Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive79

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Contents 1 Abuse of admin privileges by JzG 2 Request review of my block of User:RayTomes 3 Bob Woolmer 4 Two-week long edit war on Tiberium 5 WP:UW redirects reminder 6 DYK icon Template 7 Non-admin closing discussions proposal 8 Unwatched 9 Reviewing SSP:Telogen 10 Invalid Sockpupperty Decision 11 Jeff's Page recreation. 12 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education/Review 13 Amazon 14 Has anyone seen this vandalism pattern before? 15 Heads up 16 Herkelthebrave 17 dishonourable behaviour of user:Darwinek against user:mt7 18 User:Zedco 19 Request for help on spamblock dispute 20 WP:BIO 21 Solved case of community banned User:SndrAndrss evading ban 22 WP:AIV backed up 23 User:Watchtower Sentinel 24 I need help from other admins 25 Vandalism 26 List of Jewish prayers and blessings 27 For light entertainment 28 Bot Proposal To Help Out With IP Vandalism 29 Notability is a commodity? (Warning, long winded message) 29.1 Related 29.2 Let it rest! 29.3 Archimedes Plutonium 30 Help closing RFC: Talk:Cow tipping 31 Complex investigations get interesting again 32 Has BenH been banned by the community? 33 Autoblock locator 34 User page profanity 35 Persistent addition of irrelevant information by anonymous user 36 help with dispute resolution 37 Heads up for an AfD closer 38 Scott Douglas hoax article 39 Sockpuppet help 40 Danny and OFFICE 41 Backlog again at CAT:CSD 42 User:Ozgurgerilla 43 Editing war at University of Wisconsin (disambig) 44 Sockpuppet check 45 PlayStation 69 (talk · contribs) 46 Need a couple of admins again for some deletions 47 User:Naconkantari/cleanup - Wikipedia cleanup day 48 Inappropriate content on user page 49 A question about redirection during AfD 50 User:Mike Church 51 Ban clarification 52 WP:BJAODN 53 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Starwood 54 Using the vandalism warning templates inappropriately 54.1 Vandalism warning warning 55 Possible issues 56 Self-identified underage user 57 Image:Mike Tyson.jpg 58 2 users seem to be just spamming/promoting their comic 59 Image:Ejaculation sample.jpg 60 Qmwnebrvtcyxuz 60.1 Conclusions? 60.2 Qmwnebrvtcyxuz blocked 60.3 Update 61 Harrassment by posting my real name and my mother's maiden name 62 Partisan borderline-wheelwarring 63 Qmwnebrvtcyxuz and Padawer update 64 BJAODN 64.1 GFDL 64.2 Best of BJAODN 65 Image tags at User talk:Conversion script 66 More than a hundred problem images left to tag 67 User:RobertG has resigned 68 Legal matters 69 Def Jam Vendetta 70 WP:SSP 71 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways 72 Wikipedia:Username policy/Draft 73 more Christopher Hopkins 74 Removal of content and assuming bad faith 74.1 Another case 75 Regarding the Sandbox 76 Wikipedia:Community_sanction_noticeboard#Personal_attack_parole_for_CalJW 77 Quick question 78 Canadian politician photos 79 Today's featured article imagery

[edit] Abuse of admin privileges by JzG

Screamers (1995 film) was protected here by User:Majorly and User:JzG modified the page here 13 hours after the protection. JzG has participated in an edit war over the inclusion of an amazon link as a reference and his edit was to once again remove the link. I find an administrator abusing his privileges to edit a protected page due to his participation in an edit war unacceptable.

To be upfront: I have reverted twice prior to protection and I reverted JzG's post-protected edit on principle of his abuse (I'd do it even if someone added the amazon link back). However, I have also been the sole initiator in discussion on both JzG's talk page and on Talk:Screamers (1995 film).

You tell me what's worse: a link to amazon because I can't find another reference or an administrator whom abuses his privileges to continue an edit war? To me, the question is so obvious it's absurd... Cburnett 13:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• Um, Guy answered you several minutes ago, and said that his edit was inadvertent. (He didn't notice the page was protected).[1] For what it's worth, (1) I think the "remove the link" camp is right - Amazon is a great website, but for Wikipedia purposes, it manages to combine the reliability of IMDB with the commercialism of E-bay; (2) the original edit of a protected page is probably not as bad as an intentional reversion, which starts to edge towards wheel warring; and (3) surely this isn't so vital an issue that you couldn't have waited a day or two to talk it out. Thanks, TheronJ 13:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

So we need something bigger and better than a red "WARNING: This page has been protected..." notice if an admin doesn't notice it. And you will excuse me if me composing my post overlapped Guy's response. Cburnett 14:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Do we need something bigger? No. It's not a problem that crops up often enough to need fixing. But it is quite easy to scroll it off the top, and the eye does tend to get a bit inclined not to see the red stuff when one spends a lot of time with WP:PT, the currency of red is somewhat debased these days.

I hold to my view that we are both taking this way too seriously. I come to this from a position of spending a lot of my Wikitime dealing with spammers, and seriously I find it really hard to believe that the date of release on an obsolete format is really so vital and so controversial as to require a link to a "Buy it here! Buy it now!" advert page on Amazon, but at least I have opened the debate and there are some thoughtful inputs above. Your view seems to be that it's a fact, therefore it must be included, therefore it must be cited, and if nobody can be arsed to find a more authoritative source than an advert then so be it. Which is another way of looking at it, not necessarily wrong, either, but again probably not worth the effort of a lame edit war. Me, I'm ashamed of both of us. Guy (Help!) 14:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If I let the reference be removed then someone will come along and remove the whole bit as unsourced. I chose policy over guideline. Sorry that you don't agree. Cburnett 14:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• Guy owned up to the mistake already, and he wouldn't have done that if he noticed, I'm sure. Also, see the corresponding discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Amazon. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:53, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

A link to that discussion on Talk:Screamers (1995 film) or User talk:JzG or my talk page would have been nice. Cburnett 14:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• Put down the Spider-Man suit and step away from the Reichstag :o) Guy (Help!) 14:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• I think TheronJ summed it up well. Before Cburnett starts casting stones, perhaps he should ask himself if he could have handled this situation a little better. My involvement with this was to remove the Amazon link (once) and received a sarcastic and condescending note from Cburnett. I'm baffled that he's so concerned about this link that he was willing to intentionally revert a protected page and risk initiating a wheel war. What a terribly absurd matter this has become... ChazBeckett 14:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Amazon is a valid tertiary/possibly secondary source, it's inappropriate of JzG to abuse his administrator abilities to edit war. Another user has however found two other possible sources, that's good. --Matthew
    • Please read what's already been written above. Guy already remarked that he didn't realize he was editing a protected page. Cburnett did realize he was editing a protected page and proceeded to make a revert. ChazBeckett 14:28, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Cburnett was very correct in proceeding to revert such a heinous edit, I'm flabbergasted at how one would go about not noticing it was protected, to be honest, firstly it would of show in history and watch list this edit: "21:14, 18 March 2007 Majorly (Talk | contribs) m ({{protect}})", secondly there's a big honking "{{protect}}". However, I will observe WP:AGF and assume he just happened to scroll really quickly, miss the big honking box.. notice Amazon was there.. edit.. forget that it states the page is protected and put the edit through and still miss the protected box.. --Matthew
        • You're making the mistake of thinking that everyone has their user preferences set the way that you happen to have them set. Uncle G 14:59, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
  • And all I asked for was to maintain a reference per policy (WP:EL and WP:SPAM are both guidelines). Two have been found and suggested above in #Amazon. Cburnett 14:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Fine, I'm glad another link has been found. The point remains that you should be concerned and ashamed of the manner in which you conducted yourself in this whole affair. ChazBeckett 14:28, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
      • And despite finding other sources, JzG has unprotected the page and deleted the whole bit. *sigh* Cburnett 14:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• I have unprotected because I have no intention of making further edits, this I made clear on the article's Talk page. I removed the factoid because we have two low-reliability sources which say one date, 23 July 1996, a more relibale source which supports that date but does not confirm it (a review dated after the first but before the second date, note it says Columbia Tristar Home Video - what it was on Betamax? a year ealier than VHS?), and the Amazon date which is dated a year later than three separate reviews explicitly of the video - in other words, a classic case for taking it to Talk. Which is, amazingly, precisely what I did, and explained why. I suggest you have a nice cup of tea and a sit down, I think you are much too worked up about this. Guy (Help!) 15:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The talk page seems to have a consensus against the source, there are concerns about contradicions. JzG is acting properly from what I can see, the page is unprotected, so his edit is as a regular user, and he is discussing it on the talk page. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It was an accident, let it go. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

but we wantz teh lynch mob! admins dont gets to make dem mistakes, nope. -Amarkov moo! 14:53, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request review of my block of User:RayTomes

I have blocked User:RayTomes for one week after recreating Category:Cycle for the third time (deletion discussion 1 and 2.) User:SilkTork, RayTomes' advocate, requested me to unblock him which I would do under the condition he mentored RayTomes. However, he does not see any problem with Ray's behaviour and, in fact, is encouraging it, therefore I declined (full discussion). I request other administrators to review my action. —Ruud 17:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I welcome this, and thank Ruud for posting this thread. I would add this is the message I left on Ruud's talk page which prompted this request: "My advise to Ray Tomes is on his talk pageUser_talk:RayTomes#Wikipedia:Association_of_Members.27_Advocates.2FRequests.2FFebruary_2007.2FRayTomes: "My suggestion now will be that we hold any action on the Category:Cycles until The Foundation for the Study of Cycles and List of cycles have both been through a discussion and survived. With support and credibility from consensus we will better able to proceed. SilkTork 18:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)" Clearly there is no provocation to disruption, instead there is a decision to go through consensus. Your refusal to unblock is becoming very contentious. Ray Tomes is not disruptive. Your initial decision to block him was unsound, and your continued refusal to unblock him is provocative. I would, at the very least, like to see you consult with another Admin about this as I suspect you've allowed personal feelings cloud your judgment. SilkTork 17:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)" User_talk:Ruud_Koot#Unblocking_of_User:RayTomes. SilkTork 17:57, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Repeated recreation of deleted-by-process material is disruptive, pure and simple. Wikilawyering to the contrary provided in the links is precisely why I think advocacy is a really awful idea that should be shut down. Don't think I can see too much wrong with the block. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 17:58, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It was not "recreation of deleted-by-process material". Fistly the original deletion did not follow process. There was a majority for keep, an incorrect count and I was falsely accussed of voting more than once. It was my complaint about this that lead to the appointment of SilkTork who has been ensuring that proper steps have been taken. Ray Tomes 04:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

A) Ray Tomes was blocked for following my advise. He was blocked without discussion. He has followed Wiki procedure. If anyone is at fault here it is me rather than Ray. B) At 18:26, on 17 March 2007 I gave Ray the advise that "My suggestion now will be that we hold any action on the Category:Cycles until The Foundation for the Study of Cycles and List of cycles have both been through a discussion and survived.". Ruud later stated that he would unblock Ray if I advised him not to create that category again. I pointed out that is what I have done. The procedure now is to look for consensus on other areas of cycle theory, if that consensus is not found then there is nothing more that can be done. Having fulfilled that requirement there seems no continued reason to block Ray Tomes. SilkTork 18:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

"Ray Tomes was blocked for following my advise" so are you saying you advised him to ignore the outcome of the deletion and recreate it, rather than engaging in discussion with the deleting admin or taking it to deletion review? Yes you've now advised him not to do it, but from reading his talk page, I can't say it seems he agrees with you. Can I ask a question about what you believe the role of an advocate is? You seem to basically be supporting him however ill-advised his actions, rather than pointing him the right direction to resolve any issues. --pgk 18:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Please see my above comment that the original vote was not to delete, procedure was faulty. Ray Tomes 04:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• To answer the first question. I understood the category in question to have been deleted in Sept 2005. Enough time to have passed to have another go. I have since learned of the more recent deletion. My advise has changed. To answer the second question. I believe my role is to support editors to resolve conflict through discussion. I will confess I am not making the best out of this case, but I still fail to see where Ray himself has gone so wrong as to justify a block. I have been engaging in some dialogue regarding this case, and I would have thought some contact with either myself or Ray about his recent actions - a warning, perhaps - might have been more useful than a block. It has never been my policy to be confrontational or to deliberately abuse Wiki. But mistakes may occur. However, discussion usefully resolves errors. Things like blocks seem harsh in the circumstances. SilkTork 19:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Dammned if I can make much sense out of that, but I'll try. Blocked for following your advice? He re-created a twice-deleted category, which is disruptive: you surely didn't advise that? The article/list on which the category might rest are now at AfD: under those circumstances I can see nothing wrong with the block. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 18:30, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

This is encouraging, but at the same you denied that recreating deleted articles is disruptive and you even restored The Foundation for the Study of Cycles yourself. Not realizing that this is problematic behaviour, makes me doubt you are fit to mentor Ray (my condition for unblocking him earlier.) —Ruud 18:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It was not a twice deleted category. The first category was a wider one including many articles relating to cycles. The second one was a much narrower one. The original one did not follow procedure and the majority vote was actually to keep the category. It was my complaint about this that led to SilkTork getting involved. Please read all the material that he has and you will find no fault on his part. The new category that I created is a narrow one - simply articles that are very specifically about particular cycles. There can be no reasonable objection to this. People like Christopher Thomas who maintain that I am pushing something that has nothing at all to do with this are constantly muddying the waters. I will not answer his lies because for every lie I answer he adds three more. This has NOTHING to do with Harmonics Theory. Ray Tomes 04:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The Foundation for the Study of Cycles was never deleted under consensus. The result of the discussion was no-consensus. While researching into Ray's case I found a link to the article which was a redirect to another article. At the same time I saw that an article with the title Foundation for the Study of Cycles had also been redirected. Looking at the edit summaries it appeared initially that someone had attempted to merge the two articles but instead created a redirect to another article. I undid that. Upon further investigation I realised that the article had been subjected to that discussion, and despite the non-consensus, the article had been merged, so I stood by my undoing of the redirect. I left messages on the talk pages of those involved, and suggested a new Afd take place on that article as there is doubt about it. So. In short. I did not recreate a deleted article. Also, I have previously advised you of this situation as recorded in the links above. Would you please strike out the accusation I restored a deleted article. SilkTork 19:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Looking at the comments on his talk such as "I complained about a vote for category cycle (or cycles) deletion and asked for a case to be heard.". SilkTork was assigned to the case." seems to indicate he thinks you are some sort of authority who could rule on the dispute. Further "SilkTork re-established the article on FSC...", Although you may not have been aware of the apparent confusion as to your role, and the subsequent misunderstanding concerning the deletion of the category, it looks to me like you've got far too involved in this. --pgk 19:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

  Add to that I notice you've voted to keep in the other AFD hanging off this, It seems hard to portray you as a neutral advocate helping someone through a dispute. --pgk 19:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

AfD for the FSC page is here. The votes were 6 delete, 3 merge to Edward R. Dewey, and 4 continent keep votes (2 contingent on a rewrite satisfying WP:NPOV, and 2 contingent on establishing notability). Neither occurred, so it ended up getting merged to ERD (counting the contingencies, that's 6 delete, 3 merge, 0 keep; not counting contingencies, it's still 9:4 against keeping as a separate article). Portraying this AfD as an endorsement of the page, as SilkTork appears to be doing, is very misleading. --Christopher Thomasun 19:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I am becoming aware that my actions in this case could have been better. I have not researched enough, and I have not consulted enough with other people. There appears to be greater history to Ray's involvement with Wiki than appears from the available records. I am not, however, convinced that all my actions were bad, nor that Ray should have been banned without a warning. In retrospect my advise to go ahead and recreate the category was unsound, as I hadn't looked enough into it. I still, however, defend my action in undiverting the Foundation article and suggesting it be put to the test of another discussion. And I still feel that Ray is currently being punished incorrectly. He will not recreate the category, and only did so under my guidance. His previous attempt at creating the category occurred over a year after the original one was deleted, and it was done slightly differently. His record on Wiki doesn't show him to be a disruptive person. He seeks out advise and acts accordingly. My own record on Wiki also shows me to be a not disruptive person who follows advise. Under these circumstances - would Ruud please reconsider the block. SilkTork 19:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I am unhappy that you are backing off here SilkTork. You have acted quite properly at all times as far as I am concerned. You have looked into things thoroughly whereas Ruud has not. He acted without looking at the background. Ray Tomes 04:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I have unblocked Ray. Please keep in mind that a number of the articles he has created have been deleted and that his contributions are therefore more extensive than those that will be revealed to you. While mentoring him please point him to WP:ATT, WP:RS, WP:EL (do not link to your own website) and WP:NPOV (especially the part of not giving undue weight to non-mainstream points of view.) Having mostly ignored those policies the past 3 year will likely mean the community is not going to be very tolerant if he continues to do so in the future. —Ruud 20:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The study of cycles is not non-mainstream, although several people active in trying to delete cycles material have tried to maintain that it is so. Cycles research is done in every field of science by main-steam researchers. Even the collection together of cycles material is not properly described as non-mainstream, it is just less well known. The list of people involved in FSC that I put there and was immediately deleted by you shows quite clearly that those active in FSC included a nobel lauriet, a vice president of the US, a number or Sirs and many university professors, some quite famous ones. The collection of cycles reports put together by Dewey and FSC numbers well over a thousand, many from peer reviewed journals. To those that say there is no such thing as cycle studies I say try google [2] and find 153,000,000 pages. Of course many of these are on different meanings of cycles, but you might note that the top article is the wikipedia article on Dewey and that CRI and my home page (old version) are in the first 10 of these 153,000,000. Ray Tomes 21:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. SilkTork 22:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bob Woolmer

Famous Cricket Coach (not an oxymoron in the Commonwealth) died today. His article is the number 2 link on google and I'm sure his friends and family will be seeing the article as they search for news. I just revered an anon-IP who inserted unsourced speculation that he committed suicide and left a message on their talk. I'm a little concerned that there may be other unsourced nonsense added and I'm away to my bed shortly. One edit does not a semi protection make so could I ask a couple of editors to keep an eye on the article to make sure that no other unpleasantness gets added? Thanks --Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, its been semi-protected now. Probably a good idea. Do we need one of those resolved stickers on this now?--Spartaz ^Humbug! 22:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Never mind ? What do you mean ? I semi-protected the article as a direct result of your note here. But semi-protection will only prevent anonymous and brand new users from causing problems. It will have no effect on "sleeper" accounts or on misguided long-term users so I would recommend that you keep on watching the article for the next couple of weeks. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I meant that your semi-protecting it would probably be enough - all the problems had come from ip editors. Thanks for helping with this one. I'll continue to watch the page like a hawk. --Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Good man! Cheers! -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two-week long edit war on Tiberium

To bring everyone up to speed...

