Wikipedia talk:Administrators/Archive 2

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Just unblocked

Just unblocked 216.135.25.129 and 216.135.25.89 (but not 216.135.25.72), since I suppose it's unlikely that e will have the same ip address again, after it's changed... Would it be ok to also unblock all ip addresses that were blocked more than a week or so ago? كسيپ Cyp 08:28 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Rearrangement of list

Not to suggest any hierarchy, but could a list be arranged according to seniority. I have no vested interest in that, having very recently been promoted to sysop status. This would just be an interesting chronicle of Wiki's growth. 172 04:23 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Can't log in

Hi, I'm user Gutza and I can't log in any more. I'm sorry if I should've complained about this somewhere else, I found no better place to do it. I'm sure I'm typing my credentials right, I use Mozilla and it stores the credentials for all the sites I'm registered with, and I used it before to log in Wikipedia. Also, my user hasn't been deleted because trying to re-create it results in an error message saying a user with the same name already exists, or something to that effect. Does anyone know what happened? Please answer on my user's talk page so we don't load this page with this discussion. Thank you! -- 217.156.116.130 00:36, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC) :-(

Try logging in a few more times, it's behaving strangely today. Try with a wrong password, and then the right one again. I don't know if it will help, but I had trouble logging in just now. כסיף Cyp 00:44, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Name suggestion

Wikipedia >> iPedia or ePedia or ...

I suggest shortening the project name for easier publicity of the internet site

Tonius 2003.08.12

Controversial Wikipedian denied editing by overpowerful admins

User:Kkawohl I have been attempting to post somewhat controversial items relating to 21st Century Spirituality and a reestablishment of Transcendentalism in the 21st Century and how it relates to religious rationality. I was called a nut-case and my postings were considered propaganda and were deleted consistently. Is religious rationality which is not based on superstitions that have survived since the Middle Ages not an item of interest? How much power is too much if administrators can base deletions on their biased religious beliefs?

Why isn't Tim Starling a developer?

User:Tim Starling "effectively has developer access" but is not labelled as a developer. Why? --Jiang (Dated September 17, 2003)

I could just mark myself as a developer. I'm not sure if I'm meant to ask for permission or not. I seem to remember Eloquence asked for permission, but I don't think Nick Reinking did. There's about 15 people with SSH access (like me) but only 7 of them are marked as a developer. Being marked as a developer doesn't really have any practical advantages, it's just symbolic. -- Tim Starling 02:03, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)


Allow me. -- Cyan 02:10, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Oh why thank you, Cyan. As my first act as developer, I will query the database using the long-since-disabled web interface. SELECT 1!

1
1

The power!!! *evil laugh* :) -- Tim Starling 02:20, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)

Question on use of Rollback button

If protection can not be used by a sysop involved in an edit war, does the same apply to the use of the rollback button? It seems it should as it is giving a sysop advantages over normal users for a reason it was not implemented. Should it only be used for reverting vandalism? Angela 17:36, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Its intent is solely to be a timesaving shortcut for reverting mass vandalism. It doesn't do anything different than clicking up the last revision by a previous contributor, putting "Reverted to last edit by X" in the summary field, and saving.
No one should ever be in an edit war, sysops in particular should be aware that that's not cool, so there's no need to think about whether or not 'rollback' should be used in an edit war. It shouldn't, because we shouldn't be in that position in the first place. Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot... --Brion 17:58, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Remove inactive admins?

Remove Zoe, and other inactive or long gone admins?戴&#30505sv 21:27, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I wouldn't. The number at Special:Statistics then wouldn't corrolate with the list. Evercat 21:32, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)
You could add a comment or put them in brackets or something though. It might be useful if someone is trying to find an admin not to have to figure out if they're still here. Angela 22:10, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

Could inactive admin accounts pose a security hazard? --Jiang

Possibly. I know that developer accounts have been de-activated for this reason in the past if a developer has been away for a significant amount of time. Angela 23:28, Oct 8, 2003 (UTC)
It would help to place a comment next to inactive admins, but admins should not be removed from the list simply because of inactivity. Users become inactive for any number of reasons, and hopefully they will become active again. Kingturtle 23:36, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC) P.S. Inactive admins are no more a security threat than active admins.
Good point, and lucky I happened to be back on a friend's computer at the moment. There's a chance I might be able to get my own computer fixed up again within the next week or so, but meanwhile, I'll mark myself as "semi-inactive until further notice" or something like that. -- John Owens 23:44, 2003 Oct 8 (UTC)

I have tagged the inactive sysop accounts. Feel free to double-check and correct. -- 65.92.250.32 01:40, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)


PASTED by Fuzheado 02:44, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)


Where do I apply for sysop status? I'd like to help in such regards. Kingturtle 22:48 May 7, 2003 (UTC)


As the text of this page states ; on the en.wiki mailing list. I'll support your application. --mav


Hi I was trying to fix a typo in the NLCS series someone had listed 2001 twice instead of 2002 at it said i was block for vandalism, don't know how that is vandalism but anyway some one may wnt to atleast fix the typo

Just unblocked 216.135.25.129 and 216.135.25.89 (but not 216.135.25.72), since I suppose it's unlikely that e will have the same ip address again, after it's changed... Would it be ok to also unblock all ip addresses that were blocked more than a week or so ago? كسيپ Cyp 08:28 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Not to suggest any hierarchy, but could a list be arranged according to seniority. I have no vested interest in that, having very recently been promoted to sysop status. This would just be an interesting chronicle of Wiki's growth. 172 04:23 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I'm user Gutza and I can't log in any more. I'm sorry if I should've complained about this somewhere else, I found no better place to do it. I'm sure I'm typing my credentials right, I use Mozilla and it stores the credentials for all the sites I'm registered with, and I used it before to log in Wikipedia. Also, my user hasn't been deleted because trying to re-create it results in an error message saying a user with the same name already exists, or something to that effect. Does anyone know what happened? Please answer on my user's talk page so we don't load this page with this discussion. Thank you! -- 217.156.116.130 00:36, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC) :-(

Try logging in a few more times, it's behaving strangely today. Try with a wrong password, and then the right one again. I don't know if it will help, but I had trouble logging in just now. כסיף Cyp 00:44, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Greetings

"Love-hate relationship". The topic submitted is clearly to others who voted it for deletion, does not know
the important need for such topics to be discussed on this website and at least explained in a more understandable manner
rather than using philosopycal or psychological terms to explain it. Worse would be another copied source
to fill in the topic. If it was essay in form, it is simply because emotions on relationships are not
dictionary materials like words given meaning to.

Lawyers and Psychology students finds it a better form of explanation. I respect your reasons for wanting to delete it. It inspires me to do better and level my aricles to your standards. thank you and I hope to be given a chance to contribute in a more analitical point of view till the best is achived to explain the topic well.

[aprildawn]

User:Kkawohl I have been attempting to post somewhat controversial items relating to 21st Century Spirituality and a reestablishment of Transcendentalism in the 21st Century and how it relates to religious rationality. I was called a nut-case and my postings were considered propaganda and were deleted consistently. Is religious rationality which is not based on superstitions that have survived since the Middle Ages not an item of interest? How much power is too much if administrators can base deletions on their biased religious beliefs?

The above posting was made in haste & I sincerely apologize.

  • Scheduled for deletion. ALL HAVE BEEN REWRITTEN. PLEASE RECONSIDER.
  • Transcendentalist movement
    • along with New Age God, Religious Rationality in the 21st Century, God in the 21st Century, Transcendentalism in the 21st Century, Spirituality in the 21st Century, 21st Century Transcendentalism, Transcendentalism - A New Revelation, Transcendental Thinking, Religious Rationality Leaders in the 21st Century, SpiritialTranscendentalism, Jesus in the 21st Century
    • As above DJ Clayworth 16:05, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)
    • ALL OF THE ABOVE HAVE BEEN REWRITTEN as of 8-27-03. I am a newcomer to Wikipedia & I have made several dumb mistakes which will not be repeated. If I may be so bold as to ask for a favor, it would be for your assistance in stopping the deletion of the pages that I have created. If you decide against it, I still wish to thank you for your consideration. user:kkawohl

User:Tim Starling "effectively has developer access" but is not labelled as a developer. Why? --Jiang

I could just mark myself as a developer. I'm not sure if I'm meant to ask for permission or not. I seem to remember Eloquence asked for permission, but I don't think Nick Reinking did. There's about 15 people with SSH access (like me) but only 7 of them are marked as a developer. Being marked as a developer doesn't really have any practical advantages, it's just symbolic. -- Tim Starling 02:03, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)

Allow me. -- Cyan 02:10, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Oh why thank you, Cyan. As my first act as developer, I will query the database using the long-since-disabled web interface. SELECT 1!

1
1

The power!!! *evil laugh* :) -- Tim Starling 02:20, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)

If protection can not be used by a sysop involved in an edit war, does the same apply to the use of the rollback button? It seems it should as it is giving a sysop advantages over normal users for a reason it was not implemented. Should it only be used for reverting vandalism? Angela 17:36, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Its intent is solely to be a timesaving shortcut for reverting mass vandalism. It doesn't do anything different than clicking up the last revision by a previous contributor, putting "Reverted to last edit by X" in the summary field, and saving.
No one should ever be in an edit war, sysops in particular should be aware that that's not cool, so there's no need to think about whether or not 'rollback' should be used in an edit war. It shouldn't, because we shouldn't be in that position in the first place. Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot... --Brion 17:58, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Remove Zoe, and other inactive or long gone admins?戴&#30505sv 21:27, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I wouldn't. The number at Special:Statistics then wouldn't corrolate with the list. Evercat 21:32, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)
You could add a comment or put them in brackets or something though. It might be useful if someone is trying to find an admin not to have to figure out if they're still here. Angela 22:10, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

Could inactive admin accounts pose a security hazard? --Jiang

Possibly. I know that developer accounts have been de-activated for this reason in the past if a developer has been away for a significant amount of time. Angela 23:28, Oct 8, 2003 (UTC)
It would help to place a comment next to inactive admins, but admins should not be removed from the list simply because of inactivity. Users become inactive for any number of reasons, and hopefully they will become active again. Kingturtle 23:36, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC) P.S. Inactive admins are no more a security threat than active admins.
Good point, and lucky I happened to be back on a friend's computer at the moment. There's a chance I might be able to get my own computer fixed up again within the next week or so, but meanwhile, I'll mark myself as "semi-inactive until further notice" or something like that. -- John Owens 23:44, 2003 Oct 8 (UTC)

I have tagged the inactive sysop accounts. Feel free to double-check and correct. -- Cyan 01:41, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Theoretically we could enhance security by allowing a petition of sysops to immediately desysop someone. That way the damage caused by a hijacked account would be minimised. Of course it would end up being used for political reasons to demote annoying users, but that's the price you pay. -- Tim Starling 02:31, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)

If someone's account is hijacked, and the hijacker goes on a rampage, someone will just act unilaterally to block the account (I'm not naming any names). Lack of bureaucracy lends itself to fast security, in this case. And I'd like to keep it as difficult as possible for a clique to acquire that sort of political power. -- Cyan 02:44, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The problem is that a sysop can just unblock themselves if someone blocks them. The inability of sysops to block each other was generally considered to be a good idea, on the mailing list. Perhaps we could use another model. The model I'm thinking of would be equally applicable to banning and desysoping. We need a method of enforcing the consensus model without leading to destructive short-term unilateral bans. Perhaps a sysop should be able to pre-register their support for a given user, and if any sysop (other than themselves) is supporting the user, they cannot be banned or demoted. This "support" would expire shortly after the supporting user logs off, so if the situation changes suddenly, we won't be left with the situation of frantically trying to contact sleeping Wikipedians. -- Tim Starling 03:22, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)
Nice idea, but I'd want to be sure that all sysops have a working email contact address. Talking about such issues publically might severely inflame the situation. If X knows sie's about to be banned... ouch. Martin 19:22, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I didn't realize sysops could unban themselves. Suddenly it all makes sense. -- Cyan 03:35, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Why don't we de-sysop folks who've gone away anyway? It's easy enough for them to re-nominate themselves on requests for adminship, and if they've been away for a while then they might not have a handle on current community norms anyway, so a slight delay would be a good thing. That'd mean that when we say "contact a sysop", a hapless newbie would be more likely to get a response. Martin 19:16, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
It would have the huge potential benefit of declawing the potential (decidedly not imminent) situation where someone were to do the minimum to get sysopped (either as a preface to creating a permanently active account, or in addition to one that they already held, but thought would not pass the hurdle to sysopdom), and keep the sysop power as a sort of pocket sysop ticket, one to be pulled out of the blue, without accountability, or connection to the cause of the user its actions served. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 19:47, Oct 10, 2003 (UTC)
Well, I'm sufficiently convinced to list on votes for de-admin. People change over time, so someone who is a great sysop now might not be a great sysop after they leave for a few months, and are no longer part of the community. Martin 22:27, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Right now there are many more sysops than ever before. If one of them goes on a rampage, it might take a Developer to stop them. A developer could unilaterally (but temporarily) de-sysop them. Or even make the whole database read-only.

