Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive106

Protected edit request on Template:Film

Would be very grateful if someone could implement this immediately. I've been changing over tags for WP Filmmaking, since they've joined WP Films as a task force when we expanded our scope, but unfortunately I forgot to change the template text to reflect the new project scope, so it's led to confusion amongst several editors. Many thanks! Girolamo Savonarola 19:16, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. NCurse _work 21:02, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, got one more edit I'd like to see addressed immediately. Thanks again! Girolamo Savonarola 14:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Martinphi-ScienceApologist opened

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

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, David Mestel^(Talk) 15:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Request for outside views on administrative action

(moved from WP:AN/I)

A little history. I ran across Homeopathy and blocked whig for edit warring. Then I posted a warning on the article talk page. After the warning, SM565 Orangemarlin SM565 Orangemarlin began to edit war again. After 2RR, I blocked both editors , Orangemarlin (talk · contribs · logs) and Sm565 (talk · contribs · logs) for disruption. After that, OM's block was challenged and Neil (talk · contribs) unblocked.

Because I disagree, and I am apt to repeat this behavior, by warning editors and doing short term blocks on those who perpetuate. I would like a review. Relevant notes are in the archives of Orangemarlin here and Neils page here and my page here.

Thank you for your time and attention. Mercury 16:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to think that it would have been a bit better to have short-term protected the page rather than using targeted blocks. Though it prevents further edits by others to the article for the length of the protection, it forces discussion and resolution (hopefully) rather than the antagonism that might be released because of a block. I don't have a problem with how you handled the situation, but I'd suggest that only after ≥3 reverts might a block be a good idea, and then consider: our blocking policy is to prevent damage to Wikipedia, not punish edit warriors. Nihiltres^(t.l) 17:14, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you handled the situation perfectly well. If our intention is to to prevent damage to Wikipedia, it is much better to block disruptive edit warriors, than to protect a page. Your block of 12 hours was not harsh, and came on the heels of a clear warning to stop edit warring, after which even a single revert would have clearly been disruptive. Isarig 17:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

There is no excuse for continuing to carry on with disruptive behavior after being warned. Mr.Z-man 20:12, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Context should be taken from the discussion on Talk:Homeopathy, as I fear Mercury isn't telling the whole story. It was pretty evident the single purpose account Sm565's insistence on an NPOV tag remaining on the Homeopathy article was both disruptive and against consensus, and Orangemarlin's only "disruptive" editing was to remove it, twice. A block for Orangemarlin was absolutely out of proportion and out order, and I am surprised Mercury is so keen to bring his poor judgement up again.

If our "intention is to prevent damage to Wikipedia" (actually, our intention should be to make a better encyclopaedia), perhaps we should not spank well-intentioned editors, risking losing them from the project. Particularly those in good standing, with a (previously, now) clean block log and thousands of good faith edits. And especially after this arbitrary "2RR" and no direct warning (the vaguely worded warning was on the talk page, not OM's talk page). If you felt an edit war was underway, rather than block more and more editors, you should have protected the article for 24 hours, or stepped away and let someone else handle it. The fact you suggest you are "apt to repeat this behaviour" is the real concern. Neil ☎ 21:48, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The reason I suggested the review, was for my "aptness". This shows I am concerned for what the community as a whole thinks. The fact that I am open for review should eliminate the real "concern", I hope. Mercury 22:14, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

And I'll admit, I'm being succinct, but I would have hoped by linking the relevant areas, I would be telling the whole story. Mercury 22:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Mercury, I would suggest you disengage from this dispute; the fact you want to re-apply a bad block is concerning. Addhoc 22:26, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Disengaged. But I still reserve the right to comment in this thread. Additionally, I did not state that I would reapply the block in question, read the whole sentence... "by warning editors and doing short term blocks on those who perpetuate". Regards,Mercury 22:32, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The block of Orangelmarlin was a bad block. Full disclosure, I voted against your RFA. That being said, one bad block doesn't mean you should lose the mop. Let this go, learn from it, and move on. AniMate 02:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

• After seeing these online comments, and getting offline comments, I made a bad block. Orangemarlin, I apologize. I'll do better in the future. Mercury 00:59, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Community ban

What happened to the community ban link that used to be at the top of the admin boards? Has there been a change? I know of a case that will likely be there soon, or it's descendant form. This is a case dealing with multiple editors on several related articles. It needs to be a process with teeth, something enforceable.Rlevse 13:35, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

That page was retired. The separate ban page was decided to be a bit too isolated, and ban discussions should now go back to WP:ANI. - TexasAndroid 13:44, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

That's a trend now. Too much stuff is going to be on ANI soon and it'll be a mess. Then what exactly is the disruptive editing page for? I don't get a warm fuzzy from reading the page itself.Rlevse 14:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the 'soon' and 'going to be' ships have already sailed. The 'Episodes' thread there has been going since September 30 (and will go at least another 48 hours since a comment was left today), and the top three ('Episodes', 'Prester John', and 'PR') take up nearly 2/3 of the board. It should be renamed /Confrontations or /Brawls. KrakatoaKatie 15:23, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

See the Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard#CSN gone, redirected to wrong place? thread for an ongoing discussion. All this redirection to ANI is a stupid idea in my opinion. It's already over-bloated and can only get worse.--Isotope23 ^talk 15:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Totally agree all this stuff going to ANI is silly. Rlevse 16:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

If someone has done enough to deserve a community ban, they would usually be guilty not of having caused an "incident", but of a long-term pattern of bad behavior. Doesn't that mean that this board would be more appropriate for discussions of community bans than ANI, which is overloaded anyway? Cardamon 18:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily. The problem here is that too much is getting moved here. Community, check the Mfd on RFCN, etc and so on. Rlevse 20:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

• Why don't we move those threads to subpages, and make an "on-going issues" infobox at the top/side linking to them? Seems like a good idea too me; we could do that for all threads which last for longer than a week. --Haemo 20:44, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Be smart, use subpages, etc. Any section over 50kb should be moved to a subpage, and a link in the old section should be made to point to the subpage. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 02:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Caribbean~H.Q.

Why is this administrator not allowing me enough time or space to finish editing a page before reviewing my changes? I have asked him several times to desist reverting my changes to Wikipedia until I am finished editing the page. However he just keeps threatening and intimidating me.

I will not make any changes to the Wikipedia (I suppose it is a preserve of a few elite administrators) until he explains his attitude issues here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.34.220 (talk) 20:25, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I explained to him the reason behind the revert of a ovious violation of WP:NPOV (see here) in a edit summary, wich got promptly responded with a directpersonal attack on my talk page, following that I responded to that personal attack by telling him to read WP:NPOV and WP:NPA on his talk page, wich got anwsered with yet another personal attack both on a edit summary and his talk page, I'm not interested in continuing communication with this user so I told him to post this here so someone else can explain policy to him. - Caribbean~H.Q. 20:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

With regard to the point of letting you finish editing a page - there is no such right. As soon as you hit save what you have written is both recorded and liable to be edited... by anyone. There is a template (I've not seen it recently, so perhaps someone will link it) that comments that the article is being worked upon, but that is not binding and is voluntary. Would you perhaps like to comment on Caribbean H.Q.'s comment about inappopriate responses to their action, and why you feel that their review of your subsequent edits was unjustistified? LessHeard vanU 20:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

{{inuse}} — Dan | talk 20:55, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. LessHeard vanU 21:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Alkivar opened

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

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 21:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikirage now in Spanish

I added the Spanish Wiki to wikirage. Portuguese as requested will be next. w3ace 21:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Move of discussions on WP:ANI

I've taken the largest two discussion and created subpages. Its too long to load and the page is unusable. Mercury 22:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I suggest this above, so I naturally approve :) However, I think adding some kind of headlining section "on-going incidents" that is not automatically archived would be a good idea. We don't want to ship these threads off to the great blue yonder without some way to point new people to them. --Haemo 03:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Is someone going to remember to manually archive these new subpages when the time comes? The bot won't get them. Something to consider, instead of moving threads to subpages, is to reduce the bot archiving timeout still further. (The timeout is now 24 hours for ANI). EdJohnston 03:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Sub pages can be archived in situ: they can stay in the same place. We should archive links to the subpages. - Jehochman ^Talk 04:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Undeletion

Hi. Can someone restore the subpages of User:Qxz/Redlinks for me? I think I may have come up with a use for them. Thanks – Gurch 00:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

done. Viridae^Talk 00:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Er... I said the subpages :) – Gurch 00:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. is there an easy way to find sub pages? Viridae^Talk 00:48, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

See Special:Prefixindex. hbdragon88 05:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec) What are they? The names of the subpages, I mean. :) — Malcolm (talk) 00:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, they're in Qxz's deleted contribs. — Malcolm (talk) 00:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks – Gurch 01:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, now it's done. — Malcolm (talk) 01:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Erroneous blocking

I did a horrible thing and blocked two newbies, at User talk:Revo1nyc and User talk:RodrigoMarro, both for vandalism to the Intro page, without stopping to think. I apologized to them and will not bite another newbie again. Bearian 00:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

And yet you passed RfA without issue, whereas Gracenotes was beaten into a pulp. (Not a personal attack, just an observation) – Gurch 01:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

So cool! (Sorry! This is the first time I've seen an admin contrite for their actions... :-) --Iamunknown 02:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Three "Hail Jimbos" and go and sin no more. :-) We all make mistakes (well, all except me. :P) Carlossuarez46 02:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

(Hmm... I should note that this isn't the first time... it just seems to be a rarity. --Iamunknown 04:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC))

This user has done nothing but inappropriately advertise his band

Resolved

[1] look at every single edit, they all involve advertising his band.Hoponpop69 01:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

4 days ago. Blocks are preventative. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 01:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. — Thomas H. Larsen 02:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

A question about admins involved with articles

I hate to "tell on someone", but User:Zscout370 was heavily involved in a debate on Comparative military ranks of Korea, siding with parties that the insignia pictures were invalid where others claimed they were. He was directly involved with editing the article, but now has taken to deleting all of the images using his powers as an admin to support his views. The debate was also far from over, as I had contacted several sources trying to get the matter resolved. I reviewed Wikipedia directives and it clearly says admins shouldnt get involvoed in deleting things in which they were directly involoved with as an editor. If this is true, ZScout acted without authority [2]. Please clarify and again, this isnt to get him in trouble, only to ask a question. -OberRanks 14:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Were the images tagged with a delete tag first or did they meet speedy delete criteria?Rlevse 14:23, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Some of them were, some of them weren't. Two users found them on a website and called them "copyright violations" yet when I made long distance phone calls to the Army and Navy in Korea I was directly told they were the original publishers. The Navy then logged on and offered to verify this through a navy.mil account [3]. ZScout became involoved in the debate and then choose to ignore everything I said and simply started deleting the images before the debate was over. I dont think that was right and it did make me upset espeically since I had made the sacrifice to call Korea and get this thing worked out. I'm sure he meant well and will adhere to WP:AGF and WP:CIV. I just think it was against Wikipedia policy what he did. -OberRanks 14:27, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

i've asked him about this and to respond here.Rlevse 14:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

In the meantime, can we undo the damage's he's caused and undelete those pictures? I am very concerned about the junior enlisted insignia, which is nothing more than 1-4 colored bars on top of eachother, ineligable for copyright with some of the images he deleted not even appearing on the website where they were supposed to have been "stolen" from. He also deleted all of the South Korean general insignia, directly verified with CNFK as generic officer insignia public and free, and wiped out the entire Marine Corps enlisted section. The North Korean insignia do appear to have been taken from the website, I can live with that; but I am back to my original problem that admins shouldn't go deleting things in articles which they are personally involoved in editing, for sure not when the editing is disputed or when they are engaged in a debate with someone. -OberRanks 15:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this discussion may be relevant here. KrakatoaKatie 15:29, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

This comment should also be looked at. [4]. I believe it violates WP:AGF and it is interesting that ZScout claimed no proof was provided after a U.S. naval officer offered to e-mail another member of the debate to verify that what was being said about these images was in fact correct [5]. I am sorry to get so hot, but this thing is really upseting me after my hard work to resolve it through the proper channels. -OberRanks 15:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the rank insignia images, a word about the commercial website http://www.uniforminsignia.net is in order...I ran across it while trying to clean up and update licenses on images utilizing the deprecated {{Military-Insignia}} template. The website, which exists based on donations, apparently creates GIF images of worldwide military insignia based on official descriptions of those insignia. The quality and consistent appearance of the insignia has apparently led a lot of Wikipedia editors to use those images to improve the appearance of our articles on military ranks...this linksearch shows images attributed to them on the English Wikipedia, and this one shows they are all over the Commons as well. The hundreds of images in those linksearches are only the ones that have been properly attributed...there are many, many more that have apparently been taken from that site without attribution. For example, look at this page on uniforminsignia.net, and compare the South Korean naval ranks at Image:RokNavCapt.gif and Image:ROKCmdrBrds.gif, which were formerly in this section of the Korean rank article (the one that is in dispute here)...the file format is identical, the file size is identical, the appearance is identical - only the filename has been changed.

The website claims copyright on the images it creates. As mentioned in the ANI thread linked by KrakatoaKatie above, the copyright claim may or may not be valid in 100% of cases. However, users with copyright expertise, such as Quadell, have made the point that the claim could be valid. In addition to the legal issues, it is morally wrong for us to take the images created by that site and use them ourselves in a fashion which is in direct competition with their commercial purposes.

Also, I am reasonably certain that OberRanks (talk · contribs) is a reincarnation of Husnock (talk · contribs), given the fact that OberRanks pretty much exclusively edits articles created or significantly edited by Husnock. This is not a violation of WP:SOCK; the Husnock account is inactive. But dubious and unverified copyright permission claims, and bad image sources, were a Husnock problem (as shown at User:Durin/Husnock images) and Husnock was cautioned about image copyright issues at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Husnock. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 17:55, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

There was also a game going on a few months back where a number of accounts were all accussed of being Husnock, some of them posting from various corners of the globe. That is a game I don't want to play. I suggest we leave any of that stuff out of this unless there is a clear violation of WP:SOCK. Also we should review WP:VANISH before we start bringing charges of other users being an alternate account of a departed user. -OberRanks 00:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a copyright policy issue, not a content dispute. Zscout isn't accused of using his admin powers to push a POV or have an article read the way he wants. He is simply trying to enforce Wikipedia's copyright policies -- a laudable goal. OberRanks says he has spoken with members of the US armed forces who have apparently told him that the images on Wikipedia (and therefore those on uniforminsignia.net) are US armed forces versions of the Korean insignia (insigniae?). I am uncomfortable making copyright determinations based on somebody's say so. Perhaps OberRanks could obtain a copy of these insignia as produced by the US armed forces so this information can be verified. Or, as I have suggested, someone could contact uniforminsignia.net and ask them to license their insignia so we can use it. Because even if the official insignia themselves are in the public domain, the artistic rendering of the insignia created by uniforminsignia.net is most likely a creative work of authorship entitled to copyright protection. There may be non-free content issues as well, if the underlying insignia are subject to copyright. Either way, this is a copyright policy issue and should probably be addressed at WP:FUR or WP:MCQ, not here. -- But|seriously|folks  19:08, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll back Zscout, alot of these images in this area are sadly lacking data on the source of the image. See the image problems mentioned at Template_talk:SouthVietnamWarMedals#Other_images. IF someone would like to, I'd suggest tagging the lot of those as unsourced. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 19:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with these images being deleted; in fact the NK insignia DO appear to have been directly taken from that webpage and should go. I am also in the process of getting the insignia replacement that the military claims to have. I just don't think ZScout himself should have done the deleting since he was directly involoved in the dispute and edited the article to suit his views. -OberRanks 00:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Since I was the one who was discussing this with you, it would be easier to just delete these myself. Unlike the other users, I do not believe OberRanks is the sockpuppet of Husnock and it is not my place to assume. Regardless, Ober does know about the uploads Husnock has done and I explained to him plenty of times that many of that user's uploads are either being deleted now or later. If you feel strongly about it, then a checkuser could be tried. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 01:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Another problem, the images at [6] were taken from the website [7]. I am honestly getting ready to the point where all images uploaded by Husnock should be mass nuked and we can either restore or recreate. How does that sound? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 02:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not wild about mass nuking because of the possibility of collateral damage (i.e., deletion of perfectly good and valuable images), but I do think that user's uploads should be carefully scrutinized for images that fail our current upload standards, with a hair trigger on the alt-D. -- But|seriously|folks  03:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Deleting every image that user uploaded would seriously destroy several articles about military ranks, medals, and badges. Of course, that has already happened since 4/5ths of the images on Template:SouthVietnamWarMedals were deleted without explanation. Two of them I was personally involoved with investigating the Public Domain claim, these being the Vietnam Gallantry Cross and the Vietnam Campaign Medal. This entire affair has led me to believe that admins can pretty much do what they want and bend the rules when it suits them. We will see what happens when the government insignia chart at last is posted, but with the way things went here I am sure someone somewhere will challenge it, say its not real, or that someone isnt telling the truth. I repeat that my anger at this situation (which I apologize for) was mainly due that I was working to resolve the issues at hand, making phone calls to other countries, and meanwhile admins simply said images weren't free and deleted them. Its a lesson learned that we need to surround images with such iron proof and I guess thats what will have to be done. -OberRanks 09:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

This feel on deaf ears I guess, as User:Butseriouslyfolks is mass deleting every image uplaoded by this user wuthout discussion. A lot of the images did have problems, but some of them were legitimate. I dont think a single admin ahd the authority to delete all of these images without discussion. But, I gues sif he really did steal all of these images, he had it coming. -OberRanks 10:43, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

While not updated, [8] can provide us with hints. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:27, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I reviewed some of those images and there are many problems, the biggest being that alot of them appear to have been taken from the Army IOH and Randolph Air Force Base. But, there is the additional twist that I know the National Archives has a duplicate database of images which they control. I guess we could start over and delete the majoprity of the medals and badges images. A lot of the German/WWII info looks okay, but I'm not an expert. My one serious concern: I see there are several personal photos of that man which I think should be speedy deleted. The use rhas left Wikipedia and random pictures floating around on the internet, of which the subject doesnt have control over, can be badly misused. I would add speedy delete tags myself, but I have already been pointed as being connected to this man, if not the man himself, so I feel any action on my part would be misunderstood. -OberRanks 09:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I also began the process to draw some of the images. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

That is good, this matter appears closed. I tried to remain civil and adhere to good faith, if I was lax then I am sorry. A very frustrating situation but it seems like people aren't going to see my side of ti that some of those images were really not copyright violations. I guess they can all be reuploaded when people have time. -OberRanks 09:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

It is just early uploads being applied with today's cluestick, that is all it is. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 15:43, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

There are two related DRV nominations on today's log. GRBerry 17:23, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Difficult to tag users images for deletion when his talk page is protected

Hello, as the administrators do not encounter this kind of problem, I thought maybe they hadn't noticed the following :
Sometimes a user's talk page gets protected because he is blocked but vandalising his own talk page. This makes it difficult to request some of his images be deleted, as a user must always be warned before any deletion process may go forth. Normal level users have to use WP:RPP which is a bit silly. I'm not sure what can be done though. Jackaranga 16:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you not see the absurdity of what you've just asked [9] on RFPP? "Please leave this indefinitely blocked user these messages informing him of changes he needs to make to these image pages... which, oops, he can't do because he's indefinitely blocked" is roughly how it goes. On a side note, it is not the case that a user must always be warned before their uploads can be deleted. In this case no warning is fine. – Steel 16:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

There is an error in assuming that the user needs to be notified. There is no such requirement anywhere regarding deletion, or it needs to be removed if it has snuck in. Notification is a courtesy, done because the original contributor may know more and be able to solve the problems and because it leads to a better collaborative environment. In this particular case, those reasons don't apply because they can't solve the problem and they aren't here to collaborate. GRBerry 22:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

On a couple of the image tags, it says something like "deleted 7 days after the user is informed or 14 days in total". A lot of people take the word "speedy" literally and find the idea of waiting 14 or whatever days for a speedy deletion that must be done now painful. I would think that's why notification to a banned user is wanted - it would cut the deletion time down. All a bit pointless, really. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 08:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

If the user is banned, then I think we can forgo the warning. If another editor wishes to have the image restored due to new Fair use rationale or source, we can deal with it at DRV or at the deleting admin's talk page. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 08:17, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

John_van_v actionable conduct

John van v has written and posted a long personal attack on Eleland three times. (diff of attack text) I have removed the offensive content three times. I've written a polite note/warning at User talk:John van v, where I found that John_van_v has also posted the attack. Further, assuming maybe that Eleland deleted his attack, John van v made the following threat against Eleland (and arguably Wikipedia): "If he, deletes this text, I will post about him and the so-called Nativist, or anti-nativist group, on the Usenet, along with writing about the defeat of soft security at Wikipedia by the anti-nativists savants of the Nativist group." (emphasis added) Though a sporadic user, perhaps we should treat John van v as a newbie unfamiliar with our policies? That wouldn't be my inclination. In any case, since blocking may be warranted and I'm working on another dispute involving Eleland, would an admin please step forward to monitor and handle the situation? Thanks very much. HG | Talk 15:37, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/DreamGuy 2

This arbitration case has now closed and the decision may be found at the link above. DreamGuy is subject to a behavioural editing restriction. For the arbitration committee, David Mestel^(Talk) 17:27, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Earn a cookie!!!!!

