help and support process, but this does not seem to be it. Guy (Help!) 23:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

We could stop calling it advocacy, for starters. The role of people helping out in this way should essentially be to provide information about the processes involved in dispute resolution, but there seems to be the expectation from at least some quarters that these people are available to run their case for them, as it were. --bainer (talk) 04:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Association for Member Assistance? But what title would the Advocates call themselves, given that "Assistant" would probably be non-starter? --Calton | Talk 07:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• In its current incarnation, we should probably get rid of it. The very idea of advocacy encourages wikilawyering. It seems that what the advocates are intended to do matches reasonably well with what mediators do. >Radiant< 09:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree that "advocates" implies lawyering. Association for Members' Advisors rings better for me. Not sure ditching the baby with the bathwater is a good idea. --Dweller 10:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I like "advisors" much better, that's much more the role that it should take. "Advocate" implies a lawyer-type relationship, where the advocate is required to defend you no matter what you pull. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Do we need anything even faintly along these lines? From my own experience I have never seen advocacy, even when well intentioned, do anything good, and when it comes to Arbitration advocacy is, and has consistently been, a walking disaster zone. We certainly don't need any more wikilawyering than we already have: surely just letting the trolls stew in their own juice is a good idea? Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 13:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, we don't need advocacy, but there's great benefit in some organised system for dispensing advice. Good advice as to how to make dispute resolution work can make all the difference in helping people resolve issues before they become serious problems. Sure, there are places to bring up queries about the dispute resolution process, but having someone offer advice one-on-one can be particularly valuable in certain circumstances, and there is benefit in organising a group of people who feel qualified and motivated enough to give such advice. --bainer (talk) 13:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

How about Association of Member's Counsellors? I like the idea that your advocate is on "your side," even if that boils down to telling someone, in the nicest possible way: "I'd like to see you keep editing, so cool it so that you don't get banned." "Counsellor" gets the idea that AM? members should be giving advice, not wikilawyering. (For some more thoughts on what I think is wrong with AMA, see here). TheronJ 13:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

If we just need an organisation to dispense advice, why not just create a new "advice" branch of the help desk? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 14:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with Dev: at the moment this organization is a long way off being some benign dispenser of advice. I don't like "Association of Member's Counsellors": "Counsellors" implies some sort of authority. Personally, I think this is the MfD that got away. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 14:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we should create the Information Point (or something like that - sounds better than "advice"), promote it, get it active, and then MfD WP:AMA? Their system is far too complicated for what is, in essence, usually no more than "Post it on AN/I". Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 16:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think MfD is the solution. AMA doesn't do much harm, or much good, but it's a worthy goal, and they might be able to work something out given time and the right volunteers. TheronJ 17:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

No comment overall on this, since I've no real experience of them but your sentence "doesn't do much harm, or much good..and they might be able to work something out given time and the right volunteers" seems to be becoming a common sentiment of late, when left to get on with it so far those things have failed to move forward. --pgk 18:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough -- I guess I'm something of an eventualist, and your mileage may certainly vary. If we could do it with enough precision, the best solution might be to define some clear success metrics for WP:AMA and some of the other controversial projects, and delete them in 6 months if they can't show that they're doing some good. Like any volunteer project, however, it probably depends on the motivation and talent of the leader (or !leader or whatever) and the group volunteers. TheronJ 18:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The "problem" with the AMA is the cnnotations given by the name. A persistant troll may come to the AMA expecting them to get them off the hook. Likewise, people expect that advocates can help them to win disputes by stepping in and making a decision, which is absolute crap (of course). The best way to resolve this would be to rename the group, look through and check the members list (or abolish it), remove much of the bureaucracy (meetings every month..) and make sure that users requesting the services of the AMA know what they can reasonably get. Personally (as an AMA deputy co-ordinator), I feel that Arbitration advocacy will never work, given the bad reputation the AMA already has, and the fact that an advocate will rarely be able to give more insight into a dispute than a clued up disputant. The job of the AMA should not be to actively fight cases - it should be to clue up these (frequently) new users on the ins and outs of policy. Martinp23 18:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess what I was thinking, agrees with that to a certain degree. It just strikes me that if an organisation isn't already conscious of its issues and trying to move them forward, it seems unlikely that the ability to do so will magically appear. 6 months however seems a long time in wiki terms, to be actively moving in the right direction shouldn't take that long. --pgk 18:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed - I'm trying to push forward with the changes now. Thanks, Martinp23 19:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clearing WP:AIV

As a non-admin in good standing, may I remove reports at WP:AIV if the report does not appear to warrant a block and I otherwise was not involved in the dispute? —dgies^t_c 23:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah you can, WP:ADMIN states that anyone can act in a way befitting of an admin as long as they don't claim to be one Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 23:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• More than "you may", we will thank you warmly for your efforts. Guy (Help!) 23:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Please do, thank you. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 23:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• I very recently removed a listing placed by a vandal. I later found out that the vandal saw their own name there and replaced it with the person who had listed them. Acalamari 23:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Welcome to our world. :-D --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 06:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Welcome to hell. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 22:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gordon Watts...

... has seen fit to start complaining on his talk page again. I have reset the block to one month, under the view that it is a community ban for one month, not just a block. If my interpretation is wrong, undo and note it here. No need to over discuss this either, folks. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

And I've protected his talk page for a month. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'm sorry. Why was his user talk page protected? Navou ^banter / _contribs 23:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• "Continued trolling" sums it up, I think. He's also been emailing me. Guy (Help!) 23:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Navou ^banter / _contribs 23:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Robert Prechter

This arbitration case has closed and the final decision is available at the link above. Smallbones is banned indefinitely from editing articles that relate to Robert Prechter, including talk pages. This notice is given by a Clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 01:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for deletion of an image revision containing accidental personal data

Hi, I accidentally posted an image to Wikipedia which accidentally included some personal info... I've replaced the image but the old one remains there in the revision history. Here's the image page: [[5]] (links to current version, the one containing inappropriate data is in the rev. history). Sorry if this is not the right place to put it - I couldn't see anywhere else where it would be appropriate. Thanks a lot, --Christopher 20:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You want to go here to make this request. --ElKevbo 20:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The easiest might be to upload the image under a slightly different name, and just tag the old one for speedy {{db|uploader request}}? The JPS^{talk to me} 20:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi - Thanks very much... I was rather worried and panicked and didn't think straight or look very thoroughly for the right place to post it! I'll remember it in future. Thanks again, --Christopher 20:20, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the image outright. You can go ahead and upload a safe version. Newyorkbrad 20:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... I think the safe image was already uploaded, and you deleted it too :-) -- ReyBrujo 04:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Undeleted the non-personal revision. All fixed now. — Dan | talk 04:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incivility and assuming bad faith from User:SmokeyJoe

Even after warning, this user has continued to be uncivil and accuse me of ulterior motives for an AfD. The discussion is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Later-no-harm_criterion I request the assistance of an administrator.--Fahrenheit451 02:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page move issue

Hi. Straight Outta Lynwood was moved to Straight outta Lynwood earlier today, and then redirected back to the original (and correct) title. This solution, of course, does not move the page history back to the original title. Could an admin please fix this? --Maxamegalon2000 02:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at WP:CPMV. I have tagged this as {{db-histmerge}}, so it should be taken care of in due course. Chris cheese whine 03:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see this probably wasn't the first place I should have gone. Sorry about that, and thanks for the help. --Maxamegalon2000 03:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User warning templates strawpoll

Most of you are aware of the work that was done over the previous 6 months by the user warnings project WP:UW and then when handed over WP:UTM to harmonise the multi level warnings. We'd now like to wrap up this project by completing the single issue templates and tidying up the Cat:User warning templates. To achieve this, one of the areas that needs greater community involvement is the redirecting of the old templates to the new ones. This is not something we will undertake lightly as a few editors are still attached to the old templates, though the majority of warnings being issued now are with the new system. If you have an opinion on the user warnings templates old or new, we'd appreciate your thoughts here please. Regards ^Khukri 10:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Burninators required - speedies overflowing

The number of candidates for speedy deletion has reached 765. Anyone for a bonfire party? (Note: the category tracker is reporting this incorrectly). MER-C 10:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Now at 843... MER-C 12:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Somewhat concerned that there are apparently -1 users looking for help. Is someone looking for a refund? :-) Chris cheese whine 12:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it's more of a DOES NOT COMPUTE situation with all the big numbers. Luigi30 (Taλk) 12:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I leave CSD alone for a week, and this is what happens? Luigi30 (Taλk) 13:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

We're down below 400, more help would be good. There are a lot of CSD:I3 images out there. Gwernol 15:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Updated community ban language at WP:BAN

• Thread moved to Wikipedia talk:Banning policy. >Radiant< 15:23, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Huntsville, Ohio