There's an article about the fictional substance, Tiberium. For about 4 years, the article has been relatively stable. Then, on March 4, 2007, AMiB decided to purge the entire article. For the last, say, 14 days, there's been edit wars over the topic. I've been involved in it, but others have as well: AMiB purges the content, people revert it, people begin citing / improving the article, and AMiB purges it again. If you'd look at the article's talk page, one can see that it's generally AMiB versus Everyone. I'm getting sick of seeing this happen over and over, so I decided to put this here and see what'll happen. This is especially important, as it's only going to get worse when the next game in this series comes out. I'm not saying the article is perfect, but purging the entire article over and over and over again isn't the way to go about it. Scumbag 02:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I've protected the article in the version without the paragraphs upon paragraphs of original research and unverifiable info. Picaroon 02:28, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Endorse Picaroon's actions. We regularly stub articles which are hopelessly outside of policy to allow for a full rewrite. Indeed, Scumbag's sequence of events isn't entirely accurate. Looking at the history, it appears to go: AMIB removes tonnes of in-universe and unattributed material, AMIB and others begin to rewrite it, Scumbag or someone else blanket reverts the entire thing, rince & repeat. – Steel 02:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect - AMIB has done exactly no writing to the article in question. None at all. He has done nothing but remove content that was properly cited, by a source that can be confirmed by anyone. Look at his last ten edits, and you'll find no content additions, only purgings. [3], [4] [5] [6] [7] [ttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tiberium&oldid=115644260] [8] [9] [10] [11] Scumbag 06:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you just rebuild content from AMIB's purged version as opposed to rv'ing and trying to cite all of that? I presume that AMIB is purging it again because there the article is being written in an in-universe style (or has a lot of in-universe info that isn't needed), which can't be fixed by just merely citing it. Hbdragon88 02:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I will note one thing: The next game in the series IS coming out soon, and Tiberium as well as the rest of the Command and Conquer series should be watched closely. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 03:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Well volunteered. – Steel 03:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Everything was cited, which is why reverting this purge was rebuilding content. There was no original research in the article, only facts important to the game series.Scumbag 06:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

When will the page in question be unprotected? The minute it is, it will be restored to proper status. Not a threat, but a inevitability. It's one of the things I wanted to point out that you guys haven't understood - Tiberium is a major character in the C&C franchise, and deserves an article written like Anakin Skywalker - an article, I point out, that is written entirely in-universe. I posted this thing because I felt that any reasonable person can see that the article in question is being damaged by a single user, and that there's already considerable amount of people that disagree with his actions. It's only going to get worse, if the page remains as it is. Scumbag 06:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Or perhaps, you know, you're wrong. – Steel 11:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Hard to feel that way when I'm not the only one doing the reverting. I'd feel differently if I was, but given that other people are repairing the damage as well... well, it's hard to see how I'm wrong. Scumbag 15:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks like Ingsoc has been convinced to AMIB's views, so it isn't a single-user dispute. Policy is greater than what the normal editors think: policy has been decided on by everybody, and everybody must follow it for all articles. The minority of those who disagree do not overrule the majority that formed the policy in the first place. And please, Anakin Skywalker (or kyptonite, as brought up on the page) is not at issue: this is. Hbdragon88 07:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

They aren't an issue - it's only the same type of article, written in the same way. Scumbag 15:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

---

I'm very disappointed that editors, when faced with the challenge laid down by one editor to cite secondary sources and demonstrate that the content of an article conforms to our content policies, instead of looking for such sources and citing them, as encyclopadists are supposed to do, wasted all of their effort for two weeks in edit warring, and trying to argue that content that requires readers to duplicate primary research at length, in order to check that content, isn't original research. I've edited the article whilst it is under protection to make a point. I've added some material to the article that is based upon secondary sources. This material took me all of 10 minutes with Google Books to find. I strongly suggest that Scumbag and others learn from this. This is what we want you to do. It's easy, it's entirely defensible against charges of unverifiability and original research, and it took approximately of the time of your foolish edit war and lengthy attempts to defend your performing primary research. Now stop this sort of silly behaviour and go and do likewise! It is your own lack of proper action, in finding and citing sources that have already analyzed the game and its features, that lost you the content, not other editors. Uncle G 11:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• {Applause}. Absolutely on the money, as ever. Guy (Help!) 13:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Only problem is, he didn't find any sources for anything. All he did was cite things like "If you don't have Tiberium you lose the game". Scumbag 15:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Source it or lose it, I'd say, based on other discussions on this page :o) Guy (Help!) 15:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Problem is, we had a sourced article, but it got purged. Scumbag 18:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

For some values of sourced, anyway. Guy (Help!) 23:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:UW redirects reminder

Hi,

Just a reminder for the strawpoll on WP:UW about redirecting the old user warnings templates to the new system which closes tomorrow. If you have any interest in this issue please leave your comments here. Original message. Cheers ^Khukri 10:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't believe Khukri's lies! He or she has closed the straw poll early. :) --ElKevbo 01:04, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DYK icon Template

I copied code from {{FA}} to create {{DYKicon}}. I accidentally included {{protected template}}, which as a non-admin, I am not authorized to do. However, if this page ends up being used in a similar manner to FA it may be appropriate.

P.S. I am not sure what category to put this template in. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 14:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey, anybody can edit: I just removed the protected template. As for my thoughts, the icon is quite small, a bit hard to see. Honestly...I don't see a need for a DYK icon. There isn't any standard for it; your article just happens to appear on the front page, as opposed to getting GA or an FA status. FA is exemplory, while GA is somewhat dubious (process it not as rigorous). Hbdragon88 23:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non-admin closing discussions proposal

There presently is a discussion here related to a notification proposed to be added to the Non-admin closing discussions. Doug Bell indicated that admins might desire such a change. The proposal needs more voices added to the developing consensus. Thanks. -- Jreferee 20:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unwatched

Hi. I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this, but I've recently removed User_talk:Milaneus from my watchlist. The reason is, he claimed (offline from wikipedia) that monitoring his talk page and contributions were an

"invasion of privacy"

, even if your contributions or talkpage can be checked by almost anyone with internet access. He also requested that other people with that page on their watchlist take it off as well. The reason that I put his page on my watchlist, is because I was notifying him of vandalism to my userspace, and it automaticly adds to my watchist. He also called reverting the blanking of his talkpage to be "annoying" (outside of wiki). The main reason why I occasionally check his contribs is because I wanted to see when he has vandalized my pages, and also if he has made constructive edits, and how often. I usually keep track of most vandals I encounter, especially if that user has vandalised a page I frequently monitor, such as my userspace, and if it's an edit I find highly disruptive. In this case however, I am going to make an exception per a request. another user, this time an anon, possibly the same person as that user, because of similar editing patterns, has also vandalized my userspace. I might also take that talkpage off my watchlist. Basicly, I added this section because he requested (outside of wiki) that everyone take his talkpage off your watchlist. Whether or not you do this is not up to me. Any comments/suggestions/etc? Thanks. AstroHurricane001^{(Talk+Contribs+Ubx)} 22:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The contribution record is there for a reason. Without breaching AGF, I think it is entirely OK to check the contribs of people whose editing pattern suggests that they may be vandals, POV-pushers, careless editors, or whatever. The logged changes someone makes here are not in any way 'private'. What counts as wikistalking is when someone turns up on pages that they have never before shown an interest in, just because an editor they dislike has edited them, with edits that look like they are just done to annoy the stalkee. There's a guideline at WP:HARASS. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 23:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Contribution data is in the public domain for a reason. Per the Privacy policy: "Data on users, such as the times at which they edited and the number of edits they have made are publicly available via "user contributions" lists, and in aggregated forms published by other users." Monitoring users' contributions has legitimate uses, and is not a violation of privacy. In fact, more than one user watches mine... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with monitoring the talk page/contributions of a problematic editor - if that's the situation. Metamagician3000 07:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reviewing SSP:Telogen

No one has reviewed a case I opened against Telogen and affiliated parties for SSP [12]]. I have discussed this with the users, and while their behavior is suspect, I believe per AGF, these users are sharing an IP address (via home-based NATting router) and are separate people. They have agreed in principle to my request to stay away from the same articles. I ask someone to second this notion and to close/archive this case. --Otheus 09:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC) (PS: non-admin)

[edit] Invalid Sockpupperty Decision

User:Jpgordon has declared that user:sundaram7 has many sockpuppet and I am one of them. This is not a legitimate decision. Based on this declaration,user:Aksi_great has blocked my id indefinitely.

Reasons for my arguments:

1. Based on the check user, Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Pens withdrawn,the User:Jpgordon found sockpuppetry for user in different countries!! check the IP addresses in the argument and my IP address. He didn't put any reasons for it. Instead he put a odd statement[13] on the IP address.
2. user:Aksi_great is biased on this case. When User:Jpgordon first declined the case, he forced him to block the ids:[14].
3. user:Aksi_great is taking this in a very unprofessional way. see his odd comments [15] and [16].He has started putting unrelated users [17] under user:sundaram7.
4. Check the talk pages User_talk:Jpgordon, User_talk:Fear_the_Fire, [18].

I request you to remove all the sockpuppetry items from the user user:sundaram7 and unlock the users. Also I suggest you to check the nutrality of the admins who made the decisions.

If user:aksi_great was truthful and trying to resolve the issue[19], he might have taken a neutral descision checking all the users involved in vandalism and 3RR, instead he has taken a biased decision which is narrated in the user page [20]. Similarly, the administrator was not patiant to read all the arguments and counter arguments in the page. He put a odd statement[21] instead of a neutral descision. __ 213.165.53.209 14:10, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

And you are claiming to be who, Fear the Fire (talk · contribs)? --kingboyk 14:12, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

my user id is user:truehindu. I have noticed that the IP address change when i connect the net again, because of service provider IP range ___ 213.165.52.248 17:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jeff's Page recreation.

User:Jpmr182 has recreated the above page on two/three occasions and delete the db- tag despite being given a final warning. It looks like he's trying to create a personal page in article space, but is messing it up. Could someone keep an eye on it please, as I have to bail. ^Khukri 16:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

If it happens again, somebody could just redirect it to his User page. Corvus cornix 17:49, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

No, cross-space redirections aren't done. I'll watch it and salt if he creates it one more time. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 17:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Redirect, then delete the original space if you're an admin, or list it for deletion if you're not. Pages get userfied all the time. Corvus cornix 18:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• WP:PT is your friend. Guy (Help!) 17:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education/Review

The reviewing of the RfAr for Waldorf education has concluded. The Arbitration Committee has banned User:Pete K from editing Waldorf education, PLANS, Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, and related pages or their talk pages.

This notice is given by an informal helper on the behalf of the Arbitration Committee. - Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 18:38, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Amazon

This is going to be a long job. we have many thousands of links to amazon.com, a lot of whihc are either links to the Amazon product page, clearly inappropriate, or to Amazon customer reviews, which fail WP:ATT. I have already found the first individual to resist removal of such a link, insisting that we need a link to the Amazon sales page for Screamers (1995 film) to support the vital data of its VHS release date (not clear whether that's NTSC, PAL or both). Now, I could be wrong. Maybe the VHS release date really is' terribly important, and we really can't include it without linking to the Amazon sales page because it really is the only source for that data and it really must be attributed (unlike most of the rest of the article). Or I might be right, and we should not be linking to off-the-page sales pages. More input, please. Guy (Help!) 19:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I've delinked hundreds of "informational" Amazon links in the past - ie just to the product page - though I've not previously seen any used as a reference per se. In this case I'd leave it, but wouldn't drop any tears to see it go, and would rather like to see the data wind up on IMDB so we can cite that... Shimgray | talk | 20:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Uh, my opinion is simple: isn't there a better source than Amazon? About the only links I'd leave would be those on Talk pages: it preserves context & allows you to evaluate an editor's judgement in useful ways. -- llywrch 20:50, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

If IMDB isn't considered a reliable source, why is Amazon? I wouldn't ask my local branch of WHSmith to confirm information although I might go and look it up in an actual book there and refer to that as the source. Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

In terms of ISBN and release date information, it's super-reliable for books, and even more reliable for music and movies. Often, for older things, it's the best available reference and is completely appropriate to use, like in JzG's Screamers example. "Links to avoid" isn't "Links never to use at any point whatsoever," it takes a wee bit of thought rather than a blind massive delinking. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:43, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Forgive my scepticism but on what do you base the assertion that Amazon is super reliable? Also, I rather resent the tone of your response. Do you really need to use such stark language to get your point across? You have heard that you catch more flies with honey? --Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Because I rarely see Amazon get anything wrong? I use it as a reference for basic information often, as it's easy to read, informative, and has traditionally given a good track record for accuracy. As for my tone, I'm no longer interested in catching flies, but simply having the proper thing occur. Considering the scare tactics involved in getting us to the point of nofollowing any links that don't make money for the Foundation and how we're "inundated with spam" to the point of making a oft-abused CSD out of it, I automatically blanche at even considering this sort of action without some more thought than "clearly inappropriate" when no such clarity exists. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Um, if you click an ISBN in Wikipedia, you have the option of checking the validity... by visiting the Amazon site. I'm guessing this because the Amazon site is... well... super reliable. Addhoc 22:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you should reach a page that gives you the option to check against many, many online libraries, not only Amazon. We are independent of the store. -- ReyBrujo 22:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, but if you're lacking an ISBN because you don't actually have the book in front of you, it's certainly the quickest and best source out there for it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:19, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

A way, yes. A quick way even. Quickest? Not important. Most reliable? No. The most reliable way of getting an ISBN is probably the Library of Congress or some other authoritative reference. Guy (Help!) 10:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Speaking from personal, professional, and Wikipedial experience, I'm not convinced that's true in the least. The LOC doesn't even have multiple versions or ISBN information for an edition you may be using. Example a) The Stinky Cheese Man, an award-winning book: One ISBN reference, and nothing about the 10th anniversary edition that has new stories, let alone paperback editions. Example b) A Nightmare in Ecstacy, an oral history of sorts about Ed Wood that I'm using for research here right now: no listing. Both of these titles in all their editions are easily found on Amazon, reliably so. So no, LOC is certainly not nearly as reliable as the retail site of record with the largest title base in the world, and that's just talking books. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

nothing about the 10th anniversary edition that has new stories, let alone paperback editions You mean LCCN 2003-351and ISBN 0670035696? Huh. Looks like a listing to me.

...A Nightmare in Ecstacy, an oral history of sorts about Ed Wood that I'm using for research here right now: no listing You mean LCCN 93-383 and LC Classification PN1998.3.W66 G74 1992? Huh. Looks like a listing to me.

So, any others? It took me a minute or so, so I think I can spare the time. --Calton | Talk 00:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Is personal experience a suitable way of judging the reliability of a source? How would you know if they were wrong? You are effectively arguing that they are reliable because because you said so! Surely you can do better then that? Spartaz ^Humbug! 22:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly a way, given their track record. You trust a source more and more by using it and relying on it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:19, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

So, why not Buy.com, BestBuy.com or any other seller? -- ReyBrujo 22:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

You won't hear me complain. Different strokes for different folks. All I know is that, given there's no real policy reason to outright remove them or forbid their use as citations, I'd rather not have people jump through hoops. Want to remove random external links that don't add anything to the article? Be my guest. Want to start removing citations? I have a problem with that. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:29, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the information appearing there is updated by users. We can't use wikis as reliable sources, so we should not depend on IMDB or Amazon. -- ReyBrujo 22:58, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Tracklisting, ISBN, publisher info? No, they aren't user-created. Also, IMDb is a reliable source for casting and such, those aren't the user-created content. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, you can update the cast and tracklisting, but I can be wrong. By the way, why is this discussion here instead of WP:ATT? -- ReyBrujo 23:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Because of the apparent clarion call for people to start doing something about this, probably. We got off track, but it's not a useless discussion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Nuke 'em. Amazon's info isn't really mediated, it's supplied by the publishers themselves, so not really reliable, no matter how much faith you have in them. There's also the most obvious problem of their being a purely commercial site, which Wikipedia has no business favoring over any other online bookseller, AND that the {{ISBN}} pages already handle the the job of locating copies of the books, if anyone wants to find them, making Amazon links unnecessary, to boot. As for video release dates: who cares? --Calton | Talk 00:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Experience trying to replace invalid ISBNs suggests that *no* potential source of information should be ruled out, when trying to find correct book details or movie details. The submitter of this complaint, User:JzG, picked a case of the American VHS release date of the movie Screamers (1995 film), that might appear trivial since who cares about the exact release date, but we might have to undo some fairly sacred policies in WP:ATT if we want to place obstacles against using a correct source of information. Note that the fair-use publicity photo used to illustrate the Screamers article came from the very Amazon entry that Guy proposes we disallow the use of.

An {{ASIN}} template was created specifically to simplify making valid Amazon references in case this was the only way to provide online-checkable book details. This template is now in use for about fifty main-space articles, for example ASIN B00086U61Y, now validly used (in my opinion) for a rare out-of-print book cited in our Dartmouth College article and published in 1932. Without this reference there would be no way to tell that the book even exists, or to verify the spelling of the title, the author, or the publisher. (ISBNs came into use about 1970, so it has no ISBN). Nothing is more frustrating than to find an entry in a reference list that you know is wrong and have *no* online source of information for fixing it. If Amazon is the only thing available, we should use it. This doesn't replace ISBN references, of which there are about 70,000 in WP, and there is almost never a valid reason to use an ASIN when an ISBN is available. The need for ISBN-fixing, and the use of ASINs, is explained at CT:INV. EdJohnston 03:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Using Amazon -- one specific commercial bookseller -- as a reliable source for a rare and out-of-print books borders on the ridiculous. The Library of Congress -- perhaps you've heard of them? -- has a catalog, is actually official and reliable, and has been around a lot longer that 1970, and they catalog using their own system -- here -- with their own cataloging number system (for the example, LCCN 32011910 and LCC call number LD1438 .R5) used by libraries in cataloging their holdings. Where, exactly, do you think Amazon got their data from in the first place?

Frankly, {{ASIN}} ought to be nuked, ASAP. --Calton | Talk 04:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Although WP has 70,000 ISBNs it has only about 100 LCCNs, for whatever reason. Actually, your LCCN link (marked 'here' in your comment) doesn't work for me, because of the session timeout in the LOC computer system (just one of the problems in using that approach). If you don't think we knew about the Library of Congress, you're welcome to peruse the lengthy Talk page at CT:INV, and its archive. And, before you nuke Amazon, would you please be kind enough to go to all fifty current uses of {{ASIN}} and replace all those valid references, including many to films, with valid LCCN numbers. (The films will usually not be in LOC, and many foreign books will not). Then, will you also research the validly-issued LCCN numbers that for some reason are not recognized by its computer system. (Examples provided on request). In answer to your question, where did Amazon get their data from, I think they got it from the publishers. Publishers are not 100% reliable, neither is Amazon nor the Library of Congress. We need to use whatever information we can get, and fact-check it as thoroughly as possible. The Library of Congress is not a magic bullet. EdJohnston 05:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The Library of Congress is not a magic bullet. Nor is it a dessert topping or floor wax -- relevant, since all three are things I never claimed the Library of Congress to be. And neither is Amazon a "magic bullet", and, in fact, isn't really acceptable at all, period/full-stop.

(just one of the problems in using that approach). {{sofixit}}.

