Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive92

Private island

20:32, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Rollback and watchlist

Is there an easy way to set the rollback function so that it adds the page you roll back to your watchlist? Fram 13:01, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

On Special:Preferences, click watchlist, then check add pages that I edit. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

To my knowledge that does have no effect - infact I use rollback over any revertscript when in particular I don't want the page to clutter my watchlist. Agathoclea 13:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

An alternative is to use popups with the preferences set to add pages you edit to watchlist, because popups actually "makes an edit" (i.e. clicks "save page"). Of course, popups is too much trouble for most admins. – Chacor 13:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yah, rolling back isn't actually editing... otherwise my watchlist would have exploded by now :/ Riana ⁂ 13:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Allright, thanks! Fram 13:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Checkuser block

First of all sorry if I am reposting this, it seems my edit wasn't saved the first time (browser crash)

I got asked on my talk page to enforce a block after a checkuser request that showed it was  Likely that User:Heqong = TingMing. Since Heqong was claiming his innocence on the case talk page, I assume he will fill an unblock request. I already blocked confirmed users, but I was wondering what the process exactly was on likely socks? -- lucasbfr ^talk 13:40, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a judgement call. Personally, I see an account which was dormant for 9 months; then suddenly after TingMing was blocked, jumped into the same articles, from the same POV, making 50 edits/day. Add in a "likely" from checkuser, and I'd say it smells like a sleeper account/sock puppet. My inclination would be to indefinitely block it, but I'll see what others have to say. MastCell ^Talk 16:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Passes the duck test. Guy (Help!) 18:07, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

A "Likely" from a CheckUser is more than enough to warrant a block. AmiDaniel (talk) 22:13, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Deco Da Man unblocked

I have unblocked Deco Da Man (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who was blocked indef by Ryulong (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) for stupid sockpuppetry. Since Deco has apologised I'm giving him a second chance. Ryulong is offline for some time, so reporting it here. MaxSem 20:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with a second chance, provided he's on a short leash. Of course, since almost all of his edits were in his userspace even before the block, he could stay blocked and it might not make much difference... :) MastCell ^Talk 20:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Though I'm not an admin, I'm willing to commit to keep an eye on him -- esp. since I was a major advocate of his release from blocking. Basically, this is a 13-year-old kid who's pretty smart, but needs to sharpen his discernment for what's appropriate to do or not do on Wikipedia. --Yksin 21:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOT attacks on new user pages

I'm all for WP:NOT#myspace but lately editors have been taking it to the extreme. See for instance User:JimmySan. One sentence. One sentence. Deleting a new user's page for having a single sentence is ridiculous. I wrote a new paragraph in WP:UP (here that gained consensus for the addition here) that I thought might help stem the tide of this, but editors don't seem to have noticed. This is becoming a real problem. -N 21:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Creator of deleted page

Hi. Me and a bot operator are trying to find out if the bot made a mistake. Could an admin tell me the creator of User talk:Wikihermit/Archive One? Thanks, --(Review Me) R ^ParlateContribs_@(Let's Go Yankees!) 22:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The creator and only editor was User:Wikihermit. AmiDaniel (talk) 22:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks AmiDaniel. --(Review Me) R ^ParlateContribs_@(Let's Go Yankees!) 22:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

PR person attempting to turn article into a press release

In the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival article, for a while a few anon users and one registered user have been attempting to remove all content sourced by reliable sources and replace it with completely un-sourced or press release sourced material. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

I personally suspect that people (person?) involved with this festival are behind these attempts. The only sourced parts of the article's history is criticism of this festival and the material they try to replace it with are press-release like material sourced only by other press releases. The registered editor, User:Beedyeyes, identifies them-self as Briege McGarrity, a "Publicity Event Producer Film Consultant".[6] Briege McGarrity seems to be associated with this film festival. [7] The need for proper sourcing has been posted in the article's talk page, edit summaries and on User:Beedyeyes and 71.50.64.3 talk pages[8], but User:beedyeyes continues to ignore warnings to stop doing this.

Other editors and I are bordering on 3RR. Can we have some help with this? Thank you. --Oakshade 22:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I've protected the page, given the edit-warring and reluctance of User:Beedyeyes, thus far, to engage on the talk page. In deference to the fact that they do seem to be a genuine newbie, I haven't blocked them for edit-warring but instead encouraged them to engage on the talk page. Once there's been some meaningful discussion (or if this user does not engage on the talk page) and you'd like the page unprotected so that editing can resume, you can ask me on my talk page or go to WP:RFPP and request unprotection. MastCell ^Talk 23:31, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Protection error

I keep getting an error message when trying to protect pages. It reads like this:

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

(SQL query hidden)

from within function "Title::purgeExpiredRestrictions". MySQL returned error "1205: Lock wait timeout exceeded; Try restarting transaction (10.0.0.237)".