I'm sure if a genuine emergency comes up, we'll do the Right Thing. Jimbo has never punished anyone for good faith actions. That's why he's a Leader not a GodKing. --Uncle Ed 22:38, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I disagree with de-sysoping inactive users. The security benefits of this action are insignificant compared to the costs in terms of alienation of the users involved. Most developers are capable of blocking sysops, that includes Erik, Brion, Ed and myself. Between the four of us, there's someone hanging around pretty much all the time. Most of these inactive sysops have a much better handle on current community norms than any newly-created sysop. Newbie sysops often make mistakes, but that's okay because all sysop actions are reversible.
It is not hijacked sysop accounts which worry me. It is anyone with a working knowledge of Perl and a grudge. The most destructive attacks which could be performed on Wikipedia with a bot do not require sysop access. Current controls (i.e. username blocks) would be largely ineffective in the face of a properly-programmed bot. A sysop account would be able to operate more quickly, so the effect would be larger but qualitatively the same. -- Tim Starling 01:08, Oct 11, 2003 (UTC)
See urgent me$$age at Wikitech-l from Jimbo. --Uncle Ed 01:21, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Actually it might be worth removing Lee's developer access. Developer accounts are truly dangerous. Lee can easily log in via SSH and give himself back developer access if he needs it. The web interface doesn't have the level of security afforded by SSH. In fact it would probably be a good idea to demote all web-interface developer access accounts (but leave the names in bold-italic). Any developer can turn the flag back on when they need it, and turn it off when they are finished. -- Tim Starling 01:30, Oct 11, 2003 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind that, if someone will teach me how to do that flag thing: I have an SSH password but I don't know enough unix et al. to monkey around with the server. I'm more the client-server type of software engineer. --Uncle Ed 01:33, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

And to think I included you in the list of all-powerful users! Log on to pliny, and type "sql-en". Then use the queries:

Switch on developer 
update user set user_rights='sysop,developer' where user_name='Ed Poor' limit 1;
Switch off developer 
update user set user_rights='sysop' where user_name='Ed Poor' limit 1;
Desysop 
update user set user_rights='' where user_name='Ed Poor' limit 1;

Putting "limit 1" after any query which you expect to modify one row is generally considered a good idea, so that if you make a typo it can't go haywire and destroy everything. -- Tim Starling 01:44, Oct 11, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. I knew the SQL part of course. I just didn't know how to access the database from the server command line. (BTW, why am I highlighting all these links? Habit, I guess.) --Uncle Ed 01:48, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
When you're using the mysql client, you have to end queries with either a semicolon, which puts the result into a table, or "\G", which puts it into "extended" format with multiple lines per row. Type "quit" to exit. See [1] for more info. As for making links, according to Wikipedia:Talk page it's official policy. You're just the only one following it :) -- Tim Starling 02:14, Oct 11, 2003 (UTC)

I've disabled the unfettered SQL access for developer accounts through the wiki. A developer account can put the wiki into (or take it out of) read-only mode, and that's about it now. --Brion 03:50, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Deletion without Wiki Due Process

Can anyone delete another contributions without going through the processes set by Wikipedia? Recently I wrote a short addition for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas an article that covers the theories of how indigenous people came to America. The information I added was on subject and written from a neutral point of view. I was surprised to see it was totally removed within hours of its placement. I shortened my comments considerably and re-edited the page. Again, it was quickly and totally removed. That action smacks of censorship. Is censorship not against Wiki-policy? Would an administrator please look into the matter? The copy removed was titled “House of Israel Theory.” The copy removed represented a theory that is over one hundred fifty years old, is upheld by scholarly research and is also supported by millions of people worldwide. To verify the theory is as I say you may want to contact J. Michael Hunter at Brigham Young University. Thank you for helping Wikipedia remain a neutral, reliable online encylopedia as opposed to a forum for particular points of view.

Problems

I have concerns with the institution of admins. There is an unstated equivalency made by admins between the real world and cyberspace. We elect our leaders in the real world, so it is just as legitimate to elect them in cyberspace. We resolve differences in arbitration in the real world, so it is just as legitimate to do so in cyberspace. This is a terribly wrong equivalency, for a few reasons:

1. There is no real way of communicating efficiently in cyberspace.

If I have a misunderstanding with another user, we actually have to delete each other's work, talk on the talk page, etc., to resolve differences. If I have a misunderstanding with an admin, he will usually block me straight away without much fuss. Communication across cyberspace is exteremely inefficient compared with the discussions which take place in the real world and which are the basis of our institutions in the real world. Communication with admins is nearly impossible, especially considering the speedy blocks which are given.

The way Jimbo suggests to overcome this is the email list WIKI-En or whatever. The email list is much more efficient; however, there are just so many emails sent over that list that the efficacy of the list is almost nil. Arbitration falls victim to all the same problem of inefficient communication.

2. Anonymity is essential.

I was advised at some point to get a username. Usernames are absolute mistakes, and admins should straightaway stop advising people to get usernames. Every false charge against the username, every smear, sticks, because this is cyberspace. This is because edit wars are almost inevitable if you want to do anything more than minor editing. And it sticks especially because nothing can be deleted. If I tried to deleted some false charge about my username, some admin would ensure that this was reverted and that the charges remained for all to see. Once a charge is made, however false it may be, it invariably sticks. Anonymity aids immensely, especially if your only goal is to edit, because your username page invariably becomes a recepticle for the criticism and anger of others.

3. Admins are insensitive.

They can't be sensitive because you can't communicate with them effectively. You can't take them aside and explain something to them. They will always act insensitively and arbitrarily because they have to; they are working with very limited information.

This is why I believe the adminship system is serially flawed, and the admins should stop being so self-righteous and pretending they are doing a good job. They are doing their best, perhaps, but they are not doing a good job, they are upsetting numerous people more than they'll ever know.

Jheijmans, former admin?

User:Jheijmans said on his User page that he used to be an admin last year until he quit for a while. Does anybody remember that? If so, we can add him to Former Administrators list. --Menchi 06:30, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Mirror Sites

Question on Mirror Sites moved to Wikipedia:Village pump.

De-adminship of inactive admins

Moved from Wikipedia:Requests for adminship

I'd like to nominate the following inactive sysops for de-adminship. This has been discussed on wikipedia talk:administrators (further talk can probably go there). I'd discuss it with them first... but they're inactive ;-) This is not to deny their many excellent contributions while here, simply to recognise that they are here no longer.

All the above have been inactive for two or more months - in some cases much longer. Thanks. Martin 20:34, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

What's this for? Just to clean out the list? Will Lee Daniel Crocker have to re-apply for sysop when he comes back? --Uncle Ed 20:50, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Apparently not "just to clean out". On wikipedia talk:administrators there has been some discussion related to perceived security issues concerning inactive sysop accounts. I don't think it's urgent, but should be discussed. Kosebamse 20:55, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Why don't we just deactivate them and allow them to re-sysoped w/o having to go through the normal nomination process when they come back? We need to set a guideline of what time period of inactivity is enough for de-opping though. --Jiang 22:26, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I disagree with this, and I'll say why on Wikipedia talk:administrators, where this discussion began, in the interests of consolidation and forest fire containment. I suggest anyone else who wants to discuss this take their comments there also. -- Tim Starling 00:51, Oct 11, 2003 (UTC)
Martin, absolutely not. Inactivity is no basis for deactivation. Kingturtle 09:18, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Strongly concur with that "absolutely not". Look, people sometimes wander off for a while because they need a break, or because of stress in their lives, or whatever. And it can be a long break, too - I was gone for the best part of a year. People were made admins (which is supposed to be "no big deal" anyway, right?) because they demonstrated judgement, and they aren't going to lose that just because they are gone for a while. From personal experience, yes, you have to be careful when re-appearing, because things will have changed subtly in the interim. If there is a security issue with inactive accounts, by all means lets find some way to deal with it. However, if it involves turning off the admin bit on the account, there ought to be some simple way (e.g. contacting a bureacrat and asking) to get it turned back on. Noel 18:31, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Banned for vandalism?

I have been banned for "repeated vandalism". I have no idea what I did to deserve this, and seriously hope it was a mistake on the part of the administrator. I defy RickK or whoever else is responsible for sentencing me, to show where I vandalized anything. Vroman 20:30, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What do you mean? The Block log shows no record of a user called Vroman being banned. If you are blocked, how are you posting here? Angela. 21:30, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
All I can think of is that Vroman got an IP from an IP pool that was banned previously. --snoyes 21:33, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The situation seems to have corrected itself. Thanks for taking the time to investigate. Vroman 23:10, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Specific question on how to become an administrator

Hi! This is taken from the Request for adminship page:

"After a 7 day period for comments, if there is general agreement that someone who requests adminship should be given it, then a developer will make it so and record that fact at Wikipedia:Recently created admins. "

My question is: what exactly does "general agreement" mean? Can you become an administrator by only having one person that has reviewed your work and that was positive about it? (--130.236.224.35)

General agreement means that everyone who responds (more or less) agrees that you should become an admin. Specific questions/criticisms must be addressed before the request/nomination can proceed. If you do make a request there, you can be assured that you will get more than one response. --Raul654 18:52, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)
What are these questions/criticisms?
People will post them after a request/nomination is made. They vary on a case by case basis. The most common criticism is that someone will want to become an admin after being here only a short time. They're generally told to keep contributing for a few months, and reapply later. --Raul654 21:39, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Ok, but theoretically it is then possible to become an administrator by just having one positive comment, or am I wrong?
Theoretically, many things are possible. ;-) --snoyes 00:02, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Please add [[eo:Vikipedio:Administrantoj]] Thanks Arno Lagrange 14:42, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Done. Dori | Talk 16:54, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Recently created admins

Wikipedia:Recently created admins is nice but it only lists recently created admins. Do we have a similar page lists old admins? Optim 03:42, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators#Former_Administrators? --Menchi (Talk)â 04:23, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Previously, this was done on the mailing lists, so you'd need to check the wikien-l archives for details of less recently created admins. Angela. 19:22, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)
I see, thanks Menchi and Angela for your answers! Peace, Optim 11:22, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)


168...

I am aware of the actions of 168... that led to the need for arbitration. However, I am curious to know what the process was to temporarily suspend his admin powers until the Committee makes is ruling. Was it the arbitration committee that made the call for the temporary suspension? Was it a developer? Do tell. Kingturtle 07:31, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It was carried out by Tim Starling following a vote on Wikipedia talk:Possible misuses of admin privileges#User:168... which showed 87% in favour of temporarily desysopping 168. Tim then sought the arbitration committee's view on whether he should stay desyopped. Angela. 07:44, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)
Where does it say that it was carried out? On what authority does that straw poll carry so much weight? I am trying to find the paper trail. Kingturtle 07:57, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

He then posted on the mailing list and received Jimbo's blessing: [2]. --Jiang

Arg. That dreaded mailing list. :) Thanks for the info :) Kingturtle 17:21, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Moved here from Village Pump, Fuzheado 02:46, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Remove all sysops

I propose that the term "sysop" be removed from the Wikipedia lexicon. We already have administrator (short admin), and it is kind of confusing to have both. Not to mention that sysop doesn't really fit the bill, unless you consider Wikipedia a system! I am bringing this up now because of the newly emerged Special:Makesysop seems to be introducing the term sysop even more. I am guessing this would be mostly a search and replace kind of deal, disruptive yes, but is it any more difficult than that? Are the benefits worth it? Dori | Talk 20:15, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

When I saw the heading I thought "ACK!", but I think Dori has a nice point here about lingo. We needn't make it too confusing. "Sysop" does sound cooler than "admin", though.... :-) Anyway, I almost always say admin, and will try to do so in the future. Good idea! Jwrosenzweig 21:03, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with the idea of this person who calls herself "Dori" (what's in that name, anyway?). Sysop is a great word and should be used more often. 141 21:45, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
...calls himself Dori. Angela. 07:12, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)
Sysop is an account switch and admin is the person who controls that account. Sadly many people use sysop to refer to people. That irks me. --mav 22:02, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Huh? So an admin is someone with sysop status? What kind of sense does that make? I agree that we should standardise on one term to minimise confusion. An admin should be somebody who has an admin account, which is defined by a switch called is_admin or somesuch. - IMSoP 22:42, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
For whatever reason the switch is (or at least was in phase II) is_sysop. Thus the distinction. --mav
So, let's be practical: given that it's confusing to have both terms in use*, would it be easier to standardise on sysop to avoid database changes, or would it be no big deal to just replace is_sysop with is_admin? [*:that is, assuming the consensus is that it is confusing] - IMSoP 23:51, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Honestly, I just use sysop and admin interchangably. →Raul654 23:05, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

But do you think it sensible to do so, especially given that new users won't necessarily realise that they are synonyms? - IMSoP 23:14, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Dori (without any criticism of developers or the DB architects). It would be nice to have consistent naming, more importantly for the MediaWiki software to be useful to folks outside of Wikipedia-land.
I also prefer "admin", though it's no big deal. Tannin 03:09, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Another related peeve is how we have "Talk" pages, yet the link to this is called "Discuss this page." When I give instructions to newbies to "Use the talk page!" I get dozens of emails asking how to get there. They are quite surprised that "Discuss this page" is the appropriate link, and I don't blame them. Fuzheado 00:28, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Refer them to the "discussion page" instead of the "talk page". The link title "Discuss this page" is much more obvious for newbies looking for a way to give feedback.—Eloquence 03:43, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