And, before you nuke Amazon, would you please be kind enough to go to all fifty current uses of {{ASIN}} and replace all those valid references, including many to films, with valid LCCN numbers. Nope. The burden is those providing the sources, not on those who are removing bad ones. Amazon is a bad source for a variety of reasons, and if that's the best you can do or the only thing you can do, any reference relying on it probably doesn't belong in the first place. --Calton | Talk 06:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Could you please enumerate those reasons? I find it very useful when people leave an ASIN or link to amazon behind; it makes it much easier to fill in the rest of the citation data. Before you nuke any amazon link or ASIN, it would be more appropriate to go through and remove all references that do not list any catalog number (be that ISBN,OCLC/LCC or ASIN), as they are far more difficult to figure out. John Vandenberg 11:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

As for Amazon being the only online source for data for the example EdJohnston gave... what about this? Library catalog data, vetted by people who are supposed to know what they're doing, and it will tell you the closest library to you that owns a copy. More helpful than "you can buy it for $175", in my opinion. -- phoebe (brassratgirl) /(talk) 00:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The ISBN fixing project has only used ASINs as a last resort, reluctantly, and at least cites them properly (you would be suprised how many "ISBN B001100XX" we find). Certainly we could consider searching out all ASIN/Amazon references and ISBN/OCLC/LCC/BL-ing them wherever possible. Incidently one advantage of the ASIN template is that it makes uses of Amazon more controllable. Rich Farmbrough, 09:43 19 March 2007 (GMT).

And incidentally, I have found and fixed at least one error in the BL catalogue so I'm fairly sure that LoC is not totally free of errors, and as for "official" what does that mean in the context of a world wide publishing industry that goes back before the LoC (or even the U.S.) were thought of? Rich Farmbrough, 09:50 19 March 2007 (GMT).

Oh god. Amazon ASINs as stable identifiers for rare books? This is just bordering on insane. Once Amazon (or their affiliate) sell that book, the Amazon listing is liable to vanish - I've seen it happen before - and there's absolutely no control over them, no indication they won't be reused. An Amazon ASIN is - simply put - as useful and as helpful as listing the accession number for a single specific public library with an online catalogue, except it (might) let you buy the book.

Frankly, catalogue numbers are helpful but by no means essential; you should take the ASIN, replace it with the normal bibliographic data, and leave it at that. There's no decent, usable, standard identifier codes for pre-1960s books, and we're just faffing pointlessly if we try to insist we use one of the several potential ones.

I hashed out a long debate on this two years ago - have a look at User:Shimgray/ASIN. Shimgray | talk | 21:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• I've forwarded Jimbo's 2005 comments re/ removal of ASINs, which had fallen through a hole in the archives, to wikien-l. He was strongly in favour of removal, FWIW. [22]. Shimgray | talk | 22:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Guy, a similar task has been undertaken by Rich/SmackBot with fixing ISBNs. The bot tagged all invalid ISBNs and people manually found the appropriate ISBN, OCLC, LOC or ASIN (in that order). Getting rid of all unnecessary amazon links sounds like another maintenance task that the same team would enjoy completing. There are a lot of special cases, and as these amazon links often contain a lot of the clues to identify the precise work that was referenced by the contributor, and manual processing is the best approach to ensure the citations end up accurate without putting noses out of joint -- this then demonstrates to other Wikipedians how to properly cite their sources. The team that worked on the invalid ISBNs and ISSNs started discussing what catalog schemes would be appropriate for videos, cds and dvds (see CAT:INVALID#Universal IDs for DVDs?), however we didn't encounter those items often enough to take it further. I'm quite sure the same team would be happy to manually tackle each article if a bot can apply a tag to all articles that have a link to amazon. Many would be books, so having the same team work on them would be beneficial. The WikiProject Librarians would no doubt be able to give us a hand working out what non-commercial resources we can use. The benefit of this approach is that once we are on top of the problem, there is a team ready to address any new occurrences that appear as a result of subsequent runs of the bot. And we can be sure that new links to amazon will continue to appear regularly. John Vandenberg 11:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• Good info. I will find them and see if I can recruit their interest, thanks. Guy (Help!) 12:59, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

With reference to Amazon being a reliable source for the VHS release date of Screamers, I think not. Both this site and this site have the release date of 23 July 1996, and Gray Areas magazine reviewed the VHS version in the November 1996 edition. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 13:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Nothing in that 11/96 review says the VHS has been released or anything of the sort. All it says is "Columbia Tristar Home Video". I find no grounds to remove the whole bit as JzG has done. Cburnett 14:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you implying the magazine saw the film in the cinema and decided to add "Columbia Tristar Home Video" to the review for some reason? The review doesn't mean much on its own anyway, but combined with two other sources that say a release date of July 1996, I'd say it's enough evidence to say the Amazon date isn't correct? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 15:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• LOL! Well that put us all in our places didn't it? Well done. I think we can safely nuke that particular factoid, unprotect the article and move on. Guy (Help!) 14:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I added some comments in regards to this on the article's Talk page. - David Oberst 18:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Could we please get a written policy drafted and approved on not allowing links to online sales pages (Amazon isn't the only one) if there isn't one already. If there isn't a clearly written Wikipedia policy against it, then I don't see how we can enforce it. Cla68 22:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

There's ALREADY a written policy, in that they fall squarely under this heading, specifically number 4, Links to sites that primarily exist to sell products or services. For example, instead of linking to a commercial bookstore site, use the "ISBN" linking format, giving readers an opportunity to search a wide variety of free and non-free book sources. Note that last clause. You could also toss in numbers 1, 2, 5, and maybe 13, too. --Calton | Talk 23:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Links to online sales pages as external links are in general contraindicated. References to commercial sites are not so contraindicated. If someone puts something into a Wikipedia article, I want them to say where they got it from. IMO, you should never remove a reference without either removing the information that reference supports or finding a better source. While Amazon isn't by any means a perfect reference, there are cases in which it is better than nothing. I'd rather at least be able to find out where information came from, and I think for uncontroversial information an Amazon sales page is better than nothing. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 01:52, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The policy appears to be clear- no external links to sales sites. The policy, however, doesn't say that an online retailer can't be used as a reference source. Thus, editors should be able to use commercial sites as sources, as long as they don't add an embedded external link to the site in question in the article. Delete away on those links and let people who object know about the policy. Cla68 02:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

With all respect, it's getting a bit literalistic saying that our anti-spamming policy means that we can't link to Amazon for uncontroversial information about a book. It's not as if people are unaware that Amazon exists. A purge of this kind would be disruptive unless some other source were found every single time, and I really think it would be a waste of energy better expended elsewhere. Metamagician3000 07:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

We give preference to non-commercial references. That's fine. If you want to replace a link to Amazon which is serving as a reference for some fact with an equally reliable non-commercial site citing the same info then by all means go ahead. Ditto things which are just 'external link' entries not backing up any facts cited in the article. However, deleting valid references without replacing them? No. If the information is widely available then cite it from another source. If you can't find another source, then leave the Amazon (or whatever) reference in place. --CBD 17:00, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Has anyone seen this vandalism pattern before?

I've been noticing an interesting (and quite devious) vandalism pattern over the last hour. Basically, vandal creates account, adds userbox to user page, adds userbox to user talk page, makes a sneaky vandal edit with a devious, and then stops. Examples:

• Aristideskrista439 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) first two edits are to user and user talk page, then changes an acronym to NAMBLA.
• Rachianecteszachmatt97310 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) exact same things as above, except changes acronym on a different page.
• Ophioglossalesg (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) same pattern; changes photo on Kenya Airlines to a frontal nude shot with the edit summary "remove image".
• Halysitesk64 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) same pattern; attempts to change image on Harrier Jump Jet to something titled "Sarahvulva", but this turns out to be a redlink.
• Greyhound1u (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) after creating a user and user talk page attempts to change photo at FC Barcelona.

I've started blocking these, so it should hopefully disable this person's ability to create accounts for a bit, but I'd like to know if this looks familiar to anyone. If not, try to keep a look out for it, because they obviously know what they are doing.

Natalie 01:58, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Strange. Adding infoboxes in both pages remove the red links from the contributions, so that others don't immediately recognize it as a new account. As to why, I have no idea. Maybe a legitimate account would be used to revert those modifications (I think we have seen one where he vandalized with an account and reverted with another), it is some kind of "test" (some journalist or student researching our revertion speeds). I guess it may be useful to do a checkuser on them, in case this continues. -- ReyBrujo 02:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

It must be a troll. Just see NAMBLA (the changed acronym) and Special:Undelete/Image:Sarahvulva_crop.jpg. A random newbie doesn't know that kind of stuff. Checkuser? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 02:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

It's definitely someone with Wikipedia experience (whether any of that experience was legit or not I have no idea). The account creation, at least, has stopped since I blocked one of them, so it's only one person. Natalie 02:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I spoke too soon about the account creation stopping: Ascolichenesb59 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) just showed up and followed the exact same pattern. Dynamic IP, perhaps. Natalie 02:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the penis vandal, or an impersonator, has returned. --BigDT 05:04, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I need to go to sleep, but can someone keep on eye on the user creation log? Normal RC patrolling will probably miss most of this. I'm working on compiling everything for Checkuser, but it's late here and I work tomorrow, so I won't finish tonight. Natalie 05:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Another for your collection if you do the checkuser - Hypostomidesb72 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) --BigDT 05:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. checkuser filed and full dossier available here. Natalie 16:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Please note that this kind of sneaky vandalism is still going on. He's still following the same pattern:

• Skyetiffany Centrales209 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Platodeseegii81120 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Holochoanitesw (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Myrtalesgr8popp303 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Zachmatt97j86 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

They're pretty easy to spot on the User ceation log: they're basically the only ones who have both the user and talk page blue... Lupo 22:20, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

And three more (checked the most recent 500 user names):

• Myxogastresk (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Podozamitesd1959 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Supersamb60 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

Now off to check the next 500... :-( Lupo 22:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Probably also Steffoxp69 (talk · contribs), who added a userbox to their talk page and then copied the whole grid of barnstars to my talk page. While I'd like to think I could deserve a page full of barn stars, somehow I doubt it... Especially since I got the photographer's barnstar (never uploaded a single photo, ever) and the graphic designer's barnstar (ditto). :) Natalie 00:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Heads up

I have just downgraded protection of Almeda University (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - I think that most of the problems will be new or anonymous users, so we'll wait and see, but the more eyes on it the better - we don't want this kind of shit thank you very much. In case you're not aware, they are advertising for paid authors to come and whitewash balance the article with material which is rather more flattering. Nothing to do with trying to sell the business, of course, perish the thought. Guy (Help!) 21:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Then why downgrade the protection? Durova^Charge! 01:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Because I was asked to, and because I can up it again if the worst happens, and because protection is seen by some as a big deal, and because some editors want to make changes, and I assumed good faith. Guy (Help!) 07:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Herkelthebrave

I have indefinitely blocked Herkelthebrave (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) as an account that has only been used for trolling and vandalism. I'm mentioning it here so other admins can review the block if they so choose. Nandesuka 01:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree. Good block. Wikipedia will not miss him. IrishGuy ^talk 07:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] dishonourable behaviour of user:Darwinek against user:mt7

thread merged with duplicate thread on WP:ANI. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Zedco

Suspicious edit history for a new user. I wonder if anyone recognises the style. Tyrenius 09:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for help on spamblock dispute

Some of you may have seen my post at the Village Pump about adding a website to the spam black list. Some may even know about the passionate dispute about this website over on meta. Now it's reached a new low: in responding to a complaint about this dispute, Betacommand has decided to (1) intimidate the editor by dropping names about who he rubs elbows with, as well as (2) a gratuitous f-bomb.

I'd hit him with at least a warning about WP:CIVIL, but I am not impartial in this matter. I would appreciate it if some uninvolved Admins could monitor this situation, though. I have a feeling that tempers are only going to go higher. -- llywrch 04:14, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Um. While it wasn't the nicest way of saying it, how on EARTH is this useful for writing an encyclopedia? Sites that are selling you something typically aren't good sources. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't find a single fact on that page that I could source to it. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 05:19, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is not a useful page -- I assume both of you are referring to the same page. I am puzzled why you picked that one; which one of the almost 300 links from Wikipedia led you there? However, there are several useful pages on that website; here's one -- www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ramesses2squeens.htm -- & this is another -- touregypt.net/featurestories/ramesses2intro.htm -- a Wikipedia article had linked to. Both have only a small advertisement at the top of each. The links that were disabled were added by a number of different Wikipedians & many have been around as long as 3 years -- so they've been frequently reviewed. But why are we talking about the content of a webpage here? -- llywrch 06:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I left Betacommand a message. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-18 09:52Z

Beta has decided to revert my administrative decision to whitelist a single link to this domain. You can follow the conversation here. Admittedly I was on the fence on this request... but the link was being used as a source so I felt it would be useful to let the editors of the article make the call as to if it was a reliable source or not. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 14:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Which is all what the editors involved really want: a chance to discuss the content of the website. However, Betacommand has shown a stunning lack of tact & flexibility here even before I came into this, which is in marked contrast to the civil behavior of the others who support the blacklisting. None of them have resorted to obscenities or arrogance, & if provoked ... simply ignore the person. I'm beginning to wonder if the problem here is mostly Beta. -- llywrch 18:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Please see my post at meta, Forking discussions over four pages is not good, I tried to have the discussion at one place, meta. Llywrch proceeds to spread and fork the issue over many pages and tries to bypass the blacklisting of a site (yes I requested it be SBL'ed) instead of attempting to address issues questions were raised of where the request was made and not on the validity of our reasoning. I cannot add things to the SBL as I am not a meta admin. the attempts to fork the discussion and bypass an ongoing discussion frustrated me, as i have been unable to sit down and address the issues, due to being in meetings all weekend. please see my most recent post to m:Spam talk. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 05:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Your response is disingenuous, Beta: there is no "forking discussions" here. I am responsible for starting only three related conversations: one on Wikipedia: Village pump (policy) about the manner this website was placed on the spam blacklist; a second on meta arguing to remove the website from that list; & this one, asking that some of my fellow Admins monitor those two conversations because tempers were growing heated. Using your reasoning, this conversation has been "forked" to two other venues: KyraVixen's talk page, and to the MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist here on en; I have not participated in either of those related conversations.

Again, I would like to observe that other participants opposing me in this discussion -- for example, KyraVixen & Beetstra -- have been able to discuss this matter in a civil & productive manner, unlike Betacommand. I honestly don't know what his problem is, but Betacommand's unhelpful attitude began before I raised my concerns, & has been expressed to other Wikipedians. At this writing, he has continued to use abusive language towards other editors & failed to apologize for his earlier mistakes. I'm close to the point of having no more good faith to extend to him, & have begun to wonder if it would be appropriate for me to move this discussion to WP:AN/I or WP:RFC. -- llywrch 17:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Let it be noted that I have made several attempts to discuss the issue especially on meta. I and other users have repeatedly pointed out that touregpyt is a poor site (limited text, high rates of advertising, and that it is primarily a site designed to sell stuff). there have been repeated attempts to point out better sources that are not primarily commercial. instead of addressing the issue in question llywrch makes statements that do not address the issues raised., instead the comments do very little to address the issue. When I called him out on that he basically asked for me to be blocked on meta so that he could get the site off the SBL. (Yes I did use some strong language but in cretin situations there is a need at no point have I broken policy remember wikipedia and meta are not censored thus "my language" did not break policy) I have pointed out and requested Multiple times that instead of fighting for a poor site to be removed from the SBL we work together and find better sources that incorporate the mission of wikipedia and the WikiMedia foundation Free non commercial content. Instead of taking my offer to help llywrch continues to push for links to this site. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 18:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It took me a while to respond to this because Betacommand's response has left me speechless by its cluelessness. Yes, you responded to arguments on meta about this out-of-process block. (Ugh -- I never thought I'd use that phrase.) Yes, Wikipedia is not censored; yes, you can use obscene words in the proper context. But there is guideline about civility all of us must follow -- even Admins, but especially people working with the WMF. Calling another editor's arguments "bullshit" is not civil; justifying "strong language" in "cretin situations" is not civil; failing to apologize for using offensive language is not civil. You have made no offer to help that I have seen: you only ceaselessly repeat on meta is that we cannot link to the website at all, suck it up & move on -- with the occasional obscenity thrown in. Is it truly a surprise that I am angry about this? -- llywrch 20:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I have offered to help no less than three times you repeatedly fail to address the questions that are raised, and ignore users who have issues. you keep bringing up trivial issues. 3 different admins over 2 separate projects have denied your request. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 01:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

What about that other admin whose whitelisting action you overruled without discussion? —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-21 07:44Z

Betacommand, would you list those instances, please?. I am unaware that anyone has ruled on this matter, let alone one of my fellow Admins; but I admit that I'm ignorant about most of the discussions in every Wikimedia project. I know of only two requests, & neither have been rejected. The one on meta was still open, when I looked a few minutes ago. The request that Quarl refers to below, here on en.wikipedia, was granted by one Admin, but reversed by you. -- llywrch 17:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:BIO

The recurring argument over the badly phrased definition of WP:BIO has appeared in another AfD. My interpretation may be right or wrong, but it needs clarifying, because at the moment, as User:Oakshade is claiming, it is easy to infer that anyone who has appeared in a notable TV program, however minor, is notable. As a relative newbie, where's the best place to bring this up? EliminatorJR ^Talk 09:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:BIO is only part of the equation. As User:JzG points out in the AFD, there has to be sources too. A person can have a claim to notability per WP:BIO and yet not be entitled to an article because the sources simply aren't available. --kingboyk 13:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, I quite agree - it's just that it seems that WP:BIO could be written less ambiguously, as at the moment it seems to imply that simply appearing in a notable programme negates the requirement for sources, and it is leading to the same arguments on AfD over and over. EliminatorJR ^Talk 15:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Then by all means propose alterations at WT:BIO :) I don't imagine there would be much resistance to beefing up the wording a little. It's not an issue which needs admin attention though :) --kingboyk 15:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks, I wasn't sure where to mention it. EliminatorJR ^Talk 18:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

EliminatorJR, try Wikipedia:Village pump in the future. -- llywrch 18:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Solved case of community banned User:SndrAndrss evading ban

I just wanted to make an announcement here rather than posting only to involved users talk pages as this might be of interrest to uninvolved administrators and users as well. As some of you might know, the disrupting edits (although he had usefull contributions as well) and behaviour (use of sockpuppets to evade blocks, failure to communicate with others) of SndrAndrss (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log · rfcu) led to him being community banned last week (decision). He did not take notice of this but continued to edit with newly created accounts and as an IP. Since he had a dynamic IP, there was some in trouble preventing him from editing, and since his IP range was quite large, I hesitated to rangeblock.

After correspondence with User:Rdsmith4 on IRC, we decided that a rangeblock was the only possible solution anyway, and I was adviced to send an email to the abuse department of the ISP, Telenor, as well. I told them the story and that I had rangeblocked 65 536 of their IPs (88.88.0.0/16) from editing the English Wikipedia for a week. I did not expect the quick answer I got from them. Less than two hours after I sent my email, they answered and would appreciate if I sent them logs of his edits, which I did. Today I got an email from them where they told me that they had closed the account of the user. The closing of the account was nothing that I ever suggested that they should do (I did not suggest anything actually, I just told the story), they did it on their own initiative.

I've unblocked the range again, and hopefully this will end the problems with the user, and we will be able to move on to contributing to Wikipedia rather than keeping SndrAndrss under control. – Elisson • T • C • 13:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, if anyone would like to take a look at the email correspondence between me and the abuse department of the ISP, send me an email, and if you feel I did something wrong or that I could have done something better, tell me so. – Elisson • T • C • 13:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:AIV backed up

Very backed up at the moment... - Denny 15:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Watchtower Sentinel

I have to take a break now so could someone else keep a watch on this user. He is trying to force User:Hamsacharya dan to keep certain comments on his current talk page rather than in an archive, as can be seen by his contibutions. On top of that he left vandalism warnings on the talk page and the archive page. I reverted the archive, the talk page and warned Watchtower Sentinel. I of course ended up with two warnings which of course I removed. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I left a stern note. Jkelly 23:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I need help from other admins

Hi, everyone. I'm an administrator and I'm confused by something. Could someone take a fresh look at this and work out what I should do?