Can someone help me fix this problem? bibliomaniac15 Join or die! 23:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Is that for a particular page or all of them? Just now I protected my sandbox for 20 minutes with no problem. —freak(talk) 04:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Splitting edit histories

Not sure this is the right place for this, but it isn't really an "incident", so if this is the wrong place, please direct me to the correct place. The most recent bombing of the al-Askari Mosque was added to the article for the first bombing instead of being given its own article. I moved the content for the recent bombing to its own article and removed it from the original article. I know it's possible to merge edit histories of articles, but is it possible to split the edit history of an article? --Bobblehead ^(rants) 03:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

If this is a case where a section of an article was created over time as part of a larger article, no, there's no easy way to split apart only the edit history relevant to that section. At first I thought you meant that B was cut and pasted to C and A was cut and pasted to B, which would require splitting to fix properly, due to the development of unrelated content on top of content that belongs with the first move. —freak(talk) 03:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Gotcha. Thanks for checking. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 04:00, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Isarig POV pushing

User:Isarig, a frequent editor on all things related to the Israeli-Palastinin conflict, is POV pushing on House demolition, and I've just about reached the end of my patience with him. Can someone please take steps to reign him in, before I block him over it? Raul654 04:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

You'd block someone who you were in a conflict with? hbdragon88 04:15, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe he's calling for someone else to intervene before he is tempted to go through with such an act.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:18, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Copyrighted images for internal use only?

I came across Category:Images_of_Wikipedians_used_with_permission just now. It asserts that user-created copyrighted photos may be used *inside the project itself* if re-use is not planned. (It should be noted that the wikipedia logo is licensed similarly, and the community appears to accept this). They were all uploaded in 2004, before our current policies came into place. Is this allowed? This could open a can of worms with users licensing their user page photos just for themselves, or just for their wikiproject. -N 19:01, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I would say no, but I would ask the uploaders before doing anything. Ask them to rechange the license, and if that doesn't work, then come back here. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 23:01, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

No, a proposal for such a license have been shot down before, these are "legacy" photos taken during some meetup by Raul654 but not released under a free license because he had not asked permission from the subjects of the photos. Then they seem to have just sort of gotten stuck in limbo and a couple of users have found the tag and used it for theyr own photos as well. It's been years though so I's probably time to clear them out (move to an off site facebook type place or something maybe). --Sherool (talk) 10:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, they could be tagged with {{subst:orfud}} as they are non-free images not being used in any articles. ;) --BigDT 13:23, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Advise on a slowly ongoing problem

I just reverted warned two people on the Julianna Rose Mauriello article. The situation is this: There have been rumors spread on a nonreputable blog, speculating on Ms. Mauriello's sexuality. These rumors were spread by a known stalker of Ms. Mauriello, who also lifted private pics from her (now nonexistant) facebook. The two Wiki users in question added this gossip to the article and tried uploading the image to her article. It is a private image taken during Ms. Mauriello's 16th birthday party. I don't want to go to RFPP, because the vandalism is well, lazy (Given the subject, pardon the pun.) I warned the one user with uw-upload because that was the nearest thing I could find to this, though I don't know if it's appropriate. Any suggestions? Should I take a chill pill? The reason I know the image is inappropriate, by the way, is because an anon user tried to upload the same image earlier this month. Thanks. --Ispy1981 20:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't think a chill pill is necessary; after all, we're talking about violations of WP:BLP here. I think you're correct to take a strong line against adding speculative, poorly sourced material and illicit images; you can use Template:Uw-blp1 and up. If continued insertion of this material is a problem, then come back here or let me know, as repeatedly violating WP:BLP is grounds for a block. MastCell ^Talk 20:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Not only is it a BLP violation, but she's only sixteen. This needs to be severely curbed. Corvus cornix 22:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you both for your replies/advice. I have had the article on watch for quite some time, as a small favor to her family, and will report if it gets out of hand. --Ispy1981 00:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

On my watchlist as well. I'll keep an eye out for anything inappropriate. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:39, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Do we delete attack pages or not?

Can uninterested parties look on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Digwuren/Petri Krohn's Story of Estonians? Currently the discussion is dominated by users named in inconclusive Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Digwuren. Alex Bakharev 00:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

In these cases, don't we just mark with {{spa}} and let the closing admin decide whether to discount those votes or not? hbdragon88 00:59, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

What {{spa}} are you talking about? These are established users. And it is hardly surprising that almost only Estonian editors are interested in this topic. Colchicum 11:13, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know much about Estonian history...I understand the one user is mocking the other for his version of history but what's the actual dispute about? Just mocking somebody doesn't make it an attack page... -N 01:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

• Uh, no. The word "mocking" ought to have been a clue, there. --Calton | Talk 01:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