I'll award a cookie to whoever closes this. -- Jreferee t/c 23:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

clearly a "no consensus" – Gurch 00:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I closed as delete all. Frankly, the "keep" arguments are very weak. I expect the love/hatemail and drv notices and the "you're an idiot" notes. Maxim_{(talk) (contributions)} 00:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

A hearty "endorse deletion" from me. Good close. Carlossuarez46 02:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

All have already been recreated as redirects. - TexasAndroid 17:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with that. -Chunky Rice 17:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Just that the official outcome was Delete, not Redirect. But I'm not jumping into the middle of this myself, just posting information. - TexasAndroid 17:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Why can no one who cites WP:CRYSTAL ever be bothered to read it? It doesn't say "delete all articles on any future events", despite what admin Maxim says in the closing... --W.marsh 22:59, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Blocking spammers

I ran across 3 user pages that were contained typical spam e-mail messages about winning the lottery and making easy money. I deleted the user pages and blocked the users. The users were CARLOSJGARCIA (talk · contribs · global contribs · logs · block log), Alds jaja (talk · contribs · global contribs · logs · block log), and Andrew chester (talk · contribs · global contribs · logs · block log). All three users had only made a single edit, and that was posting the spam on their user page. I know deleting the pages was not controversial, but should I have blocked them? One account hadn't been used in a year, one hadn't been used since February, and the last from August. None are currently active, nor have any good faith contributions. Should I have warned them instead of blocking them? I just wanted to run this by other users.-Andrew c ^[talk] 18:25, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a warning is necessary for spam-only accounts of that ilk. Don't make the mistake I made and auto-block the IP. Bearian 18:43, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe I did leave the auto-block IP box checked. I am going to be away from the computer for a bit, so I will fix it later (or a bored sysop could fix my folly and I would be in their debt).-Andrew c ^[talk] 19:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, fixed the autoblock. I'm still willing to hear if anyone disagrees with the blocks. If not, I'll consider this matter closed.-Andrew c ^[talk] 23:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with a block of a spammer. If their only contributions are spam, then they aren't interested in contributing, they just want to get their product across. That's not what the people who support WP donate for so I say block them. If there are other contributions then I would warn so as not to bite by accident, but if it's all spam I have no sympathy. James086^{Talk | Email} 00:04, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Pic of minor

Resolved

 – Thanks, android of Texas. --Ali'i 19:24, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Could someone help me decide if this pic is appropriate: Image:Retard.jpg. it's an unreferenced photo of a minor that was inserted into the Mental retardation article. I wouldn't have said anything except that it is a minor and could be a potential issue in that regard. --DanielCD 18:37, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't look appropriate anyway. I'm sure a proper picture of a mentally retarded person could be found. This looks vandalism to me. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I have put a db on it based on the name which is a personal attack, SqueakBox 18:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd definitely keep it out of the article in question. And it's unsourced, so I'd probably seek for the image to be deleted entirely from the project... (unless it is a self-portrait for the uploader's user page). But even then I'd force a re-name. Most likely it is speedy deleteable as an attack image. Mahalo. --Ali'i 18:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

On a side note: is there a reason we don't just salt this image name: [10]? I mean, if we want a picture, we would at least upload it under a less-derisive name. Mahalo. --Ali'i 18:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

That might be a good idea. --DanielCD 18:47, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I was going to propose salting as well, looking at the deletion history.-Andrew c ^[talk] 18:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Totally independant of this discussion (found the image because the page it was dropped on is in my watchlist for exactly this type of thing), I have deleted the image as an attack image, and already salted the file name as it has been deleted similarly as attack images 8-10 times previously. Enough is enough. - TexasAndroid 18:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that might have been the german kid that wen't off tap at his computer and smashed the keyboard. Viridae^Talk 06:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Jak3m (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Suspicious account. I was RC patroling using Lupin's filter, and I saw it adding a link to "petitiononline" to Blackout (Britney Spears album). The term "petitiononline" is a flagged term. You may want to check it out.--Avant Guard 20:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lists of African Americans (2nd nomination)

Hi, I'd like a review of this AfD. Did I do this properly? Did I close it too early? Bearian 01:10, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you closed it early. AfD generally stay open for 5 days. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old will list the dates that are ready for deletion. Looks like you were 25 hours too early. It wouldn't have hurt to waited it out. -Andrew c ^[talk] 02:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Austin_Lonestars

Will someone close this AfD, including its related group of articles listed, as Withdrawn. I am withdrawing my AfD for them but can't find any procedure for withdrawal so I'm assuming an admin has to do it. Thanks. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 18:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Andrew. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 18:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I had closed this as withdrawn by nom. However, a user brought it to my attention that they wanted at least 2 of the articles deleted, so instead of making them relist, I have simply undone my closure and reopened the AfD. Sorry for the confusion.-Andrew c ^[talk] 22:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't matter that another user wants them deleted (I'm assuming it was User:Jreferee). I nominated them for AfD and have since withdrawn the nomination. It should be closed. If that other user wants them deleted, then he or she can re-AfD them. That only makes sense. The AfD only had 2 participants besides myself as the nom, that being a question from someone and then User:Jreferee's Deletes/Keeps to the respective group of articles in the single AfD. With only one person actually having cast any consensus opinion, participation in the AfD to the point where my withdrawing the AfD would be inconsistent with others position is impossible and this AfD should be withdrawn, as requested by me who nominated it in the first place. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 22:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll draw your attention to Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_process#Withdrawing_a_nomination. Please, if you want, strike through your nomination and mark at the bottom that you want to keep the articles, this way the closing admin knows where you stand now. However, the discussion is active and shouldn't be closed prematurely. -Andrew c ^[talk] 22:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Andrew. However your reference is to someone's opinion on a talk page and isn't official since I don't find it listed anywhere in the actual official Deletion process. If your reference is indeed policy, then it shouldn't be on a talk page but rather it should be on the official policy page. No? -- ALLSTAR ECHO 23:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Alternatively, I could ask you for an official policy that states that you have the right to withdraw nominations (which you said you couldn't find in your first post). I imagine if we allowed nominations to be withdrawn after discussion had started, it could lead to problems, especially at CfD, where regularly someone lists something to be renamed and it may end up being deleted. Anyway, hopefully someone else watching this page can comment here so we can have a third opinion. As it stands, I personally do not intend to close this debate early, and if the final outcome is not to your likings, you are welcome to take the matter to WP:DRV. Sorry again for all this confusion.-Andrew c ^[talk] 23:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not a matter of the outcome being to my liking. Thanks for not assuming good faith. Based on the reason I opened the AfD, that being because of Malmö Devilants having been up for AfD then under Deletion review and ultimately reversed from deletion. I could understand if it was an issue of people wanting AfD's closed because of not liking the apparent outcome but that wasn't the case in this matter. It was a case of if Malmo Devilants were to be deleted, then so should the others.. since Malmo Devilants wasn't deleted, nor should the others be because they are all similar articles with all similarities of lack of sources and such. Therefore, again, it should be closed as Withdrawn. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 00:09, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I apologize. I wasn't trying to drag this out further or antagonize you. I guess my intent wasn't clear in my last post. I do not wish to continue discussing this, so I'll try to pass the hat. Are there any admins here willing to close this AfD early? Why or why not? Thanks.-Andrew c ^[talk] 01:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Andrew c is correct. Once someone agrees to deletion, we don't close AFDs as withdrawals. The closest thing to it in writing is the second bullet of WP:DPR#NAC, but that is standard practice. The other person's delete argument has an equal right to be heard and evaluated as your original nomination. It would be overly bureaucratic to close this AFD and force the person who believes it should be deleted to open a new one. Simply cross out your nomination statement and add a keep recommendation as to why you think it should now be kept. -- JLaTondre 01:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Total and utterly ridiculous. If I open something, I should be able to withdraw it. But whatever... -- ALLSTAR ECHO 01:55, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

You are able to withdrawal your opinion. You are not able to withdraw another person's opinion. The nominator does not own the AFD and is not allowed to remove opinions they do not agree with (whether keep or delete). And that is exactly what you are asking to do. The other user has a right for their opinion to be evaluated in the close and it would be more ridiculous to allow you to unilaterally override their opinion. Speedy closes in the case of withdrawals are for when there are no delete recommendations. -- JLaTondre 11:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Kaihsu

See the bottom of his userpage:

Copyright © 2003/2007 Kaihsu Tai. Moral rights asserted on all original contributions.

Someone may want to explain to this editor that he cannot assert moral rights or copyright on any of his contributions. 68.214.75.69 23:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I would delete it. Anyone esle? Bearian 23:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Delete the page or just the copyright notice? I think that since this is an active, good faith contributor we should be cautious about how we approach this in order not to offend or turn off the user. A polite note explaining that when Kaihsu clicked "saved page", they were "agree[ing] to license your contributions under the GFDL" should be a good start.-Andrew c ^[talk] 00:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Copied from my talk page:

I have had this kind of discussion around Wikimedia projects several times, and each time the conclusion was that I cannot license under GFDL (or cc-by-sa) without asserting my copyright on the work in the first place (either implicitly, as many other contributors do; or explicitly, as I do on my user page). The first sentence of section 1 of GFDL speaks of ‘the copyright holder’, which refers to me when the work is my original contribution (not Wikimedia or Free Software Foundation). (In fact, by including the copyright notice, I am simply following the instructions included with GFDL.)

Licensing under GFDL is not the same as donating into the public domain, which I also do from time to time with specific works on Wikimedia projects.

I assert my moral rights on the work only to make the defence of GFDL (by the ‘community’, whatever that means) stronger. (For example, in the case that someone contravenes the GFDL terms by copying Wikipedia content without crediting the contributors.)

The notice I put on my user page, therefore, is done in good faith and with a correct understanding of the licences (GFDL and cc-by-sa). Objections to that notice, I am sad to say, is based on an unclear understanding of the licences. – Kaihsu 10:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Kaihsu is correct, although IANAL. We retain copyright on all our contributions, and can repackage them and re-use them as we see fit, even though we have also released them under the GFDL. The GFDL is actually somewhat sketchy in this regard, since it merely states that if you release something under a license incompatible with the GFDL, you terminate your rights to reuse, which implies you can be sued for breach of copyright by the holder. As I am the copyright holder of my contributions, I can do whatever I see fit with them, as I am unlikely to sue myself. Another reason why the GFDL is such a bad license for a wiki. It's also possible that the GFDL may allow copyrighted data to be used within Wikipedia, depending on the reading of section 7. I think a good lawyer could make a good case there, but that's all hypothetical right now. This really was a bad license to choose. Hiding Talk 13:20, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Editors definitely retain moral rights to their work if they want, and in many cases even if they don't want to. This message is not a problem. WilyD 16:07, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Anyone got 15 minutes spare for WP:NPA?

I wonder if someone wouldn't mind popping by to WP:NPA for 15 mins or so to review the talk page, and the policy page, and offer their conclusion as to whether or not a disputed section should remain or be removed? Assistance wound be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Privatemusings 05:55, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Nobody will ever be satisfied with the wording of that paragraph, so long as there are disruptive individuals here who relish the ability to call any link they don't like an "attack" and block for it – Gurch 16:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Put in my 2 cents. Rlevse 16:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Truthiness on WP:TFA

Will someone think of the elephants? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored for the sake of elephants. 1 != 2 06:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

reality is now a featured commodity--victor falk 07:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Rbraunwa

I have just received an Email that Rbraunwa has passed away on 14th October. Can anyone verify, has anyone else received this email as well? Gryffindor 08:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

No links or other info in the e-mail? —Wknight94 (talk) 14:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I also received the e-mail, but have been unable to obtain independent confirmation yet (no death notice in the LA Times, since the e-mailed obit mentioned that he died in Los Angeles, nor in the Seattle Times, since Seattle is the location of the as-yet-unscheduled memorial service) -- so I've been holding off posting here. I forwarded the e-mail I received to the Wikipedia Signpost, and I'll post more as soon as I am able to obtain confirmation. If it is true, as it is likely to be--since I received the e-mail at the address I used to correspond with him--it is a very sad day for Wikipedia, as well as for everyone who knew this very fine man. Antandrus (talk) 15:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Main Page

Pls see WP:ERRORS. Thanks. --74.14.19.139 13:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Canvassing for AfDs

I have found what appears to me to be a crudely-worded canvassing for nominations to AfDs here: [11]. Is this legitimate? Should I mind my own business? Bearian 15:10, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

That link goes to a diff which shows someone fixing a link in a message they just posted. I see no mention of anything to do with artiles for deletion – Gurch 15:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Canvassing is a large scale effort. Informing an editor or two of a debate is perfectly acceptable. WilyD 15:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Canvassing for votes is not good, but this appears to me to be that he's asking for noms for afd to clean up a category, which by itself is okay IF the articles nom'd indeed are legit afd candidates. Suggest you keep an eye on what follows.Rlevse 16:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

this was a message sent to a single editor--I am not quite sure what the meaning of the comment was, but I see it as a request to undelete for the purpose of using the content more appropriately. I don't see it as Canvassing. DGG (talk) 16:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the input. Bearian 16:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

GallifreyanPostman, indefinitely blocked

I indefinitely blocked GallifreyanPostman (talk · contribs) for ongoing disruption. I noticed his page blanking] of Microsoft Office Communicator, and started reviewing his contributions which I invite others to do. I'm not against this block being given an expiration time so if other's would like to review by all means please do. Keegan^talk 23:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

A little history here. This ID has a history of good edits interspersed with occasional juvenile vandlaism. After an earlier indef block, the user claimed that there were actually two people involved, brothers. The good edits were from the proper owner of the account, the vandalism from a brother who would hop onto the first brother's computer, bring up the logged-in WP account, and proceed to vandalize. This explanation earned an unblock. I was then watching the account, and the pattern continued, so I started giving inceasing blocks after the vandalism, and stern warnings on the user's talk page that, assuming that there were two people involved, the first brother had to prevent his sibling from vandalizing, one way or another, or the account would soon find itself indef blocked again. In June, when I reached a 1 week block, I issued a "last chance" warning. Any more vandalism from the account after the week's block would result in an indefinite block. I watched closely for the next couple of months, and there were only good edits. I stopped watching as closely, and apparently at some time recently the vandalism resumed, and Keegan made good on my last chance warning. I thus reluctantly endorese this block. Reluctantly, because I would be similarly reluctant to have indef blocked him myself if I had caught the resumption of vandalism, though I would have still done the indef block. There are good edits from the account, but they are not IMHO critical enought to outweigh putting up with vandalism from the same account, one person or two. - TexasAndroid 17:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

After consideration and some off-wiki discussion I have given the account an expiratory time of one month with a severe shake of the finger. Keegan^talk 18:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

89.172.198.53 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

User from this account constantly keeps defacing and vandalizing Vrlika and Kukar. Worst is that he/she deletes whole sections, changes whole sections to his POV and deletes "citations needed" entries. Please address. Kukar 20:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I note that the "talk" link is red. Should you not try asking for their reasons? LessHeard vanU 21:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, sections which you added and which are obvious POV. This was emphasized to you more than once and by more than one user, yet you continue your little edit war. Deleting historical references, sources and info is vandalism, not revert of such vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.172.193.65 (talk) 21:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Mmmmm... bit slow tonight, but I've just noticed a similarity between article and complainants username. I think that this appears to be a content dispute, the only point for admins to consider is the appropriateness of the username - given the articles edited. LessHeard vanU 21:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know who is right or wrong here, but the IP user has been editing those article under similar IP addresses in the past, which may make it look like several users support his point of view. This is the hard thing when people don't register and use dynamic IP addresses you can never engage in a conversation with them, because they won't even see they have a message on their talk page. Jackaranga 09:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

From what I have added I have also tried to add citations. What I find a problem with is that what others (ie. dude with the ip number) do is delete whole sections from what is added and then add info that when asked to put a reference they delete the reference. I have not deleted anything historically referenced. If I did I appoligize. The problem is the deletion of whole sections and anything to do with a particular ethnic group on these pages. Kukar 19:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Move Template:Soviet zones of occupation back to Template:Soviet occupation

Resolved

User:Dojarca nominated Template:Soviet occupation for deletion here: Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2007_October_4#Template:Soviet_occupation, however the result of the debate was Keep/no concensus. Within hours after the closure of the debate, User:Dojarca has moved the template twice [12], [13] without any concensus. Clearly this is a controversial move and a concensus should have be reached first. However User:Dojarca edited the re-directs so it is not possible to undo the moves. Could an admin assist in moving the template back to its original title and clean up the redirects, and protect it from further moves until an adequate discussion for any potential moves is conducted. Thanks. Martintg 23:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I moved the template back. Please contact the user regarding establishing a requested move for the page. Keegan^talk 05:33, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

And Dojarca moved it once again. -- Sander Säde 07:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I've protected the template temporarily. There is virtually no discussion on its talk page. You should discuss it there. DrKiernan 08:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Why did you protect it without moving it back where it was before one sided moves!?--Alexia Death the Grey 08:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Protection policy: "pages protected in an edit war are protected in whatever version they happen to be currently in. Protection during an edit war is not an endorsement of the current version. Editors should not ask for a specific version of a page to be protected or, if it has already been protected, reverted to a different version. Instead, editors should attempt to resolve the dispute on the related talk page." DrKiernan 08:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

One sided move is not an edit war. Thus rules of edit waring do not apply. However, I you have made your decision to endorse this name as I see, so...--Alexia Death the Grey 09:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this is not an edit war, but a move initiated by a person whose nomination for deletion failed and thus is contrary to the outcome of the TfD, which was Keep. Unless ofcourse DrKiernan is claiming that Dojarca's reverting the action of an uninvolved admin User:Keegan is edit warring, but then in that case the appropriate action would be to block Dojarca, not protect the template. Martintg 09:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Martintg, I seen no discussion on the talk page that people oppose the moving. Neither I was notified. Please refrain appealing to admins before discussing issue on the talk page.--Dojarca 08:28, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The result of the TfD, which closed hours before you moved the article, was Keep, so obviously there are many people opposed to the move, there was plenty of discussion during that deletion debate. Martintg 09:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

It was no consensus for delete (only because your mob of POV-pushers votes). Move was not discussed there. Wikipedia is not democracy. If we need enforce neutrality, we do not count how many POV-pushers agree.--Dojarca 09:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Please refrain from you incivil remarks regarding "POV-pushers". There was also no concensus for a move, because in your nomination you suggest: "Alternatively the template may be moved to Template:Soviet zones of occupation with heavy rework", but even this was not supported. Martintg 09:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Most people outside your close company supported the deletion.--Dojarca 03:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

And most people outside your close company supported keeping. -- Sander Säde 05:36, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

copied from Template talk:Soviet occupation zones

Well, I don't have a bone to pick in this fight, I was reverting a move that was done without consensus. Once such a bold action is challenged, it should be discussed before reverting again. The closure of the TfD did not say to move the title of the template, nor was there a requested move filed. There are better ways of handling this than saying Wikipedia is not a democracy and promoting unilateralism. Work it out amongst yourselves, I have nothing else to contribute to this debate. Keegan^talk 18:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Block of Melsaran

All,

This is a note to flag-up (for transparency and courtesy) that I have blocked Melsaran based on CheckUser evidence of suspected sockpuppetting, having discussed it with other CheckUsers and the Arbitration Committee.