The article Khachkar_destruction, which started life being called Status of Armenian cultural monuments in Nakhichevan, has been the focus of much heated edit-warring. It was nominated for deletion once, which it survived, then it was nominated a second time within a week of the first AfD close. I closed the second AfD as 'keep'. Now Grandmaster, Aivazovsky and Dacy69 have all agreed to delete the content of this article and either salt the earth or redirect the article to Julfa, Azerbaijan (city), which is an apolitical article.

I don't doubt that the edit-warriors have reached agreement to delete/redirect, but I am befuddled that we could delete/redirect an article that has been given 'keep' endorsement twice in the last month on AfD.

I'm not sure how to proceed. Could I get some experienced admins to offer an opinion? - Richard Cavell 03:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

If the issue is that they don't want to deal with the hassle of the article any more and have simply redirected it despite it being patently independently notable for a possible substantial encyclopedia article, that's probably not appropriate. If the issue is that the article, as a matter of encyclopedic importance, content consolidation, sourcing, etc. should be merged into the other article, then that's probably alright regardless of the AfD being a keep. In any case, if there is contentwise objection to the actual merge/redirect, then there should be discussion about it on the talk page. If the issue is that some AfD process is not being followed, at most what would need to be done to ameliorate that is to notify the AfD participants of the merge discussion. This is not exhaustive of all the possibilities here—these Eastern European conflicts are wild—but this should give some idea. —Centrx→talk • 04:26, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

No one has proposed a merge. They have all agreed to delete the content of the article, by redirecting the article to an apolitical article on the city that is the focus of the ethnic tension. I think there are two possible outcomes: Keep the redirect or else I restore the original content and protect the page temporarily. - Richard Cavell 04:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

They just want to redirect the page to the article on the city, which will cover the subject apolitically? This is good, and requires no admin intervention. I'll demonstrate right now. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Or, um, Khoikhoi (talk · contribs) did that already. There's nothing wrong with deleting all of the text of an article, if everyone agrees, regardless of older AFD discussions. In the strictest sense, AFD only regulates the use of the delete button at the top of the page. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an administrator, but I see no problem with how things have been resolved. It seems that the edit history of the original Status of Armenian cultural monuments in Nakhichevan, which was later called Khachkar destruction, is still being preserved under the redirect called Khachkar destruction that points to Julfa, Azerbaijan (city). It was an editorial decision to make that change, and there seems to be a consensus for it on Talk:Khachkar destruction. The editors can later choose, if they wish, to resurrect the temporarily obscured material and merge it somewhere reasonable. Since there was *no* AfD that closed with 'Delete' there should not be any issue about process being ignored. Of course, since there are some mutterings about a deletion review, there could be more chapters in this exciting saga.. (A deletion review of a Keep, now that gets even more twisted..) EdJohnston 04:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I dont think there was agreement to make this a direct. Grandmaster indicated otherwise on the recent Afd, and sensibly hasn't edited WP since that point. The parties (not Khoikhoi) that are involved in this "consensus" to redirect are involved in an ongoing RfA, and are on 1RR parole. There appears to be accusations that both countries have engaged in the destructions[23], and Old Jugha in Azerbaijan is only the largest of the cemeteries where the khachkar are found. John Vandenberg 05:55, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Why does there always seem to be so much conflict regarding Armenian related articles? I'd never heard of it before Wikipedia but judging from the amount of edit wars it seems like it's on the same level of vitriol as the arab-israeli conflicts. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 10:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

See Nagorno-Karabakh War. Khoikhoi 19:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

*Sigh* I made that article Khackkar destruction everything on the article was based on Naxcivean so the move is definitely justified and is appropriate since it is based on there. Artaxiad 22:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to all those who contributed to this discussion. Please see Talk:Khachkar destruction#This_article. - Richard Cavell 04:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

There are many contributions here that need to be reverted: Special:Contributions/220.233.117.130 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.134.250.134 (talk) 01:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Looks like they've all been reverted or said user has already self-reverted. Hbdragon88 03:03, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of Jewish prayers and blessings

Hello, I'm getting a Meta:Spam blacklist block attempting to revert a vandalism edit to this article. I'm wondering if some transliteration of a Hebrew word is tripping some recent addition to the spam filter. Could someone undo the vandalism edit to the article in the meanwhile? Best, --Shirahadasha 03:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. IrishGuy ^talk 03:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] For light entertainment

See the conscientious Bot. Tyrenius 07:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the signing bot should give a little longer before signing, in order that the edits can be reverted if they are vandalism.

In addition, the signing bot should look for certain bad words (Lupin has a list of them), and not sign any messages which contain them. Od Mishehu 08:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I can one-up that. [24] As for the lack of signing delay, that's because the delay led to edit conflicts and caused problems. --tjstrf talk 08:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Er, what exactly is wrong with hagerman bot signing vandalism? I'd want it to sign vandalism on me, saves me a click through the history to find out who the vandal was. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 08:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

You can't rollback vandalism that's been signed by the bot. You have to revert it the slow way. --Carnildo 22:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, don't see the problem here. It's just as easy to revert two edits as it is to revert one. Especially for you admins who have rollback. So what's wrong with it signing vandle messages? (i have to add that bot scares me sometimes. I forget to sign a message and by the time i click the edit button again, the unsigned message is already there... -.-) --`/aksha 11:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Rollback only reverts edits that are by the same account. Uncle G 14:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • ...and as long as no one else has changed the page. Otherwise, "Undo" it is. Teke 07:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

To suppliment: this was Carnildo's point above. The IP makes the vandal edit, and it is the last edit to the page, rollback appears. If the IP makes the vandal edit, then it is followed by "bot signing vandal edit", my rollback appears for the bot edit. It only works for the most recent edit to the page. This is why the bot signing gets in the way the rollback function. Teke 07:26, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

This absolutely made my day. Natalie 16:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• I just can't wait for the bot to add its own signature to one of those comments. Now that would make my day. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 00:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  • And I thought the bot signing {{afd bottom}} tags was funny. --Coredesat 01:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Will this become a sub-page of WP:BJAODN -- Wikipedia: Silly edits and other embarassing mistakes? My contributions might just get the attention they deserve. -- llywrch 18:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I think that that's a problem with that 'bot that needs addressing. Currently it signs edits to AFD discussions indiscriminately, resulting in signatures being erroneously appended to edits that fix headings, add cross-links to past and related discussions, and so forth. Uncle G 12:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it needs to change. Even if it's a trolling comment it makes sense to know who said it. Especially on high-traffic pages where other people might make unrelated post and you have to look around in the history to find out who wrote that. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-21 07:30Z

[edit] Bot Proposal To Help Out With IP Vandalism

I am trying to determine if administrators would like a bot that would automatically add consistent IP vandals to a list for blocking. The details to the proposal can be found here. Please leave comments in the "New Discussion" section of the proposal page. Thank you. --D 14:54, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Last chance notification. If nobody speaks up in favour soon I'll decline the request as lacking community approval. --kingboyk 13:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability is a commodity? (Warning, long winded message)

In the wake of certain recent events, it has become clear that this man named Daniel Brandt is trying to get his page deleted. But one can't help but ask the question, "Are we keeping this page just to piss him off, because he's an activist against our website which we put so much time and effort into?" I don't think this is true, but I think that this raises a more important issue. Wikipedians who have been even remotely involved with the DB fiasco last February know who he is at least, and most know quite a bit about him. But, does the general public know? Do they care?

I think that we need to keep in mind that we are creating this encyclopedia for the world. When it is all said and done, is the general public going to care about this person named Daniel Brandt and his vendetta against Wikipedia? I think that almost every single user on Wikipedia has a conflict of interest in this article. It is eventually going to shift to a pro-Wikipedia, pro-Internet point of view, because that is the view that virtually ALL editors at Wikipedia share. We don't have the right to judge this man's notability. You can't see a whole picture when you're inside the frame.

Almost every single one of us resents this guy for threatening to strike down the entity that we have put so much time and effort into. Maybe we ought to come up with a different idea for this one, instead of repeatedly nominating it for deletion, citing WP:BIO. Maybe we should just bite the bullet and take it down. Mr. Brandt doesn't want it there because he thinks that it misrepresents him. Some of us don't want it here anymore because it's a MAJOR pain in the ass to keep clean, and often spawns deep-but-pointless philosophical discussions. Maybe it would be best for all of us to just delete it and put this dark chapter in Wikipedia history behind us. This issue will not be solved by AfDs, where every editor is forced to take a stand on one side of the keep/delete line.

Mr. Brandt has trolled us into doing this, yes. But maybe, just maybe, Wikipedia might recognize that standing up to this troll has wasted much more time than if we just deleted the page in the first place at the very first AfD. Instead of wasting our time arguing over a barely-notable man, let's try to write on the more important topics on Wikipedia such as History, Philosophy, Religion, those pages that we have forgotten about in favor of pages about the latest episode of Lost.

TLDR version: It's a pain in the ass, and isn't helping anybody on both sides of the battlefield. Let's delete it once and for all, and get to work on the real encyclopedia. Once again, if needed, please move this to the right place. Oh, and you don't like the idea, don't make it personal. I'm being really bold putting my ideas out here, and I don't want to ruin my wiki-life because of it. PTO 04:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

...And in doing so, send a clear message that anyone willing to bitch, troll, rant, harass, and abuse the system long enough can get exactly what they want? NO. --tjstrf talk 04:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

But that misses the point. Are we really keeping the article because it should be kept? Or are we just keeping it so that we can do the opposite of what he wants? Letting a troll have power over Wikipedia by causing the opposite of what he wants is no better than just giving them what they want. -Amarkov moo! 04:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

As regards that, the 13 AfD's where he was determined to be notable speak for themselves. (And unlike the GNAA, his article can be sourced.) If we start giving breaks in policy to people for being spiteful, we will simply encourage them. --tjstrf talk 04:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Honestly... as long as there is nothing libelous or attacking about the article, the subject's wishes... I don't think they should matter for the simple existence of an article. If a newspaper (say, the NY Times) were to publish a full biographical article on Brandt and leave it on their site forever and in print, would he fight them? Would the NYT back down? Why should we over something silly for any person who asks? We'd be flooded with people who for whatever reason don't want a page. Giving one that precedent would I imagine legally give it to them all. - Denny 05:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

We're keeping it because it should be kept. He's clearly notable, IMO. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, and even paper encyclopedias don't limit themselves to things people are already likely to know about (except maybe in Orwell's 1984). Anchoress 04:34, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Notability isn't a question, and we proved that 101% in the last (hopefully final) AfD. Also... on what grounds would we just arbitrarily delete an article? do we need another wheel war and arbcom mess? Further... WP:FORTHEPEOPLE: Saying that we should "delete this article, to stave off future disruption," isn't valid--and it assumes supreme bad faith of your peers, because it assumes that a minority of your peers will practice disruption later on Wikipedia to get their way later. If such a thing happens, it's a problem with those editors that don't conform to the community standards--not a problem with the article itself.

Last, if you honestly think no one cares about this guy, who has been constantly quoted in the media since the year 2000 or so (7+ years), why don't we delete stuff others don't care about like Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld? No one could likely be interested there... no? - Denny 04:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

We don't delete or keep because other crap exists. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 05:12, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe we delete on the possibility that some people have may have an inability to edit like adults later on given articles, either... and my point was that we shouldn't delete based on possible disruption from an article. Which is impossible--how can an article disrupt? Dramamongering users disrupt by attacking articles. - Denny 05:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not asking for deletion because other crap exists. Or, because the guy has harassed us so much that we just should take it down. None of us can write a neutral article on him, because we've all got a negative viewpoint on him. All of us. We've wasted enough time on this sad article, with its record number of AfDs. PTO 12:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess I'd say you should AfD it again then... with the new rationale (I don't think I saw that one in the previous ones) and see what the collective community decides based on your idea. - Denny 13:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Related

Interesting thought:

“

A more accurate parallel would be driving through the house to "save the day" while shouting If I'm doing the right thing I can ignore all rules! vs. taking the extra time to drive around the block, showing up a short while later, still doing the exact same right thing, but not smashing anyone's house.

”

- Denny 05:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• Also related: reality is a commodity :o) Guy (Help!) 11:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

  Heh, I just *had* to do that. PTO 12:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

  ok, that was pretty funny. :) - Denny 13:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Let it rest!

The 13th AfD nomination was the first one that was finally allowed to run its course until the end (and then some) without any early closures that plagued all previous AfD/DRVs. The result was keep. The community has spoken. Live with it. --Edokter (Talk) 16:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Archimedes Plutonium

M. Brandt has now been joined by Archimedes Plutonium (AfD discussion) who, editing as Superdeterminism (talk · contribs) as well as several IP address accounts, also wishes the article on him to be deleted. One difficulty of this situation is that the most in-depth reliable independent source on the subject of M. Plutonium, a book by Eric Francis that devotes several pages to M. Plutonium and his interactions with others on Usenet, is about the murder of Half and Susanne Zantop, for which M. Plutonium was one of several people briefly suspected and then eliminated from the inquiry. (The book documents how he was eliminated from the inquiry, but also provides extensive background information on him to explain who he is in the first place.) Another difficulty of the situation is that whilst it would be good to allow M. Plutonium to participate in the discussion, he has brought his Usenet behaviour here, including legal threats of libel claims against M. Francis. A third difficulty of the situation is that the only article that M. Plutonium will apparently accept is one that basically parrots his own uncorroborated autobiography and scientific theories verbatim.

Please let's not be like Usenet in our response to this, by the way. Wikipedia is not Usenet. Uncle G 13:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

See also Special:Contributions/216.16.55.28, which shows that somebody, claiming to be Archimedes Plutonium, vandalised the Jimmy Wales article several times, by inserting into it (instead of to User talk:Jimbo Wales) a request to have his article corrected. See also this section of my talk page. ElinorD (talk) 13:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help closing RFC: Talk:Cow tipping

Hi. I'm requesting for someone uninvolved to review this RFC and determine if consensus has been reached and/or it should otherwise be closed: Talk:Cow_tipping#Request_for_Comment:_Inclusion_of_image_of_cow_.26_related_caption. It has been open for over 10 days, and the last comment was a few days ago. Thanks. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 13:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I closed it. Mangojuice^talk

[edit] Complex investigations get interesting again

I have implemented an indefinite block on Dustbunniesmultiply (talk · contribs) as an obvious sockpuppet per this edit, which was the account's second edit ever at Wikipedia. Although I'd hoped to keep quiet about the associated topic until after my appeal at WP:RFCU#Otheus got addressed and my investigative report was completed, I'm near the end of an investigation on a vandal who has been damaging Wikipedia since July 2005. I'm putting my indef block up here for review. Follow the links to see where this rabbit hole goes. And BTW, please WP:AGF for Otheus. I don't think that editor is our problem. Durova^Charge! 14:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Has BenH been banned by the community?

I was wondering--has User:BenH been hit by a community ban? He's had an RfC pending on him for almost a year and hasn't bothered to respond. Moreover, he's been suspected of using numerous sockpuppets. An administrator mentioned that he'd blocked one of them since BenH was permanently banned--can someone confirm this so he can be listed on the banned users page? Blueboy96 15:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Looking at BenH's block log, it doesn't appear so (although discussion could have taken place afterwards and not been noted in the log). His user page also reflects an indefinite block, not a ban. Not familiar with the case, but I imagine it wouldn't be an issue to formalize a ban at the CN. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 16:56, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Autoblock locator

The autoblock locating tool is only finding old autoblocks, nothing in the past 24 hours or so. Could someone please feed it some coffee? --Yamla 14:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed that problem, as well. That tool really comes in handy, when it's working. When it's not, I usually just Ctrl+F for the original blockee after setting ipblocklist to show the last thousand or so blocks -- it's the next best thing, I guess. – Luna Santin (talk) 18:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I've been away for a couple of days, which coincided with the toolserver being rebooted (for some reason unknown to me). I'll look into making it more robust. --pgk 22:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User page profanity

Chasing down some vandalism, I am led to ask, is a User page such as User:Dr-Roxo covered by Wikipedia:Profanity, or what exactly? Or is it ok? Kaisershatner 19:57, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

As it's a red link, then either the answer is a bemused "no", or you've typed the name wrongly. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted earlier. IrishGuy ^talk 23:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

User:A Man In Black deleted it already.[25] --tjstrf talk 23:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

In theory, yes, it was fine, because Wikipedia isn't censored and users are allowed some leeway in what they do with their userpage. However, in practice, anyone who has a string comprising of "FUCK!" repeated hundreds of times making up their usepage is unlikely to be a user whose actions are made in good faith. All his edits were vandalism, albeit spread out over a couple of days, so I indef blocked him. Picaroon 23:18, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Persistent addition of irrelevant information by anonymous user

I've reported 194.60.106.5 (talk · contribs) before for persistently adding irrelevant information to several articles before. Those articles have been protected from anonymous editing but one of them, Overseas Vietnamese, expired its protection status. This user is back adding the same information to the article. Please protect it. DHN 21:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I've indefinitely semi-protected the article. --MCB 00:41, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] help with dispute resolution

About a month ago, I reported Venki123 (talk · contribs) and Mudaliar (talk · contribs) for 3RR on Devadasi, for which both were blocked. It seems that these two users butt heads regularly, and today Venki contacted me requesting that I merge three articles together and "lock them up", by which I assume s/he meant protect. I replied directing Venki toward various different avenues of dispute resolution, but s/he continues to contact only me, and attempted to direct others with complaints to my talk page. If there's someone out there with DR experience, perhaps even with these two editors, I'd be most grateful if they'd take this in hand. Natalie 22:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Heads up for an AfD closer

Whoever closes Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ZineWiki (2) should note that it's been spammed on the wiki's editors' forum [26]. It's being asserted that we should accept blogs in the absence of reliable sources (i.e. "if no good sources exist, use bad ones"). Bah, I am just prejudiced against thousand-article Wikis with no independent coverage and a whopping 20,000 hits on their main page hit counter :o) Guy (Help!) 23:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scott Douglas hoax article

The history and talk page of Scott Douglas are rather hilarious, or maybe just absurd. There are biographies in there of two different Scotts Douglas. One is the pen name of Scott La Counte, a librarian who writes for McSweeney's website; his bio tends to spiral into the fanciful, following this article of his about Wikipedia, inviting readers to "invent" a colorful life story for him.

The other Scott was the stage name of Scott Mathiesen (sp?) the lead singer of Christian rock band White Heart from 1984-1985, when he apparently went to jail, although I can't find a reliable source backing that up. Neither Scott seems notable per WP:BIO, and the article has been everything from a blatant BLP violation, to a dab page, to a protected redirect (to White Heart), to an elaborate hoax bio. It's been forked, merged, moved, protected, unprotected, deleted and recreated three times... I've never seen more good faith bouncing around of an article with zero encyclopedic content. I'm inclined to delete the current history and make another protected redirect (to White Heart or to McSweeney's?), but a few more people might want to watchlist this, as it seems to be a perennial problem.