• There is also a similiar page Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Petri_Krohn/Evidence. Both those pages should stay. There are no insults in them. We should be more tolerant regarding userspace, one of the legitimate usage of userspace is to help other wikipedians to understand with whom they are interacting. Also, is legitimate for wikipedians to question the edits of other wikipedians, this is part of a free debate which is helping to built a better encyclopedia. As long as no insults are used, I don't see reason for deletion.--MariusM 02:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I find it quite strange that Alex nominated that page, which is mocking Petri's views of Estonian history, for deletion on grounds of being attack page but at same time completely ignored User:Petri Krohn/Evidence where numerous editors are openly accused in wide variety of things from harrasment to holocaust denial.--Staberinde 10:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Vintagekits and meatpuppetry

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Hello fellow admins. Many of you will be familiar with Vintagekits (talk · contribs) an Irish editor who has been embroiled in a long-running and wide-ranging conflict with a number of English editors. Quite frankly, the behaviour of editors on both sides of this dispute have been poor, resulting in blocks being issued for edit-warring, personal attacks and incivility, e.g. [9] [10]. A case in point can be seen within the number of AfD's that have served as battlegrounds (see, for example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sir William Arbuthnot, 2nd Baronet). There has been allegations of sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry from editors on both sides, and a glance at the AfD will reveal plenty of SPA's. A recent AfD inspired the re-appearance of a few SPA friends, resulting in a report being filed on suspected sockpuppets of Vintagkits. Consequent to this an editor provided me with compelling evidence of Vintagekits soliciting support off wiki to help, in his own words, with a bit of voterigging. The evidence is detailed at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Vintagekits. As someone who has been involved in collecting this evidence, I don't believe I'm the right person to judge how to use it in determining what, if any, action should be taken. I'm asking for the opinion of others, especially those familiar with Vintagekit's history. Thanks. Rockpocket 06:27, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The evidence on the page is circumstantial. Is there concrete evidence of solicitation, e.g. a post on a message board? Tyrenius 17:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC) Just spotted new material that answers the question. Tyrenius 17:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

See also my post at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Vintagekits again. I know both "sides" have behaved badly here, but I don't think one wrong excuses another. In the absence of any commitment to improve from Vintagekits, and in the light of this new evidence of Vintagekits' failure to respect policy, I think we have to be looking at a longish block. --John 17:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, lets centralise this discussion. I'm going to take the liberty of merging the posts here over to the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, and archiving this. Rockpocket 17:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

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

Kai (talk · contribs · logs · block log)

Kai has been acting strange lately. He contributes to the Habbo Hotel article like myself, but lately there has been discussions about inclusion of hotel raids in the article, whether the article is written like an advertisement, disputes about Habbo Hotel being a game or not and other issues. Digging through his contributions, I found this vandalism warning to my talk page, prior to the English-only warning template on my talk page. Then a month or so later, he is vandalising my status box on my userpage as shown in these: [11] [12] [13]. Later on he awards me a barnstar on my talk page and adds "Why are you so cool?" to my editor review. I have no problem with the barnstar and the question and it is appreciated (I did the same to him and awarded him a barnstar for his kindness), but what confuses me is that one moment he is kind, and then he warns me for owning the article. Anyone else find something suspicious about his actions? –Sebi ~ 08:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh lord. Did you just happen to forget that we have a relationship outside of Wikipedia? I find this highly unnecessary... --Kai 09:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Is that relevant? You have vandalised pages in my userspace, warned me for WP:OWN unneccessarily and then treat me with praise and respect. What is going on? –Sebi ~ 10:00, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I obviously thought it was necessary to advise you of WP:OWN. In regards to the above, you knew I was having a joke, and why wait until now to complain... and what's the harm in giving a barnstar here and there. Kai 10:28, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Serious concerns about User:SlimVirgin and User:Jayjg, admins protecting admins? gangs?

I had typed this up yesterday and decided not to submit it, giving SlimVirgin the benefit of the doubt, but something came up that makes me deeply concerned about this. I found that there is some history and controversy related to these two and their style of admining? I have been earnestly editing wikipedia for some time now and have only recently entered upon any controversial articles as part of my interest in promoting NPOV in cases where it is difficult to attain due to prevailing moral and political opinions. Prior to this, I am especially proud of my work on Emergence in bringing it balance, and I think that my edit history on the whole speaks for itself - I am not a vandal, I am not here to disrupt articles. Most of my edits are on innocuous pages about Scale models and passenger trains. Despite all that, I fear I may have inadvertantly gotten myself on the wrong side of a powerful duo and wouldn't like to find myself blocked - I value my editing here a great deal, and especially the history of edits on this account, etc. I feel that I must speak up before SlimVirgin makes good on her threats and I am prevented from making a broad appeal to the admins.

I'll keep it as brief as possible. I made some proposals (Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Fact disputedfact value and Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Killing NPOV) for clarification on NPOV and additions to the text of the policy. While working on what I thought was a persistent pattern on Wikipedia of stating POV as fact, paraphrasing with bias, etc. in violation of existing policies, I came to holocaust. I then ran into a problem with several administrators who are parked on that article and enforcing a particular version of it (backed up by threat of blocking for "disruption"). Let me quickly itemize what I think are the key problems:

• SlimVirgin "lols" and quotes obvious WP:CIVIL violation by User:Rabbeinu on his talk page[14] and ignores another inappropriate comment by him on her talk page[15].