I'm aware that Melsaran has been active in areas of policy discussion amongst others, so thought it best that you all be aware and not be surprised when discovering their absence.

Obviously, I would greatly appreciate it if you could refer queries, unblock suggestions etc. to us (on arbcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org), though I'm happy to proxy the thoughts of any of you if you would prefer.

Yours,

James F. (talk) 16:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you disclose any details about the sockpuppets? Was the User:Melsaran account the puppetmaster or the sock? I'll understand if certain info can't be discussed in public for privacy reasons, but I'd imagine these would be the obvious questions. Thanks, Chaz ^Beckett 16:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like the sock based on the message given to Melsaran on his/her talk page. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 17:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right. I would like to know which other account(s) were linked to Melsaran, especially since he was heavily involved in discussion on an ArbCom case involving an alleged sockpuppet. Chaz ^Beckett 17:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

This is completely insane. Melsaran is a good editor whose contributions reveal a history of constructive edits. If the ArbCom has some evidence against him, they need to bring it out in the open; they have no right to block based on some covert discussion amongst themselves. I will unblock him unless the ArbCom provides satisfactory evidence. "Privacy reasons" don't cut it. Walton^One 17:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Walton, the reason we appoint ArbCom is so they can make these tough calls. They wouldn't do it this way if he was simply using a couple of extra accounts to votestack. This will be something pretty serious. I don't wish to be too blunt, but if you unblock someone blocked in such circumstances by agreement of ArbCom, it would seriously call into question whether it is appropriate for you to continue as an administrator. WjBscribe 17:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Fine, I'm not really going to unblock him. It was a threat made in rage. However, I do think that we need openness and accountability on these issues. Walton^One 17:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

"Privacy reasons" DO cut it. [14]. --Ali'i 17:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

And unilaterally overturning an action of arbcom is a Really Bad Idea^TM. Raymond Arritt 17:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually the ArbCom has every right to block a confirmed sockpuppet. I do agree that releasing evidence would be helpful, but this may not be possible if there are legitimate privacy concerns. Starting a wheel-war isn't going to accomplish anything other than maybe getting your sysop bit revoked. Chaz ^Beckett 17:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

But I can't believe that everyone's just acquiescing to this, without asking the ArbCom to produce their evidence. Fairness and due process seem to have been completely ignored here. If the ArbCom wishes to deprive this encyclopedia of a good editor, they can damn well explain their reasons. Walton^One 17:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Give it some time, I suspect from James F's message to him that this is partly to offer Melsaran an opportunity to resolve this matter privately without all details being splashed across the Wiki. WjBscribe 17:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess some of us have a little faith that the ArbCom isn't some cabal blocking users all willy-nilly. From what's been mentioned, this is a block based on Melsaran being a sockpupper of banned user. It doesn't matter whether you consider him to be a "good editor", he doesn't get to edit at all if he's already been banned. Chaz ^Beckett 17:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that hasn't been said at all. Just that he's a "suspected sockpuppet". Of another active account? Of a blocked user? A banned user? And if it's "suspected", how is this an acceptable block without a single bit of discussion with the community or a single bit of evidence provided to it? —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 17:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Users aren't blocked for simply being a sockpuppet, but for being a sockpuppet of a banned user. That much can be deduced from what's already been mentioned. The ArbCom doesn't have to get permission from the community to block and I doubt the block would have been placed if it wasn't compelling evidence. That said, I would like to know who he was a sockpuppet of. Chaz ^Beckett 17:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to know one thing: sockpupet of whom? — Edokter • Talk • 17:32, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The short answer is that we don't know for sure who he's a sockpuppet of. The longer answer is that the checkuser evidence is strongly suggestive of sockpuppetry, and we have one particular person in mind as the sockpuppeteer (but we aren't sure enough to say who it is). That person we suspect is most definitely banned from Wikipedia. Raul654 17:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

This makes zero sense to me. How can you say that the evidence is "strongly suggestive of sockpuppetry" without knowing who the sockpuppeteer is? That's the equivalent of saying that the evidence is "strongly suggestive of Meslaran editing Wikipedia" since there isn't a correlation to a sockpuppeteer. And if you don't know, then how can you block without discussion?!?! This is absurd. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 17:48, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

If we said things like that, then it'd make it easier for people to take steps to prevent us detecting it. But I can assure you it is entirely possible to be certain someone is a sockpuppet, but not be sure who the sockmaster it is. --Deskana (talk) 17:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Wait - you think it was a sockpuppet of a banned user, you don't know for sure? So why the block before being perfectly positive about the who's and what's? I understand there is some degree of urgency when it comes to banned users but there was no immediate disruption - shouldn't blocks be made on the basis of concrete evidence, not hunches? This is the sort of shit that sends WR into a tizzy. ~ Riana ⁂ 17:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to sit back and watch this. Can you please follow up ASAP? Bearian 17:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I presume that it is the information as to the identity of suckpuppeteer that cannot be revealed at this time. There really isn't much we can do. I would expect a follow up statement on this at some point in the future, but lets leave ArbCom to do their hjob... WjBscribe 17:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• In the block post, Melsaran was directed to contact us. We posted here so the community will be aware of the block. We are trying to handle this with as little disruption as possible. Please hang in there with us as we deal with this issue. FloNight♥♥♥ 17:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with WJB, please let ArbCom do their bit. They don't generally leave actions unexplained so there's obviously a good reason for it this time around; I'm sure we'll be told enough in good time. ~ Riana ⁂ 17:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but this fact should probably be noted on some rather heated AFDs (see the list here) which User:Melsaran contributed heavily to. shoy 17:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

This whole thing is ludicrous. It really is. Melsaran was not, in any conceivable way, disrupting Wikipedia. If he was a sockpuppet of a banned user, but wasn't doing any harm, why not give him a second chance? And if you're not even sure he was a sockpuppet of a banned user, then why drag his name through the mud by pre-emptively blocking him? Walton^One 17:55, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

If he's banned, he has the potential to do harm to the project and is therefore not welcome to edit. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Anyone has "potential to do harm to the project". He had been making good-faith, productive edits for some months. If he had started making disruptive edits, I would thoroughly endorse the block; but I don't see that there's any need for pre-emptive blocking. Walton^One 18:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

If you're banned, you're banned for a reason. I also beg to differ about him being disruptive - he made some very point MfD and AfD noms and was often argumentative in discussion. Ryan Postlethwaite 18:04, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I am argumentative in discussion, and proud of it. Are you going to block me? One of the best things about Melsaran was his ability to stand up to the Wikipedia establishment and say what he really thought, rather than parroting the mindless groupthink that fills most discussions around here. That isn't disruptive. Walton^One 18:06, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

There'd better be some really good reason for not revealing this info and for doing it. I wouldn't block someone at WP:SSP on this little info. And sock of whom?Rlevse 17:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The point is, they have CU and probably for privacy reasons, they can't reveal who it is. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, this one was a sockpuppet, alright. I always knew there was something very dodgy about him. Check his first edits: the edit summaries there, and the edits themselves, display a level of knowledge about the workings of the English Wikipedia that work on the Dutch Wikipedia simply doesn't explain. This should have happened quite a while ago, actually. We're lucky he didn't pass RFA. Moreschi ^Talk 18:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree. This block should not come as a surprise to anyone. – Steel 18:03, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Erm... there's nothing against policy about having had previous accounts or being familiar with Wikipedia's inner workings. Nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. If the previous accounts were blocked or banned, then there is a problem, but there has been zero edit-based evidence presented (again, that's zero), and the check user evidence has led to a "suspicion". I'm sorry, but that's simply not enough for a block like this. I have no idea if he's a sock, I normally trust our CUs and ArbCom implicitly, but the lack of evidence or justification provided in the block of a productive editor who didn't pass the duck test is unacceptable. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 18:06, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I can deal with the privacy part. I don't see why we can't know of whom he's a sock. Rlevse 18:05, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

There are comments above that at least some of his actions, XfDs, for instance, might have been somewhat disruptive. Regarding the other comments you made, we really can't know until and unless the evidence is put forward. Unfortunately, I can imagine that, in some cases, the evidence ArbCom used to make this decision might not be information which is already available to the rest of us, and might be such that it isn't likely ever to be available to us, maybe because of revealing priveleged info about that editor or maybe even someone else. Those are rather unusual circumstances, but they are certainly within the realm of at least possibility. I think that ArbCom's record of apparently not taking this sort of action in the past may indicate that in fact there might be some unusual factors involved, which are causing them to act in this particular way. John Carter 18:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd say let them work it out...let's not start a pie fight over this just yet. Assume good faith and all that...they'll update as necessary. RxS 18:04, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

My problem is that it appears, at this point, to be a half-assed suspicion at best. Have we learned nothing from our outside critics? I was not a very big fan of Melsaran, I opposed his RfA because he didn't pass my sniff test, but I'm having a bit of an issue with this. ~ Riana ⁂ 18:04, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

No, you are misinterpreting the situation from Raul's wording. This is more than a half-suspicion. The evidence is complex and too difficult to explain in a sound bite. One checkuser discovered the account was suspicious and followed up. After getting firm evidence he presented it to ArbCom. We discussed the best way to handle it and decided on this course of action. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks FloNight. I appreciate your response. ~ Riana ⁂ 18:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Whatever happened to the principles of natural justice, and being innocent until proven guilty? (And, to pre-empt the inevitable cries of "wikilawyer!", these are principles which apply to all human power-relationships. Most private organisations, including companies and universities, are expected to respect basic procedural fairness in their disciplinary procedures, and we need to do the same.) Walton^One 18:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

No we don't. What we need to do it stop wasting the committee's time. If/When they can say more, they will. Until they do, stop asking them to do so, it's not going to change their minds and quite frankly it's getting old. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 18:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

If they're not willing to disclose their reasons for blocking, then they should unblock until they can do so. And how can you assert that we "don't" need to respect natural justice and fairness? Walton^One 18:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

As a lawyer, can I point out that "natural justice and fairness" usual means the accused (and his lawyer if he has one) knowing the case against him. It usually does NOT mean revealing this case to the entire world (usually quite the opposite). WjBscribe 18:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The only "rights" here are to leave and to fork. Handling cases like this is their job, and they need to be able to do it without getting hassled by people that are not patient enough to let a process proceed without their immediate approval. RxS 18:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, get over it. This is just a wiki, there's no real life rights being affected. The ArbCom, whose members are elected for the ability to make good decisions, decided that it was in the best interest of Wikipedia to block Melsaran based on evidence of abusive sockpuppetry . Just because they haven't yet shared this evidence doesn't mean that it isn't compelling. The ArbCom is doing its best to balance privacy concerns while also doing what's best for the project and I respect that. Chaz ^Beckett 18:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

This discussion is generating more heat than light. Lets revisit this matter later when more information is available. Some are assuming that Melsaran wishes this argued here - he may prefer to resolve the matter privately with ArbCom. His talkpage is not protected so he can still express himself. His email-this-user is not disabled so he can contact you. Lets give this some time to play out before people assume he has been wronged. WjBscribe 18:12, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Will, I'm not arguing for Melsaran. Frankly this doesn't surprise me. I'm more disturbed by the way it was carried out - based on very little information (at least, publicly available information). ~ Riana ⁂ 18:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that there is very little information that it would be appropriate for me to reveal at this stage. I appreciate that this is frustrating for many of you. The privacy policy is very explicit about what material we can divulge and when, and it would also be inappropriate for me to comment further when matters are not fully-resolved. We (the Committee) are appreciative of your understanding whilst we confirm matters.

James F. (talk) 18:09, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Why is he blocked before this has resolved? Rlevse 18:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Then the block is unquestionably premature. If you have no "confirmation" (and this is confirmed above by other CUs and Arbs) and only have "suspicion", then I absolutely understand why you can't name the "suspected" sockpuppeteer — that would be against the privacy policy. The problem is that it's also against the blocking policy. I see no evidence of an imminent threat of disruption to the encyclopedia. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 18:12, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Is he a sock of a banned user (can we at least get a yes or no)? Where is the disruption? I was under the impression that we only blocked for sockpuppetry where there was disruption, while he seems to be, for the most part, a constructive contributor. Mr.Z-man 18:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict comment)There are degrees of suspicion, ranging from "mild" to "remote possibility of it being someone other than the suspected puppeteer." Also, regrettably, I think the degree and amount of past disruption the banned editor might have been involved with could, potentially, be a factor as well in this action. At this point, unfortunately, ArbCom has the information, and we don't. They've indicated that they cannot, for various reasons, release all the information at this time. Presumably, this includes the information everyone above is seeking. I think in this instance the best thing to do is wait until the situation is resolved, and/or they feel that they can release more information. Again, without knowing what they know about this subject, we can't really make any judgements on the subject. Also, and I really hate to say this, they are potential abuses which take place in e-mails for instance which we wouldn't be able to be informed of. If they have information that an editor may have violated governmental, not wikipedia, law, potentially, that I think would be sufficient cause. I'm not saying that is the case, just that it's a possibility. At this point, I think we're obliged to trust ArbCom, knowing they'll release what information they can when circumstances permit. John Carter 18:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec) It doesn't take much imagination to see why sockpuppets of banned users should be unconditionally blocked even if they haven't yet done anything bad. Example: banned user comes back under different name, acts like a constructive editor, eventually goes through RfA which is successful because he's been a good guy, then goes berserk. Raymond Arritt 18:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Melsaran is actively adding important comments to the Alkivar Arbcom case which is a pretty important one. Every edit made by a sock of a banned user poisons the validity of the overall case. He had to be stopped ASAP. Let's stop with the *rabble rabble* and wait for the official word. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Section break

There seems to be an assumption that we all collectively have a right to know why someone is blocked. I would be concerned if Melsaran wasn't going to be told the evidence against him and given a chance to account for it. Similarly, if he agreed to the info being made public, it would be concerning if it was not made public. But at this stage, I believe we should trust that ArbCom is acting in the project's best interests. Should we later find that trust was misplaced, there may be extensive consequences, but for now I think they deserve to be given a chance to follow this through. WjBscribe 18:28, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The uproar and questioning of the authority is a necessary and vital aspect of a community. With that granted, the aforementioned uproar also causes social unrest and loss of focus. The future will answer things and this whole conversation will be moot. In real legal terms, mediation is working together for a common solution and arbitration is when common ground cannot be found so the solution must be mandated and enforced. As such we trust the ArbCom to deal with situation both privately and publicly, a precarious balance. In other words, this happens a couple times a year and reminds me of passing a bad car accident. Let the authorities handle it and keep driving, the crime blotter in the paper will give you answers later. Keegan^talk 18:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to withdraw from this whole discussion. My erratic behaviour lately is mainly because I'm feeling depressed and stressed about my RL studies and various other things, so I don't think I can handle something like this. I'm going on wikibreak for now. Walton^One 20:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. Perhaps everyone should withdraw until arbcom decides to speak again. -- John Reaves 20:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Part of the problem here is that Melsaran's sockpuppets engaged in stalker-like harassment of a certain individual in particular that is part of a general pattern that a few well-known banned users have engaged in. To perhaps clarify Raul's words above: yes, we are reasonably certain that he created these sockpuppets, but, since the account was created long ago, we have not yet determined whether he is the return of a known banned user, or simply a copycat. The many minor edits and strong interest in policy suggests to me the former. However, the important point is that we would block in either case, on the basis of the edits made. I'm not completely certain that we can't say who the sockpuppets were at least--without the echnical evidence involving private information--to allay some of the fears that come with lack of transparency, but I understand ArbCom's reluctance to do so because of the nature of the edits. I'd ask for your patience while the possibility is discussed (You people act like you expect a quick response from ArbCom! ;-) ). Dmcdevit·t 20:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Important policy question

If and when ArbCom gives us more information, I'd like them to address the following policy question.

Everyone here has read about the notorious vandal "Willy on Wheels." His weird behavior has inspired, among other things, a nugget of humor called Wikipedia:Articles for wheelation. However, he claims to have ceased his disruptive editing of Wikipedia in early 2006. He applied in June for reinstatement by ArbCom and was rejected; as best I recall, arbitrator Jpgordon advised him to come back, but never to tell anyone about his previous identity. The same consensus was reached at a more recent discussion on the now-defunct Community Sanction Noticeboard.

Thus, it would seem that a banned user is judged by his actions, not by his physical location on this earth. If we know from checkuser that Melsaran was editing from the same IP addresses as Willy on Wheels, or some other notorious vandal, that is all well and good; but if Melsaran has not exhibited any of the behaviors of the banned user whom he once represented, does it really matter?

I ask this question not only out of curiosity as to which account(s) Melsaran used previously - though I, like many others here, would like to be informed. Since I work occasionally to investigate cases at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets, I need to know how to deal with cases where one user is alleged to be a sock puppet of a user who was banned months before. Typically, my first reaction is "How on earth can I possibly confirm that?", but in most cases a pattern of common editing emerges. If this pattern does not emerge, I might ask for a checkuser, and if checkuser is not available, no further action is taken (i.e. the account is not blocked). An example was the case attempting to prove a link between banned user VinceB and newer user Squash Racket.

So my question is: do we block real people, or do we block patterns of behavior? Since I'm not a checkuser, all I can try to establish at WP:SSP is patterns of behavior, and then assume (usually safely) that these patterns of behavior can be linked to real people. Is there a different system for people who have checkuser access, who can try to establish that two accounts are the same person even if their pattern of behavior is completely different? I'm not suggesting that this is actually allowed (see WP:GHBH), but I am suggesting that we shouldn't necessarily go looking for violators, and if we find violators, maybe we should "look the other way" if there's no evidence of recent and ongoing malfeasance.

