Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive143

Community ban discussion

Currently a community ban is de facto created, any time a user is indef-blocked, and no admin is prepared to unblock them.

Two problems:

1. Most community bans are in practice consensus driven anyway,
2. With 2000over 1500 admins there is always an admin who will unblock even a block most others agree with. Our consensus model clashes heavily with an "any admin acting unilaterally" model here. It can cause problems, since most other decisions, wide consensus trumps most things.

Question - is it time we moved to a consensus-based view of a community ban?

The proposal would be:

• A community ban arises where there is a consensus that a user should be banned from the wiki. A ban may either be created by discussion and consensus, or by an initial indef-block that a consensus then agrees should be considered a ban. Once created, a community ban may be removed by consensus, or by appeal to the Arbitration Committee. The consensus in each case is of uninvolved admins.

Thoughts? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree with point 1, but is there any evidence of point 2 being an issue? I haven't seen it, and of the 1537 admins, I doubt more than a third are currently active. --Rodhullandemu 23:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

The consensus model is seen as important. Also, actual cases probably do exist where an argument has broken out whether sole admin X can unban someone whom a consensus favors keeping blocked (placing consensus vs. unilateral models at loggerheads), or some such. Just seems that this would be a nice way to handle it that effectively codifies how we do it nowadays, where actual community bans mostly are consensus backed. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Todays midnight unblock of Jack Merridew supports point 2.--Cube lurker (talk) 00:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Forgive me if I missed that; I've, er, been writing an article, bizarrely enough.--Rodhullandemu 00:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

No, it does not support point 2. The editor who unblocked was the one who blocked him in the first place. Very different situation from what you're stating. -- Kesh (talk) 13:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree, it would certainly seem inappropriate for community consensus to be overturned by a single admin, and in that sense, it does seem that the current system lacks logic. --Rodhullandemu 00:11, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I dont agree with the assesment that any indef block is a defacto ban... Remember the differences: accounts are blocked, persons are banned. Many, if not most, indef blocks are a result of an account being used to vandalize or cause any other type of disruption, after which the person can re-register and start over productively. You're not proposing we need to get consensus first for these blocks, I hope? — Edokter • Talk • 00:01, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I was the user who wrote WP:INDEF so yes, I do remember it :-) More seriously, you might have split the sentence when it wasn't intended you should. Note the wording after the comma, "and no admin is prepared to unblock them". Or else you're discussing clean starts, which are a bit different. We surely don't expect anyone indef-blocked to be able to just start a new account and carry on unchanged. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

FT2, that sounds like a reasonable concept. Here is a pair of options for implementing it:

1. Require 2 admins to unblock a community-banned user; they must commit to keeping tabs on the user until the community comes to a consensus that this is no longer necessary (or X months, whichever comes first).
2. Any user subject to community ban who is unblocked will automatically be reblocked after X edits. At that time, a different admin must review the user's edits and decide to finally unblock. Both admins will thereafter be charged with keeping tabs on the community-banned user until there is community consensus otherwise (or X months pass, whichever comes first).

FT2's vision is cleaner than either of these mechanisms for implementing it, but what I'm trying to do here is offer concrete suggestions that would at least make the community ban more difficult to overturn than it is now. Antelan^talk 00:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Specifics of X admins may not be needed. Good consensus is more to the point (see FCYTravis' point below). An addition that "banned users are usually parolled back into the community" will suffice. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I like this approach. If it fails, we can consider other options (such as the X admins watching for X months approach that I've suggested here). I, for one, hope it doesn't come to that. Antelan^talk 00:19, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

This needs to be studied very closely to avoid becoming "Votes for Banning." FCYTravis (talk) 00:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Same applies to any consensus discussion though. CSN was merged back into ANI exactly to ensure many more eyeballs to prevent that. Yes it's important, but the issue here is more "in principle". FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I support this. A consensus-based approach makes it much more likely that people are going to seriously review these matters in substantial numbers, reducing the probability of inappropriate bans. Furthermore, individual admins should not have veto power; we need to encourage more collaborative decision-making among admins. Everyking (talk) 00:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I have reservations in supporting this, though I am not closed to the concept -- indeed, it is to a certain extent current practice. Votes for banning must absolutely be avoided, and the barrier must be pretty high. The aim of the debate should be "are there any reasonable objections to putting this ban into place?" rather than "does anyone oppose this ban?". This is, of course, difficult to achieve. It might require a decision that whoever says "Support ban ~~~~" has such a comment removed from the discussion. I have great scepticism about Antelan's ideas in particular -- that kind of concrete system is incredibly arbitrary and inflexible -- two principles that must be as far as possible from any consideration of banning. In response to Everyking, admins should not have veto power, but a well-reasoned objection should. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 00:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

With your permission, if this went ahead, I'd put the "aim of the debate" point as a footnote to the final version, if folks agree. Good call. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:43, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, I have advocated something like this proposal for a long time. We need to reduce drama. If 80% of admins want to ban somebody, they should be banned. Jehochman ^Talk 00:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I think that rather depends what the other 20% think. If they, in general, think "I don't think they need to be banned yet, but it's well on the road", then I think a ban would be reasonable. If they in general think "No, absolutely not, this user has done nothing warranting banning and here's why ...", I think a ban is misplaced. If consensus banning is to be introduced, it has to be real consensus, not an arbitrarily defined figure. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 00:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
    • But then Admins are supposed to be able to assess consensus on AfDs, and Bureaucrats on RfAs. Since this would be an Admin-input process, would Bureaucrats therefore be the best to assess consensus, or should it be left to Admins? --Rodhullandemu 01:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support in principle, with an important caveat: people who are partisans to a particular conflict should be expected to recuse themselves from the actual consensus and/or disclose their history of involvement. It wouldn't be right for a team of people to gang together and force the outcome of something as important as a ban. Durova^Charge! 00:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• Absolutely agreed regarding disclosure of involvement. Once concern, though, is that this phrasing makes it sound like this is going to be a vote. Certainly involved admins shouldn't participate in an administrative way in these matters, but involved parties should be welcome to give their input, so long as they disclose their involvement. Antelan^talk 00:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• The amended version looks great - a long overdue update. Thank you very much, FT2, for proposing this. Should reduce the occurrence of periodic drama-fests. Durova^Charge! 00:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support, in principle - but I would like it made clear that the later lack of consensus for a ban resulting from an indef block which was originally supported is not consensus to unblock. The erosion of consensus in banning an editor still means that the block is in place, but that an admin is prepared to argue for the lifting of the block; there is still the need to establish consensus that the block can be lifted. This comment comes directly from the actions performed regarding Jack Merridew a few sections above (at the time of writing). LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

No consensus to escalate an indef block is not the same as consensus to remove it. I think that's your point. If so, concur. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:44, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but also consensus to de-escalating a ban does not mean there is consensus to unblock, only that there is the potential to unblock (first we agree we can discuss unblocking a banned editor, and only then do we talk about lifting the block.) LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:50, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support the proposal. Based on what happened today the current process is fatally flawed.--Cube lurker (talk) 00:35, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
• This sits fine with me. At present, the whole "if one admin feels an unblock is good, then it's all fine" concept really doesn't work in situations where the greater community may have something to say about it. In the above situation, I would be surprised if the majority of the community even knows it happened. We're a consensus-driven project, and that should be extended to community bans. Tony Fox (arf!) 01:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
• I support this as well. Wizardman 01:58, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
• You have my support. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

This discussion assumes that community bans are normally enforced by a block that can be undone by the action of a single admin. In many cases community bans are topic bans and are, therefore, not enforced by a block but by reverting the edits of the banned user. Any policy revision should keep this in mind.

That being said, I agree with the concept that one admin should not be able to overrule consensus by undoing a community ban. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 12:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support in the hope that a previously supported block will henceforth not be reversed due to an agreement among a few individuals (like it was yesterday) --PeaceNT (talk) 14:25, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
• I must oppose this. Banning is a very serious issue, and to be quite frank, the Wikipedia community acts like a mob sometimes. The current rules for a community ban, which allow that if any admin is willing to unblock, the user is not banned, are needed as a safeguard. This is simply holding bans to an extremely high standard of consensus. Already, we see editors being AFD'd from time to time by those who treat community bans as votes for banning. This change will simply empower that. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 17:15, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Another question: How are we to judge when consensus is reached? We have constant difficulties with this at RFA, and yet we're trying to implement a system like that here? This is a bad idea, especially with an issue so serious as banning. I take extreme issue with Jehochman's statement that if 80% of admins think a user should be banned, they should banned. This is the definition of votes for banning, and is something we should be running from, not moving toward. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

This is based on a misconception, in my opinion. If someone is indefinitely blocked, and an admin unblocks, then there arises the possibility that the admin will re-block, possibly/hopefully following discussion. If then the unblocking admin leaves the block then it's a ban, since they have reached the conclusion that their action has no support. If it continues to be lifted by that admin or others, then there is no ban for now — if a lone warrior persists in the face of vast opposition, then they will be stopped eventually by ordinary means, perhaps including an emergency arbitration. In the end, perhaps that collection of unblocking admins will as a whole come to the ban view, and leave it in place, in which case it's a ban by consensus. If they do not, then it cannot be viewed as tenable that the individual is likely to remain blocked, and thus no ban can possibly be in place.

None of these facts change if you happen to legislate some other "consensus" model, as is being mooted here – it matters not if there is a so-called consensus of a handful of passing admins to ban since if someone feels strongly enough that the person should be unblocked they will still do so. You cannot possibly stop unblocks by attempting to legislate in this way; a nice demonstration of why policy is descriptive and not legislative. This new piece of legislation tries to stop something that simply cannot be stopped while any admin retains technical abilities to unblock since feelings will eventually run high just as they do now. Finally, I dispute FT2's #2 as demonstrably untrue in the numerously many cases where indefinite blocks have stuck in the past. If we accept FT2's #2, however, then the proposal is doomed to failure as a matter of definition for the reasons I have just described. Also, of course, this will in practise function identically to the disastrous Community Sanction Noticeboard, and it is hopeless to suppose otherwise. Splash - tk 17:19, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• I oppose this proposal per Heimstern Laufer, but I also find Sam Korn's argument persuasive. I don't think every admin should have veto power, but I also don't think that a simple majority is sufficient to convict a user to spending the rest of their life on activities more worthwhile than Wikipedia. :) What the numbers game fails to consider is that a single user who wishes to unblock a user who most of the community wishes to ban will have a good reason, and in some cases will have a strong conviction that the ban is just wrong. I think this sort of reasoning also explains why RFA requires a supermajority: people who oppose RFAs almost universally feel more strongly about the issue than supporters. So if one admin wants to unblock and nobody agrees with him, maybe that admin is just loony. If two or three or four other admins agree with him, even against a large majority, my instinct is to let the admins who wish to unban take responsibility for the situation.

• I'm also concerned about any process that ends with an appeal to the Arbitration Committee. ArbCom is overworked and doesn't need to be consulted every time an indef-blocked user wishes to receive a second chance. I don't think a majority is needed to overturn a ban: a significant minority is enough for me. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 03:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Call it WP:CREEP if you want, but we need some sort of guideline or process for this. A significant minority or even a majority can't be the deciding factor as shown by what happened recently (non canvassing emails?). I can see WP:ILIKETHEM and WP:OTHERBANNEDUSERsEXIST type of essays helping in some sort of discussion. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• Disagree with the unban/unblock rule. There needs to be parity in blocking and keeping blocked, in banning and keeping banned. But this proposal turns that parity upside down. If it requires a community consensus to ban someone, then it continues to require a community consensus to keep that editor banned. An unban discussion reaching no consnesus is proof that there is no longer consensus to ban that person, and thus they are not community banned by consensus. Any other rule will result in votes for banning again. GRBerry 14:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment: I think the #Jack Merridew thread on this page demonstrates the potential of a serious problem. I also want to point out why the community sanction board was abolished. This initiative should avoid such pitfalls. -- Cat ^chi? 18:49, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Something to remember

We get caught up in our discussion of the way in which Wikipedia operates that sometimes we forget that it operates at all. We are consumer driven, millions more readers than the thousands of editors (hell, I'm not even an "editor" as much as I am a reader). I've been reading Ed Fitzgerald's userpage, which got me thinking about this thread.

The point is that we should all remember that Community Bans don't happen that often in the grand scheme of having the office open 24/7/366this year for business. At best a dozen a year.

These sort of community ban reviews are even more rare. I can only think of a couple times this has happened in recent years.

Sometimes smoke is caused by char and ashes. There is not always fire.

I'm just sayin. Keegan^talk 04:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Not quite vandalism, but...

Special:Contributions/Eremia is the third generation of a user that appears to be on a one person mission to redefine all games as sports. Previous incarnations Special:Contributions/Nastasija_Marachkovskaja and Special:Contributions/Dakota_Blue_Richards. The user is making bizarre categories like "table sports", adding redundant categories to articles, and has previously changed the word "game" to "game/sport" all over the place. The user should be blocked and reverted before too much damage is done, ans speedy deltes done on the categories created. 2005 (talk) 23:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

And now that I look, one of the previous incarnations made its own categories like Category:Mind sports, under which it is now making a whole new heirarchy of everything-is-a-sport. 2005 (talk) 23:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism on Special:UserLogout

Just a heads up ---- looks like there's a bit of vandalism (or a big gaffee) on "Special:UserLogout" page. When I pull it up - it prompts me with the default "You have new messages" prompt - however the link that this banner goes to is someone elses page (specifically - it's a userspace for 66.151.41.1 ). I tried to pull up that page while logged in, however, it won't let me fix the gaffee. Perhaps that's an admin only thing!

F.U.R hurts Wikipedia 21:45, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• I tested logging out now and didn't experience any problem. Nor have I spotted any glaring changes to templatespace or MediaWiki. Perhaps the IP you are using is shared and the new messages you received were the warnings placed on User talk:66.151.41.1.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 21:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

That is very likely the only thing. When you log out of an account, you are "logging in" to an IP's contributions. So, someone on your IP has new messages.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:12, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Is anyone as worried about KoshVorlon's polemic in his/her signature? Should he/she be asked to change it? Corvus cornix_talk 22:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Template:In the news

Can we use this image of the cyclone, Image:Nargis 01 may 2008 0440Z.jpg? Spencer^T♦C 10:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The source link says nasa.gov - makes it public domain --Lemmey talk 12:46, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done Have a good day, GDonato (talk) 14:32, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Spencer^T♦C 21:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

For the record, not everything on the NASA website is PD, only things created by NASA (this image was created by NASA, so it's fine to use). --bainer (talk) 02:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

RyRy5

Resolved

 – Apis (talk) 04:03, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Yesterday, RyRy5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) came to my talk page asking for rollback. It seems it was removed just over a week ago for the second time for reverting non vandalism. Has anyone previously been asked to give RyRy5 rollback? It smelled a bit like admin shopping to me, and I'm sure I recall this happening on previous occasions. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Just briefly looking at his user talk posts (checking the last 150, looking specifically for admin posts), it seems you are the only one he asked. He seems to be focused/focusing on his recent article that he created and that was nominated for DYK. I don't believe he is admin shopping. I also don't know the history of why he lost it, but judging on the post he left on your talkpage Ryan, I would assume he realizes what he did wrong and has made a promise not to "do it again". I would support a re-rollback. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 17:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I removed it a month or two back, and he started asking other people for it back almost immediately. That's what he does. Honestly, I don't see any harm in giving it to him. He doesn't do any more damage with rollback than he does with any other kind of editing. I think he's a little kid, and so a week is a long time to him. I don't think he realizes these requests aren't all that reasonable. Friday (talk) 17:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Apologies, Friday, I didn't look that far back. I looked at his last 150 user talk posts, as I assumed Ryan (Postlethwaite - they're both named Ryan) meant recently has he been admin shopping. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 17:24, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd still class in the last couple of months as recent to be honest. I was really interested to see if anyone had discussed admin shopping with him previously. He probably doesn't know it's not good practive. On the giving him it issue - I see no problem with that really, he does seem sincere and it can easily be taken back. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

his admin coach discussed it with User:Neil when he gave it back the last time, I suggest asking him on the issue _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 17:53, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I was in on that last discussion - I don't think anything fishy is going on, and it's probably been long enough since the last request... Tan | 39 17:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't necessarily think there's anything fishy, but last time he asked (and asked) until he got the answer he wanted. I think SteveC had reasons for thinking he wasn't yet ready and may have something to add to why. I'll notify him of this discussion _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 18:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• I'd class that as a problem user hungry for tools. Guy (Help!) 18:12, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. We should not bend to harassment here, which is what he's basically doing. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 19:46, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• I believe PersianPoetGal/Girl has warned RyRy5 in the past about Admin shopping for rollback. Its one of the flaws of RFR that any admin can give it out, without knowing all the past situations, maybe a stronger removal log note. MBisanz ^talk 19:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• Personally, I would strongly dissuade the restoring of his rollback so soon, as I am not personally convinced in his adoption, that he can yet differentiate between what is/not vandalism, as seen in his adoption. Although he is slowly making some progress, I feel he's still not ready for rollback. While I'm not an admin, I feel that as I'm his adopter, that my opinion should be considered. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 22:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • As much as I've appreciated RyRy's growth in the last few weeks (giving him a barnstar no less, something I rarely if ever do), I agree with his adopter, S.Crossin. Whatever the community decides is fine with me. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
    • That being said, RyRy, according to his talkpage, has just been rewarded with his first DYK, something I've yet to accomplish. His heart is in the right place, and I would strongly oppose any sanctions against RyRy. I personally won't be granting rollback, which is a ridiculous and misunderstood tool anyway, but at the same time, I will definitely go to battle for him if he is being inappropriately targeted. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• Agreed, I saw that DYK, and I'm proud of him there. But there is a difference between article writing and vandalism patrol/rollback. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 23:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• Too big a deal is made of rollback. It does nothing that can't already be done with Twinkle, with the undo button, or indeed by hand. If someone's going to edit war or remove things inappropriately they're going to do that with or without a rollback right. I saw someone make a hilarious comment on a thread like this before that went along the lines of: "Does anyone ever get reverted and think 'He rollbacked me?! damn, an undo I could have taken, but this is just too much." -- Naerii 23:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