I thought this had already been done. Kind of reminds me of how people think "bans" and "blocks" are the same thing. - Hephæstos|§ 03:51, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I like the word sysop. :) But as that's not a very good reason, I support any change/standardisation of the term admin instead. Angela. 07:12, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)
I agree. Being that one of Wikipedia's goals is to attract casual newcomers and (hopefully) turn them into contributors, intuitive interfaces and naming schemes should be a primary goal. →Raul654 07:18, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Erm, Cyp has invented a category below to put his vote in, which is very funny - but I'm not quite sure what point he's trying to make. [Especially given that we already have a "don't care" category] Would you care to enlighten us on what your actual opinion is, Cyp? - IMSoP 15:58, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It's probably a very important point I was trying to make, I just haven't figured out what that point is, yet. I thought sysop meant the person, while admin was the state/setting/whatever. I think sysop sounds a bit better than admin, since admin is too common and ordinary-sounding. I think sysop might be slightly easier to pronounce than admin, too. So if it wasn't possible to add new sections, I would probably have voted for "sysop", "don't care" or both. Κσυπ Cyp   22:58, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Straw poll

Note: I've arranged this back into the original options, and moved people's comments to after their names. There's no point having a straw poll if people just put a comment and then vote for it as though it was an option. If you think I've moved your vote to the wrong option - well, you should have voted properly in the first place, shouldn't you? - IMSoP 12:27, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

A) I think that sysop should be deprecated in favor of admin

  1. →Raul654 07:18, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC) - I think admin is more intuitive than sysop. This is very important where new user are concerned.
  2. IMSoP 16:36, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) (although it's marginal, as long as there is a standard term to avoid confusion)
  3. Fuzheado 11:08, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC) (though we can still use sysop casually, but all our docs, official terms, naming should use admin or administrator)
  4. Dori 14:41, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC) we could use the uniformity, and admin makes more sense in this case
  5. Marshman 17:27, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC) Yeh, admin makes more sense
  6. Noel 03:09, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC) To me, "admin" sounds less forbidding, so I prefer it. But if y'all think "sysop" is less intimidating, then I'd go with that instead.
  7. — mendel ☎ 22:00, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC) An admin is a caretaker; a sysop is a babysitter. "Admin" implies more respect for the desires of the administered.
  8. L33tminion | (talk) 16:09, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC) "Admin" is less confusing.
  9. Sysop is too Unix-y. Andre (talk) 06:39, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)
  10. Jerzy(t) 15:43, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC) "Sysop" suggests "just like the sysops on all the other sites on the Web." Those sites didn't get (IMO well earned) Webbies for Best Practices.

B) I think that admin should be deprecated in favor of sysop

  1. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 12:31, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC) Just an opinion. Dislike the term administrator on aesthetic grounds, and have some nostalgic affection to the term "sysop"; it's sort of old fogey lingo.
  2. Κσυπ Cyp (based on comment above: So if it wasn't possible to add new sections, I would probably have voted for "sysop", "don't care" or both)

C) Leave it like it is / I don't care

  1. Fennec 03:15, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  2. Angela (Do what you like but don't fuss about people using the wrong one)
  3. Maximus Rex 21:00, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  4. Kingturtle 20:48, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC) (Let's go ride bikes. )
  5. RickK 04:05, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC) (Aren't there more important things to worry about?)
  6. Κσυπ Cyp (I think that admin should be deprecated in favour of sysop on weekdays and that sysop should be deprecated in favour of admin on weekends.)

D) I think both "sysop" and "admin" should be deprecated in favor of "janitor"

  1. Cyan 02:43, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  2. Martin 18:37, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

blocking utility usage

Out of personal curiosity, I wanted to see how we're doing as a group regarding utilizing the block and unblock powers. I thought I'd share the data; it is for fun and for self-assessment.

Not including tests, jokes and self-bans, the following is a reasonably accurate list of admins and the number of blocks they've made in 2004. It is my understanding that IP blocks expire after 24 hours. As long as that is true, everything is cool - because most of these involve IPs.

86 Maximus Rex (with 10 unblocks)
40 Hephaestos (with 2 unblocks)
35 Morwen (with zero unblocks)
28 Pakaran (with 1 unblock)
28 Dysprosia (with zero unblocks)
25 Ahoerstemeier (with 5 unblocks)
25 Snoyes (with 2 unblocks)
22 Evercat (with 2 unblocks)
18 Salsa Shark (with zero unblocks)
16 Silsor (with 5 unblocks)
16 Angela (with 4 unblocks)
14 Secretlondon (with 3 unblocks)
14 Dori (with zero unblocks)
12 Fuzheado (with 2 unblocks)
12 Tim Starling (with 1 unblock)
11 Dante Alighieri (with zero unblocks)
 8 RickK (with zero unblocks)
 7 Jiang (with 2 unblocks)
 7 Cyan (with 1 unblock)
 6 Tannin (with zero unblocks)
 5 Eloquence (with 3 unblocks)
 5 Raul654 (with zero unblocks)
 4 Delirium (with 12 unblocks)
 4 Ed Poor (with 2 unblocks)
 4 Finlay McWalter (with zero unblocks)
 3 Stevertigo (with 1 unblock)
 3 Jwrosenzweig (with zero unblocks)
 2 Maveric149 (with 3 unblocks)
 2 Infrogmation (with zero unblocks)
 2 Arwel Parry (with 2 unblocks)
 2 Jimbo Wales (with 2 unblocks)
 2 PMelvilleAustin (with 1 unblock)
 2 JeLuF (with zero unblocks)
 2 The Anome (with zero unblocks)
 2 Muriel Gottrop (with 1 unblock)
 1 Danny (with 1 unblock)
 1 Kaihsu (with 1 unblock)
 1 Andre Engels (with 1 unblock)
 1 Camembert (with zero unblocks)
 1 AstroNomer (with zero unblocks)
 1 Adam Bishop (with zero unblocks)
 1 Meelar (with zero unblocks)
 1 Bmills (with zero unblocks)
 1 G-Man (with zero unblocks)
 1 Jtdirl (with zero unblocks)
 1 Evil saltine (with zero unblocks)
 1 WhisperToMe (with zero unblocks)
 1 Quercusrobur (with zero unblocks)
 0 John Kenney (with 2 unblocks)
 0 Menchi (with 2 unblocks)
 0 Jamesday (with 1 unblock)
2004 Totals through 23:10, 17 Feb 2004: 487 blocks. 75 unblocks.
Admins participating in block/unblock activities in 2004: 51
Admins NOT YET participating in block/unblock activities in 2004: 107

Your pal, Kingturtle 03:10, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, pal. How about a list of Bureaucrats now? --Uncle Ed 16:24, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Oh, never mind. They're in Wikipedia:bureaucrats. --Ed
It would be nice to see a more even distribution of banning: when 4% of the sysops account for over 50% of the blocks, I can't help feeling uncomfortable... Martin 18:40, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Well, as one of the 107 who have not blocked anyone this year, let me say that I didn't ask to be an admin on Wikipedia to block anyone. I found I had the time to help with the maintenance, & so with these "kewl powerz" I occasionally delete some vandalism, once in a while protect a page, but basically find in the few hours I devote to Wikipedia that there's nothing worthy happening to justify pulling the admin rights out of their bag & using them. And besides, I'd rather work on the content -- which is probably the attitude of most admins. -- llywrch 01:06, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Why the concern over the distribution? Different people are into different things. As long as people are doing something useful in the maintaintence line, and all bases are covered, is it a problem that A specializes in doing X, and B in Y? Not only that, people develop different knowledge-bases as a result - I spend a lot of time on WP:RfD, and so know all the rules, precedents, techniques, etc well. If I had to start doing bans&blocks I'd have to learn a whole bunch first. Noel 18:57, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Date confusions

  1. Does "The following users have sysop rights as of October 4, 2003" mean to say that the admin list was last updated on that date ? But it is being updated regularly.
  2. Page says "Sysop activity status was checked on February 17, 2004. ". But Optim's entry in the Inactive list shows 6 March.
I think the issue is that Optim listed himself; however, February is the last time someone actually checked the contribs of every sysop to find the inactive ones. Pakaran. 19:12, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

there should be a discussion on 'social organization in cyberspace'

where is the discussion of abuse of authority? the chilling effect on free speech? the discouragement of controversy by 'reversals' and 'deletions' that need not list any reason other than 'this page is garbage'. - - did you folks even take any government classes in school? do you know what 'checks and balances' means? do you even want to talk about it? - - no, of course you dont. admins are just doing their righteous thing and cannot make mistakes of any import. or of course nothing bad is happening. no only bad people are restricted by an unaccountable and unelected admin system. - - nice attitude. thanks for turning wiki into slashdot. nice 'objective' 'wide ranging' page, that. -

Even though I make it a policy not to feed the trolls, in this case, I'll make an exception. You're flatly wrong about admins being unelected - Admins *are* elected on the requets for adminship page. Any person can vote there, although sock puppets votes (accounts with only a handful of edits) tend to be ignored. As far as checks and balances - admins do not think in lockstep. We disagree a fair amount of the time, and we talk it out. If you don't like it, tough. As far as not being accountable - that's what we have the abuse of sysop powers page for. In the future, if you want to troll successfully, you might not want to make your claims so obviously false. →Raul654 02:09, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)
Well, just to let you know, admins/sysops are elected - see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship - and they are constantly held accountable by the community as a whole, with most of their actions being severely limited by convention. Changes made unilaterally by one admin/sysop are quite often questioned, and very few actions can be taken which are not reversible by someone else with the same status - hence the existence of Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion as well as Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, for instance. That the page didn't express this to you may well be a failure of the page - although in-depth political discussion would probably need a separate page, linked to from here. - IMSoP 02:17, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC) [comment written simultaneously to Raul654's above, and in a slightly more "chilled" mood, clearly ;)]
Haha! I'm actually quite calm, even if the writing didn't sound that way. It's just that the prepetual accusations of being part of a cabal (Plautus, Bird, et al) have really started to annoy me. One and for all, TINC. →Raul654 02:24, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)


OH gee, 'convention'. we all know how reliable that is. nobody would ever abuse their power because they should be afraid of 'convention'!!! yes, that is a brilliant check and balance. im sure lots of governments use the terrible terrifying power of 'convention' to keep leaders in line. I think thats what kept nixon from assassinating john dean. 'convention'. yeah. good idea guys.

also i am very heartened to learn that administrators can crticizie each other. because we all know that as a group, only admins should be able to criticize each other, after all, they have been the most hard working and care more about wiki than the lowly slimeball users. furthermore, there will obviously be no danger of 'groupthink', because admins are geniuses in the first place, because look how hard they work and how much they care. third off, admins will never ever have their own interests, as a group. nope. there will never be a decision where admins have to decide on something that is between their own interests and the interests of the users. in fact, the interests of the admins are the same as the interests of the users, sort of like Maos argument against democracy in china: the people's interests are represented by the party, therefore the people dont need to have any say over the party.

"If you don't like it, tough. . . . . troll" -- Yes this demonstrates the true democratic spirit of the admins. Obviously someone who thinks like this is very worried about users' interests, and will be protective against the abuse of power as witnessed on just about every other 'community' website on the entire internet, like slashdot, kuro5hin, freerepublic, etc. You sir are truly 'serving the people' and guaranteeting access for all. Nope, no cabalist tendencies here, not at all no siree bob.

Hell, there is nothing to worry about. Why am I even concerned? Yes, the system is perfectly adequate, and nobody will ever be driven off by a bunch of admins deciding their article has no merit or that their opinions are stupid. Or if they did surely they would be able to find the 'admin discussion' where there is guaranteed to be another admin who will take their side against the deleting admin. I dont see why these whiny users want a say in anything, the admins can take care of it all, and if the user cant be bothered to observe this process, too bad for them!

In fact, the discussion pages for administrative decisions are so easy to find, so well thought out, and work so well, that you should be commended for improving on meatspace democracy. Nobody ever goes to the 'deletion list' page and says 'what is this mess'. There are also never any edit conflicts on that page, because it is so short, and there are so few people trying to access it simultaneously. Obviously this whole process of oversight of administrators has been so well thought out and all the issues about overreach of power have been resolved, and nothing really important is going on here.

Nope. System is fine. Full steam ahead. Silence the trolls, for they know nothing of the burden of responsibility!

how come when someone edits a page an admin doesnt like, its called 'vandalism'. but when an admin deletes or edits a page, and writes 'this is nonsense', its called 'administration'?


OK, the first time, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but after that little diatribe, I'm tempted to move a little further towards Raul654's attitude. However, just to put some more basic facts at your disposal in the hope that you will actually find out something about the system you are criticising:
The concept of a wiki is largely based around the idea of what I referred to above as "convention", also known as "Soft Security" and "Community Solutions". The idea is that everyone is accountable to everyone else, and in an ideal world every user would have equal access to the project. Hoever, in a project the size of this one, it could potentially cause a major nuisance if a random user (who need supply no personal details to have the same access rights as a normal logged in user like me) could do things like page deletion at will - let alone the ability to block other users, which is nonetheless sadly necessary on occasion. So a very limited set of abilities is only granted to a subset of the users. But the decisions are not made by these users, only the actions.
In fact, this whole conversation rather makes me favour the suggestion that we change the terminology to something more akin to "housekeeper". There is no such thing as "the group of administrators", nor are there pages where things are discussed specifically between administrators; and any user is quite free to call any other user's edits "vandalism" or "nonsense", with the knowledge that any other user can come along and disagree with them. In fact, ways of working out such disagreements fairly are always being suggested and tried, as a more thorough look into onsite politics would reveal.
In short, your comments are interesting, but mostly fail to take into account the basic workings of this community. - IMSoP 17:25, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

---

look, man, i dont care about how it works, i care about how its going to work. every single last web board on the internet has had instances where the people in power abused it to delete things simply because they didnt like it. power corrupts.