How can there not be a famous "Scott Douglas" out there? -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:54, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've restored the redirect and blocked the primary user responsible for turning it into a completely different biography. I'd take it up to RFD and maybe we can salt it.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 07:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've protected it now, too.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 07:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppet help

The sock puppet noticeboard could use the attention of a few admins. It is very backlogged and some old cases need clearing out. Thanks! Vassyana 07:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Danny and OFFICE

According to Jimbo's talk page Danny has resigned. WAS 4.250 00:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

See the Meta user rights log [27]:

• 23:06, 21 March 2007 Rdsmith4 (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:Dannyisme@enwiki from bureaucrat, sysop to (none)
• 00:53, 21 March 2007 Danny (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:Danny@metawiki from bureaucrat, steward, sysop to (none)
• 00:53, 21 March 2007 Danny (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:Danny@enwiki from bureaucrat, sysop to (none)

BradPatrick has moved him to a Former staff page on wikimediafoundation.org [28]. WjBscribe 03:54, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know why? Khoikhoi 04:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

See the thread on WP:BN. No need to have multiple threads related to the same subject. Viridae^Talk 04:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Not everybody reads BN. Heck, it's not even listed at the top. Hbdragon88 05:57, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Not listed at the top, because like this page, all new issues go to the bottom. I didn't expect everyone to read it but its best to keep it all in one spot, hence directing ya'll to that page. Viridae^Talk 06:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I meant the top as in the list of noticeboards (BLP/COI/AN/ANI). Hbdragon88 06:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

On that note, does anyone think we should include a link to WP:BN at {{editabuselinks}}. John Reaves (talk)

Might be a good idea. Its not used much though, for good reason. Viridae^Talk 12:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

What does editing abuse have to do with bureaucrat intervention? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 18:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

(unindenting) How about a link to WP:BN on the "Noticeboard" line? BTW, Denny sent this email to the Foundation-l list. -- llywrch 19:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Backlog again at CAT:CSD

Once again, there are three pages of tagged articles on CAT:CSD. I mentioned it yesterday as well, but no one seemed to notice. Can I get some help in that? The vast majority of it is images, and I'm on a slow connection here. ♠PMC♠ 15:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd love to but I'm moving all my stuff out of my halls for easter. Perhaps later when I'm set up at home again. --Deskana (talk) 18:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Ozgurgerilla

One of his Babel's includes "This user supports the PKK". PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization both by Europe (EU) and the United States. This is not only propaganda of a Terrorist organization, but also a felony according to European and American Federal Laws (His profile suggests he lives in UK). Can Anything be done about him? 68.107.156.148 04:55, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what planet you're from, but adding a userbox saying you believe in a terrorist organization is not a felony here. Perhaps you're confusing with the other definition of support, as in providing financial and logistical backing, which WOULD be a felony, but a userbox is definitely not that. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 05:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Those don't appear to be real userboxes actually, just him coding the stuff in himself. If he's also a POV editor then a good case can be made for removing activist content, but I don't think the userbox just by itself is too problematic. Whether it's illegal in the UK to support them monetarily is different than whether it's illegal to support them idealogically, and I'm not sure if we would care even if it was, considering our attitude towards China's block on us. --tjstrf talk 05:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. Would we take no action against a user whose userpage stated support for Al-Qaeda? My guess is such a thing has occurred - what happened? --Dweller 10:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

We'd probably remove the userbox as being divisive, but it still wouldn't be a felony. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 12:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anybody somewhat sane would dare to do that due to mr FBI. That might not be a felony but the person might end up being thrown out of school or fired, if made public. deniz^T_C 05:56, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Gosh! which planet were we in again? Ozgur Gerilla 04:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Jupiter, ah no Earth. Yes, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. deniz^T_C 05:56, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The person who posted the comment in the first place did not want to sign the post. Wonder why? I think its ridicules to post this on here, and suggest trying to take legal action against someone who believes in some ideology or group. --D.Kurdistani 23:13, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing war at University of Wisconsin (disambig)

There is an editing war on the ordering on University of Wisconsin (disambiguation). From 1848 to 1956, University of Wisconsin was an intitution that included the campus in Madison, 10 freshman-sophomore centers in other cities in Wisconsin and state-wide extenstions. (source: UW System the former University of Wisconsin part). Most of the University of Wisconsin used in Wikipedia refer to the one during this time frame. It should be at the top of the list. The current UW-Madison is just a part of this institution and already has University of Wisconsin redirected to this article due to the biase among some editors and administrators. There is no reason to have it on the top in University of Wisconsin (disambiguation). Madmaxmarchhare has been very illogical in the discussion. It will be greate if someone can bring order there. Miaers 22:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment This is a blatent misrepresentation of the facts regarding the disambiguation page. In fact, Miaers has engaged in personal attacks all day long (see diff or any of his recent edit-summaries on both this page and Talk:University of Wisconsin). It would definitely be great if an administrator could bring some reasonable peace to the discussion, but, inevitably, Miaers will claim that we are all obnoxious and wrong anyway. Cheers, PaddyM 23:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment This is becoming a typical response pattern from Miaers. He argues, others counter argue. He doesn't get his way and everyone else is wrong. When he really doesn't get his way, he runs somewhere else, or uses new logic to try and get his way. This, and discussions closely related to it, have been on-going for several months, now. It's strange that he's even seemingly alienated just about everyone who's supported him in the past, as well. My purpose as of late has been to find his endgame. From what I can tell, the only "out" that he has is to have everything go his way, otherwise he'll continue to argue and argue until we've all given up (or have died of old age, perhaps). Madmaxmarchhare 00:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Please stop the accusing and instead talk to each other to come to some sort of an agreement. Use this as a guide. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 10:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your intentions, but dispute resolution only works when both sides are willing to resolve the dispute. When someone continues to violate 3RR despite previous blocks, reprimands and consensus, insults others, and lies to your face after you've told them that you know they're lying and shown them how you know it (how do you reach an agreement about that?), the assumption of good faith can no longer apply. —LX (talk, contribs) 15:33, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Wrong. The assumption of good faith always applies. It's a bedrock policy. If you disagree with it, edit elsewhere. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 20:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

"This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Actions inconsistent with good faith include constant vandalism, confirmed malicious sockpuppetry, and lying." (WP:AGF, fourth paragraph) —LX (talk, contribs) 22:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppet check

User:Swatjester blocked Burgz33 (talk · contribs · block log) due to personal attacks. Burgz33'a last edit was to his talk page when he stated his intentions. Then BTA - `.33 (talk · contribs · block log) appears, check out both of their user pages. What did it for me was this edit, where he removes Burgz33's name. I've blocked BTA - `.33 so please review and also be aware that Burgz33 was making personal attacks against me at Talk:Jordin Tootoo so I'm probably a bit biased here. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 06:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd reblocked the Burgz33 account for a month for extended attacks. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 20:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PlayStation 69 (talk · contribs)

• PlayStation 69 (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · checkuser · socks)
• Nintendude (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · checkuser · socks ^confirmed_suspected)

PlayStation 69 is the latest incarnation of of Nintendude (talk · contribs) who was blocked a while back and then caused all sorts of disruption with puppets (and there are considerably more than just the ones here, they just didn't all get listed). I noticed he was back earlier this year, but I decided to let him edit and see if he was going to be disruptive or just edit anonymously; to me it was sort of a probation and I indicated to him on his talkpage that vandalism will not be tolerated. Taking a look at his edit history up to this point doesn't give me much confidence. I just got done deleting a self-promotional piece he posted about a YouTube video he created (Grand Theft Auto: Nickelodeon City) as well as some aggressive cross-posting. This indicates to me that his involvement here isn't going to be any more beneficial this time around, so I've blocked him for evading his original Nintendude block. I didn't request a Checkuser here because this is one of the strongest cases of WP:DUCK I've seen (I can provide further information via email if anyone is interested, I just don't want to go into it here because it involves the individual's real name). Anyway, I just wanted to mention the block here in case anyone disagrees and wants to argue that he should be unblocked.--Isotope23 19:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Righteous block, I concur with your analysis. Guy (Help!) 22:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need a couple of admins again for some deletions

Sith Penguin Lord (talk · contribs) uploaded, in good faith no doubt, images and articles from BattlestarWiki. However, as stated by the site's license at the bottom of every page, content is released under BY-NC-SA, a license incompatible with Wikipedia. I am currently working with the WP:SCV backlog, and would appreciate a couple of admins reviewing this user's contributions and speedy deleting the ones that have been copied straight from the wiki under WP:CSD#G12. I noticed, for instance, he uploaded images like Image:Antonypic.JPG (which are surely licensed under a fair use license there) and tagged them here with the {{wikipedia-screenshot}} tag. Thanks in advance. -- ReyBrujo 03:41, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Done, as much as I, as a normal user, can do. I tagged all of the images appropriately (some with db-redundantimage), all the character bios (with db-copyvio), removed the fair use images from the user's page, and left a brief note, soliciting questions if there are any. --Iamunknown 05:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I've deleted the images that can be deleted. There's a few that will be deleted in ~ 7 days, as unused fair use images. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys. -- ReyBrujo 02:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Naconkantari/cleanup - Wikipedia cleanup day

For those that may not have heard, there is a proposal at User:Naconkantari/cleanup concerning holding a "cleanup day" where editing will be restricted to autoconfirmed editors only. There is also a non-binding poll to determine the specifics and community reaction to the proposal. Before commenting, please read through the entire proposal as it should answer most questions that may arise. This message has been crossposted to several noticeboards, please direct comments to User talk:Naconkantari/cleanup. Cheers, Naconkantari 05:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

How many pages, and how many times per page, are you going to spam this notice? Corvus cornix 23:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

If it is an essay that may become a guideline, in as many pages as necessary. -- ReyBrujo 02:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate content on user page

What should I do if I believe a user has inappropriate content on his or her user page? Sancho (talk) 02:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Remove it.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 02:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, hang on, we probably need a little more information before giving that blanket advice. Newyorkbrad 02:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Bring it up with the editor in question, point out what you feel is wrong with it and direct them to WP:USER? - Alison^☺ 02:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it really depends on what is meant by "inappropriate" - that's pretty vague. It could be inappropriate meaning "I'm here to stalk Sanchom, Ryulong, Newyorkbrad, Alison, and Natalie Erin and your mom " or it could be inappropriate in that the user has used a mild swear word. "Inappropriate" means different things to different people. Natalie 02:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The inappropriate content is a message that tells blacks and gays to leave his or her user page because there is material on it that may offend them. Sancho (talk) 03:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Which user? ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 03:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Nm, I found it, I deleted it per WP:CSD#G10 and warned the user about spouting hatred here[29]. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 03:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Sancho (talk) 03:21, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A question about redirection during AfD

Hi. There's a problem about Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sajdah. Sajdah article should have been redirected but a wikipedian had made an AfD. Then I redirected it. Is it correct manner?--Sa.vakilian(t-c)--08:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem solved.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 08:21, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Mike Church

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

I'm not to familiar with this sockpuppeteer, but I just notice a fairly newly minted user removing the suspected wikipedia sockpuppets category from the sockpuppet category of this editor with the edit summary "rvv" on their 4th edit. Take with this edit, it's all a little bit suspicious. WP:AGF, but if someone who is more familiar with Church and his MO wants to have a look and monitor, it might not be a bad idea. I don't know the history enough to say if this is a WP:BAN evasion.--Isotope23 18:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's him. — Dan | talk 19:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I see the indef-block, but where's the ban? With a verifiable cite, I'll add him to WP:BANNED. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 06:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I assumed he was banned; but I could be wrong about that. Like I said, I'm not all that familiar with Church and the issues surrounding him, but WP:DUCK, that sure looked like a sock.--Isotope23 17:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Quite confused by this. It appears that the original Mike Church account may have been renamed, since it was recreated in May 2006 [30]. This may be the original account Wxlfsr (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log), but the block log for Mike Church remains under his own name [31] where it is clear he was indefinitely blocked. This [32] seems to show that Essjay renamed his account. FWIW I'm quite familiar with this user and his activities; keep in mind that we have at least one vandal (the kid in North Carolina) who deliberately imitates him, so not all of the tagged sockpuppets are actually Mike. Antandrus (talk) 17:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ban clarification

If a person is banned by community consensus (that is, on WP:CN) here on Wikipedia-en, is this ban supposed to extend to Wikimedia Commons? I'm assuming the ban is not supposed to extend there, that if they are to be banned there, Wikimedia Commons can deal with it. --Yamla 15:36, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Nope, each instance of wikipedia is separate. Explained further at WP:BAN. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 15:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:BJAODN

It's been nominated at MFD today - see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense for details. --sunstar net^talk 16:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

That wouldn't have been helpful given the present effort to clean up and reduce; but it's been speedy closed anyway :) --kingboyk 16:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Starwood

The above-named arbitration case has closed and the decision may be found at the link above. Rosencomet is cautioned to avoid aggressive editing of articles when there is a question of conflict of interest. If edit warring or other conflict arises, it may be best to limit editing to talk pages. This notice is given by a clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 17:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Using the vandalism warning templates inappropriately

User:lewisskinner opposes the introduction of a unifield infoxbox for the whole of the UK (Template:infobox UK place and Template talk:Infobox UK place. There has been some opposition to the introduction of this new template, yet it passed consensus on 3 separate occasions after invitations has been posted to all talk pages for the old infoboxes for comments and help with the development at the beginning of the new development.

Lewisskinner has stated he opposes the new template, and, together with Captain Scarlet, he has suggested he will just revert any changes (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sheffield#New infobox.) Captain Scarlet has previously been blocked for a 3RR violation for similar multiple reversions of a infobox use, and now lewisskinner is reverting infoboxes and using the vandalism templates used to warn vandals on User talk:Jhamez84 when he has attempted to chamgeover to the new template. At the moment, the old template has around 0-10 articles that use it, with the vast majority of articles having been changed over. What are the views of admins about the use of the vandal warning templates in this way? For myself, it seems to be inappropriate.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

1. I haven't placed vandalism tags on article so Using the vandalism warning templates inappropriately doesn't have much to do with me.
2. Lewisskinner (talk · contribs) views your repetitive implementation of {{infobox UK place}} as vandalism, you should respect that. He, nor myself, accept your criteria for its implementation nor do we accept how you have dismissed and refused to accomodate our point of view in your implemenation process your comrades and yourself actually asked for [[33]].
3. It is up to members of the project I am part of to decide which template on articles we maintain (not maintain, not own)
4. Your claim that the use of the vandalism warning is inappropriate is a PoV that Jhamez84 (talk · contribs) and Lewiskinner should discuss on their own templates, I'm sure both parties can sort their issues together, I am not part of that process.

This argument is between Lewisskinner (talk · contribs) and Jhamez84 (talk · contribs), let them sort it out. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 15:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the OP's question being brought here (edit: actually, ANI, village pump, or the help desk probably would have been better than here). Vandalism templates should not be used in content disputes like this. Plain and simple. Your WikiProject also does not get to make the decision as to what templates are used on pages relating to the project; the entire Wikipedia community does (WP:OWN). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Captain scarlet, please note that Ddstretch has not suggested that you are using warning templates inappropriately. You were mentioned as part of the wider context. Adambro 17:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to say it's not an argument as Captain Scarlet suggests (I've posted one message to Lewis, and this was to point out that his vandalism tags were inappropriate and a compromise could be made), and the template is not my creation. I've reverted a few of these old infoboxes yes, but this is per the discussions made by a huge amount of editors.

These two users (who appear intertwined), keep changing six or so very specific articles so they not only use a superceded, poorly formatted infobox, out of line with the entirity of England's places articles, but also making content falsifications and breaching Wikipedia's style guides. Lewis has been invited to comment at template talk page but has thusfar declined. I've also posted to Captain Scarlet that I'm interested in working with him, perhaps to draw up a specific map for the region (I can provide a diff if requested), but this was dismissed. I really don't know what the problem is as the newer template is a wholly better (more compatible, flexible, functional) infobox that does nothing to breach the integrity of the article whatsover. It appears to be trolling for trolling's sake, and there are issues of WP:OWN for these articles too. Jhamez84 18:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Please, stay on topic user:Jhamez84.

Additionally, "These two users (who appear intertwined)" - hilarious! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lewisskinner (talk • contribs) 01:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Can I point out that the suggestion that I have engaged in "repetitive implementations" of the new Infobox which has resulted in them being reverted by Captain Scarlet or User:lewisskinner is not the case. There are problems interpreting the use of "you" and "your" throughout Captain Scarlet's message, and they should not be taken to always just refer to myself. I raised this issue here solely because of what I saw was the inappropriate use of the vandalism warnings. My apologies for not choosing the best place, but I was uncertain where it might go.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism warning warning

I've written and User:KillerChihuahua coded a vandalism warning warning template, {{vww}}, as a civil reminder/admonishment to those that use vandalism warnings inappropriately. Don't forget to subst. Bishonen | talk 00:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC).

Do we really need more templates like this? I remember asking another language project if they had a specific template for something, and I got a response that the English Wikipedia is template-crazy.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 00:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

How do you mean "templates like this"? Did you spend those two minutes actually reading it? Bishonen | talk 23:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Possible issues

Mayor Quimby (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

This user was originally blocked by Nishkid64 for violating 3RR at Regina neighbourhoods (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs). Since that time, he has been generally incivil with his original blocking, and repeatedly reposted a rant on his talk page, even after the block expired. I then blocked him indefinitely, and protected his talk page for a few hours so he could calm down. He then sent me this e-mail:

“

This is an abuse of power, there are nor rules governing my personal talk page. I would like for you to pull your block and allow me to run my talk page as I see fit. If you are not willing to do so, I will avail myself of all appeals and report you and request that you are disciplined for your actions.

”

However, an e-mail I received from Alison has me a bit worried.

“

Hi there. Alison here. Just a quick note to say that Mayor Quimby has pmailed me threatening all sorts of actions because of my block (I didn't - that was another admin). Point to note, though - the email address ID'd him as J. Fiacco, which is significant seeing as Pat Fiacco is the current mayor of Regina and he's been revert-warring there. WP:COI, methinks.