This is off topic, but I totally agree with Naerii on this one, and have stated so a few times elsewhere. All the discussion, admin time spent, and drama over this function that won't cause an editor to revert any fewer or any more edits seems rather silly. Tan | 39 23:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I also agree with Naerii on this. Rollback, as a "right", is stupid. I've used it maybe 10 times, and I've been "rollback approved for months. Give it back to RyRy. He wont' abuse it. It's a meaningless "right". (which makes me ask --Tan, do you want it? I'll change your userrights so you can try it out. Let me know. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 23:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

My opinion on rollback is that Twinkle renders it mostly irrelevant. However, it is the fastest way to revert edit(s). Since it's more powerful than the Undo button, it's also more controlled, and that's why I'm much more concerned if someone rolls back a good faith edit, than if they undo the same edit. Finally, rollback leaves no edit summary, while you can leave one when undoing an edit. Reverting someone using rollback is basically saying "I consider your edit to be vandalism or at least vastly unproductive." Enigma ^message 23:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• Well, whatever happens here, please just note that as I'm the one who's adopted him, I'll be the one who has to pick up the pieces, so to speak, if it is misused again. However, that being said, I hope he doesn't. I'm not going to oppose the rollback here, as it seems discussion is leading to him getting it back anyway. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 23:46, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
• General comment (not a reply to Steve): I flipped RyRy5's rollback back on on 24 April, expressly asking him to use it solely on blatant vandalism. On 25 April, he used it on something other than blatant vandalism, and someone (Metros, I think) removed it. Although I really don't consider rollback to be a big deal, at all, and deliberately ignore RFR and grant rollback to anyone who asks me on my talk page, that's still pretty silly; I'm not surprised he had it removed, and I'm not sure I would bother to give it him again for a while. Neıl ☎ 23:49, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • What do you consider to be "a while" Neil? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

RyRy came to me about 2 weeks ago or so asking to have rollback reinstated, my advise to him was to contact the administrator who removed it. After contacting User:Friday, he found the same answer that I was going to give him: "no". While he has improved a great amount over the past few weeks, I do not feel it is time to give him rollback back, nor would I trust him to use it. 00:53, 6 May 2008 (UTC)Tiptoety ^talk

• (ec) Hello. I'd just like to say that I will not use rollback on edits that I am not sure of (As SteveC C. taught me in a way). Instead, I will either leave it alone or use popups/undo. I cannot use Twinkle since I use IE. And just one other think from Friday's comment. I am not a little kid. I will not give my full age but I am older than some users think. I just feel 10 days is a while to me. I've been stadying/reading up a bit from Steve Crossin's vandal program and figured out some stuff. But I won't use rollback activly, but mainly on page (article and project space) blanking.--RyRy5 (talk ♠ Review) 01:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Then why do you even need rollback if you are just using popups for the same thing? Tiptoety ^talk 01:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

RyRy, I've added rollback to your user rights based on your post here on AN. If you misuse them again, I'll remove them myself, and probably block you from editing altogether. Be extremely careful in how you use rollback, my reputation, as well as yours, is on the line. Don't let me down. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. But the block, I don't think I should use it very often now, at least until my adoption is over. Also, how long will the block be?--RyRy5 (talk ♠ Review) 01:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

You're not being blocked, RyRy. Malinaccier (talk) 01:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Ermm....does it really matter? Just do not abuse the tool (which I do not think you should have), and you will never need to know. Tiptoety ^talk 01:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Malinaccier is right. You are not blocked. I'e given you rollback (aqain). If you misuse it, then you will be blocked. Don't misuse it. As far as you're concerned, rollback is for vandalism only. Cheers, Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Think of yourself as being under review. If you abuse it, you lose it, and there's quite a few people watching. That being said it's been long enough since the last shot that I think it's warranted to try again. Orderinchaos 02:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Just a note: I sincerely hope that the information I provided here will help RyRy5 to understand when and when not to use rollback and what does and does not constitute vandalism. —Travis^talk 03:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Friday wrote, "I think he's a little kid, and so a week is a long time to him." This comment does not help the situation at all. It is an inappropriate personal attack. Please be more civil, Friday. Bstone (talk) 03:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Yet another exaggeration of WP:NPA? John Reaves 03:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Here's a thought. How about we mark this discussion {{resolved}}, and get on with other things? The issue here was RyRy's rollback, whether it should be restored, and whether he was admin shopping. He wasn't. His rollback has been restored. Is there anything else about RyRy that needs to be discussed here? If not, then please mark this as {{resolved}}. Just my 2c worth. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 03:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for BAG membership

I've posted a request for Bot approvals group membership here, comments are appreciated. Mr.Z-man 05:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

And, I have nominated Krimpet here. If folks would, please provide input there as well. SQL^{Query me!}

For the record, Jersyko retires

Resolved

 – Dereks1x sock blocked

Admisistrator Jersyko just retired.

My wife was harmed because of Jersyko's actions and requested him to resolve the whole situation.

It seems like he made a defacto admission of guilt and withdrew from Wikipedia rather than try to fix the situation.

Can you help to fix the situation? I am NOT here to fight so you can ban me but that doesn't solve my wife's problem. (You know this issue is genuine otherwise I would not know Jersyko retired so suddenly and he would not have retired so suddenly.) Nancyshusband (talk) 15:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mention what the problem was. If you are willing to help, just ask me and I will explain things to you. Nancyshusband (talk) 15:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Please don't be coy. State your problem. If you are unwilling to state your problem, we cannot help you here. I'm not going to jump into murky water without knowing how deep the water is. If this needs to be private, look into WP:OTRS. --barneca (talk) 15:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

What is OTRS. I don't know how it works and if you need to download something, no thanks.

From what my wife tells me, there are some adminstrators in Wikipedia who are considerate and some who treat people roughly and badly. I am looking for some considerate administrators who can help.

Essentially, my wife was kicked out (sorry, don't know the lingo) of Wikipedia. Jersyko was responsible. It was such a bad judgement that I think Jersyko decided it was better to resign, retire, wipe out his user page history. This is telling enough.

So my wife is trying to undo being expelled. She said she went through the usual method...talk page, e-mail. No use. Now that there are special circumstances (administrator leaving, guilty conscience?), can anyone listen? She said she is unable to post comments on her talk page (somehow an administrator has put a lock on it because she asked too many times to be un-expelled). Nancyshusband (talk) 15:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, what is your wife's username? This cannot be reviewed without some history, which would be at that user's talk page (as you note). UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 15:43, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I don't know what my wife's username is. I'll ask her. I also don't hang out in Wikipedia often so forgive me if I don't respond.

Here's what I think. If an administrator won't un-expel her and somehow restricted access to her talk page, human nature/wolf pack psychology is that most administrators aren't willing to do so either. The major new thing is that the administrator responsible for this problem is Jersyko and he has resigned. Does this convince any administrator to look into the matter more and then possibly un-expel my wife?

If so, you need to talk directly to her as she knows all the details (but she can't talk here because she has been expelled, suspended, or whatever the term is). Nancyshusband (talk) 15:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

People join and resign from this project frequently. You are assuming that the only thing on this users plate is this situation you have described (which you have not even given us enough information to research). We are not mind readers, we dont know what you are talking about. Until you give us enough information to go on, we cant do anything. We need her username or we cant do anything. Thanks. Chrislk02 ^{Chris Kreider} 15:54, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec) The fact that a blocking administrator has retired is not prima facie evidence of a bad block, deletion, or anything other than the fact that the admin has retired. I'm looking at Jersyko's Block Log here, and cannot find any indefinite blocks for which the user made repeated appeals (which would have triggered a protection for their userpage, as you indicate happened with your wife), nor can I find any discussion on Jersyko's now-deleted talk page that discusses a request to unblock anyone who matches your description. It's possible that Jersyko blocked your wife for a brief time, and then another admin increased the block to indefinite, in which case it would not be listed in Jersyko's log. Either way, we cannot review an individual block without knowing the username of the individual whose block we are to review. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 15:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, User:ForeverFreeSpeech appears to fit the bill of what he is describing althoigh the proection was by jzg. Chrislk02 ^{Chris Kreider} 16:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• This would be User:Dereks1x again. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Good times, that's twice this week I've AGF'd a sock. Party. Bonus. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 16:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

For the record, the account in question is Watchingobama who sent me a long email begging for unblock. Im not familiar with the sock case here but will trust existing sock tagging. I also blocked the user from sending emails too. Chrislk02 ^{Chris Kreider} 18:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I see this has been resolved, but I wanted to confirm that I don't see clear evidence that User: ForeverFreeSpeech is related to Dereks1x, but that this AN complaint certainly does appear to be about Watchingobama - the latest in the ongoing Dereks1x sock farm to be blocked. The fact that Jersyko had nothing to do with Watchingobama (as far as I recall) wouldn't stop Dereks1x from making his accusation - the facts never stopped him before. And I see that Derek is back to the "wife/husband of" gambit again. Clearly the blocked "Nancy" is a Dereks1x sock, but on the chance that the blocked "Nancy" is some Dereks1x sock other than Watchingobama, I believe admins should be very careful regarding any unblock requests that come in, as he typically will write to an uninvolved admin who is unfamiliar with his m.o and make a convincing case.

I also want to say that losing Jersyko - a conscientious and fair administrator who has absorbed a fair amount of abuse and false accusations from this disruptive sockmaster - is a blow to the project, and if it is at all a result of being harassed by this unrepentant user, I think it's a damn shame. I happen to know that the dishonest screed posted above is typical of Dereks1x's harassment and disruption, and is a reminder that his community ban should be considered permanent. Any thought that the fact that some time has gone by since the ban was initiated warrants giving him another chance (as was briefly discussed a few months ago) should absolutely not be entertained - he has spent the year creating and editing from many more socks, escalating it to the point of running for admin and - it appears - becoming one, albeit for a short time. This is a bad faith user, and he should be treated as such when identified. Tvoz/talk 21:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oh yeah. He's not coming back. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 21:54, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
• Predictably, he requested an unblock. Declined and locked down. Blueboy96 22:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
• I was the admin who last blocked Watchingobama as a result of a checkuser.  Confirmed as a Dereks1x sock, and yes - I got the emails, too - Alison ^❤ 08:53, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Enquiry

User:Noahand has been spamming links [to http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com] while editing per his contribs Special:Contributions/Noahand . all his edits are putting referrences to that website. Is that website worthy enough of being put on Wikipedia? --Creamy!^Talk 16:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks fine to me except on a cursory look they don't generally cite sources, but then neither does Britannica IIRC. Seems well-written, covering a range of topics, and as credible a source as many we use. --Rodhullandemu 16:54, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem to me is none of those links are used as sources. They are only external links appended at the bottom of all those articles. In some cases (e.g. E. D. Blodgett vs Blodgett, Edward Dickinson) their articles do contain more information than ours, so using them as sources would make sense. In other cases they aren't even usable as references (i.e. Leonard Cohen vs Cohen, Leonard). So it all looks like plain old link spamming IMHO.

/ Raven in Orbit (talk) 09:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Move archive screw up

Resolved

Hello, it appears there was a problem with the page archive when the article Jeremiah Wright sermon controversy was moved to Jeremiah Wright controversy, in that the archive was not moved with the page and is not linked. Here is the archive; should I simply move the archived page to match the new title, or is there something else? A response would be much appreciated. Thanks, Happyme22 (talk) 05:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Page moved and archive box added to talk page. You can do this yourself next time. Please ask if you have any questions. Carcharoth (talk) 10:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

FYI- This issue is discussed at Help:Merging and moving pages#Talk subpages. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 10:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

BAG Candidacy

I have accepted a nomination to be considered for membership in the Bot Approvals Group. Please express comments and views here. MBisanz ^talk 08:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Question re: URL structure

Anyone here with a good understanding of Internet redirect practises? I've just removed a few URLs placed by User:Siliconshrew (contribs) that don't meet WP:EL. In the process of checking them out, I noticed that a) they are all registered to the same person, Wayne Smith of Australia (yes, apparently the Wayne Smith); and b) a check of the source code shows that they all just seem to be "wrappers" (for want of a better term) for the content from other sites with different owners. (For example, ganjagrower.com appears to wrap around ozstoners.com, masterwho.com wraps around internationalhero.co.uk, and so on.) The user has had issues with external links before, and this seems... odd. Any thoughts? --Ckatz^chat_spy 07:53, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Quacks like Universe Daily to me. Ban away. MER-C 08:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - the link was helpful. Found a few others as well. Cheers. --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

You should have reported this much earlier... An edit like this as their first edit is pretty much a dead sock giveaway. :-) Grandmasterka 10:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• In case anyone was not aware, anything which matches Universe Daily should be reported ASAP to m:talk:Spam blacklist due to significant long-term spamming issues. Guy (Help!) 11:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Complaint against user "Treelo"

Resolved

Yesterday I added a new section to the "Hungarian language" article about use of politness constructs in that language. That is an important topic, similar to the situation in the japanese language, yet it lacked any mention in the artice previously.

Literally within just two minutes, user:Treelo deleted my new additions from the article, claiming it was "non-constructive", even though it is impossible to read my additions in such a short time, as the material was more than half a page's worth.

I told Treelo on the talk page he is a jerk to delete material without actually reading it and not asking for expert help if he is unfamiliar with judging a particular topic. Definitely no one should run amok over Wikipedia like an elephant in the china shop.

I wish to have my additions restored! Thanks in advance, Regards: Tamas Feher from Hungary. 82.131.210.162 (talk) 09:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

There are a few concerns with the content you added. Regardless of the appropriateness of the addition to the article (and its relative length), the biggest problem I can see with your addition is that it lacks sources. Please see WP:Original research and WP:Verifiability for more information. Treelo does seem to have reverted your edit hastily, without much forethought and with a total lack of any explanation, though, and should be more sensitive about performing such reverts in the future. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

PS, this might be a Huggle problem. Treelo, you may want to slow it down and be a little more careful when using that program, as it makes inadvertently reverting constructive edits very easy. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, right, not certain how this made it to AN/I. Anyway, apologies to you Tamas, I did remove your edit and also read your comment you left but that was my mistake and down to not reverting it once I had done it and also getting a rash of comments from actual vandals whilst using Huggle and dismissed it in the same way. I have reinstated your contributions and will still try to exercise more caution if/when I use Huggle in future. --treelo _talk 10:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Today is May 4

And May the Fourth be with you... Guy (Help!) 18:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't start, Guy. I'm already pissed off at BBC Three using that to promote Family Guy. Sceptre ^(talk) 18:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Hilarious --Lemmey talk 18:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

You forgot the links "And May the Forth be with you..." An old Scottish greeting. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 18:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

May (Pokémon)? -- Cat ^chi? 15:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppet

Resolved

 – sock blocked

Atyndall93, Sockpuppeting, suspicoun on using one account for deleteing then recovering it (for points). To make it less suspisous he has been reporting them. Please see his history of editing for my proof. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobonoob (talk • contribs) 01:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

An admin might want to make a quick review of Bobonoob's contribs; it does not bode well. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 15:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Eh, indef blocked. Nothing to see here. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 15:31, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2008 April 29

Resolved

I noticed that in the logs for the AfDs that need closing (WP:AFD/O), April 29th is absent, though April 28th and 30th are present. This would not be an issue if all the debates were closed, but there is a very large number of debates on the 29th that remain open, yet the day was never picked up by the bot. I would like someone to either find a way to get the bot to re-catch it, or some people to help me close them all, since they're apparently hidden. Wizardman 14:51, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Weird. I'm on it. (closing debates, not fixing bots)... Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 15:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, bot is working. Added 4/29 to WP:AFDO, ran mathbot, picked up the opens. Seems resolved? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 15:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Yup, resolved now. Was apparently never originally added, but it's good now. Wizardman 15:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Rogue admin bot

See User talk:Misza13#User:The way, the truth, and the light. I was falsely blocked by this bot last night and remained blocked for an hour. I did not make 3 moves, either, it was 2, the second of which was a revert of the first.

Why do we need bots blocking users anyway? What is a 'bad move' and how quickly do I have to make them to get blocked? Why can't this bot stop Grawp if it detects rapid page moves? Why aren't admin bots required to run on a separate account, so that at least it would be clear that the actions are being done by a bot?

