Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive74

Impartial uninvolved admin needed to close consensus debate

There is a hotly contested template at Template:911ct. There is a discussion here over aspects of naming the template. That discussion has pretty much run its course, and we need an experienced editor, probably an admin, who has not edited any 9/11 articles, and who will look at the arguments over naming with a wholly impartial eye, and bring formal closure to the debate, ideally with a rationale.

The template is currently locked to prevent edit warring. I believe that the result of the debate will allow it to be unlocked and we all hope that people on either side will acknowledge and work within consensus.

Any volunteers? Fiddle Faddle 16:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but do you know what scares me? I don't think there is any consensus there. But 99% of sane, educated people would choose "Conspiracy". To call these nonsense theories "Alternative" is (frankly) nuts. Dave 21:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

ETA: And that, of course, is the problem with consensus... Dave 21:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I would think that a consensus also includes the rationale of the arguments put forward, though? Fiddle Faddle 23:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

208.101.43.146

This IPvandal account appears to exist for one reason alone, and that is to add fictitious info to List of characters in Ed, Edd n Eddy. The user has already been blocked five times for this behavior, the last time for a period of one month, and immediately began to vandalize the page again when the block expired. He has been warned twice, and reported twice in the past 24 hours, but apparently, no admin wants to be the one to deliver the death sentence to this pest. The reportings simply were not acted on. Will someone please review this situation, and take the appropriate action? It gets very tiring having to revert this vandal's edits three or four times in a day. Thank you. -- Elaich 18:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked this IP address indefinitely; if another admin wishes to shorten the block, feel free. I didn't disable account creation. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Please don't block IPs indefinitely...IPs change hands. Durova^Charge! 20:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, sorry. Thanks for fixing it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I understand not blocking IPs indefinitely, but how are we to be protected from this vandal otherwise? The vandal has not shown one ounce of good faith. The IP address has been static ever since he/she began vandalizing, and the user did not use another account or IP address to vandalize during any of the blocks, which seems to indicate that he/she either cannot switch IPs, or has been permanently banned in the past from creating a Wikipedia account. This is why I don't understand the Wikipedia policy of allowing anonymous users to edit. Anybody can create an account, and if it was required, the whole issue of IPvandals would disappear. -- Elaich 07:19, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Not blocking IPs indefinitely does not mean one can't block IPs for a long time. I know of a case where the user's static IP address was blocked for 6 months a time. --cesarb 07:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I changed this block to six months. The longest I've ever heard of for an IP is one year. I imposed one of those: a static IP with a long history of vandalism posted a suicide note to the site. So I looked up the location and filed a report with the Pennsylvania state police. (Was it trolling? A troubled teenager? I didn't know, but it seemed like the right thing to do and people supported me.) Shortly afterward the vandalism resumed. So okay, this person didn't eat a loaded revolver, but my tolerance sank right down to zero. Durova^Charge! 21:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Bot gone wild

-:) A bot User:STBot is changing multiple articles however many of these changes are wrong. The owner is offline and I wish until he came online someone stop the bot. The problem is that bot is claiming articles related to Afghanistan which have nothing to do with Afghanistan. For example these are 101% Pakistani thing Command and Staff College, Balochistan Engineering College, Balochistan University of Engineering and Technology, Gwadar International Airport, Barkhan District, Gulistan (Pakistan) Balochistan University of Engineering and Technology, Kohlu District, Quetta Electric Supply Company and many many more. Similarly many other mistakes by bot for example Holiest sites in Islam are now in Afghanistan project. I know if you look in more detail you will find kind of mistakes made by the bot and it is still runing. So stop it. --- ALM

I have blocked for now. Will also leave a notice on the bot owner's talk page. The bot is also making edits at a much higher rate than the normal stipulated rate — Lost^(talk) 13:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Danke! --- ALM 13:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Hm. Grunt. This isn't the first of these wikiproject-article-tagging bots that I've seen that hasn't done exactly what it was supposed to, either. Moreschi ^Deletion! 13:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I run a similar bot. But in this case, the owner seems to have picked up entirely irrelevant categories. I guess they just need to be more careful while picking categories for tagging — Lost^(talk) 13:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi! All the articles were directly in a category listed at User:ST47/AfghanistanSandbox, and the bot run was requested at WP:BOTREQ#Afghanistan_articles, the wikiproject people, who know a lot more than my geographically-challenged mind, looked through that list and fixed it, and I have no clue what category those other articles came from, but I've never had articles just appear before. ST47Talk 13:29, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest picking up the categories more carefully. The damage is caused by irrelevant subcategories that may have more than one parent cat. For example, Gulistan (Pakistan) which is in Category:Qilla Abdullah District. If you go about 4-5 categories up in the hierarchies, one of the parent cats is somehow related to Afghanistan. The project people need to give you much better categorisation. A similar solution is need for the Spain tagging too. I am unblocking the bot for now, but please discuss with the project people before you resume the tagging. And please undo the tagging that has been done so far as it will need a bot to undo — Lost^(talk) 13:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Above examples (in my original post) was not listed there but still bot changed those pages. I have not listed all of the bot mistakes but only few of them. Bot has made too many mistakes I guess. Obviously no sense in including Pakistani President in Afghanistan project?. Right? --- ALM 13:38, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm working on reverting the spanish ones - I have 46 (I didn't get too far there, thank god :D ST47Talk 13:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Removed 32. I can do any incorrect Afghanistan categories a la bot if need be. ST47Talk 13:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I suggest undo all its todays edits please. --- ALM 13:51, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

It is not done with all the article of Pakistan under Afghanistan. I have tried to do some of them by hand but do not have time to do so many of them. I will appreciate the fix. Thanks . --- ALM 17:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Cut/paste user not stopping, need Pakistan-related admin

Muhammadhani (talk · contribs) has been moving articles by cutting/pasting them. He has been doing that since last year, generating articles with history split between two articles, and apparently continues to do so. He seems to be from Pakistan. Could an administrator with knowledge about their language drop a note to him? He hasn't acknowledged the messages, and it becomes a bother when several users had already warned him to stop doing this. If he does not stop, I would have to block him until he acknowledges the warnings. -- ReyBrujo 14:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, here is a list of articles that need history merge, feel free to give a hand. I used to history merge them, but now I am not sure if the new names are ok or not.

1. Daily Express, Pakistan to Daily Express (Urdu Newspaper)
2. Mahmudabad, Pakistan to Mahmudabad (Karachi)
3. List of universities in Karachi District to List of universities in Karachi
4. Buffer Zone-I to Buffer Zone II
5. Godhra Karachi to Godhra (Karachi)
6. Khokhra Par (neighborhood) to Khokhra Par (Karachi)
7. Muzafarabad Karachi to Muzafarabad (Karachi)
8. Civic Centre Karachi to Civic Centre (Karachi)
9. Sui (Pakistan) to Sui (Balochistan)

I will contact Wikipedia:WikiProject Pakistan to see if they can give a hand in "controlling" this user. -- ReyBrujo 15:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed every copy-paste move I could find. I will contact this user about his actions.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 03:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Need uninvolved person to close username rfc

This has gone on for a while: WP:RFCN#MikeHunt35_.28talk_.E2.80.A2_contribs.29

It needs to be closed, but is a close call, and most people who handle these closings have participated in the debate. Thanks. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I have closed it as "allow". If there are any fancy templates that need to be added to the debate please do so. Kusma (討論) 16:02, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks no fancy templates, we just close them and remove them with an edit summary describing the outcome. An automated bot generates the archive later. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 16:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Since you guys get the resulting workload

This is just a heads up about changes proposed regarding template deletion (speedy) processes and procedures proposed by CBDunkerson. See Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion
   Especially, please take note of the heretofore unhearalded {{R from other templates}} and consider jumping in on a tagging/cleanup effort in the odd moment on Special:Unusedtemplates, if such are redirects.
   Also need to begin religiously using that on TfD close-outs, as well as back edits on moves/renaming changes, one would think. Regards. // FrankB 16:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Don Murphy wants an Admin

Film producer Don Murphy has recently expressed an interest in "purchasing" an admin. This request was removed from his board when User:Kynn found out about it. Mr. Murphy has reposted his request here: Shitapedia- Updated. A member of his forum apparently has an admin who is willing to be bought out. This really isn't a problem if the admin does decide to allow his account to be used, he would most likely be blocked from editing indefinatly. I have notified users who have worked with/against Mr. Murphy on Wikipedia and those who were mentioned on his forum. These users are Kynn, HighInBC, Centrx, and Natalya. Philip Gronowski ^Contribs 18:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I would not worry too much about it... I think even a dishonest admin would need at least a couple years pay to blow their admin bit. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 18:21, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

For context, Don Murphy is apparently User:ColScott. —Centrx→talk • 19:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

No worry, an admin willing to sell an account it not an admin we would want anyway. I just hope that, if there really is an admin willing to take this offer, that he/she doesn't know the only two really destructive things an admin could do. Someone once offered a Steward 2000(I don't remember if it was euros or dollars) to create an admin account for them ;-). Prodego ^talk 19:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I cannot think of anything that cannot be reversed by going through the admin's logs. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 19:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect. —Centrx→talk • 19:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

While technical things done by admins can be reversed, nothing can be reversed like the lasting emotional imprint on someone who has been blocked unfairly or had their article deleted. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 21:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow. What a nice man. Would there be some benefit in suggesting the WMF office perhaps touch base with this guy and have a discussion about his issues? I'd say that attempting to buy an admin for causing mayhem might concern them somewhat. Tony Fox (arf!) 19:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I was just looking at his message board and neither the person who apparently knows an admin nor Mr. Murphy have posted again. I think it is resonable to assume that they are continuing their dealings through e-mail. While the account can be bought, they are unlikely to have the skills to do any lasting damage. We can hope that the admin has good character and refuses the offer. If I knew how to, I would certainly take it to WMF, but I doubt they could do much about it. Philip Gronowski ^Contribs 19:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

What's needed here is a sting operation to publicly offer large amounts of money to buy an admin name and password to weed out the admins that bite at the forbidden fruit. Then go public with it to poison future such attempts. Repeat as often as needed. WAS 4.250 20:41, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Lol, but that would be dishonest. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 20:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

...as accepting the offer would be. Picaroon 20:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Two wrongs don't make a right. --Conti|✉ 21:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the warning. Can we be sure that this is the real Don Murphy? --Kim Bruning 21:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

ROFL! When I first read the title of this thread I thought it was a new wrinkle on the casting couch. Of course I have basic ethics. Tell Mr. Murphy I'm within driving range of Hollywood and I'll give him a chrome plated tour of Wikipedia in return for a tour of the set at his next film. Durova^Charge! 21:19, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

For enough money I will... sing him a song on my user page. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 21:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I am dead positive that this is Mr. Murphy. It is a message board based off of his official website, http://www.donmurphy.net/. The request was also posted by an administrator of the site by the handle of Don Murphy. Philip Gronowski ^Contribs 21:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

And I'm dead serious about my offer: I'm really not all that far from Los Angeles and I wouldn't mind doing a little (G rated) Wikidiplomacy. Durova^Charge! 21:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Dream100 / User:Japanese Dog Calvero

I'm asking for a long block or a permanent ban on the user User:Dream100 and his three sockpuppets User:Japanese Dog Calvero, User:59.117.191.87 and 59.117.180.197. This user's activities is focused on vandalising pages and he has a history of deeply racist attacks [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] Other users and myself have pointed out that this behaviour is not acceptable and can get him blocked, but instead of changing his behaviour he insults people on their user pages [6], [7]. When his accounts as User:Dream100 was blocked, he created the account User:Japanese Dog Calvero. That it is the same user we are dealing with can be seen both from the identical vandalism edits with a racist motive, directed against Iranians as well as from the user's was of expressing himself [8]. I have warned him on his user page about the behaviour, but he continuously blanks the page and responds with insults [9], [10]. Given his behaviour, I don't see how the user User:Dream100 / User:Japanese Dog Calvero / User:59.117.191.87 /59.117.180.197 contributes in any way to Wikipedia expect that his constant vandalism and racism causes offense and extra work for responsible users. JdeJ 18:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

And he continues [11]. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JdeJ (talk • contribs) 20:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

User:Platus Satire Mark 2: User:Lir?

I recall seeing the above mentioned user being banned here after about two years worth of waiting out year long bans, coming back, causing the same riot and revolt that got them banned in the first place, and getting banned for another year. I also note that the notorious long term vandal User:Lightbringer was similarly officially bumped off after sockpuppeting and attacks.

As such, I suggest consideration of another long term trouble-user who keeps coming back with sockpuppets/open proxies in defiance of their ban: Lir (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Since being banned by the Arbitration Commission on New Year's Day 2005, he has steadily returned and had his ban extended through two straight years and a month or so. 68.39.174.238 18:51, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I played the main role in kicking both of them off Wikipedia, so this intrigues me. Has Lir edited recently? If so, where? Raul654 19:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Zoe issued the latest block for "New vandalism", what sockpuppet or where I don't know (I admit I wasn't paying much attention at the time). If you know this user well and think it may be worth not going through with this with him, that's fine with me. 68.39.174.238 00:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Server Loading vaccinations need

Seems sensible to add

There was a significant change to WP:DPP this weekend, relative to templates tagged with {{interwikitmp-grp}}, as I'm fairly sure editing the latter on the last two occasions locked the data-base for a time... a geometric propagation effect of so many tools templates in wide use being tagged and exported to our under manned sister projects.
   For those unfamilar, this is the best online discription of the proto-project currently available. Now that it's moving out of experimentation into minimal implementation, I'll be innaugerating a project page (just in!!!)... and this is and would be an assist in freeing up time for that. The specialist normally editing many sisters are both undermanned and have not our wide deep pool of template coders, and viewing some of their VP posts (How can I do this... stuff) is eye-opening, as are the responses.
   If some have a moment to assist in adding the 'doc page pattern' technique to such tools templates, especially the protected templates, this will be a big help in innoculating (preventing) the system from such server loads. The {{interwiki doc page pattern}} subst'd gives a boilerplate on the /doc page, so only a little cutting and pasting is needed to achieve a permanent fix.
   Two caveats:

1. The syntax <noinclude>{{/doc}}</noinclude> does not work on most other sister projects, so please use the longer equivilent <noinclude>{{{{PAGENAME}}/doc}}</noinclude> or the verbatim boilerplate if aiding this small [List cat: Interwiki utility templates] tasking bubble.
      
2. The next stage evolution uses parameters and will delete the interwikitmp-grpNN suffixed pages, so if you convert those to {{interwikitmp-grp}}, per suffixed 'NN' tag now inplace, will be a big assist. See either {{template list/doc}} or {{tlw/doc}} for call examples. And I (and perhaps others like you?) can get on with making the write-up for the trial project into a concrete project from Meta. I'm a little time tight right now and all help much appreciated. Thanks, regards FrankB 22:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:RM backlog and Talk:Ethnic Japanese

Hello. GT, Pat, Duja and the crew normally do stellar work in keeping the requested move page flowing but the girth of recent move request have put a bit of a backlog on the page and I hope that other admins could help tackle it. One particular move that could certainly benefit from having a few extra set of eyes take a look is the move request on Talk:Ethnic Japanese. It been open for 10 days now and has been suprisingly contentious despite having a grand total of 6 editors commenting on it. This is the second move request on this page within a month. Thanks! 205.157.110.11 22:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Personal attack made by User:68.173.168.91 on User:MattSignorile

The user User:68.173.168.91 made a personal attack on User:MattSignorile. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Staten_Island_Technical_High_School&oldid=105591091 This IP address has a history of repeated vandalism to the page mentioned above. User:68.173.168.91 has been blocked two times. LordKenTheGreat 22:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:AIV

We need a administrator to look over and decide at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. Thank you! --Extranet ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 08:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism warnings in different languages

For some time now, I have been telling Dutch vandals in Dutch not to vandalise Wikipedia. See for instance [12], [13] and [14]. I believe that addressing a vandal in his or her own language has a better chance to get the message across. A problem with this, however, is that admins who do not speak Dutch will not be able to see that the vandal has been warned before. Could standardized templates in other languages (for instance test-nl, test-es, test-fr, test-fy, test-bg etc.) help overcome this problem? The vandal will be addressed in his/her own language, and other admins will be able to see which warning has been issued. Aecis^Brievenbus 13:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I sometimes warn in the vandal's own language, so I agree that such warnings work better than doing so in English. I'd think that it's clear from context that the warning is a warning, but perhaps adding <!--Test1 warning--> or whatever it is from the actual warning templates might be useful and less trouble? 〈REDVEЯS〉 13:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's a decent idea, but is it worth remembering that if someone is unable to speak English, they probably shouldn't be editing en.wikipedia in the first place? Vandals in particular. Proto::► 13:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not inability to speak English, rather English being a second language. I find you can have more effect on someone by speaking to them in their first language - it really rams the point home. 〈REDVEЯS〉 13:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

We've got a little bit here, at least for some languages; these could be used as 'starting points' Lectonar 13:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Roger the red

Roger the red (talk · contribs) (RTR) is a combative user who has violated several policies and guidelines. He was previously banned due to legal threats but has returned and is almost as combative as before.

RTR is the head of a very small film production company, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company (AMBC), which is the main focus of his editing. In addition to writing about the AMBC and promoting it (some if it arguably legitimate), he's also questioned and removed the competings claims of another film company.(#) Many of RTR's edits have served to promote the legacy of his father and in several cases appeared intended to settle perceived mistreatment of him by others.(#) He's created or made edits to articles about himself(#), his family and friends, and his company, and has added links to them from many articles. In the course of his editing RTR has attacked the purported agendas of other editors and claimed harassment(#, [15]), made demands, and issued legal threats to other editors (#) (one of which resulted in the ban of an earlier account (#)). RTR has disrupted the articles of other studios in order to make points about the editing of his company's article.(#) He's added copyrighted text from other websites(#) and complained when they were identified.([16]) He's made extensive use of dispute resolution processes including requesting peer review, seeking mediation, emailing OTRS, getting an advocate, adding editing tags, and making contact with uninvolved editors(#)(#) In spite of all of his complaints and requests for help no other editors have supported his positions significantly (that I've noticed). That makes his efforts appear to violate WP:Wikilawyering. He's identified himself by name previously(#) but now claims to be a new, totally disinterested editor (#) despite an obvious continuity of behavior (#). By doing so he appears to be evading a block and abusing the alternate accounts privilege.

Because of the block evasion, the incivility and ongoing threats, the violations of WP:POINT and WP:COI, and other problems this editor has shown himself to be unable to edit in a neutral fashion or to respect our policies. I think that a community ban is called for. -Will Beback · † · 05:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support community ban based on the material at User:Will Beback/AMBC. This user is obviously not inclined to contribute to Wikipedia in any way, except for promotional purposes. As he's not commented here yet, I'm open to changing my mind in case of a persuasive rebuttal. Sandstein 07:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support community ban. Wherever he goes, whoever he deals with, the results have been the same. — Walloon 08:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I was completely unfamiliar with this user, so I read Will's page. It's pretty obvious that this user is a POV pusher with an agenda who is combative and stops at nothing to get his way. I agree with the ban, mostly on the grounds of POINT and WP:AUTO as well as major problems with conflict of interest. It might be ok if he had shown any ability to separate his responsibility to his company from his responsibility with being a neutral editor on Wikipedia but I see no evidence of it. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 12:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I haven't been following recent events, but have been involved in the Mutoscope and American Mutoscope and Biograph Company and regard this user as a self-promoter and POV-warrior of pitbull tenacity. I agree with Will Beback that he seems to be "unable to edit in a neutral fashion." Dpbsmith (talk) 17:20, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I've followed enough of this to agree with Will. It's time to close the door on this disruption. Durova^Charge! 22:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support I've just looked through the evidence page. Tyrenius 04:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Could one of the uninvolved admins please place the block? -Will Beback · † · 05:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Done.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 06:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Response

moved from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents -Will Beback · † · 07:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

First, I apologize for the lengthy posting. I am a film fan/historian. I am from NYC and now live in Los Angeles. I am new to Wikipedia and thought it would be a good source to contribute pertinent information on film history and its companies. I thought it would be fun, and I was in for a great surprise and disappointment. I was to start from the beginning, which was Gaumont, Pathe, and American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. The third article mentioned and its discussions intrigued me and after looking at it further the article looked mauled at best. I then continued on the "Sprouts" which were the people involved and its history. by this I mean attempting to contribute to the information. By doing this triggered a controversy worse than the 1950's McCarthy hearings. Every little thing I did with this article was questioned and scrutinized. This can be seen by going to all talk pages on the subject. With time allowance, I then tried to study and learn about Wiki-Policies and protocol. I am thorough and attempted to follow this in good faith. However, I was constantly confronted by -Will Beback and a coalition that is and has been in contact with. I decided that along with my other contributions not to edit American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, this controversial article but to "Tag" this and attempt to bring in other neutral editors for their contribution which was according to Wiki-Policies.

Here comes the rub. I was accused by Will Beback of being a member of the new company mentioned in the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company article. I responded of course and even contacted an AMA advocate Tutmosis since I knew no one on Wikipedia. I even had no problem with removing the "Dispute" tag, but I wanted other contributing editors to come onboard.

With this has now sparked another attempt by this editor against me, now for "Block Evasion" (See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Roger the red) in which I am again accused of being part of this new company claiming to be American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. I am also accused of being "Uncivil", "Disruptive", etc., in which I have not. As I mentioned earlier, I do not know anyone on Wikipedia since I am new, except my AMA advocate Tutmosis. this is even mentioned by administrator Will Beback using this as a "Weak" point. Will Beback is now resorting to uncalled for measures to block me as an editor rather than to civilly discuss the situation, or go through channels of Dispute Resolution, Mediation, or Arbitration which I would be completely agreeable. I also feel that the "Supporters" that he has are associates and know this administrator on a personal level. In all I feel he is using his administrative powers in an inappropriate way. Because of these actions, I want to make an open informal complaint over the behavior of Will Beback.
--Roger the red 03:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

• Invoking McCarthyism is not going to help your case any. The reason your editing attracted attention was because it gave all the impressions of what we call vanispamcruftisement - that is, edits which are vain and self-promotional. What possible motive would we have to drive away people who made many edits, unless they were problematic? Guy (Help!) 10:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Will did a good job here. I fully support his actions. If you want to come back, abide by the community decision and read up on site policies. Send a polite message to request reinstatement sometime around midyear and I'd be willing to reconsider...if it contains a respectful apology for the hassle you caused. Durova^Charge! 21:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Followup- I've blanked the evidence page. Its previous contents can be viewed in the history. -Will Beback · † · 08:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

CyberAnth and WP:BLP

User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#BLPs - CyberAnth strikes again. Apparently you guys suck... Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 11:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

He's STILL at it? SirFozzie 11:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

What here requires an admin's attention, other than your apparent beef with CyberAnth? Misrepresenting what he said to in an attempt to gain favor isn't nice, by the way. Frise 03:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The bottom line of this is that we do not need a special kind of adminship just for an individual who works with WP:BLP reports. That is the work that a regular editor can do. If they also have the mop, then they can assist in other ways along with working the BLP reports.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 03:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

That is certainly a valid point, but coming here and putting words in CyberAnth's mouth when his communication on Jimbo's talk page was calm and polite isn't very nice, in my opinion. Frise 03:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

If I required admin attention, I would have posted to WP:AN/I. Forgive me, but Cyberanth declaring an entirely new kind of administrator is needed because the current ones aren't doing their job properly seemed like something admins might want to know about. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 03:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Then I feel you should argue the merits of his proposal and please not attribute sentiments to him (admins suck) that he did not make. Frise 03:49, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

"However, I can claim some knowledge of what some admins do not do based upon their visiting of pages prior my evaluating them - pages that contained content that they let stand in clear violation of WP:BLP." seens an implicit way of saying admins suck. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 03:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

CALM DOWN. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 03:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

There's something funny about you showing up a full day after people stopped posting in this section only to tell them to calm down. :) Frise 09:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Clearly administrators should unionise, then go on strike. Except we're not paid, nor are we given benefits. I suppose we could demand a dental plan...Mackensen (talk) 03:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

CyberAnth started up his own process: Wikipedia:BLP Admin. PTO 04:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

User wont accept dispute resolution decision?

Hi, we are having trouble with a disruptive editor at Unwinnable. The user seems to be playing a game of revert-war over the article - every single edit is reverted to his WP:OWN version. In an attempt to close the issue, we logged a case at WP:3O(third opinion) and the decision was in our favour (see Talk:Unwinnable#Third opinion), and we assumed this would be an end to the issue.

However, the disruptive editor returned today and started reverting the 3O implementation again. He has been blocked for WP:3RR once previously over this page, and whenever there are attempts to engage him on his talk page, all the warning templates are instantly removed. (see the history of User_talk:Prosfilaes). The user seems less concerned with the welfare of the article (he has now slapped an "OR" banner on the page in a fit of pique) and more concerned with "winning a battle" (the wikipedia-as-MMORPG mentality).