”

So, I'm afraid I just blocked the major of the city of Regina, Saskatchewan. Any thoughts?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 01:30, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

This user has now taken to pmailing me though I was not the blocking admin, nor the page protector. I was actually attempting mediation but anyways ... I have just asked him to desist from further pmailing me and to take the matter to WP:RFC or even WP:RFAR instead when his block expires. I will not pubish any of the emails here as that would be wrong, short of saying that I've seen enough evidence to ID him as related to Pat Fiacco. - Alison^☺ 01:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, the point is that as a WP editor, he enjoys the same rights, privileges and responsibilites as any other editor. Being related to the Mayor doesn't afford him any more. If he's updating an article, he needs to be accountable to using the same reliable sources as the rest of us - Alison^☺ 02:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Remind him of WP:LEGAL as well. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 02:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I just received an actual threat, although I'm not sure if "Unblock me or I will use every resources at my disposal to ensure that you are dealt with to the fullest extent of wikipedia discipline and legal consequences." implies off-wiki action.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

A shame to the city of Regina, that the mayor of the city was blocked for engaging in childish behavior on the Internet...anyway, just ignore the threat. They (they?) really have no grounds to sue you upon other than to intimidate you. —²¹⁰physicq (c) 22:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Most certainly; that accompanied with abusive edits like these and removing my legal threat notice are really uncalled for. I thank Pilotguy for dealing with this guy while I was indisposed earlier today.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 00:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Self-identified underage user

[A user] gives a fair amount of information (name, age, school, myspace & bebo pages etc), ostensibly for [an underage user]. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy suggests counselling/oversight, but I'm not sure where to post or who to tell. Advice please. Mr Stephen 20:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC) (sentence modified by Sancho (talk) 06:00, 25 March 2007 (UTC))

The usual MO is to inform the editor, remove the identifying info from her/his talkpage, and delete the page, restoring the innocuous content as the new page. Anchoress 20:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually the only issue of concern seems to be her age (other than the general 'myspace'yness of it - or maybe fanfiction.net), so I think just asking her to remove it would be OK. Anchoress 20:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I've left her a note. Regards, Mr Stephen 21:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I posted a followup and let her know that I'll delete it if she likes so it won't appear in her edit history - Alison^☺ 04:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

(Ahem)   You might want to do something like that to at least part of the first sentence of this section. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 05:41, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Just have a question, is the display of myspace or other blog information generally frowned upon or allowed on Wikipedia userspace? Wooyi 04:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so - lots of editors have links to personal sites or similar. In fact, I imagine it would be preferred to filling one's userpage with all that information... Natalie 04:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Allowed, I'd say. There's even a range of userboxes for advertising your website/LJ/mySpace, etc. - Alison^☺ 05:07, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Mike Tyson.jpg

Could I get an admin to delete this image, as I have now uploaded an image with the same name to the commons, and this image has passed the 7-day mark for deletion. Thanks. Patstuart^talk·edits 06:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• Done! The page Mike Tyson has the new image scaled correctly, far as I can see - Alison^☺ 06:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Thank you!! Patstuart^talk·edits 06:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2 users seem to be just spamming/promoting their comic

User:Phantomlady4 and User:LadyLeaMarie. While Phantom has one edit, almost all of LadyLea's edits seem to be for the user page and the comic itself (which doesn't seem to assert much notability). Seems like the users just made the pages to promote a comic. I don't know if there is any policy against this? I would think there would be. Feel free to move this, if I posted in the wrong space. RobJ1981 07:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, the userpages are pretty obvious violations of WP:USERPAGE. I've deleted the article about the comic per WP:CSD#A7 and issued both users warnings about their userpages. If they don't clean them up, I'll MFD them. -- Merope 08:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Ejaculation sample.jpg

Could someone list this at MediaWiki:Bad_image_list? I've already added the necessary template to the talk page. Thanks. Nardman1 18:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

It already is listed. --Iamunknown 18:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Qmwnebrvtcyxuz

Qmwnebrvtcyxuz (talk · contribs) has been warned recently (on February 20 by myself and March 8 by Cyde) to start contributing to the encyclopedia and stop treating Wikipedia as a social network. If you look at the user's contributions, the last main space edit was October 14th. Since then, in the last 5 months, Qmwnebrvtcyxuz has accumulated over 700 edits almost all to user space. Since the warnings to try to contribute to the project, Qmwnebrvtcyxuz has continued to sign autograph pages and work on his own user page.

People argued on Qmwnebrvtcyxuz's talk page at User_talk:Qmwnebrvtcyxuz#What_are_you_doing_here.3F that blocking him is inappropriate because the user's 8. But at what point do we draw the line then? Do we wait until he's 10 before we force him to stop using this as MySpace? All he's been doing is working on his signature, his user page, and showing off his signature at other autograph books. Any thoughts on this situation? Metros232 21:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Contribution count for "Qmwnebrvtcyxuz" -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 01:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, he's just had a birthday recently, so he's 9 now, not that that's a key difference. His father's username and e-mail are on his userpage, so you might want to raise the matter with him as well. Newyorkbrad 21:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I say leave him be. Hes 8 and by the time he has anything useful to contribute to the project he will be a wikimarkup wizard. Mike _{(T C)} 22:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

We should offer him the compliment of treating him like a grownup, and expect him to abide by the same policies as grownups. If he's not ready for Wikipedia now, he can come back later, and he'll be welcome then if he's willing to contribute to articles. EdJohnston 22:48, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Ditto what Mike said. If he had no edits to articles at all whatsoever, I'd be concerned. - RedWordSmith 22:49, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

"That's a hard question. I don't answer hard questions."
– US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

Oh, to be a Supreme Court Justice right now. As much as I might hate having to answer hard questions, I hate worse having to give hard cold answers. My soft sympathetic side, like that of others above, agrees with letting an nine-year-old learn-by-playing until he's able to contribute to the project. Aw gosh, isn't that cute. At the same time, I'm keenly aware that the moment an exemption for nine-year-olds becomes policy, we will suddenly learn that every poorly-behaving user is also nine years old. Among the many things Wikipedia is not, may I suggest we include long-term playground, day-care, or club-house? Everyone starts out new; we extend everyone a few (sometimes quite a few) chances to try things out, experiment, make mistakes, learn by doing. But, what, two years? Four? How long until Not-MySpace kicks in? I'm sorry, I really truly am, but MySpace is thattaway. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 23:51, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• Why isn't he blocked under the username policy? JuJube 23:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

  It passed RFCN Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 23:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

He does have some article contributions, from last summer, when he presumably had more wiki-time and energy (and perhaps a collaborator). Newyorkbrad 23:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that RFCN debate sort of failed to come to a reasonable conclusion. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 23:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Other than the stated articles, most of the other edits to articles within the user's first 50 edits were removing "expert needed" templates from articles, which doesn't really constitute constructive editing, IMHO. MSJapan 00:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• The name is non-random, not even apparently random, if you look at a QWERTY keyboard. Top row left-to-right, interleaved with bottom row right-to-left, until you run out of paired letters. Clearly ordered, non-random pattern. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 00:12, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

You can say it is not random, but it is apparently random. The first 20 digits of Pi aren't random, they sure look like it though. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Yet 3.141592653589793238462643383 hasn't been username-blocked, so apparently that isn't "apparently random", either. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 01:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

And the purpose of usernames—and the policy against random ones—is so that identifying them and recalling them is feasible. —Centrx→talk • 04:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Once the pattern of Q→U interleaved with M→Z (or Z←M) is seen, it's easily remembered and reproduced. Left hand on top row at Q, right hand on bottom row at M, taking turns and slowly crossing wrists. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 01:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• Has anyone noticed that he's not actually contributing to the encyclopedia, and just social networking? No constructive edits since October of last year? It's time for a "time-out" block for this kiddy. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 07:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with that assessment, however, it appears that it's not necessarily a popular opinion to hold...so that's why I brought it here for comment. Metros232 15:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia is a serious project, boys. No place for kiddies.--Kamikaze 16:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
      • I wouldn't go that far. It's an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, that includes "kiddies." We don't mind "kiddies" editing, so long as they're held to the same standards as everyone else, Metros232 16:35, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
        • • Ok, so if we hold everyone to the same standards, then we should block this kid just like we block full-age users that use wikipedia as a social network. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 20:45, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Seriously, you don't think a 9 year kiddie can properly understand and apply the same standards as people past their 20s. This is only an example. Wikipedia is full of many. Just look at this sweet little fella--Kamikaze 16:44, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
• I agree with Ben, Swatjester and EdJohnston: we are not a playground, the rules apply to everybody. If he doesn't contribute to the encyclopedia, let's just block him so that he may play somewhere else. Sandstein 18:14, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Please don't block me. I like Wikipedia very much. Qmwnebrvtcyxuz 13:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conclusions?

Can any conclusions be made from this thread? Metros232 03:46, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

That we can either have a set of rules for adults and a set of rules for kids, or we can enforce the same rules for everyone equally. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 04:17, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with that conclusion, but from looking at the thread I see differing opinions on the answer to that quandry. I think we can conclude that, yes, Qmwnebrvtcyxuz has been relatively unproductive for the encyclopedia. We can also conclude that if he were held to the standards, he'd probably be blocked. So, what from here? Do we hold him to the standards or do we ignore the standards because he's 9? Metros232 04:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The conclusion is that we ask the guy to start making more encyclopedic contributions. If he doesn't then we ask him to utilize myspace instead. Btw, this edit on his sig page seems a bit problematic. (→Netscott) 04:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

We've asked him several times already and since then he's only racked up more unproductive user space edits but no encyclopedic contributions. Since I warned him to start being more productive on February 20, he's made over 150 edits, only 3 were not to the user space (2 were to the RFC on his user name, 1 was to join the Wikiproject on...Userspaces). He was also warned about 2 weeks ago by Cyde to be more productive. He was also informed of this discussion but has ignored it and continues to edit in his sandbox and other user spaces. So he knows what's expected of him, yet he still continues, so I think that another warning is pointless. Metros232 04:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Well do like his user page says and contact his (apparent) father who warned that this might be a possibility given his age. (→Netscott) 04:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The conclusion we can draw is that there is no benefit to Wikipedia in banning him, but a possible benefit to letting him be and seeing if he finds something to contribute to at some point. Unless some positive result will come from banning him, this entire thread is just a waste of time. There are better ways to show your annoyance with people who don't take Wikipedia seriously than hounding a 9-year-old. Milto LOL pia 08:54, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

On what premises do you draw that conclusion? There is a positive benefit to banning him: we're keeping to policy and not making exceptions for violators. How many warnings do you want to give him? He's had two warnings already to stop, and he knows about this discussion. From a public policy standpoint, there is a potentially high cost to wikipedia to allowing him to stay (dilution of standards) and a relatively low potential benefit with a low probability of benefit over cost. However in regards to banning him, there is a guaranteed benefit of relatively high benefit, at negligible cost with extremely low probability of cost greater than benefit. Thus, a rational leader would block him. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 17:15, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

What positive benefit is there to him staying around? He's violating Wikipedia policy by using this as a social network. So basically, we're hosting his social and fun time and he's giving us nothing in return. Metros232 13:33, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

We've had this exchange before, and my answer again is that any mainspace edit he may make would be helpful. He should simply be encouraged to find an article to edit. Now I've given you the courtesy of an answer Metros, maybe you'd care to do the same. Milto LOL pia 21:58, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I did give you an answer...he's not being productive, he's breaking policy, therefore, a block is appropriate. We're not "picking on a 9 year old" as you're making it seem. We're carrying out the policies as they should be carried out. Metros232 22:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

What I mean is not so much how would this be inline with policy (although I understand that the block policy only applies to users actively disrupting), but what benefit would it be to the encyclopedia? Would it improve any articles? Would it stop any disruptive editing on discussion pages or policy pages? Would it prevent any disruptive behavior? Milto LOL pia 22:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The answer is that it's part of hte policy. If you disagree, then you disagree with the policy. I'm more concerned here with the actual enforcement of the policy than the policy. Metros232 03:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

If he was 25-years-old would you object to action against him? Metros232 13:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought: everyone below 15 years old should be forbidden using the internet. I can hardly get accumosted to the idea of treating some 9 year old kid as equal.--Kamikaze 16:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if that's meant as a serious contribution, but there is at least one 14-year-old who is a well-respected contributor and administrator, so that comment is not the least bit helpful. Newyorkbrad 22:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's a reason children are not treated as equal by grown-ups in real world. I, for one, have little trust in their abilities. I'd suggest you should tell me what you just told me when you will have that 14-year-old will become president. To be ontopic though, I agree we should block him.--Kamikaze 13:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I've put this comment in the wrong place, but I haven't found an instance where this user has directly damaged Wikipedia in the serious manner that some users have. A second point is that Wikipedia is partly a community, after all, and this helps people get in the mood for editing. Mrug² 16:29, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a social networking site. That might have been repeated so many times that it's become a cliche, but it's still true. -- llywrch 17:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Please don't block me. I like Wikipedia very much. Qmwnebrvtcyxuz 13:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

But once again, you still haven't provided anything to the main space since October. Metros232 12:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Qmwnebrvtcyxuz blocked

For complete refusal to contribute to the encyclopedia since October, Qmwnebrvtcyxuz has been blocked from editing. He has been given ample time to stop concentrating on the user space edits and edit productively in the main space, but he has ignored such warnings each time. The block is set for 1 month. When the block is up, I strongly suggest that he edit articles and not user space or autograph pages. Metros232 20:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Since October? That sounds more like someone who was not here to contribute to the project at all.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 20:54, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The last of his 84 mainspace edits (of his 1100+ edits) occurred on October 14. Metros232 20:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I was actually hoping to come here and try and save the editor from a block but this is a totally unacceptable editing pattern, I do feel harsh because of his age, but the only thing he's contributing to is autograph books, and this page seams a totally irresponsible use of userspace. Maybe in one month the user will come back and edit constructively, however I very much doubt it Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 21:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd never have done it myself, but I strongly support the blocking of users who refuse to contribute to the encyclopedia. If they want somewhere to play, they can find somewhere else. As we've spent so much time debating this user when we could have spent that time doing other things, I do not disagree with the blocking. --Deskana (talk) 21:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update

Please refer to User talk:Padawer. Padawer, who is Q..'s father, has just learned of the block on his son, having apparently been AFK for a few days while we were trying to reach him. He is also, apparently, autoblocked at the moment. I have advised him that since his computer his shared with a 9-year-old minor, someone will e-mail him to get the information required to unblock Padawer, which should be done forthwith, as he's done nothing wrong. I'm useless dealing with autoblocks, so will someone please attend to that.

Once Padawer is able to participate in the discussion, we can figure out what to do next. Personally I suspect the point has been made and if both are unblocked, the two will resume contributing. I certainly see no harm in trying. Newyorkbrad 00:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Harrassment by posting my real name and my mother's maiden name

I would like to know what to do about a mesasage that has been posted on Template talk:Infobox UK place#UK county infobox maps in which a user, User:Cwb61 who seems to think he is dispute with me, has posted my real name, and my mother's maiden name (something which can be used to "verify" I am who i claim to be by various organisations). Neither information is available on Wikipedie, nor was it relevant to the discussion, save that it was in response to me (silently) correcting the spelling of my surname which is part of my i.d. when writing a previous reply. Althopugh it may seem minor to some, the fact that this user has searched out this information, and posted it, when it is not relevant to a discussion on wikipedia, is quite unnerving, and I feel action needs to be taken quickly about this.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:54, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm handling this. I'll check with you in 5 minutes. --Deskana (talk) 18:59, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

It's now gone from the edit history. I'll look at the edits in more detail and try to decide what to do with the user in question. --Deskana (talk) 19:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

See this. --Deskana (talk) 19:03, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

You do have a lot of personal information on your userpage, so it's probably pretty easy to get information on you. John Reaves (talk) 19:13, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll remove it, then. But the issue is that the information was not relevant to the discussion, and I chose not to include it on wikipedia. So, why is that user seeking it out and then posting it? I must express my thanks to Deskana in removing the message promptly.  DDStretch  (talk) 19:18, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I've seconded the warning on the user's talkpage and will also be watching for some explanation or promise that this will never happen again. This sort of harassment is not acceptable. Newyorkbrad 19:23, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the action on this. However, there does seem to me to be "unfinished business". First of all, the user requested his page was deleted. That seemed to me to resolve one issue, and yet leave unresolved another. It seems that the user has now re-creatde his talk page. Consequently, I wonder if the user has apologised and/or made any promise not to repeat this harrassment? This was one of the issues that Newyorkbrad mentioned. Without such an undertaking, the good faith of the user and his actions would seem to be still in a state of unresolved uncertainty. I do not say this in any attempt to unecessarily prolong the incident, but I do think until some kind of undertaking is given by this user, it will leave the situation unhelpfully unresolved.  DDStretch  (talk) 09:33, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Oops. We're not normally supposed to delete user talk pages (userpages and user subpages are all right) except under special circumstances. See this guideline. One of the reasons is that the user can take advantage of it to disappear a history of warnings, as has apparently happened here. Deskana, was there a special reason? If not, might I suggest, now that the user has returned, that it would be a good idea to recreate the history. Bishonen | talk 03:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC).

Agreed. I will undelete the user talk page. --Deskana (talk) 17:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

But the main point of my additional comment remains unmentioned: that the user was allowed to return and was apparently unblocked after only a few hours without there being any requirement for undertaking not to repeat the harrassing behaviour nor any requirement for an apology, which Newyorkbrad (who agreed with me) should be needed. Indeed Newyorkbrad subsequently added a message to the talk page asking the user for this, but this would now be removed if the talk page is recreated. If so, the request needs to be added again. If not, the new content needs to be appended to the recreated page. The user concerned has returned at least once since asking for his account to be deleted, which had the effect of avoiding having to give any undertaking or apology, until I alerted Newyorkbrad.  DDStretch  (talk) 19:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I was talking to the user via e-mail, attempting to facilitate the unblocking of his IP address, which was autoblocked. I realise now that this wasn't clear to anyone else, but the user did promise me that he'd never do anything like that again. I understand the posting of personal information is a serious "offense" (as it were), but since he's promised never to do it again, and the circumstances of the previous posting weren't extreme, I believe this user should be given a second chance. I understand he's apologised to you now? --Deskana (talk) 15:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes he has, and I see you were wise enough to accept the apology. Good on you :-) --Deskana (talk) 15:46, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks for sorting it out. Sorry for the misunderstanding, but of course I wasn't aware of your email communications with the user - my apologies. He has aopologized to all involved now, and has also given undertakings not to repeat the activity he did. So of course I must now accept and I am happy to accept them and now consider the matter completely resolved and over.  DDStretch  (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Partisan borderline-wheelwarring

Sorry this is long. I posted these originally at WP:RFC/POLICIES but I'm told that doing so rarely garners a response because that page is used mostly to "advertise" new proposed guidelines and stuff. I didn't get a response at WP:PUMP either. Things have changed since then, so I've intregrated some updates, and I've tried to link to as many #-spots in talk as seemed useful and relevant without making it look like an ArbCom case.

• Unprotection of WP:RS (and perhaps others): Page was protected along with WP:ATT on the basis of "stability" which is not a recognized reason for page protection at WP:PROT; a later reason that "editwarring is immiment" was brought up to preserve the protection, but there is no actual evidence of editwarring at RS at all; rather, there is consensus to restore material that was deleted without consensus before the protection - even the person who reverted that restoration (by an admin) immediately before the block agrees with the consensus and said they did the revert for the same novel "stability" reason. At both WP:RS talk and in a related, larger thread at WP:ATT talk in which an admin says there is no consensus to impose these full-protects, various parties (self included) challege the blocks as unilateral, lacking consensus and against policy and process, and that disputes about the future of WP:ATT have nothing to do with whether the policies and guidelines that were melded to create WP:ATT, and which have been officially restored to active status, need to be protected from editing. WP:RFPP seem reluctant to get involved on this particular issue, though not some of the related ones below. The issues raised also extend to the protection of WP:V and WP:NOR. So, broader input is sought on whether any of these page protections should remain, and whether WP:RS in particular should be unprotected immediately. Admin Centrx (who declined to act against the protection for conflict of interest reasons, because he had just been editing one of the related pages) pointed out in user talk that the protection has gone on for quite some time. It was only "intended to last a day or two at most" according to its imposer. We are now on day three. As the protection wasn't ever anything but one person's preference to begin with (later backed by an unreasonably strident editor (cf. Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources#PLEASE - NO CHANGES RIGHT NOW), I ask that these protections be lifted immediately as radically unjustified, especially at WP:RS, though the rest of them as well. Whether intentional or not, the protections are serving only one side of the debate, and in the case of RS have thwarted the restoration of removed-without-consensus material from that policypage.
• {{Disputedpolicy}} on WP:ATT. Some parties to the debates relating to WP:ATT (which is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Attribution, Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Poll and Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Community discussion among probable other places) believe that the {{Disputedpolicy}} tag should be placed on WP:ATT because of its disputed status as a policy (which is what the template is for, not for disputes over what a policy happens to say about something). Proponents of WP:ATT of course reject this idea, despite the fact that the first item in the poll is whether the merge has consensus at all, and a later one is whether to mark WP:ATT inactive (i.e. {{Historical}}.) After discussion (with no opposition that can explain itself), the template was added by an admin from WP:RFPP who is not a party to the WP:ATT disputes. A party to the disputes then immediately reverted it, with a rationale that actually has nothing to do with the template in question. WP:RFPP has been asked to restore it. Note that these are all admins at this point, since no one else can edit. Reverting the good-faith actions of an admin responding to well-justified editprotected requests at WP:RFPP, which are supported on the target page's talk page, and justifing the revert with a rationale that does not even match the facts relating to the template in question but certainly serves (I'll presume unintentionally) to advance the reverter's preferred interpretation and "message to be sent" about the page, strikes me as inappropriate, and I ask that the template be restored. No bad faith alleged; I think that there's simply a can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees problem going on in WP:ATT, and a certain amount of overcontrol (I do not allege WP:OWN, as I feel that would in fact be a bad faith claim), which is readily observable on the talk page there and in its edit history (and those of the related poll and community discussion pages, and related policies like WP:RS, etc.) Update: Someone else has separately called for this tagging.