Earlier in March, the same IP added a random name to Huntsville, Ohio and was reverted four times. After warnings were left on the IP's talk page, a nearly identical IP address added the same text just today, leading me to revert it again. Could someone try to do something with this? Thanks! Nyttend 15:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page move issue - again

Hi. Another editor moved Straight Outta Lynwood back to Straight outta Lynwood. I'd rather we not have to continue moving the page back and forth. Can someone please confirm which title is correct and take the necessary steps to make sure the article stays at the correct title? --Maxamegalon2000 16:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

For now, it should be move-protected - the place to ask for this is at WP:RFP. Eli Falk 16:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

AMG and Rolling Stone both confirm it should be Straight Outta Lynwood. Luigi30 (Taλk) 16:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Suggest it gets moved back and move-protected at that location while you talk it over. Chris cheese whine 16:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm astonished that so many admins misunderstand the issue of our naming conventions. We don't follow other sites; we follow our conventions, like any publication. For an admin to move a page and then protect it against moves seems to me clearly to be an abuse, and I've raised it at WP:AN/I. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 22:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] serious backlog at WP:AIV

it's getting ridiculous... Natalie 23:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks to me like you should be able to assist with this problem in approximately ... one minute ... tick tick tick. :) And let me be the first to congratulate you here. Regards, Newyorkbrad 23:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

{{sofixit}}. You should be able to do it now. :) Congrats. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:18, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Will this be the first time a user issued a block based on her own AIV report? :) Newyorkbrad 23:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I just blocked it. :P Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Why do I feel like I'm living in a sitcom... ah, the hilarious irony. Thanks for your congratulations, though. Natalie 00:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coral Reef High School page move

The page moved properly to Coral Reef Senior High School, but the talk page could not be moved. Tamajared 23:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. Picaroon 23:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I was wondering if I was going nuts, because everything seemed in order... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advice requested: procedure to follow

I'd like some advice of which procedure to follow. We've had a discussion on Template_talk:Infobox_UK_place (now in the talk page archive) about what information to include and came to consensus which one user does not accept. We then had a straw poll to reconfirm the consensus, but the same user now asserts that the consensus is not valid (and will not let it drop). What is the best procedure to follow now we’ve had a discussion and a straw poll? MRSC • Talk 16:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't wish to take part in the issue, but I'd recommend you read this flowchart. It is quite helpful for realizing the process involved with determining consensus. Yuser31415 21:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Account Removal Please

Could an admin please remove my account from Wikipedia, as I won't be using it again, and am taking a break. Thanks! Manopingo 21:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but requested blocks are specifically forbidden by the blocking policy. If you want to enforce a WikiBreak, look at the WikiBreak Enforcer script. --Slowking Man 21:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

It's a total break, for good and ever, thanks. Manopingo 22:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I can delete your userpage and relevant subpages, but probably not the talk page. Your account cannot be removed forever because you have released edits under the licensing agreement, so we need a paper trail to an account. Plus technical reasons in the software don't allow for account deletion. So, we can make you a redlink, and archive the talk page, and that's about it. Teke ^(talk) 02:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

That'll do. Thanks! -Manopingo 03:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Page deleted and talk page archived. Happy trails to you. Teke ^(talk) 03:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attack page?

This page seems...unhelpful, as does his (now-deleted) comment on Talk:Wikinazi. Is there a backstory somewhere? --Calton | Talk 01:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

As an immediate response I've blanked the page, I would appreciate other admins interpretation of this and I would support a delete Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 01:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

After looking at the deleted revisions of Talk:Wikinazi, I have to say that calling other editors wikinazi's is very inappropriate Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 01:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Moved that article over to WP:PT] instead of what it was ({{deleted}}. Can someone check that it has been protected. I didn't seem to be able to purge it. Viridae^Talk 01:26, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Ignore the second part, I forgot to force a refresh. Viridae^Talk 01:26, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok had a look at the page in question and I'm not sure it is speedyable as an attack page. It is however unhelpful, perhaps take it to WP:MFD? Viridae^Talk 01:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll restore it then after blanking it, I'll also suggest reverting it to the user back to its original state Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 01:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I've restored it back to an earlier version and contacted PeterMarkSmith regarding this, I'll keep an eye on it Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 01:36, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

PeterMarkSmith has just vandalised my user page, as I'm involved now, I would appreciate someone else's input into this Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 02:04, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Hm. Not speediable as G10, in my opinion, but a clear candidate for MFD as violation of username space (polemical statements), as well as being highly point-ish. -- Merope 03:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

And I've MFD'd it: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:PeterMarkSmith. -- Merope 04:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Persistent multi-page spamming by User:Reader contributor

Persistent spamming of link to websites which s/he is the marketing director for past final spam warning. S/he has been spamming links to commercial websites with objectionable amounts of advertising that s/he is the marketing director for [6]. The links have been removed multiple times by multiple independent editors. If this isn't the textbook definition of spamming, as well as a violation of WP:COI, and WP:EL, I don't know what is. Per WP:AN persistent spammers should be reported to WP:AIV. This spammer has been given appropriate warnings, and persists past {{spam4}} which indicates that blocking is appropriate for continuing to spam after the warning. However, despite everything which points to spamming, an admin thought it was a content dispute, and thought the report would be better handled here. Leuko 05:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

--In view of the fact that I am being harassed here... I would like to appeal to all those concerned editors to broaden or better yet understand the situation before anything should be posted. If what I've done is spamming... Do you really consider it as such upon totally reviewing what had happened. How would we say then that Wikipedia will soon be a realiable source of information when in fact some of its editors and administration are itself biased. How would you say then that it is indeed a fact when the only basis of ones decision pertains to 'I think'. Users and indeed users! editors are indeed editors! administrators are indeed administrators! But what if the situation involves administrators, editors, and users who are trying to despose a contributor. A contributor who does not use his position to promote the sites he/she is handling, as what is being JUDGED, but indeed just using a page of the sites he/she is handling to better give an informative information to the topic and in this issue an internal link is being used inorder to show what the content of the link is. If you judge it as spamming when you provide an information to help wikipedia in providing information to various readers then be it called as such. For those who had already judged it... Have you read, review, and understand the very content, quality, information of the SITES used. have you then used you're sense of Human Understand to read, review, and understand the very content, quality, information of the SITES or you just used your 'I think' sense of judgement or you have totally used the Guidelines to be in control of the situation. Guidelines are just suppose to be GUIDELINES! If you think it is to be removed so because of the fact that the sites have stores on it, have you read the link I posted and where it is being redirected, have you read the page personally? Does it point to a store? NO!!! it points to the RELATED TOPIC I used in adding various contents in the page. Upon seeing that the sites have stores have you seen the thousands of pages containing the meaningful and Informative articles or should I say Informative contents. If none or some of these are true... from where do you belong? Reader contributor 06:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry, I don't understand some of what you write, but yes, I have looked at the page. That is how I determined it was spam, since it contained an objectionable amount of advertising, and no useful, unique information or content beyond what would be included in the WP article if it reached FA status. At least half of the page space on the site you are promoting is taken up by ads and links the the site's store/shopping cart. WP is not an appropriate avenue for your advertising. Leuko 06:53, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree myself that the links are very questionable and likely shouldn't be reinserted (as appears to be consensus on all the articles), the only reason I didn't block at AIV was because it appeared to go beyond simple vandalism, and because the user had stopped. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

True, the user has stopped now, but at the time was edit-warring and persistently reinserting the link contrary to consensus. A block is not necessary now, only if the user restarts edit-warring or inserting spam links on other articles. Leuko 07:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Royal hoax?

Could some one else have a look at Princess Marcalie Windsor and opine? Unless I've missed a big news story, this must be a hoax, right? I'd like a second opinion on whether it can be deleted per WP:CSD#G10, as an attack on the good name of our esteemed Prince Andrew. I've prodded it in the meantime. Rockpocket 07:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Obvious hoax (there's no way in hell a royal family member would return no hits at all), there's not a snowball's chance it would survive AFD, I see no problem. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Hoaxes: Articles that present unverifiable and probably false ideas, theories, or subjects. Occasionally these can be deleted as vandalism if the article is obviously ridiculous, but remotely plausible articles should be subjected to further scrutiny in a wider forum. - is this ridiculous enough to merit speedy? Hbdragon88 07:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Take the implausibility of the claims in the article along with the inherent WP:BLP concerns associated with those claims (without which the article wouldn't have a claim to notability), and immediate deletion seems prudent. If we remove all the unsourced claims about Prince Andrew per WP:BLP, we are left with an easy WP:CSD#A7... or is that a circular argument? I can't decide. Rockpocket 07:53, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Done and done. --Golbez 08:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two week 3RR block on Pigsonthewing wholly invalid - but not reversed - why?