• SlimVirgin engages in a pattern of edit-warring and it is apparently impossible to get an admin blocked for it ("undoes the actions of another editor in whole or in part" right?) - just an example: ([16] reverts [17], [18] reverts [19], [20] reverts [21], [22] reverts [23]) - 3RRV denied by User:Heimstern with note that slim should "revert less often". Does the rule not clear staying "undoes the actions of another editor in whole or in part"? Because she did this previously (take your pick, two possible sets of 3RR violations from these edits ([24][25][26][27][28][29]) and 3RRV was denied by User:Tariqabjotu - an apparent ally listed below who also blocked me after User:Jayjg listed me for a 3RR which was totally unintentional on my part, a series of consecutive edits which were getting reverted by Slim without me realizing - if these aren't 3RR mine sure wasn't.

• Appears to have protection and cooperation of a group of like-minded admins (User:Jayjg, User:Humus Sapiens, User:Tariqabjotu, User:JoshuaZ)

• Above users ganged up to have me blocked (and protect Slim from being blocked) for what was really two reverts on my part, broken out into a series of consecutive edits - within literally a couple minutes my first and second edit had been reverted, but these were intended as consecutive edits, not an edit war.

• SlimVirgin indicates in edit summary that I am not to "modify lead" or introduce quotes and "counter-claims" on the article. Since when is someone not free to edit an article to try to improve it?

• SlimVirgin persistently (just for example [30], [31], [32]) warns that a clear content and policy dispute is "disruptive editing" and I am concerned that she may have me blocked for it by a friend without even peer review by impartial admins.

• Minor issue, but "SlimVirgin" is a potentially offensive user name and seems to me to violate the user name policy. How has this slipped by? Judging by the names that are summarily banned every day, how isn't this the sort of reference to "reproductive functions"? If people are banned for having "gay" in their username which is not even mentioned in the policy, how does this clear reference to "reproductive functions" go unquestioned? Seems that admins protect admins whereas new users get no consideration at all. There are cases of people being banned summarily for all sorts of innocuous names which are not directly covered by the policy.

Please see Talk:Holocaust, and I think these [33][34][35][36] edits mentioned above (that she reverted in whole or in part) exemplify what I am trying to do, which is nothing other than a good-faith effort to improve the neutrality of wikipedia.

I would like the edit-warring and threats to stop. I don't know SlimVirgin's history or if she is prone to this sort of conflict but she strikes me as someone who does not have the sort of impartiality that should be associated with administrative privileges. The wider problem of admins protecting admins needs to be addressed too - although that is such a fundamental problem of this system with its "discretions" and powers that I have no idea what could be done about it. Fourdee 11:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest you focus on trying to change the admin system and dont focus on individual admins, SqueakBox 02:40, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Without commenting on the rest of what you say just yet, the examples of your edits that you give at the end there are hardly unproblematic. In this edit and this edit you rely on one source to assert a fact (a practice you complain about here) without identifying the source, but importantly without identifying that he is only speaking about terms used in a particular period (from 1939 to early 1942). In this edit you are simply removing information without explanation. --bainer (talk) 12:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I haven't investigated the current situation in detail, but I would note that in the Wikipedia talk pages cited, you advocated an interpretation of NPOV that I found extreme and unconventional. If you are now trying to apply your interpretation of NPOV to the Holocaust, I wouldn't be surprised if it is creating friction. Dragons flight 12:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

As I have had to remind certain people on occasion, Wikipedia is not the real world and, with that said, the title of Admin can not be equated always with a mature and sensible person. So, while not referring to the Slim situation (I know nothing about that person) I agree completely that there are some bad admins out there and there are “admin gangs” that pop up as well as people who badly abuse their powers. While some admins are upstanding and respectable people with jobs, homes, and the 2.5 children of the American Dream, other admins may be exactly the opposite. In particular, there is a growing number of admins who are college students and (not that there’s anything wrong with being a college student) it is a little scary to think about a 22 or 23 year old passing judgment or becoming involved in a dispute with someone twice their age and having the attitude on Wikipedia that those involved in the dispute should be treated as equals and as if they are the same with knowledge and experience which just isn’t the case sometimes. For instance, imagine you were a 63 year old lawyer working on a case and a 19 year old who saw an episode of Matlock came into your firm and told you how wrong you were. In the real world, you could throw the person out on the street but here at Wikipedia the person just be taken seriously and debated with as a mature party. Conflicts then erupt, disputes happen, and if the 19 year happens to be an Admin there might arise a situation of unfair behavior and abuse of admin powers. So, extremely valid points. Whether or not anything can be done about it, that is the true question. -38.119.112.187 12:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah 250 words or less please. Viridae^Talk 13:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