OK, I can do the condescending thing too: "look, matey boy, if you don't care how it works, shut up and leave us alone"

if there are administrators, and there are more than one, there damn well is a group of administrators. they discuss things on the 'deletion' page, by posting their comments under the suggestions for deletion, suggestions made only by other administrators. if you cant figure out how admins might have a group interest that is different from the users, i feel sorry for you.

the above is factually incorrect. both suggestions and responses on "the deletion page" can be made by any user - yes, that includes you. The only thing the admins/sysops do is implement the final decision. And as for admins/sysops having some kind of "group interest" or "shared opinion", would that arguments were as simple as that around here! At least that way we'd reach some kind of decision sometimes.

the most obvious example would be pages like this. since wiki is itself made by discussions and articles on wiki, and administrators position, abilities, and so forth are come about to by discussions within the wiki system, it kind of stands to reason that eventually some day there will be some fight, wherein the administrators will use their power to further their interests at the expense of the users, on one of these such discussions. any page with discussions about the place of administrators, about admins overstepping, about the way adminning works, etc etc etc, could be a starting point for the armageddon of wikipedia.

so, what are you trying to say exactly? admins will use their power of being able to edit a page, just like we're both doing now (just to stress this, I'm not a sysop/admin any more than you are) to... um... discuss things?

if you dont guard against the corruption of power, it will take over. 'new things' will quit being tried out, because those in power will not want to lose their power. why? because its been institutionalized. the rules are in place. the code is like concrete, it is slowly setting in, without any safeguards in place. By the time you need them, it will be too late.

thanks for the warning. we have plenty of safeguards, and are always open to suggestions for new ones. and it's worth mentioning that users become (and, indeed, cease to be) sysops/admins by the agreement of users, not that of existing sysops/admins, so there is no obvious way of anyone "taking over"

really i dont care though. someone will just fork wiki, since it is all copyleft someone will just take all the content over along with them. sometimes we have to learn things the hard way.

please, feel free to do so; then we won't have to put up with your uninformed rantings any more. HAND IMSoP 00:20, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Administrators should not do anything that's not supported by policy. Everyone can participate in creating policy and reprimanding or de-admining. There is a way to undo every admin action, so everything is reversable. Additionally, normal users far outnumber admins, so they could elect better admins and remove bad ones. Dori | Talk 00:11, Mar 24, 2004 (UTC) [drafted simultaneously]
Well, Dori, maybe this should be explained somewhere. Like in a wikipedia constitution or something. I have read the admin page and other 'meta' pages and none of it mentions 'voting' for administrators. There is no mention of checks and balances. Pretend if you will that an article was written about the US president that somehow failed to mention voting, congress, and the supreme court. That is the situation we have on wikipedia. Furthermore, if the policy is hidden/hard to find/not written, then it is not much different than if users had no voice at all. In fact my problem is not so much the process, it is the geek 'benevolent dictatorship' attitude that goes unchecked in all of cyberspace. This fellow says there are plenty of safeguards but does not mention a single one. You say 'admins shouldnt disregard policy' but how exactly is this enforced?
As for genius saying admins have no group interest, i would simply ask him to study basic political science or history. That is like congress or the politburo saying they never agree on anything. To them, they never do. But they sure agree on their pay raises, on pork barrel projects, on stopping campaign finance reform, rejecting anti-lobbying laws, discouraging third parties through ballot access laws and debates, and on a lot of other things that they, as a class, have a common interest in. The very idea that someone could say that people with power have no 'common interest' is like someone decrying evolution as a crackpot theory. Actually it is a basic scientific fact of human organizational behavior. As for 'condescension', i am just so sorry that I fight fire with fire and am not a submissive little coward like the rest of the users who either give up and leave or dont say anything.
All the information I talked about is in the page, please read it, review it, improve it. We can't force anyone to do anything here. If you think there needs to be a Wikipedia Constitution, then read all the policy pages and write that constition. Dori | Talk 16:28, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)
I guess the key point about admins/sysops having "no group interest" is that you seem to be over-estimating the amount of power they have, and the extent to which they form a coherent group. The famous assertion that "power tends to corrupt; absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely" immediately suggests (to me, anyway) that a small amount of power will only create a small amount of corruption, and if you look at the actual powers granted, they are about as far from absolute as you can get. And since there is (to my knowledge) no part of the site, and no decision-making process, that involves sysops/admins exclusively (unlike, say, the US Congress), they rarely exhibit any characteristics of a "class" - although there may arguably be psychological effects. Essentially, though, I personally think we are a long way from having anything resembling a "sysop/admin agenda", or the ability to realise such an agenda. - IMSoP 17:13, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Admin powers abuse by Adam Bishop

I am afraid I have to complain about Adam Bishop's unfair behaviour and, what I feel, an extreme abuse of his administrator powers.

On 20 Mar 2004, 22:34 he has blocked my account and unfairly reverted my edits in Cottbus, Munich, Dresden, Leipzig, Free City of Gdansk regarding the usage of alternative language names of various cities.

Despite the Wikipedia rule diplayed on this page Sysops can block and unblock IP addresses. This is meant to be used solely to deal with persistent vandalism. IP banning is not meant to be used against unpopular opinions, non-persistent vandalism, etc. Adam Bishop used this ban againts me to push his presonal POV, and to block me from editing and discussing the issue. His action was done without any discussion or warning.

My opinion is that the alternative language placenames should be allowed on condition that this is aplied equally to all languages. For example if we allow German names for Polish cities, we should also allow Polish names for the German cities.

Adam's opinion seems to be that German names for Polish cities should be allowed and maybe enforces, and at the same time Polish names for German cities should be forbidden.

This subject is already discusssed (and was discussed in time of Adams' actions) in the Wikipedia mediation started at my request:

Adam's action blocked me from participating in these discussions and in the mediation process. Adam should have consulted these pages before makin his action.

In these circumstances I demmand:

  • a formal apologies from Adam Bishop
  • some sort of penalty for his unfair and biased behavour
  • revoking of his administrator rights, as he clearly has broked the basic rules

Mestwin of Gdansk 00:10, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Just received apologies

Hey Gdansk, I shouldn't have blocked you, so I apologize, but you were trolling and vandalizing and it was very frustrating. Polish cities should have Polish names, but Kiel, Munich, and others aren't Polish. You even said to me that you were changing those articles out of some kind of revenge. Adam Bishop 00:00, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Apologies half accepted, as I do not feel guilty, and you continue to claim that I was. That fulfills 0.5 out of my 3 demands above. -- Mestwin of Gdansk 00:29, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Who are you to demand anything? You are not blocked now and Adam apologized. --mav 10:00, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Is there a way to see the IP addresses used by registered users (in order to confirm sockpuppet suspicions)?

Is there a way to see the IP addresses used by registered users (in order to confirm sockpuppet suspicions)? Better yet, is there a way to get a list of users that have connected from the same IP as a particular user? Mkweise 22:48, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No (if you are able to then it's a bug and security issue), but developers have access to the logs and can check if an account is a sock puppet (if it's being used for making trouble). Dori | Talk 22:54, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)

See wikipedia:feature requests. It's a common request, but there's no ability at the moment. There probably should be. Martin 01:08, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Need help to move a page history

There has been confusion over Macrocosm and Microcosm. It was originally Macrocosm. I changed it to Macrocosm/Microcosm. And somebody changed it to Macrocosm and Microcosm. Now the original history is lost and I would like for it to meet up. Is that possible?WHEELER 14:35, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I've done the history merge. Please check if I missed something. Dori | Talk 15:23, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

Kinds of users

Wikipedia has different kinds of users, with different kinds of powers.

  • anonymous users
  • registered users, also called volunteers. Can upload images and rename pages.
  • sysops/admins, can revert changes, deleted pages & images, and block users.
  • bureaucrats, stewards : can appoint admins on one or all wikis
  • developers: have sql access to all dbs, can change sources.

Admins have extra powers, and thus extra responsibility, but no extra authority. Admins have an 'example function' towards other volunteers. That is: if you are an admin, try to be always polite, friendly, kind, stay out of quarrels, etc.

A admin is not 'more' than other volunteers, but he can do more. All authority rests with the wikipedia community. You can not set the direction of a wiki, act on your own authority, or whatever. This applies even if a community is very small, even new volunteers should have a chance to have their say.

Try to follow procedures strictly - if you as a admin dont do it, dont expect that others will do it. Dont quarrel, and certainly not publicly with other admins. Of course you can have differences of opinion, but keep things civilised.

Dont advertise your being admin. Authority does not derive from this, but is carried by your arguments and deeds.

Listing your real name and email address is not obligatory, but it works easier if other admins know these.

Confidential

If confidential information comes your way, handle it with care.

Protect wikipedia by being carefull with your password. Dont choose an easy-to-guess password such as your name, yopur userid, or words like 'secret'.

Dont forget to logout when using wiki from a public compueter susch as a university

Using your power

You can

  • block an IP-address: do this only if the user keeps vandalizing pages after having been warned, and for a limited time.
  • block a user: do this only after conscent (sic) from other users.
  • protect a page: this is antii-wiki. Avoid it when possible. If you do it, state why.
  • remove a page or image: do this only after having listed the page for two weeks. If the page contains just obscenities, you can delete it immediatly.

Always use you common sense, and act in the interest of wikipedia.

Request to ban John Kenney =

User http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:John_Kenney has just vandalised 3 pages Gdynia, Gdansk and Szczecin by removing the list of sports teams, list of local politicians and the title line. One of his comments was so sick of this shit. I am not sure if the shit remark was to the Polish sporting teams of the Polish politicians, or something else, but this behaviour requiers sokme action. I FEEL INSULTED. Szczecin banditism. Gdynia banditism and Gdansk banditism. May I suggest a 24h ban, and if this will not help to ban this bandit permanetly. Please HELP!!!!!

Go away - you are annoying. Manning 21:48, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Fatal error in Russian wikipedia

In http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Mainpage was added   between words "Çàãëàâíàÿ" and "ñòðàíèöà". Now all pages of ru.wikipedia.org not opening:

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-new/includes/Skin.php on line 872

How fix it? --Ctac

The sign ";" caused this problem. Who can fix it? On-line access to ru.wikipedia.org doesn't work now!!! It is necessary fix string 872 in skin.php. Please, help! --Ctac 10:09, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This is now fixed, but you still need to remove the &nbsp. This talk page is not the best place to announce such errors since it's not something that administrators can do anything about. #mediawiki is the fastest place to get a response. If you can't get on IRC, ask on the village pump for someone else to report it there. Angela. 11:29, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks! --Ctac 11:40, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Page move problems

If I try to move a page over to one of its Redirects (which has a history), the move fails with the message: "The page could not be moved: a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid. Please choose another name, or contact an Administrator to help you with the move." With a link to this page to request assistance. However, when you get here, there doesn't appear to be a suitable category to handle page move problems. (I was trying to move Les Fauves to Fauvism) -- Solipsist 09:25, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Done. I guess the village pump might have been a quicker place to ask. Angela. 23:18, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)
Many thanks - I wasn't in rush. I should think the Fauvists are pretty laid back. However, I was more worried about updating the instructions on this page to handle this sort of case, since this is where the error message sends you. -- Solipsist 12:42, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Articleexists now mentions the village pump. Angela. 22:32, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)
He-hee - that's one solution. -- Solipsist 05:24, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Reverting

  • Revert pages quickly. When looking at a user's contributions, a link that looks like: [rollback] – appears next to edits that are at the top of the edit history. Clicking on the link reverts to the last edit not authored by that user, with edit summary (Reverted edits by X to last version by Y) and marks it as a minor change. This expedites the reversion of edits by anonymous vandals. Note that admin rollback is only to be used against vandalism or abuse, not in edit conflicts. Although all users, including those who are not logged in, can revert pages, it only takes 1 click to rollback an edit as opposed to 4 page loads to revert normally, providing an unwarranted advantage.