This block Pigsonthewing_reported_by_SlimVirgin is invalid. The 2nd and 4th so-called reverts are not reverts at all. Pigsonthwing has been blocked for 2 weeks for a crime he did not commit. And yet the two people who were instrumental in imposing the block using false data, User:SlimVirgin and User:Heimstern, have not acted to unblock him. I call foul. Jooler 08:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a note there is conversation to be found at User talk:Heimstern. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 10:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Given that the user concerned was also adding information contrary to WP:ATT and WP:BLP, as a non-admin and uninterested party, the worst I can say is that the charge sheet is wrong. Seems as though they have form, and lived up to it. I smell a wikilawyer ... Chris cheese whine 10:10, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The claims of breaching WP:ATT and WP:BLP do not hold water. Jooler 12:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd really like someone with experience giving advice about the Gillian McKeith article, especially the Legal Threat to Google.co.uk, and whether chillingeffects.org is a usable source. DanBeale 21:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

From http://www.chillingeffects.org/ "Chilling Effects is a joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and clinics at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center, Stanford Law School's Center for Internet & Society, Boalt Hall's Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic, and other law schools across the country". From http://www.elpub.org/base02t0056.htm - "Called Chilling Effects in reference to the way legal threats can freeze out free expression, the project invites Internet users to add their cease-and-desist letters to an online clearinghouse at ChillingEffects.org. Students at the participating law school clinics will review the letters and annotate them with links to explain applicable legal rules." - what makes you think there's any reason why it couldn't be used!? Jooler 22:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing is relevant here, I think. Repeat offender blocked for repeating their repeated offence repeatedly. Nothing to see here, move along please... Guy (Help!) 11:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. Is it right to hang a man for a crime he did not commit because he has form? Jooler 12:53, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, no, it's completely relevant. Pigsonthewing has a long history of disruption, especially disruptive reversion. Pick another user to champion, this one has exhausted our tolerance for nonsense. Guy (Help!) 14:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Er. Do you not understand that Pigsonthewing didn't actually breach the 3RR? Are you saying that in principle you would hang a man for a crime he did not commit because of past form. Well done. Or do you mean only in this case? Am I been over-dramatic? Hell no. Jooler 17:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Andy Mabbett, who is a prodigious editor and a good contributor who has an unfortunate ability to rile people, came off a year-long block in January. He's tried to improve his behaviour but issuing lengthy blocks for a questionable breach of a disputed rule is not going to help him - especially if his past form from more than a year ago is held against him. The block was not only excessive, it's likely to be counterproductive. How about cutting him some slack? How about giving him an even break for once? Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 16:04, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• You say it's a questionable rule, but what you actually mean there is it's a rule you were blocked for breaking. Many (most?) of us find WP:3RR to be an unalloyed good, as it acts as an electric fence of which even seasoned edit warriors fight shy. And Pigs is an edit-warrior, the problem is edit-warring, and edit warring is what he was doing. Jooler seems not to have noticed the bit about "three reverts is a limit, not an entitlement" and "you may be blocked after fewer than three reverts". Efforts to improve? For sure. We can celebrate an alcoholic who turns up every week at AA, but it's still going to be a problem if he falls off the wagon. Carrot, stick. Pigs got the stick. No idea of people are feeding him carrots as well, perhaps you should do so. Guy (Help!) 00:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Playing the man, not the ball again, in violation of WP:NPA. Really Guy you should know better. The carrot you speak of seems to be that we don't use the stick. Poor chap is not being given a chance. Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 10:31, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• I wonder why you have chosen to chip in to this particular debate? Anyway, as you should know, being a former administrator, WP:3RR clearly says that three reverts is a limit, not an entitlement, you may be blocked for reverting fewer than three times, and Pigs may be banned from any article he disrupts. He is being given a chance: he has not been banned. Guy (Help!) 08:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• Don't you cast aspersions on my merely contributing. You're late to this particular party, I was one of the admins who was trying to deal with Andy and there is an entry in his block log from me, so I know more about it than you do. What I do question is a rule where the penalty for not breaking it is worse than the penalty for breaking it. It really is Kafkaesque. If you think someone is reverting excessively then just tell them not to; if they continue, then a block is merited. But at the very least rename the "three revert rule": three is irrelevant, as you have pointed out; the word 'revert' doesn't mean a revert, and it's not a hard and fast rule. Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 17:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Watch the PA Fys, either in your topic or your edit summaries. SirFozzie 17:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Well done, now warn JzG about the same. Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 17:26, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• From a very superficial scanning of Pigsonthewing's edits since his return, it appears that he has made some effort to improve. However it is also true that he has a lot of past form. A one-week block might not be incorrect, depending on the circumstances. Administrators should also be aware that under his probation, which is permanent, he may be banned for good cause by an uninvolved administrator from any article he disrupts. --Tony Sidaway 11:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why people are saying this is a questionable block; I'll take a look at the 3RR report again. However, in general, Pigsonthewing has been edit warring very aggressively at Gillian McKeith, fighting to add or retain anything negative about her he can find, regardless of BLP, as has Jooler. So this business of him being a good editor punished unfairly because of past wrongs is a wrong-headed way of looking at it. Between the two of them, Pigsonthewing and Jooler have been blocked 29 times. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You have repeated this many times - but the evidence clearly shows that what you called the 2nd and 4th revert were no such thing. Past behaviour is irrelevant, a smokescreen, to the fact that your block was based on faulty evidence. It is beside the point bu as you brought it up I will say here that including this occasion I have been blocked 7 times and on 5 occasions the block has been reversed because the administrator who blocked did so blocked me without valid justification. you can see this clearly from the block log. Jooler 00:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Charles Darwin-Lincoln dispute#3RR is not an entitlement; WP:3RR: "The rule does not convey an entitlement to revert three times each day, nor does it endorse reverting as an editing technique; rather, the rule is an "electric fence".[1] Editors may still be blocked even if they have not made more than three edits in any given 24 hour period." WP:BLP: "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space". Are you done Wikilawyering yet? Guy (Help!) 07:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The material concerned was not a breach of BLP it was properly sourced. There was no breach of 3RR. So a 2 weeks is excessive in the extreme. Pigsonthewing has now been unblocked and rightly so, but it is unlikely that he would been unblocked it I hadn't brought this up here. So my work is done yes. Jooler 08:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• What part of Editors may still be blocked even if they have not made more than three edits in any given 24 hour period were you having trouble understanding? Guy (Help!) 10:18, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I understand the context of that quote. Which it appears is more than you do. It does not stand in isolation so that it can be applied in any situation. Jooler 22:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You're right. In context, it's nothing more than a get-out clause for admins to block users under 3RR when they haven't even breached 3RR if it will put a temporary stop to an edit war. Edit wars are disruptive, and disruption has been valid grounds for blocking for almost three years now. Chris cheese whine 10:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, with not very much effort, I managed to identify five reverts in short order, spanning a short time. rv SlimVirgin rv ElinorD rv Jooler rv SlimVirgin rv Crum375. Chris cheese whine 11:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Firstly he couldn't be reverting my edits as we both had the same agenda and were adding the same material. There were two camps - one for inclusion and one for exclusion and we were both inclusionists. Secondly the second rv SlimVirgin above and rv Crum375 are both "reverts" of me not of SlimVirgin or Crum i.e. not reverts at all in any way shape or form. So of the five edits only two are reverts. I can see that you did indeed spend little effort. Jooler 18:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be saying that reverts of you aren't supposed to count as reverts. Am I reading you correctly? --Tony Sidaway 19:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

PigsOnTheWing's edits were followups to my edits This alleged revert was preceed by this edit from me - I was the reverter not Pigsonthewing. Jooler 21:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

This is the worst kind of wikilawyering. Pigsonthewing reverted more than three times in just over an hour against multiple editors. By revert, I mean that he either removed or restored another editor's work. Saying it can't have been a revert if he removed something Jooler had added (or restored something Jooler had removed) is bizarre. Here are the diffs without commentary so people can judge for themselves:

• 22:26 March 7
• 22:57 March 7
• 23:29 March 7
• 23:35 March 7
• 23:42 March 7
• 23:44 March 7, back to back with the former

His constant reverting at that article goes back a few weeks, so this isn't isolated by any standard, and bear in mind we're talking about someone just back from a year's ban for this kind of editing and who's on indefinite probation. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah whatever, but he still didn't do what you claimed he did. Jooler 22:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

As stated earlier there were two camps the inclusionists and the deletionists. I was not reverting away from the inclusion of his content and he was not reverting away from the inclusion of my content. Jooler 22:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

So what? A revert is a revert is a revert. 3RR is faction-agnostic, and deliberately so. Chris cheese whine 22:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

My opinion now remains as it was at the start. There may or may not have been a minor error on the charge sheet, but PotW was guilty of disruptive editing at least, and has a lengthy record of disruptive editing. Therefore the long block was wholly justified. Chris cheese whine 20:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• 22:26 March 7