While there is certainly a problem with cliques on Wikipedia, and it's also true that SlimVirgin can be a bit abrupt at times (aren't we all?), I have to say that in this case she has a point. I agree with Dragonsflight and Thebainer that you seem to have a rather odd view of NPOV. Some of your earlier edits (e.g. to Nazism - diff) seem a little questionable as well. -- ChrisO 23:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I came across Fourdee first when he wanted to change the Emmett Till article to say that the subject had been "killed", not "murdered", because no one was convicted (even though two people confessed). When he began to lose that argument he proposed the NPOV policy be changed to specifically prohibit designating deaths as murders unless there have been convictions. It would have also had disruptive effects on articles about genocides, massacres, etc. When that proposal was shot down he apparently started to go after those who opposed it, including these admins. This editor appears to shop for forums seeking better outcomes. While I haven't reviewed the case he lays out here, I've seen enough of his previous actions to doubt its merits. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the people in question were acquitted of murder. Fourdee 02:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, I am not aware of any of these editors having anything to do with the Emmett Till article or the NPOV proposals, nor do I care to retaliate against anyone for disagreeing with me. People have opinions, why should that bother me or anyone else? This isn't about the content dispute, it's about whether there is a cabal or gang of admins who work together to silence opponents. Fourdee 02:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Having failed to bring rogue admins on the Hebrew wikipedia to justice (sadly, due to the size of their wiki it's a true cabal), I'm always on the lookout for admin "gangs" as it were, but here I think the problem lies in interpreting NPOV, not the admin's conduct. David Fuchs 01:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't have time to find diffs right now, but Fourdee has been insisting that we call the Holocaust an "eradication project," and argues that we can't use the term "mass murder," because it's POV, given that not everyone was convicted of murder. We're also not allowed to say that every arm of the German bureaucracy was involved in the genocide (for which we have a good source, and which no scholar disputes), unless we can find a source showing that every single civil servant knew it was genocide. And so on. This has been accompanied by long talk-page explanations of how Fourdee is the only person who understands NPOV. It's tiresome, particularly as we're currently trying to improve the article, and most of his edits have been reverted.

As for my user name and "reproductive functions"(!), as everyone knows, my name is a reference to extra-virgin olive oil, which is not to my knowledge connected to reproduction, though I stand to be corrected, and knowing Fourdee I no doubt will be. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Same argument could be made for "gay" (happy) and "dick" (richard) and so on for probably anything - I guess "gaydick" is a valid username because it could mean "happy richard". It has the appearance of mentioning sexual function and there's sure no phrase "slim virgin" about olive oil or anything else. The only things that turn up in searching for that on google are pornography and rather detailed complaints about you. Anyway, maybe not "everyone knows" what it's supposed to mean.

The rest of what you said is, as a whole, false or distorted. At any rate, I would just like to be free from the threat of being blocked because of a content/policy dispute. And you appear to have made it clear you don't want quotes and counter-claims in the article so I think we are going to continue to have this dispute. Fourdee 02:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Funny, I honestly thought it was a reference to Virginia Slims o.O ... —freak(talk) 02:42, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Since when does virginity have anything to do with reproduction anyway? Your username concern reeks of trolling, Fourdee. —freak(talk) 03:00, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

shrug check out the usernames that are banned summarily every day. As to what Virgin means please notice the article mentions reproductive functions in the first sentence. This is a totally trivial issue I just mentioned it because I don't think any policies are being enforced uniformly or fairly. Fourdee 03:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I could say a lot here, but I'll simply point out that Fourdee insisted on removing the term "mass murder" as a description of the Holocaust because it was either a WP:BLP violation, or because it wasn't the "proper legal term", or various other claims. I then specifically sourced the term "mass murder". Unsurprisingly, I was immediately reverted, with a claim of "mixed cites, synthesis". Fourdee is right when he says this isn't about a content dispute, but he's wrong when he says it's "about cabal or gang of admins who work together to silence opponents." In fact, it is about his own disruptive behavior. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that's right. You can't combine sources like that and SV later removed that citation herself. That's a content/policy dispute though, not the reason we are here.

You linked to WP:POINT as disruptive behavior (there is a separate page Wikipedia:Disruptive editing) - WP:POINT describes ironic parodies to illustrate that someone or some policy is wrong, which is not what I'm doing. As to whether this behavior is disruptive that's what we're here for, and so far I have not heard any impartial (uninvolved) persons labeling this as clear disruption. I just want the question answered: is this behavior "disruptive" if so which parts of it do I need to change to avoid being blocked? Blocking for disruption is only allowed by consensus of "neutral parties" and I wanted the chance to make my case and ask for that neutral decision before it happens. Fourdee 05:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Fourdee has decided to enlighten other users about his opinions in new and innovative (read: totally unrelated) forums.[37] I don't know what to make of this exactly, but since the post doesn't address the article in anyway, I think it is trolling. nadav (talk) 09:16, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