This is my proposed clarification of that paragraph. Any thoughts, ideas, criticisms? I'm not an admin, so I'm going on what I read about the rollback feature here. If it's wrong, please correct me. --style 05:36, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

I came to this page trying to figure out how to revert some edits. This description doesn't match what I see when I look at user contributions. I see lines like this: "14:20, 7 Mar 2005 (hist) Subject (top)". There is no link that looks like: [rollback]. I still don't know how to revert pages. ---
This page is discussing what administrators can do. For a non-administrator such as yourself, see Wikipedia:How to revert a page.-gadfium 02:03, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
What difference does it make? A revert is a revert. If you're nice for a few months and make a bunch of non-controversial edits, you can get this turbocharged reversion tool as well :-) JFW | T@lk 17:31, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I don't see any problem with a sysop using autoreverts in an editing dispute iff that sysop explains the revert on the talk page. —No-One Jones (m) 19:13, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The difference is that some admins use it in revert wars over matters of opinion. Sad, but true. The problem is that the autorevert summaries are completely uninformative and that admins aren't supposed to have greater editorial powers than non-admins, just greater administrative powers; as this article clearly states. --style 09:05, 2004 Oct 21 (UTC)
The differences are minimal, admins do not have greater editorial powers with the revert button, and admins are typically experienced enough to be able to tell when users are not making edits of substance but are merely trolling or editing/reverting for personal reasons or POV reasons. Jayjg 19:26, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
No, the difference is clear and it is stated in this article if you would care to read it: Sysops are not imbued with any special authority, and are equal to everybody else in terms of editorial responsibility. How much clearer can you get? And as long as POV/personal disputes are not vandalism, Jayjg, they should not be rolled back. You don't seem to know what vandalism is, so please read Wikipedia:Vandalism. --style 16:39, 23 Oct 2004
I don't have any problem with the proposed revision, and would cheerfully follow it if it were adopted by rough consensus. However, I personally would rather not do it, and here's why. Many (most?) admins are also principally article editors, and frankly, the article editing is a lot more interesting. I do a certain amount of janitor work, as my contribution to keeping the hallways clean (I try and take care of WP:RfD), but really I'd rather spend my time editing. Time spent doing maintainence is time not spent editing, so I try and save time where I can, and using the revert button in an edit war with a problematic user (i.e. the ones who say "my way, or no way"), as others have pointed out, is to produce a result which is nothing we couldn't do as ordinary users, just done a little more expeditiously. Yes, the message is uninformative (alas), and that is a problem, but judgement can come into play - if it's not obvious what the issue is, a message should be left on the talk page. After all, a normal user is under no obligation to do a good job filling in the edit summary - and as we all know, there are plenty who don't. So again, the info-less revert message is nothing that an ordinary user can't also do. The only difference is time, and frankly I think that's a fair trade for the janitor work that many admins spend a lot of their time on. Noel (talk) 13:55, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Now that I've thought about it some more, I'm going to reverse course, and agree we should formally make it only for vandalism. My reasoning is that I think it's worth the minor extra work (click on History, click on the rev you want, click Edit, click Save - 4 clicks instead of 1) to prevent any appearance that admins are using their power to 'win' disputes. If we aren't doing anything a normal user can't do, there can be no possible substance to such a charge. I don't mind a couple of extra key-clicks to make it completely obvious that admins are normal users when it comes to disputes over content. Noel (talk) 01:19, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
As stated, the revert button does not give admins greater editorial powers, and even though they don't have a revert button, anyone can (and many often do) revert without much difficulty at all; non-admin trolls, vandals, and POV-pushers do this all the time. And admins are typically experienced enough to be able to tell when users are not making edits of substance but are merely trolling or editing/reverting for personal reasons or POV reasons. Of course, the trolls/POV pushers/vandals in question often (and quite unsurprisingly) vehemently deny this. Jayjg 22:42, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes it does give admins greater powers, because they can revert much more quickly. And as I said before, POV disputes are not vandalism and should not be a valid target for admin rollback. --style 09:44, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)
A difference of a few seconds is hardly an amazing power. And vandalism/trolling pretending to be a POV dispute is indeed a valid target for admin rollback. By the way, Talk: pages are there for a reason. Jayjg 21:01, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Has anyone noticed that some users are "technically minded" and kind write their own tools to do reverts? Everyone should have access to this feature because it doesn't give them any extra power; it just makes things easier. Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 07:23, 2005 Apr 8 (UTC)
I would not agree with Brian. It is not easy at all to write your own tools to do reverts. I don't think more than 1% of users have this ability (I would say even less than 1 in 1000 can write such a code). And making things easier is extra power. You are much more likely to revert things if it is easier to do. No, this feature should stay with the administrators. (OK, now the real reason for my opinion, I would like to become an administrator one day for, among other reasons, having the "one click" revert feature :). Oleg Alexandrov 15:05, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Maybe it's not easy to write such tools, but it's certainly easy to download such tools. I thought "power" (in this context) refers to your ability to do things, not the likelihood of you actually doing them. Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 04:34, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and edited the page to state that one-click revert should not be used on edits other than vandalism; there seems to be widespread support for it otherwise. (Wikipedia:Revert already contained some language from brion advising not to use it in editing disputes, which I explained further.) It seems that this is an unwritten rule if not stronger, and it's probably best to treat exceptions as exceptions rather than accepted practice. One-click revert is something of a slap in the face to a good-faith editor; you should be very sure that's not what you're dealing with before you use it. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 16:57, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I like the changes. Very much. Good work. :-)
James F. (talk) 17:10, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Copyright question?

I don't know whether this is the right place to ask this question. Apologies in advance if it is not and kindly point the right direction.

From Maruti Udyog website, in Terms of Use.

RESTRICTIONS ON USE OF MARUTI MATERIALS You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, products or services obtained from any Maruti Web Sites, directly or indirectly in any medium. Neither these materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and non-commercial use. Maruti will not be held liable for any delays, errors or omissions therefrom, or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof, or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing.

Based on this can we use images from this in Wikipedia?

Thanks,

Alren 17:39, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Not unless we get explicit permission. --Hemanshu 10:05, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

New user levels in MediaWiki 1.4

Administrators will not exist in quite the same way in MediaWiki 1.4, due for release in a few weeks. Instead there will be user groups, and these can be assigned any mixture of access levels. See Wikipedia:User access levels and its talk page for details. Angela. 23:11, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Admin noticeboard

I've created one because it's too hard to communicate to other admins via messages (I've already been blocked for doing this!) So I've come up with a Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. All admins please feel free to use this! - Ta bu shi da yu 06:15, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Act like an admin?

Andrevan added this to the article:

In the early days of Wikipedia all users acted as administrators and in principle they still should. Any user can act as if he/she is an administrator even if he/she has not been given the extra administrative functions. Users doing so are more likely to be chosen as full administrators by the community when they are finally nominated.

Could you explain this a bit more? From what I've seen on WP:RfA, impersonating an admin has generally been very bad for a potential. What does "act as if they are an administrator" even mean, anyway? The only differences in my actions since becoming an admin have been the use of admin-privs. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 01:01, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't add that, so I have no idea. Andre (talk) 10:40, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
I added it, not Andrevan. I have been editing since before there were admins on Wikipedia. At that time all users were expected to act as if they were admins. Those who "act as if they are an administrator" can be recognised by their willingness to revert vandalism, to uphold the NPOV, to tidy up articles, to work with other editors and otherwise to behave responsibly whether or not they have the admin-privs. This is rather different from "impersonating an administrator" which implies that you are lying to other editors. If "the only differences in my actions since becoming an admin have been the use of admin-privs" then you have been acting as if you were an administrator all along. If you hadn't, you wouldn't have been made an administrator. The point that I was trying to make is that there is no difference between the behaviour of a good editor and that of an admin -- a point which you evidently agree with. The mark of a good admin candidate is a support vote which says "I thought that he already was one". -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:03, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

I intend to replace the text with a little clarification added to make it clear that "pretending to be an admin" is a bad idea whereas "behaving like an admin" is a good one since people seem to have misunderstood my original text. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:09, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

And I have now done so -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:56, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Super-user?

Has anyone been considering an intermediate level for "super-users"—people who spend a lot of time on Wikipedia but don't get bogged down in VfD debates, etc.? In particular, I would like the ability to revert vandalism, and perhaps some marginally greater ability to move pages would be nice, though I'd probably just end up causing trouble ;-) —User:Mulad (talk) 05:13, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

There's an advanced new "user levels" system coming in a future version of the software that will make such ideas possible. For now, though, you're either a sysop/admin or you're not. (Note that "super-user" wouldn't be such a good name, because it sounds like the person who can do everything...) - IMSoP 18:54, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I posted a similar idea at Wikipedia:Maintenance adminship. I agree that "super-user" sounds better. Rad Racer 01:07, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Reverts don't work?

Current text on this page says:

Revert pages quickly. Any user (logged-in or not) can revert a page to an earlier version. Administrators have a faster, automated reversion tool to help them revert vandalism by anonymous editors. When looking at a user's contributions, a link that looks like: [rollback] – appears next to edits that are at the top of the edit history. Clicking on the link reverts to the last edit not authored by that user, with edit summary (Reverted edits by X to last version by Y) and marks it as a minor change. In a fairly recent change, admins can also rapidly revert changes when viewing a diff.

Every once in a while, I could swear that it works as described. However, more often than not, clicking Rollback simply reverts to the previous version, NO MATTER whether it was the same user and NO MATTER whether I was viewing a diff to an earlier, correct version (e.g., see [3], where I was viewing a 2-back revision by Grutness and the latest version by an anon, and it simply rolled back to the previous edit by same anon--oops, I lied, I see that the IP is off by 1. But it did NOT roll back to grutness). What does rollback *really* do? What is it really *supposed* to do? I'd really like it to rollback to the previous version that I'm viewing on the comparison page. I don't think that even half of the rollbacks that I need to do go back only one revision. Elf | Talk 22:34, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It rolls back all contiguous edits by the most recent editor. If the most recent editor made five edits in a row, and you only want to roll back the last one, you're out of luck, it rolls them all back. Moreover, if you want to roll back the last three editors, you're also out of luck; it only rolls back the most recent editor. It doesn't matter which version you are comparing. Does that explain it? Jayjg (talk) 22:44, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks; I removed the incorrect statement about the diff. Elf | Talk 23:10, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You can rollback while looking at a diff. It just doesn't roll back to what you were looking at, necessarily. john k 18:42, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship

Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship is a proposal to allow Wikipedians to vote on the demotion of administrators, just as they vote to promote them. A straw poll is open to gather consensus as to whether such a process should be available. -- Netoholic @ 18:54, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)


Blockable

Is it okay for me to put stuff in my sandbox or will I be blocked just like I would if I put something in the Wikipedia: Sandbox? Also what is a block? --Trueblue9999 17:54, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Test edits aren't blockable, particularly in Wikipedia:Sandbox. You can make your own sandbox and use it for the same purposes. A Wikipedia block is a way of stopping you logging in and editing. We use them to stop people who seem to be doing things that, if left to go on, could damage Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:01, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)


But I got a message saying I will be blocked if I make another edit in Wikipedia:Sandbox on my talk page. --Trueblue9999 18:25, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

De-adminship for Ed Poor

No fair! Why can't I get de-adminned? And shame on you for deleting Adam Carr's complaint!! Isn't his beef as good as anyone else's beef? Are you demeaning his meat? That would not be meet or proper!

He wants me censured, blocked or de-sysopped for deleting his objections from my talk page - his objections to my having blocked him for one hour. (Note that he did not say de-adminned for blocking him - for that he only demanded an apology, and I gave him half of one ;-)

It's all at user talk:Ed Poor/Adam Carr if you'll please take a look. Uncle Ed 11:25, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Ed Poor has been at Wikipedia much longer than me and knows that the correct way to reply to a message of any kind is at the Talk page of the person sending the message. I have no intention of rummaging around in his archives looking for something he should have had the elementary courtesy to send to me directly. Adam 06:59, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I found this comment on the actual content page that goes with this talk page, and I do not think it belongs there:
Some admins would be very happy to get an "admin break". user:Ed Poor, for example, is weary and needs a rest! Just ask user:Anthere to de-sysop him for a while, and tell her I said so! I'd like at least a week, please. Uncle Ed 11:20, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
-- Denelson83  16:33, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

A question?

Ok, so far I got it that beracrats (sic) aren't as powerful as admins of sysops right? And how do you become a site developer if you are an owner of say a wiki site shouldn't you be a sd there since you made it? And if the people that have a website and all of them are admin's then how do you become a sd?


"it's me ><ino!" ok i want to be an admin not to do all hard works, i just want to have access to deleted pages, becuase sometimes i put the wrong names for a article, so i want to be an admin to delete them, thank you:D ><ino 09:39, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

A site developer

Ok, say I go to a wiki site and I have been there a long time and then I become a sysop and I do it then say I want to become a higher rank but I can't so how would I get to be a steward or a site developer would I have to come here and ado alot of stuff here and all that, then go up for nomination and realize I lost. Well that would just be too, inconvient. Bassium!

I reverted the final paragragh "Dealing with grievances"

When I came across the paragraph it was written as follows:

If you think an administrator has acted improperly against you or another editor, you have no effective redress. There is no formal complaint mechanism or process for having such a grievance dealt with. You can express your concerns directly to the administrator responsible, but they can ignore you if they choose. In this case, you must resort to the notoriously slow and only occasionally effective Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

And I reverted it to:

If you think an administrator has acted improperly against you or another editor, you should express your concerns directly to the administrator responsible. Try and come to a resolution in an orderly and civil manner. However, if the matter is not resolved between the two parties, you can take further action according to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. There have been a number of alternative procedures suggested for the removal of sysop status but none of them have achieved consensus.

It was clearly someone's personal gripe being slipped into the mix. But now Adam has taken personal offence on my talk page... Is he just continuing the joke, or am I in a bizzarro universe, and his sardonic paragraph was approved wikipedia policy? Themindset 04:02, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I did not "take personal offence," I asked you to tell me where you disagreed with the paragraph you reverted. I am still waiting for you to do so. Adam 04:15, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

May I ask you a question? Was your particular phrasing of that final paragraph motivated by personal experience? Or was it an honest interpretation of the spirit of this particular wikipedia project page? Themindset 04:26, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

It was a summation of what I understand to be the reality of the situation, based on personal experience. Adam 05:59, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Adam and think that his version of the paragraph is completely accurate. Why don't you answer his question? What specifically in the paragraph you reverted do you disagree with?--198.93.113.49 16:20, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

RadicalBender removing links?