• (Note that Slim's previous edit falsely claims that either The Guardian or the Chilling Effects website (a site run the The EFF and Harvard Law School et al) were self published. The original deletion of the para was based on a false premise and the restoration should have been uncontroversial. Jooler

It directly undid another editor's changes, therefore it is a revert. 1. Chris cheese whine 22:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• 22:57 March 7

• This is a genuine revert. Jooler

2. Chris cheese whine 22:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• 23:29 March 7

• This is not a revert it's an edit of existing text that I had restored. How can it be a revert when I had already reverted to the last edit by Pigsonthewing myself (here) - I reverted to his text and then he edited it. What's wrong with that? Pigsonthewing was actually trying to address the concerns of other editors. Jooler

It is a revert, because it undid your work. 3RR could not give a rat's backside whose side anyone is one, and for good reason. 3. Chris cheese whine 22:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• 23:35 March 7

• This is a debatable one. He's editing my text and is restoring old content, but he is rewording the content that had been removed earler trying to address the concerns that had been raised by other editors. Jooler

He is replacing the same reference that was removed here. This is therefore a revert. 4. Chris cheese whine 22:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• 23:42 March 7

• This is not a revert it's a normal edit because I had already reverted it. Again I was the reverter (here) Jooler

This reference was removed here, and the same one replaced, therefore this is a revert. 5. Chris cheese whine 22:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• 23:44 March 7

• Er... this claim is just bizarre. Both the before and after links on this so-called revert are to edits by Pigsonthewing. He can't be reverting himself. And in fact he is removing something that he himself previously added. i.e. the words "Details can be read at ChillingEffect.org" - which was the site that earlier on Slim had called "self-published" Jooler

... and text which was added not by PotW, but by you. Undoing the changes of another editor, so I guess that's another revert. Friendly fire sucks, doesn't it? 6. Got any more incriminating evidence to bring to the fore? Chris cheese whine 22:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

No it was added by him earlier - here or maybe even earlier, but the point is it was removed earlier (along with the rest of it) by Slim et al.

... which makes it clearly a revert. Chris cheese whine 11:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Since you're so adamant that you have this right, and the other half-dozen or so people that have chimed in here have got it so very wrong, and you're so very good at Wikilawyering, please tell us where in the definition of revert on WP:3RR it states that it has to be the most recent revision that is undone. Chris cheese whine 22:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Listen. Pigsonthewing has already been unblocked. So there is no further point in discussion. Certainly there is no further point in you trying to justify something that has already been undone because others judged that it was wrong. Jooler 00:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Quote from the block log: Probably blocked long enough. Doesn't seem to tally with what you're saying. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, you still maintain 3RR was not broken. Give it up. Chris cheese whine 11:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Repeated incivility by Overlord

Overlord has repeatedly been incivil in his edit summaries. Examples include the following:

• "Tennis Expert, I suggest you learn some basic english grammar before you edit articles in english. You vandalise again, you will be banned. Take this as a warning."[7]
• "This statement is unclear and should be altered in formulation. Perhaps some immigrant with limited English ability decided to include this very unclear statement."[8]
• "If you make ONE more contradictory edit on this article and delete somebody else's for no good reason (records are also stated in intro), I will have you banned."[9]
• "Zaheen, go back to bangladesh and clean up your dirty city. Stop editing the article you illiterate buffoon. This date should be mentioned at top. Now go away."[10]
• "The purpose of the remark not only concludes the assertion 'Einstein was not a poor student' but also adds to flow of paragraph. Compromising this for vanity's sake is act of Senility. Even for Admins"[11]

Tennis expert 02:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow those edit summaries are nasty. By the way, Tennis expert, User:Overlord should probably know that you've posted about him here. Please consider notifying him. --Iamunknown 02:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Done.[12] Tennis expert 05:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Overlord's response to Tennis expert's report can be read here [13]. - Justin (Authalic) 09:09, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I urged him to apologize here (after having reverted a blanking of his talk page): [14] --HJ 10:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Where is the accusation of you having been banned several times coming from? I thought he got "blocked" and "banned" mixed up, since that happens quite a bit, but I only saw one block in the block log, and that was reversed as unfounded... Natalie 16:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

(<- reset) To Natalie: apparently because Tennis expert (TE) was blocked indefinitely as a sockpuppet but then unblocked the next day because it was unfounded. To all: I'm shocked and appaled by Overlord's / Emperor's (Overlord) latest comments at TE's talk page. Overlord received two warnings soon after his comments on TE's talk page. Overlord's comments are incredibly distasteful, rude, racist, and intimidating. Can we please monitor the situation to make sure if it continues to happen and react appropriately? --Iamunknown 22:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I've warned Overlord to stop his personal attacks. If he continues, notify me (preferably on my talk page). ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 21:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disgusting Personal attack by BaseballDetective (talk · contribs)

I am concerned that BaseballDetective (talk · contribs) made a gross personal attack in one of his edit summaries on my user talk page, accusing me of vandalism I did not committ and Attacking me in his edit summaries on my talk page. Advice rquested. Thank you. --John Guy Royers 14:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

John Guy Royers has existed for barely 24 hours on Wikipedia and has engaged in anti-Semitic behavior and baiting on the Flag of Israel page; something he has never acknowledged directly. The guy is a troll who—in addition to an NYC Public School address—has chosen to engage in hate and trolling in Wikipedia instead of doing something positive. Like possibly doing nothing. I fully welcome a Wiki admin to review this 'things' behavior and make a judgement. --14:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

BD - he has made no anti-semitic edits. And you have vandalized his user page, and engaged in personal attacks. I've given you a single warning on your talk page. You will be blocked immediately if you do not cease. It was the anon before him the put in the Nazi flag. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

On John Guy Royers' eighth edit he discovers WP:AN? Pull the other one. He's clearly a sockpuppet of another user; given that his first edit was exactly four minutes after this anonymous edit and I think that BaseballDetective's suspicions are perfectly justified, although his language was not. Nandesuka 15:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for the language, but appreciative for the recognition before condeming me. UtherSRG did you actually see the unbased edits he made to the Flag of Israel page? He uses 'imperialism' in one edit and invokes the conquering of 'Iran' in another edit? I'm happy there is another admin here on this. --BaseballDetective 15:05, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I see no vandalism by John Guy Royers to Flag of Israel so have removed the warnings form his talkpage. So he edited shortly after vandalism by an IP- assume good faith. And this board is quite well advertised (nevermind the fact that this should have been brought up at WP:ANI). WjBscribe 15:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I reverted the warnings before I saw your post here. Is there any way for you admins to simply check the IP address for John Guy Royers and compare to the other vandalism that occured literally minutes beforehand? Taken as a whole, the discussion is antagonistic POV on the part of John Guy Royers. If you can't see that, then I don't know what to say. I'll add 'watermellon' and 'fried chicken' to an African American page and see what happens. (PS: I won't because I don't play games like that with articles) --BaseballDetective 15:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

That can be done through requests for checkuser, however such checks are a last resort in extreme cases and require strong evidence of a connection between accounts and an ongoing pattern of disruption. Neither of which are present here. WjBscribe 15:17, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Fine, if that's the way it's going to be, so be it. But I don't think this guy is going to edit a Pokemon page anytime soon. And my sarcastic examples above also hold true here. But I have made a notice on the talk page for Flag of Israel alerting others to my concerns. And hey, if this guy somehow does the exact same thing again, I know which administrators' noticeboard (section) to refer to to say "I told you so!" --BaseballDetective 16:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

(deindent) - no matter what the provocation, edit summaries like "Please start your own anti-Semitic wiki to vent your rage and leave valid pages alone, dickless jerk" are not helpful. Even if you disagree with the user's edits, take issue politely and kindly, and more people will listen. Neil (not Proto ►) 23:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Henchman 2000 (talk · contribs) and RobJ1981 (talk · contribs)

(I copied this from the archive, as it got no replies other than the users who are in the dispute) I'm getting really sick of these two users' constant arguing in a content dispute; see their talk pages, contribs, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mario Party 8. It's not solving anything, just causing more stress. –Llama man^talk_contribs 23:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that's the right AFD? I don't see any edits from either of the two users you named. Neil (not Proto ►) 23:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I have found the bickering, however, and have asked them both, nicely, to stopitrightnow. Neil (not Proto ►) 23:23, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

*sigh* Reported at WP:AN instead of WP:ANI again...anyway, thanks, Neil, and I hope this helps to resolve this. –Llama man^talk_contribs 23:38, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion review

Resolved. Proper C1 deletion. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-17 05:31Z

I just deleted Category:Wikipedians that support Blackburn Rovers F.C.. Ignoring the fact that it should be "Wikipedians who...", I'm wondering if I made too hasty a decision. Please advise. Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 02:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like it was empty and had been for some time, so it met C1 of the criteria; looks good to me. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 02:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Backlog at WP:AIV

Thread retitled from "{{username}}".