Its hard to know how to proceed in this situation as the dispute resolution has already been done, but the user won't accept the result. What now? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.107.203.67 (talk) 16:17, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

Without examining the user's conduct, which may indeed be disruptive, dispute resolution like that at WP:3O does not produce final decisions in the way you suggest. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

what is the point of 3O in that case? we though it was "2 users, a dispute, a decision. dispute resolved." - if it isnt, then why bother? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.27.232.72 (talk) 19:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

It's only an initial step in dispute resolution. 3O exists for minor disputes that could be solved quickly, without clogging up Wikipedia processes. IF 3O does not work, try the next tier in dispute resolution, namely the Mediation Cabal. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 19:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Given my experience with the original poster, I'm afraid that he won't discuss this issue with the Mediation Cabal, but I will try that.--Prosfilaes 20:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Bear in mind that if this complaint is legitimate and the poster can back up the claims against this user with appropriate page diffs and other evidence, then Wikipedia:Disruptive editing would be worth a read. If that editor is truly gaming the system and continues to do so then the community can intervene. For now, assume good faith and give the next dispute resolution step a try. Best wishes, Durova^Charge! 21:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I admit that I have been stressed and inappropriately using reverts, and need to stop that behavior. However, this was not disruptive editing; this was being irritated by someone who engaged in a revert war with me, made the first post to the talk page "please use talkpage instead of revert-warring." after he had violated 3RR, ignored his 12h block by changing his IP, repeatedly attacking me on the talk page and filling my talk page with prefab templates instead of talking to me.--Prosfilaes 20:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Requesting review of my actions

Over at Kjárr, a budding edit war broke, so I protected m:the wrong version and left a note to that effect on the talk page.

Followed an email exchange with User:berig. I'd like to state first that email seeming unnecessary here doesn't put me in an extremely agreeable mood.

Thanks for protecting that Kjárr article and for showing that the referenced version of the article is the wrong version.

It is obvious that I was wrong in believing that it was the referenced information that should stay. FYI, Dusis was getting back at me for losing a discussion we had had on the Scandinavia article.

I am so insulted, that you will not see me around anymore.

I tried to stick to the fact in my answer:

"The wrong version" is a satirical page. I use it whenever I protect a page because when a page is protected, someone will inevitably be displeased.

I do not care for the content dispute or any previous relationship you might have had with this user. Revert or edit warring on any article instead of calmly debating the question on the talk page is, and will aways considered harmful to the encyclopedia. That was the reason why the "wrong version" was protected.

If you can't understand that such behavior is a problem and that we do have a dispute resolution process (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution), go ahead and leave. I'm not going to run after you.

Obviously, I don't take very kindly to threaths to leave when the matter is at best a misunderstanding. At this point, Berig switched to french, and the next messages are translations.

If you'd taken the time to look at the article, you'd have understood that Dusis was changing cited information. In addition, your compatriot(I have no idea why that came up,as I had never came across Dusis before) didn't listen to my arguments, and in one edit he reverted, I had added information the importance of which he insisted on.

I don't create articles like these, on which I work hard, tobe treated like a troll. I hope you understand that.

Now saying that I wasn't annoyed would be a lie, but I still tried to correct the user assumptions:

Whether the content was orwas not cited does not matter to me. If editors cannot solve their disagreements via discussion, it is perfectly reasonable to impose a cool down period to the article itself, and as I just said, in such a dispute, one side is guaranteed to be in disagreementwith the results. That's why Wikipedia:Protection policy says:: "Protection is not an endorsement of the current version". In fact that(imposing a cool down period) is the administrators' duty. ("A temporary full-protection is used for enforcing a "cool down" period to stop an edit war.")

If my tone might have seemed condescending at one step or the oter, I am sorry for that. I normaly try toavoid personal involvement whenever a protection is necessary, and an email like that is not particularly constructive when it comes to theactual problem; that is, whwther or not reliable sources confirm or not that Kjárr is a representation of Caesar.

If Dusis is stalkingyou, I don't mind looking into that allegations (but I don't have the time right nowbecause I was at a friend's house without my usual browser and just looking my mail) I couldn't have know:I only saw an edit war, and acted on that specific situation. If that is not the first incident involvingyou two,maybe a Requestfor comment or one formediation are appropriate.

All thta was to no avail, however. Looks like we can add a French-Canadian Cabal to the List:

So, I wrote a lot of articles about nordic myths because few people are working on it(and are really interested in it).

As you can see on my user page, a few people have left signs of their appreciation of my work.

However, I feel like I'm at the end of the road

A French-Canadian gets angry at me for telling him we must respect information from reliable sources of Scandinavia. then he starts ruining information at Kjárr that I worked hard to source properly.

Then a French-Canadian admin protects the page in the version of the French-Canadian and tells me he wants to stop an edit war. That's the fastest protection I ever saw.

I can't see why I would continue writing articles whe stalkers are helped by compatriot admins like this.

I'm done with Wikipedia.

The entitlement almost made me laugh. I told him in my first message: I wouldn't run after him. SoI didn't answer. However, I'd still like to have others' opinion here. (I think the protection of Banjee was pretty rapid too, for the records.)Circeus 17:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you could have used different wording than "the wrong version" in the protection log; it's a fairly inappropriate place for satire, especially when it's highly unlikely that editors in the dispute will understand and/or find it amusing. As for the accusations of a cabal; I wouldn't worry about it. Some editors just don't get the point that not everyone is out to get them; it might be worth explaining one more time, simply, that the protection action is neutral, and until all editors involved can learn to see things from more than their own perspective, or at least withhold their editing until they can, the page will be protected. -- Renesis (talk) 17:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Everything looks perfect, neatly typed in triplicate, tied up in the regulation quantity of red tape. You followed the rules, and how could anyone possibly expect more than that? Your great work is bound to improve the encyclopedia. I'm minded to give you a barnstar. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:21, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The only information I'd add to the above is, that if someone deliberately changes cites, or verified information, to read deliberately incorrectly (as opposed to different emphasis or something thats a legitimate editorial issue) - for example they change a quote or a fact that the citation shows a different thing for -- then that may be held to be vandalism, not bona fide editing. Correcting obvious vandalism is outside 3RR and "wrong version", because one isn't aren't taking a stance in an edit war by doing so, you are fixing a vandalized quote. I know this since we had the same problem on Labrador Retriever a month ago -- reverting the vandalised quote was not considered preferential treatment of a version or 3RR violation, but repair of vandalism, which may be done whether the article is blocked or otherwise.

That said I would not reference "protecting the wrong article" again. Even if in jest or to make a point, people will (as you see) take it wrongly. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it was a bad idea. It certainly didn't raise any ire at Template talk:Philosophy navigation. Maybe I just don't do page protection enough. I agree about the modification of cited statements (I reverted a few such changes myself in other articles), but as I said, my "job" wasn't to get involved in a mostly scholarly dispute.Circeus 15:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

overlooked category renaming

Check out Category:Muslim Islamic scholars. It seems it was never recorded as needing bot attention, and it's been sitting there for five weeks unmoved. Category:CfD 2006-12 is now deleted and the bots have moved on. Same goes for Category:Shi'a Muslim Islamic scholars, Category:Shi'a Muslim scholars, Category:Sunni Muslim Islamic scholars, Category:Sunni Muslim scholars. — coelacan talk — 09:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

If that happens post to WP:CFD/W with a link to the CfD and the bots will handle the rest Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 21:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Nathanrdotcom

The arbitration committee has endorsed the indefinite ban of Nathanrdotcom (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). The committee regrets that the rationale and evidence for this decision must be kept private to prevent injury to innocent third parties. For the arbitration committee, Thatcher131 12:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

As the person who asked arbcom to take the case, I'd just like to express my thanks that this delicate matter has been dealt with efficiently and discretely. I've little idea about the evidence and issues, but handling this type of thing is exactly what arbcom is for. Case closed. Well done.--Doc^g 13:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

As the blocking admin, I echo that. I also praise Doc for filing the case swiftly and intelligently. El_C 19:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Possible mis-editing

By chance I had occasion to consult the ~paedia today regarding Buxton University. I noted that it was stated to be "accredited", in contrast to a Google search which recorded Wiki saying it was "unaccredited". Looking at History, I note that the change was made in recent (0/02/07, I think) edits by a red-texted user. Is it possible that, erroneously, its status has been altered ? -- Simon Cursitor 15:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

That edit has since been reverted, because it removed much of the article as well as making the change. If you see information in Wikipedia that you know is incorrect, you are welcome to change it yourself, especially if you provide a source to demonstrate that you aren't vandalising (like the redlink user apparently was). --ais523 16:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you -- I do not work for the relevant authorities, so couldn't be certain what the accurate answer was, much less source it. And I am also aware that accreditation and statements about it are a sensitive (and litigatious) subject at present. Thank you for sorting this out. -- Simon Cursitor 08:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Ongoing backlog at WP:CFD

Categories for Discussion still has an 11 day backlog. It would be nice to see the backlog cleared or at least to see many of the non-controversial discussions closed. As pointed out previously, administrators may use the bots at WP:CFD/W to assist in deleting or renaming categories. (I would just like to see some of my two-weeks-old and three-weeks-old nominations closed, even if they are closed with no consensus or with rejections of my proposals.) Dr. Submillimeter 15:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I would help, but CFD is too complicated unless you're a black belt in Bot. I took a look at WP:CFD/W and my eyes glazed over. Proto::► 15:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• Perhaps we can automate this? We could have a page WP:CFD/Clear that is protected so only admins can list categories there, and a bot would read it, say hourly, and depopulate the categories it finds there. >Radiant< 15:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, CFD/W already serves both renaming and clearing purposes I believe. The bots just run down the list and do whatever unless it says 'NO BOTS'. What Dr. Submillimeter is asking for is people to close discussions (part of which is adding to the CFDW page). I'd help (I used to do it a lot), but atm I just don't seem to have the time to sit down and burn through the discussions. Syrthiss 15:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• It does? Okay, in that case I've closed three days' worth of discussions. Bot away! >Radiant< 14:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Deleters needed

Feeling twitchy? Need to crush things under your thumb?

PRODs, Orphaned fair use and Images with unknown source are all at all-time highs and could use some rabid deletionism.

Dragons flight 17:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• OR it could use a few admins willing to take the time to actually consider these rather than just deleting them to make the problem go away... Remember DePROD will clear out the backlog too.--Isotope23 19:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
  • That works too, though cursory inspection suggests there are large numbers of things where deletion makes sense. Dragons flight 20:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Agreed, I know your original post was tongue and cheek...--Isotope23 20:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
      • <snicker> So laugh already! ;-) </snicker> --Kim Bruning 14:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Article with some serious allegations needing extra eyes

I came across James E. Sabow through a mention on Jimbo's talk page, but I'm on deadline and haven't the time to do anything about it - it definitely needs some extra eyes, though. It's unsourced and makes some pretty serious allegations regarding a coverup of the article subject's murder, so it might be worth taking a look at. The article creator, User:JPatrickBedell, linked to it from Jimbo's page saying "Perhaps the case of James Sabow will be a test case for the wikijustice that will prevail in a world that has Wikipedia.org." Tony Fox (arf!) 18:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Additional: a quick bit of poking around indicates there are some sources for this piece, but it still looks pretty iffy at present. Tony Fox (arf!) 18:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Slashed to one sentence stub. Actual notability needs checking as well. Moreschi ^Deletion! 18:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

TfD vacation

I don't want to sound WP:OWN-ish here, but since I'm nearly the only admin who looks at WP:TFD, and I've been busy at school lately, there's a huge backlog. RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 19:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll pitch in. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 08:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Featured user pages

Hi, please comment here. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 19:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

jennifer aniston work in film Derailed

The general concensus source would be the large critic's website called Rotten Tomatoes. This website includes all the respected, major movie critics citing their publications. In your career section, discussing the movie Derailed, Jennifer Aniston did not receive "much praise" for... "doing it well" from the greater majority. The reviews of her performance were scathing by almost all (90%+) the professional critics; largely stating she was miss cast and out of her element and ability.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Journalist2 (talk • contribs)

Uh... huh?--Isotope23 20:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Why is this here? Shouldn't it be on the article's talk page? Acalamari 22:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Blockreview GeorgeDevers

• GeorgeDevers (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) - see George devers (deleted) Attackpage linked to account name. Agathoclea 20:49, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:SSP

There is a severe backlog here. Attention requested. --Ideogram 22:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Durova/Community enforced mediation

This proposal would create a new experimental option in dispute resolution. Advance reviews have been favorable so I'm opening this up to general feedback. Please reply at the proposal's talk page so the discussion is focused in one place. Durova^Charge! 23:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Similar vandalism from a variety of IPs

Don't know if there is anything in it but the following IPs have made similar edits: User:74.224.96.160, User:72.152.77.246 and User:68.217.72.65AlanD 23:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

User Olivierd's sub-page on his sockpuppetry case

I'd like an admin to take a look at this page and tell me whether such a thing is appropriate for Wikipedia. Since I'm named on the page, I'd rather refrain from any comment so that I can't be accused of trying to sway an admin. Thanks for your attention.--Ramdrake 00:27, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I see no problem with it. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 04:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Question regarding IP users

I was just wondering (there is probably a page out there that'll tell me, I know... sorry) why Wikipedia allows edits from those without a username? Surely a large percentage of vandalism would dissapear if only registered users could edit pages. Registering isn't a labourious task but it is enough of a task to weed out those who vandalise on a whim... Those who are more hard-core can easily be blocked and investigated for sock puppetry. I'm just wondering as I've been spotting (due to having contributed in the talk pages of, reverted vandalism on random pages searches of or have contributed to the pages of several articles and therefore have them on my watchlist) a fair bit of vandalism recently and it is nearly always IPs doing it.

Is there a good reason for continuing to allow IP edits? AlanD 00:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The argument is that many positive edits are made by IP users, who might be experts in the field but may not feel the need or want to take the time to register. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 01:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a Perennial Proposal. In addition to the point made by Chris Griswold, the more cynical among us can single out edits made by IPs for closer screening. If IP editing were disabled, then thousands or millions of dummy, single-edit, vandalism-only accounts would spring up. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I take your points but still feel, personally, it would in the long term lead to less vandalism in general. However it isn't my call and you folk clean up far more vandalism than I.

Thank you for replying so quickly. AlanD 02:11, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Can an admin help this user?

See here and here. I think he wants to delete his userpage and talkpage completely. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 02:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

m:Right to vanish. He needs to go about requesting a username change, then changing all references to his previous username on every page that he's signed. User talk deletion isn't a usual step to take though, unless there's some dire need for it; some users have been known to abuse the right to vanish to "clean the slate" in regards to their user talk, and it cuts apart discussions and such. I'm not comfortable with it myself, though I can't speak for others. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

If he is sure he wants to leave Wikipedia for awhile, I will be glad to facilitate (and if he is not sure he wanted to leave Wikipedia for awhile, he's about thisclose to someone proposing a community ban anyway). This user unfortunately does not appear to be suited for this project at this time. Given that this is a minor editing under his real name (not just disclosing it once on a userpage, but actually signing with the name), and that his checkered record here will come back to haunt him years from now when someone on a college admissions committee or something does a Google search, I think allowing a vanishing would definitely be in order, with the understanding that he is to allow an appropriate period of time (I suggest three months minimum) before returning under a new username, which would be confided to a trusted admin or two, before quietly starting over. Newyorkbrad 03:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Per an e-mail received from a third party, this editor has requested that his userpage and talkpage be deleted as he no longer feels comfortable editing here under this account. Under all the circumstances, this request appears to be in good faith and I am satisfied it should be granted. I will perform the deletion and get back to the user strongly suggesting that he take some time off before considering returning with another username. If anyone has any concerns about this, please e-mail. Newyorkbrad 04:37, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I hope you see ASAP! Can you delete the archives too? User_talk:Asher Heimermann/Archives/2006/A, User_talk:Asher_Heimermann/Archives/2006/B, User_talk:Asher_Heimermann/Archives/2007/A. Mr. Asher Heimermann 05:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Brad. I adopted Asher a while back, though have had very little success in even managing to communicate with him, never mind guide him towards an acceptable editing style. Most of my interaction with his has been to attempt to persuade him that listing his email address and/or telephone number is a very bad idea and that he should consider editing under a pseudonym. I fully endorse him disappearing, but would ask that he be counseled to seek advice from an experienced user if and when he chooses to join us again. Mind you, even if he doesn't I suspect he will come to our attention before too long. Rockpocket 07:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi; yes, I remember that, and I'm sorry this didn't work out better for everyone. As I noted above, someone needs to counsel him for the future, and keep an eye out. Do you think you established his confidence such that you're the one to do it? Newyorkbrad 12:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Caution, Don Murphy "Stooges" might attack

Here are some of his fans at it. I have a screenshot if it gets taken down when they notice this post (which they likely will), if you want screenshots contact me by using the e-mail function at my user page. Philip Gronowski ^Contribs 04:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps they haven't noticed that Wikipedia is vaguely used to dealing with vandalism... Good to know where it is coming from, if it does show up, though. -- Natalya 15:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Copyright violation removal

I rewrote the Stochastic oscillator article, could someone clean it when they get a chance. THanks Mrdthree 07:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The rewrite is here. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 08:27, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

User:BWCNY

I do not know if this is where it belongs, however BWCNY has been causing minor problems lately, and any attempts to correct him usually result with a blanking of his own talk page. He was given two UWs the other day [17] one of which was for not properly citing his additions to various topics. He proceeded to blank the talk page and than instead of adding the citations or reverting the work, he tagged his work with the fact tag. Is this a violation of WP:NOR? He has added information without citing his work to numerous pages and before I revert the pages, I wanted to know if it was wrong. He than proceeded to include masked vulgarity on his User page. I do not know the proper method to proceed since Ive never seen anyone for lack of a better way of putting it, vandalize their own page as seen here User:BWCNY. Any assistance that can be provided would be greatly appreciated. Rob110178 21:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It would help if you posted page diffs for the specific edits, rather than a single link to an older version of the user's page history. Yes, the editor may blank warnings to his talk page. He's still been warned and that's viewable through the history file. It's bad wikiquette to blank all posts from one's talk page, but still permissible. You might try an article content WP:RFC on the article in question to establish consensus on the WP:NOR issue. Best wishes. Durova^Charge! 22:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem with the WP:RFC is that there are so many of those types of articles, I do not know where to start. I'm going to try to give it a shot. The minor nature of these issues amongst other problems makes this situation challenging... Rob110178 23:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Your initial post made this seem like a single article. Please provide the full story with page diffs. Durova^Charge! 18:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

There was a good amount of pages involved. I went the RfC route and as a result, user has decided to stop editing for a while. We will see where it goes from here. Rob110178 00:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes a few fresh pairs of eyes resolves everything. Best wishes. Durova^Charge! 02:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

A RFCU has yielded two puppets that this user has run. What happens when an RFCU yields positive results? How does the puppeteer get addressed? Thanks Rob110178 01:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Proven socks of a banned sockmaster are subject to automatic banning and the sockmaster gets a fresh template on the user page to identify the activity. See User:JB196 and click the category link to his sockpuppets. User:AWilliamson is another good example. Durova^Charge! 16:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal: BLP Admins

I'm surprised not to see this mentioned here already. CyberAnth is proposing that a special class of admins be created to enforce WP:BLP. The proposal can be found here: Wikipedia:BLP Admin. Present admins may wish to contribute to the discussion... WJBscribe 04:10, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It's been speedy closed. Someone (with some clout) needs to have a good talk with CyberAnth.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This has to be one of the most infuriating disputes that I have come across. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 04:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Oi. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 08:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Who has the clout, Ryulong? Frise 09:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I (snarkily) note that the first of the two requirements would prevent the creator of the BLP Admin proposal from achieving this exalted status. Proto::► 09:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It is snarky, and it's inappropriate. It's a good policy idea or not (I lean toward not) no matter who proposes it. If it's not a good idea, that will be clear without arguing ad hominem. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Probably best not to comment on the author in this venue, go to the proposal's talk, comment on the proposal there. Regards, Navou ^banter / _{review me} 16:37, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets backlog - down to under one month

Just wanted to note that the oldest case on WP:SSP is down to less than one month. That is still horrible (cases should be decided in 10 days), but is a lot better than over two months which is what it was when Robdurbar posted the call for help on January 12.

Great thanks should go to the indefatigable User:MER-C, and User:Akhilleus, who, despite not being admins, have been helping out a great deal by closing what cases they can (when all users are already blocked for other reasons anyway), patching the somewhat baroque Wiki syntax on the page, moving cases to archives, advising people who have questions, and so forth. By the way, the only reason I'm not nominating both for WP:RFA is that the former had a fairly recent one, and the latter refused my nomination. They're good folks - a big hand, please.

Meanwhile, if any other admins want to help out closing a few, we would all appreciate it. Otherwise for the last month I've been basically the sole admin closing cases for this page, and it's not as if I'm more qualified than anyone else - I had barely even heard of the page before the call for help came. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your hard work, and that of your non-admin compatriats! Applause is certainly deserved. :) I (and hopefully others!) will look into some of the remaining cases, and hopefully can aid you in your extensive efforts to clear up the rest of the backlog. -- Natalya 17:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

DontStayIn

Can someone put the text of this article into my userspace please. I'll clean it up and try to show it's notability then add it back to the mainspace. As the website in question has an alexa rank of 8,817 it's most probably a big enough site for an article. Thanks. exolon 17:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, will do so now, but don't just put it back in the mainspace, please - provide the new article to Wikipedia:Deletion review, so it's formally protected from re-deletion. Proto::► 18:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure DRV is appropiate - this was speedied, not put through an AFD so I'm minded to be bold and chuck it back into the mainspace. If someone still doesn't think it meets the criteria, we can go through WP:AFD to establish community consensus. exolon 22:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Question on deletion and protection from recreation of Colleen Shipman

I just deleted the Colleen Shipman article and prevented it from being recreated because it violated Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons(she is the non-public crime victim in the Lisa Nowak case). While I agree with others that the article's subject is also not notable, the fact that this was a violation of BIO made the deletion urgent (IMHO).

One editor, though, questioned this decision and I said I'd bring it to the attention of other admins. As the BIO page says, "Wikipedia also contains biographies of people who, while notable enough for an entry, are nevertheless entitled to the respect for privacy afforded non-public figures. In borderline cases, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid. It is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives." Because of that, I do not see a reason to unprotect the page. Other thoughts? Did I go too far? --Alabamaboy 19:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, after I explained the situation to the editor and said I'd bring it up here, Benjiwolf, he/she cited me for vandalism.[18] Still, we've worked that out (at least, it appears we have). Anyway, I've invited the editor to make his/her case here.--Alabamaboy 19:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

well as it came in on my computer he deleted with no good explanation...colleen shipman surely should have a page if lisa nowak can...its lisa that will be sueing yall for lible...i put up colleens college and job at nasa...Benjiwolf 19:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I should note that I immediately explained the situation to the editors involved in the case. Second, Lisa is a public figure--an astronaut now accused of felony-level crimes--while Colleen is a non-public crime victim.--Alabamaboy 20:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Alabamaboy did explain the deletion to you. I support the deletion. At the moment Shipman is non-notable and putting up personal information about here is a violation of her privacy. There needs to be a strong public interest case to violate the privacy of a non-public living person and I just don't see it. Benjiwolf, please read WP:BLP which is Wikipedia policy.

All that being said, I'm not so sure about the protection from recreation. Depending on what happens in the next few days I could see Shipman becoming article-worthy. Personally I'd have left the article unprotected unless it kept being recreated. As I said though, the deletion was within policy, the correct thing to do and most definitely not vandalism. Gwernol 20:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd also support removing the protection from recreation if the subject becomes more article worthy AND well-referenced information that doesn't violate WP:BLP can be added. For now, though, I thought that was the best way to keep a flood of WP:BLP-violating info from filling the article (as Lisa Nowak shows, articles about this case are attracting a ton of attention). Best,--Alabamaboy 20:08, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I can certainly live with that. Gwernol 20:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

well after alabama boy explained himself i promptly put up a message on his page noting that he now had a better explanation...yet his intitial instantaneous move was without much explanation at all and i felt highly insufficient for such a drastic move on a public figure in the space program that is involved in a major news story...i was going to remove the stop sign i gave him myself yet my computer time expired right when this all was going on last night and i have had to wait for access again till this morning here in switzerland...i was however going to leave a minor warning about too quick a deletion that wasnt initially properly justified, yet done in good faith...anyways...(please read my note on the colleen shipman talk page)...i agree completely that colleen is a crime-victim...yet i put up that she is a public figure...and very very high profile right now...if someone had stalked some other person in the public domain that wouldnt have us remove their page...to have some basic facts about her such as her college and exact position in the space program are worthwhile...the space program is by its very nature a high profile highly public civilian enterprise (even tho the military & navy is naturally heavily involved)...this information all exists in the public domain now thru various news sources...why not wikipedia???...if we merely restate what is in other reliable news sources there should be absolutely no problem...to keep colleen somehow blocked and a mystery is somehow strange...she is the third figure in this story...i agree speculation about her should be instantly removed from her page...and as to lible...i see it more a problem for lisas page...i think someone should keep a rough eye on lisas page to ensure it doesnt get too out of hand and in the realm of speculation...only info from reliable news souces and no sensationalism (and even some of the reliable news sources are going to play it sensational to get readers and listeners)...Benjiwolf 11:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Template marked as listed on TFD, but not listed?