I feel insulted by this. The way, the truth, and the light (talk) 01:22, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, you moved the talk pages, so it was four moves, just so you know. seresin ( ¡? ) 01:24, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

It should only count as 2, for obvious reasons. The way, the truth, and the light (talk) 03:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Who said it was a bot? The nearest blocks before and after your own from Misza13 were five hours from yours. I think Misza13 was speaking figuratively when he said the block was "triggered." Someguy1221 (talk) 01:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

He openly admitted that it was a bot here. --Chetblong (talk) 01:37, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) Oh well. No bot can be perfect, and this one does a good task with an astronomically low error rate. I believe this is only the second time in two years that Misza13's bot has flown off the rails, which is certainly better than the success rate of mine. :) east.718 at 01:32, May 4, 2008

Surely you don't still run that bot? That right there shows what can go wrong while using such things. IMHO sysops are given their tools to use them themselves, not to create a script and have the script do the work for them. We were given our tools because the community trusted us with them, and I believe that this is betraying the trust that the community has in us. We do not have the right to create our own administrators, if we want to introduce such a policy then that is fine, but until one is accepted among the community, I think that all adminbots should be shut down. --Chetblong (talk) 01:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Just so we're all on the same level; [1]. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 01:30, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

In case anyone else is confused. Yes, Misza uses bots for various fully automated deletion and blocking tasks and has done so for a long time. Nor is he alone in doing so. Dragons flight (talk) 01:36, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any problem here- one screw-up once in a while is perfectly fine, and as long as Misza stays open about it being a bot, and is willing to accept responsibility for it, I have no issues with him running it. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 02:19, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

(Dragons flight) - Just because he isn't the only one doesn't make it anymore acceptable. --Chetblong (talk) 18:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Right. I don't know why this is such a big issue, or why people think "it can make mistakes" is that bad. People make mistakes too, unless we turn into some sort of dualistic infallible ghosts :P Aaron Schulz 02:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the problem of it making mistakes is the issue. It's that they are unapproved. If the admins think they will be widely accepted why don't they create a separate bot account and put it through RFA? It has been done before, see here. --Chetblong (talk) 02:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Any human who made this mistake would have his judgement seriously questioned. And if this automated blocking is a good thing, what necessary blocks has it done? As I said, why can't it stop Grawp and similar real vandals? The way, the truth, and the light (talk) 03:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

In the last five weeks, Misza stopped the following page move vandals: Knorkington's (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Trulyelsa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and Bald Guy from Lost (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Could it be more effective? Probably. Is it uneffective? No. Dragons flight (talk) 03:59, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Are adminbots allowed according to policy? No. --Chetblong (talk) 06:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Do we ignore policy when it helps the project? Yes. Mr.Z-man 06:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Just because you are an admin doesn't allow you to ignore policy anymore than any other editor here. And how is having an adminbot that blocks helping the project any? It is wrong for admins to think that they are any higher than regular editors editing this encyclopedia, in fact if anyone is supposed to uphold policy it is Administrators. --Chetblong (talk) 18:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Since blocking a new editor has a fair chance to drive that editor off WP, it shouldn't be done lightly. Automated tasks which block really should be reviewed by the community so multiple eyes can see if there will be any problems. If this was really triggered by only moving two pages (and talk pages), I'm surprised this hasn't happened before. Gimmetrow 03:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I strongly suspect it was the presence of multiple moves to titles using the word "faggot" that triggered it. In this case, we are talking about faggot (word), but nearly always moving a page to a new title involving curse words is a sign of vandalism. Dragons flight (talk) 04:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

But the criteria could be more precise to avoid false positives. Perhaps moves where the curse word is both in the original and the target should be excluded. Gimmetrow 05:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

That seems like a good idea - Misza, add this in please :) dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 05:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

And I'm fairly certain the user who this bot is targeted at is reading this section and now adjusting his methods to evade it. MBisanz ^talk 06:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

(MBisanz) Are you suggesting the editor was doing something wrong? If you believe that please say so explicitly and provide evidence or arguments. Otherwise, please refrain from pithy, insinuating comments, as they are not constructive to resolving the issue at hand. --Lemmey talk 09:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see anything that the user who got blocked did wrong when they moved those pages, it was the unapproved bot that blocked him incorrectly. What "methods" did this person use that they should need to "adjust" them to "evade" being blocked again? --Chetblong (talk) 20:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

(Lemmey) I think the above comment wasn't directed at any established editors. My guess would be that it was targeted to someone who likes to move pages in manner that rhymes with WAGGER. Best, --Bfigura ^(talk) 20:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The bot blocked a non-vandal editor, and the editor complained. A bad edit can be reverted, but an editor quitting due to a bad block may not be reversible. Gimmetrow 19:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The page in question

In case anyone doesn't know yet, the moves for which I was blocked are here: [2]. I moved faggot (slang) to faggot (word) and then back, after I though better of it. Faggot (word) doesn't seem like the right title because an article so titled should discuss all meanings of the word, while faggot (slang) didn't seem right either - that title seems to suggest that it's somehow less legitimate than other uses of the word, whereas in America at least that's virtually the only meaning, as with gay which we don't call gay (slang (the latter is a redirect).

So perhaps a neutral title would be faggot (homosexual)? The way, the truth, and the light (talk) 01:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The algorithm

You can figure it from the source code anyway so what the hell, no serious beans here...

A "bad move" is one that matches a regex on the move destination (in this case "faggot") - and only the destination or else Grawp could always hit pages that contain profanities in titles with impunity. The threshold is set to 3 with the following rationale:

1. Let's assume good faith on the first move.
2. Let's also allow the second one as it's probably a talk page move related to the main move (they are technically separate moves, with two separate entries on both RecentChanges and Log).
3. On the third move, block - things are fishy now, so better to shoot and make a mistake than feel sorry (if it's Grawp, he's such a rapid mover that every tenth on second counts, really - and we've already let him do two moves).

Finally, the time threshold is 5 minutes. I could probably lower that to 1 (can a human revert his own move faster than that under normal conditions? The way, the truth, and the light needed 2 minutes) but still, if Grawp were to go slower than that, he wouldn't achieve much (unless all admins overdosed sleeping pills). But still, I'm slightly hesitant. Thoughts? Миша13 09:24, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Does the algorithm take into account self-reverts? I would have the threshold at 5 moves (including talk page moves ) or 3 moves (if you let talk pages and pages count as one move). As not all pages have talk pages, I would suggest you find a way to let a page and talk page count as "one move" for the purposes of your algorithm (the fact that you seemingly didn't do this in the first place shows that you are not infallible when it comes to writing bots and should have discussed your algorithm with more people, like you are doing now, but that is an argument for another day). It should also be able to detect self-reverts - if someone moves a page with a title that matches the regex, and then reverts themselves straightaway, will they get blocked? Finally, does your algorithm distinguish between different users? If a sequence of different users move the same page multiple times, what will happen? Also, can your bot distinguish between a page move vandal and (say) a page-move revert war? Finally, could you set up a whitelist of encyclopedia articles that legitimately have the regex words in them? And then (somehow) work out slightly less stringent criteria involving those pages, as moves involving renaming the pages will still have the regex word in the title. Carcharoth (talk) 10:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind discussing tweaking the code, but I'd tend to err on the side of caution (faster blocks). I've seen instances where even with the bot blocking, grawp will still get dozens or more moves between when the bot is tripped and the seconds it takes to send the block token in. And given that grawp is reading this and adjusting his moves to maximize damage, I'm not sure setting up exceptions will help things as he'll just focus on those exceptions. MBisanz ^talk 10:34, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

It would be sensible to have the general behaviour that will trigger the blocking bot explained, so that users who do legitimate page moves can avoid getting blocked. Would having a whitelist of users help? Would that have excluded the user who got blocked in this case? Ultimately, this might need something more basic: adjusting the technical side of things so that page moves can only be done at a rate of (say) one a minute. Are there cases where anyone, bot or user, needs to carry out page moves at a rate faster than this? Carcharoth (talk) 10:56, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

In the past we discussed the idea of requiring a certain number of edits for auto-confirm status, as his previous attacks had been from accounts that had 0 edits. The very night of that discussion, before we could even decide if it was a good idea, the first hit was from an account with 100 edits dating back 9 months. He had prepared an account 9 months in advance, knowing we'd eventually start thinking of that option. So I suspect things like a page-move throttle have already been thought of, and ways to evade them prepared. Some users did indicate they move more than 1 page per minute when doing a large series of naming realignments. Given that grawp uses dozens of name variations, it would be hard to white-list a certain style of name. And well, the editor mistakenly blocked is a regular account, not a rollbacker flag or bot, so short of creating a "This user is not grawp" flag, I don't know how a white list would protect people like "The way, the truth, and the light" from accidentally being hit. MBisanz ^talk 11:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

How do you evade a page move throttle? (No, I don't really want to know the answer if there is one). Just seriously, has anyone thought of way to do this? If grawp has found a way, let's find out. Might as well employ him as a "test the code to desttruction" tester. He is free as well. Carcharoth (talk) 11:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, using different accounts is one answer. But a throttle on moving a page that has just been moved would help (with admins being able to over-ride it to revert a move). That would restrict grawp to using different accounts to move different pages. Any way to restrict moving pages to the same destination too fast? The different accounts thing is a problem, mainly because the characteristics of genuine accounts vary so widely (regular users can be inactive for long periods after creation, and long-term users can go inactive for long periods as well), so it is easy for grawp (and others) to assume the sam characteristics. Maybe the answer is a combination of both. If lots of accounts that have long periods of inactivity (ie. sleeper accounts) engage in a sequence of page moves fitting the regex at around the same time, then block. As long as we can get grawp to do useful edits to create accounts for this sort of page moving, then the trade-off might be worthwhile. Ultimately, though, deny recognition is important. The more people are seen to be worrying about this, the more he will do it. Carcharoth (talk) 11:20, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the e-mail, Mbisanz. I think that a page move throttle applied both to accounts and to pages will help. First: Set things so that the same page can't be moved more than once a minute (or even higher) unless reverting a move. Second: Set things so that users can't do more than one page move (of any page) a minute, unless they have a certain level of user rights. Third: monitor page move activity and if lots of page moves start happening in a short period of time (how many normal page moves are done every second?) examine the characteristics of the accounts doing page moves - if they fit the profile of a sleeper account, block them. I think the bottleneck is examining the profile of the sleeper accounts - how long would it take to profile the suspected sleeper accounts doing the moving? The basic problem is a high rate of page moving. If the background rate of page moving is very high anyway, it is difficult to detect excessive page moving. So, does anyone know the normal rate of page moving? Special:Logs helps. See Move log. Anyone able to get a figure for the normal background rate there? Carcharoth (talk) 11:35, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and switch off the throttles when grawp gets bored and they give up and go away. Carcharoth (talk) 11:36, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

He's been at it for over 9 months now, I don't think he's getting tired. Short of range-blocking entire states, I don't see good options here. MBisanz ^talk 14:30, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Even if a page-move throttle wouldn't completely solve the Grawp problem, it seems like it couldn't hurt. No more than 2 moves (counting a page and its talk page as one) in 1 minute seems right; it would include the threshold that this bot is supposed to stop and wouldn't result in anyone getting blocked. The way, the truth, and the light (talk) 01:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

That would be a site configuration issue. BugZilla is that way... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait, what? A bot is blocking people? That is just wrong an far to many levels. Corvus cornix_talk 19:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

This "wrong on far too many levels" bot has been successfully operating for the last 1.5 years and has since blocked hundreds of WoW-, Oompapa- and Grawp-socks as well as regular non-notable vandals. I hope realizing this fact doesn't cause a permanent trauma on your psyche. Epic sorry for the sarcasm but it's getting funnier with each new soul that "discovers" it. :] Cheers, Миша13 22:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Apparently because Misza is an admin, no one can question his running a bot with admin right that's never been approved and may well contain other holes. Compare the thread below (Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Catch 22) about the problems a user is having with testing a completely uncontroversial bot. The way, the truth, and the light (talk) 06:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be ignoring the fact that it is not accepted by policy or should I say the community, and neither are any of the other adminbots like east718's, Maxim's, yours (etc). Why do you continue to run this bot when it hasn't been approved by the community at this point? --Chetblong (talk) 07:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Adminbots exist and although they are often kept relatively quiet, they have been discussed many times over the years. In my opinion the community is accepting of this status quo for well behaved adminbots even though it violates WP:BOT. If you really think otherwise, perhaps you could consider opening an WP:RFC on the issue and see whether the community really does want Misza to stop. Dragons flight (talk) 08:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Running a script like that isn't actually prohibited anywhere, is it? Look at it this way: if an action is performed by an account, the ramifications of that action are the account owner's responsbility. Bearing this in mind, whether or not a script was used for the edit is immaterial when it comes to assigning blame when a mistake is made. I've probably made more incorrect blocks than this script has, so whinging about it while I've still go sysop powahs is silly. Martinp23 10:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Blocking people without individual consideration by the blocking administrator is contrary to the letter and spirit of blocking policy,no matter how convenient it is. Its defended as having blocked a few hundred socks over 18 months. That's about one a day, and it is reasonable to expect an admin to be able to check that much manually once the bot has identified them. WP policies apply to admins as well as everyone else. The bot should be blocked immediately. As this has apparently been tolerated in the past, it's not reasonable to consider de-admin, but I think it should be made clear that performing unattended admin operations with an unauthorized bot will be cause for it in the future. DGG (talk) 16:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

If Misza is willing to take responsibility to the actions his account makes, then it is fine with me. The mistake rate is much lesser than many humans I know. I don't see a consensus for any action to be taken to prevent this, blocking or desysoping. _(1 == 2)^Until 19:15, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not fine with me. If this were only semi-automated, so that Misza had to actually look over every block before it happened, fine. But even one false positive is unacceptable. Yes, it's work for us admins to undo page move vandalism, and it's very annoying to say the least. However, the damage done by allowing these sockpuppets to do a little bit more vandalism (IE, have the bot make an automatic WP:AIV report instead, or alert Misza to have him make a manual block) is minimal and easily repaired, whereas good faith users can take being carelessly blocked very badly. Our contributors are important and they deserve the respect that comes by having every block specifically approved by a human being. Mangojuice^talk 19:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

An AIV report is not fast enough to deal with this type of vandalism. I don't have a problem with adminbots per se, but I think they should be out in the open. If the community agrees that accounts which match some defined characteristics can be blocked mechanically, fine. I'm sure there are other autoblocking adminbots in operation. It may be easier to ask for forgiveness than seek permission, but I would still prefer adminbots seek permission. The problem is, how? One adminbot passed RfA but that still doesn't seem like the right forum for the community to approve adminbots. Gimmetrow 23:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I wish to ask a sort of a rhetorical question. A page on Wikipedia says you ain't allowed adminbots. Why is that not enforced? They become de-facto allowed, per lack of enforcement, and per the fact some users choose not listen to these so-called rules, and back up decisions through logic and not policy. Maxim_(talk) 22:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, policy is supposed to be a written form of existing practices and procedures. So... perhaps the policy is what needs fixing. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that people can't enforce the bot policy without blocking an adminstrator, and that always creates massive drama. By running these bots on your personal admin accounts, you're effectively raising the stakes to the point where most people are too scared to enforce policy. Hesperian 02:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

An AIV report is not fast enough to deal with this type of vandalism. How fast can AIV be relied on to respond? Within three hours? One hour? Maybe automatic blocks could be restricted to that time with AIV used to make them indef. That has the advantage that bad blocks will automatically be reviewed and possibly truncated. Some reasonable level of throttling on moves would not hurt most users. Would it be unreasonable for dormant accounts to become unconfirmed again after some period (e.g. six months)? Bovlb (talk) 19:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Statuses granted automatically (ie Auto-confirm) cannot be removed from the system. MBisanz ^talk 19:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Geonotice getting backlogged

Wikipedia:Geonotice has open requests dating back to March. It appears that the geonotice maintainer, Gmaxwell, has gone on extended vacation (hasn't been seen on Wikipedia in weeks) and he's turned off his Wikipedia email. Is anyone else capable of executing Geonotice requests? Kaldari (talk) 15:52, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea how these are implemented. Does anyone else? Stifle (talk) 18:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

We could disable it by commenting out the "Geo-targeted watchlist notice" section of Mediawiki:Common.js. However, the notices themselves are run on Gmaxwell's toolserver account, so having someone else maintain them would require a toolserver account and probably duplicating his code. In other words, it wouldn't be easy. Dragons flight (talk) 18:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Greg's very involved in Wikimedia technical issues, but not editing Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Geonotice basically works now by me personally e-mailing requests to Greg, which started because I was the most frequent requester (I suppose it's somewhat of a dysfunctional process). I've already e-mailed a few days ago (said he was on it), and, responding to this, I've just pinged him again.--Pharos (talk) 19:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Cyclone Nargis‎

This high profile news story has been subject to some fast moving vandalism this morning, and I'd like to request a few people add it to their watchlist (which is probably preferable than protecting a major current event). Dragons flight (talk) 17:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Noted. Thanks for drawing attention to this. For reference, any significant increase in disruptive edits should be reported at Requests for page protection, where an administrator will take action. Anthøny 22:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

AIV

Resolved.

-Keegan^talk 18:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

'tis backlogged --Gurch (talk) 18:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The bot is also failing to automatically change the backlog tag. xenocidic (talk) 18:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for watch for vandalism

Special:RecentChangesLinked/User:Sceptre/allpages - I'm getting harassment by ED readers and it's spilling to autoconfirmed accounts doing the abuse. I can't get it admin-protected because I wouldn't be able to edit it myself. Sceptre ^(talk) 18:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

You can get the anti-vandal bot User:ClueBot to check edits to non-mainspace pages by adding them to User:ClueBot/Optin. Hut 8.5 19:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Uninvolved admin needed

Resolved

 – Topic ban is extended to an indefinite topic ban. Pseudoscience probation extended to one full year (from today). Block may be extended for likely abusive sockpuppeting, pending checkuser results. — Scientizzle 01:00, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Could a previously uninvolved administrator review the discussion found here and close it out? Anyone taking the task may also wish to review the discussions found here and in the sections below it. Thanks!!! Vassyana (talk) 00:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Urgent

Resolved

I need to speak with someone, anyone on email immediately. This is urgent.--Urban Rose 02:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Go for it. Ryan Postlethwaite 02:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

How can we help you? Tiptoety ^talk 02:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I just sent Ryan an email.--Urban Rose 02:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your email Urban. I've dealt with the issue and it was certainly a very important email. I've responded to you with further details. Thanks again, Ryan Postlethwaite 03:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikifun

Any complaints to marking this as historical? It hasn't had a substantive edit in nearly a year, and has had only 15 edits in more than two years. Plus, this doesn't exactly help the encyclopedia, and if it were created today would probably end up as a WP:SNOW delete at MfD, or at least a userfy. VegaDark (talk) 02:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and put it up on MfD: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Wikifun. If that fails, then marking it as historical seems like a good idea. -- Kesh (talk) 02:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

List of Wikipedians by number of recent edits

Why does this list exist? I though it was quality over quantity, but this list seems to be comparing users by the quantity of their edits. iMatthew 2008 11:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Harmless data, in my view. I don't think the list is there to provide useless comparisons, but a simple display of users' productivity. Húsönd 12:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

It's just a list, and can provide insightful help for those looking for help immediately. Rudget (Help?) 12:56, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

It may display the breadth of a users productivity, but like all statistics... It gives no recognition, for example, of an entire evenings input on one or two articles, with very few "saved" against preview edits, whereas as some gadfly who gives a lot of opinions on admin noticeboards, does a bit of AIV work, and a little wikification of a few articles, gets quite a few "ticks on the scoresheet". I like to think that both types of contribution are helpful, and such a list is far too simplistic to provide a proper evaluation of "worth". LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:59, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

So the list is to notify a reader of active editors? Because I believe plans are being made for this list to go into mainspace soon. iMatthew 2008 13:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the list has any actual purpose. It's just trivia: Useless, but interesting. --Conti|✉ 13:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

It's interesting, but it takes up a lot of the database doesn't is? iMatthew 2008 13:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that's anything that we need to bother about. This data already exists, I can't imagine compiling it like that takes any more space than another long page- absolutely minimal. The list is used, and a lot of people have an interest in/make use of metadata. J Milburn (talk) 13:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

In any case, deleting it won't remove it from the database. A short edit war on George W. Bush would probably take up as much disk space. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 13:48, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The entire editing history of that page is using less database space than a single day's vandalism to George W. Bush. --Carnildo (talk) 19:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a distracting waste of time, so in that sense it is harmful -- these people should be contributing to the encyclopedia rather than coming up with useless lists. Plus, it distorts incentives to encourage people to make more useless edits, which actually clutter up page histories and distract from meaningful content contribution. If we want to track activity, we should do it by the number of kilboytes added and taken away -- summing those up, ideally. I don't see why this is difficult. Somehow I was under the impression that this was done manually, which does seem like a big waste of time. Since its not, it's not a big deal. ImperfectlyInformed | {talk - contribs} 23:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

there are many different ways to be useful here, and its reasonable to have multiple ways of tracking activity. This is one of them. Theree are many ways of using this data in studies of Wikipedia, and in less formal ways also. DGG (talk) 17:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Why is this brought up to this noticeboard? I think it is a bit misplaced. -- Cat ^chi? 08:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Sheesh. The purpose of this page is to offer a bit of harmless positive feedback to contributors. A nod towards community-building, if you will. No one will seriously argue that this is the best way to judge the contributions of editors, but to do so would require complex number-crunching & a dedicated server to do it on, so lists like this will have to do. Oh, & the amount of effort maintaining this page is only a fraction consumed by real time sinks like IRC. (I'm stopping here because every sentence I add after this ends up becoming a vicious rant over how Wikipedia culture has changed that would likely get me banned.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll be willing to bet more of the database has been taken up by talking about the list than the list itself. --Kbdank71 17:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Harmless data. Weren't there pages with editors by DYK, GA, and FA counts? Stick those in the see also of this one, and we're done. :) Lawrence Cohen § t/e 15:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Catch 22

Resolved

 – Bot approved for a trial run and unblocked.