My comments directly address the conflict there. I'm not sure what "trolling" means in this sense but I have always heard it used to mean something like "affecting a false position merely to get a rise out of people". I'm not playing around. Fourdee 09:47, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The word has other meanings. My use of the word was closer to WP:TROLL#Misplaced criticism. I'll assume good faith, but you should know that these kinds of posts come across badly. nadav (talk) 10:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

After reading the above and viewing the diffs, I have blocked User:Fourdee for a period of 48 hours for tendentious editing ^demon^{[omg plz]} 17:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Could people please please (pretty please) stop citing essays when blocking people? I know that TE covers material that's already covered by other policies, but then, please, use those policies as support? It just looks bad. Really really bad. Bladestorm 17:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

ZOMG! SLIM VIRGIN! JAYJG! CABALS! ADMIN ABUSE! Will ^(talk) 17:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

He didn't cite it (i.e. as per WP:TE); he linked it. Big difference. El_C 17:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

True, and in any case, tendentious editing is a subset of disruptive editing, a widely accepted guideline the violation of which is grounds for blocking. I think linking the essay was just an attempt to be specific about the subtype of disruptiveness involved. For what it's worth, 2 unblock requests by Fourdee have since been declined, the second by me. MastCell ^Talk 22:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Talk page protected; objections?

As Fourdee (talk · contribs) has posted his 3rd unblock template (6 minutes after I'd declined the second and warned him about abusing the template), I've protected his talk page for the duration of his block. The 3rd unblock request has been declined by ElinorD (talk · contribs). The block and page protection are again submitted here for review. MastCell ^Talk 23:13, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Quick Image question

Regarding the images,

• Image:MacOSX10-5.jpg
• Image:Leopard Finder.jpg
• Image:Timemachine-prescreenshot.jpg
• Image:IChat-prescreenshot.jpg
• Image:leopard_quicklook.jpg

just ebecause they were taken off a web page does not mean they are copyvios, do they? Especially they have a FUR (ignoring the validity at the moment). --soum ^talk 15:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm afraid it does mean they are copyright violations. The screenshot tag is for screenshots taken by the user, not right click and saved from Apple's website. Neil ╦ 15:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

No, my question is whether using a screenshot, even if it is from the developers' website, is allowed here under WP:FU as long as there isnt a public NDA-free release available? Of course with a valid rationale and a proper tag like saying it is a non standard fair usage, thats not the point of the question. --soum ^talk 15:35, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Saying as they are screenshots of an unreleased piece of software (OSX 10.5), I'd say they are fairly irreplaceable. That said, I doubt the iChat or Finder articles are severely lacking just because these pictures got removed... EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, the suitability is an issue, which we were discussing at the article talk page, but it was not the point here. What I asked was just because a screenshot was copied off a web page, does it become a copyvio regardless of everything else? Yeah, I know the policy and as I interpret it, its not (assuming its irreplaceable and has a valid FUR). I just want to know if my interpretation is missing anything. --soum ^talk 17:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Does the page have a copyright statement? Guy (Help!) 18:08, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Which page? The Apple page? Yeah it does. But the question is not just about this specific set of images. It is about any generic screenshot of a copyrighted software. If any such screenshot is retrieved from the software title publishers' website, and uploaded here, does it become a copyright infringement suitable for CSD #G12? The way I see it is that FU still applies to it, so it is not a clear case of delete at sight (as these can be a valid fair usage). I just want clarification that I am interpreting correctly. Again, I am not referring to these set of images. --soum ^talk 18:20, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, it is a copyright violation in all cases. The interface is copyrighted and we reproduce it without a proper authorization. Fair Use is an exception that permits to infringe the rule, and I don't think there is any clear cut rule copyvio/non copyvio there. The fact that the screenshot has been taken by an apple employee and that apple is communicating using these screenshots is a risk factor. My own personal view is that the fair use rationale was valid (assuming there is no way to make the picture yourself for the moment), but I am not a lawyer. -- lucasbfr ^talk 18:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

To answer Soum's question - if you have taken the image from a website, it is not a screenshot, by definition. A screenshot is an image you have taken yourself of a screen, not an image taken by someone else of someone else's screen that you right-click and saved. That is a copyright violation. Neil ╦ 13:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