It seems like we need a couple more admins checking in with AIV for a while. We seem to have a lot of username violations (either new or old, I'm not really sure). So we might need a couple more admins watching for a while. -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 03:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, looks like they are all from tonight (morning, whatever). A couple more admins watching would help still. -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 03:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Just had a squiz, and it was completely empty. Regardless, I'll watchlist it for the rest of tonight whilst I'm on in case the flood returns. Daniel Bryant 12:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed policy: Template prod

This was announced at Village pump (proposals) but is seemed good to announce it here too.

From a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Templates for deletion I have created a draft policy for situations in which templates may be proposed for deletion. Please see Wikipedia:Proposed deletion/Template prod and discuss it at Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Template prod. Thank you. —dgies^t_c 18:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AIV Backlog

Some WP:AIV reports have been waiting for about an hour or mre, allowing the vandals to continue their vandalism futher. It would be good if an admin or two were to help there just now. Thanks. GDon4t0 (talk to me...) 22:49, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Cleared. Thanks. GDon4t0 (talk to me...) 23:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit war on article Bharathanatyam

There is an edit war currently in progress at Bharathanatyam article. The users Sarvagnya, KNM, Gnanapiti are deleting valid external links along with probably questionable links. They are group editing to avoid 3RR (see this). Now they have added invalid OR tag to the entire article which is not discussed in the talk page first. I am requesting for admin action Praveen 21:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

As already stated in the article talk page, the external link that was removed fails as a reliable source. Please refer to both WP:RS and WP:EL.

Also, admin and arbitrator Blnguyen (talk · contribs) in one of the previous disputes, had clearly commented about that website, as below:

“

Tamil Nation is an obvious partisan commentary website and doesn't write in a neutral tone at all. It appears to be a political organisation supporting the Tamil Tigers or something.

”

Thanks. - KNM ^Talk 22:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Tamilnation is a mixed collection. It is true that the editor of the website was quite involved in the ethnic conflict and I think he now supports the LTTE. But if you leave Sri Lankan politics there are also many reliable materials on the website like this translation of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea by W.H. Schoff[15] and this paper by R.E. Frykenberg[16]. So I think a blanket blacklisting is wrong, but each item should be examined on its merits on a case-by-case basis. -- Ponnampalam 23:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

If Tamilnation has any scholarly material at all, I am sure we can find other scholarly sources for the same material. Tamilnation is primarily a Tamil and LTTE partisan site. Every single word on that site is written and presented with a blatant Tamil POV. Wikipedia can ill afford such sources. Come on, we cant start citing from a site edited by acknowledged apologists of terror groups simply because they slip in a piece of legitimate scholarly material in some corner of their site. Sarvagnya 23:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Then find another online source for Frykenberg's paper and show me. I don't think it is available anywhere else. There are other things like that too. And please note that I said that we should examine each document on a case by case basis. Original content written by them is one thing, and secondary content written by experts is another. -- Ponnampalam 23:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• If its not available anywhere except on Tamilnation, then we should simply live without it. There are zillions of 'notable' and encyclopedic things out there which are not yet on wikipedia simply because of the lack of notable and verifiable sources talking about them. Nobody is in any hurry. If a fact(especially controversial ones) has to wait for a RS to make it to Wikipedia, then so be it. As for Frykenberg's paper, I am sure there should be many sources other than tamilnation. Sagepub should have it. Or, it certainly should be available in a library. And even if the library is not near you, most libraries have inter library loans. So use it. Just because some info is difficult to find online is not reason to use unreliable sources. Sarvagnya 04:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Tamilnation.org is a collection of thousands of books and articles with links to various sources. It is a virtual library on Tamil civilization. By Blngyuen stating that the site "appears" to be supporting something, he is unsure of the topic in discussion. I request to have another arbitrator deal with this issue, since this one has been taking sides with Sarvagnya, Gnanapiti, KNM, and Bakasuprman far too long. Unless this arbitrator can prove himself to be a neutral administrator, I have lost faith in him. Wiki Raja 01:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I strongly object to using Blngyuen's admission as an argument against their credibility. If anything, then we need to commend this introspection in a conflict where so many are 150% sure of everything, for fear of showing any weakness. — Sebastian 21:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, another thing I would like to point out is that Sarvagnya has never contributed to the Bharatanatayam page until February 28, 2007 while his counterpart KNM started editing on March 14, 2007 page as a tag team reverter. Why the sudden interest? Could it be due to the war of the Dravidian topics template? Are those guys trying to get back at me? And Blnguyen, I do not know what your intentions are, but as an administor you are setting a bad example to others by allowing these users to do these things and by taking their side. I have been editing the Bharatanatayam article since October of last year with valid sources. I have even gone to the extent to include page numbers of what I quote. Then all of a sudden these users just hop on and remove my credible references. No, this is not a genuine edit of this particular article on their part, but an immature grudge match. Wiki Raja 02:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• Bharatanatya has been on my watchlist since ages. And lately, it has gone from bad to worse with all the link spamming etc.,. It was only a matter of time before I would have felt compelled to do my bit to bring NPOV to the article. Sarvagnya 04:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I have access to Encyclopedia Britannica website and I cited from that website. It was marked as 'verification needed'. Who has to verify? I have verified it and removed 'verification needed tag. It was group reverted. If tamilnation.ORG is POV website so is the ourkarnataka.COM, etc etc. Praveen 14:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) It is true that we need reliable sources. However, WP:NPOV also has one important sentence, that seems to get overlooked:

“

The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly.

”

Unfortunately, there are many borderline reliable sources in the Sri Lanka conflict, and discussions of whether they are RS or UnRS have not reached consensus in the past. (Only one reliable news agency - BBC - sends reporters to Sri Lanka, and they can't be everywhere.) However, WP:NPOV even has a solution for that: Section WP:NPOV#A simple formulation recommends: "Alternatively: assert facts, including facts about opinions — but do not assert the opinions themselves." (bold in original.)

Tamilnation is notable. According to Alexa.com, (as of January) Tamilnet has a reach of 22/M users. By contrast, defence.lk, the main site for pro-GoSL information about the civil war, has only 6.5. (By comparison, our Sri-Lanka related articles have about 2/M. This is based on the assumptions that we have 400 articles related to the Sri Lanka conflict and thet they are about as visited as the average WP article; both assumptions might rather be a bit high.)

Therefore, we can not simply ignore Tamilnation. One possible solution is as follows:

Based on the recommendation in section WP:NPOV#A simple formulation, the WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation, a bipartisan effort to improve collaboration on and coverage of the Sri Lankan Civil War, has come up with a recommendation to use references to quote Tamilnet only as their opinion, and with the attribution "pro-rebel". (See WP:SLR#Classification of sources). This is a compromise that has been reached in consensus, which is quite an achievement for two factions who are so utterly at odds!

Anybody who has a better idea how to solve this in a way that can be agreed by both Sinhalese and Tamils, please come forward. We'd love to hear your ideas. — Sebastian 21:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly.

Yes. If there are conflicting views presented in various reliable sources, then all those views should be presented fairly. But quoting verbatim from an apologist's pamphlet and to call it 'presenting fairly' is nonsense. The problem here is this. Both sides have a POV. And in each POV, the other is a 'terrorist'. So if we can get any RS which echoes both these POVs, then both POVs should be presented. If however, Reliable Sources echo only one of the POVs, then only that POV should be presented. The other POV should NOT be presented regardless of how many non reliable sources exist to vouch for it. And Tamilnation, because of its blatantly partisan nature in all matters concerning Tamil and the fact that the site is only about Tamil and nothing else, is NOT a reliable source. Ranking high on Alexa means nothing. It doesnt change the fact that it is a biased and partisan source. Period.

So, the solution? Solution is simple. Delete every claim from each one of those articles that doesnt have the backing of a reliable source. Thats all. Sarvagnya 21:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, sorry, I realize what I wrote may not fit so well to this article. The mission WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation is of course to solve conflicts on articles related to the Sri Lankan Civil war. It's really sad to see how this conflict has so fiercly moved to something as harmless as a dance. — Sebastian 22:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

“

And Tamilnation, because of its blatantly partisan nature in all matters concerning Tamil and the fact that the site is only about Tamil and nothing else, is NOT a reliable source.

”

So if a source discusses only Tamil then we should not use that as a source??? Thats odd. Is this new rule made on-the-fly will be applicable to every sources? Because I have a long list of sources such as ourkarnataka.com, karnatakavision.com, karnataka blah blah.com. and loads of crappy books written by 'historians' which discusses only karnataka and of partisan nature. Then articles related to some language/region will not have any sources (rather unfortunately).

Just to remind: this discussion is regarding edit war caused by (1) removing external links, (2)removing cited materials, (3)adding frivolous tags etc.

(1) The tamilnation.org link was used as External link not reference. And the article linked to was not related to LTTE at all; it was a reproduction of a research paper (with numerable citations).