User:LemmeyBOT a bot operated by User:Lemmey for the purpose of restoring named references whose content is lost. The bot is currently undergoing a BAG approval process to gain approval for use of the bot in automatic mode. However the bot is currently operated in semi-automatic or confirmation mode. This usage requires no approval from the BAG as specifficly stated by the BAG in questions listed here and here, bottom of the page I specifically asked this question several months ago.

Certain admins seem intent on trapping this tool in a perpetual Catch-22 claiming first WP:USERNAME and then that it is not an approved bot, despite being shown the discussions above. These blocks started before the tool even made a single edit. The discussion can be seen User_talk:Jmlk17#Bot_Policy here and here Now the admins are claiming that the account does not meet some kind of flag. This mentioned flag is not listed in the qutoed policy WP:USERNAME and the Accounts infobox specifically states and always has stated that it has no flag.

With 24 fixes of articles with mis-aligned references this bot has clearly demonstrated that it is non-malicious. It has made corrections to articles with multiple lost references and long edit histories [3] [4]. Its edit history demonstrates it is operating at such a low edit rate that it is not a factor on Wikipedia Resources. Furthermore it is doing a rather tedious neglected by most editors. A missing reference is a determent to article quality.

While these admins have their hearts in the right place they are creating a Catch 22 situation by applying wikipedia policies incorrectly and enforcing guidelines for guidelines sake with no emphasis paid to individual editor intent. --Lemmey talk 07:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait until its trialed to show its non-malicious. Then it can be removed to ensure that and given final approval. There is no deadline to finishing WP, therefore there is no need to run a tedious process on an account with a BOT-like name until it is approve by BAG. MBisanz ^talk 07:43, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

As I've tried to explain elsewhere, WP:USERNAME says Your username should not give the impression that your account has permissions which it does not have. Thus it should not contain the terms "administrator", "bureaucrat", "steward", "checkuser", "oversight", "developer" or similar terms like "admin", "sysop" or "moderator", or end with "bot", which is used to identify bot accounts.. This is not an account with bot permissions. Same as we would treat LemmeyADMIN. You were unblocked, in lieu of a bot trial, or passing a BRFA (and, you chose to violate those terms, I should add). When one of those conditions is met, we can unblock the account. Not doing so could create the confusion that you are running a vetted, approved bot, which you are not. SQL^{Query me!} 07:47, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no argument over ADMIN accounts or time limits here, so I'm failing to see what that has to do with this. Clearly this is a BOT account that does not require approval for the mode it is operating in, its mode does not require approval and there is no violation, as I have discussed this with the Bot Approval Group you keep mentioning. As it is operating in semi-automatic mode the onus is on the blocking admin to show that it is malicious, not on the user to defend itself from preemptive blocks. --Lemmey talk 07:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, we've each made our cases. I eagerly await an uninvolved party's opinion. SQL^{Query me!} 08:05, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I should note, there was an oldid diff given to disucussion on my talkpage, which has seen further discussion, it's presently here, and, will be moved to my talkpage archives, should it receive no further comment in 24 hours. SQL^{Query me!} 08:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Which policy determines bot permissions? Antelan^talk 08:30, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:BOTS and the WP:BAG --Lemmey talk 08:32, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Permissions pretty clearly means the permissions assigned to flagged bots by MediaWiki to me. SQL^{Query me!} 08:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

As per Wikipedia:BOTS#The_.27bot.27_flag mediawiki only involves technical permissions, not an editors right to use a bot --Lemmey talk 08:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Which, refers back to being approved as a bot, which, that account is not, either. SQL^{Query me!} 08:44, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

With regards to the name, I don't see any part of policy that explicitly deals with this situation. On the one hand, Lemmey is operating a bot, approval of which he presumably thinks will be forthcoming. On the other hand, he doesn't yet have approval. I can see where there is disagreement, but again, I don't see the solution for this precise situation spelled out in the policy. Regarding the usage of the bot, the policy states, "Bots must be approved before they may operate.", but then immediately goes on to state, "Contributors may carry out limited testing of bot processes without approval, provided that test edits are very low in number and frequency, and are restricted to test pages such as the sandbox." So operating this bot should be noncontroversial provided that the edits are infrequent, and are to test pages. Antelan^talk 08:43, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Which is why I asked the BAG in the question linked in the first paragraph. --Lemmey talk 08:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

"Bot policy covers the operation of all bots and automated scripts used to provide automation of Wikipedia edits, whether completely automated, higher speed, or simply assisting human editors in their own work." If it's not a bot, then it shouldn't have bot in the name. If it is a bot, then BRFA is where you should go. You said:

This bot is Currently Operating in Manual Confirmation Mode and as such does not require a BOT approval.

So you basically said it wasn't a bot, therefore calling it FooBOT would be the username violation. Q ^{T C} 08:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

No I said it was a bot that didn't require approval as I was told by the BAG. --Lemmey talk 08:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

(undent) If it's really an issue, couldn't you just run the bot under a different name until it gets approval, then move the script to the preferred bot name at that time? Antelan^talk 08:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

And then be blocked for "running an unapproved bot on a non bot account". Oh no I'm not going down that road. --Lemmey talk 08:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Then, ask for (which you did) trial approval (used to figure out the bot), and, wait for trial approval (which you did not). Heck, had it stayed in userspace, I doubt anyone would have cared. SQL^{Query me!} 08:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The request as stated above is inteded so the bot can run in automatic mode. --Lemmey talk 09:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

From WP:BOTS: "Contributors may carry out limited testing of bot processes without approval, provided that test edits are very low in number and frequency, and are restricted to test pages such as the sandbox. Such test edits may be made from any user account.". Antelan^talk 08:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

and that includes the LemmeyBOT account. --Lemmey talk 09:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Yes. But the LemmyBOT account is not allowed, because only bot-accounts may contain the string BOT, and LemmyBOT doesn't meet the definition of a bot-account, at least not on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia definition is "an account with a bot flag or an account being used in line with a BAG trial process", and your account isn't. So it's against the username policy, it's so simple! —TreasuryTag—t—c 09:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

As per WP:BOTS the flag is not fundamentally linked to the BOT account. and as per my conversations with the BAG approval is not needed. It is a BOT is requires a BOT account, but it does not require approval. --Lemmey talk 09:12, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Wrong. If the consensus here is that only flagged bots are bots, then that's the decision. Please read through the page I linked carefully. —TreasuryTag—t—c 09:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Unless you intended to link something to the work 'here' you have not shown consensus. I don't appreciate the panderizing as I have shown two separate discussions with BAG officals over the fact that there can be BOTs that do not require approval (and therefore don't get flags) --Lemmey talk 09:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

You had the bot edit the mainspace prior to getting approval on the bot account. these edits were not in a sandbox of any sort.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

And I'm not disputing that, Ryulong. I'm following the advice of the BAG as you will read in the top of the section. --Lemmey talk 09:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The way that I read the policy, this bot-to-be should be (1) editing only non-mainspace pages, and (2) named a non-BOT name until it is approved. At that time, grab it a BOT-name and turn it onto the mainspace. Am I missing something obvious here? Antelan^talk 09:16, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I will then be blocked for "running an unapproved bot on a non bot account". --Lemmey talk 09:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

If you do these tests outside of the article space then there is no problem with that.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

These are not tests, they are corrections of complex errors in the references of articles. --Lemmey talk 09:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Make a page in your user subspace with these very errors, and then use your bot code to fix them.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:33, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

And what would be the point of all that? The BOT searchs through the history of the article inorder to fix its references. I couldn't fix a page that started with errors. --Lemmey talk 09:35, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

(dedent) Statements from the BAG (since nobody reads the links)

:The things you described don't need bot approval as long as you keep your editing rate low and are authorizing each edit individually. If you want to edit in a sustained way (e.g. 6 edits/min average for twenty minutes or more), then you should consider getting a bot flag. Someone will probably let you know if your editing rate makes you look too botlike. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:15, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Any script which is either 1) used to edit "fast", or 2) used to do "a lot" of edits in total, or 3) does not involve a Yes/No for each individual edit, should in my opinion be reviewed for technical and policy compliance. Exactly what "fast" and "a lot" might mean is unclear, but I think if you're planning to use a script to modify 10000 articles, you ought to have consensus and not use a buggy script. Gimmetrow 04:24, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

My guideline is "Anything which decides on the edits to make itself" needs bot approval. That is, a mass-deletion script that takes a list of pages as input does not, but a bot which decides which pages to delete does. — Werdna talk 12:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit conflict - bah - what Werdna said]

Sorry, but this is completely ridiculous.

• Of course it's OK to use a script or bot to propose edits which are manually checked and submitted.
• No, no-one needs any approval for this, and running in a non-bot-flagged account is entirely appropriate.
• The user name issue is a silly over-reading of badly-drafted policy.

In short, I see nothing wrong with Lemmey's use of a semi-automated script to make helpful suggestions to himself, as long as it's human-checked and not done at too high a speed as to be potentially disruptive (though a less tart turn of phrase might help ;-)). People, please AGF and remember IAR and common sense. :-)

James F. (talk) 09:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. What we have here is essentially a manual trial of a proposed bot, something which is entirely sensible. Guy (Help!) 10:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• where is my trout and cluestick? Lemmey is mainly correct here, he should have waited for an approved trail, but a few test edits are also OK, those BAG and admins who say otherwise need hit with cluestick. where has common sense gone to nowadays? β^_command 13:47, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • It doesn't look like this bot highlighted its limited test role in its edit summaries. Perhaps all admins are suspicious of rogue unverifiable bots. MickMacNee (talk) 14:32, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• What in the world? When the bot was blocked it had made only 4 edits. It clearly wasn't a vandalbot. Personally, I think a good-faith bot account doing something useful (and not something routinely denied bot accounts) should pretty much automatically get a 10 or 20 edit allowance for testing. That way, when they come to BRFA, there is something for BAG to look at. Gimmetrow 19:21, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Why was this bot blocked a second time? Per this it should be unblocked. Since the blocking admin apparently has no objection, I intend to unblock unless someone else complains fairly soon. Gimmetrow 19:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Might I suggest that people follow the spirit, not the letter of the laws? The spirit of the law here is that usernames should not contain 'bot' when they're not bots. The letter of the law is that usernames should not contain bot if it's not approved to run as a bot. The user here is a bot. Therefore, there's no problem with having 'bot' in the username. — Werdna talk 07:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I concur. Making it clear that you're developing a bot is an act of pretty obvious good faith, and caused no harm. We should never punish people for that, and I see no reason to make the guy jump through extra hoops just to comply with a stretched reading of a username rule intended to increase clarity. William Pietri (talk) 06:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Thirded. The bot owner seems to have been operating in as close to fully open good faith mode as one can. Something we need to encourage and support. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a bot, it's using an account labelled as such, surely it's less confusing this way. The bot's obviously being watched by a range of users and being kept on a very short lead, if there are problems it will be quickly blocked/shut down if it's improving the encyclopaedia then it'll be approved. Keeping the bot edits in a separate account makes sense for the purpose of reviewing those edits, having the account labelled as a bot only account makes sense as those viewing the edits will recognise the edits were made by a bot. It might be an idea to have a box on the bot's userpage mentioning that it has not been approved but otherwise I don't really see the problem. Guest9999 (talk) 16:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Sceptre and User:Undead warrior abusing rollback and Twinkle

Encyc... Dram...
initiated on DR (May 3)
Added by JV 01:41, May 5 (UTC)

Yesterday I got into an incident with Sceptre in which I proposed a recreation of Encyclopedia Dramatica on Wikipedia:Deletion Review and he unilaterally closed my review as "disruptive" despite not being an administrator. Though this is off topic, I am aware that I am going to immediately attract attention for having admitted to be in favor of the article's recreation so I will explain my rationale. Please ignore the center paragraph if you are only interested in hearing about the incident.

First off, I believe that the site is notable. Encyclopedia Dramatica (with quotes) gets 152,000 Google hits. Without quotes, it gets 286,000. This contrasts with "Essjay", on which we have the article "Essjay controversy", which only gets 128,000 Google hits. "Essjay controversy" only gets 10,600. "Encyclopedia Dramatica" also ranked above "Encyclopedia Britannica" on CustomizeGoogle (a Firefox add-on) searches until it was removed from the list of searches presumably due to its offensive content. Second, I believe that the site is covered by reliable sources. Third, I believe that much of the controversy that centers around the proposal of recreating the article comes from editors who dislike the site because of the personal attacks it has made (I have had my photo uploaded to the site and placed in an article without my consent myself), but I believe that Wikipedia is not censored and that ED should not be excluded from the encyclopedia because it offends people. Also, it's worth noting that I find it strange that many editors do not want the article in Wikipedia presumably because it offends them (until recently, the reason given for the "protected against recreation" status of the page "Encyclopedia Dramatica" read "Encyclopedia Dramatica will never be recreaded. Ever." If something offended me I would want it exposed in broad daylight for what it is to as many people as possible. But this is irrelevant and I'm not here to argue about whether the site should be recreated or not. I'll save that for deletion review. I am posting it here to satisfy curiosity as to why I would want to see the site's article recreated. I will also mention that I have written a revised version of User:Shii's draft.

As I was saying, I created a new deletion review for Encyclopedia Dramatica and Sceptre immediately closed it as "disruption [5]. Ironically, he was the one being disruptive by closing a nom despite not being an admin and without giving a clear reason. "Disruptive request" is not a clear reason. I reverted this, and Sceptre proceeded to use rollback and eventually Twinkle to continue to revert my edits to the page, marking them as "vandalism" with Twinkle [6] [7] [8]. He also reverted two comments I placed on his talk page asking him to stop [9] [10] and even a report I placed on WP:AN of our dispute.[11], My final revert of his edit was reverted by User:Undead warrior using rollback [12], another non-admin who had no business closing a legitimate deletion review. As result of the incident, I was blocked for disruption, while Sceptre and Undead warrior were not, and I will point out that I was never given a clear reason for being blocked, and as a result I have permanent record of having been blocked for "disruptive editing" in my block log. The only violation of policy I believe I could have been possibly held responsible for is breaking the 3RR, though this was never cited as a reason for my block, and in the context I do not believe I was violating the 3RR, as Sceptre's edits were clearly ones he had no business making. I have emailed both users informing them of what they did and that I would file a request to have their rollback and Twinkle privileges suspended if they continued such behavior in the future, and have received two responses from Undead warrior (I will forward these emails to a user upon request) which basically claimed that my edits were "vandalism" and cited WP:SNOW (which isn't policy) as his reason for unilaterally closing the nom despite not being an administrator. I will leave notices on both their talk pages of this thread. I don't recommend a block for either one of them, as that would be punitive, but I do believe they should both be given a stern warning by someone other than myself.--Urban Rose 11:31, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

On the face of it, Sceptre does seem to have been grossly abusing Twinkle/rollback, mis-labelling vandalism and removing a thread from ANI - very naughty. Your request didn't seem disruptive to me. But let's hear what he has to say. —TreasuryTag—t—c 11:34, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The disruption was in the numerous requests you were making, despite being told that this wasn't going to happen. I have seen you on another site taking your above argument (in itself pretty vacuous) to the extreme of "if an article offends people, Wikipedia should doubly have it". Now, you were not blocked for 3RR -- I don't know where that idea came from. You were blocked for clear disruption when it should not have been hard to work out what was reasonable behaviour. To call Sceptre's actions "abuse" is a major exaggeration of reality, though perhaps his actions could have benefited from further reflection. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 11:45, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The reason the article was created multiple times is because the first time the closing admin requested a draft. I returned with a draft and created a second review so it may have looked like it had gone through a legitimate review and that I was reposting it out of frustration, but I wasn't. There is no policy that says that an article cannot be proposed for recreation on the grounds that it offends people. And why I mention the 3RR is that that is the only violation of policy which I technically violated. You cite me as having been disruptive yet fail to make clear any specific violation of policy on my part. And no, I don't believe that calling Sceptre's behavior anything less than abuse is merited. Reverting well intended edits as vandalism, acting as an admin when he isn't and removing notices of our dispute from WP:AN is clearly abuse.--Urban Rose 11:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I also advised you against redoing it as it had already been rejected before. You seem determined to force the point on ED and this is undoubtedly disruptive. Look, you don't even seem to understand reliable sourcing - offering youtube as a reliable source for recreation of this article is never going to wash. I also advised you to read the last DRV understand why it failed and not bother unless you could address all the issues. You clearly didn't do this so let me be blunt. If you carry this on any more you will get blocked again because no-one wants to play. I'm not calling you a troll but your actions are undoubtedly trollish. Please stop before it escalates. Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Um, being disruptive is itself against policy... Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 12:05, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

DRV has been clear on this topic: a new draft must be written first. The article will not be undeleted or unsalted before that happens. Creating a second DRV right after the first was closed does seem rather disruptive, especially when you made a virtually identical argument. Scepter's reversions were not abusive. If you really want an ED article, write a new draft in your userspace before continuing. -- Kesh (talk) 12:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I have a revised draft. And in my second review, I listed a link to the draft. And also, Korn, you say that "being disruptive" is a violation of policy in itself. Define "being disruptive". That can mean basically anything you want it to. If you can name a specific policy I violated, I will accept it, but just saying that someone is "being disruptive" is not giving a straight answer.--Urban Rose 12:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

That's hardly a draft. It's a collection of links. As for behavior, check out WP:DISRUPT. -- Kesh (talk) 14:19, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Still not policy.--Urban Rose 13:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Please call me "Sam", if you will.