The Repeat Vandal template shows up as being listed at Templates for Deletion on it's main page, but doesn't actually appear to be listed. [19]. TheQuandry 20:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It's right here. Picaroon 20:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Damn, beat me to it. I found it by checking the nominator's edits around the time he edited {{Repeat vandal}}. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

That's how I did it. The reason the tfd link didn't work is that "vandal" was capitalized. I uncapitalized it. Picaroon 20:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

A-ha! Thanks! TheQuandry 21:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

User:NorrisMcDonald editing Norris McDonald

Norris McDonald (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is being edited by NorrisMcDonald (talk · contribs). This appears to be a direct violation of WP:AUTO, and I would offer it up for deletion because of that, but I do believe that the individual is notable enough. What should be done about this? I have reverted his edits already. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 22:10, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Been dealt with.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

RFA passed at 69%?

Hi, I'm not here for long, but I noticed that Ryulong passed RFA at 69%, which is hardly "consensus": and unheard of for 'crat's "75% and lower is questionable" ness. Why was this RFA passed? -- Chris is me _(u/c/t) 22:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

This was discussed extensively at the time, a couple of weeks ago. You can find some of the discussion on the talkpage of his RfA and more in the archives of the RfA page itself. Newyorkbrad 22:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

A) This isn't a matter for adminsitrators to handle as this is something for the community, not for administrators, B) It's already been discussed to hell and back at the RFA talk page, and C) He hasn't done anything wrong (yet). So let's not get this started again, please :) Cowman109^Talk 22:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Old, old news. --Cyde Weys 22:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Chris, I suggest you ask this question at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard and not here. --bainer (talk) 22:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I just was strolling by and was too buzy/lazy to do anything. Sorry to waste your guy's time. -- Chris is me _(u/c/t) 05:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Civility, thy name ain't Calton

I was working with AMIB on something last night (shocking, I know) and [[User:Calton] PM'd with a kind of argumentative message on my talk page. This would go on for hours of back and forth argumentative PMs from Calton...with me finally asking, twice, "Did you PM me just to argue?". He stopped with the PMs.

Today, User:Rspeer PM'd on User:Calton's talk page "I can't help but notice the many other users objecting to your caustic style of conversation. You really, really need to be more civil." only to have User:Calton respond with "You really really need to mind your own business", among other things. Other users and admins, I guess, have asked User:Calton to just chill out and he just gets more and more rude and argumentative. If an admin would please tell User:Calton to step back, take a deep breath, and relax for Pete's sake. - SVRTVDude 23:18, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

After posting the above, I recieved this from User:Calton..."Nice little stunt you pulled at WP:AN, but if you're looking for some edge in intimidating me, it's not going to work.". I think that proves my point, as nothing I said above was intimidating in the least. - SVRTVDude 00:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Please, please take anything further about this to WP:RFC/USER if there is more than one person who has attempted to resolve the dispute and is willing to endorse it. If not, work out some way of avoiding each other. Either way, nothing here requires admin tools. Jkelly

I have taken it there, not sure if I did it right (someone want to make sure for me....noobie moment), I will leave this thread open so everyone has a chance to comment and the board's process can run it's course. - SVRTVDude 00:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The problems has progress WAY beyond a civility problem. Am trying my damnedest to stay away from User:Calton but he continues to make attempts at picking a fight. Told him politely to just step away from the computer, watch some TV and come back in the morning only to be met with unnecessary anger. This is way beyond a civility problem (and in my opinion) may possilbe require an admin. Post remains on WP:RFC/USER - SVRTVDude 02:32, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The problems has progress WAY beyond a civility problem. Am trying my damnedest to stay away from User:Calton but he continues to make attempts at picking a fight. This is utter nonsense: User:Orangemonster2k1 keeps leaving annoying messages on my Talk page and I'm picking a fight? I've told him to stop doing that, and this latest thread is his response: pretty much a naked attempt to not only pick a fight, but enlist others in helping him pick a fight.

Told him politely to just step away from the computer, watch some TV and come back in the morning only to be met with unnecessary anger. No, necessary annoyance at your presumption. If you are "trying [your] damnedest to stay away", try actually staying away: stop pestering me on my Talk page and stop disrupting this page in your attempt to escalate your pestering. This is NOT what this page is for, and this is my last word on the subject. --Calton | Talk 02:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I am going to respond to this and leave it at that...Calton, you PM'd me, you continued to PM me, and I like to respond to people's comments (good or bad) in a timely fashion...so I wasn't pestering you, I was answering your comments. I am not trying to annoy you, if you think I am, then I am sorry...but that is not what I am doing. I am just returning your comments....call that annoying if you want.

My point here, which you have missed completely and showed perfectly, is that you are completely uncivil in your posts. I have not, except for my last comment, be in anyway uncivil or impolite. I have actually tried to explain myself, my point, and move on to no avail. This has gone on for hours tonight and hours last night over something you were not involved in. The KXGN schedule is done and over with, it is not up and I will leave it at that. That is my last on this subject. Sheesh. - SVRTVDude 03:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

At this point, I believe that Calton has done more than enough to merit a block for personal attacks. I should not be the one to apply that block, however, so I ask another admin to review his recent interactions with other users, such as User talk:Orangemonster2k1, User talk:Mangojuice, User talk:JLaTondre, and the grand compendium of them all, User talk:Calton. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Calton, although I usually agree with what you are saying, I have to admit I think you should be more careful in saying it. --Ideogram 08:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Calton

Is there anyone you can muzzle Calton? Admin User:Firsfron has asked Calton to leave me alone and me to leave him alone...I have....but in the past 20mins, I have gotten 4 PMs on my talk page. I have had to defend myself against a "stalking" claim on Firsfron's talk page....this is getting out of hand. Please muzzle Calton. - SVRTVDude 08:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Interested parties may wish to examine Orangemonster2k1/SVRTVDude's last several contributions before opining. Note especially the two pointless article reversions (hmm, "stalking", perhaps?). Note the content of the messages I left (one being a correction to a previous message). Note the inability to take a hint. Note the falsity of the claim about him supposedly leaving me alone. Yeah, this is a childish waste of time, so this is my last word here. --Calton | Talk 08:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, an addendum: looks like Orangemonster2k1/SVRTVDude made even more pointless article reversions several hours ago, so it's worse than I thought (look at around 0200 UTC). --Calton | Talk 08:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The RfC on Calton's conduct is now active; further comments should go there. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 09:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I want to apologize for the admins and other editors who are having to take time out of more pressing matters to deal with this. I have tried many times to end this situation on a good note to no avail. I am not that hard to get along with...hell even AMIB and I are talking and working together and we all know how bad that got couple weeks ago. Again, my apologizes to the admins and other editors dealing with situation...I honestly tried. Anyone got a Tylenol? - SVRTVDude 10:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Cautionary note

Just saying that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tech.co.uk seems to be SPA heaven. Take this into account when closing; I believe those who have commented there so far are employees of the company ... although I have no proof. Bother.

Cheers, Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 23:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Double redirect for Template:Test4a

Template:Test4a is currently a double redirect, which cases problems for folks like me that haven't switched to the newfangled warnings...Since it's a protected template, I'm powerless to fix it myself. It probably should redirect to Template:Uw-delete4. Thanks, Scientizzle 01:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems to have been fixed already. Thanks. Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

TfD backlog

Down to four noms, but each is complicated. Thanks to those who helped. RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 05:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

No problem. :) I will say that hopefully the admins who helped will keep up on it. :) --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 08:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Surferboy092

This user has been disruptive to the Wikipedia community, with an obvious attempt at vandalizing the project. He vandalized a section on the Orange County, California page, and other school related articles. He was warned in November, but did not cease to destruct pages. I think it is appropriate to place him under a ban.

If the user vandalizes again, an indef block as vandalism only might be warranted. As is now, the user only has four contributions in the past four months. Not exactly a pattern of disruption, but thatnks for the heads up. I'll watch. Teke ^(talk) 05:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Warning when viewing user js pages

Apologies if this has been explained before, but I'm curious as to the purpose of the notice that now appears on all user .js pages:

If you have been directed here because of a note on your talk page, please be very certain you know the user who left it for you. If not, the code may contain malicious content, which can compromise your account and lead to your being blocked. If you are unsure about whether the code is safe, you can ask at the help desk.

Only the user themselves and administrators can edit a user's own .js pages, so (assuming administrators are trusted not to mess with them) there shouldn't be any risk of malicious content being run in that way. As far as I'm aware, you can't "execute" the code on someone else's .js page without copying or including it in your own, and just viewing a .js page doesn't execute the code on it, so what is the risk exactly? Thanks – Qxz 12:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, a vandal went around and welcomed users notifying them (incorrectly) that they'd been blocked and the only way to appeal to this block was to copy malicious code into the .js files. Cbrown1023 talk 12:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

And people fell for that? Meh... same people who open .exe email attachments from people they don't know, I guess. I suppose that is a bit of a problem – Qxz 12:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, this a total noob question....but, what is a .js page? - SVRTVDude 12:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Every user has a special page in their userspace to which they can add JavaScript code, which will execute when they view Wikipedia pages; allowing all sorts of helpful scripts to be written to help with editing, browsing and so on. See for example Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups. Your page is here – as you don't know what it is yet, it's presumably empty. :) There's also another one for CSS, which you can edit in order to change the appearence of the interface – fonts and colours, for example. These changes are only visible to you, the appearence of the site for everyone also depends on one of these pages, but it can only be edited by administrators – Qxz 12:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, now I understand. Thanks :) - SVRTVDude 12:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Shared/group accounts

The normal Wikipedia jargon for this has slipped my mind; I'm referring to accounts used by a group of people. My understanding was that these weren't allowed, but the policy (which I can't find) might be weaker than that, and it might just be deprecated. Could someone advise me? I've come across a self-declared example at User:Sikh-history, and was wondering what I should do, if anything. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Role accounts? Anyway, they are definitely not allowed. Guy (Help!) 11:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

According to User talk:Sikh-history this account is now used by only one person. He needs to update his user page. --Ideogram 11:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I read that page twice and still didn't see that. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 12:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Here. --Ideogram 13:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I see he replied to my question and I asked him to rewrite. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 14:18, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:SOCK. Approved role accounts are exceedingly rare. Durova^Charge! 16:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to all (of course it's "role account"; why couldn't I remember that?) --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Probably because one account shared by two or more people is far less common than the opposite (i.e. sockpuppets or meatpuppets). For the record, I'll share that I can remember only one role account approved in the last six months; if you'd like to know more, & have lots of time on your hands, I think it was discussed here on WP:AN/I. Happy huntnig! -- llywrch 01:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Time-limited protection

As far as I'm aware the ability for administrators to protect pages for a specified amount of time is a relatively new thing, but it seems to be getting used quite a lot. I've just noticed a problem with it, though, which doesn't really seem to have been addressed.

1. Administrator protects a page for, say, a week because of vandalism
2. Administrator applies {{sprotected}} to the page
3. Protection expires a week later and nobody notices, {{sprotected}} remains in place
4. Potentially useful edits are not made because anonymous users think they can't edit the page. Alternatively, anonymous users vandalise the page and confuse everyone who doesn't understand time-limited protection.

If this has been discussed before, then forgive me – Qxz 00:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed; I was wondering the same thing after going back to remove {{tprotected}} on several articles, only finding that someone else had already removed them in each case. Maybe an option that can enable some kind of automatic (i.e. built into MediaWiki) template on time protected protections? In other words, a new MediaWiki:Timeprotectnotice page, or something to the effect, would be created, and the message would be displayed on time protected articles when it is still protected. A checkbox would enable admins to turn off the notification template, when necessary. This seems like the best solution here. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there already is one, but it only comes up when you edit. I think it's a bit big to be displayed when you're viewing an article, though – Qxz 02:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• A possible solution would be to ask the devs to e.g. automatically display MediaWiki:PageIsProtected at the top of every protected page. >Radiant< 13:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Something in the interim that might help is simply using a different template for timed protection. Even if visually identical, it would allow people to scan through to remove them as needed. Bitnine 14:18, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Another solution would be for some bot to automatically remove the template once the page is unprotected (it would also help when some users add protection templates thinking adding a template is enough to protect the page). --cesarb 14:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• Actually that's easy. Have a bot remove all protection templates, daily. Since the bot doesn't have admin rights, it will fail to remove the template from pages that actually are protected. >Radiant< 14:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• But it would be able to remove templates from semi-protected pages, correct? And move protected pages. I suggested this type of bot awhile ago, but it didn't seem like there were any takers. -- tariqabjotu 15:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

In all honesty, I'm not sure that the tag is that dangerous, I usually go for "Edit this page" and if it's not there THEN I look for the template, or if it's tagged, I'll check to see that it says "View source". I suspect I'm not alone. As to removing the template, is there a magic word like "PAGEPROTECTION" that could be read? If so, if the template could have a condition where if it was on an unprotected page it would change to something like "This page was protected [for whatever reason], but is no longer. Please edit this page to remove the "{{protectBU}}" template. If that information wasn't easily obtainable, it could just say "If this page is unprotected and it has been at least 5 minutes since it was added, please speedily remove it and notify the poster". Etc... 68.39.174.238 01:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Cyrus Farivar

Reposted from WP:DRV:

A notification, rather than a request, but I'm not sure where else to put it. I am undeleting Cyrus Farivar as per Jimbo's previous endorsement of exactly this act: "Even if VfD _did_ produce a consensus that this article should be deleted, then VfD is broken and should be ignored." [20]. User:Jaranda expressed concern that this was not brought to DRV, so I figured I should leave notice here (and also on WP:AN before restoring it again. I will not continue to restore at this point, but I will bring the issue through proper dispute resolution channels should it continue to be an issue.

I am not asking for or opening a full review because, well, it's unnecessary and beside the point. DRV is a process through which we review deletions, but it is not the sole way in which they are reviewed. This is something that there is a definitive ruling on - journalists with the publication record of Cyrus Farivar are notable. Small segments of the community may create pages that proport to establish other criteria for notability, and AfDs can fail to attract the attention of anything but the mindset that currently dominates the page, but none of this changes the basic fact that a notability guideline of that extremity has been actively rejected from the very top, and the act of unilaterally restoring this article has explicitly been sanctioned.

This ought not only terminate the debate, but also serve as a rather sobering warning about the sad state of so-called policy on Wikipedia, whereby it clearly does not provide useful guidance on our actual best practice. Phil Sandifer 01:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I converted this to a full deletion review. I see adequate reason to doubt that Jimbo would stand by that statement today. The reason: WP:BLP and the incidents that led to its creation. GRBerry 02:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

That was then. This is now. It's been more than a year and half since Jimbo said that. Times have changed, and his answer to that same question may have changed. Nishkid64 03:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

With all deference to Jimbo, this article was deleted properly and should not be recreated simply because one rouge admin has a thing for this dude. If Jimbo personally wants to come undelete this article that's one thing, but if you're going to keep defying consensus, at least take personal responsibility. It's also not clear in what context Jimbo said that because the signpost article doesn't provide a link to the mailing list or a diff. Savidan 01:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Recent actions of my own

In trying to deal with the backlog at CAT:CSD last night, I came upon several I3 deletions. After these deletions, I was confronted by Krome007 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who had uploaded a picture of Harry Colquhoun. In the process of making sure there wasn't a red link on the article, I rolled back the edits, removing very little, yet Krome007 felt I was wrong and I said that anyone can edit on Wikipedia. This was met with the response, "OK so anyone can edit but I thought the idea was to edit with factual information you monkey nut" (emphasis mine). I responded saying that the image did not have the correct tag or copyrights, suggested that if the image were in the public domain that Mr. Colquhoun email permissions, and that he not be incivil with me. He responded and finished his statement by calling me a "self righteous fool." I blocked him indef, after which he sent me an abusive e-mail about my block.

He posted an {{unblock}} request in which he personally attacked me. I was discussing the block with Shreshth91 privately, and he came to the conclusion that the block was too harsh, and I had a change of heart. Shreshth91 unblocked and then reblocked for 4 days, and I unblocked and stated that I was putting him on probation for 96 hours. During this whole time, I had put Harry Colquhoun up for AFD. He contacted me (and others) about his comments at the AFD discussion, and when I saw it, I viewed this response. I blocked for five days due to the probation I had placed on him, notified him, and left. Checking on my contribs, again, I saw he had editted the page, and continued to personally attack me. I privately sought advice on what to do, and it was a general agreement that his incivility was uncalled for. After more attacks on me, I rolled back his edits and protected his talk page for the duration for the block. I know that this will not be the end of his interactions, but I am here requesting that these actions be reviewed.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 03:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• I have just received another e-mail from this individual

User:JPG-GR

Right I am reporting you for getting a friend of yours to suggest the page gets deleted for your own personnal reason. This guy is your mate who runs a power rangers site. I am going to suggest that you be stripped of your admin status. http://www.grnrngr.com/

Laters

• I can assure anyone who is contacted by this individual that I did not contact JPG-GR about anything concerning the AFD, other than this very e-mail.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Not entirely related, but someone mentioned relishxxx.com yesterday in one of the spam channels. I can't recall whether it was someone spamming links or whether it was spammy articles, but there's something dodgy going on with Krome007. I've no problems with your block. Oh, if a meta admin spots this post, chuck relishxxx.com on the meta blacklist, ta. -- Heligoland 04:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have received another e-mail. The text can be seen here.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• Next time anything like this happens, get another admin involved the moment the personal attacks against you start. That always makes it cleaner. (When someone's attacking me, it's hard to think objectively and fairly. I imagine you're similar.) No comment about the actual blocks. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 04:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I know that now. I have also unprotected his talk page so he can stop venting at me in e-mails. There's no use in him e-mailing me, as I do not need to supply him with my e-mail address.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
• Don't worry about it, this sort of thing happens all the time, and most of the time when admins get yelled at it's because they've done the right thing. Just a question for everyone in general - why are admins required (well, not required, but encouraged) to release their email addresses? It just encourages this thing to happen; unblock requests can surely go to the unblock mailing list instead, and private conversation can be done via IRC. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 04:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The e-mail address thing is as follows: If I reply to his e-mails, he can see my e-mail address. I don't like using the E-mail function, only in emergencies. And frankly, I've already dealt with someone who had knowledge of my e-mail address after I blocked her and suffered for it.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Make a yahoo or hotmail account. Use it as a throwaway account for correspondance with people you don't want to give your real email to. --BigDT 05:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
      • I use g-mail. I just don't need someone to know it (cause I might accidentally use my personal e-mail due to how I have Outlook set up)—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Good grief. This is why I have Thunderbird set up to handle seperate email logins...that's frightening. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 11:01, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I use M2. Actually, just kidding, I never got the hang of mail clients. I just check it on the web. I have Yahoo Mail Plus, so I used its AddressGuard function to set up a throwaway account for use on Wikipedia. Alternatively one can check out spamgourmet.com, I've never tried it but it looks good. Hbdragon88 22:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I just never reply to Wikipedia emails if I don't know/trust the sender, instead responding via the emailer's talk page. Proto::► 11:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Use Of Thumbtacks In Professional Wrestling

Is there any way that someone could give an early close to this afd? With 15 users or so commenting, only 2 have voted to keep the article, and the rest want to merge relevant info into other articles then delete, so consensus has been reached. It's just a mess with too much arguing. Booshakla 14:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Consensus looks to me to be drifting away from delete, with the keep and merge votes. I'm hesitant to WP:SNOW it. Luigi30 (Taλk) 15:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd let it run course... an early close will pretty much guarentee someone is going to complain it was deleted/kept out of process.--Isotope23 19:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Time

I'm an admin in school with nothing to do next period, so 90 minutes to do absolutely nothing. What are some administrative tasks few people do that I can occupy my time with once I run out of movies? Luigi30 (Taλk) 15:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets has been badly backlogged for a month. Not an easy or pleasant task, but it can consume as much time as you can give it today. GRBerry 15:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Judgement calls aren't really my thing, but I can head off and do some obvious ones. Luigi30 (Taλk) 17:05, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I've heard that CAT:CSD has an ass-trocious backlog. ~ Flameviper ^{Who's a Peach?} 20:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

How to change a user name

I am an administrator on the Zazaki Wikipedia. I need to change a user name, but I don't really know how to do it? Can anybody help me do it, or do I have the ability to change a user name as an administrator? Best, --Daraheni 16:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC) diq:User:Maviulke12

If you want to change your username on the English Wikipedia, you'll need to go to Wikipedia:Changing username and make a request. Administrators do not have the power to change usernames here; that is up to the Bureaucrats. It will not, however, affect your username at the Zazaki Wikipedia. -- Natalya 16:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

You need to do this at Meta-wiki. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RfP#User_rename_requests Thatcher131 16:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

This account

This account was recently created by an editor in order to edit a rather embarassing page. Is this all right or are communal accounts prohibited? I took several special measures in order to prevent someone just stealing this account and running with it.

Your input would be appreciated.

Thanks, Squeamish Editor 20:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's fine if someone went out of the way to create their own account for this, not to have one massive collection (after all this would be equivalent of having an IP address but with benefits of an account). This is a potential fork for banned users to edit. I'm going to block it for now until we figure something out. Yanksox 20:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

An account with a posted password is just a very, very bad idea all around. Per Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#Segregation and security, you can make a separate account for editing embarassing pages, but don't encourage other people to use it. They can make their own. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Although Yanksox's block of the role account was anon-only, Flameviper (talk · contribs) is claiming on his talkpage that he is incurring collateral damage from the block. Make of this what you will. Newyorkbrad 20:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe that anon-only and ACB only apply to IP blocks and are ignored in username blocks. So this is probably a garden variety autoblock. Thatcher131 20:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Autoblock lifted. It's a mindspring IP, so may be dynamic. Thatcher131 20:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Role accounts are not allowed on the English Wikipedia. A role account is one that more than a single person is editing with. They are forbidden because they do not allow us to know who is contributing when the account makes an edit, so it breaks the terms of the GFDL which all text is licensed under on Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:Role account. Thanks, Gwernol 20:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep the role account blocked. "This is a communal accont. This means that anyone who wants to use it can." No-brainer. Whoever created it (a) probably knows better, and (b) needs to stop messing around; Wikipedia isn't a role-playing game. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 21:05, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• • It also had a public password. I logged in, removed the email address and scrambled the password. Thatcher131 21:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Cool. Not the kind of thing we should have running around Wikipedia. Far too likely to be abused - BEANS. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 21:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
• It was wise to block the account. I just came across it in the automatically generated list of new users. This account would have only been used for vandalism had it not been blocked. Acalamari 21:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Bennett Lewis article - Wikimedia Foundation donation

Couldn't think where to put this, so I came here. Can someone have a look at meta:Wikimedia thanks all contributors - which lists a Bennett Lewis as a donor, and at Bennett Lewis, where this edit claims that the donation was posthumous (maybe from a trust fund or something). I suspect these are two different people called Bennett Lewis, but if someone could just double-check, or ask in the right place, and then tidy up Bennett Lewis, that would be great. Thanks. Carcharoth 00:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I've just removed all mention of the donation in the article. Even if this were the same person, which I highly doubt, a donation of this sort does not belong in the article, having no merits for inclusion. The article, however, could use some improvement. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Replaced image

This is possibly commons problem. Anyway, I discovered that image of Ben Stein has been replaced with image of stones, see Image:Stein.jpg. I couldn't find the original file to revert. May be someone moved images in some clever way:( Anyway I'm absolutely positive that the file was on that address on Jan 27 because one user replaced image of Stein with Henry Kissinger and vice versa. Please try to investigate what happend since I couldn't find it. I would be very happy if you could reply here or on my talk page then. Thank you.--Pethr 02:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The previous image appears to have been deleted at 14:40, 7 February 2007 by User:Ed g2s for the reason of "replaceable fair use, 7 days". Apparently on 27 January it was tagged as such, and was deleted after, which would explain why the original file doesn't show up. -- Natalya 03:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The image appears to have been deleted due to being in breach of our fair use policy, and an image with the same name from Commons has is now showing. It's quite difficult to describe why, but it's not vandalism or anything naughty. It's just how Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons work. -- Heligoland 03:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Ben Stein was vandalized a few times so I thought this was somehow part of it. Someone should have removed the image from articles when deleting because picture of stone in the water was appering in infobox of living person... It is indeed funny, but not very nice. Once more thank you!--Pethr 03:46, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Just won't get it

Can someone explain on Talk:Jacob_P_Secrest just why he can't have an article for his micronation? He's not listening to me. Luigi30 (Taλk) 13:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You've already explained why. Just ignore him. Proto::► 14:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I've dropped him a line, we'll see what happens. It seems better to try and take the time to explain it to someone so that they are content with what happend, and will continue editing constructively. -- Natalya 14:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• Moved to User talk:I Can't Believe It's Not Blight, since the article is deleted and likely to stay that way. Guy (Help!) 15:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Kinetoscope and blacklist

An anon IP has vandalized Kinetoscope, a featured article, by deleting an entire section of content. Unfortunately, I cannot revert this because the original text contains a citation link which is apparently now part of the blacklist. This link is a legitimate citation, present when the FAC was approved, yet its presence allows this article's vandalism to stand. Can someone please rectify the blacklist or at least exception this case so that the article can be properly reverted without the citation being removed? Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola 11:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• The reference was not necessary; it was of the form of "at least one website has picked this up", within a paragraph that had a proper published reference. The site in question includes much unacknowledged scraped content and was spammed by its owner across four language Wikipedias. Guy (Help!) 17:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Nonadministrator's query: The reference to the site essentially served as a warning to readers about its unreliability. The intent and effect clearly serve the spirit of the blacklist. Not permissible?—DCGeist 20:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Why include a site if we know it's unreliable? The reasons for blacklisting were credible enough, the reasons for including were, to my eyes, weak. Guy (Help!) 10:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Contentious RFCN, need outside view

The debate in question is here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User_names#Malakaville_.28talk_.E2.80.A2_contribs.29

There is a rather contentious debate at WP:RFCN. I would like a neutral party to look at it. I closed a 2 day old(which is long for an RFCN) debate as No consensus, after receiving a complaint, I inviting a user to re-open it. I have seen no new arguments provided since, and it is becoming less productive as time passes.