Can I ask why Radical Bender removed an external link from the Manga page to a site I frequent called Manga Life? This site has been in existence since May and already has more manga reviews than any other site I can find on the net, it's kept up to date with new stuff at least every other day, and - frankly - has more detailed and informative reviews than a couple of the other sites already linked. So wikipedia really should be linking here, yet when I add the link this guy deleted it? Surely against the ethos of wikipedia?

Thanks, Mark

Expiration and/or vote to retain

Forgive me if this has been rehashed over and over, but I'm curious whether there's been any discussion recently of means of expiring sysop privileges. What if, for example, appointments to sysop had a 6 or 12 month term, after which consensus would again determine whether the editor retained adminship? I found Wikipedia:Confirmation_of_sysophood but this is from a while back, so I'm curious what current thoughts are on this. Friday (talk) 02:46, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

PS. Don't read anything into the word "vote" in the title. I don't mean a literally democratic process, I mean consensus. Friday (talk) 02:47, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Underuse of administrative power?

I know if I use my new AdministrativePower® too much, I risk getting a complaint for adminship abuse and getting the power taken away. But is there any danger in using it too little? — JIP | Talk 17:27, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

None that I'm aware of. So far, no admin has been de-adminned for not doing much — not even for not editing at all. There is a proposal somewhere (RFA Talk, I think) about de-adminning completely non-editing inactive admins after 12 months and an email for security reasons. -Splash 18:51, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Desysopping

Just curious, has anyone been desysopped for a reason other than inactivity or their own request? WP:LA doesnt really help me. Redwolf24 (talk) 01:37, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship is supposed to have the full list. --cesarb 01:44, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Complaint to any administrator who will listen

The user or administrator "Gamaliel's" history page on the lee Harvey Oswald article has some of the most vulgar comments, just plain filthy as a matter of fact, of anything I have ever seen. I did not expect this of Wikipedia. Anyone can access that page including children. Quite disgusting. Can it be cleaned up?

They don't listen. Maybe got other things to do. Just a mini power trip anyway152.163.178.143 20:15, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

As more edits are made, those will scroll off the bottom of the list. Please note that the foul language is not by Gamaliel, but by an anonymous vandal trying to insult her. Joyous (talk) 22:17, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Complaint against Mongo

Mongo has deleted my edits to the September 11, 2001 page where I point out that the perpetrators of these horrible crimes are "alleged" since there has been no trial; and that there are credible dessenters such as David Ray Griffin who believe that the offical report is bogus and that it was not 19 Arabs. He is accusing me of "vandalism" for putting "non-sense" into Wikipedia. I have $1,000,000 backing up my "non-sense". To refuse to mention the huge 9/11 conspiracy movement and the credible people such as the former Chief Economist for Labor, Morgan Reynolds, who believe explosives were used is censorship. Jimmy Walter Reopen911.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimmywalter (talk • contribs) 06:08, 24 September 2005

MONGO is not an administrator. As a fellow editor he is entitled to contest edits that he thinks are incorrect but he shouldn't be warning you about vandalism, because that isn't what you're doing. --Tony SidawayTalk 12:40, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Administrators have no more rights to edit than any other contributor so this makes little difference and is besides the point. The September 11, 2001 attacks article is on my watchlist as it has endured repeated vandalism and POV pushing. My first revert as seen here, was due to Jimmywalter placing the term "alleged" (when discussing the attacks carried out by the 19 hijackers) and the term "many" when discussing the number of people who have written books and produced refuting evidence of the results of the 9/11 Commission appeared to be vandalism, based on Jimmywalter's short edit history, not using edit summaries, lack of contribution to the talk page on this sensitive article prior to or after attempting to insert the information and the correlation with the username to an bio on the person, James W. Walter, (who may or not be the same person as the editor) a proponent of the information. My second revert was due to there primarily being an incomplete sentence structure and an attempt to reinsert the information. I perceived these edits to be vandalism and nonsense due their failure to comply with principles of Occams Razor, a fundamental principle of science which essentially dictates that the preponderance of evidence supports the outcome, or the simplist explanation is the right one. I encourage Jimmywalter to participate in the talk page on the 9/11 attacks or to include his evidence in the 9/11 conspiracy theories article as it may be a better fit there.--MONGO 16:12, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly with MONGO. Especially on the note that Administrators have no more rights to edit than any other contributor. Tony doesn't understand this point at all in my experience, and I think he needs to take a step back and let another admin handle this situation. His obvious bias may be making things worse. Agriculture 22:38, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I said that MONGO isn't an administrator simply because the only reason the complaint is on this page (Wikipedia_talk:Administrators) is because the complainant believed that MONGO was an administrator. None of my comments have anything to do with the fact that I am an administrator. If I were handling the case in question as an administrator, then I would have taken action as an administrator. Despite Agriculture's sincere belief, I have not done so. --Tony SidawayTalk 00:07, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Template:User admin

I think the colors should be changed, also this template should be advertised on an Admin page and included in the You're a sysop! template(s). - RoyBoy 800 02:00, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Capitalisation

Can we get some kind of standard way to capitalise "administrator"? Should it always be capped, or never? It varies throughout WP, and I would like there to be some kind of consensus on this. I think Administrator should be capped, but adminship should remain lowercase. Your thoughts? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 15:02, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Unique user page tags for special users

I think special unforgeable tags should be added to users' User: pages if they are administrators/bureaucrats/stewards/board members. This way, you can know easily when you are viewing the page of an administrator without looking at the long admin list. -- Myria 02:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Complaint against ADMIN ABUSE OF POWER

  • User Iago Dali and I came to a peaceful understanding. According to a message posted on my talk, his desire is to drop the complaint "Thanks for your quick response. I assumed my complaint was dropped when we made peace. I saw the dispute resloution posted on Pinero. How do I drop a complaint? Is there a page? Iago Dali 19:50, 25 October 2005 (UTC)" Thank You Tony the Marine 00:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

This is correct. I withdraw my complaint. Tony and I have come to an understanding, and the matter is settled. Both of us may have reacted badly. I do not wish to pursue. Thank you. Iago Dali 12:06, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Brief history of Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity

Apparently a very young Administrator Splash I believe from Bath England feels it incumbent to block, a piece I have on the history of Cuban espionage. Not alter it, not challenge it but simply block it.

What he/she writes is:

“Please take the request to: Wikipedia:Deletion review. If you recreate the article again, anywhere, under any title without doing so, I will block you from editing Wikipedia. -Splashtalk 18:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)”

While I don’t know Splash’s background nor her/his credentials to do this. Here are some of mine, my family is part Taíno (Siboney), and has been prominent, even famous, through out known Cuban history. I fought in Castro’s forces for almost a year in 1958; during that time I participate in a number of military actions, but never executed anybody. It was the executions that made me break with Castro, in 1961 I was later jailed by Castro and was released through diplomatic intervention. Then I was coerced to leave the country. Having remade my life as an academic, and I am now a full professor in the sciences looking towards retirement. In my field I have almost a hundred refereed scientific publications, and have published (hard copy) probably more than ten publications on Cuba history and associated topics.

I am using the pseudonym (El Jigüe) because of my academic position and because as compromise is reached in each section, I wish merely to contribute and not to be responsible for the final product.


It is my opinion that “Splash” might well be reminded that rather than deleting an article, and insisting on blocking it (and anything else I submit), a far more productive attitude would be to challenge specific parts of the article and attempt a compromise.

Sincerely El Jigüe User talk:205.240.227.15

Sunday, October 23, 2005
This message has also been posted, as I suggested at Wikipedia:Deletion review#Brief history of Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity. See there for details. The article was pasted in here too, and I have removed it. -Splashtalk 22:57, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity revised

I have continuously added new material, new citations, etc etc., under the 1title of Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity revised. Yet I find this important material constantly deleted. When I address what ever complaints are presented and replace these deleted sections; then the authors of these deletions (critics) then level accusations of multiple postings. From the fervor of these critics and their comments one could readily infer that deletions may well carry an ideological bias. A second now more common procedure (when continual direct deletion fails) seems be to lodge a spurious and often mendacious complaint, which is accepted by a like thinking editor who removes the article soon as possible e.g. Talk:Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity revised. El Jigüe 1/27/2005


It is now my contention, that the Wikipedia revision process has systematic errors that freely allow serious abuses of this nature; and that that these abuses become a form of ideological censorship. Furthermore I infer from these critics’ behaviors that such abuses have potential far wider use by totalitarian governments to censor criticism by this means. I do not expect any remedies, nor do I anticipate that this article to be restored. However, I do expect to prepare, present in scholarly forum, and then publish a paper on this matter sometime next year. El Jigüe 1/27/2005

See the extensive discussion at Talk:Cuban_espionage_and_related_extraterritorial_activity_revised#Deletion_of_this_article. Wikipedia is not your personal blog or a forum for publishing your essays or original research. It is not a magazine that will publish your articles intact and unmodified with intellectual ownership by you: all contributions to Wikipedia are released under the GFDL and can be copied, modified or redistributed by anyone. And finally, duplicated articles re-created in bad faith are speedily deleted as a matter of policy.
All of the above has been explained to you over and over again, to no avail. -- Curps 01:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

FCYTravis

This admin is deletion happy - he deleted my brand new Wikiracist article within 5 minutes of creation, violating several wikipedia policies in the process - "Don't bite the newbies", "Assume good faith" and in deleting it as 'utter crap' making a "Personal attack". He also failed to let the deletion process take it's course. If this is the sort of behaviour an admin thinks is appropropiate, why should I bother trying to contribute? 84.68.19.88 14:06, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

  • The fact that you wrote an inflammatory article on a prima facie POV word applied only by Wikipedia trolls makes it hard for me to believe you're a newbie. FCYTravis 16:10, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • You're making an awful lot of assumptions there. And because you summarily deleted the article, now everyone else has to depend on your word that the article was "inflammatory prima facie POV flamebait". Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but you're not even letting the community decide. If the article had been listed for deletion and the consensus was that it should be deleted, I would not have a problem. Oh and this quote from your profile "Proudly Playing With My Deletion Button Since July 1, 2005" makes me question your impartiality in dealing with deletion issues. If I understand Wikipedia correctly admins are supposed to be no more or less than any other user, just having extra tools to do certain admin tasks, rather than arbitarily using them to enforce their own personal agendas. And also, so much for the exhortation to "Be Bold!", when it gets you absolutely nowhere. 84.68.19.88 16:59, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Assumptions? No. Google "Wikiracist." The only context it's ever used in is with regards to an admin, Fennec, who was apparently called it. Furthermore, the article itself was POV, implying that anyone who was ever called a "Wikiracist" was, in fact, racist. That's absurd. As for my "deletion button," it's obvious that your sense of humor is lacking. Yes, you were "bold" in creating that article. I was equally "bold" in speedily deleting it. "Be Bold!" works both ways. If you wish to recreate the article, be my guest - I will immediately put it through the AfD process. But that would be a waste of everyone's time, including yours. FCYTravis 17:24, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I can't figure out what this sentence means so I'm removing it.

If you know what it means, then fix it and restore it.

"(Administrators, clearly, check on edits and contributions made by Signed-in users.)"

This sentence makes no sense because all signed-in editors can check on edits and contributions by other signed in users, as well as anonymous users. In this way, admins are no different from other signed in users. Even anonymous users can check your contributions, though they don't get watchlists. -Lethe | Talk 19:48, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Editorial responsibility

From the project page: Administrators are not imbued with any special authority, and are equal to everybody else in terms of editorial responsibility.

This may or may not remain true. See Jimbo's experiment at Talk:Alan Dershowitz. Depending on whether the practice is continued, the statement may need to be softened or adjusted. --Tabor 23:31, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Mandy Moore vandals

I have been trying my darndest to keep the Mandy Moore page up to date. But it seems anti fans and fans alike have been vandalizing the information. One in particular, 64.252.215.100 another is 164.67.44.180 What am i to do? Parys

Try posting this to WP:AN/I. Might get more visibility there. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:34, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Page move problems

If I try to move a page over to one of its Redirects (which has a history), the move fails with the message: "The page could not be moved: a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid. Please choose another name, or contact an Administrator to help you with the move." With a link to this page to request assistance. However, when you get here, there doesn't appear to be a suitable category to handle page move problems. (I was trying to move Les Fauves to Fauvism) -- Solipsist 09:25, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Done. I guess the village pump might have been a quicker place to ask. Angela. 23:18, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)
Many thanks - I wasn't in rush. I should think the Fauvists are pretty laid back. However, I was more worried about updating the instructions on this page to handle this sort of case, since this is where the error message sends you. -- Solipsist 12:42, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Articleexists now mentions the village pump. Angela. 22:32, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)
He-hee - that's one solution. -- Solipsist 05:24, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Reverting

  • Revert pages quickly. When looking at a user's contributions, a link that looks like: [rollback] – appears next to edits that are at the top of the edit history. Clicking on the link reverts to the last edit not authored by that user, with edit summary (Reverted edits by X to last version by Y) and marks it as a minor change. This expedites the reversion of edits by anonymous vandals. Note that admin rollback is only to be used against vandalism or abuse, not in edit conflicts. Although all users, including those who are not logged in, can revert pages, it only takes 1 click to rollback an edit as opposed to 4 page loads to revert normally, providing an unwarranted advantage.