Of course being disruptive is in and of itself against policy. It can be seen by anyone with a hint of common sense. It is not defined for precisely this reason -- that users who are being disruptive can be prevented from skirting round the edge of the rules and avoiding sanction. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 14:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Use common sense isn't policy. Basically what you're saying then is that a user can justly be blocked for any action which an admin dislikes for any reason even if it is not a violation of policy on the grounds that it is "disruptive". And basically what you're saying is that the real reason I was blocked is for proposing the recreation of an article that some users find offensive. Blocks should only be handed out for clear, specific violations of policy, not for vague reasons such as "not using common since" or "disruption" in which no specific violation of policy is cited.--Urban Rose 13:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

"Use common sense" is just about the most important policy we have, even if Wikipedia:Use common sense doesn't have precisely the right tag at the top. No, you were blocked for the disruptive manner in which you advocated the recreation of that article. Blocks should be handed out with caution and only for good reason. This one was for very good reason, regardless of the behaviour of others or the absence of a description of your precise behaviour hidden in some obscure "policy page". Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 13:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Then explain what about the manner in which I advocated the recreation of the article was disruptive. That I had already posted one and was posting it again? I've already told you, the reason I posted it a second time was because the first time I posted it, the closing admin requested a draft. I created a draft and posted it again, providing a link to the draft. If it had gone through a legitimate deletion review once and I was posting it again immediately after, that could have been disruptive, but the only reason it was closed the first time was because I didn't have a draft and I came back with one. So once again, no legitimate reason has been given for calling my behavior "disruptive" or saying that I didn't "use common sense".--Urban Rose 01:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

No one's behaviour looks great in that edit history. If Urban Rose had an issue with a non-admin close of the DRV, she should have asked an admin to review it. Edit warring over the close was disruptive and I think a block was valid. That said, Sceptre was not justified in using rollback - Urban Rose was not vandalising the page. I agree that in this case, the rollback tool was used inappropriately. WjBscribe 12:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Urban Rose is being clearly disruptive and is borderline Wikistalking me (see her WR posts as 'Pussy Galore'). Why are we even having this conversation? Sceptre ^(talk) 13:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

You revert my post on WP:AN and then wonder why were having this conversation? The posts I made to the deletion review could have been justly reverted as disruptive, but your reverting my posts on Wikipedia:AN was blatantly disruptive. And what ever I said about you on Wikipedia Review isn't stalking, how ever rude it may have been. And no, Sceptre, having tried to get the article Encyclopedia Dramatica recreated (something which I'll probably never do again) is not stalking either.--Urban Rose 13:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm in general agreement with WJBscribe here. I get the general feeling that these two users have had bad relations both on and off-wiki and now that has resulted in the two enduring a strained relation over the course of this DRV event. Some diffs that may be helpful are [13], [14] etc. Saying that, Urban Rose seems to have reflected and repented on her actions here.Rudget (Help?) 14:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Resolved: Users have both been warned That's nice and all, but how many times do we have to warn Sceptre to stop abusing rollback before it's taken away? I warned him twice in February, [15] [16] as did Sam Korn,[17], and Stifle warned him again in April.[18]. Now, we've added Twinkle abuse to the mix, and we give another warning? - auburnpilot talk 15:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm with AuburnPilot on this. Even if UrbanRose was being disruptive, there is no way Sceptre should have deleted the W:AN report which concerned his own actions. No excuse. JodyB _talk 17:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

AP, stop being so restrictive over rollback. If this was an admin who did the rollback, people would say "never mind". Besides, rollback was justified in all three cases (it's allowed on BLPs, and it's standard response on Doctor Who episode lists - ask Edokter). As UR pointed out on several occasions, I did get 11,000 edits in March, 5000 of which are rollbacks. That's a good enough reason for me keeping rollback. Rollback is, and I quote someone on IRC, "undo on speed". Sceptre ^(talk) 17:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Sceptre, you're not an admin. If you'd like to demonstrate admin-type authority, then please submit an RfA. Barring that, please ask for admin assistance when you need it. AuburnPilot is right. Kelly ^hi! 18:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Adminship is a technical switch, not a position of authority. Sceptre ^(talk) 18:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

You are flat out wrong, Sceptre. There is no exemption for use on BLP issues or a " Doctor Who episode clause". It is blatantly unacceptable for you to use it on edits that are anything other than vandalism. - auburnpilot talk 18:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing that says rollback must not be used to get rid of anything but vandalism. It can be used for reverting any unconstructive edit. Sceptre ^(talk) 18:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

{ec)That's precisely the thing I would expect a de-sysopped admin who wants the tools back to say. I still believe AuburnPilot is right. Kelly ^hi! 18:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Voluntarily, mind. Ask your namesake. Sceptre ^(talk) 18:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, the deadminship request was voluntary, but how did the requests for readminship go? Kelly ^hi! 18:33, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• I was under the impression that ArbCom had pretty much concluded that there is no encyclopedic value in having an article on ED, and that links to the site were not permitted under WP:EL (I think that was part of the BADSITES arbitration). Recreation of this particular article subject at any time is a pretty POINTy exercise. LessHeard vanU (talk) 16:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MONGO did initially prohibit creating an ED article, but this was revised in March to say that it wasnot explicitly prohibited. hbdragon88 (talk) 18:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry, I just woke up, but I'll put in my two cents. I did not abuse rollback. I saw a large deal reverted earlier, and I reverted it back. I honestly thought that Sceptre was an admin, so I reverted the text back to his version. After I did that, I recieved a harrassing email, and now there is a thread about me that basically pokes fun at my ways, name, and methods. I don't know why this even became a problem. Undeath (talk) 16:56, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• Situation normal. Some people are absolutely intent on having an article on ED, and regard any resistance as inherently abusive, which was actually the problem in the first place since it was the work of admins removing an article with zero reliable sources that started them down the path of putting up attack pages. As far as I'm concerned this one can stay gone until Jimbo himself re-creates it. Guy (Help!) 17:32, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • And some people are absolutely intent that there never be an article on ED, and regard any resistance as inherently abusive. There's irrationality on both sides; you don't really help things by looking only at one side. In the words of the great Lisa Simpson on tonight's Simpsons episode, "There's drama and inspiration everywhere I look!" *Dan T.* (talk) 05:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• I have to admit that as I was reading this thread, I was getting more and more horrified, the more I read. I have no opinion either way on the re-creation of the Dramatica article, but Sceptre reverting another editor and accusing them of vandalism? Multiple times? Then when that editor complains at AN, Sceptre deletes their message?[19] Sorry, I think Sceptre does a lot of other great things on Wikipedia, but he is way out of line on this one. Just a couple days ago I was looking into another Sceptre-related incident on ANI, where one of Sceptre's enemies, Pixelface, was blocked. My uninvolved view was that the block was inappropriate,[20] because both Sceptre and the other editor were at fault, especially as Sceptre was going to Pixelface's talkpage while Pixelface was blocked, and telling him to "shut up".[21] Don't get me wrong, I think that Sceptre is usually a fine editor and a great writer, but evidently when he gets angry, he thinks he has the right to "silence" people he disagrees with. This is compounded by him accusing them of "vandalism" or "trolling". But the final straw for me is that Sceptre felt that he could do this at AN as well, and delete someone's complaint about him. That's far past what's allowable. At a very minimum, Sceptre's rollback privileges should be removed. And if others felt that Sceptre should be blocked to stop this disruption, I would not oppose. Sceptre, read WP:VANDAL. You must stop referring to good faith edits as vandalism. Even when they're disruptive, they're still not vandalism. You have to learn the difference. --Elonka 18:34, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
• Given the above, Sceptre's access to rollback should probably be removed until he demonstrates better judgment regarding its use. Kelly ^hi! 18:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
• I have growing concerns about Sceptre's behavior in general. He seems to revel in kicking his enemies when they are down and is constantly condescending and hostile to anyone who has a different opinion about almost anything. He has a habit of going out of his way to escalate disputes. His inappropriate use of rollback is really just the beginning of my concerns. I regretfully believe that the rollback privilege should be removed as this user shows no indication of learning from past mistakes. I would urge Sceptre to consider more carefully his behavior in general and his approach toward other Wikipedians. --JayHenry (talk) 19:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

  To be clear, I don't support the recreation of ED, but it doesn't mean that I therefore support any tactic of anyone opposed to an ED article, and my concerns are in no way limited to this situation. --JayHenry (talk) 19:20, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I've always found Sceptre to be perfectly decent. Has anyone tried talking to him? There's no doubt that Urban Rose has stepped well over the line with her attacks on Undead at Wikipedia Review. Guy (Help!) 19:59, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Guy, while I'm deeply appreciative of so much of the work that you do, I'm afraid that we have intractably different understandings of the word "decent" when it comes to Wikipedia conduct. I'd actually be really happy to have a polite dialog about that, but my previous observations suggest that this is a fairly unlikely scenario. At any rate, Auburnpilot did provide diffs of Sceptre being approached about this in the past, and his non-receptiveness to past approach is what's gotten us here today. I don't read Wikipedia Review, and so I'm unfamiliar with the particular events you're alluding to. My concern with Sceptre is hardly limited to this particular incident, so please do not read my comment as some sort of endorsement of attacks. I will reiterate that I don't support the recreation of ED, but it doesn't mean that I therefore support any tactic of anyone opposed to an ED article. --JayHenry (talk) 20:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG2. When it comes to comes to judging user conduct, something is fundamentally broken with JzG's judgment. Kelly ^hi! 21:36, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I think ED's treatment of Sceptre should give him a LARGE dose of leeway where recreation of the ED article is concerned. Corvus cornix_talk 20:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm surprised people are "horrified" when Sceptre made a valid rollback, and then when the editor in question continued to attempt insertion of DRVs and AN complaints to push for an ED article, Sceptre stopped what was clearly disruptive behavior. People seem to be looking for… well, drama. -- Kesh (talk) 20:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but please tell me where the hell the "valid" rollback was, because I don't see it. You never, ever use rollback on anything except obvious, simple vandalism. You provide a reason, and Sceptre provided no reason other than to tag Rose's edits as "vandalism" or treat them as rollback. hbdragon88 (talk) 21:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Might be a "ripened sock" of User:!!. Should be blocked immediately. </sarc> Kelly ^hi! 22:05, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Only for obvious vandalism? yeah. I've seen non-admin rollback used for anything from vandalism to simple editing disputes all the time. There's zero control over rollback, and I don't see this as any more abusive than what goes on every day. -- Kesh (talk) 00:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, in the case of admins, we really can't do anything about that. The ArbCam issued a warning to not use it for other purposes other than vandalism. For mere rollbackers, however, we can revoke their tools. But it isn't cool to use it in that way. It isn't a "valid" use. hbdragon88 (talk) 23:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The minimum step to take with respect to Sceptre is for rollback to be removed. With respect to his attempted disruption of AN, I'm at a loss as to appropriate action--this goes to the core of the WP process. DGG (talk) 00:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

←I think this conversation has centered a bit too much around use of rollback. Edits like this are simply unacceptable, no matter which editing function was used to perform them. I don't know about recreation of the article, and the reason stated by Urban Rose at AN may or may not have been valid. It really doesn't matter. You don't remove someone's complaint about yourself at AN, ever. It doesn't matter which tool was used, but if removing rollback from Sceptre's account is the best way to convey the message that what he did was wrong, then that's reason enough to do it. Equazcion •✗/C • 00:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Per Sceptre's abuse of the rollback function, and the concerns noted above, I have revoked his access. - auburnpilot talk 00:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

RickK would've loved you. Sceptre ^(talk) 00:43, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Sceptre, I have a great deal of respect for you and your dedication to the project but I do think, like Equazcion, that reverting someone's comment about you at AN may have went a bit too far. I think maybe in future, given how you've been abused by the fine folk at ED, it might be a good thing to recuse yourself from matters involving ED or articles about it... there are plenty of uninvolved editors that can do what needs doing. You may want to, in general, consider slowing down and asking for advice if there is any doubt at all in your mind that something might be misconstrued, no matter how certain you are that you are right. For the record, for now, I think you might want to avoid use of rollback and Twinkle and other high speed mechanisms, even if rollback is restored to you at some point. I hope that advice is helpful. ++Lar: t/c 00:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

(after ec)Can't say I'm at all surprised by this thread as I've had concerns about Sceptre's behaviour for a while now. I understand his attitude regarding ED and can cut him some slack for being snarky with that particular issue but it doesn't give him freerange to be abusive and snarky in general. Perhaps Sceptre should consider his personal feelings for ED a reason for staying out of ED issues and leaving it for others to deal with. However, using rollback to revert a users complaint about himself to AN is totally out there and abusive. I appreciate Sceptre's contribution to the project but I endorse removal of his rollback for now since it's clear that warnings from multiple admins have been ignored for months now. Sarah 01:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so maybe it was a mistake to revert UR's post, but, seriously, anyone who is giving her clemency in this situation needs to get a sanity check - given her contributions to my talk page and the two ED DRVs in six hours (and her contributions to WR), I saw it as pure trolling. Even though today is the respective bank holiday, there's no reason to dance around the maypole and allow her to continue trolling. And AP seriously exaggerated the claims of abuse - in all the cases that have been brought up here, they were used to get rid of clear policy violations when warnings had not been heeded. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Sceptre, if it makes you feel better to claim that I misrepresented the warnings that were given to you, or your clear abuse of rollback, then do what you wish. But I'm not the only admin who believes your rollback access needed to be removed, I'm not the only editor who has noticed your abuse, and I'm not the only one who has warned you. Simply read the posts above, from numerous people who stated they independently have had concerns regarding your behavior, prior to seeing this post. Again, do what makes you feel better, but don't drag me down with you. - auburnpilot talk 14:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

And I explained them perfectly well. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

← If anyone wanted to close this discussion as archived I wouldn't object. The issue has been dealt with, Sceptre admits that he shouldn't have removed UR's post, and he knows where to go when he's ready to request rollback again. There's nothing more to discuss. Equazcion •✗/C • 19:54, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Nod. For the record I offered to restore Sceptre's rollback rights if he agrees to confine use of it to reversion of clear vandalism. ++Lar: t/c 20:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I would go along with that, if he would also put into his own words a definition of "clear vandalism" which matched with WP:VANDAL. Because currently Sceptre's definition of vandalism, seems to differ sharply from policy. --Elonka 23:36, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I am noticing that Sceptre immediately re-requested rollback access,[22] which was rapidly denied. For reference, the (denied and archived) discussion is here. I would also like to say that I continue to be disappointed with Sceptre's attitude on this. Sceptre, I strongly encourage you to work harder at listening to the good faith concerns that people have been expressing here. --Elonka 17:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

DOI bot blocked for policy reconsideration

I have blocked DOI bot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for 24 hours, and intend to propose a permanent ban pending a full policy discussion. The first problem is that it appears to be broken, resulting in edits like this, which broke the reference and left a mess, but more importantly because it is implementing a major policy change in the way Wikipedia makes web references, without large-scale community consensus and buy-in. (I'm aware that the bot received approval, but I don't believe that its full impact was understood.) That is not something a bot should be doing. Basically, the bot appears to be editing URLs in citation templates and replacing them with a DOI scheme that relies on an external private organization (doi.org). In some cases the URL is left alone, but a DOI is added, and what is rendered in the article is a DOI that if clicked on, will take the user to the link indirectly via the doi.org site.

This raises all sort of issues, and , among other things, violates WP:EL because it promotes an external organization (doi.org), and drives huge amounts of traffic to that site, by Wikpedia readers who think they are going to a particular cited source, and then are taken to doi.org. Regardless of the noble aims or promises of the organization, that is completely inappropriate. In addition, routing the traffic through a private site allows that site to collect the IP addresses and search terms of all the traffic, a very serious privacy and data collection issue. Furthermore, it is a single point of failure for potentially every online cited source in Wikipedia. If doi.org goes away in the future (lack of funding, lack of interest, squabbles, who knows what), Wikipedia would suffer immeasurable harm. If doi.org is taken over by a faction with different aims and values, Wikipedia would suffer immeasurable harm.

This is a very, very, very bad idea. --MCB (talk) 20:45, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the WP:EL guideline applies here; it explicitly does not apply to inline citations (section 1, point 4, as of this writing). ASHill (talk | contribs) 01:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I strongly oppose a permanent ban that prevents manual execution of the bot. DOIs are a useful tool that permanently identifies journal articles; they are now essentially universally used in the academic publishing industry. DOIs are much less likely than URLs to rot in time. To the extent that the bot adds DOIs to existing citations, it's a very useful tool for aiding in a process that I often do manually and that improves the permanence of references to academic sources.

I also like the behavior of removing the url parameter when (and only when) it is identical to the URL that the doi resolves to, although I can see the arguments against that action. It is something I do manually when I notice it. Removing non-identical URLs is certainly not a good idea and is not something the bot is designed to do, although it has bugs that sometimes do remove non-identical URLs.