This touches on some broader issues, which I'm sure have been raised aside from the Willy on Wheels case. But I would like someone from ArbCom to explain the nature of the "banned user" policy. Thank you. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 20:48, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

This is an aspect that also troubles me. It would be quite wrong to criticise the Arbitrators and Checkusers for their actions based on nothing but suspicion of what the (necessarily) private information in their hands shows, but I would be interested in learning how the block of Melsaran fits into the principle that blocks are preventive and not punitive. Suppose, hypothetically, a most notorious vandal of the past were to create an account and edit under that account only, breaking no rules and contributing good content. Would it be preventive in those circumstances to block the account if a connection was discovered? Should the connection be disclosed to a select group to keep a close watch? Or would it be better to turn a Nelsonian eye? Sam Blacketer 21:03, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

It appears from Dmcdevit's statement (read carefully) that Melsaran was caught using sockpuppets currently, and these sockpuppets edited with a pattern that is reminiscent of an editor who was banned too long ago for technical confirmation. Therefore, Melsaran is either a reincarnation of the banned editor, or an unrelated copycat, but in either case, the edits of the new sockpuppets are—according to Dmcdevit—entirely deserving of a ban. The apparent reason to keep things quiet is to protect the stalking target and/or the privacy of the banned editor. How is that reasonable? Well, if the editor is someone known by his real name, it might be better to keep things quiet rather than proclaim "Joe Smith is at it again", which might affect Joe Smith in real life and also provoke new rounds of mutual retaliation and wikidrama. In fact, I can think of several old-time vandals and stalkers who might fit into this category.

On the general policy question, we block both real people who have been so disruptive as to have earned a ban, and we also block on the behavior that is blockable. Hence, all "on wheels" pagemove vandals are blocked whether or not they are the original Willy. Or if an editor is banned for disrupting articles about a topic, and 6 months later a new editor comes along with the same disruptive editing pattern and distinctive editing quirks, that person is blocked to prevent future disruption even if the connection is not technically provable. Thatcher131 21:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I think Thatcher has it just so. I know that I tend to turn down requests for CU checks that don't either have some strong disruptive behaviour or some fairly compelling reason to suspect a link to a permanently banned user. I think the defacto policy is that if a banned user edits in such a way that no one ever suspects it is him or her and that no one ever questions the edits made, we'll never know and never care. And that's fine by me. But most banned users just can't help themselves it seems, if they come back, they revert to the old behaviours that got them banned, sometimes within a very few edits. And so those socks get noticed, blocked for behaviour, a CU is run, and possibly find more socks and block them too. And all is right with the world. ++Lar: t/c 00:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

So does this mean no one is going to Wheel War With Arbcom (tm)? And I was just getting my popcorn ready for the David Gerard Semi-Annual Derby [15]. --DHeyward 06:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

User creation logs need checking

FYI, Someone is getting cute and creating numerous bad-faith accounts from another bad-faith account.[16][17][18] They're being created so quickly that I imagine it's a vandalbot. Folks may want to check for this before wasting their time to leave nice {{usernameblocked}} messages on the talk pages. I've also found accounts left unblocked in cases like this in the past so there's another reason to check the logs. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

deleting images failing WP:NFC#10a

Hello could someone please tell me what is the correct deletion template to use for an image that fails WP:NFC#10a, because the copyright holder isn't named ? I asked a while back on here but got no answer. So I decided to use {{di-no source}} but now people are complaining that I used the wrong template! I was told by an admin that {{di-no source}} is not the one to use, yet ({{Di-no source-notice}} says:

I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright.

So I'm confused, and I asked before here, and nobody answered, now I'm being blamed of "Tagging an image for deletion with a false tag isn't helpful", as well as other edits I didn't even make ?! And yet the person blaming me of all this hasn't told me what the correct tag to use is. Please let me know, I don't mind creating one is none exists. If Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria/Proposal goes ahead (as I'm the only one to oppose it I'm thinking it probably will :p), it would be best to get the tag right, as around 200,000 images may need deleting, and IfD would get clogged up if no tag is available. Jackaranga 21:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

As a valid claim of fair use requires acknowledgment of the rights of the copyright holder, an image which is copyrighted but not attributed would be deletable under criteria I4 and/or I7. Sam Blacketer 21:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

You can put someting like this: {{di-disputed fair use rationale|concern=invalid rationale per [[WP:NFCC#10c]]|date=January 1, 2001}} --Maxim_{(talk) (contributions)} 21:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I do hope you're heeding the caution regarding older album covers, logos, etc. We're trying to take care of those in an orderly way without deleting. STBotI is doing a pretty efficient job of catching all the new images as they're uploaded, if the bot thinks they've named a source. But the Bot is probably too generous in its attempt not to accidentally tag images, so it's useful to notice cases where the bot allowed an image that doesn't really name a source. Wikidemo 01:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting research

There are a ton of flaws and it is not scientific at all, but I did some interesting research (using random sampling) on the political and religious make up of the Wikipedian community. See User:hmwith/stats. нмŵוτнτ 01:56, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism on a user subpage by an administrator

this: [19].

That article had a map I had added, and that was deleted. I also had it linked to the photo gallery on a user subpage that was vandalised, by User:Maxim through copypasting that article in that photo gallery.

This is a rather disturbing behaviour from someone you have never heard of before, and that furthermore is an administrator.

Note sure where one should report vandalism, by an administrator, so I do it here. Should I take the matter elsewhere, please tell me. --victor falk 02:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Hahah, no, that looks like his script Twinkle, is malfunctioning; not vandalism. Assume good faith, et al. --Haemo 02:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Malfunctioning badly I would say ... but yeah, it uses the Twinkle edit summary, so he is probably completely unaware of it. I didn't even think Twinkle removed images from userspace. That's a little disturbing that it would do that. --B 02:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Just what I was going to say, seeing in his contributions that he has been tweaking his monobook.js, he may be having some trouble with the script. - Caribbean~H.Q. 02:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

In the future, contact the user directly to see what they say before seeking intervention from other admins. --Masamage ♫ 03:40, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I should have done that. I wasn't thinking clearly I suppose. Sorry.--victor falk 03:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

proof drive-by anons deserve respect

"[At Wikipedia], by subdividing their analysis by registered versus anonymous contributors, the researchers found that among those who contribute often, registered users are more reliable. And they discovered that among those who contribute only a little, the anonymous users are more reliable."[20] WAS 4.250 20:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Good read. (Although I have no idea where this comes from: "According to Anthony, Wikipedia now requires that anonymous contributors who make numerous edits must register." Did I miss something?) Also one can take a look at DF's log analysis he did recently that showed that 78% of anonymous edits aren't reverted. Doesn't mean they're all productive, of course, but that number is much higher than I expected, and I assume the same would be true of others as well. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 20:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing that because accounts that only contribute a little are usually sleepers, there's no big surprise there. JuJube 23:20, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Why do we need proof? EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandal fighters, noticing how many of their reverts are for anons, often suggest we should not allow anon editing. This even reached the point of disallowing anon creation of articles as a test that has been called a failure. WAS 4.250 15:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with WAS, whenever I do RC and look only at the anon's (I'm old school, no scripts) I notice that likely 3 out of 4 are seemingly good additions. The article creation thing, I can see leaving as is. It seems that only 1 of every 20 or so articles for creation are accepted, most are business adds. --Rocksanddirt 18:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Help please

Could someone please help User:Carmenelectra change her username? She was blocked for a username violation (apparently there is a minor actress and Playboy model called that), she has requested rename. She is a productive new editor. Thank you. DuncanHill 00:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Unblocked, provided that she immediately make a request on WP:USURP. — Malcolm (talk) 00:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Malcolm, and everyone else who helped, her username is changed now so hopefully she can continue her good start. DuncanHill 02:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Malcolm should be blocked for incivility by calling Carmen a minor actress! 71.212.98.51 15:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

user:JWiamlmeysTNUC

Can someone please block user:JWiamlmeysTNUC, as he has contributed very little that is of use, and instead has resorted to edits such as these: [21] [22]. When I warned him because of the latter edit, he had this to say. Meanlevel 12:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

He vandalized after a final warning, clearly indicated intent to disrupt, and then disrupted again. I've sent him to WP:AIV. east.718 at 12:26, 10/18/2007

...and he's been blocked indef. east.718 at 13:05, 10/18/2007

Christopher Paul Neil

Resolved

 – The Joconde is not a suspect the Interpol investigation :p

This is an article about a suspect in a major child-abuse investigation. A new user has inserted a picture of a person unconnected with the case as an illustration of a technique which may have been used by Interpol in identifying the suspect. The editor claims that the person in the photo has given their consent for it to be used. An IP editor has also added an email address to the talk page (which I have redacted, but will still be visible in edit history), purporting to be that of the (innocent) person in the photo. I am concerned that this raises many BLP issues. Could some admins have a look please? DuncanHill 12:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think it's that sensitive an issue as long as the caption makes it very clear that the subject in the image is not Neil. It wouldn't hurt to ask the editor to get in touch with m:OTRS, though. east.718 at 12:34, 10/18/2007

User:Oblomow replaced it with the Joconde, which is much less sensitive. I think the subject is moot now (good idea btw). -- lucasbfr ^talk 13:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone, the Mona Lisa twirl does a good job of illustrating the technique, and can't be mistaken for a living person, so should satisfy everybody. DuncanHill 13:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Admin assistance needed with requested move

Resolved

 – Page moved -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 15:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

A consensus has been established at Talk:Japan Railway#Requested move to move the article Japan Railway to Japan Railways Group. The page Japan Railways Group already exists as a redirect and so admin assistance is required to move the page. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Tbo ¹⁵⁷(talk) (review) 15:43, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Y Done. For future reference this would normally be done through Wikipedia:Requested moves. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 15:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much. A request was put up at WP:RM but Ive noticed that WP:RM is recently becoming heavily backlogged and so I put a request here. Apologies for any inconvenience I may have caused. Tbo ¹⁵⁷(talk) (review) 15:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No apology necessary, do whatever works best :) -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Tfd reset in order?

re: Tfd of Template:Largest_cities_of_the_European_Union

Last evening editing Leipzig I had to hunt hard to figure out which template had a tfd notice. It was this one cited, which was improperly tagged with {{tfd}}, the whole template being subst'd instead of the {{subst:PAGENAME}} but which in effect provided no backlink to the Tfd.
   IMHO, many editors wouldn't have ferreted out the cause of the weirdly located message, and so haven't voted. I'm a totally impartial party in this... excepting a non-deletionist bent! <G>
   That technical issue is now fixed, but I think the Tfd vote process needs restarted— or at least, given the anomaly, not closed for an addtional week as I've seen in some other situations where tagging went awry. I don't know if closing the tfd and reopening on another page is the right thing, or whether you admins have another method, but please take note. // FrankB 15:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Simon Le Bon/Simon Le Bon username question

I have wondered before if this username was allowed, and I just noticed the above comments about someone changing their username because it was the same of someone famous. I doubt User:Simon Le Bon is the lead singer of Duran Duran. There's also User:SteveLamacq43 which is the same as the famous DJ Steve Lamacq, but can't be the same because some of his edits were made while Steve Lamacq was on air. 172.141.108.180 03:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Lisa Daniels edited her own article on-air, and Stephen Colbert allegedly did the same (I remember reading a blog saying that the times on the edits were corresponded to when Colbert was on-air). So just being on-air doesn't automatically mean he couldn't hvae done it. hbdragon88 03:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Generally these usernames are not allowed, see the username policy regarding misleading names. File a request at comments/usernames for the input you seek. Keegan^talk 04:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Username blocked, by the way. Keegan^talk 04:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

His account is like 2 1/2 years old, if you read the first line on WP:Username: The username policy covers accepted practices and behavior in naming and operating a user account on Wikipedia for accounts created after 8 December 2006. His account was created before that, we can't even see the creation date it is so old. Here is a link to how the username policy was when he registered, it doesn't explicitly say that one should not use the name of a famous person, at least not as clearly as it does now. Jackaranga 20:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I understand that, I left the user a note about the consideration of age of the account. In the best interest of Wikipedia the user should change names, which I told him/her. S/he hasn't logged back on yet but I'm on the ball there. Keegan^talk 02:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

WT:UW

Could someone comment on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_user_warnings#HTML_tags? PxMa 21:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

User:24.33.95.171

User:24.33.95.171 returned with propagandistic edits in Macedonians (Greek) article. He has done the same in the past. I reverted once his edits and I asked him not to do this but he didn't stop. - Sthenel 21:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm new and messed up once already. Can someone else block this IP? Bearian —Preceding comment was added at 00:23, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Done! If you need any help with the tools, just drop me, or one of the other admins a note. --Haemo 05:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:UAA

I have reported possible username violation usernames on WP:UAA as early as 30 minutes before I am posting this message. However, there is no evidence that administrators has visited WP:UAA. NHRHS2010 ^Talk 23:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

UAA is not an urgent task. Someone will get around to it. Viridae^Talk 23:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

New Metrics on Wikirage

You can now sort the wikirage not only by period of time, but also by Quality Edits, Unique Editors, Total Edits, Vandalism, Reversions, and Undos. RSS Feeds for all these variants are also available. w3ace 00:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Durova/Fire

Somebody asked me to draft a page that would address how to handle a certain class of problem without creating troll bait. It's about how to respond to emergencies. Feedback is welcome. Durova^Charge! 00:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds closed

The above-linked arbitration has closed, and the committee has recognized that the SevenOfDiamonds account is a sockpuppet of NuclearUmpf. It has been blocked indefinitely in accordance with this decision. For the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 01:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Dalmatia closed

This arbitration case has closed and the final decision is available at the link above. Giovanni Giove and DIREKTOR are each subject to an editing restriction for one year. Each is limited to one revert per page per week (excepting obvious vandalism), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. This notice is given by a Clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 01:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to begin a Wikipedia:Disruptive editing/Noticeboard

I propose to create a new noticeboard to help editors understand, comply with, and enforce the disruptive editing guideline. We already have specialized noticeboards like WP:BLPN, WP:COIN and WP:RSN. These work well to help editors get assistance applying those guidelines to real cases.

With the demise of WP:CSN, more cases of suspected long term abuse are heading to WP:ANI, often unformed and poorly explained. The lack of evidence and organization prevents the community from taking proper action and places the suspected editors in an uncomfortable situation. A specialized noticeboard for discussing suspected cases would help filter out frivolous cases, and would generate proper evidence for those cases requiring community attention. With the help of editors experienced in the WP:DE guideline, those requesting assistance would be much better prepared to file a request for community sanctions at WP:AN or WP:ANI.

This new board would not have any special powers. It would simply be a centralized place to discuss specific cases of long term disruptive editing. I've created Wikipedia:Disruptive editing/Noticeboard as something to look at, discuss, and edit. - Jehochman ^Talk 17:01, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

How does this interrelate to WP:RFC/USER? Addhoc 17:24, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The discussion board is a place to talk about suspected cases. It's focus is education, explaining to editors what is and is not disruptive, how to avoid being disruptive, where to go with specific cases and how to present them. We might send people to WP:RFC or WP:RFAR or WP:AN/WP:ANI. Our users are often confused about how to navigate these situations. The board would provide guidance. - Jehochman ^Talk 17:44, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, are you intending to update Wikipedia:Disruptive editing#Dealing with disruptive editors? Addhoc 19:51, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, if there is a consensus, that section could start with "Suspected cases of disruptive editing may be reported at Wikipedia:Disruptive editing/Noticeboard" and we'd make some other changes. I'll propose new wording at Wikipedia talk:Disruptive editing. - Jehochman ^Talk 20:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Since nobody has expressed any concerns yet, and I just came across an interesting case of possible disruption, I've posted that case to the noticeboard. Please have a look because a real case may illuminate what this board can do. If anyone objects, we can move the case to WP:ANI. I have no problem with that. - Jehochman ^Talk 03:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Quick question. How is this new noticeboard any different in purpose from the recently deleted Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard? This seems very similar to a replacement for that page. Yahel Guhan 03:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

It does smell like WP:CSN in slightly new clothing (or, to use an opera allegory, in a big hat); perhaps some assurances of how it differs are required. Otherwise we should shut it immediately. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 08:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, sod it. Sent it to Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Disruptive editing/Noticeboard. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 08:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, we may as well discuss it now because a keep decision would effectively be an endorsement of the board. The big problem with WP:CSN was that it was a little corner of Wikipedia where we discussed banning people. The argument was that community banning discussions should be help in a high profile place so everyone could see, so we decided to move that activity to WP:ANI. WP:DEN board is completely different from WP:CSN because it specifically has no power to ban anybody. It's merely there to help clarify suspected cases of WP:DE. Editors often don't understand how to handle and where to go with such cases. It's useful to have a central place where those experienced with this guideline can discuss cases with less experienced editors. The operation of specialize boards, such as this one, as well as WP:COIN, WP:BLPN, and WP:RSN, to name a few, help keep WP:ANI from becoming even more cluttered with poorly formed cases. - Jehochman ^Talk 11:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

No worries. But we may as well discuss it on the MfD rather than starting forest fires here. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 12:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. - Jehochman ^Talk 12:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Why not make this an adjunct of AN? Dagomar 01:33, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

That would be fine too. What do you suggest calling it?

I'm seeing three problems over and over again:

1. The average user views WP:RFC/U as highly bureaucratic and just won't use that process. They want a simple, informal way to bring up and resolve user conflicts.

2. ANI is great for solving immediate problems where somebody needs to be blocked now, but when a problem spans weeks or months, each incident gets archived before we have a chance to connect the dots.

3. Some problems are ambiguous. As m:Don't be a dick says, "No definition of being a dick has been provided," which is intentional because a trolls job is to be dickish in novel ways. In unclear cases it can be very helpful to get outside opinions. We need a place to discuss these cases where at least a few impartial editors are watching.

I am hopeful that somebody will suggest a better way, because I don't think ANI is the right tool for the job.- Jehochman ^Talk 13:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

You did attempt to discuss it; why didn't you correct me? El_C 15:09, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The discussion was much too short. Your point was essentially valid. When I posted to AN, there wasn't much reaction, I didn't think the board would be very controversial, and I rushed activate the thing. In retrospect, we should have developed a consensus here to test the board for a period of time and then discuss whether the board was working or not. I am still open to discussing different ideas for making improvements. - Jehochman ^Talk 15:32, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate your thoughtful response. El_C 16:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Sysop.js

We've recently "discovered" a MediaWiki page that provides additional user js for users if and only if they are in the sysop group, at MediaWiki:Sysop.js. It currently contains only a script that adds an "invert selection" button to Special:Undelete, but it is possible that other scripts could be added, including a current proposal to add ^demon's deletion autoreason script. Since this affects all sysops, it may be of note. Nihiltres^(t.l) 16:47, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Since this is javacode that affects all sysops, it is obviously a high risk page. Many code knowledgable admins (in which group I am not) need to watch this page. GRBerry 17:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Yikes. I don't like this at all. I love scripts, and use lots of them (including demon's deletion reason script), but forcing all admins to load them, artificially altering the interface without their consent, isn't a good idea, especially since even well-written scripts can easily crash browsers (especially older ones). If you want to use a script, add it to your theme.js. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 18:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

To disable loading sysop.js, add window.disableSysopJS = true to your monobook.js. — Edokter • Talk • 20:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Frown. Is that guaranteed to work in all browsers? The check's made in Common.js, which is loaded before user javascript. —Cryptic 20:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Oops, you're right. That check should be moved to sysop.js itself. That issue has been fixed. — Edokter • Talk • 17:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

How about adding something that if you try to delete the main page or block Jimbo will automatically add a message to ANI saying, "hello, I am a compromised account"? In all seriousness, that may be a little off the wall, but something stopping you from unblocking yourself might be beneficial, both to stop compromised accounts and non-compromised ones. --B 20:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

If there is ever agreement to implement something like that it would be better done in the software itself than a javascript file that can be bypassed in a couple of clicks. – Steel 13:07, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Um... can this be an "opt in only" thingy, because I got lost somewhere between the second and third line. I only took on adminship because I understood "mop", "buttons", and "Are you sure you wish to reformat your hard drive? Default = NO". LessHeard vanU 21:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Huh, I took the mop for the $1,500 that gets deposited into my checking from a numbered account in the Caymans on the 3rd of every month. Keegan^talk 05:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Folks, this is nothing new at all, we have had common JS for a long time, notice how you can add a page to your watchlist without reloading it? If you are concerned with what is there then watchlist it, and contribute to the consensus there. If something is buggy it can be removed or fix. 1 != 2 02:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh... I thought that was the work of the WikiFairy. LessHeard vanU 12:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that wasn't added to Common.js, that was added software-side by the devs, but *shrugs*. Also, it's no different from Common.js...we don't go willy-nilly adding features unless there's consensus. In this case, consensus by admins is enough, as they are the only users affected. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 18:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Aha! I think I've just figured out why my browser has been crashing all the time on Wikipedia pages in the past week whenever I try to delete pages. I knew someone must have changed something without testing it fully. Neil ☎ 10:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites Closed

The above named Arbitration case has closed.