This is my proposed clarification of that paragraph. Any thoughts, ideas, criticisms? I'm not an admin, so I'm going on what I read about the rollback feature here. If it's wrong, please correct me. --style 05:36, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

I came to this page trying to figure out how to revert some edits. This description doesn't match what I see when I look at user contributions. I see lines like this: "14:20, 7 Mar 2005 (hist) Subject (top)". There is no link that looks like: [rollback]. I still don't know how to revert pages. ---
This page is discussing what administrators can do. For a non-administrator such as yourself, see Wikipedia:How to revert a page.-gadfium 02:03, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
What difference does it make? A revert is a revert. If you're nice for a few months and make a bunch of non-controversial edits, you can get this turbocharged reversion tool as well :-) JFW | T@lk 17:31, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I don't see any problem with a sysop using autoreverts in an editing dispute iff that sysop explains the revert on the talk page. —No-One Jones (m) 19:13, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The difference is that some admins use it in revert wars over matters of opinion. Sad, but true. The problem is that the autorevert summaries are completely uninformative and that admins aren't supposed to have greater editorial powers than non-admins, just greater administrative powers; as this article clearly states. --style 09:05, 2004 Oct 21 (UTC)
The differences are minimal, admins do not have greater editorial powers with the revert button, and admins are typically experienced enough to be able to tell when users are not making edits of substance but are merely trolling or editing/reverting for personal reasons or POV reasons. Jayjg 19:26, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
No, the difference is clear and it is stated in this article if you would care to read it: Sysops are not imbued with any special authority, and are equal to everybody else in terms of editorial responsibility. How much clearer can you get? And as long as POV/personal disputes are not vandalism, Jayjg, they should not be rolled back. You don't seem to know what vandalism is, so please read Wikipedia:Vandalism. --style 16:39, 23 Oct 2004
I don't have any problem with the proposed revision, and would cheerfully follow it if it were adopted by rough consensus. However, I personally would rather not do it, and here's why. Many (most?) admins are also principally article editors, and frankly, the article editing is a lot more interesting. I do a certain amount of janitor work, as my contribution to keeping the hallways clean (I try and take care of WP:RfD), but really I'd rather spend my time editing. Time spent doing maintainence is time not spent editing, so I try and save time where I can, and using the revert button in an edit war with a problematic user (i.e. the ones who say "my way, or no way"), as others have pointed out, is to produce a result which is nothing we couldn't do as ordinary users, just done a little more expeditiously. Yes, the message is uninformative (alas), and that is a problem, but judgement can come into play - if it's not obvious what the issue is, a message should be left on the talk page. After all, a normal user is under no obligation to do a good job filling in the edit summary - and as we all know, there are plenty who don't. So again, the info-less revert message is nothing that an ordinary user can't also do. The only difference is time, and frankly I think that's a fair trade for the janitor work that many admins spend a lot of their time on. Noel (talk) 13:55, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Now that I've thought about it some more, I'm going to reverse course, and agree we should formally make it only for vandalism. My reasoning is that I think it's worth the minor extra work (click on History, click on the rev you want, click Edit, click Save - 4 clicks instead of 1) to prevent any appearance that admins are using their power to 'win' disputes. If we aren't doing anything a normal user can't do, there can be no possible substance to such a charge. I don't mind a couple of extra key-clicks to make it completely obvious that admins are normal users when it comes to disputes over content. Noel (talk) 01:19, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
As stated, the revert button does not give admins greater editorial powers, and even though they don't have a revert button, anyone can (and many often do) revert without much difficulty at all; non-admin trolls, vandals, and POV-pushers do this all the time. And admins are typically experienced enough to be able to tell when users are not making edits of substance but are merely trolling or editing/reverting for personal reasons or POV reasons. Of course, the trolls/POV pushers/vandals in question often (and quite unsurprisingly) vehemently deny this. Jayjg 22:42, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes it does give admins greater powers, because they can revert much more quickly. And as I said before, POV disputes are not vandalism and should not be a valid target for admin rollback. --style 09:44, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)
A difference of a few seconds is hardly an amazing power. And vandalism/trolling pretending to be a POV dispute is indeed a valid target for admin rollback. By the way, Talk: pages are there for a reason. Jayjg 21:01, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Has anyone noticed that some users are "technically minded" and kind write their own tools to do reverts? Everyone should have access to this feature because it doesn't give them any extra power; it just makes things easier. Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 07:23, 2005 Apr 8 (UTC)
I would not agree with Brian. It is not easy at all to write your own tools to do reverts. I don't think more than 1% of users have this ability (I would say even less than 1 in 1000 can write such a code). And making things easier is extra power. You are much more likely to revert things if it is easier to do. No, this feature should stay with the administrators. (OK, now the real reason for my opinion, I would like to become an administrator one day for, among other reasons, having the "one click" revert feature :). Oleg Alexandrov 15:05, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Maybe it's not easy to write such tools, but it's certainly easy to download such tools. I thought "power" (in this context) refers to your ability to do things, not the likelihood of you actually doing them. Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 04:34, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and edited the page to state that one-click revert should not be used on edits other than vandalism; there seems to be widespread support for it otherwise. (Wikipedia:Revert already contained some language from brion advising not to use it in editing disputes, which I explained further.) It seems that this is an unwritten rule if not stronger, and it's probably best to treat exceptions as exceptions rather than accepted practice. One-click revert is something of a slap in the face to a good-faith editor; you should be very sure that's not what you're dealing with before you use it. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 16:57, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I like the changes. Very much. Good work. :-)
James F. (talk) 17:10, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Copyright question?

I don't know whether this is the right place to ask this question. Apologies in advance if it is not and kindly point the right direction.

From Maruti Udyog website, in Terms of Use.

RESTRICTIONS ON USE OF MARUTI MATERIALS You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, products or services obtained from any Maruti Web Sites, directly or indirectly in any medium. Neither these materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and non-commercial use. Maruti will not be held liable for any delays, errors or omissions therefrom, or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof, or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing.

Based on this can we use images from this in Wikipedia?

Thanks,

Alren 17:39, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Not unless we get explicit permission. --Hemanshu 10:05, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

New user levels in MediaWiki 1.4

Administrators will not exist in quite the same way in MediaWiki 1.4, due for release in a few weeks. Instead there will be user groups, and these can be assigned any mixture of access levels. See Wikipedia:User access levels and its talk page for details. Angela. 23:11, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Admin noticeboard

I've created one because it's too hard to communicate to other admins via messages (I've already been blocked for doing this!) So I've come up with a Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. All admins please feel free to use this! - Ta bu shi da yu 06:15, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Act like an admin?

Andrevan added this to the article:

In the early days of Wikipedia all users acted as administrators and in principle they still should. Any user can act as if he/she is an administrator even if he/she has not been given the extra administrative functions. Users doing so are more likely to be chosen as full administrators by the community when they are finally nominated.

Could you explain this a bit more? From what I've seen on WP:RfA, impersonating an admin has generally been very bad for a potential. What does "act as if they are an administrator" even mean, anyway? The only differences in my actions since becoming an admin have been the use of admin-privs. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 01:01, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't add that, so I have no idea. Andre (talk) 10:40, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
I added it, not Andrevan. I have been editing since before there were admins on Wikipedia. At that time all users were expected to act as if they were admins. Those who "act as if they are an administrator" can be recognised by their willingness to revert vandalism, to uphold the NPOV, to tidy up articles, to work with other editors and otherwise to behave responsibly whether or not they have the admin-privs. This is rather different from "impersonating an administrator" which implies that you are lying to other editors. If "the only differences in my actions since becoming an admin have been the use of admin-privs" then you have been acting as if you were an administrator all along. If you hadn't, you wouldn't have been made an administrator. The point that I was trying to make is that there is no difference between the behaviour of a good editor and that of an admin -- a point which you evidently agree with. The mark of a good admin candidate is a support vote which says "I thought that he already was one". -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:03, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

I intend to replace the text with a little clarification added to make it clear that "pretending to be an admin" is a bad idea whereas "behaving like an admin" is a good one since people seem to have misunderstood my original text. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:09, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

And I have now done so -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:56, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Super-user?

Has anyone been considering an intermediate level for "super-users"—people who spend a lot of time on Wikipedia but don't get bogged down in VfD debates, etc.? In particular, I would like the ability to revert vandalism, and perhaps some marginally greater ability to move pages would be nice, though I'd probably just end up causing trouble ;-) —User:Mulad (talk) 05:13, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

There's an advanced new "user levels" system coming in a future version of the software that will make such ideas possible. For now, though, you're either a sysop/admin or you're not. (Note that "super-user" wouldn't be such a good name, because it sounds like the person who can do everything...) - IMSoP 18:54, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I posted a similar idea at Wikipedia:Maintenance adminship. I agree that "super-user" sounds better. Rad Racer 01:07, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Reverts don't work?

Current text on this page says:

Revert pages quickly. Any user (logged-in or not) can revert a page to an earlier version. Administrators have a faster, automated reversion tool to help them revert vandalism by anonymous editors. When looking at a user's contributions, a link that looks like: [rollback] – appears next to edits that are at the top of the edit history. Clicking on the link reverts to the last edit not authored by that user, with edit summary (Reverted edits by X to last version by Y) and marks it as a minor change. In a fairly recent change, admins can also rapidly revert changes when viewing a diff.

Every once in a while, I could swear that it works as described. However, more often than not, clicking Rollback simply reverts to the previous version, NO MATTER whether it was the same user and NO MATTER whether I was viewing a diff to an earlier, correct version (e.g., see [4], where I was viewing a 2-back revision by Grutness and the latest version by an anon, and it simply rolled back to the previous edit by same anon--oops, I lied, I see that the IP is off by 1. But it did NOT roll back to grutness). What does rollback *really* do? What is it really *supposed* to do? I'd really like it to rollback to the previous version that I'm viewing on the comparison page. I don't think that even half of the rollbacks that I need to do go back only one revision. Elf | Talk 22:34, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It rolls back all contiguous edits by the most recent editor. If the most recent editor made five edits in a row, and you only want to roll back the last one, you're out of luck, it rolls them all back. Moreover, if you want to roll back the last three editors, you're also out of luck; it only rolls back the most recent editor. It doesn't matter which version you are comparing. Does that explain it? Jayjg (talk) 22:44, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks; I removed the incorrect statement about the diff. Elf | Talk 23:10, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You can rollback while looking at a diff. It just doesn't roll back to what you were looking at, necessarily. john k 18:42, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship

Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship is a proposal to allow Wikipedians to vote on the demotion of administrators, just as they vote to promote them. A straw poll is open to gather consensus as to whether such a process should be available. -- Netoholic @ 18:54, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)


Blockable

Is it okay for me to put stuff in my sandbox or will I be blocked just like I would if I put something in the Wikipedia: Sandbox? Also what is a block? --Trueblue9999 17:54, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Test edits aren't blockable, particularly in Wikipedia:Sandbox. You can make your own sandbox and use it for the same purposes. A Wikipedia block is a way of stopping you logging in and editing. We use them to stop people who seem to be doing things that, if left to go on, could damage Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:01, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)


But I got a message saying I will be blocked if I make another edit in Wikipedia:Sandbox on my talk page. --Trueblue9999 18:25, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

De-adminship for Ed Poor

No fair! Why can't I get de-adminned? And shame on you for deleting Adam Carr's complaint!! Isn't his beef as good as anyone else's beef? Are you demeaning his meat? That would not be meet or proper!

He wants me censured, blocked or de-sysopped for deleting his objections from my talk page - his objections to my having blocked him for one hour. (Note that he did not say de-adminned for blocking him - for that he only demanded an apology, and I gave him half of one ;-)

It's all at user talk:Ed Poor/Adam Carr if you'll please take a look. Uncle Ed 11:25, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Ed Poor has been at Wikipedia much longer than me and knows that the correct way to reply to a message of any kind is at the Talk page of the person sending the message. I have no intention of rummaging around in his archives looking for something he should have had the elementary courtesy to send to me directly. Adam 06:59, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I found this comment on the actual content page that goes with this talk page, and I do not think it belongs there:
Some admins would be very happy to get an "admin break". user:Ed Poor, for example, is weary and needs a rest! Just ask user:Anthere to de-sysop him for a while, and tell her I said so! I'd like at least a week, please. Uncle Ed 11:20, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
-- Denelson83  16:33, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

A question?

Ok, so far I got it that beracrats (sic) aren't as powerful as admins of sysops right? And how do you become a site developer if you are an owner of say a wiki site shouldn't you be a sd there since you made it? And if the people that have a website and all of them are admin's then how do you become a sd?


"it's me ><ino!" ok i want to be an admin not to do all hard works, i just want to have access to deleted pages, becuase sometimes i put the wrong names for a article, so i want to be an admin to delete them, thank you:D ><ino 09:39, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

A site developer

Ok, say I go to a wiki site and I have been there a long time and then I become a sysop and I do it then say I want to become a higher rank but I can't so how would I get to be a steward or a site developer would I have to come here and ado alot of stuff here and all that, then go up for nomination and realize I lost. Well that would just be too, inconvient. Bassium!