However, the automatic, unsupervised running of this particular bot has had a number of troublesome bugs that may or may not be resolvable; I won't make a strong statement either way about (dis)allowing that. ASHill (talk | contribs) 21:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

This bot has been nothing but positive when it's come across my watchlist. DOI has very wide acceptance in online publishing. Removing these very useful links with the concern that it promotes an external organization seems akin to me of deleting CC images because they promote the Creative Commons. In other words, it's a widely accepted standard and we're basically just following best practice in using it. Thus I'd also be opposed to banning this bot, but agree that it's preferable to leave the previous url when adding a doi, and other improvements should of course be considered on a case-by-case basis. --JayHenry (talk) 21:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I left a note about this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Academic Journals#Discussion about DOI bot. It's certainly possible I'm totally wrong about the merits of DOI and, if so, these people will be able to set me straight. --JayHenry (talk) 21:12, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I too am very happy with the changes I've seen DOI bot make, and oppose permanently blocking it. The short explanation for DOIs is that (with rare exception) they are permanent links to the official repository of an academic paper, while URLs often point to copyvio sites and, even when they point to the publisher's official site, are often invalidated when the publisher changes their addressing scheme. I find DOIs very useful as a way to reliably access papers referenced here. Also note that some respected non-commercial academic societies such as the Association for Computing Machinery and the American Mathematical Society have extensive bibliographic databases in which DOIs are used for all external links to copies of papers; not only do they provide an example that I think we should follow, but the fact that they use them makes it easier to also use DOIs here when using those databases to research article content. I very strongly object to any suggestion that DOIs should be seen as violating WP:EL. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:20, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Most of the complaints I've seen with regard to this bot seem to involve the removal of URLs, something that doesn't seem to have been directly addressed in the original bot approval discussion. I think it might be a good idea to just disable that feature: the only disadvantage to doing so is that we'd sometimes end up with two links to the same page in one reference, while the advantages would include both the reduced likelihood of bot bugs as well as the retention of alternate resource identifiers in the unlikely event that the doi.org resolver service ever breaks. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:36, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• It needs to be manual or more subtle or modified . DOIs are indeed the accepted academic standard, and not using them would be like not using ISBNs or OCLC. I would certainly support an automated bot adding them. However, since the doi goes to the publisher's usually subscription version, and there is often additionally a link to an acceptable convenience version that, pace David E, is generally not copyvio, but a author's version in a legitimate repository, etc., the link should not necessarily be removed. The only links that should be replaced by the doi are those going themselves to the publishers version. Otherwise, the doi should be added as an additional field. We need the doi as the reference standard to the official electronic version just as we have references to the printed version when available. But we do & should always give links to a legitimate free version in addition if we can find one. DGG (talk) 23:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I think some of the discussion above misunderstands some of my concern. To take some of the points individually:

1. I'm not sure what is meant by "manual execution of the bot". Bots are bots, and manual edits are manual edits. We don't consider Twinkle or AWB to be bots; they are software assists for manual edits that an individual editor is accountable for. I have no objection to people using a tool to add DOI or other information to citations, but those edits should be reported as by the individual editor; these are shown as edits by DOI bot, which implies it is running in an autonomous fashion.
2. There is no comparison with Creative Commons or GFDL or anything like that. Wikipedia does not rely on Creative Commons or its organization, it merely adopts its suggested language for a particular set of copyright licenses. If CC disappeared tomorrow, Wikipedia would be unaffected; the licenses would still be in force, and could continue to be used: there's no dependency on the organizaton or its web site. With DOI bot replacing URLs, however, if doi.org disappeared, there would be immediate, significant harm to Wikipedia. It makes us dependent not merely on the DOI scheme itself, but on the operation and maintenance of the DOI.org web site. Even if it has a short outage, all the munged URLs will be dead until it comes back up. Not a good policy.
3. Simply because an organization is nonprofit, or its aims are laudable, or it is well-respected or well liked, does not mean that its URL and web site should be added to thousands of Wikipedia articles. The effect, even if well meant, has the effect of promoting the organization and driving web traffic to it.
4. The privacy and data collection concerns have not been addressed. Are we willing to, in essence, send the IP address and subject matter of the reference of every Wikipedia user who dereferences a DOI-modified citation, without notice and consent, to a third party that is not under the control or scrutiny of the Wikimedia Foundation? Also, not a good policy, and deserving of exceptional scrutiny. --MCB (talk) 00:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The analogy to CC is that we do not store copies of their licenses (the legal text, I mean), but rely on their repository to both provide it and keep it stable over time. Likewise, every CC licensed image includes a http link the CC site and as far as I know no one has every suggested that this raises privacy or data collection fears. The answer to the rest of your points is simply yes, it is appropriate. The DOI system in an internationally maintained and recognized ISO standard that has become a fundemental standard across the scientific publishing industry. That standard relies ultimately on a single, distributed database accessed through dx.doi.org. In using the DOI system, you can't avoid dx.doi.org any more than one could effectively use the internet without using DNS. The usefulness of the DOI system outweighs your hypothetical risks. Dragons flight (talk) 00:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Re point 1: This bot can either be told to run on an individual page by a user (manually) or set to run automatically on all articles that use Template:cite journal. Manual use implies that it's immediately supervised by the user who ran it, so that user implicitly takes responsibility for any inappropriate removal or URLs or other inappropriate action by the bot. (That responsibility could be made more explicit.) ASHill (talk | contribs) 01:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Re point 4: There is at least one other DOI resolver (http://hdl.handle.net/) which we can switch the templates to use if dx.doi.org goes down or has (or in the future adopts) a troublesome privacy policy; because we're using templates to construct the URL to resolve the DOI, it's (comparatively) very easy to change all the DOI links on Wikipedia. ASHill (talk | contribs) 01:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

More re point 4: The DOI system was designed by the publishing industry largely to serve as a universal means of linking to their papers, so if we're linking to the journals, it doesn't seem terribly different to link via DOIs. In fact, at least the Astrophysical Journal (chosen just because it's the journal I read most) uses DOIs resolved by dx.doi.org for links in references in its papers—even references to other Astrophysical Journal papers. Moreover, every external link on Wikipedia, including DOI links, has the external link symbol, which implies that the link points beyond the control of Wikipedia/Wikimedia Foundation; a concerned user can check the URL before clicking. The external link symbol seems like notice to me. ASHill (talk | contribs) 01:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm also a bit unclear on the scope of the privacy concern. Are you suggesting that a) all DOIs should be removed from Wikipedia, b) all DOI links should be removed from Wikipedia (keeping DOIs as text information only), c) only humans should add DOIs to citations, or d) something else? ASHill (talk | contribs) 01:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea of a DOI bot, but it shouldn't remove a URL just because the URL happens to resolve to the same resource as the DOI. It's fairly common to supply doi= for all citations, and to use url= as well for freely-readable papers. That way, a reader can easily see which papers can be read without a subscription. A bot that removes url= simply because it happens to resolve to the same location breaks this common style convention. This point is discussed in a bit more detail at User talk:Smith609 #DOI bot problem with issue=, pages=, date=. Eubulides (talk) 02:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Eubulides. It is a common convention, esp. on medical articles, to provide a direct URL only if the text is free. Removing that URL loses information, even if the DOI ends up at the same location. Colin°^Talk 09:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Some comments on the above:

1. The "manual mode" of the bot is a bad idea, since it makes it completely unclear who made an edit, since the edit is recorded as having been made by the bot. An automated tool like this needs to make sure that the edit is recorded as having been made by the user who invoked it, with the edit summary noting the use of the tool. This is what is done with Twinkle and WP:AWB and is needed for accountability of both the user and the bot.
2. I'm surprised to learn that copies of the CC licenses are not kept on Wikipedia. That is unwise and should be remedied. The full text of the GFDL is kept on Wikipedia.
3. Supposedly the DOI bot is only dealing with actual journal citations to journals whose publishers are involved in the DOI project, but that is clearly not the case, and the bot indiscriminately edits all sorts of citation which happen to use {{cite journal}}. Besides the policy issue, the bot appears to be broken and I have changed the block to indefinite pending, at least, repairs. Consider these recent edits:

• Tiki Barber/Reader's Digest
• Frank Crisp/removed URL from The Spectator, munged citation
• broken citation
• broken citation
• broken citation ... in fact, I don't think the bot is working at all, looking at today's edits before it was blocked.

In addition to the other issues I raised, DOI URLs are totally opaque, and give no clue as to the actual host of the material, or whether the host matches the citation. We do not use "TinyURL" or "SnipURL" URLs in citations (or other services which redirect URLs and conceal the actual host server). There's no reason to encourage them in the case of doi.org; like TinyURL and SnipURL, we are depending on the security of an outside organization for the integrity of our references. --MCB (talk) 03:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

(Dedent) While I don't like the idea of the bot removing the URLs of sources, I am strongly oppesed to having an admin to block an approved bot because they don't like its purpose. The bot messed up an edit, but if it is approved and is performing tasks in the method descirbed in its approval-request then the bot should not be banned. It should be debugged and returned to service.

That said I don't like the idea of removing urls and I would have objected to this bots request. We can build cite tags (titles, publishers, dates) using an external database but don't build a Rosetta stone I have to look at every time I want to read a source. --Lemmey talk 03:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

As far as blocking the bot - the bot is not doing what it was claimed to do in the approval process. The specification given in the approval was to add DOIs. It was not stated that it would remove URLs. User:DOI bot/bugs#Current issues Since it is making changes that it was not clear it was approved to make, stopping it until it can be fixed or pending approval of its extended changes seems appropriate. Zodon (talk) 07:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[Disclaimer:I'm not an administrator, so I'm not sure if my opinion is valid here.] I agree with Eubulides. Axl (talk) 06:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

So, in order to try to come to some resolution in this, and balance the usefulness and wide acceptance of DOIs with the privacy, security, transparency, and data integrity issues for Wikipedia, I'd like to propose some changes to DOI bot that would have to be implemented before it is restored to operation (in addition to fixing the current problem with malformed citations).

1. The bot may only edit citations where the reference is to a publication included in the DOI system.
2. The bot must not remove or alter an existing URL.
3. The bot may add a DOI reference to a citation.
4. Ideally, the DOI should be rendered to display after the anchor text of the URL, with "DOI" as the link text, or (as with PDFs) a symbol indicating a DOI link.
5. If the bot is used as a tool in "manual mode", the resulting edit must be attributed to the user who invoked the bot, with an annotation like "(using DOItool)" or similar.

I think these answer some of the policy concerns while maintaining the usefulness of the tool. --MCB (talk) 03:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Can you provide an example how of #4 would look?--Lemmey talk 04:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I would amend this to allow the bot to remove urls of the form (doi server)/doi (where doi server is dx.doi.org or doi.acm.org or another of a small list of known doi servers), since urls of this type do not provide any useful alternative to the doi, but to leave any other url in place. And your "Ideally, the DOI should be rendered" has nothing to do with the bot, is out of place in this proposal, and should be taken to Template talk:Cite journal and Template talk:Citation. I have no particular objection to your other points. In fact, I was under the impression that your other points were mostly how the bot was supposed to behave in the first place. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree with MCBs proposal. Also agree with David's modification (formatting should stay out of this, removal of URLs to known DOI servers is acceptable). JFW | T@lk 07:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I struck out #4 above, which, as David Eppstein and Jfdwolff note, is beyond the scope of this discussion. The intent is that where there is both a normal URL and a DOI link, the user would have the choice of which to follow, but that is an issue with template rendering, not with the bot. I'm unclear on "removal of URLs to known DOI servers"... does that mean the case where the only URL already in the citation is to a DOI server? --MCB (talk) 07:59, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment

Three points as the bot's operator:

1. The erroneous edits last night were a result of a faulty patch to address issues of "messiness" in the code; I got distracted for 30 minutes when I thought I'd fixed it, and when I returned to check the edits realised I hadn't. I thought I'd reverted all of the erroneous ones, and apologise for those I missed!
2. If there ever does prove to be a failure with dx.doi.org, the {{Doi}} template can be amended accordingly;
3. It's going to be about a week until I get time to fix the patch, so there's no need to rush to a verdict!

Thanks, Smith609 Talk 08:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Point #1 seems overly restrictive, and redundant given the other points. Before going haywire, the bot was making good edits where it e.g. fixed PMID syntax ([23]) or filled in missing details even if it couldn't locate a DOI. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 08:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I could see adding PMIDs to the list of permissible citations to edit, since that's a similar system. What I was getting at was that the bot should not attempt to edit citations where there is no actual journal reference (even if the citation happens to use {{cite journal}}), and that that should be enforced in the software. You would think that might be redundant, but how else can edits like this or this be explained? The bot should not be editing citations like that, even if invoked manually by a user. So I would like to see that limitation in the software. --MCB (talk) 19:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that's what you mean. Yes, the bot shouldn't try to reinsert citations it hasn't changed back into the document (even if this wouldn't make make any difference in the absence of bugs like the recent one). But that's more of an implementation detail, really, rather than a substantive restriction of the bot's scope. In any case, it should take at most two lines of code to fix. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 01:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, I'd like to request some clarification of point #5: do you mean the bot should list the invoker's username in the edit summary, or do you actually mean it should make the edit using the invoking user's account? I was going to say the latter isn't possible (without extra software installed by the invoker), but having thought about it a bit more, I think it almost is: while MediaWiki will refuse to save an edit without a valid edit token, it should still be possible to provide a button the sends the user to a prefilled edit form (in either preview or diff mode), which they'd then have to save themselves. This would, in effect, completely separate the manual interface from the bot, except for them using the same DOI-finding backend. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 08:43, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I mean the edit should be made using the invoker's account. That's how Twinkle and AWB work, as well as the "undo" functionality in MediaWiki. A prefilled edit form, as you mention, would be fine. If somehow that can't be done, listing the invoker's user name in the edit summary would be a bare minimum. --MCB (talk) 19:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The thing about TWINKLE and AWB is that they're not bots per se; they're programs, akin to user scripts, that everyone who wants to use must first install for themselves. You can't use them just by clicking a button (although, with the recent availability of TWINKLE as a gadget, it does get close). A closer parallel to DOIBot's manual mode, as currently implemented, would IMHO be what Sandbot does. But yes, the prefilled edit form trick could be a nice solution, assuming it actually works like I think it should. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 01:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The proposal seems reasonable.

• I don't think that it should be allowed to remove URLs of the form noted by David. Removing these URLs might make the entry less usable by other tools, or by editors who were not familiar with the DOI system. There may be other tools that use URLs, but don't use DOIs. Also it means editors would be pushed towards using DOIs over URLS. (Most people working with the web knows how to use a URL, most people don't know off the top of their head how to resolve a DOI - e.g. you can't necessarily just copy it and toss it in another browser tab to see where it goes when you are in the middle of an edit.) In some cases there could be reasons why editors would prefer some DOI server over another, for instance to work around problems in the DOI system, etc.
• The item about removing or altering an existing URL might be softened a little. It might be reasonable to allow the DOI bot to do copyediting of URLs to known DOI servers. (i.e. if a URL to a doi server is misformed it might be permissable to correct it. But not change it so that it used a different DOI server, or change an item that doesn't use a DOI server to one that does.) If there are identical URLs it might be permissable for it to remove duplication. (However if this is too difficult to codify clearly, no objection to leaving it as proposed.) Zodon (talk) 08:49, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

While I don't mind a bot adding document identifiers, this is the only function for which DOI bot was approved, and the bot is going beyond that mandate. By not restricting itself to only adding document identifiers (and doing so without barfing), it has revoked its approval.

Further (slightly OT but addressing some of the points mentioned above), I recommend a consolidation of doi handing such that...

a) DOIs not turn the title into a link but instead appear just like ISBNs and OCLCs at the end of a citation.

b) that {{citation}} and {{cite yaddayadda}} not link to doi.org directly but instead use a template ala {{doi}} that could then generate links to one of the doi servers (pseudo-randomly, so WP would not appear to favoring one or the other).

-- Fullstop (talk) 00:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I have yet to see a principled reason why it's bad to turn the title into a link, in the case when a direct url is not also listed. "We send traffic to a commercial site and commercial = bad" isn't convincing. What is the rationale for making the DOI visible, rather than just hiding it and letting it work the way it's supposed to? However, I would support changing the templates to use an interwiki link [[DOI:...]] instead of a direct URL, if someone else will undertake to do the template hackery and thorough testing needed to make this work. I'm less happy with {{doi}}, though, as it has complications with DOIs that have angle brackets in them — it needs to be given two differently-encoded versions of the DOI in that case (which is I believe why it still uses a direct URL instead of the DOI: interwiki). Possibly the same issue would make it difficult to program the templates to use the interwiki. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Umm... the subject is DOI bot, not linking or how DOIs are formatted. My previous comment (which you appear to have also misunderstood) was in response to earlier remarks and carries a plain-text OT warning. So, lets not take the OT to the point of not mentioning DOIBot at all, ok? -- Fullstop (talk) 16:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

---

Back with bots, I've summarised a more comprehensive list of DOI bot's current capabilities at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DOI_bot_2. I would welcome constructive comments related to the tasks the bot would perform there, in the usual fashion. To summarise: the bot will add missing parameters to any instance of the cite journal template, where it can determine beyond reasonable doubt that the parameters are correct. This includes adding a URL parameter, since consensus here suggests that this will at worst cause no short-term harm. It will also remove duplicate (but not blank) parameters. Smith609 Talk 10:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Blofeld_of_SPECTRE

Resolved

 – People are allowed to create articles, no admin intervention needed. Al Tally (talk) 11:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if this is a policy violation or not, but User:Blofeld_of_SPECTRE has created more than 90 (and the list is growing) new articles in the 2 hours with only the content

'''{{subst:PAGENAME}}''' is a [[museum]] in Bangkok, Thailand. [[Category:Museums in Bangkok]] {{thailand-stub}} {{museum-stub}} {{asia-struct-stub}}

see his contributions for more.  Atyndall93 | talk  11:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep that is quite normanl for User:Blofeld_of_SPECTRE. Normally he does towns and villages though. There is usually a few people working around him to fill the rest. As far as the notability of museums is concerned it might be worth revisiting the articles in a couple of weeks. Agathoclea (talk) 11:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying.  Atyndall93 | talk  12:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, he's helping out The Museums Project with a giant backlog of articles that need creating and then we're expanding when we can to demonstrate notability. _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 16:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

User:81.134.13.35

Resolved

 – Semiprotected User:Police,Mad,Jack for 2 months

For some reason which I can not understand (Despite my best communication efforts) to ask this user what I have done to upset them. They still persist in a personal hate campaign against me, he/she false warns me and constantly on a regular basis edits my userpage. Please help me sort out this matter its something that I am considering leaving Wikipedia because of. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 16:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I've gone through every single one of the IP's edits and every single one of them is valid - including the two edits (not a "persistent campaign") to your userpage. — iridescent 16:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Further to that, every single post on their talkpage appears to be abusive and invalid warnings posted by yourself. — iridescent 16:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I haven't looked into this in any great detail, and can't at this time, but just noting in passing that there may be more to this. It appears, for example, that the IP editor also edits as User:62.60.123.90. This could be a longer-running feud than would be readily apparent. As such, PMJ, I suggest supplying more information. --barneca (talk) 17:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, User:149.254.200.220. --barneca (talk) 17:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, that last one might be confusing. I'm just looking at PMJ's user page history, and listing IP's that have been making the exact same changes to his user page for at least the last couple of months. They appear to have found one of PMJ's buttons, and keep pushing it. Maybe semi-protecting the user page is all that it will take to make PMJ happy? --barneca (talk) 17:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

149.254.200.220 at any rate appears to be either an open proxy or a public terminal - unless one user is really responsible for Tourism in Japan, Bristol Beaufighter‎, Pork and Beans (song) and Conundrum (Star Trek: the Next Generation). 62.60.123.90 traces back to a public terminal at a David Lloyd Leisure Centre. (Not to say the user in question isn't among those using these IPs.) — iridescent 17:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Next time I wont be bothering to take it here when will real editors be valued over vandals I dont know, but yes I would like the page protected if you would please. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 17:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Semiprotected for 2 months; if it restarts after that let me know & I'll make it indefinite. — iridescent 17:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Iredescent, appreciated. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 17:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Is this appropriate?