(2) Cited material was removed repeatedly by Sarvagnya here, here with Sarvagnya's own 'research' edit summaries.

(3) Verification tags were added. And I verified the links and removed the tags. Still it was gang-reverted back. Praveen 03:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blanking of sections and removal of valid sources

I have provided verifyalbe sources from the following texts:

• International Tamil Language Foundation (2000). The Handbook of Tamil Culture and Heritiage. Chicago: International Tamil Language Foundation, p. 1201.
  
• Kilger, George (1993). Bharata Natyam in Cultural Perspective. New Delhi: Manohar American Institute of Indian Studies, p. 2.
  
• Nayagam, X.S. Thani (1970). Tamil Culture and Civilization. London: Asia Publishing House, pp. 120-121.

It seems that you guys have deliberately removed them which constitutes to vandalism. Another basic Wikipedia policy for Gnanapiti, Sarvnagya, and KNM - WP:VAN. Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. Wiki Raja 21:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

What? Nobody has removed your references. They have been always there in the article page. Don't try to twist the facts. Gnanapiti 22:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Stop playing innocent, you guys have done so here, here, here, and here. Wiki Raja 22:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

first of all, I dont know why we are even discussing the 'edit war on Bharatanatyam' here. The edit war on that article was over the inclusion/removal of an external link from tamilnation.org. this site has been quoted across several articles related to terrorism in srilanka. understandably, this discussion which was supposed to be about the Bharatanatyam article veered towards discussing the sources used on the srilankan articles. the result of these discussion will surely have a bearing on the Bharatanatyam article too.

Now, wikiraja, if you will please, let the discussion reach its logical end instead of attempting course corrections midway. If you want to discuss Bharatanatya issues, take it to the Bharatanatya talk page. If you want to discuss Bharatanatya here, count me out. Sarvagnya 23:04, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

oops.. i hadnt seen that you'd created a new section for this. thanks for that. Sarvagnya 23:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by logic? The logic in your messages are POV and biased. Your edits only suite your own political biased agenda. You are totally avoiding the fact that you have removed a few valid sources quoted on that page. No, I am not the one twisting things around. Wiki Raja 01:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How to cite material from Tamilnation

The material from Tamilnation is not original material by anyone associated with Tamilnation. It is paper publshed in a conference where peer reviewed paper are presented by reputable authors of the field. Wiki cite has a way tocite such material that is not directly available.

[edit] Option 1

ref cite web

• | title = XXXXXXXXXX
• | work = Quoted from the the Conference........, 1983-08-29
• | publisher = Tamilnation, USA
• | url = http://www.tamilnationorg/..... /ref

[edit] Option 2

Forget about the link itself, simply quote from the published paper from the conference. This is more acceptable as long as the material is used for main body of the material.

This is how salvagable material from otherwise non RS sources are used in Wikipedia. So no need to wholesale repudiation of sources based on personal opinion. We have to use common sence. Same thing applies to even CNN when it is reporting on Iraq. RaveenS 21:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Tamilnation.org is also a virtual library with sources from books, in some cases the full version of particular books are available on that site. Also, there are sources from various newspapers and media around the world on TamilNation. Wiki Raja 05:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mike Church and legal/personal threats

Mike Church (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · checkuser · socks ^confirmed_suspected)

I blocked about 15 of Mike Church's sockpuppets yesterday, and he responded today with this thinly veiled legal and personal threat. I quote: "It's good to keep listing his purported sockpuppets, despite the fact that one provably wrong one could set this whole website at the epicenter of a major lawsuit and destroy your reputation. I'm sure he'd be willing to do much worse to you, and I don't even want to imagine these possibilities."

I haven't gotten much help on this issue, and in particular I've had no response at all from the admin noticeboard. Blocking Mike's sockpuppets and reverting his sneaky vandalism needs to be a distributed job.

Here are some ways to start:

• Put the user pages in Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Mike Church on your watchlist. Often, one of the first things he does with a new sockpuppet is alter the block messages on one of his previous incarnations. Sometimes you can then find other sneaky vandalism he made with the same account.
• Watch topics Mike fixates on, such as AutoAdmit, Prestige (sociology), his online handle pensive, 174 (number), Brian Leiter...
• Look at the 2005 Mike-tracking page User:Isomorphic/Minions of the Church -- this may give you more of an idea of his modus operandi.

And please respond if you're willing to do this. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

If not per se a legal threat, it's certainly about as close to it as you'll find short of "I WILL SUE U IN A COURT OF LAW IN TRENTON NEW JERSEY!", and even worse appears intended to have a chilling effect. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 17:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The sad thing is, Mike Church is pretty good at creating this chilling effect. At least three administrators who once tried to stop him don't bother anymore. I'm inclined to stop, too, since this is consuming a lot of time and getting me nothing but threats. (In two years of screwing with Wikipedia, Mike hasn't actually followed through on any threats, so I'm not particularly worried, but it's still not fun.) I just want to know that someone -- or better, many people, so that they don't all have to have as much time to waste as Mike does -- is going to continue the job. It would be a terrible precedent to say "If you're indefinitely blocked, you are not allowed to edit Wikipedia under any account... unless you're persistent enough." rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 19:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I haven't come across any of these accounts before, but will certainly keep my eyes open and deal with any I see. Newyorkbrad 20:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I've added those pages to my watchlist and will keep an eye on them. I encourage others to do the same. Rockpocket 20:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Just remember that they can't sue you because you called them sockpuppets of a banned user. And if a lawsuit accusing you of false accusations does get off the ground, then that means you blocked a real sockpuppet of Mike Church and hence can't sue you anyway. —²¹⁰physicq (c) 23:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, yeah. Since when do trolling legal threats have to make sense? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm watching a few. Rich Farmbrough, 11:25 19 March 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Copy and paste merges from deleted articles

I believed that it was not acceptable to do a copy-and-paste merge from a deleted article into another article without attributing the original authors as this violates section 4(B) of the GFDL. However, an administrator has informed me that this is acceptable, because the AfD has closed. Could somebody please clarify this for me. Thanks --Pak21 16:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It is not acceptable, the authors have to be attributed. Could this just be a language misunderstanding between the two of you? Or something else going on? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

If all the previous authors agree to releace thier contributions under the PD then it would be ok... otherwise a copy&paste merge is not acceptable. However, a good solution is to undelete the article and convert it into a redirect. Then you can can make the merge and have the old history to satisfy GFDL. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The administrator has just asserted that it is acceptable because the contributions are in the deleted articles history. I would have thought that it must be viewable by anybody. Cheers --Pak21 16:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, the section of policy only applies to AFD's in progress. AFD's since deleted can recreate sections of their deleted material into another article. For instance if the article on George W. Bush's dog is deleted, the attribution remains in the first page's history, and the information simply can be added into the G.w.b. article instead. This happens all the time on AFD. Why is this a problem? But anyway, J.Smith brings up a very easy solution, we'll just undelete the article and make it a redirect, problem solved. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 16:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You would have thought correctly. The GFDL doesn't just require us to know who our contributors are, it requires us to attribute those contributions publicly to the right person. Unviewable deleted article history doesn't do that. Gavia immer (talk) 16:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

There, problem solved, the histories are now public and the articles are restored as redirects.And Gavia immer, it doesn't seem that GFDL 4B mentions anything about having it be public. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 16:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It was still not exactly resolved. You have to at least mention which article you copied the content from in the edit summary (per WP:MM); reading the GFDL, I'm not even sure that's enough, but it's typically all we do. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. The material is already in there, all I did was fix the undelete/redirect. In order to properly get the edit summary in there, would you suggest removing the material and then reinserting it immediately afterwards with the article mention?⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 19:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree this is resolved. Firstly, there is still the issue of what is correct, and secondly, I'm don't think those articles should have been undeleted anyway - they are fundamentally original research which has no place on Wikipedia, although that may be considered to be a separate issue. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pak21 (talk • contribs).

It doesn't matter whether they were original research: they are blanked and redirected. The original research is gone, it's not there because there is no more article, there is just the redirect.⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 16:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The content is not original research since none of the criteria for what is excluded have been met by these examples, and they are based on simple calculations (also not OR). Confusing the fact that those credited have chosen names for months with original research is akin to crediting me with original research everytime I chalk up a math example during class, simply because I selected variable names myself. These are well-constructed examples of their kind, the authors are generally well respected in their fields, and none of them have produced the calendars for profit, or in the expectation that they will gain wide useage. 1. Kind regards, --Greatwalk 05:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I haven't read this section properly but it is not clear which articles are being discussed here. Can someone please tell me? Clearly I can't comment on specifics, but I can say that the requirements in this respect are that if the content is publicly available then the history must be publicly available, including history from other pages which have been merged into a page. --bainer (talk) 12:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The content dispute here is over Hermetic Lunar Week Calendar, Meyer-Palmen Solilunar Calendar and Simple Lunisolar Calendar, and other proposed calendars I have nominated for deletion over the past month or so. However, that doesn't really need to be settled here. What I see as the more important issue is that an administrator actively involved in closing AfD debates is propogating his own incorrect view of the GFDL. Cheers --Pak21 14:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• The articles are: Hermetic Lunar Week Calendar, Simple Lunisolar Calendar, Meyer-Palmen Solilunar Calendar, The 30x11 Calendar, Sol Calendar, New Earth Calendar, Bonavian Civil Calendar, Pax Calendar, and Symmetry454 (where an attempt was made to get all of these calendars considered together to establish a precedent on how to handle this material ( discussion here).