I reverted the final paragragh "Dealing with grievances"

When I came across the paragraph it was written as follows:

If you think an administrator has acted improperly against you or another editor, you have no effective redress. There is no formal complaint mechanism or process for having such a grievance dealt with. You can express your concerns directly to the administrator responsible, but they can ignore you if they choose. In this case, you must resort to the notoriously slow and only occasionally effective Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

And I reverted it to:

If you think an administrator has acted improperly against you or another editor, you should express your concerns directly to the administrator responsible. Try and come to a resolution in an orderly and civil manner. However, if the matter is not resolved between the two parties, you can take further action according to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. There have been a number of alternative procedures suggested for the removal of sysop status but none of them have achieved consensus.

It was clearly someone's personal gripe being slipped into the mix. But now Adam has taken personal offence on my talk page... Is he just continuing the joke, or am I in a bizzarro universe, and his sardonic paragraph was approved wikipedia policy? Themindset 04:02, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I did not "take personal offence," I asked you to tell me where you disagreed with the paragraph you reverted. I am still waiting for you to do so. Adam 04:15, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

May I ask you a question? Was your particular phrasing of that final paragraph motivated by personal experience? Or was it an honest interpretation of the spirit of this particular wikipedia project page? Themindset 04:26, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

It was a summation of what I understand to be the reality of the situation, based on personal experience. Adam 05:59, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Adam and think that his version of the paragraph is completely accurate. Why don't you answer his question? What specifically in the paragraph you reverted do you disagree with?--198.93.113.49 16:20, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

RadicalBender removing links?

Can I ask why Radical Bender removed an external link from the Manga page to a site I frequent called Manga Life? This site has been in existence since May and already has more manga reviews than any other site I can find on the net, it's kept up to date with new stuff at least every other day, and - frankly - has more detailed and informative reviews than a couple of the other sites already linked. So wikipedia really should be linking here, yet when I add the link this guy deleted it? Surely against the ethos of wikipedia?

Thanks, Mark

Expiration and/or vote to retain

Forgive me if this has been rehashed over and over, but I'm curious whether there's been any discussion recently of means of expiring sysop privileges. What if, for example, appointments to sysop had a 6 or 12 month term, after which consensus would again determine whether the editor retained adminship? I found Wikipedia:Confirmation_of_sysophood but this is from a while back, so I'm curious what current thoughts are on this. Friday (talk) 02:46, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

PS. Don't read anything into the word "vote" in the title. I don't mean a literally democratic process, I mean consensus. Friday (talk) 02:47, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Underuse of administrative power?

I know if I use my new AdministrativePower® too much, I risk getting a complaint for adminship abuse and getting the power taken away. But is there any danger in using it too little? — JIP | Talk 17:27, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

None that I'm aware of. So far, no admin has been de-adminned for not doing much — not even for not editing at all. There is a proposal somewhere (RFA Talk, I think) about de-adminning completely non-editing inactive admins after 12 months and an email for security reasons. -Splash 18:51, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Desysopping

Just curious, has anyone been desysopped for a reason other than inactivity or their own request? WP:LA doesnt really help me. Redwolf24 (talk) 01:37, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship is supposed to have the full list. --cesarb 01:44, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Complaint to any administrator who will listen

The user or administrator "Gamaliel's" history page on the lee Harvey Oswald article has some of the most vulgar comments, just plain filthy as a matter of fact, of anything I have ever seen. I did not expect this of Wikipedia. Anyone can access that page including children. Quite disgusting. Can it be cleaned up?

They don't listen. Maybe got other things to do. Just a mini power trip anyway152.163.178.143 20:15, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

As more edits are made, those will scroll off the bottom of the list. Please note that the foul language is not by Gamaliel, but by an anonymous vandal trying to insult her. Joyous (talk) 22:17, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Complaint against Mongo

Mongo has deleted my edits to the September 11, 2001 page where I point out that the perpetrators of these horrible crimes are "alleged" since there has been no trial; and that there are credible dessenters such as David Ray Griffin who believe that the offical report is bogus and that it was not 19 Arabs. He is accusing me of "vandalism" for putting "non-sense" into Wikipedia. I have $1,000,000 backing up my "non-sense". To refuse to mention the huge 9/11 conspiracy movement and the credible people such as the former Chief Economist for Labor, Morgan Reynolds, who believe explosives were used is censorship. Jimmy Walter Reopen911.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimmywalter (talk • contribs) 06:08, 24 September 2005

MONGO is not an administrator. As a fellow editor he is entitled to contest edits that he thinks are incorrect but he shouldn't be warning you about vandalism, because that isn't what you're doing. --Tony SidawayTalk 12:40, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Administrators have no more rights to edit than any other contributor so this makes little difference and is besides the point. The September 11, 2001 attacks article is on my watchlist as it has endured repeated vandalism and POV pushing. My first revert as seen here, was due to Jimmywalter placing the term "alleged" (when discussing the attacks carried out by the 19 hijackers) and the term "many" when discussing the number of people who have written books and produced refuting evidence of the results of the 9/11 Commission appeared to be vandalism, based on Jimmywalter's short edit history, not using edit summaries, lack of contribution to the talk page on this sensitive article prior to or after attempting to insert the information and the correlation with the username to an bio on the person, James W. Walter, (who may or not be the same person as the editor) a proponent of the information. My second revert was due to there primarily being an incomplete sentence structure and an attempt to reinsert the information. I perceived these edits to be vandalism and nonsense due their failure to comply with principles of Occams Razor, a fundamental principle of science which essentially dictates that the preponderance of evidence supports the outcome, or the simplist explanation is the right one. I encourage Jimmywalter to participate in the talk page on the 9/11 attacks or to include his evidence in the 9/11 conspiracy theories article as it may be a better fit there.--MONGO 16:12, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly with MONGO. Especially on the note that Administrators have no more rights to edit than any other contributor. Tony doesn't understand this point at all in my experience, and I think he needs to take a step back and let another admin handle this situation. His obvious bias may be making things worse. Agriculture 22:38, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I said that MONGO isn't an administrator simply because the only reason the complaint is on this page (Wikipedia_talk:Administrators) is because the complainant believed that MONGO was an administrator. None of my comments have anything to do with the fact that I am an administrator. If I were handling the case in question as an administrator, then I would have taken action as an administrator. Despite Agriculture's sincere belief, I have not done so. --Tony SidawayTalk 00:07, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Template:User admin

I think the colors should be changed, also this template should be advertised on an Admin page and included in the You're a sysop! template(s). - RoyBoy 800 02:00, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Capitalisation

Can we get some kind of standard way to capitalise "administrator"? Should it always be capped, or never? It varies throughout WP, and I would like there to be some kind of consensus on this. I think Administrator should be capped, but adminship should remain lowercase. Your thoughts? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 15:02, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Unique user page tags for special users

I think special unforgeable tags should be added to users' User: pages if they are administrators/bureaucrats/stewards/board members. This way, you can know easily when you are viewing the page of an administrator without looking at the long admin list. -- Myria 02:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Complaint against ADMIN ABUSE OF POWER

  • User Iago Dali and I came to a peaceful understanding. According to a message posted on my talk, his desire is to drop the complaint "Thanks for your quick response. I assumed my complaint was dropped when we made peace. I saw the dispute resloution posted on Pinero. How do I drop a complaint? Is there a page? Iago Dali 19:50, 25 October 2005 (UTC)" Thank You Tony the Marine 00:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

This is correct. I withdraw my complaint. Tony and I have come to an understanding, and the matter is settled. Both of us may have reacted badly. I do not wish to pursue. Thank you. Iago Dali 12:06, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Brief history of Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity

Apparently a very young Administrator Splash I believe from Bath England feels it incumbent to block, a piece I have on the history of Cuban espionage. Not alter it, not challenge it but simply block it.

What he/she writes is:

“Please take the request to: Wikipedia:Deletion review. If you recreate the article again, anywhere, under any title without doing so, I will block you from editing Wikipedia. -Splashtalk 18:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)”

While I don’t know Splash’s background nor her/his credentials to do this. Here are some of mine, my family is part Taíno (Siboney), and has been prominent, even famous, through out known Cuban history. I fought in Castro’s forces for almost a year in 1958; during that time I participate in a number of military actions, but never executed anybody. It was the executions that made me break with Castro, in 1961 I was later jailed by Castro and was released through diplomatic intervention. Then I was coerced to leave the country. Having remade my life as an academic, and I am now a full professor in the sciences looking towards retirement. In my field I have almost a hundred refereed scientific publications, and have published (hard copy) probably more than ten publications on Cuba history and associated topics.

I am using the pseudonym (El Jigüe) because of my academic position and because as compromise is reached in each section, I wish merely to contribute and not to be responsible for the final product.


It is my opinion that “Splash” might well be reminded that rather than deleting an article, and insisting on blocking it (and anything else I submit), a far more productive attitude would be to challenge specific parts of the article and attempt a compromise.

Sincerely El Jigüe User talk:205.240.227.15

Sunday, October 23, 2005
This message has also been posted, as I suggested at Wikipedia:Deletion review#Brief history of Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity. See there for details. The article was pasted in here too, and I have removed it. -Splashtalk 22:57, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity revised

I have continuously added new material, new citations, etc etc., under the 1title of Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity revised. Yet I find this important material constantly deleted. When I address what ever complaints are presented and replace these deleted sections; then the authors of these deletions (critics) then level accusations of multiple postings. From the fervor of these critics and their comments one could readily infer that deletions may well carry an ideological bias. A second now more common procedure (when continual direct deletion fails) seems be to lodge a spurious and often mendacious complaint, which is accepted by a like thinking editor who removes the article soon as possible e.g. Talk:Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity revised. El Jigüe 1/27/2005


It is now my contention, that the Wikipedia revision process has systematic errors that freely allow serious abuses of this nature; and that that these abuses become a form of ideological censorship. Furthermore I infer from these critics’ behaviors that such abuses have potential far wider use by totalitarian governments to censor criticism by this means. I do not expect any remedies, nor do I anticipate that this article to be restored. However, I do expect to prepare, present in scholarly forum, and then publish a paper on this matter sometime next year. El Jigüe 1/27/2005

See the extensive discussion at Talk:Cuban_espionage_and_related_extraterritorial_activity_revised#Deletion_of_this_article. Wikipedia is not your personal blog or a forum for publishing your essays or original research. It is not a magazine that will publish your articles intact and unmodified with intellectual ownership by you: all contributions to Wikipedia are released under the GFDL and can be copied, modified or redistributed by anyone. And finally, duplicated articles re-created in bad faith are speedily deleted as a matter of policy.
All of the above has been explained to you over and over again, to no avail. -- Curps 01:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

FCYTravis

This admin is deletion happy - he deleted my brand new Wikiracist article within 5 minutes of creation, violating several wikipedia policies in the process - "Don't bite the newbies", "Assume good faith" and in deleting it as 'utter crap' making a "Personal attack". He also failed to let the deletion process take it's course. If this is the sort of behaviour an admin thinks is appropropiate, why should I bother trying to contribute? 84.68.19.88 14:06, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

  • The fact that you wrote an inflammatory article on a prima facie POV word applied only by Wikipedia trolls makes it hard for me to believe you're a newbie. FCYTravis 16:10, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • You're making an awful lot of assumptions there. And because you summarily deleted the article, now everyone else has to depend on your word that the article was "inflammatory prima facie POV flamebait". Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but you're not even letting the community decide. If the article had been listed for deletion and the consensus was that it should be deleted, I would not have a problem. Oh and this quote from your profile "Proudly Playing With My Deletion Button Since July 1, 2005" makes me question your impartiality in dealing with deletion issues. If I understand Wikipedia correctly admins are supposed to be no more or less than any other user, just having extra tools to do certain admin tasks, rather than arbitarily using them to enforce their own personal agendas. And also, so much for the exhortation to "Be Bold!", when it gets you absolutely nowhere. 84.68.19.88 16:59, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Assumptions? No. Google "Wikiracist." The only context it's ever used in is with regards to an admin, Fennec, who was apparently called it. Furthermore, the article itself was POV, implying that anyone who was ever called a "Wikiracist" was, in fact, racist. That's absurd. As for my "deletion button," it's obvious that your sense of humor is lacking. Yes, you were "bold" in creating that article. I was equally "bold" in speedily deleting it. "Be Bold!" works both ways. If you wish to recreate the article, be my guest - I will immediately put it through the AfD process. But that would be a waste of everyone's time, including yours. FCYTravis 17:24, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I can't figure out what this sentence means so I'm removing it.

If you know what it means, then fix it and restore it.

"(Administrators, clearly, check on edits and contributions made by Signed-in users.)"

This sentence makes no sense because all signed-in editors can check on edits and contributions by other signed in users, as well as anonymous users. In this way, admins are no different from other signed in users. Even anonymous users can check your contributions, though they don't get watchlists. -Lethe | Talk 19:48, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Editorial responsibility

From the project page: Administrators are not imbued with any special authority, and are equal to everybody else in terms of editorial responsibility.

This may or may not remain true. See Jimbo's experiment at Talk:Alan Dershowitz. Depending on whether the practice is continued, the statement may need to be softened or adjusted. --Tabor 23:31, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Mandy Moore vandals

I have been trying my darndest to keep the Mandy Moore page up to date. But it seems anti fans and fans alike have been vandalizing the information. One in particular, 64.252.215.100 another is 164.67.44.180 What am i to do? Parys

Try posting this to WP:AN/I. Might get more visibility there. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:34, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Mandy Moore

THERE ARE CONSTANT VANDALS. WHAT AM I TO DO? Parys 19:46, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Read Oleg's suggestion above. -- user:zanimum