• Protection of WP:ATT without {{Protected}} tag. Article was protected pending outcome of a poll that itself has been very contentious and does not appear near to proceeding. Req. made at WP:RFPP to tag the article with {{Protected}}, which is not only normal but highly appropriate in this case because WP:ATT is heavily disputed as to its status (see also clarification of frequent misquoting of Jimbo in his official capacity on this status matter, here) and as to its particulars (and {{Protected}} specifically references dispute as the defensible rationale for the protection under WP:PROT). An RFPP admin responded by doing the requested tagging. A party to the disputes at WP:ATT removed the tag. RFPP admin replaced it, dispute participant removed it again, and replaced it with a POV statement of the situation that is strongly disagreed with by other parties to the debates. The relevant RFPP material is here. The {{Protected}} tag was put back on this one (for the third time), and debate partcipants reminded to leave the article alone while it is protected, since the purpose of page protection is not to create an admins-only editing environment. As with the other template reversion, the repeated deletion of this tag looks to be heading straight into South Central Corewarland. I ask that the page be watched and that reversion of this template (or of {{Disputedpolicy}} after it is restored) be undone swiftly if it recurs, with discussions engaged in to try to defuse the "revert everything at all costs to protect WP:ATT" attitude that seems to be prevailing.

Again, I'm not alleging bad faith on anyone's part; I think that everyone involved at WP:ATT on all sides (and there are more than two) wants what is best for Wikipedia, but there is way too much editwarry over-control going on, and abuse of powerful remedies like page full-protection, and treatment of page protection as an admins-only editing haven for establishing a sweeping POV about whether WP:ATT is disputed at all and if so what the nature of the disputes are. I'm getting to where I almost no longer have an opinion on those latter matters because the handling of the situation is far more serious to me than what that handling is trying to "manage". Basically, two or three individuals are exerting an enormous amount of control over all of these pages; they have a significant investment of time and effort into WP:ATT, which I laud them for but which I feel has made them a tad too partisan when it comes to simple matters that have really rather neutral bases, such as when and why to protect a page, whether to make up inventive new reasons to explain full-prot status instead of using the standard template for this, and avoidance of a template that does nothing but let other Wikipedians know that a dispute has arisen and that they might want to participate in its resolution (cf. complaints throughout the relevant talk pages by numerous editors that they felt "blindsided" by the WP:ATT merger in the first place.) The situation is causing secondary disruption as well; editors with legitimate points are not being addressed civilly at times, when their concerns are addressed at all, and are becoming less civil and more strident and argumentative themselves, as they see their issues (some of which I do not agree with myself, just to be clear) ignored and shunted off to archive pages before they are resolved, but meanwhile pretty much ordered not to move their own material from one page to another, among other control-and-spin issues that could be raised, but probably don't need to be at this point. PS: The blocks are also preventing the application of appropriate merge tags, an issue recentlly raised at WP:RS talk. Someone else has raised this concern separately.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC) Updated 18:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

"Please make your comments concise. Administrators are less likely to pay attention to long diatribes." — CharlotteWebb 08:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Noted. I just wasn't sure if brevity would be appreciated over evidentiary linking and history, since giving the links saves people time digging around for them in histories manually. I don't come here often, so please forgive me if I got the balance wrong. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a summary would help? —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-25 02:00Z

It's all coming out below. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:40, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The summary is that all of Wikipedia:Attribution, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Reliable sources have been summarily frozen (i.e. protected) in the ostensible interest of having "stable" versions while it is discussed what to do about the general situation with these pages, i.e. the merger and aborted superceding by Wikipedia:Attribution of the other three. This is a pre-emptive (or non-emptive) protection despite no vandalism or edit warring that would warrant it (e.g. under WP:PROT), and if the justification is accepted it would entail the protection of these pages for several weeks more, given that the proposed poll has not even been finalized.

In addition, administrators who are deeply involved parties, specifically those responsible for the merger, have edited these protected pages to remove the standard {{Protection}} tag that states, e.g. that "protection is not an endorsement of the current page version", and have removed a {{Disputedpolicy}} tag added to Wikipedia:Attribution on the grounds that it was not disputed, when the person who added the tag evidently did dispute it, and when the deeply involved party is not in a position to neutrally make a decision on that matter. —Centrx→talk • 04:33, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

One possible option is to make copies of the pages that are frozen and stable, putting them somewhere else, while allowing the editing of the main pages, as is normal for a wiki process. —Centrx→talk • 04:36, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I just unlocked WP:RS via a detailed request on WP:RFPP, and have received a message from User:Jossi, an involved admin on these pages, who continues to edit them despite my asking him to not, why I did. I want to stay as neutral as I can here, but I'm finding it incredibly difficult with this kind of thing going on. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 19:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

NB: Jossi reinstated the protection immediately. I've placed editprotecteds on this and the other non-ATT pages so that hopefully someone can fix the very simple things that need to be fixed, which actually serve the interests of the WP:ATT partisans if they would just realize it. These are: a simple textual fix to RS that will make it agree with ATT again, which is something WP:ATT proponents want in the first place and have been insisting is the case but are simply incorrect on that matter because they won't just go look; and merge tags - the entire WP:ATT fiasco happening right now is largely because of the lack of merge tags the first time around. This is so simple and basic that my mind is reeling from the WP:PANIC resistance being met by these simple no-brainer fixes. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I did not "edit" any protected page. I only placed a header explaining the rationale for the protection. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Thus, you edited it. You also reverted the addition of {{disputed}}, and you reprotected the page after I unprotected it. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 19:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

jossi is definitely revert-warring on the disputedpolicy/policy tag on WP:ATT, which I find really discouraging because it is this kind of intransigence that's led to the whole debate there right now. I'm told that admins who edit war over a protected document are wheel-warring, so I hope jossi can calm down and discuss this in a friendlier manner. Xiner (talk, email) 19:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

NB: Slimvirgin also participated in that revertwarring, and has been problematic in other ways that are pretty self-evident just skimming the related talk pages and edit summaries. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:40, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I apologize if that is the impression. There is no dispute. See Jimbo's last comment:

I very much support a straw poll. In the meantime, after an excellent discussion with SlimVirgin, we hammered out a compromise until we can have a fuller discussion. What the pages say now is that WP:ATT is canonical, and WP:V and WP:NOR exist as separate pages to more fully describe those. My big beef with this merger is that we often need to send people to a page like WP:NOR which explains in a rich and persuasive way what the policy is about and why it is a good idea. This involves sometimes saying things which overlap with parts of WP:V. (They are not the same idea!) The combined page provides a handy way to keep policy consistent and have a tight presentation of what policy actually is. The separate pages can be more detailed and understandable.--Jimbo Wales 21:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

There are users that are disrupting an important discussion on this subject by placing spurious notices in ANI pages. Please do not encourage them further. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:41, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and unprotect WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:ATT, and let the chaos ensue while the discussion about the future of these pages is ongoing. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:50, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that being a justification for the protection. The above would seem to be a satisfactory conclusion to the problem. I haven't been following along on the talk pages of WP:ATT or Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Community discussion but there seems to be a lot of confusion about what the issues are, mixed with a healthy dose of "a) Why exactly are you pestering everyone on their watchlist about this? Spam is not a good thing. b) Who gives a shit? Policy around here tends to be full of nonsense anyway, we have WP:IAR, and people will continue to act exactly as they do already regardless of what is policy or where is written" and numerous queries of the general sort common to policy talk pages irrelevant to the merge, about "how does policy apply to this article". If no one is edit warring, problems are best solved by "the wiki process" of open editing. Certainly, after 3 days passions could not be so inflamed as to cause heated edit warring, if they were in the first place. —Centrx→talk • 19:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

As I said, go ahead and unprotect, I just hope I am wrong about the chaos that will ensue. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

There was no chaos before protection, so why would there be afterwards? If there is, the pages can be protected. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 20:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

You may have been missing on the actions of certain editors... in any case, do what you see fit. I support the protection of RS, V, NOR and ATT for the reasons already outlined, if you and Centrx see this differently, go ahead and unprotect. Just keep an eye on these pages after you do. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:18, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The pages began to descend into chaos, along with the mayhem and controversy on Talk:ATT, before I protected them. I firmly believe that unprotecting them at this time, when we are trying to achieve a modicum of stability to be able to cast votes in the straw poll requested by Jimbo, is wrong. The objects we are voting about should remain as stable as possible so we know what the vote is about. Unprotection now, with heated spirits all around, will lead to even more disruption and chaos than we already have with our core content policies, and will clearly impede the mandated voting process. Crum375 20:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Not really, there wasn't any more editing (just plain editing) between the merger was undone and the protection than there was any other time. In fact, there was a lot more editing the day before the merger was undone. —Centrx→talk • 20:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

This is good reasoning; let us hope the discussion and poll will be soon. There clearly are some editors who do dispute the policy status of WP:ATT. I am not one of them; and I doubt there are enough of them to refute the wide consensus on the matter. But the existence of such consensus is one of the things Jimbo doubts. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:36, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

That can be done without protection. If there is edit warring, the pages can be protected. —Centrx→talk • 20:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I would support keeping protected for the moment. I can confirm Crum375's statement that the pages began to descend into chaos. So much so that I've found it difficult to join in the discussion, even though I'm interested. It would be worse if they were unprotected. I've found in the past that when a page is protected, it almost people to begin to discuss problems. ElinorD (talk) 20:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

That being said, at the very least keeping the editing to a minimum on the protected pages (templates included) will probably help folk to find the situation more tenable. Bitnine 20:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree; I have declined all the {{editprotected}} tags that were placed on them. CMummert · talk 20:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Qmwnebrvtcyxuz and Padawer update

An update on the Qmwnebrvtcyxuz situation, near the top of the page, can be found at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Update. I'm posting there to keep the thread together, and here to keep the update from being lost. Could someone please send an e-mail to User:Padawer as suggested there. Thanks. Newyorkbrad 00:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BJAODN

Kingboyk and I thought the time had come to prune the 'pedia of the sixty pages of acutely unfunny vandalism preserved under the general heading of BJAODN. Not remove BJAODN, a collection of genuinely if often unintentionally funny edits, but the 59 subsequent archives. The mechanism we employed was to MfD the current one, because it did not seem worthwhile tagging sixty articles if there was clear consensus. That didn't work: a lot of people think we want to delete all BJAODN (we don't, just prune it down to a rational size); some people want it kept outright as "harmless" or whatever, some say they won't advocate deletion of one, only if the whole lot is bundled. It's a mess. We'd like to know what, of anything, is the best way forward. We are both still of the opinion that keeping copies of many hundreds of decisively atrocious edits, the majority of which do not rise above the level of childish, is probably not worth the server resources committed to it. Plus, the insane mountain of crap makes it hard to sot the genuinely creative and funny ones, which was the point. I also feel that some editors deliberately introduce nonsense in the hope of making BJAODN, but that's an aside.

The debate is at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Close Encounters of the Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense Kind if anyone wants to pitch in there, but there may be a better place to discuss this. Guy (Help!) 15:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

What an awfully funny suggestion. It's been done successfully before, you know. But you should be having this discussion at the BJAODN talk page, where most of the people in favor of deletion hang out... they can find a creative way to blank and redirect the current page-lot. +sj + 20:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

We should just BE BOLD and boldly remove all the unfunny stuff that does not belong there. Perform a merge, clean out all the useless stuff, keep the genuinely funny (1 or 2 pages enough). Make a bold editorial decision. The problem with current BJAODN is that it is not edited in a Wiki manner: anyone can add anything, but then it stays, and no-one bothers to delete what does not belong. That's un-Wiki. If it becomes an accumulation of dross, just clean it. 131.111.8.97 16:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for nominating this gross violation of WP:NOT, it is like a childhood stuffed animal that is just not appropriate at big boy school. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 16:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Nonetheless I need some guidance and some guidance fast. Close and relist all? Make a policy debate? Ask for holy intervention? Leave it running per Guy's original suggestion? I don't know how best to proceed, honestly :) --kingboyk 16:43, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Some or most of these will honestly need cleaning as GFDL violations (no attribution). Tracking down the original articles for most will be near impossible. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It is possible; just find when the file was copied and pasted, check the closing administrator's deletion log for times around that time, then check those pages; unless, of course, the BJAODN addition wasn't from a now-deleted page. But the real questions is: do we really freakin' care enough to go to all of that trouble? --Iamunknown 16:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

There are ~60 pages chock full of these. I for one am not volunteering to take that on :P -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Just kill everything from now-deleted pages then, except those that are funny enough to merit undeletion and moving to a subpage of BJAODN. The rest can be found easily enough if it's really worth it. --tjstrf talk 17:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Another option is to give interested parties say a week to salvage and legally source a few "best of" pages, and speedy delete the rest after that deadline as copyvios/housekeeping. Flameproof pants will be required. --kingboyk 17:05, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

OK. Who's game? And, perhaps more importantly, would anyone object to this approach? We don't want any wheel warring. --kingboyk 18:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Salvaging all the funny stuff and getting rid of the rest is probably worthwhile. Because the legal situation is so confused, it makes sense to only try to sort out the history of things people actually care about. To prevent rows in such cases, maybe all the remaining stuff could be merged together into the history of one giant BJAODN unfunny dump page? --ais523 18:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Give folks who want this kept (some of whom are admins) sufficient time to make a "rolling" page for new contribs and a handful of archives, then history merge everything else (60 archives, old special collections) into the history of the main BJAODN page. Nothing is actually deleted and no old unsourced edits stay current. Besides, I like doing history merges :) --kingboyk 18:17, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Shall we advertise this solution on the VPs and in the Signpost? --Iamunknown 18:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm in favour of this solution, but I'll wait for a few more responses. I will of course close the MFD if we take this route (or another admin may withdraw it on my behalf if I'm not around). --kingboyk 18:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I note with enthusiasm that ais523 is endorsing this view too, having previously recommended "keep". That's positive. Would you ais523 perhaps be interested in taking the admin role in sorting out a few compilation pages to keep? (somebody needs to have access to deleted pages). I of course undertake to do at least some, perhaps all, of the deleting and history merging. --kingboyk 18:35, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

(dedent) It's not quite clear to me what you're asking; if you want me to have a look through recent BJAODN to try to identify some things that are actually funny, I might identify some things, but I suspect I'm not as easily amused as many people here. If you want me to help try to track down the GFDL history for some salvaged BJAODN'd material, I'd be happy to do that if and when I get the ability to view deleted pages on Wikipedia (I'd prefer it to trawling through the admittedly often-low-quality BJAODN). --ais523 18:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I just assumed you were an admin :) so, you don't have the ability to view deleted pages after all :( Never mind, I'm sure some help cleaning would be appreciated. --kingboyk 20:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Surely creative solutions can be found. Put most of it in User space and/or at wikia, perhaps? WAS 4.250 17:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the specifics, but I imagine that I would not approve of userfying patently vandalistic and/or stupid contributions that would normally go to BJAODN; the precedent of userfying such material is not one I would support setting. Even if we transwikiied it to Wikia, that would not change the fact the material within BJAODN is a violation of the copyright owned by anyone who contributes to Wikipedia unless the revision history was provided. --Iamunknown 17:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

While I'd like to keep BJAODN as an entity, I must also say it is one of the worst organized page on wikipedia project space. Reorganization is urgent. In all 60 pages, it is impossible for a reder to refer a specific joke and all these BJAODN entries are poorly sorted. Wooyi 23:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a certain irony that this is being discussed on a noticeboard that has over three hundred archive subpages holding old material. What is the harm in having so many archive pages for BJAODN? Bryan Derksen 00:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Excellently put. +sj + 20:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I am almost always in favor of Guy's suggestions, but I must confess that this one flew over my head. I just don't see the big deal. BJAODN serves a purpose just like the list of stupid edit wars serves a purpose. And yes this was "just" the archives, but still. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 06:21, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

If I wasn't clear above, I think BJAODN and its archives are delightful. +sj + 20:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GFDL

BJAODN is part of a bigger problem that needs to be solved sooner rather than later. That is, most copy and paste merges around the project never include author information. Sure, this information can be found most of the time by doing lots of painful work by hand (checking individual diffs, contrib histories, undeletion logs). Sure, there is pretty much no chance of legal problems. But, it's a problem we should look at. Should we care that most merges are incredibly sloppy? Should we care that pages like BJAODN don't have the author information easily accessible? Should we care about hunting down the many "merge and deletes" that have been done in the past? Should we care about the lost edit history of all the articles edited prior to User:Conversion script? Should we be really fucking worried about this? --- RockMFR 02:47, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The only reason to care is is we think that there is a moral or legal reason to be concerned over the original contributors' copy-left copyright requirement that their name continue to be associated with their specific contribution in question. So ok, guys speak up. How maay here intend to sue (or claim a moral whatever) if your contibutions to BJAODN are hidden behind page moves? Are you using your real name? Does that make a difference? We can delete your contribution to BJAODN if you feel that being hid behind page moves is a problem. WAS 4.250 08:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

This problem is easily solved. Whenever I introduce content that I found from another page I use the edit summary to provide a link to the permanent versions of pages I've integrated. Look at the edit summary on the left I utilize when creating Template:TOChidden. Folks just need to be educated about doing that. (→Netscott) 14:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

...are you attempting to solicit a legal threat from some unwary user, WAS 4.250? Other than that, no comment. --Iamunknown 19:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The issue of BJAODN and GFDL was discussed here. One of the quotes, from User:Andrewa was "IANAL either but IMO any author who tried to assert their copyright over this stuff would get laughed out of court." Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Funny how folks can bend the GFDL to keep a load of old crap, yet those of us who want a sensible fair use policy over album sleeves get told to start a new wiki. We're either strict on copyright or we're not. --kingboyk 14:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The all-important difference is that BJAODN is not part of the encyclopaedia. Chris cheese whine 15:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

And thus should be significantly pruned. After all, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, isn't it? --Iamunknown 19:47, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

It is indeed, and a collection of user pages, and policy pages, and other miscellany, and pages that introduce joy or capture the lighter side of work on the site. +sj + 20:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and the community surrounding its construction. BJAODN is a part of the latter, but not the former. Chris cheese whine 01:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Best of BJAODN