Resolved

 – All sorted out now.

After being notified that the article Pheo-Con‎ was put up for AFD, Jack Cain (talk · contribs) copied a pre-AFD version of the article into his userspace, which also included linkspam and WP:BLP violations that has been removed from the original article. Is this appropriate for Wikipedia, especially since he is preserving the original version of the article? --Farix (Talk) 02:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

BLP applies to all pages, so go ahead and remove the violations ASAP. --Haemo (talk) 03:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

And it's a GFDL violation, among things. You can't just do that. 206.126.163.20 (talk) 03:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I blanked it for now. It should be deleted really (the GFDL violation) and notified him of this thread. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I was under the impression that userspace was "open" for storing things like this. I don't see what the problem is. Jack Cain (talk) 10:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a GFDL thing - I've explained it on your talk page. Neıl ☎ 10:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Marked as resolved. Neıl ☎ 12:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, the original author is now slamming me[24] on a webforum for placing the article up for deletion. *smirk* I find it funny because he has to go so far out of his way to lie about me when my activity on Wikipedia doesn't even support any of his claims. --Farix (Talk) 20:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

New feature [add blocked-user-page to watchlist]

Bug 13950 was fixed yesterday and rolled out to Wikimedia wikis. Now on Special:Blockip, there's a box to automatically watchlist the user/user_talk page of the person you're blocking. Just letting fellow admins know, in case there's any wondering what this new button does. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 18:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Sweet. Now I need to find someone to block....Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 18:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

No way! That had better be a double confirm plus a following "Are you quite certain?" button, as I patrol AIV and can block up to a dozen or more ip accounts per session. I really don't need my watchlist grow that fast! LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

While on the subject of Special:Blockip, just another reminder to admins: E-mail should not be disabled as a default. It should only be disabled in response to abuse of the email function. I'm seeing a growing number of admins doing this preemptively, so if we've changed our opinion on this, we need to change the policy. - auburnpilot talk 20:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. and LHvanU, it's a box to check, not defaulted to check. You have to manually check it if you in fact want to keep your eye on the user/talk. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

but.. but.. but... it is a new button! It wants to be pressed. It needs it...LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I only do it when it's a named attack account, User:Redvers doesn't like kittens or the like, or when it's one of a run of socks attacking a single user or group of users. Or when it's Wayne Smith or Dereks1x. But otherwise, best to leave email on until proven otherwise. ➨ REDVEЯS is now 40 per cent papier mâché 21:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Increase autoconfirm

Please see: Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed Proposal/Poll (talk)

This is a discussion and poll for whether the requirements for autoconfirmation should be increased. - jc37 20:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Possible new sockfarm in the process of being created

Resolved

 – Grawp... all blocked.

--Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Unresolved

 – looks like more sockpuppets were created which have not been blocked, not sure if checkuser is needed.

--Snigbrook ^(talk) 17:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Someone is going through and creating new accounts using single random nonstandard unicode characters such as these few: [25] and [26]. If you go thru the user creation log, there a dozens of these created in the last hour or so. Just something to keep an eye on. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:02, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking him; some of his socks have had unusual Unicode in their names. Keep note of all the names created; if one of them shows symptoms of Potteritis, see Thatcher immediately for an IP check. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Karistaa Usko)} 04:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

He's definately active RIGHT NOW. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:%E2%84%8B_for_Hagger&action=edit&redlink=1. Anyhoo, in good faith, I greeted them all with a friendly "please change your username". Thus, I can keep an eye on them. As usual, Grawp is a quick block if he starts getting outta hand. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

That username was flagged and blocked instantly. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Karistaa Usko)} 04:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. I was just saying that it shows he is active right this second. Is there enough for a checkuser yet on these new unicode names? BTW, there have been 5-6 more since we've been chatting here... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Possibly, if you point out our mistaken phone-caller and all the accounts were made in the same time period, then point out his checkuser case, where a lot of unusual-Unicode-containing usernames were fluched out.-Jéské ^{(v^_^v Karistaa Usko)} 04:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

By the by, East718 has called in the Devastators. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Karistaa Usko)} 04:43, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

So far, they're all on TOR, and they're all Grawp. east.718 at 04:45, May 2, 2008

I had a feeling they were Grawps based on the Unicode. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Karistaa Usko)} 04:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

And they've all been blocked. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

 Confirmed - User:%E2%84%8B_for_Hagger (talk · contribs) - plus three other accounts. IP blocked as TOR. There are quite a few accounts being created per IP and if someone could collate the "found" ones somewhere, I'll check them for socks & block the TOR nodes - Alison ^❤ 04:59, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

• User:ԣ
• User:׳״ֽ
• User:؟
• User:٪
• User:ۨ
• User:ۨ٪
• User:܀
• User:܁
• User:܃
• User:܄
• User:ܑܐܑ
• User:ܞ܂ܗ
• User:ޮ
• User:இஇ
• User:ᐁ

is the full list AFAIK... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:06, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget User:ℋ for Hermy. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 05:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah. Funny since, _I_ blocked that one... hmf... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Two more (neither blocked right now):

• User:ޮ ޮ
• User talk:܀܀܀

--Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done - all the above checked. Blocked a bunch of TOR nodes as well as some more accounts - Alison ^❤ 05:30, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

New batch that showed up shortly after we blocked all of the above. Some of these may or may not be related:

• Obviously same:
  • User:ԯ
  • User:윤지용
• Not obviously same, likely related, or may be a different sockfarm:
  • User:Ἄτλας
  • User:Κρόνος
  • User:Άργος
  • User:Κύκλωψ
  • User:Κύκλωπες
  • User:Kyklops
• Maybe related, or maybe not:
  • User:குறோணி

The second sockfarm is all Greek myth characters(Atlas, Chronos, Cyclops), rendered in the original greek (except the last one, which is transliterated to Latin characters, but still the greek name). All created in a very short period of time. These may be need to be checked out as well. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

• 윤지용 could be legit, and checkuser doesn't work for me with User:குறோணி (maybe a font thing) but the Greeks are more tor sockfarms. Thatcher 15:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
  • If checkuser passes the username in a URL parameter, try replacing it with exactly "%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%B1%E0%AF%8B%E0%AE%A3%E0%AE%BF". And it may not have been the best idea to suggest that a given username cannot be examined with checkuser. --Random832 (contribs) 16:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

for would-be vandals who like BEANS, I can say that the above name, குறோணி (talk · contribs) works fine with checkuser for me :), so  Confirmed again. Also, the other accounts under there were already blocked by Thatcher - Alison ^❤ 19:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Given the circumstances, I would suggest that if any more pop up, lock down their talk pages immediately. Blueboy96 01:32, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

More usernames from Greek mythology have been created:

• Polyphemos (talk · contribs)
• Πολύφημος (talk · contribs)
• Steropes (talk · contribs)
• Στερόπη (talk · contribs)

then some Celtic mythology names:

• Fachen (talk · contribs)
• Peg Leg Jack (talk · contribs)
• Fachin (talk · contribs)
• Direach Ghlinn Eitidh (talk · contribs)
• Dwarf of Glen Etive (talk · contribs)
• Fir Bholg (talk · contribs)
• Fomorian (talk · contribs)
• Fomóiri (talk · contribs)
• Fomóraig (talk · contribs)
• Balor of the Evil Eye (talk · contribs)
• Eochaid Bres (talk · contribs)
• Eochu Bres (talk · contribs)
• Buarainech (talk · contribs)
• Cethlenn (talk · contribs)
• Cethlion (talk · contribs)
• Ethniu (talk · contribs)
• Ethliu (talk · contribs)

more Greek names:

• Geyron (talk · contribs)
• Γίγαντες (talk · contribs)
• Gigantomachia (talk · contribs)
• Alcyoneus (talk · contribs)
• Alkyoneus (talk · contribs)
• Enkelados (talk · contribs)
• Ἐγκέλαδος (talk · contribs)
• Klytius (talk · contribs)
• Hekatonkheires (talk · contribs)
• Centimani (talk · contribs)
• Briareus the Vigorous (talk · contribs)
• Gyges the Big-Limbed (talk · contribs)
• Cottus the Striker (talk · contribs)
• Cottus the Furious (talk · contribs)

All these were created yesterday between 20:40 and 23:20; most are names of giants. --Snigbrook ^(talk) 12:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC) Another: Cottu (talk · contribs), an alternative name of Cottus the Striker / Cottus the Furious and registered around the same time. --Snigbrook ^(talk) 13:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, there were 5 other sock accounts under there. The IP is an open proxy and has now been blocked. There are too many socks to detail here, so I'm going to checkuser and block them myself here. Anyone who's interested can see them in my block logs ... - Alison ^❤ 03:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

All right, I think we're done. Checkusered / blocked / TOR'd. My block button has melted :p - Alison ^❤ 04:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello folks I strongly believe User:குறோணி is Malaylam text. Malaylam and Mediawiki do not work well together. This is in bugzilla. -- Cat ^chi? 18:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe so, but I can still run it thru checkuser with no problems at all :) - Alison ^❤ 23:15, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Which makes you more talented than mediawiki. -- Cat ^chi? 15:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

actually, the alphabet is Tamil. --Soman (talk) 07:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

For a moment I thought குறோணி was our resident Ayyavazhi troll back again. --Relata refero (disp.) 14:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Iantresman

Resolved

Iantresman was indefinitely blocked after 5 hours' discussion at WP:CSN last July. The ArbCom declined to hear an appeal of the block. However, a syllogism:

• Major premise: A user is considered community banned as long as no uninvolved admin is willing to unblock them
• Minor premise: I am willing to unblock Iantresman (talk · contribs · count)
• Conclusion: Iantresman is not considered community banned.

As such, I propose to unblock Iantresman under the following conditions:

1. Iantresman is subject to a 1RR restriction on pseudoscience-related issues, which is to be considered broadly. He may make no more than one revert on any such page in any 24-hour period.
2. Iantresman's probation instituted at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Iantresman_placed_on_Probation is reinstated until 2008-09-23, the remainder of the one-year period after deducting the time from that case until the indefinite block.
3. Iantresman is placed under the mentorship of Stifle (and two other users to be determined), who may, by unanimous agreement, terminate this arrangement and restore the indefinite block if it is determined that the arrangement is not working.

User:Coppertwig has agreed to be a second mentor; open to suggestions for a third.

Bearing in mind that the worst that can happen is that Iantresman restarts the conduct for which he was banned and is then reblocked indefinitely, I would hope that we can give him a chance to continue as normal member of the community. Opinions? Stifle (talk) 18:13, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• While the subject may no longer be considered ban, by the fact that you would unblock the editor, I suggest that you do not have consensus to perform that unblock. To unblock without consensus, or otherwise the agreement of the blocking admin, would be to Wheel War. Since consensus is required, I would support unblock as proposed by you on the basis that the third mentor should be a neutral third party - not familiar with the editor concerned. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
• Ian was a major edit warrior and all-around headache. Arbcom would have us believe "Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Wikipedia aspires to be such a respected work."[27] If past experience is any guide at all, Iantresman's renewed participation will make that aspiration more difficult to achieve. Raymond Arritt (talk) 21:03, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Certainly, but that experience is nearly a year ago. What is to say that he has not changed? If his behaviour simply carries on where he left off, then he simply gets reblocked. Stifle (talk) 10:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
• Personally, I think you need to get consensus to overturn in order to unblock, if the last consensus was to ban. Seems like there has been a few admins of late that disregard this concept. Maybe I've been reading the banning policy wrong all this time, but I thought there was a difference between a community ban (brought about by discussion) and a de-facto ban (an indef block no one is willing to re-consider). The latter can be overturned by an admin willing to do it, but the former needs a new consensus of the community (or those willing to weigh in) to make a change in the status of the user. R. Baley (talk) 21:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC) BTW, I oppose lifting it at this time. R. Baley (talk) 21:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
• Personally, I would object to Coppertwig being a mentor for any kind of contentious or aggressive editor as he already has shown an inability to control such difficult, abusive editors in his support of such an editor who took over the Che Guevara article during and subsequent to its FACR, an editor who still owns this article with Coppertwig's support. –Mattisse (Talk) 00:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • We really need to update WP:BAN policy. I'm not casting any aspersions on this situation, but it's getting rather obvious that the definition of a ban as "something no other administrator would undo" has become completely unwieldy. There are what? 2,000? More? administrators on en.wp. Again, no aspersions on anyone in this thread, but getting 2,000 people to agree on ANYTHING is nigh-impossible, even the obvious. Therefore. this definition is one that is not completely clear and gets in the way of the functioning of a smooth-running encyclopedia. Ban appeals should be reviewed by ArbCom. If they decline to take up a ban appeal, then I say that is the final answer on the situation. SirFozzie (talk) 02:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I am going to have to agree with Fozzie on this one. Iantresman has had two separate ArbCom appeals rejected. That says a great deal more about this case than I feel Stifle or Coppertwig will acknowledge. Clearly, this is an editor who has proven to be disruptive and has shown little hope of changing his ways. The articles he used to frequent are better since his absence. I know I am not an admin, but I am strongly against an unblock. Baegis (talk) 03:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
      • I am all for giving users a chance. Stifle (talk) 10:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
• Iantresman is a rather good example of a civil POV pusher, who has long history of tendentious editing on Plasma Cosmology and related or similar articles (Eric Lerner, Redshift quantization etc). Some of his project-space contributions also suggests he views policy discussions as an extension of his promotion of pseudoscientific topics. I fail to see any how he as an editor or Wikipedia as a whole would benefit from the proposed mentorship. Neither would a topic ban on science and scientists be a workable solution, as he has shown no interest in editing articles outside the domains of WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. Therefore, while he no longer can be considered banned, he should remain indefinitively blocked. – Sadalmelik ☎ 06:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • If we are going to take that approach, we need to ban everyone, and work out a way to only let back in the people where "Wikipedia as a whole would benefit" if they were editing. That would not just include POV pushers, but also those who over-zealously guard particular areas and fail to work with other editors while doing this, with predictable consequences. Good luck with that. Carcharoth (talk) 13:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
• The CSN discussion is archived at Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard/Archive10#Iantresman. Remember that the community killed off CSN because it was frequently used by teams of partisan editors as a votes for banning exercise, often without waiting for uninvolved participants to comment. That discussion was flawed from the outset; we've since learned that the multiple editors the opening statement described him as disputing with were all sock-puppets of the same user. When we eliminate the opinions by the rational skepticism meatpuppet team, all of whom are involved editors, not uninvolved; we realize that there never was a consensus of uninvolved editors in the first place. I said in the more recent ArbComm case that they should accept the case because they could impose topic based restrictions more readily than the community could. However, I think Stifle's proposed 1RR restriction is good enough, and thus I support the unblocking on those conditions. GRBerry 13:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Could you name the specific editors in the "rational skepticism meatpuppet team" so the rest of us could take this information into account when reviewing the evidence? From the CSN discussion, presumably it includes User:DGG, User:JzG, User:KillerChihuahua, User:Tom harrison, User:SirFozzie, User:Durova, and myself, among others. Thanks. Raymond Arritt (talk) 13:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I'm quite interested to hear your response myself, GRBerry. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Don't forget User:Mangojuice, User:Shell Kinney, User:Starblind, User:WAS 4.250 and User:ElinorD. That's quite the team of meatpuppets - one might almost consider some of these editors uninvolved and experienced enough to have a meaningful opinion. In the meantime, the above perpetuates an incorrect though widely held belief about the fate of WP:CSN. While a number of editors expressed concern that it had degenerated into "votes for banning", it was not in fact "killed off by the community" on that basis. A reading of the actual MfD makes clear that it was explicitly closed as "keep, but merge role and functionality back into AN/I, at least temporarily" (not "delete"). MastCell ^Talk 20:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
• No thanks. Iantresman's editing was tendentious and his debating style characterised by WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. His main function on Wikipedia was to inflate fringe topics. As for GRBerry's "rational skeptic meatpuppet team", that is semantically equal to "community of editors who support the dominant scientific conesnsus" - known where I come from as WP:NPOV. We have absolutely no need to let Iantresman back in in order to address any kind of lack of balance in article space, his contributions were entirely to unbalance article space towards the fringe. The last thing we need is yet another endlessly insistent promoter of non-mainstream views, we've got at least two dozen too many of those already and far too few people with the patience and time to hold them back. Guy (Help!) 17:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

and even more, the members of the team have radically different ideas of the course to pursue towards this NPOV--cf. my comments on some of Raymond's suggestions--and in various degrees for any other pair you may choose. Of course, we could be a alternating circle of good & bad hands in some sort of complicated plot, presumably to destroy the very mention of pseudoscience at Wikipedia. DGG (talk) 19:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

shhh... they might catch on to us... Raymond Arritt (talk) 22:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

• I'm against unblocking User:Iantresman, though my opinion is presumably moot as I am apparently a meatpuppet. Stifle states: "The worst that can happen is that Iantresman restarts the conduct for which he was banned and is then reblocked indefinitely." Actually, the worst that can happen is that Iantresman once again consumes massive amounts of volunteer time in an attempt to bend Wikipedia to the purpose of promoting a specific minoritarian agenda, and efforts to deal with him result in another yearlong trail of wikilawyering and process wonkery. Among other highlights, this editor used a checkuser-confirmed sock to evade his block and disrupt an ArbCom case. I don't see much evidence that there's been a fundamental change of heart here, and there are plenty of users ahead of Iantresman in the queue for a fifth chance. MastCell ^Talk 20:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
• Iantresmen was given a scad of chances and guidance before the ban (me being one who tried to help him); I have no confidence that continued mentoring would produce a different result. At best, the mentoring he did get just allowed him to be more sneaky about his behavior instead of changing it -- that's just not something that inspires confidence in his ability to abide by community standards. He has a very clear POV and instead of avoiding those articles he felt very strongly about, he did his best to skew articles in favor of fringe science; his behavior was classic tendentious editing. The fact that he later socked to disrupt an ArbCom case on the same topic should be the final nail in the coffin. Shell ^babelfish 20:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
• As I am not on the meatpuppet list, I presume that I have good standing and will comment here. Iantresman is a good example of a civil but agenda-driven editor. I don't propose that we keep him banned to make an example of him; instead, I propose that we keep him banned because doing so, in itself, is good for the project. It minimizes wasted time, reduces wikidrama, and keeps, at most, only a modicum of useful contributions from this site. On balance, this ban, at this point in time, still improves the project as a whole. Antelan^talk 05:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
• The argument that we can simply just play whack-a-mole with editors who have repeatedly been disruptive and detrimental to the project ignores the very important fact that to do so requires a concerted effort on the part of editors to police them and then mount the politically charged process of getting them banned again when they stray. In the meantime, they are fee to consume the time and energy of productive contributors — especially when, as in this case, they are accomplished Wikilawyers. Given the testimonials, above, I don't think we should be playing this game with this user. --Haemo (talk) 06:20, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
• Based on the above consensus not to unblock Iantresman I am not going to continue with this proposal. Stifle (talk) 13:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

removal of RfA comment

Resolved

 – Non-contentious removal --Bfigura ^(talk) 05:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Since the community has repeatedly upheld Kurt Weber's right to comment in RfAs as he sees fit, I'd like to draw admin attention to the following: KojiDude (talk · contribs) had opposed in Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Coppertwig like this.