You may refer to the case page to view the decision.

For the Arbitration Committee, - Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 20:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, that sure didn't resolve anything. Corvus cornix 20:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I find it somewhat amusing that you didn't even attempt to summarize the results and instead refer us to the case page to view the results! El_C 15:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

That's not amusement, that's schadenfreude. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 15:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Username creation question

There's a request at Wikipedia:Request an account for the username Phantoms (talk · contribs · account creation); the software is preventing its automatic creation via Special:Userlogin due to a conflict with Phantom (talk · contribs) (4 old edits, 3 old deleted edits, but 1 recent edit), and the issue is whether the account should be created by an administrator. More input there would probably be useful; the issue is whether the username similarity is too confusing for the account to be created, or whether there's no problem. --ais523 12:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No dice. There is also a conflict with User:PhantomS (note the capital S), who was/is an established contributor. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 13:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe Ph4nt0m? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 15:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

We have plenty of other closely-named contributors of current and historical importance, such as Gracenotes/Grace_Note, John/Jonathan, Kate/Katefan0. I think it is an extension of assume good faith that editors may make their account names as they like, barring excepetional circumstances. When they show by their edits that they are here to impersonate another editor or to cause mischief, then we block the account, but we don't pre-emptively prevent them from even creating an account. Otherwise, with all common names taken, how are we going to gain new contributors in the future? This approach seems misguided, at best. --Iamunknown 18:28, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you are underestimating the number of non-similar names. That feature was added to the software because even good faith similarities were causing problems. 1 != 2 18:33, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Randomly pick unrelated words and string them together like I did. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 18:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Haha, I like your reasoning, Wikidudeman. нмŵוτнτ 16:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Ebolaworld

Can someone reset the article Ebolaworld, the site is well known, for example on the popular website Newgrounds. It has upgraded its professionality. And can someone explain to me why the Dutch wikipedia has an article about the website (and doesn't remove it) and the English doesn't. Just a member 18:40, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

• The place to address this deletion concern would be at the Deletion Review.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 18:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, each Wikipedia makes their own rules about what content is acceptable. English Wikipedia is in no way bound to have an article on everything at Dutch Wikipedia. Natalie 18:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

It was just an example. Just a member 19:43, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, you did ask for someone to explain why Dutch Wikipedia had an article about this and English Wikipedia did not. Natalie 22:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with the English wikipedia for deleting this article, it's a populair site, the article didn't promote the website. Just a member 16:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism and incivility from 71.232.84.134

Wish to present to the admins that the IP 71.232.84.134 has twice vandalized Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine here and here. In addition this person has leveled personal attacks against me on the same talk page. I have placed the relevant warnings on his talk page, but I believe a block is in order. Thank you. Bstone 06:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Fastest way to get a response to post at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism which is watched much more. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, seems to have stopped, so I don't think a block is necessary. Hate to say this, Bstone, but maybe just let it go for now. If there's another edit, then a block is appropriate. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Seems to have stopped? It just happened a few hours ago and has been happening over the past several days. Bstone 08:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I mean that per policy, blocks are preventative, not punishment and the user has not edited in a few hours. I apologize but I didn't catch the timing of your warning versus the last edit (looks like the uncivil comment was after your warning) [messed up UTC time math]. Sorry. I would find it helpful if next time, you say, I posted warning[link] and then they posted this[link]. I'm not trying to say that I condone the user's actions in any way; it is just that I don't see any use to blocking an anonymous user (who by its nature could change its IP addresses every few hours) who has not posted for a while. However, I've be open if others disagree on my view on policy. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Nod. I understand. I am a little curious, tho. I placed a level 4 vandalism warning on his/her talk page which implies that any further violations would be met with a block. This person then leveled the uncivil comment. It seems to me that since there is no block being implemented then the warning was frivolous. Minimally, the user can think "they warned me if I did anything further I would be blocked, so I did and they didn't block me" and thus this is sending a poor message. I'm not upset about this but more confused/curious. Comments? Bstone 08:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I am making your warning look toothless. However, he did stop soon after (or just didn't edit again, really). If it were a regular user, I would have given a short, maybe 24 hour, block to make a point. However, again, for an anonymous user who frankly could have a new IP address at this point and never go back there, there's just no point. There's also a chance of someone else coming into that address being blocked so I'd rather take caution (econ major in a basic cost-benefit analysis). Again, I'm probably one of the more cautious admins out there (I don't "bring down the hammer" that often), so I'm pretty sure that if someone else were up at this time, you'd probably get him blocked. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:57, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Ricky is correct to be cautious; blocks are preventative, and many good editors can be using an ip address. Blocking an ip which isn't continuing its vandal edits can therefore be counterproductive. If the ip is vandalising, over a period of time, one or a few articles then it may be better to semi protect the article(s) for a few days in the hope the vandal will lose interest. LessHeard vanU 12:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposal closing

Can an admin look at the List of the Day Proposal. Debate was opened seven days ago. It may be time to close debate.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 00:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

CAN I GET AN IMPARTIAL ADMIN HERE???? I should have requested an impartial admin. The admin who has reviewed the proposal that had 43 interested respondents is the same one who started the The proposal, as it stands, is a massive waste of time section, and he just wrote over the proposal with his own idea. Can someone impartial look at the responses to the original proposal who does not have a preconception about the proposal? --TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem here lies in your definition of an IMPARTIAL ADMIN, which as far as I can tell equates to "an admin who agrees with me". There is an alternative proposal, your proposal has not been deleted, there is nothing to fix. And in any case, the Village Pump is the place for suggesting structural changes. Guy (Help!) 23:32, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Complaints about a member

Hello, I would like to file a complaint about Angel David (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). He edits in a POV way, which favors Christians. (Examples [23] [24] [25]) and also violates WP:NOTCENSORED and wants to delete perfectly good things (Examples: [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31]

It is quite annoying, and Maxim also has problems with him . I would like an administrator opinion on this. Thank you for your time. Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 03:20, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Lol OK but putting articles about religion in "category: fictitious" something, isn't really the way forward. Try putting God in Category:fictional characters and see what happens. Religion may be fiction for some people, it's no point trying to prove religion is fictitious you will never manage to convince people. Have you seen the kind of wars that are in Category:Fictional wars ? It's all stuff like Star Wars and story books. Please don't treat religion like fiction even if you are atheist, look here is the graph, only 2.35% of the world population consider religion to be fiction. Christians, Muslims and Jews believe that article is not fiction, that's more than half the world's population. He is quite right to remove this tag. There is a fundamental difference in between religion and fiction, and it is that many people believe religion to be true. Please just categorise religious articles as "religion" not fiction it will help avoid conflicts, and everyone is still free to believe it is fiction is they so choose to. Jackaranga 03:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

He has clearly made many inappropriate edits though. Hard to know what to do about people who are probably not bad faith editors but can simply not get used to practices such as not tagging long lasting pages as db-nonsense for example. Also he says he is a child, which makes things more difficult, as many wikipedians are adult/teenage men, and often do not know how to communicate with children, I know I'm pretty bad at it ! Jackaranga 03:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

You need to take this to requests for comment as part of dispute resolution. These sorts of POV issues are what RFC is meant for, administrative opinions carry relatively little weight since we are janitors and not moderators of discussion. Keegan^talk 05:09, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Several of his edits appear to be based on a very profound religious believe wich can be trouble and end up in several POV additions, some of them even being influenced by what's morally correct [32], a request for comment is more appropiate step for finding a civil discussion here, I can't see how we as admins can help here. - Caribbean~H.Q. 05:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

In addition to what Keegan says, whenever you are talking about somebody, it's a good idea to invite them to join the discussion, because that helps build trust instead of animosity. - Jehochman ^Talk 05:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I am making an RFC. Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 20:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Confirmed identity

Where are the instructions whereby you can register your proven identity and also keep in secure? If you have used this, what do you think of the program? Rlevse 15:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

{{User_committed_identity}}, I like it, you provide a string containing your claims, and some sort of secret content(so it cannot be guessed), and build a SHA512 checksum and publish it. It is currently well beyond our technology to create a phony string that matches the checksum, or do derive the original string from the checksum. 1 != 2 15:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

It's a great concept in my opinion. Even if you don't have access to a SHA512 encryption, you an use SHA128 with a fair level of confidence. Have your key include some way outside of wikipedia to contact you so even if it does get broken you can recover your account prove your ownership of the account. Oh, also, make sure you publish your ID somewhere obvious. You can see mine (003c0f88bcf96e70e26e7ec4890d2f573c3f994f) on my user page. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 20:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Do read the talk page before doing anything, though... it appears there are some concerns about the security of the hash concept itself, but someone with more experience in cryptanalysis should probably answer that instead. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

a) while there may be a string that gives the exact same SHA-512 value as the one I have chosen, it most likely will be random gibberish, whereas my string has my wikipedia name, my email address, and my real name and phone number, making it easier to prove I'm me in case someone else break my hash.

b) if someone really cares enough to break my hash function just so he can put Goatse on the main page, he deserves his moment of glory. Thatcher131 20:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The hashes, including 512, are available here. Rlevse 23:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Broken edit compare tool

Admins have access to a very useful tool that allows us to compare the edits of two users. It's part of the "admin rollback and deletion tools" in Voice of All's package. In the past few days this tool seems to be broken. I don't know the first thing about Javascript, so I'm wondering if someone can advise. Thanks. - Raymond Arritt 16:31, 19 October 2007 (UTC) Ive got one on the toolserver that Ill run if anyone wants. β^_command 04:20, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

A questionable copyrighter

Resolved

Could someone check the image uploads of User:Serendipity15? I've checked most of them and find that a LARGE number of them are copyright violations. It's been a while since I've done this and wish to check my work. 68.39.174.238 03:45, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

This is clearly a derivative work and a false claim of originality, although the editor may not understand the mistake. Here is a GDFL claim with a link to a source site that makes no GDFL statement, same here. Based upon this example where the editor clearly strips away the photographer's watermark to make a false licensure claim, I'd support speedying all uploads prophylactically and I'll put an indef on this account. This editor has been getting unfree image warnings since April and has never responded. Despite the shortage of recent activity I don't think the project should be taking these risks. If he or she wants to continue editing then the user can make an appeal and get a good healthy lecture first. Durova^Charge! 04:00, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Never understood people who upload an image under a PD or GFDL license and then give the source which is copyrighted. I mean if they are going to pretend they took the photo, why provide a source link ? Jackaranga 04:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Some of them don't realize they claim to own the copyright by uploading an image to Wikipedia under a free license. In those instances, a clear source is a welcome (albeit unintended) courtesy. All of Serendipity15's images have been deleted, thanks for the notice, 68.39.174.238. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 05:23, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

In other cases, they don't realize that making modifications to an image (or copying it from one medium to another) doesn't give them copyright. --Carnildo 05:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Unblock of Dereks1x?

The editor was community banned in April per this discussion. He's waited half a year and asked me for reinstatement. I'm ready to give him a fresh start; any objections? Durova^Charge! 19:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Has he tried to evade ban lately? --əˈnongahy ♫Look What I've Done!♫ 20:02, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Support if (and only if) he promises no more sockpuppeteering, false credentials, and if he behaves himself on democratic party biographies (and elsewhere, of course). Really, if he understands what he did was wrong and agrees not to do it again. Easy enough to reblock if necessary. This is on the assumption that he has not tried to avoid his ban in the past three months or so (and hopefully, not at all). --Yamla 20:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't one of his socks caught out just over a week ago? [[WP:NOTANADMIN]], but that would certainly make me question his intentions. What rationale has he offered for an unblock? Tony Fox (arf!) 20:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

This appears to be the case. The account was blocked on October 10, 2007. As such, I firmly oppose unblocking Dereks1x. He has clearly not learnt his lesson. Maybe in a year, if he avoids any further sockpuppetry in the meanwhile. --Yamla 20:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

7F (talk · contribs) as well. I seriously doubt these are the only two. --Yamla 20:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

(e/c) I'm not familiar with the history of User:Dereks1x, but I remembered seeing the name a few days ago on ANI. The following accounts have been tagged as Dereks1x socks just in October:

• User:EIJ initials (tagged by WJBscribe, blocked by N H Nick)
• User:UTAFA (tagged by Moe E, blocked by Jersyko)
• USer:7F (tagged and blocked by Jersyko)

A random click on a name in Category:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Dereks1x also shows User:Oprahwasontv (tagged by Bobblehead, blocked by Angusmclellan) edited in August. I didn't bother to look at any other names in that Cat. Seems like lots of people think he's still socking. --barneca (talk) 20:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If he has been using socks that recently, I am opposed to overturning the community ban. It shouldn't even be considered until he has shown a willingness to accept community standards and decisions. I would support a second chance, though, if he stops creating socks and abides by the ban. Sarah 23:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

My standard offer is to support reinstatement if a banned editor does three things:

• Wait six months (and respect WP:SOCK.
• Don't bash Wikipedia offsite.
• Promise not to repeat the same behavior that led to the ban.

I'm still willing to discuss this, but since the sock blocks weren't contested at the time I'll let the burden rest with these accounts to explain why they aren't socks. Mistaken IDs have occasionally happned before. I'm willing to be persuaded. Durova^Charge! 23:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't have arbitrary criteria, but in most cases I don't object to reviewing bans after a reasonable period of time has passed with the person behaving themselves. I do agree about mistaken identities, which is why I prefaced my opposition with, "if he has been using socks that recently..." Maybe it would be worth asking Lar or someone to fire up the checkuser. Sarah 00:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. Durova^Charge! 01:31, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, 43 socks in the category? Whew. Durova^Charge! 01:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

And one more: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Another Dereks1x sock. Mr.Z-man 02:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Is Dereks1x still using socks to evade his ban? More than ever. We uncovered three socks disruptively editing in one day last week - 7F (talk · contribs), MD12752 (talk · contribs) (again pretending to be a doctor, for the third time), and UTAFA (talk · contribs). Then yesterday there was Polounit (talk · contribs) and greenwinged (talk · contribs). And this is just from memory of the last week. There have been many others throughout the months since the ban was instituted; he has contacted several administrators on their talk pages or by email recently complaining about one or another sock having been blocked (see User talk:MatthewUND for one), asking for Dereks1x to be reinstated. He doesn't admit that he is Dereks1x, yet asks under a different persona for Dereks1x to be reinstated - doesn't even make any sense. These socks have all been apparent because of their disruptive editing - I wouldn't venture a guess about other socks he has out there more quietly evading the ban. I'm sure there are many. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not out there looking for him - I have better things to do here - but he brings it right to my door in his edit choices. These and many other socks have become apparent very quickly because of the way he edits, the topics he edits, the language he uses, his unflinching support of other Dereks1x socks, his use of various fora to complain about blocks, his persistent claims and false RFCUs saying that Bobblehead, Jersyko and I are socks of one another - and occasionally throwing in one or another editor for good measure - I could go on. There is no mistaken identity here, Durova - this is a recidivist sockfarmer who has shown no remorse, no admission of his behavior or sign of changing his behavior, and who continues to waste the time and resources of good faith editors. I am all for giving people second chances, but to my mind he has lost that right. That he could ask you to rescind his block right at the same time that he was busily disrupting from multiple sock accounts boggles the mind. Tvoz |talk 04:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

you fuckin' idiots need to get it right. you idiots are blocking everyone. there's someone at work who is fuckin laughing at you keystone cops. The last straw is when you goons blocked me because of him. He's User:Prontoself. He's the sockmaster. Even his name says it all (Quick + self, self being a sock reference). I'm not sure whether he's derek1x or just took on agitating people pretending to be derek1x but let's stop this nonsense. Block the right people, like derek1x and prontoself. I know you goons better, your going to block me for speaking out so i'll give you a reason.....I'm going to sue you a million times over.Gettherightuser 18:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

A modest proposal

How about if we protect every page outside of mainspace for a few weeks and see what happens? It might kick off a new round of encyclopedia editing, and free us from pointless meta-bickering. On the downside, some of our most prolific contributors to arbcom workshops, policy pages, and noticeboards might leave for another forum. Thoughts? Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Bickering can be healthy, provided that disputes are sorted. I can understand what you're getting at, but we need some people here to do those tasks, it keeps it organised and helps to highlight people that are editing disruptively. See it as a football team, the article writers are the players and they do the job that everyone see's - but the team would be nothing without the backroom staff keeping everything in check. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

In the spirit of No email Fridays, perhaps we could have one "Mainspace-only" day a week. Or at the least, perhaps every January 15th. Neil ☎ 18:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Negative, seeing that protecting every page outside of mainspace would include closing pages with a frecuent or advanced level of backlog like WP:GAC, not to mention more important pages such as WP:AIV. Most of these pages require edits from users that are not admins to actually work, not to mention that closing the noticeboards or AIV will end up with a huge vandalism party. - Caribbean~H.Q. 18:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The place would just go to hell, no way of reporting vandalism, new users can't ask for help, nowhere to discuss changes to articles, unending revert wars etc. I know what you mean though, thanks for saying this it makes me think a bit, maybe I will stop trying to get stuff deleted for a while. Jackaranga 18:20, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I see several problems. First, the number of such pages is very large. We'd need at least on 'bot to protect and unprotect the pages. That bot would have to have admin priveleges, but to my knowledge only one adminbot has ever been approved, and that one does the terribly simple job of deleting redirects to nowhere. It has maybe 12 lines of code. The page protection and unprotection bot would be much more complex. I just don't think it would gain enough support to pass RFA. - Jehochman ^Talk 18:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Nah, with no need to be selective, we could just get the devs to turn all other namespaces off for 24 hours. Neil ☎ 18:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Fabulous idea, with a little tweaking it'd work...remind everyone what we're doing here and get work done on some of the backlogs. RxS 18:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

This proposal stops people from using talk pages, which will make resolving disputes very hard. Discussion via edit summary is inefficient and inadequate. And what about vandalism, spam, personal attacks, and so on? How will they be dealt with? Back to the drawing board, this won't work. Picaroon (t) 19:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Assuming a protect-o-bot can work at 1 second a page and assuming 1 million pages needed to be protected were talking about 3 weeks to protect/unprotect. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:57, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

That can be bypassed via MediaWiki's user groups settings. However, try proposing this to a developer... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Er, is this being taken seriously? I work on articles when I have time to go the library; I do admin work at other times. Why would the community want to prevent any of us from doing valuable work whenever we have free time to do it? The assumption that most of what goes on at non-article pages is "bickering" is ridiculous--we have to decide what gets deleted, who gets blocked, etc. etc., and we need a place to do it. Chick Bowen 02:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Great idea. Moreover, why don't we announce this to everyone! I'm sure that GNAA, for one, would love such a holiday, what with WP:AIV being down and all. If only we had a clear distinction between maintenancespace and the bitchspace... ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 05:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds like a great idea ... for the trolls and vandals. Can't come to the WP:AN/x pages, can't discuss BLP violations, can't propose articles for deletion or undeletion, can't use Talk pages, can't use AIV ... this cannot be a serious proposal. Corvus cornix 16:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for community watchlist and archive related to editing restrictions

Some editors who commented at the CSN MfD suggested

• that, because of the scope of the discussions, AN/I would be more appropriate
• that editing restrictions be discussed there

A significant problem, I think, is that AN/I is high-traffic and discussion may be archived rather quickly. At least for me, these and other similar issues preclude my willingness to wade through AN/I to see if there are any discussions in which I could help to generate a consensus.