I should point out that there already are five pages of Wikipedia:Best of BJAODN. Arguably these are funnier than the regular sixty-one pages. A good way to start this would be to zap the 61 and stick with those 5. >Radiant< 08:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a wonderful contribution to a joke book wiki, not sure how useful it is to an encyclopedia. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Please stop discussing deleting parts of BJAODN here, where its contributors and editors are unlikely to see the conversation, and discuss it here. +sj + 20:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• It's a good idea to just keep the best and delete all the rest. Wooyi 15:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The "best of" aren't really that good at all. They are exactly the same as the other BJAODN pages. There are no barriers to entry for any of the BJAODN pages, so deleting a subset of them would be entirely arbitrary. --- RockMFR 17:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Right. --SJ

Yeah, I think it's time to get rid of BJAODN. I used to love BJAODN and even spent a fair amount of time on it, but in the intervening year, I've come to realize that it's a rather large waste of time (it has too much bureaucracy, especially regarding naming of pages), and it really does have nothing to do with the encyclopedia. --Cyde Weys 20:39, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• Well neither do Wikipedia:Sandbox/Jokes, Wikipedia:Sandbox/Bands, Wikipedia:Sandbox/Arguments, Wikipedia:Sandbox/Flash Game Contest, Wikipedia:Sandbox/Poetry/Peices, Wikipedia:Sandbox/Random Vandalization Page, Wikipedia:Sandbox/Thesandboxisgreat, Wikipedia:Sandbox/scienter, Wikipedia:Sandbox/lkd, Wikipedia:Sandbox/revert war, Wikipedia:Sandbox/World's Longest Poem, Wikipedia:Sandbox/Wikistory/Stargate, ... Uncle G 04:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Wow, I didn't know we had this many subpages of the sandbox. Some of them can probably be deleted. --Iamunknown 04:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image tags at User talk:Conversion script

Someone might want to keep an eye on User talk:Conversion script, which it seems is getting copyright tag messages for images it might have uploaded. A few images have already been deleted, but this one remains: Diving cylinder oxygen label

Curiously, the file history reads: (del) (cur) 20:56, 6 March 2004 . . Conversion script (Talk) . . 500×375 (17,466 bytes) ((recovered file, missing upload log entry))

I'll leave this to someone who actually knows what they are doing when it comes to images, and the conversion bot. Risker 06:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Risker isn't going to take a risk in fixing a problem? Hbdragon88 07:39, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

That is a Dev Bot. The MediaWiki Developers run it. Just leave it alone. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 05:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More than a hundred problem images left to tag

Hi, I need some help. Johnbrillantes (talk · contribs) has uploaded more than 100 images using either {{PD-Philippines}} or {{PD-user}}, apparantly confusing "has been published" with "is in the public domain". We've gotten one copyright holder complaint already. I've tagged all the images up through November 13, 2006 already, but there are more than a hundred left to do. He identifies himself as the author for a small number of the images, so they actually need to be looked at individually. Jkelly 18:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I will try to help, but I don't have experience in this, so I hope I don't make more work for everyone by doing it wrong. If in doubt, I'll come back to you, and I'll look through your contributions to see what tags you used. ElinorD (talk) 20:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Jkelly 21:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm on it. Teke 01:05, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The images that were invalid PD-Philippines and PD-User are gone, I left the handful that were just unsourced and untagged to run the prod process. Some I out and out deleted for the congruity of articles that he uploaded other bad images for. Teke 03:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:RobertG has resigned

User:RobertG has asked to have his admin powers terminated, deleted his user page, and turned off his bots. This appears to be in response to what happened after this DRV of this CFD, and his interchange with User:CalJW on Robert's talk page. I find the incivility and lack of good faith distressing. -- Samuel Wantman 08:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Ugh. I totally agree. I think the vehement bile towards RobertG on his talk page was and is wholly unwarranted. No matter what the outcome of the DRV, a suggestion that a single closure of a CfD nomination should be cause to find "no confindence" in an admin who has closed innumerable discussions is, I would think, ridiculous, to say the very least. I sincerely hope that RobertG reconsiders. I know I, for one, value his contributions greatly. - jc37 09:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• User:CalJW has been incredibly rude here. One wonders what the best approach is to an editor who has been sufficiently aggressive as to drive off another Wikipedian? Of course, as his user page makes clear, he considers administrators to be below editors in the Wikipedia hierarchy (everybody knows that admins never edit and that too much editing will see your AfD fail). Guy (Help!) 10:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comments such as [34] and [35], over the entirely insignificant matter of one CfD, are completely unacceptable: they're essentially bullying and harassment, which in turn constitute personal attacks. We block for some of those, don't we? Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 14:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
    • • Some, but apparently not all are blocked, even when it is absolutely unacceptable, if my own experience of being harrassed is anything to go by.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
    • We also have barely any admins managing CFDs as it is, so to lose one of them is like losing a person who can read cuneiform. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
• Perhaps somebody should talk to User:CalJW. Sancho (talk) 16:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• This is ridiculous. There was no "admin abuse" here, except in the sense of number 37 here. RobertG was one of our best editors and admins. Antandrus (talk) 17:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

What exactly does it mean when we say someone's actions here are 'unacceptable'? Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I must say I don't see any vile or vitriolic bile on CalJW's part (ahem [36]). I do see annoying moaning and bickering, but I don't really see anyone leaving the project over something like this. Maybe there are other reasons? Maybe, still, we can ask CalJW to do the job RobertG has been doing before he drove him away :) dab (𒁳) 17:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

This is interesting to me because it is just what I asked RobertG to do (like, yesterday) due to his having a hand in driving me out of doing serious edits on wikipedia. Life. What a place to live. Carptrash 19:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• Please see Wikipedia:Community_sanction_noticeboard#Personal_attack_parole_for_CalJW. >Radiant< 08:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Legal matters

So who handles legal matters with Brad Patrick gone? I ask because of this edit, which appears to be true. --Calton | Talk 13:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Brad's not gone until the end of the month, and are you sure that's Wikipedia not Wikimedia? Shimgray | talk | 13:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

It is the "WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION" mentioned as a defendant. I am sure they know about it, when you get sued they send you a letter. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 13:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Barbara Bauer (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) has now been deleted by Doc glasgow with the rationale of "per WP:BLP article is a bloody disgrace. Full of 'allegations" of who said what on message boards . No mainstream media interest.". Now what's this about? I can't find any reference to WP:BLP on WP:CSD. Has adherence to deletion policy suddenly become unfashionable? Sandstein 17:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

G10 includes "a biography of a living person that is negative in tone and unsourced, where there is no NPOV version in the history to revert to." One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 17:47, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

From WP:BLP:

While a strategy of eventualism may apply to other subject areas, badly written biographies of living persons should be stubbed or deleted.

So I do believe Doc glasgow was well within policy by deleting this. Metros232 17:47, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I stand corrected as regards CSD, but this article appeared on the surface to be neither negative in tone, nor was it unsourced. Also, I don't think that "deleted" in BLP should be taken to mean "speedy deleted" , but rather deleted through the appropriate process (in this case, AfD). Sandstein 18:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• Cached version. Full-on speedy? Probably improper, and I've been contemplating DRV since I noticed a few hours ago if only to get a discussion about it in the proper forum, but yeah. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Er, having looked at the article immediately before it was deleted, the article was a good stub about the subject, followed by a two-paragraph section about the controversy around her literary agency. While not a featured article candidate – I'd say that the lengthy quote from Writer Beware could probably go – the material is scrupulously sourced and footnoted.

I'm also not sure why 'deleted' was chosen over 'stubbed' in this case, seeing as there was a reasonable amount of sourced, non-controversial, well-written material. If the Foundation is aware that they're being sued, perhaps we might let their counsel advise us on how to proceed? Jumping right into deletion (with the risk of an ensuing wheel war) seems a poor idea. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• It's at DRV now. Interestingly enough, these concerns were brought up last summer and the discussion ended in a consensus keep. I know we're allegedly "stronger" on BLP than we were before, but still... --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The Foundation has not said anything, but that is understandable given that the Complaint was apparently filed on Friday and probably has not yet been served. I have suggested on the mailing list that the Office provide any advice/instructions that may be applicable in this situation. I strongly urge that no further action be taken on-wiki until the Office has had a reasonable time to provide its input, if any. Newyorkbrad 18:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• Office representatives are entirely capable of instructing us on how to handle this, and can tell us to stop discussion if need be. I don't think such urging is necessary or productive. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:14, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

It's a Sunday and it only just appears to have been filed; I think demanding action from the Office right now is excessive ;-). The Board has certainly been made aware of it; I briefly discussed it with Kat earlier today. Shimgray | talk | 18:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• The word alledgedly is probably overused in an attempt to deal with the assumed NPOV, but there's simply no way to sugarcoat some negative things. - Mgm|^(talk) 07:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• Okay, what is going on here? First Danny leaves without so much as an explanation (or did I miss it?) and now Brad resigns without an apparent successor? >Radiant< 11:05, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Def Jam Vendetta

Please protect this article. Unregistered or new registered users shouldn't have the possibility to edit this page because it is often vandalized by an anonymous IP-user. R@y 08:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

)ne or two edits a day are really not a lot. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 08:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Def Jam Vendetta (The Fighters) has to be created. Please help me with that. R@y 08:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:SSP

I had a look at this after a user recently brought up a case, and it's in pretty poor shape. There are cases there that are over two months old. Would anyone object if I started going in there to clean house, and either block socks if it's proven or close as inconclusive if it's stale? I'd also like someone to sanity-check reasoning for any blocks that are decided upon, since by definition sock cases involve some discretion and deduction. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 09:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Have fun, its a wiki! —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 11:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

By all means do. We need more people at that sort of work. Get in touch with me after you've done a good cleanup and I'll hand you a barnstar! Durova^Charge! 13:01, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways

As a result of the above-entitled arbitration case, Rschen7754 (talk · contribs) and PHenry (talk · contribs) were placed on probation with respect to editing of highways-related articles. The arbitration commimttee has voted to end the probation for these editors. For the arbitration committee, Thatcher131 12:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Wikipedia:Username policy/Draft

Based on complaints that the policies were too lengthy, complex and convoluted, several people have revised the username policy page, to clarify it, remove redundancy, and incorporate material from a few related policies, in particular WP:SOCK and WP:DOP. 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 username 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< 12:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] more Christopher Hopkins

The children are unhappy that I SALTed the Christopher Hopkins article, if the following post on my talk page is any indication:

Dear Natalie: I see you know a lot about the Red Scare. If you would let Christopher Hopkins defend himself, you would recognize the significance of the meme. Unfortunately, you and your cronies have blocked his IP addresses. Unblock them or deal with an endless torrent of reposts all over Wikipedia. I would rather it stay on the Christopher Hopkins meme discussion page. Thank you.

I'm not really sure if the Red Scare reference means they're going to report me to HUAC or sic Roy Cohn on me, but those with blocking powers may want to keep an eyeball out. I would not be adverse to blocking these folks on sight, but will not do so if others disagree. Natalie 19:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I've given a warning to the IP that left the posts on your page. Please advise if problems continue and you want an uninvolved admin to respond. Newyorkbrad 20:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Given the continued silliness on User:Lobsterkins talk page, including the current declaration that President Bush will be assassinated to conclude the War on Terror, I'm going to protect the usertalk page and replace it with an indef blocked tag. The hijinks over there have been ridiculous. Natalie 16:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of content and assuming bad faith

When I was patrolling on recent change, I spotted a mass removal of content by anon user (209.244.188.131, now blocked) on Diana Ross and quickly reverted it using TWINKLE. However, he repeatedly did it, and I had to revert it multiple times. Later, an established user began to remove the content and accused me of being a vandal and edit warring. What I did was simply automatic reverting mass removal of content using TWINKLE and this happened also because the user did not put up an edit summary telling why he removed the content. I have never been a vandal or engaged in any edit warring, my record can tell. Wooyi 23:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

No comment on his behavior, but why did you not stop and discuss it with him, instead of just reverting again? I have yet another example of what happens when people use vandal-reversion scripts too rapidly... -Amarkov moo! 00:05, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I did message him polite notes first using TWINKLE's user talk message generating function though. Wooyi 00:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the removal of that content was justified by WP:BLP, and shouldn't have been repeatedly reverted. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 01:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. It definitely should not have been edit-warred back into the article, violating WP:3RR on top of everything. Jkelly 01:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I accidentally perceived the removal as vandalistic, so I thought reverting vandalism would not violate 3RR (reverting obvious vandalism is an exception of 3RR). I did it all in good faith and did not intend to violate any rules. Wooyi 01:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

In the above it sounds like TWINKLE is being used as an excuse. ... How does one open an RFC against software? ;) --Gmaxwell 01:42, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I did not accuse TWINKLE. It is partly my fault of not examining what content the user was removing. I only saw that he didn't give an edit summary and I just skimmed the content to make sure it wasn't frivolous. But the subsequent editors assumed bad faith and accused me as a vandal, which is clearly false. Wooyi 01:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The Diana Ross/Lil' Kim incident is quite notable, and contributed a lot to the latter's career. I've put it back with a few reliable sources. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 15:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you AnonEmouse, I thought it wasn't false content and anyone who remove mass amount of content should have put up an edit summary telling why. Wooyi 19:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another case

• Note User:83.18.164.198 has vandalized editor User:Gracenotes's userpage, as you can see from edit history. But he not only used spurious edit summary but also abusively insert vandalism warning template on my talk page. Administrators please take action. Thank you! Wooyi 04:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding the Sandbox

As Iamunknown linked to above, the sandbox has a massive number of worthless pages. The purpose of this post is to decide if it is worth MfDing most of the pages, what might qualify to kill outright, etc. For example, Wikipedia:Sandbox/Mafia. Absolutely no purpose, Wikipedia is not a host of MMORPGs. Thoughts, opinions welcome as to some cleaning that is needed. Teke 04:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick note if a sandbox has over a 1,500 revisions do not delete. the develpers will eat the admin in question. (I am not joking some admin tried to delete a sandbox with 10K edits, realy pissed them off) you might try asking a dev to kill the pages instead of a normal delete. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 05:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, then perhaps I will take it to the wikimedia-tech channel. Teke 05:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Ugh. Special:Prefixindex/Wikipedia:Sandbox really is quite a mess. I'm not quite sure where I'd draw the line on helping the encyclopedia or not. Certainly some editing skills are gained and some community is built through these pursuits (I can already see the MfD arguments). Maybe it's time to decide what belongs in the sandbox. alphachimp 05:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Sandboxes are for test edits. May of these subpages have not been edited for a fair amount of time, and have outlived their purpose. All the subpages should be deleted, and I'm just going to start on it myself. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 05:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

My opinion of the sandbox is that it is a venue for test edits. There is no need for pages that have only a specific kind of edit, that is not what a sandbox is for. Sandboxes are not supposed to cater to a specific kind of editor or anything. I would say delete all the inactive ones, and nominate all the other active ones on MFD or something. Philip Gronowski ^Contribs 05:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep. I deleted an inactive one within the last week and nobody noticed or complained. They're for test edits so deleting them as housekeeping is perfectly proper I think. --kingboyk 14:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• We already MfDd the /storytelling page, it was kept. Consensus may change, of course. I fail to see what writing imaginitive fiction has to do with building an encylopaedia, myself. There is a cabal of users - the so-called "sandboxians" - who spend an appreciable amount of their time in these sandbox pages, which may violate WP:NOT a social newtorking site. Guy (Help!) 10:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• By "reguarding", do you mean that it was once more closely guarded, but enforcement has become more lax recently? --NE2 10:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• I think in general sandbox subpages are user tests (CSD#G2). >Radiant< 11:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I just finished a conversation with Domas a guideline/rule of thumb dont deltete pages with more than 5,000 revisions. if a page has that many revs, as the developers to do it directly on the servers, otherwise we could risk crashing the servers. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 14:26, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
    • That's good to know. I'd hate to be responsible for a server crash. Natalie 14:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
    • You are entirely missing the point. The concern is not the sandbox page itself, which is regularly raked and does not require attention, but the sub-pages below it. Uncle G 15:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually I was once informed by a developer (and it makes perfect sense) that the number of incoming links to a page (i.e. the number of pages which must be re-cached to change the colore from blue to red when a page is deleted, and vice versa if/when it is restored) is a much more significant factor in self-inflicted denial-of-service attacks, such as deletion of the sandbox (linked to from the talk page of virtually every IP address that has ever edited) or of United States (which I'd estimate is linked to from at least 40% of all articles). For more situational humor of this kind, see Image:7312 deleted edits.png. Deleting the USA article (accidentially, due to two admins reversing a pagemove at the same time) caused prolonged failure, but the deletion of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (and selective restoration of —zOMG — 36,283 edits) caused no problem at all [37]. —freak(talk) 08:43, Mar. 27, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Community_sanction_noticeboard#Personal_attack_parole_for_CalJW

This discussion could use some broad input because it would be innovative: how would the community impose a personal attack parole? Please have a look at the whole thread and post procedural comments in the subsection Wikipedia:Community_sanction_noticeboard#Community-imposed_personal_attack_parole. Durova^Charge! 15:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quick question

I have a quick question about an editor. My question is not about editing abuse, so I thought this might be the right place to put my question. If this is not the correct place, please move my question.

Lcnj (talk • contribs • count • logs • page moves • block log • email)

How does User:Lcnj have a block in 2006, when the account was created in 2007? The reason I ask is because I don't believe that the account was created in 2007. I believe this account has been around for a long time, but the user contributions have been blanked or lost somehow. Thanks for your help! ~a (user • talk • contribs) 18:43, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The user name was renamed in February, moving all contributions to the new account name, and then this account name was created again by (supposedly) another user. See this. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 18:51, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian politician photos

There are a glut of replaceable fair use photos in Category:Official photographs of Canadian politicians. I have tried to mark some of them as replaceable, but I cannot comb through all of them and mark all of the photos of living Canadian politicians as replaceable fair use photos while leaving the photos of the dead ones alone. Jesse Viviano 19:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

In fairness, these official photographs are considerably superior to most of the free use ones that hypothetically can be obtained, if a Wikipedian happens to be in the right place at the right time to take the right photo. Would it not make sense for someone to communicate with the Canadian House of Commons to obtain proper authorization to use their photos of MPs rather than hope that someone is in the position to obtain a photo? For that matter, it might make sense to make similar overtures to the legislative bodies of other countries/states/provinces etc. Risker 19:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Using these photos would require them being released under a free license. Asking for permission to use on Wikimedia Foundation projects is not enough, it has to be for everybody. Picaroon 01:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Today's featured article imagery

Following the debacle when Ian Thorpe was the featured article a couple days ago, when it was discovered the image was a copyvio, we ended up with no image on the main page for much of the day. This is the second time this had happened in the past month (the previous case was the Cricket World Cup). Obviously, this is suboptimal but it doesn't look like any attempt to serious vet the image for the main page is carried out in advance.

I've created a table in my userspace analysing this months and was extremely disappointed with what I found. 10 of the 30 articles for this month have images selected with which I am not totally confident. I have been overly cautious with that figure, but speaking as an experienced Commons admin I'd say about 4 of those images should be deleted. I think this is an indicator that action is needed, this month is likely pretty typical (I've also posted to WT:TFA, not sure where else to mention). Thoughts?--Nilfanion (talk) 20:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)