I would like someone uninvolved to decide when it needs closing, and how to close it. I have not given an opinion on the username, nor do I have one. Thank you. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 02:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 03:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• I find it somewhat disheartening that RFCN has started to resemble AFD, with people !voting "strong disallow" and such. In general our username policy should be pretty clear-cut, no? >Radiant< 10:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Our username policy is probably the most ambiguous policy we have. That is why WP:RFCN is always so full of colorful arguments, we have intentionally left the line a little blurry, and asked users not to try to find that line. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

"noautoblock"

Special:Log/block is indicating the lack of an autoblock as "noautoblock", all one word (Example). Might it be better to say "autoblock disabled" or something similar? (Compare with how it was until a few days ago, when it said "autoblock enabled" or nothing). Presumably there's a "MediaWiki" page somewhere where this text is set, but I can't seem to find it (and can't change it myself anyway) – Qxz 14:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Sigh, who changed that?? Now I have to go fix my bot. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't look like it has changed in the Mediawiki texts. (Special:Allmessages enter block-log-flags in the box to limit to just these flag) --pgk 16:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Why is it doing that? I went through the last 20 or so svn diffs, nothing obvious there... Prodego ^talk 21:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well you went further than me, I looked at the module in question saw which messages it pulled out and saw it didn't appear to have changed recently and stopped there. --pgk 23:24, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You mean it's not meant to be doing this, and you can't change it? Um. Oh. Well, good luck sorting it out... – Qxz 23:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

We don't know, but whatever developer (which it seems it must have been) changed it does. Other developers should be able to find it as well. I did notice Mediawiki:Noautoblockblock, but I don't see how that could do this... Did there use to be a BlockLog.php in SVN? Prodego ^talk 02:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe someone far more knowledgeable than I also needs to edit/undate WP:AUTOBLOCK, which as of now still says that a blocking admin has no control over turning the autoblock on or off. Newyorkbrad 02:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I probably changed this. I'll look into it at some stage. — Werdna talk 06:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Self-reference

I had a quick look down DumbBot's protected article list and picked up a few self-references, which I collected at Wikipedia:Protected titles/Self-reference. I was wondering if we should also add things like edit conflict and edit war and the like. Guy (Help!) 16:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• Protected titles is for protecting non-existent pages against (repeated) creation, not for protecting pages that do exist. Uncle G 12:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Help Desk personnel needed

This is a good thing for new admins and aspiring admins to help on. Or old admins who are bored with chasing vandals. We desperately need experienced and sane editors to deal with things like the Microsoft-Wikipedia kerfuffle without it becoming a media circus ([21], [22], [23]). So WikiBlue (the Foundation's communications and PR person, Sandra Ordonez) has drafted a simple page at Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from enterprise).

What we need now is (1) OTRS volunteers (these are always needed ... they deal with a firehose of crap and can burn out quickly) and (2) Wikipedia:Help desk. The Help Desk NEEDS sensible people, and admins are picked for their judgement.

So please dive in and help :-) - David Gerard 17:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd love to help out some with OTRS... Last time I checked I didn't qualify tho... ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

m:OTRS/volunteering is the link for volunteering for OTRS. I don't fancy that, I do enough of it in work dealing with the wonderful Freedom of Information Act, but will lend a hand at the Help Desk whenever I can. Proto::► 12:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

An IP address is requesting that they be blocked

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

I warned an IP after someone using it vandalized Leon Trotsky. Later, this message was posted on my talk [24]. Then Hagermanbot came along and added the "unsigned by" bit [25]. Someone from this IP is requesting it be blocked permanently. I can't do anything about that but figured I should pass it along. TheQuandry 19:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I would recomend that this only be done if we at some point are able to speek to an official at the school. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of good edits from that IP. I wouldn't block unless whoever is making those constructive edits signs up for an account. Thanks/wangi 19:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

No users own their IP, so we should only block if an admin thinks it should be blocked. It is not the same as a user asking to be blocked. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 19:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

For reference, if some organisation such as a school wants IPs assigned to them to be blocked from editing, ask a representative from the school to contact the info team at info-en@wikimedia.org. --bainer (talk) 07:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Japan Article

I have added factual information to the Japan article and yet it is constantly being reverted without any reason being given and they are not discussing it in the Talk:Japan page either. I have asked in the talk page why the information is being reverted and yet no reply is given. Considering that the information which is constantly being reverted is just well known facts I can't see any reason why it would be reverted other than for anti-Japanese sentiments, which I have concluded for myself is probably the reason after looking at the users talk pages and past contributions. Can someone please stop this 'vandalism' of the Japan article as it's being done to hinder the article in as much of a way as they think they can get away with, not to mention that this anti-Japanese sentiment has no place on Wikipedia. Somethingoranother 21:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Dispute resolution, which deals with content disputes (Which appears to be the issue at hand) is a little bit farther down the hall... Sorry to not be of help. Also, I'd recommend a bit of good faith, it's not always racism. Logical2u_Talk 21:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, it helps to provide a citation when you add factual information. Burden of proof rests with the editor who wants information to remain. Durova^Charge! 14:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Personal attacks from Ross.Hedvicek

Ross.Hedvicek has vulgarly attacked many people from Czech and English Wikipedia. He's obsessive - it's there once again - he is banned at cswiki, so that he insults people there and in his nasty blog. Please, do something, probably a longer block would be fine. He's one of the people, who really spoil reputation of the Wikipedia. Thank you. Petr K 21:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I encountered him about a year ago and I found him distasteful, but you'd need to make a better case than that to have him blocked or community sitebanned. Considering the duration of the problem you might request arbitration. Durova^Charge! 14:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

<Courtesy blanked>

This section blanked as a courtesy. Thatcher 20:57, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Polarbit

I've been trying to deal with above user over the page My life as jacob (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Polarbit (talk · contribs) seems to be the creator of the page about a non-notable album and recreated it after it was speedy deleted once before. I tagged it again as a speedy delete, but the user kept removing the speedy deletion tags, even after a repeated final warning. Despite claims he will "add sources" to the page, all he's done is just add templates to the page. A quick bit of research shows no coverage in reliable sources for the album, and Polarbit has tried to remove the speedy tags from the article through anonymous IP addresses. Can someone please deal with this user and the article? NeoChaosX (talk, walk) 02:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for deleting it, but he recreated the article again. NeoChaosX (talk, walk) 03:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Editor's business card on user page

User:JPatrickBedell has an image of his business card — Image:Cannabis-bcard-2007-01-10 000001.png — on his userpage. I find that this is contrary to policy and the general principles of Wikipedia.

• Though not an article, it violates the spirit of Propaganda or advocacy/self-promotion/advertising.
• His cards advertise his business — selling cannabis — which I believe falls under WP:NOT Personal web pages as this is the sort of item that one would post on their own website.
• And, finally, I find that it does not advance Wikipedia as an encyclopedia (WP:User page).

There was a recent incident, discussed here (or it might have been on AN/I), in which an editor removed what they considered to be inappropriate content from another editor's userpage without first talking to the editor. The gist of the discussion pointed to an overall agreement that concerns should have first been made known to the editor to give him a chance to remove the image on his own. I've done this on the user page. I've been politely ignored. (JPatrickBedell has posted on my talk page in response to another editor's posted concern that JPatrickBedell might be using a sockpuppet for editing, so he's clearly aware of talk pages and has been reading his and others.)

I've not deleted the image myself, but instead I'm bringing it here for comment/to get sense of community opinion. — ERcheck (talk) 12:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Get rid of it. Wikipedia is not a free webhost, and blatant advertising is blatant advertising. I would suggest asking a commons admin to get rid of the image, as he's cunningly uploaded it there. Proto::► 12:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Highly inappropriate misuse of Wikipedia. Further, his userpage clearly indicates he is not here to further Wikipedia's neutral aims, but to push his 9/11 conspiracy theories. I'm not sure this guy belongs here.--Doc^g 12:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I deliberately separated the business card issue from the conspiracy issue, though is becoming clearer that there are policy violations, including potential libel ([26]). — ERcheck (talk) 13:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

As a commons admin, I hereby point out this discussion is misplaced. You are welcome to post a discussion in commons:Commons:Deletion requests and argue that it is not in the commons:project scope. I do not believe it qualifies under the criteria of speedy deletion. --Cat out 13:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

OK the image has been put up for deletion by a commons admin. The user, however, is our problem.--Doc^g 13:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

"Get rid of it" didn't necessarily mean speedily, and only referred to one problem image. But thanks for the deletion, Cat. The discussion is not misplaced, however - as Doc says, the user is on Wikipedia, not Commons. Proto::► 13:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh what I meant was the deletion discussion. :) --Cat out 13:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I was going to delete it but rama beat me to it. I was initially thinking that this "might" be useful on a business card article. But clearly this thing isn't even useful for that. --Cat out 13:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

(This is reposted from User talk:ERcheck.) Thank you very much for expressing your concerns. It appears to me, after carefully considering your request, that the belief that this image is not allowed on a wikipedia user page can only result from an inappropriate misreading of the published guidance on the subject. It communicates contact information as its central purpose, and also encodes two distinct information currency units, which may be decoded by other wikipedia users to learn about both PDF417 and information currency. Thank you again for your help. JPatrickBedell 13:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for working so hard to make wikipedia great! For clinical analysis of wiki-behavior, I could only call this an example of suppresionism (of course, the article will probably be deleted by the time you read this :). Thanks again! JPatrickBedell 14:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

compromised account

Would this be the place to report a possibly compromised account? Natalie 02:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. WP:AN/I might be slightly better, but that's just such a minor detail. Which account do you suspect isn't being used by its creator? Picaroon 03:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, it may be a moot point now, since the account has been blocked, but almost immediately after User: 134.148.5.104 was blocked, User: Perdy80 began making the exact same vandalism edits. But if you look at Perdy80's contribs, he or she was a perfectly fine contributor up through 1 February. There is then a 1 week gap of no edits, and then the vandalism edits start. It just seems odd to me that an editor of primarily football related subjects would suddenly start repeatedly vandalizing politics articles. Natalie 03:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Very, very odd. I'll keep an eye out, I suspect a relative and a cookie. Teke ^(talk) 06:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

E-mail is enabled--has anyone tried e-mailing? Chick Bowen 07:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

80.192.242.187

There have been some problems with this IP. There are multiple attempts to reason with him here: User talk:80.192.242.187. Despite this, there is persistent and unrepentant addition of inaccuracies, incivility and vandalism including explicit comments. He has already been blocked once for 11 hours and another time for 48 hours. I request something more be done. Here is a summary of his edits in the last 10 days. Thanks. MRSC • Talk 15:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• uncivil, offensive 'cockle' comment
• shouting offensive, ignoring references, alluding to others that do not exist
• changing meaning of text to something other than the citation
• ignoring talk page discussions, adding bogus references
• referring to other editors as 'the clowns', while adding factually inaccurate information
• adding inaccuracy
• uncivil rant to Galloglass
• assurance to Regan123 that no inaccuracies have been added
• removing references
• addition of inaccuracies
• addition of inaccuracies
• argument to Galloglass about postal system (his arguments are the opposite to Royal Mail sources)
• adding inaccuracies
• adding inaccuracies, edit summary says opposite to Royal Mail sources
• adding inaccuracies, edit summary says opposite to Royal Mail sources
• adding inaccuracies
• adding inaccuracies
• vandalising Fnarf999 page, multiple obscene references to 'bumming', 'homosexual', 'masturbating' etc.
• vandalising Fnarf999 page
• vandalising Fnarf999 page
• vandalising Fnarf999 page, multiple obscene references to 'homosexual', 'masturbating' etc.
• adding nonsense and 3RR
• adding nonsense
• uncivil 'prick' comment
• adding inaccuracies, false claim about Royal Mail publications
• uncivil, accuse Fnarf999 of being gay/homosexual
• shouting, uncivil
• shouting, uncivil
• uncivil

The real Light current speaks again

ATM there are many impersonators of me (the REAL LC) on the Wiki. Its dissapointing to see the gullible Admins have been fooled again, and have banned me as a result. I didnt have much faith in Admins to start with, but this latest action shows their complete and utter stupidity. See you soon

I wonder if some action could be taken on this as the bad editing practice now continues. MRSC • Talk 07:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Personal attack or Not?

I want to know the reason of User:Jayjg post on a user talk page. He keep calling each reference we (me and many other provide) as false. He abuse me multiple times by calling source I give him as cherry picking sources. Now he is generalizing political and linguistic as non-reliable sources. I want to know the reason of his post that how can someone with such MAJOR post in wikipedia continue to do such things. Hence I post on his talk page which he removed calling personal attack. [27]. If it is personal attack then it simply means he is God and he can say Noam Chomsky as unreliable and we accept it. If we ask him he call it persoanl attack. I wish to have some outside view on this. --- ALM 16:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Jayjg who is an admin and as well as on important places like Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee say following. Politicians and linguists are not researchers in the field of terrorism, and therefore are not reliable sources on the subject. Jayjg (talk) 13:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC). He decline to accept Noam chomsky as a reference. When ask why he is generalizing all the politician and linguistics in above statement then he saying it personal attack. It is simply not acceptable from someone who is so important in wikipedia.--- ALM 16:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't appear that you are accusing him of abusing his administrative privileges. Unless you feel he has used rollback or protection or banning inappropriately, this probably isn't the best forum for you to air your complaints. You seem to have a dispute with him about what is and is not a reliable source. I'd suggest you read Wikipedia:Reliable sources, and take content disputes to the article's talk page. If he doesn't want you to comment on his talk page, the appropriate course of action (in my opinion) would be for you to not do so. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 16:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

How can he selects not to answer to anyone or decline to answer to anyone. If he is a simple user then it is OKAY. I do not care and if a simple user do not wish to answer. However, an admin should not be able to decline to answering legal and fair questions. If they can then they should not be admin. Is my logic wrong? --- ALM 16:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

An admin is a regular user, unless that admin is using his tools. Unless there has been some mis-use of admin tools, this belongs with regular conflict resolution. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 16:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think I have passed the stage with him where I can resolve conflict. I will try to push some people to file RFC because I do not have time to do that myself. He first says that I am using primary source. Hence I provide him secondary source. He says that it is not reliable source. I provide him more reliable source. Then he says it is cherry picking. Hence he never accept any sources at all. If I post a simple question on his talk page he decline to answer that. Why he is admin then? When he do not welcome other people to talk with him and answer questions? (I have references of each of above things). --- ALM 16:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

An RFC is a good part of conflict resolution, and might be your best bet. Admins are not required to respond to every message left on their talk pages, and many do not. Best of luck. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 16:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

After reviewing the situation, it appears User:Jayjg is challenging Noam chomsky as a reliable source on terrorism-related articles (since Chomsky is a linguist and not a terrorism expert). While this view could be debated, it is a valid view. Jayjg has not engaged in any personal attacks regarding this. That said, ALM has appeared to engage in borderline personal attacks around this issue. ALM should feel free to take this to conflict resolution if he wants but should also know that his actions and statements will also be considered in any conflict resolution. --Alabamaboy 16:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I have nothing to lose Alabamaboy. It is not about Noam Chomsky alone. It is a long lasting dispute about him. If they ban me then it is okay because for me standing for what is right matter more then individuals.

Then I try to send email to few editors who have conflicts with him in the past. I will tell them references so that they can file RFC and I can work. Because I cannot do that myself without losing important work time. --- ALM 17:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

When contacting these other editors, you may wish to keep WP:CANVAS in mind. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Important Note: Question was NOT about Noam chomsky alone. Question was that he has generalised all politican and liguistics. The question is that he refuse to explain himself even being an admin and Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee member. His quote "Politicians and linguists are not researchers in the field of terrorism, and therefore are not reliable sources on the subject. Jayjg (talk) 13:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)" --- ALM 17:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It is not alone me who is confused from his post and had a wish for simple explanation. there are other user also.--- ALM 17:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

But it is still not an admin matter. I suggest mediation or RFC, or gathering more opinions, or conducting a poll. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay thanks. --- ALM 17:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Image question

I don't deal much with images so I'm not much on an expert on licensing... so hopefully someone else here deals with it more and can answer this question. An editor has loaded some images (this being an example) with a GFDL license. Correct me if I'm wrong, but to release something GFDL, you need to be the content creator don't you? There is no image source information and I somehow doubt the uploader actually created this image so it probably is a valid license, but like I said I don't do enough with images that I'm 100% sure that is the case. If any other admins want to take a look or just explain it to me on my talk page, that would be great.--Isotope23 18:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Either the creator must release it under GFDL, or it must be a modified ('derivative') version of a work under a GFDL-compatible licence (such as public domain or CC-by) and released by the modifier under GFDL, for the resulting image to be GFDL. I can just about imagine that image being a derivative of a public-domain image, but it doesn't seem likely and anyway that should be stated to be true on the image if it is, so it looks somewhat suspicious. --ais523 18:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that is sort of what I thought. I'm talking to the uploader right now to get this sorted out.--Isotope23 19:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Subtle POV Pushing in Douglas Feith Article

An anon user at 24.104.47.12 is repeatedly inserting redundant information concerning Douglas Feith's religion and alleged politics into his article. [28] [29] [30] I think an administrator should warn the anon user at 24.104.47.12 about it. Abe Froman 18:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

renaming of an article

This is re-request in re Oberon-1. See discussion at talk. There is no Oberon-1 language. There was an Oberon Report by Wirth et al, and there was an Oberon-2 Report. The Oberon-1 article should be renamed Oberon, and all pointers to it converted to Oberon. In keeping iwth the programming language decision re Java and C and so on, perhaps it should be Oberon (programming language). But this impetuous rename should be recovered. WP readers deserve better than this confusion. ww 20:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a complicated case and should go to Wikipedia:Requested moves. The history has to be gone through with some care; last October it seems to have been divided into what are now Oberon-1 and Oberon-2. The previous title was Oberon (programming language), which now redirects to Oberon-2. It should not be at Oberon, which is a disambiguation page, however; it needs some kind of explanatory parenthesis. Chick Bowen 23:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Puppet Filled Mess

Hi

Where is the best place to report a string of sock/meat puppets these days? I've been editing as anon for years now, and am not familiar with the current meta practices on en.

I noticed some serious disruption in an AfD involving massive sock and meat puppetry, including external incitements to disruption. Somebody with checkuser needs to sort this out. Just as my luck would have it, I happen to get into a passionate AfD right after I leave the IPs behind, and now I can't bring this up in the AfD itself, as it has moved to semiprot (as it should be) to stop the puppetry.

Thanks, NetOracle 00:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Hm, I don't see much need for sanctions or investigations here. The closing admin just needs to discount the puppets, i.e., the very new users with their very passionate opinions or the older accounts who have not edited Wikipedia since 2004. Sandstein 12:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Action figure reverts

Hi. I don't really know who to report here because there may be sockpuppets involved. If you see this history page, you'll notice that recently, 219.88.183.189 and I (Power level (Dragon Ball)) have been having a dispute about which image should be used for that article. Recently, someone creates an account named OJHomer and reverts back to the version that 219.88.183.189 wanted on the Action figure article: link. This newcomer, however, was reverted by SUIT. I don't know what to suggest here. Perhaps CheckUser would be the best thing to use here to find out who created that account to help sway consensus. But the problem with that is that this user may very well use dial-up or something and his IP address can change over time. Can an administrator confirm who created the account without reffering to CheckUser, to save us the trouble? Power level (Dragon Ball) 04:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Just pointing out; "no" admins can't know 100% who created the account and the IP without Checkuser. ~ Arjun 04:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

So, should I tag the new user as a possible sock of 219.88.183.189 and use CheckUser? Power level (Dragon Ball) 04:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Protection of today's featured article

Ragib semi-protected today's featured article (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman). Isn't generally accepted that articles on the main page aren't protected? John Reaves (talk) 04:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's some of the lowest vandalism edit amounts on a FA I've seen in awhile and it was protected for what reason? Metros232 04:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

While there has been a recent movement to change our policy regarding FA protection, it currently states that FAs should not be protected except for very short amounts of time in order to fix vandalism. There was also no {{sprotect}} template added to it. I'm going to unprotect; until there is consensus for the policy to change, then we shouldn't go around ignoring it (IAR notwithstanding) willy-nilly. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 04:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Good call; there's no reason for it to be protected for any amount of time longer than about twenty minutes (though I do agree that any front-page FA should be move-protected). EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with EVula that the main page FA should be [move=sysop] protected. Daniel.Bryant 04:57, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree also, protection of move but not of editing. ~ Arjun 04:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

(It is obviously still move-protected, if those above were not speaking generically.) —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 05:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I had semi-protected it due to the initial burst of vandalism. No problem if someone removes it to just move protection (which already was done). Not a big deal to make an ANB report ... Had I been online in the last couple of hours after I protected it, I'd have un-semi-protected it myself. Thanks. --Ragib 07:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I have been blocked (a month) in the Spanish Wikipedia for a page I maintain in the English Wikipedia

User got blocked on es:, is complaining here. This is not our jurisdiction, and we can't take any admin action there.

We don't accept other wikis coming here disputing our blocks, we can't meddle on other wikis. Since this is not admin related, since no admin action can follow, I'm moving the huge thread to User talk:Drini/randroide Those interested in the debate can continue there.

I repeat, this is about an affair on other wiki, no action from this wiki's admin is being requested, therefore I'm moving it to a proper place.

The page User:Drini/randroide is a commentary on the page that got him blocked on es:, so people that can't read spanish can know what's it about. -- Drini 20:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

MOving content out again

• Regarding [31]

This is not the place to discuss es: admin actions. I did not DELETE content as you FALSELY claim. I moved it, and provided links to it. Stop lying. -- Drini 21:05, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

You requested comments on my actoins. I did them. Above. ANd now again:

The link is incorrect, Drini. Please paste the correct link. Randroide 16:33, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

Please be aware that these pages are not the place to bring disputes over content, or reports of abusive behaviour — we're not referees, and have limited authority to deal with abusive editors. We have a dispute resolution procedure which we recommend you follow. Please take such disputes to requests for comment, requests for mediation, or requests for arbitration rather than here. Please do not post slurs of any kind on this page, and note that any messages that egregiously violate Wikipedia's civility or personal attacks policies will be removed.

So I moved the discussion that's not related to administrative tasks out of here. I gave my talk page as a starting point, but feel free to continue it otherwise. I gave comments and reasons on why I did. I repeat I did not delete content, I moved it and provided links. Thank you. -- Drini 21:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Randroide begs your pardon

I beg your pardon, Drini, I missed that you pasted the discussion in the linked page.

Nonetheless, I ask you to please assume good faith: I never called you "Liar". Errare humanum est.

And I repeat: I asked for comment, not action, from en:Wikipedia administrators. My one month blocking at the Spanish Wikipedia was cause by this page at en:Wikipedia. I was asking for comment about the page, not about the blocking.

Randroide 12:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

If you want comments I suggest you either use Requests for comments or Village pump admins here are not special leaders who decide what is good and bad. -- Drini 14:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion, Drini.

By the way, your translation of the contentious page you presented ,protected by you, is incorrect in several key points. Curiously, your mistranslations always present Spanish Admistrators -you are also an admin there- under a better light

Please check your translation.

Any input from Spanish Speaking users is also welcome.

Randroide 15:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick question addressed to Drini: Why did you copy that content to your userspace? --Asterion^talk 12:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

James Sabow - Unfounded copyright claims preventing critical image inclusion

Thanks for making wikipedia great! I would like to include the images Image:FIGURE 11 A 4cda533808cecbb8952a1a001392adc86ad9a4f282ee2e97f56e28849b88048f.jpg Image:FIGURE 11 B 1a65945fc077c716da682e8c877fb62c9957ad5ef20afcd497353f7c9f23c4fb.jpg Image:FIGURE 11 C 9de163fa3d855d4d1c5273e0ea16bf984f185f5fdc314b4410e55d6bd6be45cf.jpg in the James E. Sabow article. The images make plain that Col. Sabow suffered a basilar skull fracture before a shotgun was discharged in his mouth. The images (initially on commons at Image:FIGURE 11 A a5cd1064fb7502e6a9e10b1dfe54ea5872c3279f.jpg, Image:FIGURE 11 B f1992ff75a9c82108c08c27e207879b8115fc9bf.jpg, Image:FIGURE 11 C 3ae8ad0330aeba8d5250813b471dc58c7a248e9e.jpg) are autopsy photographs that are not generally copyrighted. The fair use rationale provided with the images at en.wikipedia.org would apparently satisfy wikipedia's copyright policies.