My suggestion, then, is

• that we maintain a community watchlist where editors may put links to a section on AN/I (or elsewhere) where editing restrictions are being discussed
• that we maintain a list of editors with editing restrictions discussed through this process

One example: "Another hotspot of ethnic warfare..." which originally started as one admin asking others to keep an eye of an article, and now could be discussing what some (including me) might think as very legitimate and necessary editing restrictions. I barely found it, and I am sure that I have missed many others.

I think that it will be very beneficial because

• it will be less discouraging to editors to participate in these discussions, because there will be a central list
• non-admins may request administrator action in relation to the editing restrictions and provide a link to the archive

I considered creating a template and then advertising it here, but then decided that, because of what happened to WP:DE/N, I should first write a proposal. What do you think? Thanks for your time, Iamunknown 23:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Something along these lines would be very important and positive. Thanks very much for the proposal. Durova^Charge! 01:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Could we also use the watchlist to connect the dots on issues that come to ANI multiple times, even before sanctions are placed? If something is a recurring problem, we need links to all the reports in the archive so we can present a pattern of behavior when requesting community sanctions. - Jehochman ^Talk 03:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

This is sound in principle, but might be much more complicated than you might imagine to implement. Consider by comparison the history of a "list of users on probation" that until recently was found in Wikipedia:Probation. The list was created when the Arbitration Committee first began applying "probation" as a remedy against parties to cases, but became out-of-date almost immediately, and was found to be difficult if not impossible to maintain, both in terms of adding users newly placed on probation as well as deleting or updating the records of users whose probation had expired. (Even Wikipedia:List of banned users, which is certainly a shorter and more readily characterized group of users, falls behind sometimes.) Editors and admins needing to check whether an editor on probation frequently found needed information missing, and were generally counselled to do a word-search on the list of completed arbitration cases to see if the user about whom they had a question appeared on it. After discussion on Wikipedia talk:Probation, the list of probationers was recently dropped. Care would need to be taken to avoid the same sort of outcome here. Newyorkbrad 03:17, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, but the result of neglecting this would be far worse: any community based sanction that didn't make its presence obvious in a block log (as an indefinite block) would be essentially unknown to all but the specific editors who had taken place in some discussion. That would render lesser sanctions so ineffective that we'd likely fall back to the fester...fester...siteban approach. That generates a lot of frustration and resentment on all sides. Durova^Charge! 03:47, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)What if we implement a filing system based on username? If a user is reported at ANI for a serious issue that needs monitoring (e.g. ban, probation, long term disruption), we could create a subpage with the user's name as a key (i.e. Wikipedia:Administrators noticeboard/Incidents/Jehochman. These subpages could be transcluded that into WP:ANI, as suggested by Jpgordon at the WP:CSN deletion discussion. Each time a user on the watchlist returned to ANI, their entire record would be transcluded so everyone would see the full history. Likewise, if anybody wanted to check whether a user was on probation, banned or whatever, they could just pull up the page, the same way we look for people's RFAs, which are also filed by username. - Jehochman ^Talk 03:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

In the event that a formerly or currently restricted editor attempts to improve and it is visible to the community, maintaining lists of restrictions, incidents, discussions, etc. would seem to me to not be in a collegial spirit. I suppose that the pages could be deleted, but then I fear lots of wikilawyering would come into play as to under what parameters they could be deleted. While lists of restrictions, discussions, etc. organized by editor would be convenient, I would tentatively prefer that we not maintain them.

Note, however, that other technical solutions may be in order, such as a better search mechanism that would index relevant project-space pages, such as WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:RFAR, etc. (I know that Eagle_101 has developed one such search engine, and that it is available at the top of the page.) --Iamunknown 05:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

For every one who does there are ten to twenty who don't, and the community has other ways of recognizing these positive turnarounds. I hand out the Resilient Barnstar on a semi-regular basis and I've created the Valiant Return Triple Crown for them. It's far more important to the project that we maintain an organized database so that sanctions that fall short of sitebanning are practical and effective. Durova^Charge! 14:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Please do a speedy close on this AFD

This AFD should be speedy closed since the previous nomination was closed 4 days ago and was made by the same editor who is making this one. Assuming good faith, the problem is that the editor didn't realize that it's really the same article despite the fact that another editor renamed the article after the last AFD closed.

BTW, I can't find the appropriate policy or guideline that suggests that articles should not be renominated for deletion shortly after they have survived an AFD. Can you point me in the right direction? Thanx.

--Richard 08:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

It is too soon. I might suggest a month or two later. I cannot find anything that says you must wait a certain time, but that is generally what happens by "default." I suggest the AFD should be closed. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 08:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Got it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 08:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Admin attention please

Resolved

 – Protected, then unprotected, but resolved nonetheless. —Wknight94 (talk) 13:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Albus Dumbledore. Seems like admins that pay attention to Requests for page protection aren't around and vandals are killing the Albus Dumbledore article since the media has reported of his outting as gay by author JK Rowling. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 09:37, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Seems the protector didn't agree with the people at RFPP-;)Rlevse 16:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism of Wikipedia in news article

Hi guys, I really don't know what's done in a situation like this, so I thought I might as well describe it here. Just a few minutes ago I found an article written by a Gil Zohar in the European Jewish Press (EJP) entitled Nativ seeks Russian Jews in Montreal to immigrate to Israel. In any case, as I began to read on I realized that a majority of the article was nearly a copy/paste from the article Lishkat Hakesher, which I wrote about a year ago. Here are some sample instances of plagiarism:

EJP:

The semi-covert immigration encouragement organization Lishkat Hakesher or the Liaison Bureau, codenamed Nativ (Hebrew for path), maintained contact with Jews living in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War and encouraged aliyah, or immigration to Israel.

Wikpedia:

Lishkat Hakesher or The Liaison Bureau, codenamed Nativ (נתיב-path), is an Israeli liaison organization that maintained contact with Jews living in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War and encouraged aliyah, or immigration to Israel.

EJP:

Founded as part of the Prime Minister’s Office by Prime Minister Moshe Sharett in 1952 and headquartered in Tel Aviv, Nativ was designed to function covertly, making contacts, fostering Jewish education, and aiding immigration to Israel.

Nativ was not the first organization to do this. Mossad l’Aliyah Bet, part of the Haganah, brought Jews to Israel in defiance of the British Mandate during the 1930s and 1940 , but this ended with the creation of Israel in 1948.

Nativ was to continue that mission, except now in defiance of the Soviet Union.

Although it operated in a clandestine manner, the official policy was never to break Soviet laws.

This did not stop the KGB from suspecting that it was spying, in fact, as recently as 1998 Nativ was accused of conducting espionage operations.

Wikipedia:

Founded as part of the Prime Minister's office by Prime Minister Moshe Sharett in 1952-1953, Nativ was designed to function covertly, making contacts, fostering Jewish education, and aiding immigration to Israel. Nativ was not the first organization to do this; Mossad Le'aliyah Bet, part of the Haganah, had brought Jews to Israel in defiance of the British Mandate, but this ended with the creation of Israel. Nativ was to continue that mission, except now in defiance of the Soviet Union. Although it operated in a clandestine manner, the official policy was never to break Soviet laws. This did not stop the KGB from suspecting that it was spying, in fact, as recently as 1998 Nativ was accused of conducting espionage operations.

This almost word-to-word copy goes on for most of the article, and the only real deviation is some slightly new information at the beginning. Obviously I understand that Wikipedia can be copied, but this seems to be a case of journalist malpractice. EJP itself claims on their About page:

The agency is today recognised by the major media organisations, EU institutions and the general public as an important source of reliable and accurate information and the undisputed reference on European Jewish issues.

I'm flattered that they liked my writing, but this seemed to be going way too far. Anyway, I wasn't sure if anything should be done - you guys can take it from here ; ) Joshdboz 19:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, no it can't be copied unless they are fully compliant with the terms of the GFDL (which, at a quick glance, they certainly are not). They have a list of editors on their "Contact" page, if someone would like to drop them a quick note. I would do it, but I'm heading out in a few minutes. If it hasn't been done when I get back, I can do it then. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 19:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, I've got some time before I need to go, I'll do it. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 19:34, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If they're a reputable news organization, they will probably fall all over themselves to apologize, and chastize the reporter in question rather harshly, if you send them an email with this evidence at http://www.ejpress.org/contact/ If they don't, they will be hung out to dry by the reputable news organizations. This sort of thing has happened before, see:

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-05-09/Brockhaus plagiarism suspected
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-01-02/Reporter plagiarizes Wikipedia and followup:
  • Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-01-16/Tim Ryan dismissed
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-01-08/Press plagiarism (resigned)
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-07-09/Japanese plagiarism

and possibly other times --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:40, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

(EC) A similar incident came up a few weeks ago. Our goal on-site is to prevent Wikipedia from having copyright violations and plagiarism of other sources. This case goes in the opposite direction: another source apparently plagiarizing Wikipedia. If you want to pursue a copyright claim individually, or just contact the publisher to ask that they credit you and other contributors for the text, you can do that. But there's not much that we can do about this as administrators. Your contributions are still your own intellectual property, licensed under the GFDL, which requires attribution to you; I suggest you inform them of that. Since Bbatsell is doing this, I leave my comment here for future situations.--chaser - t 19:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Just for further clarification, I believe this to be the website of the journalist in question. He seems to be a freelancer named Gil Kezwer who publishes under Gil Zohar, and has had some articles in The Jerusalem Post. Thanks for sending a note, Bbatsell. Joshdboz 19:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Gil Kezwer (SEWilco 20:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC))

Just confirming that I did send a message to the news editor, cc'ing the managing editor and the generic news@ address. I don't expect a response soon, as it is 10:30 P.M. at EJP. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 20:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Did you actually direct them to this thread, or merely explain the situation? Dragons flight 20:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I explained the situation. At the time I sent the e-mail, the other discoveries hadn't been made. I'll link them to the evidence here when I get a response. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 23:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Blnguyen/Times_of_India: My favorites. The Times of India doesn't even try. Keegan^talk 02:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Well the article's still up so they seem to be in no hurry to react...or read their inbox. Joshdboz 18:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

To confirm, no response yet. It is the weekend, and it appears that no new articles have been posted to the website since Thursday, so they might have limited hours. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 16:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, if you don't get any response by Tuesday I'd be happy to call their office. Joshdboz 17:48, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I wonder... does this little investigation qualify for inclusion in the Gil Kezwer stub, or is it a BLP taboo? I'll bet he's never seen this noticeboard, but he probably checks the article about him four times a week. I'm neutral about it, but I'd like to hear other opinions. KrakatoaKatie 20:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not as well wiki-policy versed as many but I would assume that that would qualify as OR; however, I don't think there's much harm in leaving a link on the talk page. Joshdboz 22:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I finally did get in contact with the European Jewish Press and received an official apology from Zohar. For some reason they haven't taken the article down yet, but this shouldn't happen again. Joshdboz 13:21, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Gil's Other Plagarism

Reaffirming that a writer is never caught for their first act of plagarism. Dragons flight 20:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

• Gil Zohar: Supreme Court Orders NIS 100,000 Fine for Illegal Building - January, 13 2007
• Yuval Yoaz and Akiva Eldar: Court orders NIS 100,000 fine for companies building in W. Bank - January 11, 2007

I suspected that might be the case, but I didn't want to smear this guy for what could have been a one-time screw-up. Joshdboz 20:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Um, is it OR to include information on a subject's, ahem, "quoting" other sources in articles about the subject him/herself? I was thinking, if we truly wanted to discourage stuff like this, maybe creating a stub on the subject, if s/he's notable enough, and then including such info on paraphrasing (or whatever) wikipedia on the talk page. John Carter 20:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that would be OR. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 20:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

More from Wikipedia. Dragons flight 21:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

• Gil Zohar Lebanon – the morass gets muddier, November 8, 2006
• Wikipedia, Demographics of Lebanon Lebanese Civil War: Two paragraphs beginning "Constitutionally guaranteed Christian control..."
• Wikipedia, Lebanese Civil War: One paragraph beginning "Since the end of..."
• Wikipedia, Lebanon (as appeared October 2006): Several paragraphs beginning "The population of Lebanon is composed..."

I'm not seeing "Constitutionally guaranteed Christian control..." in Demographics of Lebanon; try History of Lebanon or Lebanese Civil War. (SEWilco 21:36, 18 October 2007 (UTC))

I meant Lebanese Civil War but must have copied the wrong link. Dragons flight 21:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Diffs would help date the Wikipedia phrasing. (SEWilco 22:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC))

For when you get discouraged

Cary Bass asks here for help on this page that contains comments people made when they donated money. I highly recommend bookmarking that page for anytime you guys get discouraged. It'll give you your second wind. Consensus is we rock. WAS 4.250 19:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow – it really does make me feel better. My personal favorite: "Even though you keep reverting my edits on the Penis page, you do a wonderful job and deserve the cash." - KrakatoaKatie 21:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Can we de-escalate this?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

There is no doubt in my mind that a ban of Angela Kennedy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is entirely appropriate; she set out her stall, and her aim here was to promote her offsite campaign. We don't need that.

Unfortunately, Kennedy's nonsense has also impacted MEagenda (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who up until now has been one of the few people on that side of the debate who is prepared to register, participate and actually try to state their case in a way which is anything close to acceptable by policy. I suspect she has been inflamed by Kennedy, and certainly the dispute involving Kennedy has dragged her in. I don't think she's made inappropriate edits to the Wessely article, and as I say her comments to know have indicated to me that she's at least willing to have a shot at doing it the Wikipedia way.

Can anyone think of a good way of de-escalating this? Guy (Help!) 14:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Both of them were indef blocked by others admins. Rlevse 16:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I know. I think MEagenda may with care be unblocked. Guy (Help!) 18:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

That username is inappropriate. It matches a website used to promote the cause, and it's not her personal name or moniker. If she is allowed to return, she should register a new account or request a new username. - Jehochman ^Talk 20:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

A rename would be fine, we can talk with her about that, but I don't think we should lose her history by making her re-register. Username blocking at this stage would seem a bit petty, she's been around for some time. Guy (Help!) 20:31, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

• Nope. I have an email from Jimbo, Angela Kennedy and MEagenda and anybody else associated with them are permanently and irrevocably banned. I can't pretend I'm not relieved, even while slightly disappointed that I couldn't fix the problem. Guy (Help!) 22:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Revert, Block, Ignore

I have an extension to propose to policy on handling harassment and banned editors. See User:JzG/Harassment links. Guy (Help!) 18:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Giovanni33-John Smith's

The above-linked arbitration case has closed. Giovanni33 and John Smith's are subject to identical editing restrictions for one year. They are limited to one revert per page per week (excepting obvious vandalism), and are required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should they exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, they may be blocked. For the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 20:11, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Ohio University

We seem to have an interesting case at:

Ohio University

There is:

• Vandalism
• POV
• COI
• 3RR
• Suspected Sockpuppetry
• Possible legal issue with Wikipedia

If you scroll through the revision history, you will see that there is an edit war going on. And the article mentions a third party source citing the edits on Wikipedia as a conflict between the students and the university.

Background: Back in January the university announced the cancellation of four sports:

"Ohio Athletics announces change to sport offerings"

"ATHENS, Ohio (Jan. 25, 2007) -- The Ohio Department of Athletics has announced that men's indoor and outdoor track and field, men's swimming and diving, and women's lacrosse will no longer be offered as varsity sport programs, effective at the conclusion of their respective 2007 seasons. The move will reduce the number of programs offered by Ohio from 20 to 16."

Since then, a group calling itself:

saveousports.org/

...have been fighting with the university and/or friends of the university in the media, and on Wikipedia over not only the loss of the sports, but the content of the Wikipedia article.

SaveOUsports has charged the university in general and Douglas Bolon, associate professor of Health Sciences and last year’s chairman of the Intercollegiate Athletic Committee, has removing material on Wikipedia. See deleted material: [33]

PROPOSAL: The article is put on FULL LOCK until a senior contributor can NPOV the article.

Thanks. IP4240207xx 21:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The removed section was inappropriate. Discussion belongs on the article talk page, not in the article itself. Edokter, a well-respected admin, and AlumniGal99 beat me to it – the POV rant was removed and a NPOV paragraph on the subject is in place. Keep your opinions on the talk page. KrakatoaKatie 22:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I did not add any material to the article, so don't tell me: "Keep your opinions on the talk page." My only contributions were to REVERT blanking (which in considered Vandalism) and adding the NPOV and COI tags. Get your facts straight before you accuse please. IP4240207xx 22:47, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Yet another classic example of someone who asks the question but does not want to hear the answer. KrakatoaKatie 22:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Administrator User:KrakatoaKatie needs to be reminded of Wikipedia:Civility, abuse of admin position.IP4240207xx 23:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe impatient with you, but it don't think any admin functions have been abused in the slightest. He's right on the merits—the material is not appropriate. Cool Hand Luke 00:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Liancourt Rocks closed

The above arbitration case has closed, and Wikimachine (talk · contribs) has been banned from Wikipedia for one year. All parties are reminded that attempts to use Wikipedia as a battleground may result in the summary imposition of additional sanctions, up to and including a ban from the project. For the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 21:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Nobel prize Problems

I came here because I'm in over my head here. Shortly after I got the admin bit, I full-protected Nobel Prize because of edit-warring, unaware of what the warring was over. Earlier today (or yesterday, I can't remember exactly when), User:NYScholar talk to me on my TP and told me to remove the image per copyright concerns, which I did. However, just now I got another message asking me to restore the image per a thread at Fair use review. I didn't realize that when I protected that I would be thrust into a confusing war over copyright. NYScholar says that the image of the Prize is copyrighted by the Nobel Foundation, and thus needs a fair use rationale and permission. Jheald states that the image is PD under US law because its design was known a priori 1923,a nd thus needs no such rationale. Assist, please. -Jéské ^{(Blah v^_^v)} 00:46, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd ask them to use {{editprotected}} on the talk page which puts the edit requests at Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests. If it's not a clear edit request, other admins won't do it. That way, the talk page is used before edits are done and you are helping to force a discussion, which was the problem anyways. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

That isn't the problem. There's a dispute with the image itself; not whether it should be included on the page. Discussion has led to a fair-use review. -Jéské ^{(Blah v^_^v)} 01:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The above statement is helpful but not entirely accurate: Please note: I have raised both copyright/trademark violation issues about this image and questions about the accuracy of its image page license statement and I have also stated that the image does not belong in the infobox for Nobel Prize.[34] The image is of the Nobel Peace Prize, a registered trademark of the Nobel Foundation, the image is not in the public domain, as it is protected both by the registered trademark and by the copyright notices of that particular image (on the 1933 Nobel Peace Prize medal) and "everything" on the copyrighted Nobel Foundation website is protected by copyright (including trademarked images). A medal is not a publication [re: misinterpretation of copyright law/fair use of the Nobel Prize Medal images by some other users]. The Nobel Foundation claims "proprietary rights" to the images and the registered trademarked designs of its Nobel Prize Medals, including this one. As I've stated elsewhere, including in the talk page of the image and in the fair use discussion which I posted, use of this image is not relevant to Nobel Prize and it does not belong in its infobox. (Clarification: That particular image does not illustrate content currently in "Nobel Prize"; it is an image of the Nobel Peace Prize Medal; it relates only to the Nobel Peace Prize, and "fair use" concerns come into play relating to that article as well, which is why such images of the medals are not being used there or in any other of the articles on each individual Nobel Prize in Wikipedia; any such use would require detailed fair-use rationales.) --NYScholar 04:42, 21 October 2007 (UTC) [Added clarifications. --NYScholar 04:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)]

This is being discussed at length elsewhere (specifically, here, here and here). I don't think there's any problem with this image, but the other side (one person really) has been rather vociferous, so I'm ok with leaving it off until the discussion at WP:PUI is resolved. (I think the free/non-free determination has to be made we talk about it at WP:FUR). Thanks! -- But|seriously|folks  05:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

AFD Backlogged

Could any administrators that have some free time wander on over to WP:AFD and help clear the backlog? There's 21(!) articles from nine days ago that need closing. shoy 00:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Chinese in the Russian Revolution and in the Russian Civil War

I'm having trouble with one editor who keeps Reverting my work in the above. He makes no effort to discuss my p-roposals on the Talk page, but unilaterally follows his own judgment regarding the need to revert my work as not keeping with his own personal judgment as to worthiness. Can some please help bring some civility to the varticle above?