Tiptoety (talk · contribs) first replied to KojiDude's oppose, and in turn supported the RfA here. He then went on to remove KojiDude's !vote instead, while Wisdom89 (talk · contribs) decided that the !vote and the entire conversation doesn't even belong.

Now back to Kurt Weber: Either, or. All, or none. Which is it gonna be? Dorftrottel (talk) 04:37, May 7, 2008

The user clearly stated that their !vote was a joke, and they were going to remove it in the future. It was in no way constructive and was disrespectful to the candidate. And as such I saw no harm in removing the !vote from the RfA. Tiptoety ^talk 04:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

We've established many times that people are entitled to comment however they want but it's hard for me to get really upset over the removal of a joke vote. I wouldn't have removed it myself since we usually don't even remove sock votes unless they're extremely disruptive but rather just strike and indent them with a note explaining it was a sock for the closing crat. Unless they're really disruptive or violate policy, I think comments should be left and the closing crat can ignore it or weight it as they wish. But I find it rather ridiculous that people are even arguing over a joke vote; seriously, it seems like a pretty trivial thing to be bickering over. Sarah 05:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I concur the vote was tasteless and inappropriate. Humor is welcome at times, but not in the form of an oppose, which, quite frankly, was confusing and of course lead to an unnecessary clutter of commentary, hence why I choice to remove the conversation and place it within the discussion page. I did not simply delete it. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 05:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Please understand that I did not remove the !vote, but instead just striked it. I found it tasteless and inappropriate in that venue. No harm done, now lets move on? Tiptoety ^talk 05:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The difference between Kurt's opposes and Koji's is that Kurt makes his opposes in seriousness. I don't care either way if Koji's oppose stays or goes but I do know that it's definitely not worth opening an AN thread about. -- Naerii 05:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Naerii, Kurt is making a serious point, the joke is a poor one and disrespectful of the candidate. It was correctly removed. Dean B (talk) 05:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I also have to disagree with this "all or nothing" wording. One is obviously made as a joke, and the other is a serious point. I strongly support the removal of the vote. bibliomaniac15 Do I have your trust? 05:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

So I trust that we can all move on then. There seems to be general agreement that the analogy to Kurt's oppositions is wholly inaccurate. Shall someone mark this as resolved? Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 05:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is worth opening an AN thread about, there are issues at RfA, this lack of decorum and respect for a serious process has continued on to RfB where jokes are entered among opposes, and I respectfully ask that Sarah analyze further and reconsider her position. There's a discussion on my talk page that barely touches the tip of the iceberg. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you are contradicting yourself with that statement, you feel that the issue should have been brought to AN, but you disagree with the reason it was brought here? You think that the removal of joke comments at RfA's are a good idea, but that is not why this thread was opened. The right place for this type of discussion would be at WT:RFA. So I am not sure what point you are trying to make. Tiptoety ^talk 01:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

User Peter Napkin Party

Resolved

User:Peter Napkin Party's block should be reviewed. It was claimed that his account was a vandalism-only account and so was blocked indef. It is patently obvious that his account was NOT a vandalism only account as claimed by the blocking admin. In light of the constructive edits he brought to the project, it is my humble opinion that he should be reinstated into Wikipedia, his blocking time should be lowered to a week, and we should pat him on the back for all the good work he has done, especially the contributions concerning Mother of the Forest and my personal favorite author, Jim Haskins. Thank you for considering my input. Signed--A concerned and anonymous editor. 20:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like vandalism to me. [28]. [29] Corvus cornix_talk 20:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I just think an indef block is a bit extreme.I don't want it to be the case where we turn away a good editor because of this. The way I see it is: he could never edit wikipedia again, in which case everyone loses because Peter won't be able to enjoy the thrills of editing and other editors loose because they will not have the joys of collaborating with him, and all the world will loose because the insights and information he brings to the project will be no more.134.53.15.58 (talk) 20:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History&diff=next&oldid=210871534 looks like someone fixing things up to me. 134.53.15.58 (talk) 20:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, fixing things up that he vandalized first. Corvus cornix_talk 21:00, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

• Your complaint would be more valid if you weren't actually Peter Napkin Party yourself (but you are), and if you hadn't created 5 new sockpuppet accounts just before going on your little spree today [30] (but you did). Your request, with suitable apologies and promises to never do it again, can be handled on your talk page (if you can remember which one to use). Thatcher 20:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Heh. I think the word "resolved" springs to mind here. Black Kite 21:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Good one134.53.15.58 (talk) 21:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
    • You all should be prepared. 134.53.15.58 (talk) 21:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
      • For what? Is that a threat? Should we notify the University of Miami that a user from there is violating their Internet use policies? Corvus cornix_talk 21:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you mean Miami University (the one in Ohio, not in Florida). Deor (talk) 01:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I always get those backwards.  :) Corvus cornix_talk 18:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Featured Article - Israel

Resolved

 – Israel is no longer the mainpage FA

Israel is today's featured article. I suggest folks watchlist this one, 'cuz it's gonna get slammed by vandalism. -- Kesh (talk) 00:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Talk about timing! <eleland/talkedits> 00:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It's been semiprotected by Maxim after only two edits. I strongly disagree with this. - auburnpilot talk 00:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, an article on the mainpage should only be protected in response to extreme vandalism and should never been done preemptively. Tiptoety ^talk 00:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

No, no, no, and no. This article cannot survive on the Main Page without semi-protection, and Maxim was 100% correct in re-adding the semi-protection, regardless of the amount of time and/or vandalism between Auburn's action and Maxim's. Articles like this one that are on indefinite protection simply would be pummeled beyond recognition were it not for the semi-protection. This kind of action would not be unprecedented; it was done last year, on July 1, when Islam was Today's Featured Article (and even with the semi-protection, there was disruption abound). I wholeheartedly object to the slavish adherence to a rule; leave the article semi-protected as it has never worked well, even off the Main Page, without it. Unprotecting it would be an invitation for disaster. -- tariqabjotu 00:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Let's semi-protect it overnight. No harm. Bearian (talk) 00:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

(As the one who created the don't-protect-FAs-on-the-mainpage policy) I agree 100% with Tariqabjotu - this is one of those articles that show never be un-semiprotected. Raul654 (talk) 00:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection is adequate - main page + discretionary sanctions = uh-oh. It's rather shocking that an article under such sanctions has remained an FA. Sceptre ^(talk) 00:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with semi-protection. I've never really gotten the use of NOPRO. We already have a bad reputation as a website where people can add any crap they want. Clicking on the featured article and having people's suspicions confirmed does nothing to help us. bibliomaniac15 Do I have your trust? 01:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Having people click on the featured article only to see YOUR MOM SUCKS COCK! doesn't improve Wikipedia's reputation. Especially with an article that is such a vandalism magnet, semi-protection seems very appropriate. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course it depends on article (say if a hockey FA I wrote gets on the Main Page it's not going to be vandalised too badly), but Israel is a special case, and if unprotected and not visible on the Main Page, it might last an hour. On the Main Page, there's simply no chance for it. Maxim_(talk) 01:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I also support the sprotection. I usually avoid instating sprotection on the Main Page featured articles but Israel gets the same kind of barration as George W. Bush does. Doubt articles like these will ever be safe to open to anons.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 01:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I writed u an FA...but dey protekted it.

Well, then, may I have a volunteer to take the position of deciding which articles should and should not be protected as they appear on the main page? I've been move protecting them for a little while now, as it was a no thought task, but I don't wish to play these sorts of games. I will defer to somebody else from this point forward. They are currently protected up to the 14th, so if somebody will pick up after that point, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, - auburnpilot talk 01:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

AuburnPilot, to me, it's simply telling high-risk vandal targets apart. Like Israel. Maxim_(talk) 01:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

But isn't any article on the mainpage a "high risk vandal target"? Tiptoety ^talk 01:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep - even the Hamersley, Western Australia article had to be semi'd at one point when it was TFA. Orderinchaos 16:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, and not only that, it's the article that gives newcomers their first impression of what to expect in a Wikipedia article. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

What I mean it's even more of a risk even with the Main Page. Do we need even more of an incentive to see swastikas on the Main Page article? ;-) Maxim_(talk) 01:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Remember the dot has nailed it. It is about optimising the impression we give newcomers. Usually we do that by showing how wonderfully open we are, but sometimes we are better off displaying our ability to respond to abuse of that openness. Hesperian 01:27, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that any article under near-permanent semiprotection should be semi-protected when it's on the main page. --Carnildo (talk) 01:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Leaving this article open would be foolish. Resolute 03:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

(To rememeber the dot): I think the benefits of protection Israel outwight the negatives. Maxim_(talk) 01:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and I especially agree with Hesperian's well-phrased comment. I would also say that it's more important to keep vandalism off the featured article of the day than it is to keep the featured article free and open during the time when it's the prime target for vandal attack. These articles already have to go through a brutal peer review process, so they shouldn't require much editing anyway. 24-hour semiprotection of one article a day isn't going to ruin our free-and-open philosophy. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

← Aaaaaand it's been unprotected by Thebainer. This is not going to end well... -- Kesh (talk) 03:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I've alerted Thebainer of this thread. Hopefully we can avoid a wheel war. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 03:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Raul654 has already re-protected it. Wheel goes round and round... This should really stay semi'ed at least through today, if not indef. -- Kesh (talk) 03:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

What I'm finding hard to understand is why this article was chosen to be on the main page if we knew prior to this that it was going to have to remain sprotected whilst up there. We have plenty of FAs to choose from, and there are already some that are unofficially never going to be on the main page, Israel should have been one of those. We should always choose article to go on the mainpage that can remain open so we at least give the impression to new editors our articles are very much open for anyone to edit. Ryan Postlethwaite 09:32, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

To recognise the wonderful work of Tariqabjotu et. al. (I think those were the authors, sorry if I'm wrong!) to our community, and the world? I would like to be anyone-can-edit, but I think we can go one day without an album article on the main page in exchange for showcasing this brilliant work. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 11:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with dihydrogen monoxide. Editorofthewiki^{review my edits here!} 11:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Ryan makes a good point - Raul, perhaps in future we avoid FAs that are under permanent semi-protection on the main page? What do you think? It's not like we are short of featured articles. I'm still waiting for Edward Low to get on there. Neıl ☎ 12:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Playing devil's advocate, we shouldn't avoid controversial FAs on the main page. I'd still love to get Waterboarding to FA, for example, some day, but Lord knows that will get hammered to holy hell as well if it were main paged. Ditto for any FA on any major American politician. Lawrence Cohen § t/e 16:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Isn't the Main Page featured article supposed to illustrate what's best about Wikipedia?

• Coverage of a controversial subject with quality writing and a neutral point of view?
• The encyclopedia anyone can edit?

If you restrict the main page to non-protected articles you won't be fulfilling the first objective. If you allow protected articles you're violating the last point and making the article look like it's locked down to a particular point of view. What's the harm of this article not having protection? Surely there are enough people watching it that any vandalism would be reverted in a heartbeat. Neapolitan Sixth (talk) 18:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with the current semi-edit-protection and sysop-move-protection. —TreasuryTag—t—c 18:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

And the wheel war continues...*sigh*¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 21:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Notified the admin in question of this discussion. --Bfigura ^(talk) 21:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

And now re-protected by the same. --Bfigura ^(talk) 21:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Howdy! Sorry about the "wheel warring", I didn't realize this was a hot topic. I changed the article back to being protected since that seems to be what people want. I am surprised though. I've had two articles featured on the Main Page, both feminists, one a Jewish anarchist feminist. Obviously, they could both be considered "vandalism magnets", but I left them unprotected the entire time because that was the policy. If we're going to make exceptions to the policy, it should be rewritten. Kaldari (talk) 21:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Good point, but WP:IAR always works just as good ;).¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 21:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

While individual feminists might draw in some vandals, Israel is such a hot-topic worldwide that it's going to be vandalized on a nigh-continuous basis. I agree that typically the FA should not be protected until necessary, but this is one of those occasions it's inevitable that the lock will have to be put on. -- Kesh (talk) 22:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Some software glitch at Wikipedia

Resolved

There seems to be some glitch here. Otherwise I don't understand what happened with my talk page. A week ago, I made this edit to it (I stole a code from someone else a while ago.) The intention was to make my page display a message I saw fit to an occasion most prominently, but allow anyone to see the rest of the page by clicking on a "show" button, similarly to the hide-option in some templates. It worked exactly as intended but today it suddenly stopped working (I do not see the hide/show buttons in classic wikipedia interface at both my talk page and my userpage which was not edited ever since. Is it an unintended consequence of some software modification, code, glitch, etc.? If someone knows how to fix it, please feel free to do so at my userpage and talk directly. But I am not posting here to ask to fix my user and talk (I am not Jimbo or Giano to be entitled to do that :) ). I am posting in case this is indeed a glitch that needs to be fixed. --Irpen 04:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I see a show button that works. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 04:14, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It is seemingly working for me, as well. Note that I use Firefox and the monobook skin. Lazulilasher (talk) 04:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Started to work again. Whatever caused it, the problem disappeared. Thanks, --Irpen 05:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

For future reference, this would have been better placed at WP:VPT. Happy‑melon 08:32, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Ryanleyland edit to Vagina

Resolved

The above now indef blocked editor included a name and cellphone number (presumably their own) to the above article, as well as to Penis and Pornographic actor. I removed the edit from the histories of the last two by deleting and undeleting, but Vagina is too big has too many edits. Is this information serious enough to request Oversight, or is there any other way the info can be removed? LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Oversighted. --bainer (talk) 15:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Someone needs to re-protect penis, it got unprotected when restored. And I though the limit was supposed to be 5,000 edits now? - The log says 6,572 for that article. The way, the truth, and the light (talk) 15:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done Happy‑melon 15:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Yup, the penis delete seemed to hang up a bit - and I was surprised to find I was undeleting 6500 plus edits. The vagina undelete request was rejected immediately, so perhaps there is some fine tuning required for the 5000+ delete barrier? LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC) ps. sorry about neglecting checking the protection log.

Undelete two images

Resolved

 – Images restored for tagging by user. KrakatoaKatie 21:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

See the discussion here. [31] ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Something very wrong with Eucharist

Resolved

If anyone knows how to fix the image and remove the vandalism commentary at the top of the page, please feel free to do so. Thanks. John Carter (talk) 00:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be fixed now. Nakon 00:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I was still seeing it 12 minutes after the edit, but you're right. I got no clue how the changes weren't visible to me earlier, but it looks like the matter is resolved. John Carter (talk) 00:23, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Same, it took a while for the serve to catch up or something. Tiptoety ^talk 00:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of local images already on Commons

Attention, all Admins.

When deleting an image, such as Commons:Image:Magdalen-cliffside.jpg (previously at Image:Magdalen-cliffside.jpg), with the reason CSD I8: Image exists on the Commons, please make sure that, when the source is given as the English Wikipedia, all the required information has been transferred to the Commons image. If not, please do not delete the local file until the Commons file has all the necessary information. This will prevent many cross-wiki headaches and ensure that many free images do not end up getting deleted because of poor image descriptions. (The example given is just an example of an image that was uploaded to the Commons from en.wp, not necessarily one missing required info.) Anrie (talk) 07:59, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Full instructions here. Make sure you RTM. :) GDonato (talk) 14:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I have, but some admins here seem not to, so I thought I'd mention it here again. Anrie (talk) 06:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

People should use WP:MTC it maintains all needed information and is very effective. β^{_{command 2}} 00:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for changing location of edit button back to right hand side

I just wanted to drop a note of thanks to whomever changed the location of the edit button back to right hand side. It looks much better that way. -- Guroadrunner (talk) 22:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Technical glitches cause the edit button to appear on the left every once in a while. It's not intentional. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)