Unfortunately, the edits including the images have been reverted twice, and I am seeking help here. I believe that, despite the graphic nature of the images, it is important that users of wikipedia be able to see the facts of a disputed case for themselves. Thank you for your consideration. JPatrickBedell 19:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Image use policy for our policy on publishing images on Wikipedia. In brief: be sure, in the future, to not make up spurious licensing claims, and, at a mimimum, credit the copyright holder of any image you upload. Jkelly 20:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

They are licensed GFDL and I don't see evidence the uploader actually has the correct permissions to license these as GFDL. I've responded on his talk page so hopefully this can be cleared up.--Isotope23 20:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The three images on commons (Image:FIGURE 11 A a5cd1064fb7502e6a9e10b1dfe54ea5872c3279f.jpg, Image:FIGURE 11 B f1992ff75a9c82108c08c27e207879b8115fc9bf.jpg, Image:FIGURE 11 C 3ae8ad0330aeba8d5250813b471dc58c7a248e9e.jpg) have each been tagged with the copyvio claim. I don't believe that claim is valid, although I may of course be wrong. Copyright issues are, in criminal justice proceedings, a non-issue, and the OC Coroner doesn't assert copyright on the images. They don't sell autopsy images, either. Thanks for your help! JPatrickBedell 20:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

A copyright dosn't need to be asserted to be valid. Orange County would own the copyrights by default unless they have a policy of releasing the info into the public domain (for example some places release mug shots, some don't). Fair Use might apply if the article was talking about the photo or it had a section on his head wound. I'm not 100% sure tho. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion of the images may also constitute original research. It is not wikipedia's job to prove anything with regard to the subject, and this article looks like a textbook case of axe-grinding. Several of the references are self-published by the subject's father in what appears to be a highly contentious investigation. I certainly do not accept the claim that coroner's records are not copyrighted. At a minimum they are medical records protected by HIPPA and may not legally be disclosed without written authorization from the subject's estate or authorized medical proxy. The images are almost certainly copyrighted as well. Thatcher131 22:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestions. The images are now referenced in the text in a way that makes the importance of the images clear. This is fair use for a matter of public importance. Also, please note that Dr. David Sabow is the brother of Col. James Sabow. Simply ignoring the references does not demonstrate NPOV. Thank you for your help! JPatrickBedell 22:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

There are changing licensing claims on these images. See the upload summary. User asserts public domain claiming they are the work of the Naval Investigative Service. Then, it is changed to the county coroner. In fact, it is likely that the source that the JPatrickBedell took these images from is a copyright protected report from http://meixatech.com/COLSABOWHOMICIDE.pdf . These images, as noted from their file names, are likely scans of figure 11 in the report.

The use of these images are part of JPatrickBedell's self-declared mission ("I am determined to see that justice is served in the death of Colonel James Sabow...", see user page) to use Wikipedia for finding "justice" in the death of Col. Sabow. The editors mission has lead to edits that appear to violate some fundamental Wikipedia policies and guidelines: WP:NOT — advocacy, WP:OR — Synthesis of published material... (deleted "Evidence" subpage). These images are are only included to advance this mission. — ERcheck (talk) 00:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Wait five days and the issue probably goes away. At least it's shaping up that way. Guy (Help!) 00:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It seems that the user has uploaded the images again. Aecis^Brievenbus 11:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

John F. Sandner

I'm not sure if this the right place to raise this. If not let me know. I began an article a few days ago on John F. Sandner, former longtime chairman of the Chicago Merc, and unfortunately I seem to have taken some phrases from a website unintentionally, for which I apologize. The article now has a large "copyright violation" notice, and I tried to expiate matters by commencing a new article in the temp file attached to the article. I understand that an administrator must resolve this. Could someone please look at the temp file when you have a chance, and use that as the basis of a new article? I realize it is a stub and requires much work, but this is just a beginning. thank you. --Samiharris 23:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. Chick Bowen 23:09, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Finding fair use images outside the article namespace

Folks, some time back I seem to recall there was an external tool which helped locate images uploaded under fair-use criteria but used outside the article namespace. Am I mistaken? Otherwise, where is it? Ta! _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 23:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

PS, to add to that - what happened to the external tool which listed current {{prod}}s? I think it used to be on toolserver... _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 23:51, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Category:Proposed_deletion - that cat maintains a list automatically. I don't know about the first question. 00:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

User:DumbBOT/ProdSummary lists all currently active prods. I don't think the fair use tool exists anymore, though the toolserver and most of its tools are still operational at http://tools.wikimedia.de, though not all the data for the English Wikipedia is there. Here is the latest message from the toolserver mailing list relating to the situation of the toolserver and English Wikipedia. Graham87 01:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion made at WP:CN

For those who still don't have WP:CN watched, FYI there's a suggestion there right now for an "ArbCab". I don't support the idea, but cross-posting here to get more people's attention to it. – Chacor 02:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't we already have WP:WQA, WP:3O, WP:MEDCAB, and WP:ARBCOM? Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 03:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Since there are links to them all, I assume we do. :) I have never heard of WP:WQA though, why would you need a page for giving what basically are light warnings? Prodego ^talk 03:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, WP:WQA is so get third-party opinions on violations of ettiquette, not policy. I'm confused now :). Yuser31415 03:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

See the CN for my response. Geo. Talk to me 03:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Immediate attention needed at Latina Aragon

I have already tagged this article, but it's content is supposedly about an Undercover Narcotics Agent, and it would seem to ba a supremely bad idea to have information of this type hanging around Wikipedia. NipokNek 13:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, obviously it's fictional, but that info was added after I posted here. Sorry. NipokNek 13:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The text keeps changing, now it seems to be real again. I need help. NipokNek 13:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I've speedy deleted it as an unquestionable copyvio from [32] _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 13:39, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I hate it when you tag something, and then the text changes significantly. You go back and it looks like you have no idea what you are doing. :P NipokNek 13:59, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Fishy Page(s)

I originally posted this to the VP, and it was suggested to try here:

This isn't quite ANI territory, but it does look a bit suspicious and may require a bit of unpicking. On random browsing I came across Anthony John Bailey - it looked like it was a little too polished and my suspicions were only raised further when I see virtually a mono-contributor history (a couple of accounts and IP addies, but almost all of them bar the most recent few are most likely all the same person). There is certainly some fact in there, but there is certainly also a good deal of what, for a better phrase, could be described as promotional material. Hi-res photograph (publicity shot), verbose language, "Bailey is one of the most decorated living Briton" (is he? no source and sounds promotional), coupled with fudge facts, "Freedom of the City of London 2004" - as Freedom of the City details for London that basically means being as part of a Freemason/guilds type linkage - the text as it is in his article makes it sound like it is on par with Neil Armstrong being bestowed freedoms. The vast majority of references are to "Eligo International" - a check on that website reads:

“ Eligo International is a dynamic and well-established public relations and public affairs company offering its clients innovative, creative and competitively priced communications solutions. Our experienced team of communications experts are engaged in developing and pro-actively executing the communications needs of statesmen and public figures, governments, diplomatic missions, senior corporate and industry leaders at home and abroad. ”

If folks can manage to actually decode any real english words out of that pea soup of management speak then it looks to me like a straight up PR firm. It was also "Founded in 1997 by Anthony Bailey". Of the other references a couple are from reputable sources, but the rest of them are from various "organisations" setup by him or his company. Matters aren't helped by the multiple edit accounts this has all been created from - including 81.149.151.110 (talk · contribs), Digby2 (talk · contribs), Seisal (talk · contribs), Cahce (talk · contribs) and the most obvious, Eligo (talk · contribs). A couple of them may be genuine editors, but the IP addy and Eligo are definitely the same thing. Other relevant articles to the situation include Painting & Patronage and House of Hohenberg - there may be others.

The issue I set out here is not some nn situation - these all appear to be real things - but what it does appear we have is some sort of promotional, PR web. I say web because the methodology of the editing is all too intermingled and from too many new accounts all editing on the same subject. The main article on the individual most definitely reads as nothing but self-promotional vanity and is in no way objective. Others thoughts would be welcomed. SFC9394 00:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not seeing anything in that article that meets WP:BIO...should this be prodded or sent to AFD? Hbdragon88 01:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Start the AfD. I'll vote to delete.--Alabamaboy 01:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Acutally I take that back. Article claims that he is the ambassador to The Bamgia, which strikes me as being notable. Hbdragon88 02:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Slight problem there, as I can't verify that at all. He has attracted some press coverage over his relationships with notable people and his donations to the Labour Party, and his engagement to an Austrian princess attracted some coverage as well. I'm confused as to what he's actually notable for though. One Night In Hackney 10:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

• Hey, I'm confused as to what Tara Palmer-Tomkinson is notable for :-) Guy (Help!) 12:50, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it claims that he is the ambassador (or ambassador-at-large) from The Gambia to the EU. What does that mean? I don't know. This piece, while not exactly a reliable source, makes me think it might simply mean that his PR firm is doing work on behalf of the Gambia. Anyway: shall we continue this conversation on the article's talk page ? FreplySpang 12:54, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

zoominfo summary page which collates multiple sources. Of particular interest is the independent piece - the account there (namely that Labour rejected funding from him in the past over concerns that he was a lobbyist, but now accepted due to current financial difficulties) sits completely at odds with the Political chapter in the article - which paints a conveniently different picture. SFC9394 13:33, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The more I look at this the more it just looks like a PR company editing wikipedia for their clients. Checking more of Eligo (talk · contribs) leads to other articles (Khalid al Faisal, Mahmoud Khayami) - conveniently on subjects that the PR firm have as clients. Indeed there is a crossover of editing subjects which can link the same thing back to Public relations (talk · contribs) - editing in June last year. I would tend to suggest this needs to be fully examined - it looks a bit deeper than just a vanity party donor article. SFC9394 14:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

A series of sock/meat-puppets building favorable articles about clients. Not shocking... we all know this goes on.

First, lets take this to WP:RFCU. If it seems they are all from the same IP, indef-ban the lot and delete the article so someone independent can build an un-COI article if any real notability is there (and it might be... ambasitor from a tiny african country might qualify him). ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

3RR Problem

I wanted to request some insight into a matter surrounding a 3RR report violation I filed on Feb 8th, The report appeared to have falled by the wayside, with one editor commenting on how the violations didn't appear to be patterned, and that the first instance didn't seem to be a revert. I submitted additional evidence of pattern with prior instances of reverting (that had not been reported). The report went unanswered. Eventually, it was archived without result. I resubmitted the same report (with a notation that it had been filed previously without result). Shortly thereafter, I received the following result, noted here. The first responder, User:Humus sapiens stated "no violation, so no block." The second responder, User:Jayjg, chided me for submitting "ancient" requests, implying that I had dredged through the history of an article to find something from long ago, and that I had re-submitted the article after it had already been ruled upon, neither of which was accurate. In subsequent conversations between Jayig and myself, he suggested that "3RR reports that aren't acted on are typically those that are seen as problematic for one reason or another, which is why they aren't acted on." As I am not really aware of any issues surrounding what appeared to be a simple violation of 3RR (with an unreported history of same), the only "problematic" part of the equation appeared to be that it was a relatively user reporting an editor (who was clever enough to disguide his edit summaries to escape notice). I am submitting my concerns here because it was suggested (though not recommended) that this was the next venue of appeal. I feel that the reasons the 3RR report were denied (ie, no violation, stale reportage) are not in keeping with the spirit and letter of the rule. I had reported the instance of 3RR in a timely fashion, and supplied supplemental information as to prior bad acts and bad faith as needed, both politely and (so I hope) succinctly. I know that 3RR is not ment to be applied punitively, but I feel it has to be applied consistently and fairly. To have the report result skewed because of a perception that it was "ancient", it implies that the complaint was noit actually or adequately investigated. I am not asking for a pound of flesh; I am asking for a bit of fairness and consistency of policy application. I thank you for taking the time to read my concerns, and I apologize if my language was in any way impolite.Arcayne 23:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

No, your languages is fine and your complaint is valid. It's an unfortunate result of the 3RR desk being understaffed. In my experience the WP:3RR monitors typically do a good (and often thankless) job... but its entirely possible for something to slip though the cracks.

I know it's not your fault that the report went un-acted-on for so long, but it's not within the spirit of the blocking policy to block people for behavior that has stopped.

I haven't looked at the content of the report, so I can't say it was a valid report or not. Sorry... someone with more time can comment on that for you. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

No, in retrospect, this has gone on a bit longer than it should have. The reverting stopped because I (as the one getting reverted) decided that it wasn't worth the risk of furthering an edit war, and stopped posting the edits that were getting reverted. That the user in question dodged a bullet is immaterial at this late date; that sort of behavior has a way of popping up again, and with them, it probably will.

As I look over this, I probably should have let this go after the mistake; I hope you will chalk it up to newbie idealism. I didn't mean to disparage the 3RR desk; they are human and make mistakes - this is why they put erasers on pencils and delete keys on keyboards. I could have posted my complaint showing the reverts a lot better than I did. Ciê la vie.

I am sorry to have taken up the ANboard's time, and hope this will fade from memory....these are not the droids you are looking for...Arcayne 08:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

MedCab backlog

We have a large backlog of cases at MedCab requiring mediation, please help. --Ideogram 23:33, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Boris Stomakhin article and inciting of ethinic hatred

Following the edit warring between me and User:Biophys, Boris Stomakhinarticle was protected by administrator User:Cbrown1023 who told that he would unprotect that page till I reach an agreement with User:Biophys. The underlying problem for edit warring is that Biophys holds strognly Russophobic views and maintains that criminal Boris Stomakhin, who got 5 years of prison in Russia for public calls to extremism and terrorism against Russians including me, is actually innocent dissident. Biophys took his text material inserted into the article Boris Stomakhin from blog [La Russophobe]. As you could see phrases in the current article Boris Stomakhin match those in Blog La Russophobe. It is evident that this Blog La Russophobe is inciting ethnic hatred at least. The page of that blog http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2006/06/why-is-lr-russophobe-why-arent-you.html says that you should hate russians. User:Biophys insists that we should agree on exclusion from the article of citations taken from Russian respectable newspapers which hints that Stomakhin is not really innocent peaceful dissident, but actually almost a fascist. My question for Wikipedia administrators: If Wikipedia is a proper place for publishing Russophobic statements (anti-semitic statements), inciting ethnic hatred against Russians? I understand the position of User:Cbrown1023 who doesn't want to verifiy reliability of Russian texts, but a simple search in Google on Boris Stomakhin would lead to all Russophobe sources which are published by User:Biophys in current protected version of the article on Boris Stomakhin. I am astonished that Wikipedia administrators allow to paint people like Osama bin Laden like peaceful dissidents.Vlad fedorov 04:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Every version is the wrong version. Solve content disputes on the talk page and thereafter other channels of dispute resolution, no matter how disagreeable or biased the current content. If you two weren't edit-warring in the first place, you won't have reached this point, right? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 06:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Not every, but if you publish citations from Mein Kampf in Wikipedia I think that you are wrong. If an individual takes his text to Wikipedia from the Blog inciting ethnic hatred, then you are wrong. I again repeat my point for your irrelevant answer - material taken from site inciting ethnic hatred couldn't be published in Wikipedia.Vlad fedorov 07:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

What could I solve with man who wants to exclude reliable sources by labeling them unreliable? Are you sane person? If you would look at the history of the article you would see that it is not me who deletes portions of sourced text without any reasons. I have been complaining on 3RR board they have banned me because when I was reverting to my version and my text contained some passages left from edits by Alex Bakharev and Mikka which were unsourced (and they were undisputed, by the way). Vlad fedorov 07:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me? Did you just call me insane? I'm only trying to help you here, and I get a personal attack in return? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 07:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have been complaining for a month, but no one actually listened to me and tried to get into the matter. Please review the Talk Page on Boris Stomakhin article. There you will see everything with your eyes. One man (Biophys) forces his opinion despite that me, Ellol, Grafikn, Alex Bakharev and Mikka consider him to be wrong. He has published his version which was protected and no one cares that a man who called to kill all Russians and me also, is painted in Wikipedia as a dissident abused by the government, although investigation into his case was opened by complaint of private persons - retired pensioners. How could you help me? Vlad fedorov 08:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I will forgive you for the personal attacks. Looking at the talk page, I see that both of you have been uncivil, and many a personal attack has been thrown. I'm going to have to ask both to step back from the article and from each other and try editing something else (as full protection is now making you do). Both of you seem to have reached a point where alternative solutions are not being contemplated as plausible and acceptable to all. Ellol has offered a compromise, but does not seem to be acted upon. This is essentially a bilateral content dispute. I'm not inclined to wield my block powers yet, due to the fact that if I block one (on any pretense), I will have to block the other on the same pretense. Unless another admin thinks otherwise, I'm going to have to refer you to WP:3O, WP:MEDCAB, or WP:MEDCOM. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 08:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Physicq210, thank you. I agree to follow your advice (this is good advice!) but disagree that I ever was uncivil. Biophys 14:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC) My arguments about violation of LP policy by Vlad Fedorov can be found here Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#Violations_of_LP_policy. So, I reported this to LP noticeboard and tried to enforce LP policy.Biophys 16:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

OK. Thank you for your guidance. At last some light in the end of tunnel. But what could be done with administrator William Connolley who blocked me and haven't blocked Biophys too, although Biophys has done the same things. How could I complain on administrator?Vlad fedorov 08:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

That you need to take it up to him, on his talk page. Try asking him mildly, without insults, incivility, or threats of reporting him onto this board. However, chances are that you might have to swallow that block, no matter how unjust, to let this dispute pass and die off. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 08:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you once more. Your answers are really helpful to me. It is unjust that administrators could abuse someone without any consequences.Vlad fedorov 09:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Biophys refuses to negotiate, he wants to scrap all sources which may prove that Stomakhin is a fascist.Vlad fedorov 07:33, 8 February 2007 (UTC) Here is his message:

Sorry, but I insist to exclude this paragraph for the reasons
explained above. This is my last word. There is nothing to 
discuss here. Biophys 23:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

There is another problem. Vlad fedorov started reverting all my recent edits on political topics (completely unrelated to Stomakhin), so he effectively blocked my work in Wikipedia. I warned him but he continues. This is personal vengence. What can be done in this situation? Biophys 06:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted deletions by Biophys of well-sourced materials published by another author on the article Mitrokhin archive. This deletion could be seen here cur http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mitrokhin_Archive&diff=107010834&oldid=106018891 I have reinserted these well-sourced statements, since they are reliable and definitely should be mentioned in the article. I have deleted Biophys's unsourced defamatory statements on Russians as ethnicity which incite ethnic hatred in the article David Satter. Please note that Biophys reinserts unsourced statements inciting ethnic hatred by following edits cur http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Satter&diff=prev&oldid=107021411. I think he should be blocked for violation of LP policies, since these statements describe David Satter as inciting ethnic hatred at least.Vlad fedorov 06:24, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I would like to notice that Biophys deletes well-sourced materials not for the first time. For example Biophys has deleted good source in the article State sponsored terrorism http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=State-sponsored_terrorism&diff=102543018&oldid=102542124 Revision as of 23:23, 22 January 2007 (edit) (undo) Biophys (Talk | contribs) /* United States - reference to blog removed, non-working reference corrected) deleted the working link to [33]. I ask you to read his comments with attention, first Biophys claims that it is a blog, and second he claims the link is broken. But how he could say it is a blog if the link is actually broken? By the way, the source is not a blog and the link always works.Vlad fedorov 06:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

This is factually wrong. "Terrorism" is an old story. I agreed yesterday with physicq to stay away of you and do not do anything with your edits (see my message on your talk page that you deleted). It was you who attacked today and yesterday my articles and edits on political topics: Izvestia, David Satter, Yulia Latynina, Mitrokhin Archive, Anatoliy Golitsyn, Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation and Active measures, probably to take revenge for Stomakhin article (Sorry, I do not see any other logical explanation).Biophys 19:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Now Vlad fedorov attacked my another article, Human rights in Russia. He repeatedly deleted text supported by references to articles by Anna Politkovskaya from Novaya Gazeta. He also make changes to "prove" that Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation is great.Biophys 06:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I wonder, if anyone here could make Biophys calm? Every edit is explained and supported with specific arguments. FSB cannot be described as a secret police, since this term according to the respective Wikipedia article refers to the totalitarian states. I have corrected Biophys POV to NPOV, since CIA is not described as a secret police. As to the Human Rights article, I have employed the same approach which Biophys has taken in regard to the Izvestia article in Boris Stomakhin case. Biophys uses unconfirmed allegations of Anna Politkovskaya which is said was publishing her materials without verifications. Moreover, in the cited sources on Russian there are no allegations of Politkovskaya that people were detained because of their religion, while Biophys inserted these claims into the passage dedicated to the freedom of religion, which is evidently is not appropriate.Vlad fedorov 07:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You are doing original research by saying it is factually wrong. There is nothing wrong here - CIA has sponsored Cuban terrorists to commit terror on Cuba. It is sad that you see my edits as personal attack on you, try to think about it in other way. By the way you have suggested that I am FSB/KGB team working in the internet and called me troll. So you have also committed personal attack on me.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#Further_actions and here on my own talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AVlad_fedorov&diff=106849885&oldid=106512675 Vlad fedorov 04:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I have never made any personal attacks. It was you who wish me to die (see notice by Alex Bakharev about this personal attack on your page). Biophys 06:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC) But you deleted Alex Bakharev's comment from your talk page, as well as other negative comments with regards to your behavior. Biophys

First, I never wished you to die, and no one considered this as a personal attack, since you, Biophys, wished President Putin to die then too. And if someone should consider my wording as a personal attack, then he should consider your words on Putin as a personal attack too. Luckily, administrators are not so stupid as to believe in your another empty accusations. Second, I have deleted Alex Bakharev comments because the matter was solved, as to you I could note that you have deleted comments of other users which addressed your vandalism, POV and conspiracy theories. Amd I would like to notice that these comments weren't 'favorable' of you. And here I refer specifically to the notice of administrator Mikkalai who warned you about your 'completely POV edits', notice of Alex Bakhraev on your edits about Putin phallus and other stuff you like so much.Vlad fedorov 07:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I would like to notice that Biophys hinted that I am a KGB team working in the Wikipedia, actually. See there http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#Further_actions.Vlad fedorov 07:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Vlad fedorov, Biophys, please don't use the Administrators' noticeboard for this discussion. Complaining about each other won't get you far. Conscious 07:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I share you opinion. But there was a case where admin just took the side of Biophys who fired empty accusations and blocked me without any verification whatsoever. So I feel if Biophys fires another empty accusations I need to present some my explanations, just to be sure that another admin won't miss the point.Vlad fedorov 09:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Adminship numbers (was: Completely unnecessary thread...)