Nonetheless, where the result has been 'delete,' Pak has purged all reference to these calendars in parent articles as well (including redlinks and passing mention), such as List of calendars and Calendar reform . SwatJester stepped in when discovering Pak accused me of copyvio over an attempt to merge material from two articles to Lunisolar calendar, although clearly (to most) none was intended. I am seeking clarification on how much of this material can be merged back to appropriate parent articles, meeting Wiki guidelines and to avoid potential conflict with Pak's interpretation of guidelines. Since this discussion is now here, I'd appreciate suggestions where possible. Kind regards, --Greatwalk 21:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

1) Your merging of the deleted material was a copyvio, whether intentional or not, as as such had to be reverted. The GFDL is not something we can disregard just because an editor isn't aware of its implications. 2) As for the actual merges, excepting Pax Calendar, not one of these articles had a single reliable source to back it up and as such is original research. It is not a "trivial calculation" as you claim: the example of a trivial calculation given in WP:ATT is that of calculating percentages for readily available vote tallies. For example, can you please explain the pattern of "abundant years" in the Simple Lunisolar Calendar? If not, it's not a trivial calculation. --Pak21 23:25, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

1.) No, it didn't need to be reverted, it needed to be credited (and I did not need to be threatened with punitive action to accompish either).

2.) Yes, I can explain it and so could a schoolchild in a gifted mathematics class. It is a weak section of the article, though. --Greatwalk 01:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Elvis Impersonator

My well-sourced contributions to the Elvis impersonator article have repeatedly been removed with unconvincing arguments by one user and his supposed sockpuppet. See [17], [18], [19],[20], [21], [22], [23]. May I ask you to keep a watchful eye on this article. Thanks. Onefortyone 15:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

And I politely ask that everyone keep a close on this editor - a really close eye. He/She seems to have a thing about turning whole articles regarding some celebrities into a perverted assortment of tidbits relating to their sexuality. Take a look at his/her talk page, as well as the Elvis Presley, Nick Adams, and James Dean articles; its really quite disturbing...--Dr Onion 07:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

As everybody can see, this sockpuppet has deleted material supported by several modern university studies. See [24], [25], [26]. Onefortyone 22:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The edit war continues. See [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33]. Onefortyone 14:45, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

You missed this one. Of course an edit war will continue when some fool keeps overwhelming whole articles by obsessively putting in pointless cherry-picked quotes and innuendo.--Dr Onion 02:21, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, sockpuppet, these quotes are not pointless or innuendo, but quotes from major academic studies dealing with Elvis impersonation. You are only deleting what I have written. Where are your relevant contributions to the article? Onefortyone 02:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

For prior discussion of related issues, see generally Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Onefortyone and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Elvis. Newyorkbrad 00:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It should be noted that arbcom member Fred Bauder has admitted that my "editing has substantially improved from that in the earlier arbitration cases. A sampling of edits shows reference to reliable sources..." He also says that "Wikipedia:Neutral point of view contemplates fair representation of all significant points of view regarding a subject. Removal of other points of view is a violation." Therefore, user Lochdale, who frequently deleted my edits, was banned from Elvis-related articles. See [34]. Could it be that he has reappeared as User:Dr Onion in order to harass me? See his contribution history. Onefortyone 02:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Odd? Or am I just a Luddite?

I came across a brand new user today whose first three (and so far only) edits were to their monobook.js. Does that seem strange to anyone else, or does that happen regularly? Code isn't really my thing. Natalie 23:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It depends. They might be a user from another Wikipedia who was registering their username to avoid impersonation or for use at a later date and decided to fix their en account up so it functions like their old one. Or they could be the welcome-message vandal from a month or two ago. Wait and see, and assume good faith in the meantime, is my recommendation. Picaroon 00:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Welcome message vandal? Not familiar with that one. Natalie 00:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[35]. Picaroon 00:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I second the "it depends." Really, I only come across that kind of contribution history by accident and not on RC. I just assume that the user knows what they're doing, and I usually follow the contributions for a couple days and then move on. 99% of the time it's just someone making a new start or some sort of alternate account. Teke ^(talk) 05:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it's quite normal. .js pages only exist for registered accounts. So people who don't edit wikipedia but regularly use it may want to customize the way they view wikipedia. I've set up accounts for other people on their computers before so they can view wikipedia with popups. --`/aksha 10:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Especially if there's an ongoing pattern, it couldn't hurt to keep a closer eye on that sort of account, I think. But I'd agree, it doesn't necessarily indicate any foul play -- some people may be incoming from other wikis, may finally be registering after a long period of anon editing, or a few other benign explanations. As with kinda "iffy" usernames, it can (and sometimes should) attract our attention, but provided they make good edits, it doesn't seem a pressing problem. Only exception to that, I think, is if they're an abusive sockpuppet. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Simon Gipson

Hi

I'm rather new, so I wasn't sure whether I should outright remove an image or report it first. On Simon Gipson, there are two photos. One has the caption 'Simon Gipson (left)'. This is ridiculous because the figure on the left of the photo sort of looks like Kermit the Frog. I've never seen a photo of Simon before, but I think that that picture wasn't very clear - if it was him in the suit, it's not a clear picture, so it should be removed? The second picture is a very far away shot of two people, and you can't even see their faces. Please review these and tell me on my talk page whether you've removed them or not. Thank you

Seventy ... dot ... 01:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, another user mixed up left with right. I changed the caption to Simon Gipson with Kermit the Frog, hoping that users are able to tell who is the frog and who must be the other guy. On the second pic, there is also left and right mixed up (now corrected), this makes me believe someone just swapped the pics without changing the cations. -- Chris 73 | Talk

Actually, I'm not too sure whether the man on the right is Simon Gipson or not. Anyway, it's unclear and should be removed, shouldn't it? Seventy ... dot ... 01:30, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like other pictures of S.G. on the web, should be him. While the image won't win a featured picture award, I think we should keep it, especially since it is under a free license -- Chris 73 | Talk 01:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

What about the second pic? Seventy ... dot ... 02:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

That is copyrighted, and may have to be deleted eventually -- Chris 73 | Talk 02:35, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Alright. I'll remove the image from the page and you can delete the image later. Seventy ... dot ... 02:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

For the record, Seventy Dot has just been indef blocked as a sockpuppet.⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 07:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need assistance in IDing possible sock

I had blocked Billy Ego (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) earlier for edit warring (for which he was also blocked for 8 hours today). In discussing my block privately, it was brought up that this user may be the role account (and anarchocapitalfaci-economist or however he identifies himself) RJII (talk • contribs • block log). I do not know how to ID such socks, so I am requesting that anyone who has knowledge of the RJII "group" to ID this sock and block it indef.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:35, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Delete AfD in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sexual repression

Hi, I made a mistake of creating an Afd instead of an RfD to delete a redirect for Sexual repression. I went ahead and created the RfD, but need help getting rid of the AfD -- right now it has both. I shouldn't be up this late! Thanks, --Shirahadasha 08:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I've delisted the debate from the log page, and have deleted it per your request as the only substantial editor of the page. In future, you can probably use {{db-userreq}} for this sort of thing, or request a "housekeeping" deletion with {{db-g6}}. Martinp23 09:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image changes in 3ds Max

A user has persisted in changing the screenshot image in the article about 3ds Max from the standard 3ds Max interface to an interface where a separate plugin (Orionflame) is used. After the second time I reverted his edits, I left a comment on his talk page to ask him to discuss the change at the article talk page before adding the image again. Yet he re-added it again today. What's the proper procedure here? It's not breaking the 3RR if I understand it correctly - is it instead regarded as vandalism? I'm unsure. --Strangnet 09:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not vandalism by any reasonable standard. Vandalism is any deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia, and absent that purpose it's not vandalism. You've taken the first step in dispute resolution by discussing this with the other editor, now you need to seek outside opinions. --bainer (talk) 10:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I reverted User:Jeffvll's changes and will talk to him. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-18 10:15Z

[edit] Ed

Ed (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

In an e-mail I received from Ed, he wants me to indefblock his account because the user Soothsayer.03 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (mentioned somewhere on these boards concerning spamming through the Wikimedia software) knows his passwords and whatnot. I have simply replied to him that he should change his passwords, and I have not performed the block.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