Yours truly, --Ludvikus 17:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

If I jump into this, I'd block both of you for 3RR violation. Maybe page protection is the answer here. Rlevse 18:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Page protected by another admin. Rlevse 13:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Ludvikus, you might wish to follow the dispute resolution procedure. Go through WP:RFC and, if necessary, WP:RFARB. However, understand that you do not come off looking good in this dispute right now. You have been uncivil. You have engaged in revert wars with the other editor over this article. I haven't counted the reverts in each 24 hour period but it would seem that both of you have probably violated WP:3RR.

To strengthen your position, clean up your act. Stop edit warring and work on forming consensus on the Talk Page. Be civil in edit summaries and on the Talk Page. Be patient. If there is a consensus on the Talk Page that excludes one editor, then other editors are will jump in and help make the article reflect that consensus. Without a consensus, you are out on your own and the rest of will stand by until we can figure out what the consensus should be.

Wikipedia articles change a lot while they are being written. With a few exceptions like violations of WP:BLP, it's not so important what the article says in the interim as what it says in its stable form. What I mean is that it's not a disaster if the article says something incorrect for a few hours or a few days. What matters is that we can find a way to support the "correct" text and make it "bullet proof".

Edit wars don't accomplish what you want. Discussion does.

--Richard 16:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Richard, much appreciated. Will think about your advice carefully.

In the mean time, please note that that "Chinese shadows" quote comes from that p. 373

of the acclaimed biographer of Trotsky, Isaac Deutscher.

You must know by now, since you and I often agreed in the editing above, that I act in Good Faith.

The contribution was not an act of Vandalism.

At the same time, don't you see the irony involved:

that the most important authorities on the role

of the Chinese discuss an encounter with "Chinese shadows?"

That is funny, no? But it is also true.

Please read carefully the quote I provided.

You are an editor I particularly respect since we could rather easily talk things over.

So I'm very curious what think about the chief military officer

whose job allegedly involve the use of Chinese regiment

in the Russian Revolution and Civil war turns out reporting that it was

"Chinese shadows" who had been didpersed.

So maybe the title sould be:

Chinese regiments vs. Chinese shadows in the Russian Revolution and Civil War (just kidding).

Best regards to you, Richard, --Ludvikus 17:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Totally confusing set of double-redirects

Could someone please look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Nations_and_Organizations_of_Ace_Combat The redirects listed don't seem to match what's actually in the articles. Here's a partial list of what I see, but it's very confusing because some of the pages listed here don't redirect where the list indicates. For example Erusea actually redirects to Nations of Ace Combat#Erusea but here it's shown as redirecting to X-02 Wyvern. Thanks!

The following pages link to Nations and Organizations of Ace Combat
View (previous 50) (next 50) (20 | 50 | 100 | 250 | 500)
   * Independent State Allied Forces (redirect page) (links)
         o ISAF (links)
         o X-02 Wyvern (redirect page) (links)
               + Independent State Allied Forces (redirect page) (links)
               + Ustio (redirect page) (links)
               + XFA-27 (redirect page) (links)
               + Erusea (redirect page) (links)

Ewlyahoocom 01:39, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Basically, it appears that Rogue Commander (talk · contribs) did a whole bunch of article merges and left a big snarled mess. It seems someone should work with him/her to fix it or just undo the mess. Regardless, administrator intervention does not seem necessary at this point. Wikipedia:Help desk seems like a better choice at this point. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see... he left the articles text on the pages but added a redirect tag to the top. I didn't know that the "what links here" query could get so confused by something like that! Ewlyahoocom 06:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't even notice that. Maybe he meant to use {{merge}} instead of #REDIRECT. —Wknight94 (talk) 12:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOT/Noticeboard

Since we have noticeboards for most of the other policies, wouldn't it make sense to create a noticeboard for the application of WP:NOT? Yahel Guhan 07:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Dear god no. We have to many as it is. And they're being pruned right about now (CSN and Son of CSN {DE/N}) -M^ask? 14:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

what I meant was we need a place to discuss whether certian articles, sections, images, additions, etc. meet policy. I think we need a better place for this than the policy talk page or afd. Prehaps a WP:NOT noticeboard was a bad suggestion; I just thought of it, since we seem to have a board for almost all other policies.Yahel Guhan 01:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't that sort of discussion just naturally come out through the AFD process? Creating a board will create a separation between the AFD discussions and the board. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

If it is on AFD, discuss it there, otherwise use the article's talkpage. If you need outside input, start an RFC or link to the talk page discussion on WP:VPP. Mr.Z-man 02:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. We do not need this; that's why XFD is there to deal with WP:NOT stuff, hence why it's not a criteria for speedy deletion. O₂ (息 • 吹) 02:26, 21 October 2007 (GMT)

Well xfd isn't a good idea if it is just a section of an article if the rest of the article is good. Especially when the editors can't reach a consensus as to whether or not it is a good idea to include it. There just has to be a better solution than bringing the issue to the policy talk page. Yahel Guhan 19:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Then use the article talk page and post an RFC linking to the relevant section. O₂ (息 • 吹) 02:30, 22 October 2007 (GMT)

Restore "Q" on test.wiki

Please restore "Q" on [35]. I need it. --Nolanus 22:03, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Nolanus. I'm afraid en.wikipedia admins do not have administrator rights on the Test Wiki. You need to ask at http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page. Neil ☎ 20:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible Copyvio

There are a few short messages on the talk page for the article Hurst Castle that suggest the article may be ripped from a website, but I could not find out for sure. I am concerned about this, and was wondering if someone more experianced with this sort of thing could look into the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the article has been plagiarized from http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/HurstCastle.html , with copyvio sentences since 2005. (A google search of various sentences will do.) I have utilized the {{copyvio}} template to flag for further investigation. MER-C 04:23, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

MER-C, what version are you working off? I'm trying to find out if the growth of the wiki page was organic, and who's committing the copyvio. BTW, the message on the talk page was left by an anon four years ago and isn't relevant. east.718 at 04:27, 10/21/2007

This is where the plagiarism started and it has become worse since then (see, e.g. [36]). There's no one editor that is responsible for it, just a tendency to copy entire sentences from the above url. MER-C 05:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted way back to the 2005 version, weaving in the non-copyvio edits (which MER-C had thoughtfully preserved). If there's a non-copyvio version to revert to, that seems a good solution here. I made every effort to make sure the 2005 version was not at all copied from the URL in question. Problem resolved? --W.marsh 19:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Bharatveer

This arbitration case has closed and the final decision can be found at the link above. Bharatveer is subject to a comprehensive editing restriction for one year. He is limited to one revert per page per week (excepting obvious vandalism), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. If he exceeds this limit, fails to discuss a content reversion, or makes any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith, he may be blocked as set forth in the decision's enforcement provision. This notice is given by a Clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 19:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Alpha Dog, User:GODFATHER and "Spoilers"

In the article for Alpha Dog the beginning goes "The film is based on the true story of the kidnapping and murder in 2000 in California of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz, and the alleged involvement of Jesse James Hollywood, a young drug dealer." User:GODFATHER wanted to remove "and murder" because it ruined the film for him.[37] I think this is pretty ridicilous considering its based on a true story. Look at the article for An American Crime, which states in the beginning, "It based on the true story of the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens by Indiana housewife Gertrude Baniszewski." Would that be considered a spoiler???--CyberGhostface 17:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

This appears to be a content dispute best handled by forming a consensus at the article talkpage... Although I would question why someone who is going to view the film would want to check the relevant article on WP anyway. LessHeard vanU 18:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Significant plot points to movies can be put in the lead. The Crying Game has the major, completely unknown till the end twist (the girls not a real girl, but transgendered) smack dab in the lead. We are an encyclopedia. We provide information. If you dont want information (spoilers) dont look up the film on an encyclopedia, but in a film review. This was all covered quite nicely when we tossed out spoiler warnings from article space. -M^ask? 18:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's based on a true story but it's still a movie. I'm not gonna put a spoiler warning in Murder of Nicholas Markowitz, but it's common to do so in movies articles.

Why would someone who havn't seen the film read this article? Maybe he heard about it and wants to know who's in the cast, or the release date or any other thing besides it's ending. Personally, I wanted to know if I can squeeze the movie in some free time I had, so I came here to see the running time. Godfather ♣ Talk ♣ 20:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually it is not common to do so in Wikipedia articles. We got rid of most of our spoiler warnings a while back. I think looking up a film im an encylopedia is bound to spoil any surprises, and i wouldn't advise anyone to do so. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

In the future you'd be better off looking at IMDB if you want to know who's in the cast, how long the film is, or whatnot.--CyberGhostface 21:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand, why are you so keen to have that info there? What difference does it make if it'll be in the plot section? Godfather ♣ Talk ♣ 14:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. Among the principles passed was At wit's end which states that necessary measures must be adopted by the Arbitration Committee in cases where repeated attempts to stop disruptive disputes have failed. As a result of the case, both Digwuren and Petri Krohn are banned for one year. There has also been a general restriction to all editors working on topis related to Eastern Europe and a warning to all those who may, in the future, attempt to use Wikipedia as a battleground that they may be banned when the matter is reported to the Committee. On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Cbrown1023 talk 18:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

"Seemingly draconian measures"? This should be interesting. I may have to do some background reading on this. Carcharoth 20:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

That remedy refers to the fact that this same general group of editors on Eastern European topics has been involved in multiple arbitration cases with no resolution to the conflict. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus-Ghirla, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Occupation of Latvia, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus had no effect, so the committee decided these sanctions were necessary. Seems harsh, yes, but no one came up with any other reasonable ideas to address this longterm problem. Note that Cbrown included the mention of this principle per my request, as I thought it something important for the community to be aware of - we normally don't report on principles. Picaroon (t) 21:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting to note that we may

Lift out the section of the 151 RAF apply civility supervision to users of Eastern European articles, but not revert limitations. Incivility usually stems from revert-warring, and not the other way around. I am a great fan of these sweeping arbitration remedies for problem areas of the encyclopedia, but am not sure this is entirely adequate. Moreschi ^Talk 22:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

There's no other option. We tried almost everything. The community needs a bit of calm. Both users got what they were looking for. They tried so hard to ban each other and both must be happy now. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I was right. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This all reminds me of the never ending fighting on Sri Lankan and Middle Eastern articles. I guess they all like to carry out their real life struggles in the virtual world. 13:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rlevse (talk • contribs)

It is the turn of the Sri Lankan battles at Wikipedia now. See the mess at the ANI. The situation at the ME arena is still the same though it is getting a lil lil bit better (and only God knows how). -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Username

Hi. I'm offended by another user's name: Bob Pervert. Please can someone change his name or ban him. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Souffhampton City Council (talk • contribs) 15:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Report to WP:RFCN Rlevse 16:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

And while we're at it, change yours. -Jéské ^{(Blah v^_^v)} 16:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

There's no such place as "Souffhampton." I assume this user's name is an odd joke, and that it is not a role account. Chick Bowen 16:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoopsie, I blocked "Souffhampton" meanwhile... If anyone wants to lift I won't oppose it. (If anyone wants to reblock with ACB for trolling, I won't oppose either ;))-- lucasbfr ^talk 16:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The fact that the user claims that this is his actual surname may be relevant to this case. - Caribbean~H.Q. 16:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe unrelated, but just to point out this AN/I thread... — iridescent 16:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Regardless, the username does not insult anyone. Please remember that wikipedia is not censored. (and as such, as long as names don't call anyone anything it does not matter much). Then again anyone with such a name should be watched closely to see if they actually improve the encyclopedia. (rather then say... vandalize) —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 16:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

If you don't "get it," try googling for Estuary English. Raymond Arritt 20:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Notice: Main Page suggestion on Village Pump

Over at the Village Pump, I have raised the idea of adding a box about the 2008 Summer Olympics to the Main Page next year. I would like to ask all of you to join the discussion and share your thoughts on this matter, on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Olympics on the Main Page. Aecis^Brievenbus 20:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality

There are continuous attempts of raising questions on neutrality of the thread, Korea University, by the Epthorn regardless of ample corresponding references underpinning the contents. Another issue the user Epthorn raised is that references written languages other than English are useless, even though those references come from the reliable sources.

Practically, it is impossible to cite all references written in English, especially from non-English-speaking worlds. In addition, most references from domestic major broadcasts are too long to be interpreted and used as references in Wikipedia. However, I do believe that there are still many people, even from the country in which the language is prevailed, who can read and interpret languages other than English, and hence can be assessed whether those references are reliable or not.

One more thing I would like to ask administrators to consider is that current system for revising any threads on Wikipedia can be used as a serious weapon to some malicious users. In case, regardless of enough evidences, any thread can be doubted and tagged by only one user who plausibly has a bad intention and purpose.

Please check the neutrality on the Korea University thread [[38]]. Thank you.Patriotmissile 21:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I forgot a thing to ask to administrators. The user Epthorn told me that there's no need to have any supportive references or agreement to revise the contents seemingly show 'promotional tone', which are obviously covered by reliable references written in Korean. When I say reliable sources, that means those references are sourced from major newpapers, broadcasts, or publications. In addition, Epthorn told me that he can freely revise them with no references.

To me, Epthorn's claims look so weird and sophistic. Because once he change the contents without justified back ups, that can lead sequential revisions requested by any others due to the absence of supportive references. That will cause an infinite loop of time-wasting revisions. I think if someone claims somethings, they are definitely also well equipped with their back ups (references from relaible sources or survey data).Patriotmissile 21:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

As a sidenote, if references written in languages other than English are not valid, then I think it is inevitable to elicit gigantic revisions through out the Wikipedia threads. Enormosuly many contents will lose their supports and produce mass confusions. I have seen too many threads using such references.Patriotmissile 00:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Request for some experienced eyes

I wonder if some admins could keep their eyes on California wildfires of October 2007 over the coming hours. I have been trying to keep it under control, but have to head out myself as we are under evacuation. Things are moving really quickly and, inevitably, the article risks turning into a news report, and fragmenting into lots of little articles on the different fires. Thanks. Rockpocket 22:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Look over these socks

Resolved

 – Socks blocked by Alison, underlying IPs blocked by checkuser Lar. Chick Bowen 02:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Can an administrator please look over the socks listed here? --əˈnongahy ♫Look What I've Done!♫ 23:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Stefanomencarelli opened

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

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 23:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Blort

Resolved

Can someone speedy-delete Blort? My bot created it by mistake, I still don't quite understand how. Thanks. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Blorted. Chick Bowen 03:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

For future reference, {{db-author}} (even if your bot made the page).--chaser - t 03:07, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Does a corporate logo count as a non-free image on a user page?

User:Lex94/Signatures contains Image:Wwelogo.png, the World Wrestling Entertainment logo. I was under the impression that fair-use images can't be used on user subpages, and I asked the author about it, but he asserted that it's OK to use a corporate logo because it's free content and it provides publicity to WWE. He said, "With all due respect, do not try to argue with these points, because I know what I am talking about."

So, is it actually fair use to use a corporate logo in user space? I guess I should figure out what I'm talking about here.