I changed the title from "Completely unnecessary thread, clear abuse of this noticeboard". It was bugging me seeing the silly abuse claim constantly repeated on my watchlist. Dragons flight 22:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Since the promotion of AnemoneProjectors there are now 1,111 admins. I find this satisfying for some reason. Chick Bowen 07:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not sure I get what you mean by your header and the message. Could you clarify? Regards, Navou ^banter / _{review me} 14:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I mean nothing at all. It's a round number. By abuse of this noticeboard, I meant by me, not abuse I was reporting, if that wasn't clear. Chick Bowen 16:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Irony. --Ideogram 16:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Predictions on when we'll reach 2000, or 2222? Newyorkbrad 16:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

More importantly (but not much), who is admin #666? the wub "?!" 16:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Mindspillage! --Deskana (request backup) 17:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Head for the hills! Mackensen (talk) 17:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

So there's something to that numerology stuff after all... Erm, I mean, what an amusing coincidence! Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 23:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

That's just alphabetical, isn't it? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:21, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Assuming no one was sysoped twice, or desysoped (which has happened), it is Alhutch. But obviously that is not correct, since you need to factor those things in. I know I am #865 though ;-). Prodego ^talk 17:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• It looks like Shimgray was #666 based on the list I have at the bottom of User:NoSeptember/admincount and both of the the rights logs at enwiki and meta. That is, his promotion raised the number to 666. NoSeptember (admin #795) 17:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I wish I could be admin #420. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Your admin count says I am admin 866 (based on counting upward from the March 06 count), but I know that I am 865 (I checked when I was promoted). How could that be? Prodego ^talk 17:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone had been desysopped before you were promoted? So at the time you were the 865th active admin, but the 866th promoted? Just a wild guess, not sure how NoSeptember processes the data. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 18:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• I have hidden text in the lower part of the list that keeps track of meta log changes. Since I am moving backward from 28 June 2006 when I first started tracking the count, it could be an error in counting the changes in the two logs. If any permissions changes were made outside of the logs (i.e. by a developer) I will certainly miss it, which is why I will be limited in how far back I can calculate the count accurately, since developer actions are not logged. Obviously, when building a tracking list backwards, any errors will be cumulative. There were no desysoppings between EOM March and your promotion time. NoSeptember 18:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Better to just use userID's. HIBC, yours is 899386, still no 420 though ;-). NoSeptember is 244888, which is quite a nice number. Newyorkbrad = 990214, Deskana = 309128, and I = 451766. There used to be a tool to go the other way, so you could find out who is user 666, 6666, 66666, 666666... but it doesn't exist anymore. Prodego ^talk 18:31, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• One of the reasons I've tracked admin counts is to help create accurate graphs such as this and this. The list at WP:LA (and hence the count) was not always maintained all that accurately. And yes, long ago I noticed that I have an excellent userID# number :). It shows 2 to the X power, repeated X times. NoSeptember 18:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I find that number distinctly unsatisfying. The ratio of admins to registered accounts has been undergoing a serious long term decline. I've outlined the problem at User talk:Durova/Admin. Durova^Charge! 18:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, your information is an excellent source for info on adminship trends. I absolutely love the color coded graph of admin 'classes', if you will. It shows the rate of admin creation better then a simple bar or line graph could. One thing I notice is the wave pattern on the admin promotions by month graph. We seem to be in a trough right now, and perhaps all this concern over admin promotion rates is not entirely warranted. On the other hand, it is significantly lower then other growth rates now. Prodego ^talk 19:24, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is only one "big wave", the others seem to be just ripples to me ;). NoSeptember 19:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit-conflict]There were a lot less admins being promoted then too, though. So it is possible this is an amplified version of a ripple. I guess we will find out in a few months. Prodego ^talk 19:31, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The ripples seem to be about 20% fluctuations, the wave was more of a 100% fluctuation that took a year to subside. NoSeptember 19:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: Durova--yes, I agree that the promotion rate needs to be quickened, though how to do it is a question. NoSeptember's graph suggests (possibly--this may be a coincidence) a dropoff after the February '06 wheel war. The less stressful we can make being an admin, the more people will want to do it. Yes? Chick Bowen 19:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Let's give credit to Tariqabjotu for making the graph. NoSeptember 19:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed--sorry, and thanks for a useful graph, Tariqabjotu. Chick Bowen 20:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

As someone who got sysopped when the WP:PAIN and WP:RFI boards were both backlogged and tried to keep them running (and succeeded until some cases went to arbitration), I draw a direct connection between the decline in the admin-to-account ratio and the difficulty in keeping up with those complaints. Although I don't want to come across as alarmist, there's a basic principle I draw from the law enforcement of New York City: during the 1970s it was almost impossible to get the police to respond to a noise complaint because the usual line was, we're too busy dealing with rapes and murders. During the 1990s those priorities changed. When smaller quality of life violations got attention the felony rates went down substantially. What the city discovered was that a friendly police officer walking the beat, asking someone to turn down the volume on a radio or writing a small citation for vandalism actually stopped potential troublemakers from graduating to more serious crimes. I'd like to recruit more sysops - more beat cops as it were - so we have enough admins to intervene early and keep the serious problems to a minimum. Durova^Charge! 21:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like Fixing Broken Windows, a book (and an ensuing discussion) that I highly recommend to those interested in crime, its causes, and prevention. I recall that Tipping Point also touches on the issue. Heresiarch ^Yo 21:50, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

An important point that the Fixing Broken Windows page overlooks is that the Giuliani administration continued and expanded upon initiatives from the Dinkins administration. Also, the specific tactic of addressing turnstile jumpers had an enormous impact on the subway crime rates. New York City actually has a separate police force for its transit system. What they found was that people who sneaked into the system without paying the fare committed a large portion of the more serious crimes (which makes sense intuitively when you think about it for a moment). Anyway, back to Wikipedia: let's look for more good people to mentor into sysops. Durova^Charge! 22:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Of course, the reason for such a low increase lies in the now-adays rediculous 'requirements' for being an admin. Reading the RFAs, you have to be a walking encyclopedia with an edit count of 10,000 (minor edits don't count!) and have an immaculate reputation that surpasses that of the Pope! I'd love to help out, and I do what I can as an editor. But I'm not one that creates articles by the dozen, nor do I have any expert knowledge (other then that which is already on Wikipedia). But you can see me do plenty of 'janitorial' work, which is what I believe is being an admin is all about. You want more volunteers? Get rid of the 'Nay-sayers' first; they're the only reason admins don't get elected. I know consensus is the basis on which the community is build, however bureaucrats still tend to go with the numbers instead of the arguments.

I just had to get that off my chest... --Edokter (Talk) 22:54, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

At the time of my RfA's passing, I had exactly 0 created articles to my credit (for that matter, I still have that number). I did have 9k edits, though. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

"Undo" message at MediaWiki:Undo-summary

Does anyone want to chime in on this? This is a protected template, but there seems to be some discussion as to what the undo template should be. There are two suggestions:

1. [[WP:AES|←]]Undid revision $1 by [[Special:Contributions/$2|$2]] ([[User talk:$2|talk]])
2. [[WP:AES|←]]Reverted revision $1 by [[Special:Contributions/$2|$2]] ([[User talk:$2|talk]]) via [[Help:Reverting#Undo|undo]]

There's some talk on MediaWiki talk:Undo-summary, on people's opinions, but I want this brough to a wider audience-Halo 17:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I personally like this version. Perhaps a poll should be started about this, on the talk page. Prodego ^talk 17:45, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Polling is evil. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 20:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it is a tool to assist in determing consensus. Prodego ^talk 22:00, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I like the one that says Undid, though I would prefer a wording that uses Undo, that is after all what it is doing. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

"Undid" just rubs me the wrong way, "Undo" makes much more sense--162.84.217.206 20:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Undo is the wrong tense to go in the edit summary - the undoing has already happened. I know we use 'Revert done by X', but using "revert" as a noun is bad enough, please let's not go down this evil and slippery slope any further. Proto::► 21:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I prefer version two. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 20:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Er, it really shouldn't use the word revert, since we mean something specific by "revert" which is different from "undo." Revert always refers to the most recent change. Chick Bowen 21:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Undo only works on the most recent change--162.84.217.206 21:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

It most certainly does not. Discussion is ongoing at the talk page, please discuss over there so we can keep this consolidated. Thanks! —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 21:24, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

If we want to be grammatically correct (for once!), it should be:

[[WP:AES|←]]Revision $1 undone by [[Special:Contributions/$2|$2]] ([[User talk:$2|talk]])

... but grammar and MediaWiki messages tend to mix like ice cream and smelly poo. Proto::► 21:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I like that version. It sounds much nicer and it makes use of "undo". --bainer (talk) 02:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Except $2 is the person who made the revision being undone, not the person undoing. Prodego ^talk 02:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[[WP:AES|←]]Revision $1, by [[Special:Contributions/$2|$2]] ([[User talk:$2|talk]]), undone

Possibly... Ral315 (talk) 21:36, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Please discuss this on MediaWiki talk:Undo-summary, to avoid forking the discussion. --ais523 16:27, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

{{Db-bio-photo}}

Cocoaguy created {{Db-bio-photo}} without a community-concensus which is a total nonsense, claiming A7 criteria for deleting non-notable photo :) Shyam ^(T/C) 23:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I redirected it to Template:Ifd, which is what should happen if someone wants to delete an image that has no other problem beyond questionable encyclopedic value. Jkelly 23:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

(Scratches his head). Doesn't CSDA7 delete the article, orphaning the image, which causes it to get deleted? Besides, people are allowed to be bold in their creation of things. It certainly seems like a good idea, until the logical sequence of photos used in DB-BIO articles is considered. Logical2u_Talk 23:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

If an image is licensed under a free-license then why it should get deleted? If the image is under fair-use it would automatically be deleted in seven days after orphaning. Shyam ^(T/C) 23:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

By logical sequence of photos in DB-BIO articles I meant "Upload, Fair use tagging, Article creating, image place in article, DB-BIO applied, Article deleted, user doesn't notice/recreate, image orphaned, image deleted". Maybe I wasn't as clear as I thought I was. Logical2u_Talk 00:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The same photo may be used elsewhere, or may have future purposes. A7 is for articles, there is no such speedy deletion criteria for images. Being orphaned is not a speedy delete criteria even(unless it is unfree). HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 00:21, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

It may, although frankly I often speedy delete (as IAR) obvious vanity photographs uploaded for a vanity page, and I see no reason not to. I don't think there should necessarily be a CSD for them, since as HighInBC says if they're properly licensed they could be used elsewhere, but I also don't think we should permit people to just upload pictures of themselves willy-nilly, and keep them here indefinitely. Note that orphaned free images have been and should be deletable through IfD, even if they're not speedied. Chick Bowen 00:59, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you there Chick Bowen... If the image is unlikey to be used anywhere else, I don't see the problem in deleting it. However, if it's a good image and might be usefull elsewhere (and it's free) then perhapse uploading it to Commons is a good idea too. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I raised a question about this at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Speedable image question. Glad to see I'm not the only one who IARs such images. 01:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I actually ran across this issue last night. I deleted the image as I do in the case of the myspace-ish articles created, by IAR. I notified the user who tagged it that A7 wasn't appropriate. I delete these orphans for several reasons:

• They will be deleted by Orphanbot tagging and cause backlog work
• If they are just free images floating around, they should be on commons.
• Most importantly in my judgement, the users do not realize what the free license means. A picture of a kid goofing off can wind up like the Star Wars Kid. We should be more proper in content than YouTube.

So there's that, it should be worked into CSD in a way. I'm gonna post this over there too. Teke ^(talk) 03:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Gumshoe school?

Sometimes this board or ANI gets questions about how to handle a complex investigation. I've thought of writing up some pages in my namespace on the subject, sort of a quick self-study course. Gumshoe 101 would deal with the basics such as how to read a page history and find a diff. At the most advanced level I'd step through my investigations of long term vandals such as JB196 and AWilliamson. There's a potential for crossing the WP:DENY line, which is one reason I've held off, but I also think there's value in coaching people through the techniques I use. Good idea? Durova^Charge! 04:45, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, why not? No harm, as long as it's in userspace. Cheers. Yuser31415 05:50, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd be interested in seeing your techniques as well. Your previous investigations have been pretty impressive, seeing how you got there might be useful. Tony Fox (arf!) 07:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

This might well be useful for all editors on vandal duty, whether administrators or not. I'd recommend that you develop it in your userspace and then move it to Wikipedia space with a link from the Community Portal if it becomes popular enough. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

From the WP:DENY perspective there is always a trade off between enabling us to better deal with vandalism and giving undue publicity to specific vandals/vandalism, as long as the balance is right it shouldn't be an issue. I'd be more concerned with the WP:BEANS issues, revealing some of the signs may enable some to avoid them... --pgk 12:33, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

IIRC I've seen checkusers decline to give much detail on how they've come to a certain conclusion for that very reason. --pgk 12:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I have mixed fealings about this one... I have tactics I use to make a case for sockpuppetry that I'd love to share... but if they become universaly known then they become much less usefull. Hmmm... Perhapse the information can be stored in the history of a deleted page so only admins can access it? Maybe thats not such a good solution either? I donno... ballancing the beans in my nose is hard. :) ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 04:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you could put a note on your user page that people can email you for details. You'd obviously have to judge the enquirer's suitability. Tyrenius 06:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Due to the way I envision this it would probably stay in user space. Part of the challenge is to minimize the exploitation potential: if a TV news show runs a public service story about how people can protect their homes from burglary, the burglars are sure to tune in also. I'll see about drafting something that does more good than harm. Might be slow in rolling it out, with other irons in the fire. Thanks for the feedback. Durova^Charge! 00:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Gang Stalking is its own article, while Gang stalking redirects to Stalking

... and the redirect from Gang stalking to Stalking is protected. I would rather not see the content at Gang Stalking obliterated; maybe it could be merged into Gang. Is this the right place to report this? If it isn't, I apologize. Joie de Vivre 18:19, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted and protected it as a recreation. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:28, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

But... what about the content that was at Gang Stalking? Did you just delete it? Wouldn't it be better to place it at the Gang article talk page for possible integration? Joie de Vivre 18:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I deleted it under Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion G4. If you have cited material relevant to Gang, feel free to add it. Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the gang stalking article might be worth keeping, or at least sending to AFD. The Gang stalking deleted via AFD was a lot of original research that focused on Usenet. Gang Stalking (the one deleted today) seems at the very least more notable, though it might also be guilty of original research. I would be in favor of sending the latter to AFD, since it's substantially different from the prior article. Ral315 (talk) 21:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't read it in full while I could still see it, but it looked to me as though there was content worth trying to verify rather than just deleting. Can we do better than just deleting? Joie de Vivre 01:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

It looks to me like more of the same folklore, without the benefit of the usenet 'citations'. I would not be keen to see this start up again. The way to have a page on this (if there is anything here to have a page on) is for it to grow collaboratively from a cited section on gangs or stalking, or on one of the social psychology pages. I would rather it be built somewhere like that or stay deleted, but if people think it is significantly different from what was deleted before, it could go through AfD. Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I assume that editors can't see it... what is the next step if we are to try to present any of the missing content for criticism? Joie de Vivre

Been a while since this was brought up, I see. Today's NYT has an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/fashion/13psych.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin">article</a> on Gang Stalking, apparently it's a delusion. There's a lot of information on it out there on the web, most of it of the usenet type stuff discussed above, which makes sense given the nature of the phenomenon and how it's basically in the heads of people who are not well. However the NYT article would seem to make it notable. Would it be worth resurrecting one of these pages? --Eamonnca1 (talk) 08:20, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Request for a qualified person to look at dispute

I am looking to have moderator or qualified third party visit Talk:Zodiac killer#Request_for_Comment:_Link_placement_in_Zodic_killer_entry to specifically address a dispute involving link placement on the Zodiac killer. I have read the entire FAQ of the procedures and know the process well, but haven't had any luck getting an actual moderator to help. Thanks. Labyrinth13 02:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Probably because RfC is just requests for comment. If you want formal mediation you should try a request for mediation.--Isotope23 15:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Nationalism on Wikipedia

Hello, I noticed a certain user who edited the Serbia article (he added the radical term of Greater Serbia as a link [34]) and I thought nothing more of it than a simple act of vandalism. However, upon visiting his user page, I was shocked at what I saw:

"...fight against the Greater Serbian aggression in which the Serbs tried to repeat the genocide their Nazi Chetnik collaborators committed in World War II..."

If User:CroDome is prejudiced towards Serbs, thats his problem. But going to Wikipedia, stating that all Serbs committed or attempted to commit some act of genocide and publically denounce an entire nation is not fitting for Wikipedia at all.

He also made obvious anti-Serb nationalistic edits such as this one ("...Serbs wrote this. I just know it. God damnit they are everywhere - you just simply cant track them all down..."), this one ("...Yes I just noticed this great project wikipedia. Though I'm scared if there are any Serbs here; I don't see them so far so so far so good..."), this one (where he removed some Serbs from a list of famous Serbs and claimed they were Croats), even anti-Montenegrin nationalistic edits such as this one and this one, and many more.

He has been warned by User:Sideshow Bob, User:KingIvan and User:Stop The Lies on his talk page and now I think that it's time to raise the question of how to solve this problem right here.

I hope someone will take some sort of action, because nationalism, racism and ethnic hate is something that I think should not be tolerated here. --GOD OF JUSTICE 03:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I've toned down the language on his userpage. Suggestions? Yuser31415 03:30, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I suggest that in the future, when you have problems with the content of a user's page, you try contacting them on their talkpage and not editing it so that it fits your worldview, since you have no right to do so. KazakhPol 04:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

If you think that users should contact others before editing their talk page, then why do you try to discredit the contributions of users trying to help others with their pages? You seem very self-contradictory en:User:KazakhPol. Stop The Lies 04:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)Stop_The_Lies

I do have the right to edit another editor's userpage (WP:OWN), as I do have the right to make any page on Wikipedia neutral, no questions asked. Yuser31415 04:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

When a page has objectional content we don't need to ask permission to remove it. I would have actualy simply deleted the page outright... pages that attack people are speedyable. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 04:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

CroDome...

...is an obvious meatpuppet whose edits are only meant to anger people. I do not know why he wasnt banned outright after he made this edit[35]. It really doesnt take a genius to figure out the account is a joke. CroDome managed to anger Yuser31415 so much that he decided he would vandalize CroDome's userpage[36][37][38]. He's now warning me for reverting his vandalism[39][40]. I suggest CroDome be banned and Yuser31415 be instructed that he does not own userpages. KazakhPol 05:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with Yuser's edits. He was removing questionable content off of CroDome's user page, and you were revert warring him over it. No one owns any page on Wikipedia, and Yuser was not WP:OWNing that page, either.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 06:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Of interest, this user's commentary: User_talk:Stop_The_Lies#Post_on_anti-Serb_user.27s_talkpage_.28en:User:CroDome.29 Alan.ca 06:30, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The user has continued to make anti-Serb and even fascist comments and I really think that this is enough. I am not a Serb, but i do not like nationalism and ethnic hate, which is evident in this user's case. He wrote the article "Serbian Genocide" [41] and added a link to it on his user page. The article used to redirect the page to the article about how Serbs suffered during World War II due to the attrocities and genocide committed by the Nazi Ustashe, but this user tried to invent his own history, claiming that Serbs committed genocide in WWII, which is nonsense. He also wrote "This user is TOTALLY IMPRESSED by the Croatian romantic feeling of the Montenegrins; their heroism, despite their Serbian affiliations and is simply dying to learn more about the beautiful Red Croatian culture" on his user page, once again claiming that Montenegrins are Croats, that they have a Croatian history, thus insulting an entire nation of Montenegrins. He has also affiliated himself with the fascist nazi Ustashe of WWII, by stating "Bog i Hrvati, Ivane. --Za Dom Spremni! [42], and "Za Dom Spremni" was the fascist slogan of the nazi puppet state of Croatia in WWII. Isn't there a quick way to solve this problem, because I don't think a user with such extreme radical opinions can change, he will only continue with his POV pushing, and this is only going to get worse. He has committed several acts of vandalism, refuses to cooperate, and we now see that not only nationalism is the case, but also fascism. --GOD OF JUSTICE 19:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Same old game

When will we start taking notice of all this? I am tired of new users popping up on Balkans and other controversial issues, whose only contributions seem to be to stir tensions, edit war and promote hate in their userpages. Excuse me but people are meant to be here to write an encyclopedia not to get some childish thrill of poking someone else in the eye. Well, I have had enough: Userpages are not a soapbox either. I will blank it and keep an eye on this user. Thanks, Asterion^talk 20:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Have I done something wrong?

I asked an IP to stop changing British English spellings to American English spellings (I wasn't the first person to request this) but they carried on so I eventually gave them a final warning using {{Uw-vandalism4}}. Their talk page is User talk:70.176.167.204 and their comment on my userpage is at User talk:AnemoneProjectors#Beware of banning IP ranges. — AnemoneProjectors (talk) 10:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

No, you're fine. You're not banning the IP, you'd be blocking it, there's a huge difference. --Majorly _{(o rly?)} 10:48, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

That's what I thought, but thanks for clarifying. — AnemoneProjectors (talk) 10:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a pretty basic attempt to try and intimidate you to not block the user for inappropriate behavior. If it makes you feel better, this person is on a cable modem, so while they are not a static IP, it isn't the same as blocking a dial-up account; Chances are that any block that is less than a month would not even effect any other users. Regardless, I gave the IP a 48 hour block for incivility a near personal attack on you, and wikilawyering. He/She needs a break here.--Isotope23 20:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that ☺ — AnemoneProjectors (talk) 21:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Speedy Deletions

I have asked and it appears that there is not a template that lets other administrators know that an article for speedy deletion is currently being reviewed by another administrator? There have been several time where I go do a quick google search or try to start discourse with the creating editor and by the time i do, the article has already been deleted? I think a template such as {{hangon-admin}}, with similar wording, that notifies that the article is being reviewed (for those non clear cut cases such as possible copyvios etc) by an administrator. Anybody have some feedback on this idea? -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 21:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

That would be very useful. JoshuaZ 21:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Ehhh. But it's so easy to restore the article if it's mistakenly deleted. -- Merope 21:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

But, I along with may other admins (as far as I know), do not like to undelete articles deleted by another administartor without talking to them, etc etc. This could be avoided by just saying in a friendly tempate that it is under review. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 21:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I have no problem with undoing someone else's deletion if I've got sufficient reason, or having someone undo my own (ie: if in the course of research, it is found that Person X just won Award Y, but the article didn't reflect that, there's plenty of reason to restore it; just note the rationale in the edit summary and drop the deleting admin a note further explaining why). EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, maybye I am a bit new and that is why I am a little uncomfterable doing that. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 21:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit conflict] Completely understandable; it took me several days before I started deleting anything more complicated than a {{db-author}}. :-) EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:33, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict x3) Yeah, sorry: instruction creep. If your researches reveal that an article should have been kept, then undelete, warn the tagger of the article (if it wasn't a speedy delete, they need to be told as they need to learn from the mistake) and drop an line to the deleter telling them what you've done. Don't bother with the latter step if it's me, since I'm fallible and say so on my user page :o) Added: a single revert isn't wheel-warring, it's just normal editing; and you're likely to find the article deleted whilst you're adding the template; and what about templates left forever a la the much-misused {hangon}? Nah, instruction creep. This is a solution looking for a problem, really (he says after 11 months of not encountering this once) 〈REDVEЯS〉 21:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I can see a bit of instructrion creep. probably better to stick with what we got. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 21:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Although I've dealt with the same problem, any editor can add a template, giving admins the mistaken impression that the article is being handled. It would be a nice end-around for vanity page creators. The restore button is the best way to deal with this. --Ginkgo100^talk 21:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Unblock requests...or Guess who's back?

Recently, there have been e-mails sent to various administrators from MARromance (talk · contribs) that the account be unblocked. And from the title of this thread, Bobabobabo is back and was in full force the other night. However, MARromance's block was based on a checkuser request on the identified home IP of the individual, and MARromance was found, and the editting pattern confirms it for me. There was also another list up at User:Jpgordon/boba for socks that popped up last night and accounts discovered through checkusers on those accounts.

Again, do not unblock under any circumstances. I, in fact, had to reblock the IP so that it was not anon-only, and this may stem the abuse until I can get an abuse report filed with the ISP.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Please Delete my User Sub-Page

Could someone please delete User:NickSentowski/A2NWO? I'd greatly appreciate it!

Thanks, -NickSentowski 23:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Done, but next time you want to delete your own subpage you can tag it with {{db-owner}}, and someone will come along and delete it. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 23:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

User:MarkThomas

I'm not happy about this user's behaviour User:MarkThomas

To provide context, he has been editing Iain Dale [43] Talk:Iain Dale

Dale is a right-of-centre blogger, prospective Conservative Party Candidate for Parliament, journalist, and is also linked to 18 Doughty Street an online TV station.

He has weighed in on the page adding the following

The channel is designing and planning US-style attack-ads (not previously seen in the UK) in the upcoming elections for Mayor of London; users of the channel's website are invited to vote on choices including criticism that Livingstone supports "gay rights", or that he has plotted terrorist acts with Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Dale has stated on his own blog that he is gay.

This is clearly intended as a smear. It's absurd and false. The ads are not produced by Dale, and most importantly do not say anything of the kind that Thomas is claiming. The ads attack him, not for supporting gay rights (absurd as Dale is gay), but the apparent inconsistency between supporting al-Qaradawi on the one hand (whom they link with anti-gay sentiment) while claiming to be in favour of gay rights. Equally, the suggestion that the TV station alleged Ken Livingstone plotted terrorist acts is just ridiculous.

Anyway, he edited the page a half-dozen times or so, each time reverting the content, which the subject of the article (Iain Dale) said was libellous, and was removing, but he continued to revert war, claiming that it didn't matter what the user saying he was Iain Dale had said because he wasn't logged-in. Since then he changed his allegations to say that Dale is linked to right-wing Christians Conservatives. I removed this, as it's an attempted smear, just arbitrarily selecting a few of his media colleagues to associate him with. He also referred to the Heritage Foundation as "extreme right-wing", and in the talk page [44] referred to the article's subject as an "extreme-right British conservative". He has also edited related page 18 Doughty Street with the edit summary "just telling the facts" talking about 'homophobic and extremist libels.' See page history [45].

Anyhow, in this context I removed his attempted smear, which he describes as "Information of great interest to Dale-watchers", saying "remove persistent POV pusher MarkThomas". Unfortunately since this time he has been attacking me. See here [46]. He likes to accuse people of breaking rules, threatening them with permanent blocks. He's since come back twice, weighing in on a dispute with another user (see 'three revert rule'), even when the user's comments were right below his own.

Another user criticised his edits [47], and he has immediately weighed in with more attacks and threats against me, when I replaced his threat of a permanent block against User Talk:London1982 (simply for suggesting on Talk:Iain Dale that he is biased wrt the subject of the article) with a standard welcome template (the user only has 3 or 4 edits, and no talk page), he has since accused me of being his sockpuppet or something, although that's blatantly obviously not the case. After I got fed up of responding to all his attacks, I removed his content from my talk page, and he's sinced been edit warring it [48], as well as [49], somewhat bizarrely suggesting on my talk that I had no right to edit London1982's talk page, when he'd just edited himself (double standards from him are typical: he's happy to threaten others but still is rude himself).

His parting shot has been to say he will file a sockpuppet report against me tomorrow, as apparently to him anyone who doesn't agree that referring to mainstream Conservatives as "extremist right-wingers" must be sockpuppets

I've just wasted an hour of my life on this pointlessness, and am not happy at all about MarkThomas' destructiveness. I would like him blocked from editing the pages Iain Dale, 18 Doughty Street, and my own talk page. I don't want to waste my time here going over this. I really don't have time for it, and won't be able to edit wikipedia if I have to waste my time going through this stuff. Can someone get him away from me - please, I don't want to waste any more of my life on this.