How long ago was the email? Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 23:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, what if it was Soothsayer.03 who emailed you? Maybe it would be worth blocking the account, but making it clear the reasons for doing so on the talk page Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 23:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I say shoot first, ask questions later. If it was Ed, the account might be compromised. If it was Soothsayer, that's even more reason to believe that the account is compromised. Hbdragon88 23:36, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

User:Ed is requesting that his autoblock is lifted, which was caused by User:Soothsayer.03 being blocked indefinately (see the talk page for the reasoning), I'm not sure if I'm buying it Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 00:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The e-mail was sent at 15:03 UTC and it was from Ed's account. Around the same time he went on Wikibreak for the reasons stated in the e-mail.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 00:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I say we block for 3 days and see what happens Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 00:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Can a checkuser be performed to see if Ed's IP has changed to a different location in the past day or two? If it's in the same area, that won't tell us very much that we don't already know, but if it's in a very different location, then we'll know that it's likely compromised. Wodup 00:50, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

According to WHOIS, the IP used by Soothsayer.03 was coming from Naperville, Illinois and Ed says he's from Chicago which they are relatively close, so the account being compromised is highly unlikely unless the other person who compromised it lives in his general area. According to Ed's talk page, he says Soothsayer.03 was at his house, and says she abused his e-mail or something he was unaware. I would unblock the autoblock and watch the account for a while. — Moe 02:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Please note I have requested this checkuser to assertain who exactly is requesting the unblock Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 02:55, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The checkuser showed that Ed's reason for being autoblocked was correct and so his autoblock has been lifted Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 17:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for unblocking! I really appreciate it. I'll keep tabs on my girlfriend and make sure that she doesn't abuse WP anymore.--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 21:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Userboxes/Profession

I suggest the removal of all non-professionals (ie. podcastors, beach bums) to another page. A lot of the categories are nothing close for being professional.--Cahk 19:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:GUS, start moving them. Yanksox 21:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TFD backlog is over a week back

Can some admins get around to closing a few more TFDs? There are unclosed TFDs going back to March 8. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 01:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spot the difference

See if you can see which of these two Associate Professors in Faculties of Education is the real thing: User:Nesbit, User:Sue Rangell. Guy (Help!) 14:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like Sue Rangell is the newest account. Sue's first edit was to create a complicated userpage exactly like Nesbit's. That makes Sue Rangell most likely the impersonator. Do I win a cookie? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 14:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

image:ironyalert.gif

Who would ever question the credentials of someone on the Faculty of Education at an osteopathic medical university which has no faculty of education, located in DeMoine Des Moines? Over this obvious phony? Dpbsmith (talk) 14:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC) P. S. Admittedly, I'm relying on Wikipedia for my information on Des Moines University, since http://www.dmu.edu seems to be down...

I would ignore the credentials, true or not, they have no bearing. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if Dpbsmith is being sarcastic about Nesbit's credentials or not, but you can find Nesbit and his web page by searching for the school on google and entering his name in the search window or by going to academic programs, faculty of education, and faculty members and finding him and his web page under associate professors. I couldn't find DeMoines University any where and the medical school has no faculty of education. In general the credentials are worthless to me, but because of the copying of the user page, I am now concerned about what else this editor may have copied, and I think this should be checked. KP Botany 19:14, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess I needed the irony alert, huh? I was being sarcastic about Sue Rangell's credentials. That is the user page that misspells Des Moines University, and claims that Sue Rangell is on the faculty of education of a school that, as I noted, appears not to have any "faculty of education." What I called the "obvious phony" was a link to John C. Nesbit's impressive web page hosted by Simon Fraser University, with his photo and a few scores of publications. So, yes, I thought that the situation was so clear that I could jokingly refer to Nesbit as the phony instead of Rangell. I must remember never ever ever to be ironic in an online venue. Sorry. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, good grief, it took me 5 months to find the undo button on edits, you expect me to see the obvious alert you posted right above your message? KP Botany 20:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Answer I'm not sure what's going on with you, but you have been shooting a lot of venom around lately. The Cut/Pasted info from Nesbit's page has been RESOLVED. There is no sock puppetry, and there is no identity theft, and it CERTAINLY has nothing to do with the FAC. You have gone through great lengths to derail the whole FA process, and I'm not sure why. You have made personal attacks against me and I don't know why you have done that either. If I had known that nominating a page for FA would have invited the attention of a stalker-type, I would never have done it. This entire experience has taken all of the fun out of Wiki for me, and I'll certainly never nominate another page again. Sue Rangell^{[citation needed]} 19:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Can you explain why this version of your user page, which up to that point had been edited only by you, says that "Sue Rangell is an educator in the Faculty of Education at DeMoines University?" This statement continues to appear in numerous edits by you, to be removed (without explanation) in this diff. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Please cut out the personal attacks, Sue. You called me a loonie on your user page, now you're calling me a stalker. Your incredible FAC nomination brought this attention upon yourself. It is so out of line with all FAC criteria, that I had to check to see if you were a banned user or some new user making a joke nomination. Even other users on the FAC are not sure the nomination was done in seriousness.[36] "Object. Given the huge amount of work that needs to be done, it's difficult to take this candidacy seriously." KP Botany 20:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• My last Comment Not that it's ANYONE's business, but when I came across Nesbit's page, I saw that we had similar backgrounds, and I liked the layout, so I copied it to my user page as a template. I have been working on replacing his info with my own, then all this venom came up today. There is no sock puppetry. There is no identity theft. There is only this ongoing harrassment by KP Botany. I hope you admins do something about him, and people like him, because at this moment I would be normally doing my patrolling, but this whole experience has taken all of the fun out of wiki, and quite frankly I feel like quitting altogether now. This has been, frightening, embarrassing, saddening, and upsetting, and instead of having a good time here, I'm just sitting here crying at my keyboard. Sue Rangell^{[citation needed]} 20:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Some of your edits are...well, interesting. Why did you put a vandalism warning on an article talk page? Why place citation needed tags in bizarre places as you did here? IrishGuy ^talk 20:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

User Nesbit's talk page, "My apologies Nesbit for the cut and paste, and I have taken down the offending material, I won't get into how it happened, but I want you to know that I was unaware of it and not responsible,"[37] (emphasis added). Why indeed. KP Botany 20:29, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• User:Sue Rangell, I don't understand what you're saying. You say "I liked the layout, so I copied it to my user page as a template. I have been working on replacing his info with my own." How can this be reconciled with a history that shows you created your user page initially on http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Sue_Rangell&oldid=114126641 on March 10th], as a clone of Nesbit's page except for changing his name to yours; then, over a period of a week, from March 10th until today, during the process of editing your user page three times on March 13th, six times on March 14th, five times on March 16th, once on March 17th, you never changed or removed the very first sentence on the page, "Sue Rangell is an educator in the Faculty of Education at DeMoines University?" Dpbsmith (talk) 21:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• And why do you use a signature which adds every page on which you use it into the category of pages that need source citations? Dpbsmith (talk) 21:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Because the user has an extremely weird sense of humour? (Feel free to toss that out.)

While I'm here: I seek permission from KP Botany to quote the "Oh, good grief" gem on my own talk page, because I soooo identify with it. — Athænara ✉ 08:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually it won't include those pages in the cat, because the cat is only applied to main-space usage. But it is weird. Rich Farmbrough, 11:33 19 March 2007 (GMT).

I don't think there's a significant problem here. Rich Farmbrough, 11:40 19 March 2007 (GMT).

Most of the stuff on her(?) userpage is probably untrue, even the useless stuff like claiming to be a left-handed pascal programmer who is skeptical of MTBI. Seems like she's here just to make a point about Wikipedia. Since she's apparently a fan of Rouge admins perhaps someone should help out her userpage. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-21 07:42Z

[edit] WP:Attribution

This core policy article was blanked out and rewritten by User:1066seagull. It appears to be protected -- I (a non-admin) couldn't revert. Because of the blanking/rewrite one can't easily tell if subtle changes were made to it or not. Could someone take a look? Thanks, --Shirahadasha 21:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• From comparing the pre-blank version and the post-blank version, there were no changes. —²¹⁰physicq (c) 21:12, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
• Yes, one can. Just select with the radio buttons the two relevant versions in the page's edit history and hit the pushbutton that is labelled "Compare selected versions". That's what it does. ☺ Uncle G 22:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

  And if you do that, this, showing that no changes were made, is the result. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help with AfD listing

Could an administrator have a look at the four AfD nominations(a, b, c, d) that were created and see to it that they are added to the "main" AfD log list. It seems that the nominator missed step 3 in the AfD creation process and perhaps didn't use step 2 correctly either. I don't feel comfortable mucking about with these since I'm involved in the discussion myself. --Strangnet 23:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Has been taken care of. --Ezeu 23:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks. --Strangnet 23:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)