No, Neil. That is completely wrong. Whoever presses the print-screen button is irrelevant. It does not have to be the uploader pressing the print-screen button to qualify as a screenshot. Many screens are taken from promotional material released by their copyright owners. As long as these are sourced, and include a valid fair-use rationale, then they are OK for use. - hahnchen 19:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The stolen image of Mac 10.5 is being used on Graphical user interface, Mac OS X and operating system - definitely not fair use there (plenty of free images can be used to illustrate those). A fair use image could possibly be argued for on Mac OS X 10.5 ("identification of and critical commentary on the software in question"), but the {{screenshot}} tag is invalid - these are not screenshots; they are images stolen from the Apple website. Neil ╦ 13:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The time machine and Ichat pictures taken from Apple's website are also not fair use (just being used as decoration), ao have also been deleted as blatant copyvios. I strongly believe the remaining Image:MacOSX10-5.jpg image, now solely being used on Mac OSX 10.5 remains a copy vio, as the screenshot rationale is for screenshots, not a stolen propietary image based on a screenshot. Neil ╦ 13:18, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I've deleted it. There was no source, and the rationale claimed it was a screenshot. It is a blatant copyright violation (WP:CSD#G12) - note the big copyright notice at http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/ Neil ╦ 13:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Apple can put all the scary warnings on their website they want. No-one is denying that they hold the copyright to it, but fair use and more specifically our non-free content says that using the images is allowable. Whether you or an Apple employee took the screenshot is irrelevant. Of course whether the images are being used appropriately i.e. with critical commentary is important. the wub "?!" 22:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

category deletion v. depopulation

Recently, some admins speedily deleted a bunch of user categories without depopulating them first. I believe any categories should be depopulated if they are to be deleted. Populated categories that are deleted create unnecessary redlinks. If an admin is deleting a user category, the admin should inform all entries in the category first to facilitate depopulation. Think about if an island sinks with all people still on it. Wooyi^{Talk to me?} 21:38, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Surely they'll notice it by seeing that the category has been deleted? It's easier for 100 people to make 1 quick edit each than for one person to make 100 edits. Friday (talk) 21:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

But many users do not periodically check the bottoms of their userpage. Redlinks on userpages are harmful to the project. Wooyi^{Talk to me?} 21:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Harmful how? I think a category I was in was deleted once.. at some point I noticed and removed it, but it wasn't hurting anything, as far as I know. Friday (talk) 21:46, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

A category with a huge population should not be deleted summarily, period. Residents on an island should be informed when the island is sinking. A redlink category with whole lot of residents are simply ugly and detrimental. Wooyi^{Talk to me?} 21:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It may be ugly, but it's detrimental to who? A little bit of ugliness of userpages harms no one at all. Moreschi ^Talk 10:33, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Shrugs, it's more that it's simply a sloppy admin action. We have workpages for the Wikignomes to "go to it". If you feel the need to speedy delete a category, but don't have the inclination (for whatever reason) to "finish", then simply post the category at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working or Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/User, whichever applies. - jc37 10:41, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I have been working to depopulate these categories. I know how to find them and what to do to fix them. If someone wants to give me a list I can work off that, but either way, I'll get it sorted out. The bigger question for me is what to do when the user re-adds the category once it is removed twice despite an edit summary that asks them not to. Example can be found here. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 12:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a lot of "support/oppose" redlinked cats people like to have on their user pages, and it's typically within the "leeway" we generally give. My general thought is: If they are determined to have a redlinked cat, let them. (As long as having it isn't disrutive in some way.) - jc37 13:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

If a user category has an enormous population and the entrants like it, it probably should not be deleted. Wooyi^{Talk to me?} 13:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about that, but it should probably at least not be speedily deleted, in order to prevent disruption. "Speedy" closures, and speedy deletions are under discussion at several talk pages, and from what I can see, most seem to agree that the political issue cats should have been deleted, but that they should have been nominated first. (Though I wonder at following that up with speedily deleting even more cats...) At this point, let's just agree to both the former and the latter points. No comment atm about the political ideology cats, or the "other" group of cats summarily deleted (the latter of which I may still take to DRV). - jc37 14:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

oh yawn, more user page categories being summarily deleted for no reason at all except a few with nothing better to do have decided they don't like it. SchmuckyTheCat 23:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Watchlist

Can a few people add Sivaji: The Boss to their watchlist. This is likely to be edited very frequently over the next few days and the editors (good and bad) will mostly be anons. Tintin 10:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, this needs to be added on the pgkbot watchlist as well. One of the most expensive films to be ever released in India, was released only a few days ago and will attract lot of vandalism. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{C} 10:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{C} 10:45, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

<misza13> computer cvp add Sivaji: The Boss

<pgkbot> Added Sivaji:_The_Boss to watchlist, "No reason given". Expires indefinite

<misza13> bonkbonk :P

<misza13> XD

IRC Log Violation! IRC Log Violation! Censure! Abuse! Terror! Fattening!  ;-) Georgewilliamherbert 23:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually, it was released just this morning. Tintin 11:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Image012 (2).jpg

Image:Image012 (2).jpg is the picture of an 11-year old which contains his contact information. Could somebody please speedy delete? Corvus cornix 23:17, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. Has the user who uploaded been contacted? Neil ╦ 23:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, yes he has. Good good good. Neil ╦ 23:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. Corvus cornix 23:23, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

He has now created a new image at Image:Nathan Galea .jpg with the same contact information and same information about his age. Corvus cornix 02:02, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Deleted. -- Infrogmation 03:35, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Corvus cornix 04:09, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Question

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Speedy deleted the article in question. See explanation at bottom. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 02:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

---

Long story short: Gene Poole and I are in a dispute and he keeps adding a comment of mine that he took completely out of context onto this page (see here). I've MFD'd it (if you ask me it should be speedied) but I think his continual adding of this comment constitutes as abuse. He has threatened me before, and two administrators are already involved, but right now neither of them are online. What do I do? --Captain Wikify ^Argh! 23:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

This is not the disengagement I asked you to do this morning...