BTW, his username is causing confusion, as Iain Dale thought he was well-known UK left-wing political comedian Mark Thomas. I would suggest it should be changed. Nssdfdsfds 00:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I've protected the page and will make a comment about the entering of info which violates BLP.--Alabamaboy 01:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Deleted Image

I would like to know who deleted an image and why the image was deleted. I did not receive any notification on my user page and I specifically asked for assistance on identifying the copyrigh of the image which I clearly stated, cited from the Crowns Website, is a free Image from the government of Canada that may be used for personal, business and commercial use. File:Canada, Routes of Explorers,1497 to 1905.jpg. I'm anxiously waiting for someoneone's answer! --CyclePat 00:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

That would be because either you didn't give it a licensing tag, or that you gave it one that's fundamentally incompatible with the GFDL. See WP:COPYRIGHT for more information about copyrights on Wikipedia. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 00:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• According to the deletion log: "00:10, 10 February 2007 Jaranda (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Image:Canada, Routes of Explorers,1497 to 1905.jpg" (image with unknown copyright status for over 7 days)" The copyright information on the actual image page was {{Don't know}} so I'm guessing it was deleted based on the tags, not on what you said in non-machine-readable text. --W.marsh 00:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• I actually did place the {{Don't know}} because I was asking the question. I believe it meets GFDL and I think that every image from that website meets the requirement... kind of like NASA. (I've seen a template for those type of pictures). One reason I left the question open was to see if we could have a discussion towards perhaps even making a template for all pictures from that website. In my text I indicated: Maps in the Atlas of Canada are offered for personal, public non-commercial and commercial use and may be reproduced. For details please go to the important notices. This image was Free to use with the condition the coorporations advise the NRC so they may send them one of the most up to date pictures. I figured out the that is essentially a type of GFDL or Free Copy licences (whatever the term is). The NRC is a government organization of Canada and for this reason it is believed that this image meets the requirement for Free Use. Making thing even more complicated I just made a new picture with that map. Image:Hudson bay explorer.png. --CyclePat 01:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The image is copyrighted, and requires an application procedure for licensing for commercial use. It, and any other images from that site, are not freely licensed. Jkelly 01:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Bad Image

Image:Ampallang Piercing.jpg. Pic of a penile piercing that was just used for vandalism recently. Consider adding it MediaWiki:Bad image list, but leave it viewable on the Penis article.--70.135.89.240 05:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks to be done already. (→Netscott) 05:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Move request

Finally figured out how to rename page "Hawaiian ecosystems at risk project" to "Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk project" (only capitalization is changed), but see below* for what I got in reply. Looks like the move succeeded, but "talk" pages from both the old (previously-redirected) all[-but-first-letter]-lowercase version and new (various-uppercase letters) versions need to be COMBINED on the new page for "Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk project" (capitalized exactly like that), and I don't know how to do that; seems like something an administrator might need to resolve.

Thanks in advance for your help with this!

philiptdotcom 10:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• "below":

Move page From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Move succeeded Jump to: navigation, search

The page "Hawaiian ecosystems at risk project" (links) has been moved to "Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk project".

Please check whether this move has created any double redirects, and fix them as necessary. For this purpose, you can use the following form:

1. REDIRECT Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk project

The page itself was moved successfully, but the talk page could not be moved because one already exists at the new title. Contact an Administrator, but do not just copy and paste the contents.

Hi Philip. As it says, only an administrator can move a page to a location where content other than a redirect already exists. I have fixed the talk page for you; it's now at Talk:Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk project. Proto::► 11:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Flameviper needs a coach

Flameviper (talk · contribs): I'm not going to take the time to provide a bunch of diffs; a quick glance through this user's contribs or talk page archives will give you the gist. Flameviper is highly disruptive and doesn't take constructive criticism or even conduct warnings seriously. I'm not entirely sure that mentoring him won't be a waste of time, but maybe some intrepid admin or experienced editor wants to take Flameviper under their wing. Perhaps if he is treated like a grown-up he will act like one. He's assented to mentorship (more or less) on his talk page. I honestly don't have the time right now, or I'd give it a go myself. A Train ^{take the} 18:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

If no-one else wants to can I take him on? I've seen him around lately and do believe that he means well but just needs someone to tame his temperament RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 18:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

More power to you. I came across him in his extremely ill-advised RfA and an MfD for his personal wiki's Main Page; I heartily agree that he needs some sort of guidance. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I hope he agrees to it, Ryan. You're absolutely right; he's a very good editor when he wants to be, but as it stands right now he's just headed for a long block. A Train ^{take the} 19:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully someone can get through to him. He's teetering on the edge of a block with one more disruption from about 5 different admins. Metros232 19:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm actually away tonight, but come tomorrow I will try and get through to him, I just hope he doesn't do anything stupid tonight. I really do believe he has potential to be a useful contributor (possibly not admin though like he seams to think!) RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 19:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

That guy is hilarious! I especially like his user page. I'd give him a userpage barnstar, but I'm too tired right now.--Abs Like Jesus 19:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocked

I have now blocked Flameviper for one monthh. He's had this coming for awhile. This edit was the final straw. It's edit summary "Let's hope (for both our sakes) you don't piss me off" and threatening to be disruptive is totally inappropriate. If anyone disagrees with this, let me know, but too much has gone on in the last couple of weeks from this account to justify allowing him to continue to edit Wikipedia for the time being, Metros232 20:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• Strongly endorse • I would even go so far as to want a strong community ban. Behaviour exhibited on Elaragirl and Jpgordon's talk pages is so clearly unacceptable we may even want to use it as bad examples in WP:CIVIL and WP:HARASS. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge (Talk to Me) 20:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

  I was reluctant to do a full ban because many people above believe he can be a good editor. However, if the community wants to investigate his actions further towards a full ban, I have no problem with that. Metros232 20:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse I've protected the talk page, this is rather agitating and might warrant a possible WP:RfAr. Yanksox 21:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hang on, I think this is a bit much. Flameviper is by no means perfect but he should be given a final chance to become a more productive contributor, possibly through mentorship. As for that post on Elara's talk...I have seen worse. There is a sort of implied threat but the edit summary is certainly honest and - am I allow to say this? - sort of accurate as well. I have faith that Flameviper can improve his conduct here. I agree that 24 hours of enforced wikibreak would do no harm, but a month is a bit much. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 21:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I have to disagree with you on that one. This was enough for me to see that he really doesn't have anything positive planned for us and is acting a tad bit psychotic and will need to take a long break to just chill out. One day would fuel the fire, a month will let him burn out and start anew. Yanksox 21:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

At first I thought a month seemed harsh (not knowing the history here) but the link above basically shows stated intention to troll. Either an indefinite block or the one-month as a last chance seem appropriate to me. Friday (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Besides, a 1 month block coincides nicely with his recently announced 1 month vacation from Wikipedia, so I don't really see a problem here.--Isotope23 21:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well the "1 month vacation" is really him unwilling to admit he was blocked and try to make it seem like he's not going to be editing because he doesn't want to (note how he replaced my block notice with that announcement). Metros232 04:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I know... I always forget that irony doesn't always translate well in written communications.--Isotope23 02:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I have no drum to bang for the guy, but it looks to my eyes that we gave him the provokation he was seeking, then, when he responded, we provoked him again. He responded again, and then we blocked him.

I'm always happy to block on a threat, but we could be accused of using it as a pretext here. This guy isn't the best contributor in the world - by a long chalk - but we've talked ourselves up from some minor disruption to indef blocking being on the cards in a matter of hours. We block disruptive sockfarmers for less time than this guy has got and with more provokation.

Some coolheadedness would not go amiss here. (Not that I'm advocating unblocking him or anything... just a sense of perspective, maybe?) 〈REDVEЯS〉 21:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you in general, but in this one particular case, he came right out and said he wanted to stir up trouble. Trolls come in (at least) 2 flavors: people who sit down at the computer and say "today I will troll Wikipedia", and immature editors who get into conflicts, are unable to let it go, and start trolling by accident, still convinced they're "fighting the good fight". This guy may have been unfortunately and needlessly provoked, I don't know, but we still got to see his reaction to provocation. He reacted by stating his intention to troll. Trolls of any kind are unwelcome here. Friday (talk) 21:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The issue though is that it's this pattern with the user. Many people were looking for him to be blocked a week+ ago when he was disruptive during his RFA. He was given many, many last chances in the last few weeks. Metros232 23:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Endorse: However maybe reduce the block :/, this stuff needs to stop though. ~ Arjun 21:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• I wouldn't hold your breath on that, user has had previous accounts such as Son_of_a_Peach (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) blocked multiple times until an indefblock in September last year. This is an ongoing problem. --pgk 22:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • This user's attitude seems to have seriously worsened since his most recent unsuccessful RfA a couple of weeks ago. Newyorkbrad 23:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
    • This is one of the reasons I went with a month. This isn't Flameviper's first travels into the realm of incivility blocks. He's been blocked on several other accounts indefinitely, see User:Flameviper/socks. Metros232 23:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse Block I think a ban is a little extreme (...for now...). I think a two-week "cool the hell down" period would work just fine before we permanently shuffle him off the wiki coil. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks pgk, I previously didn't know that he had socks and all that jazz. I support EVula's idea. A two-weaker. ~ Arjun 23:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse block given the user's history. However, I would also like to see it shortened to two weeks, perhaps. A month is too long at this point. --Coredesat 02:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
  • But the user's history IS the reason for the longer block. See User:Flameviper/socks. This isn't his first "go around the block" so to speak (no pun intended). He clearly should know what behavior is unacceptable based on the indefinite blocks of his former accounts. If this was a user with no past, sure, a few weeks is okay, but a longer block is necessary to prevent further disruption (because so far this user seems to only cause disruption no matter what account he uses). Metros232 02:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose he just began his mentorship, so why is he now being blocked? You missed the edit until after he was picked up by a mentor, so you lost your chances of a ban. Crud3w4re 01:54, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • His threats came 20 minutes after he refused mentorship. I don't think we "lost" a chance as you put it. Metros232 02:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

24 hour ban

I can totally understand everyones concerns, but please could this be reduced to a 24 hour ban? I am more than happy to work with this user and try and point him in the right way. In my opinion, a month will stop him editing completely and as I've already said, flameviper means well and has much to give to wikipedia. I promise that with any further major disruption I will immediatly request that he is blocked. I really would like a chance to turn this user around into a good editor as he has the potential. (I do believe a 24 hour band is in order as a cooling off period) RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 01:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to let everyone know, I've emailed Flameviper as his talkpage is protected. I've asked what he actually wants to get out of editing wikipedia and what his interests are, If anyones interested, I'll let them know his responses RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 02:00, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose reducing it to a 24 hour ban block. This user's recent behaviour certainly merits a block, and his past record merits making it a long one. I support EVula's idea above to reduce it to two weeks, but not just 1 day - that will get nothing into his head. – Chacor 02:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I understand this, but could you give him one last chance? fair enough, a longer ban than 24 hours, how about 4days? RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 02:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose reduction - brief contact with this user has convinced me that he's essentially a good kid at heart, but doesn't have the maturity to be consistently constructive in his contributions yet. He needs a good long time-out (ideally the original month, certainly longer than 24 hours). I don't think mentorship will be a productive use of anyone's time, because fundamentally what Flameviper needs is time to mature. Opabinia regalis 03:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

  For the record, I'm not going to cry if he never returns, given his rather hostile attitude. However, I would like to at least give him the rope to hang himself. How about we reduce the block with the condition that this is the last chance he gets? Worst case scenario is that we have a mild bit of extra work and then he's gone; best case scenario, we get a more mature, productive, and civil editor. EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose reduction per Opabinia regalis. Much as I would like to assume good faith and believe in second chances, this user has continued to be disruptive over a long period of time, so I don't think a 24 hour block will be a sufficient "cool down" period. I haven't interacted directly with Flameviper, but I did observe his behaviour surrounding another user's RfA and his taunting remarks on the user's talk page, as well as on User talk:Bumm13. It should also be noted that Flameviper has at least one admitted sock (according to User:Flameviper/socks) that hasn't been blocked, namely User:Flameviper in Exile. The sock account may not have done anything wrong, but a block on one account is ineffective if a user can potentially use another account to dodge the block. I do feel bad for him, but this was a result of his own actions. --Kyoko 04:31, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

  That was a concern I had as well (the open sock). The contribs have been quite on that, though; I'm willing to leave it that way to, as I said earlier, give him his own noose.

  I think it's pretty clear that a reduction to 24 hours is just plain out, but what about my suggestion of whittling it down to just two weeks? EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:34, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

  I think that a reduction to a two week block plus the condition that any further violations would lead to an indefinite block would be acceptable. Hopefully Flameviper will take this opportunity to think more about how he might contribute to the encyclopedia rather than dwell on his disputes with others. --Kyoko 07:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Some #wikipedia chanops and I have recently had an unproductive run-in with this user. Maybe give him a couple of years to mature a little bit, then he can start contributing ... Cyde Weys 17:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing this guy is a failed /b/tard. He's spitting out 4chan memes like a total newbie. I don't have an issue with this guy's being a 4channer, but his actual contribution to the encyclopedic aspect of this site has been minimal and barely marginal at best. Most of the time, he's just testing our patience. I'm really leaning towards a permaban. Yanksox 18:24, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth in that regard, Flameviper is a proud Uncyclopedian (not that there's anything wrong with that), but his contributions to Wikipedia are uncyclopedic in nature. Teke ^(talk) 02:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Strongly Endorse I saw no good argument for a permanent ban. Why the mob stack? He deserves atleast a second chance. I saw many violations of Assume Good Faith in here. Crud3w4re 01:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's all well and good, but I don't think you're actually acknowledging the pure facts of this incident. He's alreadly been blocked several times, others indef. on other accounts. This is a text book example of trying our patience. Yanksox 05:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Email conversation with User:Flameviper

I'm not sure if anyone is interested, but I've emailed flameviper and his responses can be found in my userspace here, I'm not sure what to make of it, especially the last few lines so comments would be appreciated RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 15:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm personally not convinced. And he is on a very tight rope. – Chacor 15:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't bother spending time trying to reform him. If he wants to edit usefully when his block expires, he will do so. If he does otherwise, he'll find himself running out of chances soon. Not much you can do about it either way. The bit about him enjoying being an attention-seeker does not bode well. The minute he shows signs of putting his desire for attention ahead of the interests of the project, it's time to show him the door. Until then we should ignore him as much as possible- feeding his desire for attention can accomplish nothing useful. Friday (talk) 15:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm still on board with my "reduced block/last chance" idea, though the email doesn't exactly fill me with confidence about his reformation. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• No way. WP:DENY. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• No, and I no longer think that a two week block would be sufficient, based upon the revelation of another sock account (User:HUNGY MAN) that was used recently used in an attempt to evade the block. The HUNGY MAN account recently edited User:Flameviper's userpage as shown in this diff, and he implicitly admits that this is a sock of Flameviper here. --Kyoko 16:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
• After seeing that email (the last two lines) I would probably suggest extending it to a permanent ban. This guy's had 2 RFA's, both stating he's a "reformed vandal", and then openly admits in the email that he "loves people talking about him" and has a troll wanting to get out. And all that crap about writing articles is just a little hard to believe. This is a serial unproductive/disruptive editor. -- Renesis (talk) 16:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
• Hmm...very interesting; I don't know about a permanent ban but then again...Those last two lines are very bothering. ~ Arjun 17:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
• I think the majority of the email suggest that he is trying his hardest to make good faith edits, just the last 2 lines are very worrying and suggest he is more than likely to blow again at any point. I also don't feel it is good for an editor to have a major interest in other editors disgussing him. RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 17:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
• This has gone too bloody far, we can't afford to bicker about this and wait for him to create enough socks. I've indefinitely blocked him for his actions. The threshold has most certainly been passed here. Yanksox 19:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
• He seems to think somehow that threatening Wikipedia with vandalism and sockpuppeting increases the likelihood of getting reinstated. A reasonable person would understand that just the opposite is true. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 22:52, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
• I'm certainly not going to argue against Yanksox's decision. --Cyde Weys 23:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to make any major complaints about his indef block, but I do feel it is a bit of a sneaky way to get rid of an editor, especially when he has done quite a few good faith edits. He should have been given a final chance after his 1 month block with any further disruption resulting in an indef RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 23:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

How many chances should he get? I remember him as one of the first persons I've had to deal with after becoming an admin, see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive71#User:Flameviper12. Back then, the user was already troublesome. He hasn't changed a bit in well over a year. Aecis^Brievenbus 23:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I do see your point, its just that he was originally given a 1 month block, if he had disrupted after this block, it would have given a far great weight to a perma ban and this could have been done directly after just one further disruption RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 23:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse indefblock. He can go feed his inner troll somewhere else while he grows up. Since we all pretty much agree that he's going to be disruptive after the month runs out, why let him get that last whack in? (Also, archive this thread; WP:DENY.) Opabinia regalis 01:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse indefblock - Everyones right, he did have it coming and wikipedia doesn't need disruptive users like him. Maybe he can mature for a few years and then create a new account RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 08:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Just curious about the policy here. I saw him on IRC only a few minutes ago. Is someone still allowed to participate there if they are banned here? Or are the encyclopedia and the IRC channels like seperate jurisdictions. I know that Arbcom declined to rule on an IRC case because of something like that. — MichaelLinnear 02:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• I thought he was (completely and totally unrelated to this block) banned from the IRC? And yes, it is separate. Blocks here don't necessarily apply there (unless the chan ops think it should). Metros232 02:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Should we initiate a new noticeboard?

A comment here on the increasing number of community ban discussions: although this noticeboard is open to everyone, its title does tend to scare away the unmopified crowd (it certainly had that effect on me before I assumed janitorial responsibilities). So since community bans - and potentially community enforced mediation as well - are in principle for the entire community, perhaps we should initiate a new noticeboard for community-specific action. I'm thinking something parallel to this and listed in the same places rather than the Village Pump (which handles more new user and general questions). Call it Wikipedia:Community noticeboard. Thoughts, anyone? Durova^Charge! 23:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I like it for the very reasons you put forth. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 23:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Support the idea of the page. Not sure about the name. 'noticeboard' seems to imply that it is for posting notices, rather for seeking consensus on things. Does Village 'Ting' sound more like what we want? Regards, Ben Aveling 00:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

You mean the Village Ðing/ðing? Aecis^Brievenbus 00:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I suspect so. But I'd prefer something I can type.

Endorse ;), great idea. ~ Arjun 00:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Go for it. It'll make things easier. Acalamari 00:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Pile-on endorse :) Aecis^Brievenbus 00:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Erm...maybe the introduction should express that this is for community discussion of potential bans and things like that. It isn't a chat room. And some tech whiz could add it to the noticeboard template? Durova^Charge! 00:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I see the page has been created: Wikipedia:Community noticeboard. I'd rather have seen a discusion of the name first, but whatever. Let's see how it goes. If it does turn into a chat room we can rename it to Village Ting, or Ðing. Regards, Ben Aveling 00:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I've added a bit, please feel free to edit/second-guess/slash away. IronDuke 01:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a better explanation of what this is for would be appropriate. Right now, since it only mentions community bans, it may be viewed by newer users as only for community bans. I must admit, I myself am not entirely clear on what else would go on this board. Natalie 03:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, someone created the board almost as soon as I suggested the idea. The door's very open to discussion. It would work with the new mediation I've been proposing, to welcome the entire community in community decisions. Things fly along fast here and at ANI - a regular editor who doesn't follow sysop topics would probably miss a lot. It seems to me we should encourage open involvement in community decisions. Admins don't carry extra weight at these discussions over any other editor in good standing. It's the equalizing principle. Durova^Charge! 03:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

If it's just for Community bans and the like, perhaps a better name for it would be something like "Community enforcement noticeboard". As is, the title seems to suggest it's just another name for the Village Pump. Actually that might be a decent way of dealing with the title as well: make it be Wikipedia:Village Pump (Enforcement). --tjstrf talk 04:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

In theory it would be open to any community decision making. I'm flexible about name and location. What I want to circumvent is this impression and the people who read the thread but are too shy to participate at all. Durova^Charge! 04:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

If it's for general community discussion/decision making (the two are rather synonymous), then it really is a duplicate of the village pump with one additional subject. The pump already has all the areas it would discuss that aren't community bans/enforcement that I can think of covered, so to avoid duplication we should put it in the same tree as the others. The pump already has problems with duplication here and on various ancillary Wikipedia talk:-space pages (for the proposals and policy sections especially), adding another general discussion area would presumably result in even more duplication. --tjstrf talk 05:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• I hope I have not jumped the gun, however, I have made some changes to the proposed community board and transcluded templates of a technical nature. If this is not the consensus, please feel free to discuss or edit, slash, etc. regards, Navou ^banter / _{review me} 04:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• The name should be more specific if it is for the new mediation; community noticeboard sounds too close to community portal, new users will be liekly confused. If it is to be more general, we already have forums for that, as pointed above.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  05:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
• Uh, how would this be different from the Wikipedia:Personal attack intervention noticeboard? I mean, how are we going to stop the new board from collapsing onto itself, like WP:PAIN did? Titoxd^(?!?) 06:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I find it amazing that someone has even posed that question. Is that a joke? Durova^Charge! 18:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

No, and not by a far shot. Let's say that I want to go there to ask for a community ban on EvilCat. What's to stop the other user from engaging me there, and writing megabyte upon megabyte of ranting? What is the difference, in principle, of both boards? I still see it boiling down to one user asking for punishment on another. There may be something really obvious that I'm missing, but I still don't see why my question is a joke. Titoxd^(?!?) 00:15, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Siteban discussions would proceed there the same way they proceed here or at ANI. The only differences are how a community board title doesn't imply admin-only discussion and a lower traffic board decreases the risk that occasional visitors will miss something important. If a thread gets trolled it'll get refactored or shut down, same as here. That board is for community decisions rather than gripes. Durova^Charge! 04:55, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but the only reason ANI doesn't dissolve into PAIN is that it is watched by hundreds of people. If the community noticeboard is not watched, the same thing will happen there. For the matter, if PAIN and RFI had been watched, there would have been no problem with them. —Centrx→talk • 22:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

So let's all put Wikipedia:Community noticeboard on our watchlist. :) --Conti|✉ 22:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Another use for the community noticeboard could/should be the notification of recently closed ArbCom cases IMHO, which are currently put here. --Conti|✉ 19:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I had that in mind. The heavy traffic on this board makes it easy to miss that sort of notice and ArbCom decisions are of interest to the entire editor community. Durova^Charge! 19:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the goal of countering the impression that this board or other boards are just for admins is admirable, and should be pursued. I lurked, if the kids are still using that term, on this board for many, many months before I ever posted a single question, much less a comment, and still have maybe posted 3 times. But I think I agree with Tjstrf that this could easily result in more duplication of topics or confusion over where a certain thing should be posted. Natalie 00:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

That's another good use for it. I endorse the idea of moving closed arbitration case-postings to the CN, seeing as they're of interest to the whole community. Picaroon 00:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I think I'd rather move AN over CN; from my perspective, splitting the discussion like this seems more confusing than anything. It adds another page for me to watch over, fragments already-hectic discussion, and may add to the unfortunate perception that admins are more important than other users. Well-intentioned, I am very much sure, but a move/merge may be more useful than a split, is my take. – Luna Santin (talk) 02:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• I don't mind having a new specialized noticeboard, but it will only be productive if we move inappropriate posts to the forum where they actually belong. Already the Community Board is picking up policy-related discussions that arguably belong on WP:VPP or WP:VPR. >Radiant< 16:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Since it's a general board it'll probably pick up a fair amount of misposted traffic from novice editors. A little maintenance should take care of that. Durova^Charge! 23:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ongoing trolling at the refdesk talk page.

User:Loomis51 and User:Barringa are luring us (and by "us" I mean other RD editors like User:SteveBaker, User:Mwalcoff, User:Dave6, and the original remover, User:87.102.9.117, as well as I) into an argument - the latter user attempting to soapbox the RD with anti-semitism, the former attempting to engage me and other editors into a debate and accusing us of "sweeping things under the rug". I've run out of good faith here - I and other editors have explained to them both WP:SOAPBOX and WP:CENSOR, but they continue. As users like Friday, Sczenz and Hipocrite don't seem to be taking any action here when they usually are active in such things, I'm asking for someone, preferably an admin, to come in and check out this situation. Loomis seems to think that the question should have been removed because of its content, something we don't do, and that telling Barringa in good faith that his question was removed due to its intent was somehow aiding and abetting an anti-Semite. --Wooty Woot? contribs 05:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Could you provide a few diffs? .V. _[Talk|Email] 18:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Well you can just have a look at this entire thread for starters. Anchoress 18:52, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

It does seem like a flamebait post. I think this is such because it seems (from the text of the post) that the conclusion is already decided in his eyes, and thus it's not an actual question but rather an attempt to "stir things up." Perhaps he re-work the post in a different way as to be non-offensive, but I'm not sure if that's possible... .V. _[Talk|Email] 19:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

He did, and now the two are going at it in a different post. Both are using the refdesk as sandboxes. one example, the rest are in Anchoress' post and a multitude of diffs in the RD/H history that would take half an hour to all post. edit: Loomis still seems to be under the impression we remove "anti-Semitic" questions for their own sake rather than because of their intent. --Wooty Woot? contribs 07:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

This certainly is a mess... .V. _[Talk|Email] 18:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Scottish Wikipedians' notice board: Canvassing and vote stacking?