By the way, I'm working up a rant about whether guestbooks (with all the fancy signatures) and hidden pages (e.g. "Find my hidden page and win a barnstar!") are actually helping the encyclopedia or not. It's sort of the same socializing mess that doomed Esperanza, but less centralized. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 22:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

No, fair-use images cannot be used in userspace. --Yamla 22:48, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Yamla is right, the relevant policy is WP:NFCC#9. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 22:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Lex94 seems to misunderstand that a copyrighted logo is not free content in the sense of freedom. Free content in the context of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation projects refers to the freedom to use, copy, modify, and re-distribute. Although the logo is widely distributed free of charge for publicity purposes, it remains under a rights-reserved copyright, and is thus subject to WP:NFCC. — TKD::Talk 23:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

As a point of clarification, many corporate logos tagged as non-free are in fact not subject to copyright because they are mere typesetting of words, or are older logos that lost their copyright from being published without copyright notices. Nevertheless, I wouldn't encourage anyone to use them on their user page - among other things that even raises some trademark concerns. Also, this particular logo is clearly copyrighted and thus non-free. Wikidemo 01:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

So, you are saying if I used an older WWE logo, it would be fine? Lex^{94 Talk Contributions Signatures} 01:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If it was published before 1923. (Unlikely, as the WWE was founded in 1952.) Maybe possibly if it was published before 1978, but it'll be very difficult to prove the necessary conditions. —Cryptic 01:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I still dont understand the problems for logos. Logos are commercial images/signs. So, if I give publicity to it on my user page (Ex. I add: World Wrestling Entertainment's site link to the page), it will be completely ok for me to use the image. And also, many users have images of different wrestlers on their user pages. (Hybrid, Zenlax, etc.) Companies normally give out free caps or bands with their logos on them for free, so obviously its publicity stunt, that I am attribuing to when I add the logo to my page. Lex^{94 Talk Contributions Signatures} 01:43, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If you read Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria, you will see that number nine (Restrictions on location.) restricts the use of non-free images. Per this policy, non-free images, including logos, may only be used within articles. This is official policy regardless of whether or not you provide a link to the company. The images (for the mostpart) are the copyright of the company, and while I doubt they'd sue over an image on a userpage, you still don't have the legal right to use a company's logo however you wish. - auburnpilot talk 01:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If this is true, how can it be used in the article World Wrestling Entertainment? Lex^{94 Talk Contributions Signatures} 02:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Because that page meets the criteria. If you read the criteria it will explain. 1 != 2 02:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

More directly it is because its being used to illustrate a subject relevant to the article, its being used under the Non-free content criteria and its use is justified by a explanation provided by the fair use rationale. - Caribbean~H.Q. 02:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

• I don't think that this issue is as clear as some make it out to be. Some trademarks are "free content", as in they are unencumbered by copyright restrictions. Many are even on Wikimedia Commons. I uploaded one last week. They are not, however, "Free Cultural Works", as they are encumbered by trademark restrictions. At the same time, however, I don't think that we should allow trademarks on pages unrelated to the product or trade. That could constitute trademark infringement, or the tort of passing off. Note, however, that I am not a lawyer and that that legal information is not legal advice. --Iamunknown 04:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

It get's even messier. Wikipedia hosts several languages on the server farm in the netherlands, including the de site. In most german-ish speaking countries, The Netherlands and Germany in particular, The standard of originality is vastly higher then in the US. So things like the Star Wars logo, being simply stylized text, dont meet that threshold, and over there have trademark protection in the fields related to the star wars franchise, but no valid copyright there, which is how the de article can have the logo in their article about the film, but still completely disallow copyrighted images in favor of free content. -M^ask? 18:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Both trademark law and copyright law apply to logos with sufficient uniqueness. In this case our copyright policy forbids the use of this logo. I think it would be fairly difficult to prove any kind of trademark infringement however. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia barely addresses trademark concerns. However, companies notice and occasionally make legal threats when they see others using their logo on the web in a fannish way. You're definitely on shaky ground if you use other people's logos for logo wear, fan sites, and the like. Their legal theory might be that the trademark is broad and applies to interactive services; another theory woudl be trademark tarnishment / dilution. I don't know whether or how it's in the rules but I don't think we want to go down the path of letting people use logos on their use pages, even if not copyrighted. One of the problems, illustrated here, is that it's hard to be clear whether a logo is copyrighted or not. In article space we want to err on the side of caution and simply assume it is and apply the non-free logo principles. We should do the same in user space too rather than getting into a case by case difficult analysis of whether to treat a logo as copyrighted. Wikidemo 14:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm coming to this thread late, but there's another concern in allowing logos on user pages, best illustrated with this hypothetical example. Let's say Vince McMahon opens an account on Wikipedia, & puts the WWF logo on his user page: one could argue that he has the right to do this since he owns the WWF. If we accept this argument, then we encounter the problem of conflict of interest: having a logo on a user page has the plausible implication that the corporation or group that owns or is associated with the logo approves of the user's actions. If a user with the WWF logo gets into an edit war with someone, it could be thought that the WWF is behind the user's actions. Most corporations would rather not deal with this liability, which is one reason they enforce their rights to their logos or trademarks. And the current Wikipedia policy keeps us out of this quagmire. -- llywrch 18:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia page the latest status symbol?

According to this Reuters article, a Wikipedia page for a person is now one of the ultimate status symbols. Great. Bet we'll be seeing a spike in new vanity articles because of this in the coming days.--Alabamaboy 20:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Additionally:

• "Spin Me Softly". forbes.com. Retrieved 2007-10-22.
• "Wikipedia Spam Resulting in Google & Yahoo Penalties". searchenginejournal.com. Retrieved 2007-10-22.

It will help if more Wikipedians make themselves available to the press. - Jehochman ^Talk 20:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I doubt we'll see a spike in such pages. But if we do,, Keep guard. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 20:34, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Unlike popular networking sites MySpace and Facebook, Wikipedia doesn't allow people to post profiles of themselves. – hopefully people clue onto that and don't rush to Wikipedia to create pages on themsevles. hbdragon88 22:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

That is contrary to my experience on NPP: editors get so caught up with creating vanispamcruftisement that they miss the word encyclopedia and how they don't contain vanity pages, despite being on the edit page in 7 different places. MER-C 08:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Like, woah..!

I just noticed that you can click the little arrow in the edit summary in a change in your watchlist and it takes you straight to the appropriate section. That is so cool!

That is all. Viridae^Talk 03:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's good. But hasn;t that been there for like 12 months? :p Neil ☎ 09:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I remember it being added and clicked it to see what it did. It's exceedingly useful on pages like this where it's hard to tell (without a diff) where the edit was. It's less than 18 months old I think. James086^{Talk | Email} 10:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

{{di-no source}}

Hello, could an admin please change {{di-no source}} so that it can be used for all images violating WP:NFC#10(a) please. It's missing warning about lacking copyright holder info. Yet the user warning which goes with this template ({{Di-no source-notice}}) is correct and includes all the cases. Please add something to effect of missing copyright holder information, for consistency with WP:NFC#10(a) and {{Di-no source-notice}}. I know that strictly speaking this may not be needed, but many users even admins do not know this and this leads to arguments and pointless accusations if I ask an admin to re-read the policy. Many, many users think "amazon.com" is valid source information for an album cover for example, so I think the template should be made clearer. Jackaranga 17:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

You can also place {{No licence}} together with {{di-no source}} on the image page. — Edokter • Talk • 17:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

IPS causing problems.

On the GM minivan articles, there have been many IPs that have been causing problems. Mainly, adding blatant POV, then attacking anyone who removes it. I have reported this before, and the little administrative action I received had failed to stop these guys. I would like to state what action I want, as I know this will finally put an end to this. (I have been dealing with this all month.) I want the Chevrolet Lumina APV, Pontiac Trans Sport, Oldsmobile Silhouette, Chevrolet Venture, Pontiac Montana, Opel Sintra, Saturn Relay, Chevrolet Uplander, Buick Terraza pages indefinitely semi protected. They have been protected twice before, usually for only a couple of days, and these guys have just waited out the protection and started readding their POV. I am sorry if I sound blunt, but this is becoming a serious problem, and I have been dealing with this all month, and frankly, I want it to stop. I have brought this to administrative attention before, and the people who have helped me seemed to have been dragging their feet, not realizing how serious of a problem that this has become. So, PLEASE help me and fulfill my request. The only option to stop this is to INDEFINITELY semi protect the GM minivan pages. After a month or two, then we could try opening them back up again, but we can't do them for a day or a few weeks, as the IPs will simply wait the protection out. Please, I am begging you, this is the only option. Karrmann 20:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

What sort of POV are they adding, and have you done a reverse DNS lookup to identify the source of the IPs? Can you show me a handful of diffs showing blatant POV pushing? - Jehochman ^Talk 21:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I am having problems with my browser that will prevent me from showing diffs. but, if you look in the history of any of any of the articles, you will see what I am talking about, especially on that of Pontiac Montana. Plus, can you educate me on a DNS? I am unfamiliar with what that is. Karrmann 21:39, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

You can go to dnstools.com, enter the IP address, and you'll see who owns it. This information is sometimes helpful. One of the pesky IPs has been blocked. Perhaps revert, block, ignore could be used until they get tired? - Jehochman ^Talk 22:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Aight, I ran the IPs through that service, and the 216 Ips originate from Ashburn, Virginia, with MCI/Verizon as their provider. They are all the same person. The 99 Ip is a different person, and he originates from Toronto. Karrmann 22:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I don't think that RBI will be useful here. These guys aren't doing it for attention, they are doing it as they are GM minivan lovers, and want to gloss up their pages to make these minivans seem much better then they actually are. Some of their edits borderline on being advertisements. Karrmann 22:12, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) Let me help with some specifics. At Pontiac Montana, we have "have the best value of any minivan today" added from User:216.95.15.132 [39] and from User:99.224.49.238 [40]. It does seem to come from one or two particularly mean IPs (the 216 one in particular is particularly nasty) but the edits seem to start from a few days after the protection is removed (at both the Buick Terraza and the Montana, protection removed on the 17th, attacks start on the 21st). I'll put all the pages on my watchlist and see if anonymous users start up again. It seems like only a few specific individuals are involved but knowing the situation, if particular anonymous users start up again, I'll be quicker to block. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey, help me out. He seems to be spreading all over the place. Caught User:216.95.17.12, which lead to a block, then vandalism on his talk page, so a semi-protect of that; pattern of annoyance. There probably needs to be a range block soon. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

This is exactly what this guy has been doing all month. If he gets blocked, he will simply change his Ip and come back. He must be using a proxy. I second a range block, this is the only way to stop him. He only changes the last two or three digits of his IP, so rangeblocking him will stop very little - if any - innocent editors from contributing. Karrmann 23:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Thirded. Note that there are two small ranges that he uses, 216.95.15.* and 216.95.17.*, so be careful to get both. Gscshoyru 23:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked both ranges Gscshoyru specified (216.95.15.0/24 and 216.95.17.0/24) for a month. I hope the person behind this mess is stopped, and we can get on with writing an encyclopedia. --Maxim_{(talk) (contributions)} 23:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Praise the lord! Hopefully that will end this once and for all. Thank you! Karrmann 00:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

An account popped up, (User:Stevecurwin01 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)) saying on the Pontiac Montana talk page that it will be facelifted and relocated for 2008. (in bad grammer, and horrible spelling, of course). Anyways, I believe this is a sock of either the rangeblocked Ips or the 99 IP, because both IPs (especially the 99 one) seem to constantly be in denial that GM is killing its vans and exiting the minivan business, often adding misinformation claiming that the vans will be relocated, facelifted, or redesigned, although the fact remains that they are only sold in Canada, and will be discontinued late this year. Anyways, I thought I would bring this up, as I am afraid that maybe the IPs will be creating accounts to get around the semi protection. Karrmann 10:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

He is making multiple accounts to spread false info. Please refer to Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Stevecurwin. Karrmann 22:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary .js security hole closed

Thanks to FT2 and ST47 for identifying and running scripts (bots) to close the hole. FT2 initially identified the problem, while ST47 wrote the script to do the identifications of the problem. FT2 contacted me and we joined together on IRC with ST47 to plan and fix the problem.

In essence the problem is this: We had js in non-userspace and js in userspace but incorrectly named that was editable by anyone (including anon IPs), that was included into user JavaScript. This means that anyone can add js to these pages that would then be potentially included in admin's monobooks, or be used to do other evil things. Need I say more? In any case the problem was fixed by protecting all instances of javascript that were found by ST47's bot and notifying by bot all editors of the various scripts. This effectively closes the security hole.

Ideally user js should be in userspace, with a .js ending. The reason for this is things in userspace with a .js ending are editable only by that user. JavaScript should not be anywhere else but in userspace. Any JavaScript not in userspace should be moved to userspace. Meanwhile it will be protected in a manner so that only admins can edit it.

To re-iterate, user js should be in userspace with a name such as User:Eagle_101/NAME.js. The ending .js is very important, it tells mediawiki that only the user making the page and administrators can edit it. Including js that is *not* in userspace (or in userspace but not correctly named) is insecure, if it is not protected so only admins can edit. This should be made very clear to new users and anyone that writes a script. Perhaps this should go in the default js warning when you edit a js page. Other ideas would be great as well.

ST47 quickly wrote a script to find and notify users. The script did the following: identified vulnerable JavaScript, and notified those that have edited the JavaScript that it is now protected, and instructions on what to do if they are not an admin. The bot in essence scanned every user JavaScript of folks on Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. (Yes, we found a decent use for it ;) ). Everyone on this list, plus all admins have been checked for insecure JavaScript. The checks were recursive (this means that JavaScript calls another script, which calls another script is checked). By checking these 5,000 accounts, it is very likely we have identified the vast majority of the problematic JavaScript. Ideas on ways to check further accounts are welcome. (we really can't check all 2,000,000+ whatever accounts). Again I should re-iterate, that by checking the top editors plus admins the vast majority of insecure JavaScript should have been detected.

Please do note that this bot was run without prior authorization, but I feel that it was done in the interest of the community. The bot did the following: identified vulnerable JavaScript, and notified those that have edited the JavaScript that it is now protected. The protections were done manually by ST47 and I. Having this JavaScript not protected was a serious problem that needed fixed immediately, and as such ST47 and I bypassed the community approval process, I hope you all understand why. Please point questions and concerns after this post, and thank you all for understanding. ;).

P.S. If you are not on the top list by edits, and would like your js checked, please ask below (Perhaps ST47 can make a subpage for requests to be checked). However if you just use WP:TWINKLE, WP:POPUPS or other popular scripts you should be fine. These have already been checked when the top editors by edits and admins were checked.

Regards, —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 02:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I can perform security checks, just add your name to User:ST47/JSSC and I'll run in the morning if anyone wants.

For those interested, the list of protected or salted pages is at User:ST47/JSH, and if you own or use one of these scripts, please move it into your userspace with a .js ending. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 02:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

To emphasize, the only safe places for scripts are:

1. Pages like User:XYZ[/...]/page.js (somewhere in userspace and ends in .js)
2. In the Mediawiki: namespace (which only administrators can edit), or
3. Pages that have been fully protected.

A lot of scripts rely on other scripts, either directly or indirectly, in which case those other scripts must also follow these rules to be secure. So this needs to be applied pretty much to all scripts by all users, wherever found on the wiki.

The approach adopted for at-risk scripts has been to simply fully-protect them in situ to minimize user disruption (reason:security, user script page), and letting their main contributors know. Note lastly, the check was on monobook only; if you use a different skin, you may want to request a check as above. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, even if you don't use monobook, and you use just popular scripts, you should be fine. In short all the popular scripts have been found and identified/fixed. Only if you are using some obscure script would I bother with checking. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 03:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Along the same lines, we should probably start using the MediaWiki namespace for all javascript, like Commons does. --bainer (talk) 04:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes that is a possible suggestion, but makes it impossible non-admins to develop javascript. (such as User:Azatht was when he created WP:TWINKLE). I don't really have a problem with the writer of the javascript being able to change their own code. If they do something evil with it, its their reputation on the line. The key thing is controlled access. Author + admins is controlled. As such movement to Userspace is the best option if the author is not an admin.—— Eagle101^{Need help?} 06:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I discreetly reported this to the MediaWiki developers a few months back, BTW; it looks like they tried to fix it by preventing unprotected pages from being output with text/javascript and text/css MIME types, though it looks like this change was later reverted by another developer and nothing more has been done to try to fix the issue. =/ --krimpet⟲ 05:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Script restricted to mediawiki space wouldn't work. As discussed with Eagle, it means non-admins can;'t create or modify scripts. My proposal was a separate userscript: and userscript_talk: namespace, with all "userscript:NAME/PAGE..." pages automatically restricted to admin + owner editing. The advantage being, it gives a clear signal "this is where scripts go" (its easy to not realise they need to end in JS and be in userspace... hard not to notice all scripts are in a userscript: space). A second alternative is a bot that watches recent changes for non-userspace/non .js pages that contain any of a variety of plaintext snips common in scripts. For now, userspace+.js, and vigiliance by admins/RC patrollers to move or protect script not in such pages, is the best immediate fix. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 08:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

At this point I don't think a script namespace is needed. Simply add the fact that scripts should be in userspace ending with .js to the current javascript warning when you edit your user javascript. All the script writers now know, or will know very shortly, if they had any scripts that did not follow this. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 12:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this is one of those excellent examples of ignoring some rules. It was for the benefit of the encyclopedia and running it through the formalities would be time consuming to fix a problem that could have had bad consequences. That said, how pressing was the issue? Was there any evidence of malicious changes to the scripts? (I'm not questioning the action, I support what was done whether it was an immediate threat or not) James086^{Talk | Email} 13:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Well it was not an immediate threat (but not something I'd want to leave laying around for a month/week either, ST47 and I acted immedatly after we knew of the problem... I think it was something less then 3 hours from initial report to closing it), but it was not something I could have posted on wiki and expect it *not* to be exploited by some passing anon. Closing the hole was the most important thing, as we can now discuss what to do for in the future. My suggestion is to eventually move all of these scripts to userspace. (so we don't have a bunch of scripts laying around that we have to check protection status of. The easiest (though most disruptive from the enduser (the user using the script) is to pepend an Alert() call the start of the script telling users to update the script. I think its best if we leave it up to the individual authors of the various scripts on what they want to do though. There may be better ways of doing this then an Alert() call. In any case the security hole is now closed on the vast majority of scripts, so we should feel free to discuss what to do to prevent it from recurring again. At the very least I'd suggest modifying the javascript warning users get when editing their own monobook.js (or whatever.js) In short, regardless if it was an immediate threat (any security problem that allows anons to include arbitrary code into admin monobooks is a security problem), it was not something that could have been discussed publically before fixing the security hole. Again I reiterate, anything that lets anons add arbitrary code to monobooks of admins (and to normal users) is a fucking problem that needs fixed, and best to fix it then discuss it in this case. ;) —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 13:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

We definitely don't want anyone editing admin js pages who isn't already approved by the community and thanks guys for fixing it. I assume an "Alert() call" would be a message that appears the next time someone uses the script? An alternative method would be to make an admin-bot (controversial! ;)) and edit the js pages of everyone using a script thats not already in the userspace. However I highly doubt that would gain community approval for obvious reasons, and even if it did, it would probably annoy some users who didn't know it was going to edit their js page. Is the number of users with scripts from namespaces other than user very large? If it's not huge a bot could post a notice on their talk pages and ask them to change their js to get script from a new location. Then in a month's time (month? 2 weeks?) delete the original page. I can't continue editing right now, I'll reply tomorrow. James086^{Talk | Email} 14:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is this, I don't know anyway to identify what javascript is being included where? If I knew who was incuding the javascript, I"d already be proposing a new adminbot. (Very un controversial task, easily automated, no judgement needed, we already have one operating without the world ending). If anyone has an idea on how to tell who is including what javascript, I'd be very pleased. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 15:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

James - you asked how serious it was... if you want the "really bad version" ask me by email, because "horribly, horribly bad very very easily" is the understated version. You don't want any exposure of sysop scripts or any of their inclusions, whether for a minute or a week, to ensure there is no window for automated code insertion. The complication is that scripts can recurse and transclude, so at present there is no easy automated way to be sure a script isn't including a script that includes a script that by chance was on a recently unprotected page, for example, or to check one isn't inadvertantyly created.

I can see a few fixes:

1. A scriptwatchbot, that watched all recent changes for scriptlike text on insecure pages, or unprotection of scriptlike pages. The problem is, a bot would probably be trivially easy to foil by a serious coder; I'm sure code can be written in a way that the bot would not recognize it as such.
2. Some kind of tag (or specific category) that identifies a page intended to contain userscript. If this tag is not present, then the mediawiki engine will not allow the page to be transcluded as script; if it is tagged then it can be transcluded but this will make it trivially easy to monitor all such pages for security. I'm not sure if this is technically possible but would be a nice solution.
3. A userscript: namespace that was always and automatically protected to the user and sysops no matter the page name, and userscript policy forbad placing of userscript in any other namespace except that and mediawiki: namespaces.

Thoughts. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:44, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

We are blowing this up way bigger then it needs to be blown up. The simple fact is nobody should include javascript unless its from the user namespace, and ends in .js. Simple and effective. Figure out how to get that message out and all is well. Option one is what we have already done, option 2 is a possibility, definitely does no harm, but I can see a few problems with it, but none that are very difficult to deal with (namely what happens when you subst it). Option 3 is in my opinion very redunctent. The creation of a user script namespace would require educating everyone that user scripts should go in this namespace. We have to do the same thing with telling folks that scripts should go in the user namespace, and putting them in the user namepace solves all problems, and best of all... can be done right now. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 02:26, 24 October 2007 (UTC)