I am concerned that this wikiproject is being used as a forum for Wikipedia:Canvassing#Votestacking. I was engaged in a dispute over an article that was asserting a very Scottish POV Talk:Hamilton when a posting was made to Wikipedia talk:Scottish Wikipedians' notice board. Suddenly, 3 project members joined the debate by simply supporting the original disputant. Not only did they not contribute any fruitful debate, I received further insult for engaging in the debate. Upon reading the Wikipedia talk:Scottish Wikipedians' notice board page, I have the concern this project page may be used to disrupt Wikipedia. For this reason, I look for administrator consideration. Alan.ca 05:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm an ethnic-based noticeboard? Hmm yikes. I see a bit of POV-solicitation going on (here for example). I guess wikiprojects kind of do the same thing. It's hard to draw the line between notification and solicitation. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

An an attack on an editor with a different point of view, for good measure. Tyrenius 06:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

An ethnic based noticeboard? I think not. It is a regional noticeboard - as is pretty obvious. The Hamilton article is Scottish related and is thus relevant to the board. As pointed out in reply to your post RE:Canvassing Wikipedia_talk:Scottish_Wikipedians'_notice_board#Talk:Hamilton the dispute involving yourself and Brendanh being stated upon the board does not qualify as votestacking. siarach 06:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This is nonsense. Everyone on that board is interested in Scottish topics. We have Swedish notice boards, and an Irish noticeboard, and many, many WikiProjects which serve a similar purpose. Hamilton is relevent to Scotland. Get over it. Canæn 07:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

What can I do about continuous soapboxing?

Is there anything that either I or an admin can do about continuous soapboxing? I and another editor have repetitively pointed out that WP is not a soapbox in this one particular Talk page, but it continues. The latest rant appears to be some lengthy diatribe about Jewish people[50]. How can we get these soapboxers to stop? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 18:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, it should be noted that one of the soapboxers, User:Mr Phil, has recently been warned by an admin about making personal attacks[51]. His account on German Wikipedia[52] was banned because of his behaviour. And he has indicated on his Talk page that he will only edit in English Wikipedia because of this[53]:

• Ich werde mich von jetzt an nur noch in der englischen Wikipedia äußern, die deutsche Wikipedia ist nur für Zensur gut.
• Translation by Dictionary.com Translator: I will express myself from now to only in the English Wikipedia, the German Wikipedia am good only for censorship.

Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Yet more lengthy soapboxing[54]. These editors are now on a full-blown rant against Jewish people, and even go as far as justifying the Holocaust. Help from admins would be much appreciated. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 18:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Would it be considered vandalism if the soapboxing does not stop? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:48, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

One of the soapboxers have now vowed to wage an "endless" edit war.[55] Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Temple of the Jedi Order (Real)

The organization's agent and major contributor to this articcle had blanked the page, agreeing with the AFD discussion, and has requested deletion. Can we spare his organization any further embarassment and close this AfD early (speedy delete)? I am the AfD nom. Thanks, Jerry lavoie 01:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

These aren't the droids you're looking for... EVula // talk // ☯ // 01:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

As a note, Jerry, you may close any AfD whose article has been deleted. See Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions. Re EVula - I am not the droid you are looking for. Cheers! Yuser31415 02:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, non-admin AfD closing should [probably] really only be done in the event of an overwhelming "Keep"; an admin is still needed to delete the article (though I suppose if one were to tag it for speedy deletion with a link back to the AfD, that would work in a pinch). EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I was talking about closing the discussion after the article was deleted. For example, User A creates attack article, User B doesn't know about speedy deletion and AfDs the page, Admin C speedies the article per CSD G10 but forgets to close relevant AfD, User D can therefore close the debate as speedily deleted by %admin% (linking to the deletion log of the article would be a good idea, however). Yuser31415 05:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I frequently close AfD's where the article has been speedied and I'm not an admin (eg. in the past 15 minutes I closed 2: [56][57]). Of course I close them only once the article has been deleted, not tagging for speedy and hoping it gets deleted. James086^Talk 08:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Right. Non-admins closing an orphaned AfD after the article has been speedy deleted is a Good Thing™; closng an AfD as delete because it should be speedied and is so tagged, debateable at best (I did it a couple of times and got a polite "Don't do this message".) Eluchil404 14:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Requested edit for disclaimer pages

This (should be) a fairly uncontroversial matter to review. The issue is a proposal for a slightly enhanced rewording of the disclaimer pages so that the word "article" is either implicitly or explicitly modified. The modification: indicate that disclaimers apply to *all* informational resources on WP, (not just articles). This applies (for a notable example) to the "reference desk" resources. This is a fairly important issue to consider, since "reference desk" responses routinely include content that could reasonably be mis-interpreted as direct advice. More details can be found at: legal disclaimer discussion page. I could not determine if any follow-up was applied on this matter, so I am posting here. Any attention to this matter is greatly appreciated. If this is not the appropriate place for this, alternatives are also appreciated. dr.ef.tymac 02:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I mentioned this on wikien-l, a few days ago, and still no replies. =\ Perhaps foundation-l will get a better response, I'll post there. – Luna Santin (talk) 23:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

PRODs not showing up in Category:Proposed Deletion Over 5 days

I have moved the discussion to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#PRODs_not_showing_up_in_Category:Proposed_Deletion_Over_5_days . It looks like we'll need the help of people even geekier than us (and who would probably take that as a compliment) ;) Kla'quot 04:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Legal threats

There are some legal threats on Talk:Earl of Stirling (against editors who request evidence of a chap's claim to be the Earl, including myself). The editor, who edits using the stable IP 68.179.175.185 (talk • contribs) has been blocked before for "hoax" and "clear legal threats" three times. The most recent threats are at the bottom of the page. --TeaDrinker 22:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Proposing a long block. The IP is obviously static -- it's been blocked for the same reasons, at the same pages, as early as March 2006, and the user on the other end is obviously both well aware that legal threats will lead to blocks, and that legal concerns should be kept off-wiki whenever possible. I'm personally inclined to block for quite some time -- 3 to 6 months, at least. If they're going to sue, that's one thing, but we can't allow the community to be disrupted by someone who threatens legal action at every content dispute. – Luna Santin (talk) 22:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for 6 months, would also recommend dropping a note to the ISP about this nonsense. —Pilotguy push to talk 23:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Tell me, I'm just curious - nothing to do with this matter above, it just reminded me - what is the policy on editors issuing legal threats, I've had one myself from another editor sent off-wiki - naturally being me I have sold my wife and children, changed my name and destroyed the family home before the writ can appear - but what is the wiki-policy, and what should the average editor do if he receices such a threat? - I hasten to say (being me) I just told the editor concerned exactly where to place his writ, but some editors are less forceful than me - so what should they do. Giano 23:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Giano here is the link WP:NLT Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 23:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Yes but that says on wiki - what if the threat it is off-wiki but concerning on-wiki? Giano 23:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You can just report it here or forward the e-mail to an admin. No legal threats means no logal threats. And I thought that was your kids I saw on ebay. Chick Bowen 00:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah right, don't buy the middle one - he only gets out the shower when the water goes cold! Giano 00:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This fellow first popped up in November of 2005 [58] and has been a pain ever since. Note that he's actually been to court (in Scotland) over these and related matters and been ruled against repeatedly. Honestly, a year-long block wouldn't be amiss. Do we want to revisit this in August or next February? Mackensen (talk) 00:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind an occasional "My God, have I been here that long?" moment every 6 months... Thatcher131 05:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-02-13 Easy question for mediators

Someone might want to remove the guys personal information. I left him a message but he hasn't responed and of course I'm the one he's pissed at so I don't want to do it. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Wheels for willys

On User talk:Wheels for willys, a likely sockpuppet of a banned vandal claims, "This Willy on Wheels is comming back. With a new page move vandalism bot. Over 1000 sleeper socks registered and past the checkuser threshold. Get ready for 1 million page moves." I'm just making note of this. We must get "Wikipedia will be destroyed" threats at least once a month, but it's probably worth noting them here. --Yamla 00:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Probably not. Even if it were true, the response would be just the same as if it had not been known, and it most likely is just bluster intended to get someone like you to post a famous message. —Centrx→talk • 00:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Ha ha, if you want to make a convincing threat, try running it past spellchecker first. This is practically a caricature of itself. — MichaelLinnear 00:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've mopped up his other accounts and placed a Checkuser request. --Slowking Man 01:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've seen a few of those recently, always promising to start tomorrow carrying out all sorts of threats (all claiming to be willy on wheels). I've assumed that it's some troll and if not we'd just deal with any vandalism the same we always do. I've also noticed various questions (like on talk here and on Jimbo's talk page) about Willy On Wheels lately. --pgk 07:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Do we really need to know about Willy on Wheels?? He's a pagemove vandal, nothing more... I expect this user's just trolling. Let's just move on shall we.... --sunstar net^talk 11:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Wheels for Willys! Help bring wheels to Willys! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Luigi30 (talk • contribs) 14:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

Probable spammer

Jsatz23 (talk · contribs) has been regularly recreating pages (spam, in my view) that are just as regularly speedily deleted, and his Talk page is filled with templated warnings. The pages include MedSocial (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (and its variants Medsocial (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Medsocial.com (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Healthology (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). So, is there a "spam-warn 2" template to escalate the notices, since he hasn't responded to regular warnings? {{uw-spam2}}, being for external links, doesn't really fit. --Calton | Talk 00:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I think {{uw-creation2}} and its successors are designed for this situation.-gadfium 01:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I dunno, the wording strikes me as too vague ("inappropriate pages"?), but if it comes up again I'll give it a shot. --Calton | Talk 05:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

undelete Image:NVMap-doton-McDermitt.png for proper commons transfer

Image:NVMap-doton-McDermitt.png was send to commons last year, now it's up for deletion because of missing information about the creator. Please undelete it so that I can transfer the information. --32X 01:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Original source information: {{GFDL}} <br> Adapted from Wikipedia's NV county maps by Bumm13. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 01:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Uploaded by User_talk:Bumm13, 20:04, May 18, 2004. 2004, wow, that is old time. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 01:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Was a bit more work than with the CommonsHelper, but the problem should be solved now. --32X 01:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

What is the proper use of Image:Olympic rings.svg on WP?

The permissions on the Image:Olympic rings.svg don't seem to be clear as to how the image can be used on Wikipedia. In the past there have been issues that the image was not to be used as a header for the olympic medal table because of fair use. This has come up again and I was going through all pages that linked to the image of the rings and removing the image when it was called to my attention that I should check here for guidance.

If this is not the correct place for my request, someone please let me know and I'll put the request there. Thanks. --EarthPerson 04:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Normally this would go to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. I'd recommend uploading a local version of that file to en: and using it only when it meets Wikipedia:Fair use criteria, per the note at Commons. Jkelly 04:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I've taken the question to WP:MCQ. --EarthPerson 04:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

CAT:CSD

Nicely backlogged, if everyone cleared a letter it would soon be gone! Viridae^Talk 08:46, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm all over U. Wait, that doesn't sound right. I'll take care of U. No, that's not good either. I will make U my b- ... ah, forget it. Proto::► 09:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

An RfC

Just wondered if anyone who commented on this discussion would like to certify or comment on this RfC. Thanks. Worldtraveller 10:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:La

Persistent vandal just changed {{La}} to read shit. I've protected it, but people might want to rack their brains (again) to think of similar templates that will cause a shitstorm if so amended, as I really have to leave the house now. A starter might be all the other templates listed for use at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. What were the objections to making the entirety of template space semi-protected again? I blocked the anon, 218.186.8.12 (talk · contribs) for a month based on the user page, allowing account creation and disabling the autoblock, but looking at the blocklog there may be issues with that. I leave it to people who understand the intricacies of blocking anons better than me to have a look at the correct course of action. Sorry to dump and run, but life is seldom uninteresting. Hiding Talk 11:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• I just protected {{lt}}. Mackensen (talk) 11:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that all templates mentioned in the table under instructions on WP:RFP are all in the same league. Eli Falk 15:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

redirect: Otto Warburg

A "go" on "Otto Warburg" was originally redirected to Otto Heinrich Warburg. I recognized confusion between this person and another of the same name Otto Warburg (botanist), so I created an article for the botanist. I then attempted to change the redirect of "Otto Warburg" to this latter gentleman, as he is the one with the name (and no middle name). The redirect source appears to be correct, but when a "go" is made, it is not redirected anywhere. Why is this and how can it be fixed? --JohnDoe0007 12:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

nevermind...it seems to be working properly now. Must take a short while for the redirect to take effect. Thanks for all your great work admins. --JohnDoe0007 12:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Block Review

User:Jfell is apparently creating a number of alternate accounts for vandalism. I've not requested a checkuser, but if you take a bit of time to review the edits of User:Jfell, User:Theslothkills, & User:Fatman05 (as well as User:Jfell11 & User:Jfell2) I think you will see what I mean. The editor is using the same template for all the userpages as well as similar statements about "babies" etc. The editor also used User:Jfell to "adopt" new user User:Fatman05. WP:DUCK this is the same person and since this individual has been warned about vandalism multiple times and is just creating new accounts to continue to vandalize articles, I blocked all of these accounts to nip this in the bud. Since some of these were indef blocks after 1 edit by the account I figured I would submit this series of blocks for review. Thanks.--Isotope23 14:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I should also mention that before I removed it, User:Jfell awarded himself a barnstar "from User:Thadius856".--Isotope23 14:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

A big thanks for removing the barnstar. Having never head of Jfell, I'm glad somebody caught this fake 'star. A big thanks to Shadow1 for alerting me to ANI raising my name as well. I'm a bit flattered all the same — am I really so famous on-wiki to warrant such fandom, or was I just chosen at random? thadius856_{talk|airports|neutrality} 00:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure... sorry, I meant to hit your talkpage, but I got sidetracked. There is more going on here; I don't want to say to much at this point per WP:BEANS.--Isotope23 02:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandal block posted for review

I have just blocked 69.92.184.84 (talk · contribs) for 24 hours for continuing vandalism at Gail Simone. Relevant edits are [59], [60], [61] and [62]. I think this edit [63] demonstrates sufficient knowledge of the vandalism and blocking policies to make the need for warnings unnecessary, but believe that needs to be reviewed by fellow admins. Hiding Talk 20:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah that last edit suggests they are well aware that the actions aren't acceptable here. --pgk 21:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Cheers, my thoughts exactly. Hiding Talk 13:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Bad image extension

I would like to place Image:BreastImplantSilicon(picture2).jpg in the article breast implant, to illustrate potential risks of implants, but currently the image is only allowed in capsular contracture. Can an admin please allow this image to be shown on breast implant? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. the wub "?!" 10:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks wub. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 21:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Block review requested

I have soft-blocked 66.172.165.2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) for 6 months. Looking through the contributions, I found nothing productive and a great deal to indicate a static IP--repeated jokes about the same names for example. Though the edits are juvenile, the IP address does not resolve to a school. I won't be offended if anyone unblocks, shortens, lengthens, or changes the blocking parameters--you don't have to contact me. But I do not believe we are likely to get anything useful from this IP. Chick Bowen 23:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I endorse your block. (Just in case you're wondering - I changed the {{vandal}} template in your comment to {{IPvandal}}.) Cheers. Yuser31415 00:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

No objections here. Mackensen (talk) 12:56, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

User User:Jegnome

It appears that 100% of this user's contributions have been hoaxes; he's inventing new species and even assigning them binominal Latin genus/species names (and then altering the corresponding genus's page to include his latest creation). I've already reverted all of his changes and prod'ed all of his new pages, but I'm not sure if an admin wants to issue warnings, block him, or both. Cheers. --Hyperbole 05:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, Spider/Cow hybrid was patent nonsense and I deleted it as such. The others can go through the WP:PROD or AfD processes. I'll leave a note on his talk page, but note that anyone can issue warnings. Chick Bowen 05:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:User categories for discussion

We could use some more contributors at UCFD. As of right now there are discussions that are as old as 13 days that are long overdue for being closed, as well as others that are 10 days old that still only have two contributors adding their input. It looks as if I'm going to get the mop shortly, but even then I don't feel comfortable closing the discussions that I was the original nominator of (which happens to be the majority of discussions). If we could get a few editors to help close the overdue discussions that would be helpful (as well as add your input to any discussions). VegaDark 09:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

FYI, to deal with a backlogged page, use {{backlog}}. If the backlog requires admin attention, use {{adminbacklog}}. Eli Falk 09:46, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm obviously aware of those tags. We have so many backlogged pages now that tagging something as that doesn't exactly get instant results. I highly doubt anyone who doesn't already visit UCFD would go there simply because I tagged it as a backlog. VegaDark 09:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The trouble is that closing UCFDs (as with CFDs) often requires (as I've said before) a black belt in Bot. I could merrily close every discussion on there in an hour, but would have no clue what to do afterwards, as the instructions provided are very complicated. Proto ► 13:46, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The trouble might also be that many people consider UCFD a relatively low priority, as opposed to, say, dealing with copyvios, vandalism, or other processes. >Radiant< 14:48, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

We have too much policy

I've compiled a list of policies that are partially or wholly redundant with one another, or overlap in a significant amount. The list is here. It would seem that we can roughly halve our amount of policies by doing some effective merging. I think this would be a good idea, but must note that people have objected to such merging in the past. >Radiant< 10:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

But see, my problem with this is that we have these separate for a reason. Deletion and undeletion are 2 different things. They should not be all in one. That's just one example. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 12:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I would not like to see Wikipedia:Blocking policy and Wikipedia:Banning policy merged, as blocks and bans are explicitly not the same thing. Same goes for undeletion/deletion (as Woohookitty states), and protection/semi-protection. Copyright violation and Copyrights are separate for good reason. I am not even sure how Wikipedia:Sock puppetry and Wikipedia:Usurpation are meant to overlap. Libel and BLP could be merged, though. Proto ► 13:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The two protection policies merge quite nicely. User:Steel359/Protection policy. -- Steel 13:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

• It is probably best to take any further discussion of this to Wikipedia:Overlapping policies and guidelines, rather than have a parallel discussion here.--Doc^g 13:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Abdy batman vandalise PlayStation 3 page

S/he has received temporary ban and several warnings. The latest: 09:44, 15 February 2007 (hist) (diff) PlayStation 3 (j90n)

From PlayStation 3 history: cur) (last) 10:46, 15 February 2007 Notagoodname (Talk | contribs) m (→Form factor and power consumption) (cur) (last) 10:13, 15 February 2007 Dancter (Talk | contribs) (rv: it still seems to be in effect) (cur) (last) 09:55, 15 February 2007 RexImperium (Talk | contribs) m (cur) (last) 09:47, 15 February 2007 W Tanoto (Talk | contribs) (reverted to prev version, because of vandalism by Abdy batman) (cur) (last) 09:44, 15 February 2007 Abdy batman (Talk | contribs) (j90n) (cur) (last) 01:59, 15 February 2007 Dark Knight6 (Talk | contribs) (→Graphical user interface)

I hope actions will be taken soon. I have reverted the page to previous version.--w_tanoto 10:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I warned the user with a test4 for the PS3 article. If he continues again, report him to WP:AIV. Hbdragon88 19:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

RFA on speedy?

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/JJGD was listed on CSD by User:JJGD, its author, after one day of self-nomination. We're not supposed to delete RFAs, right? Luigi30 (Taλk) 16:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Not usually, but I would be OK with deleting that one. It's not as if he's trying to wipe a failed nomination off the map. It appears he decided to run for adminship and then decided against it the next day. It wasn't transcluded to RfA, nobody voted, etc. -- Steel 16:47, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Moved from WP:AIV

Note: I just blocked User:Fuskamu for pagemove vandalism and attacks, but need to go into a real-world meeting for a couple of hours. Could someone please make sure to un-do all the pagemoves and post the indefblocked notice. Thanks. Newyorkbrad 20:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Oops. Took care of this before spotting this message. Taken care of. – Luna Santin (talk) 02:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Alex Hernandez

Why was this article deleted? I'm pretty sure I created it a couple of years ago and now it turns up as a dead link. I can't find any AFD either Spearhead 22:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Because it was vandalised, with someone adding their own biography, then two people - the person who tagged the vandalised version for speedy deletion, and the admin who deleted it - were both very lazy and didn't bother to even glance at the page history. It's restored now. Proto ► 22:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

personal attacks by 82.29.229.116

82.29.229.116 (talk · contribs) has taken a content dispute at Wolf Blitzer personally and resorted to personal attacks and false accusations of vandalism. GabrielF 23:47, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

1. "Your racism is disgusting and reflects only on you but thats your problem." [64]
2. "No, the only problem here is your attitude."[65]
3. "Your use of that particular location out of literally millions of worldwide locations tells a different story. Your bigotry. Your problem."[66]
4. "Clarification of your racist remark noted"[67]
5. "You should apologize for promoting conspiracy theories and racism"[68]
6. "And just for the hell of it heres some more physical evidence to rebut your conspiracy theory nonsense. I will re-edit the article and cite the details of Blitzer's work for NER/AIPAC, I don't believe you can be trusted to do this with an evenhand and attention to the facts."[69]
7. (In responding to my NPA warning on his talk page and why the above do not constitute personal attacks): " Hopefully on the next occassion when you decide to promote what you think above physical and sourced evidence you will remember how embarassing it was to see that attempt fall to pieces. I am glad to have helped you with that. By way of being constructive again, can I suggest you actually read WP:NPA, apply it to your own public comments, then when you believe you have a firm grasp of it, come back and we can discuss how applying it to your own work will improve you as an editor. "[70]
8. I then placed an AGF template on his/her user page, which s/he removed as vandalism.[71]
9. The user then placed two vandalism warnings on my page based on the NPA and AGF tags I had placed on his/her talk page.[72], [73]

48 hours. Thatcher131 03:40, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Category:Images with no copyright tag

Hey folks, Category:Images_with_no_copyright_tag's backlog is currently a week old which works out to about 1,400 images. All hands helping would be nice. This includes non-admins, there is sorting to do as the bots tag some pages that have the source but no tag. We have fun with dramatic issues, but copyright violations are the core of keeping the encyclopedia running. Any help is welcomed as I'm in and out for the next three days. Teke ^(talk) 04:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Calton Removing Warnings from his page

I warned Calton to stop harassing me; he is continuing to revert his talk page to remove this warning. I request administrative action in this matter. Mr. Ray Lopez 07:22, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I warned Calton to stop harassing me The term for this is psychological projection: your pop-psych lesson for today. Meanwhile:

• My talk page, and I have the right to remove anything which is not a legitimate and necessary warning. This is a long-established practice (you all know this, but let's be clear).
• Mr. Ray Lopez (talk · contribs) is, in fact, Ray Lopez (talk · contribs)/Ruy Lopez (talk · contribs), once blocked indefinitely for trolling as an abusive sockpuppeteer and troller, but allowed a second chance under a "new" name by the blocking admin Theresa knott (talk · contribs). Details can be found at her talk page. Looks like he's resumed the behavior which got him indef-blocked, including edit-warring at Joe Scarborough again (ask Gamaliel (talk · contribs) about THAT).

Maybe it's time to restore the indefinite block and make it a community ban? --Calton | Talk 07:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the name "Ray Lopez" was indef blocked because it was too similar to "Ruy Lopez." Furthermore, I was performing my own contributions before you started wikistalking and harassing me Calton. Get your house in order. Mr. Ray Lopez 07:37, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

By the way, to show your further ignorance in this matter, "Ruy Lopez" is not related to "Ray Lopez" in any way, shape, or form. Mr. Ray Lopez 07:42, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I strongly suggest you stop harassing Calton. There's no rule that says people can't remove things from their talkpages. --Carnildo 08:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, but what about Calton's harassment of me? He is going around to every single talk page and basically trash talking me, even though he's the one who started this latest round of drama. Where's his warning? Mr. Ray Lopez 08:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Diffs or it didn't happen. Viridae^Talk 10:44, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm I am not impressed. I think the best thing to do is block your new account too as it is clearly too associated with your old one. If you wish to return do it under a completely new username and stay away from editors that you have clashed with before. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 10:18, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Moving a page over edits?

I'd like to move Public health in mainland China back to Public health in the People's Republic of China which is apparently where it started. However there have been edits to the redirect. Could someone move this for me? Or, if I need to put the proposal up for discussion, where do I do that? --Ideogram 07:35, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

It would be Wikipedia:Requested moves, but given that "foo in the People's Republic of China" is the format of every other article in the series, I have just moved it. Proto ► 10:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Nuremburg

Nuremburg (talk · contribs), created February 6. Two edits only in its history, both to the user page, which reads:

{{Template:User Nazi}} I AM A NAZI. I live in the disgraced country of Germany. I am against the treaty of Versailles and want the french to pay back ALL the reparations they stole from us. I believe that there should be one strong leader in Germany and I think he would provide Lebensraum for the growing population of the worlds 12th largest country. It would be just like 1942....... anyone still interested? here are some pics!!

Either a troll or an actual wannabe Nazi, makes no never mind, it should be gone. I posted this at WP:AIV several hours ago, but it was kicked off after an hour with the edit summary This really isn't the place for this. Perhaps this is. --Calton | Talk 12:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

In violation of WP:SOAPBOX? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 12:56, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

WP is not censored, but this is clearly a troll, and there is no need to have a philosophical discussion about a troll. Indef blocked and page deleted.--Doc^g 13:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)