Could you please let an uninvolved admin deal with his page? You have an obvious conflict of interest and it's just exacerbating things. I'm involved enough not to want to judge if that page constitutes a WP:NPA issue or an attack page, but if you'll leave it alone and let others reading ANI deal with it, it will help. Georgewilliamherbert 23:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to break any rules but I'm certainly not letting him slander me like that. That's why I keep reverting and why I left a comment here. --Captain Wikify ^Argh! 23:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

If this keeps up for another hour, I predict both of you will be blocked for 48 hrs to cool off. What is it going to take for the two of you to step back and stop provoking each other? Georgewilliamherbert 23:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

See note on talk page.--Captain Wikify ^Argh! 23:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

On my talk page, you partly wrote: I've had it with Gene and his childish actions.. This is the problem. Neither of you are acting in a civil and responsible manner regarding the other one's actions right now. It's impossible for me to assess blame for "who started it". It's clear that you're both taking provocative responsive measures over and over again rather than shutting up and cooling off. The normal admin response to this is a cooldown block on both parties. If you do not wish an admin to block you, you need to stop continuing and escalating the debate, now. (applies equally to Gene).

Knock it off. Georgewilliamherbert 00:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[38], [39], [40]. Oh, and [41]. --Captain Wikify ^Argh! 00:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

For those just coming in, Captain Wikify has announced s/he is taking a wikibreak. Hopefully this both defuses the immediate situation and doesn't lead to them leaving the project permanently, as one bout of interpersonal conflict doesn't affect their history of having been a productive contributor. Georgewilliamherbert 01:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the comment from the page, which may or may not survive a pending MfD, and if Gene reinstates the comment then I will speedy-delete the page because at that point it will clearly be being used as an instrument of harassment. As a general matter, pages of this nature, which have the effect of perpetuating quarrels and incivilities rather than letting them fade into the past, should be severely deprecated. Newyorkbrad 01:13, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I have speedy deleted this subpage. This page only served to antagonize those who may have made a mistake in there wiki experience. The fact is, we all ahve made a mistake and focusing on those mistakes and keeping a record is unhelpful and unencylopedic. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 02:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

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

Resumption of sockpuppetry & disruption by Dr CareBear

Can I have advice of other admins please re User:Dr CareBear who has just come off a 1 week block for using sockpuppets (Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Dr CareBear) to evade a block for disrupting POV editing to multiple neuroleptic medication articles, failing to engage in discussion when asked (see also Wikiproject discussion) and reverting repeatedly other editors who removed the alarmist POV pushing. Original block actions had been reviewed here on WP:AN/I#Request_for_outside_admin_review (but can't seem to find it now in archives).

Now used User:203.177.247.166 for http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Promazine&diff=prev&oldid=138469990 - As per Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#Avoiding scrutiny from other editors, I feel that again using other accounts to continue the POV push against consensus of other editors and failing to engage in talk page discussion as previously asked to do is being disruptive to the community wikipedian process. I'm mindful to reblock for an increased duration, would this be correct interpretion and use of policies though, and if so, how long should such a reblock be for ? David Ruben ^Talk 02:55, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I blocked the IP for 72 hours as an obvious reincarnation of User:Dr CareBear, making identical tendentious edits and with the same WHOIS as other CareBear socks, before noticing this thread. I'm happy to have the block adjusted if it's felt to be appropriate by others. User:Dr CareBear is a persistent, disruptive puppeteer, though, and I was about to re-block the sockmaster account as well; I'll wait and let others chime in first. MastCell ^Talk 04:57, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Angry German Kid

Could somebody please delete and salt Angry German Kid? it has been deleted four times already, and just got recreated yet again. Corvus cornix 07:54, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Deleted and salted. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{C} 08:03, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposal: Change of policy on "established editors".

I've been seeing a major problem with "semi-protected" pages especially in relation to the Brock Lesnar page. Though there are numerous other pages with the same problem, My personal experience is with that page. That page is on an "indefinite full protection"(it keeps being re-protected when the time expires, for months on end) apparently due to a single vandal making sockpuppet accounts. Apparently this person makes "sleeper accounts" and waits for a few days to be able to edit semi-protected articles and then vandalizes them. I wanted to know if it would be possible to change the policy to make it so editors can't edit semi-protected pages unless they have both waited 5 days as well as have made at least a dozen good non-vandalism edits. This would erase the possibility of making "sleeper accounts" because most vandals would not go through the trouble of making 12 good edits simply to make one vandalism edit which will instantly get reverted and get them banned as a sockpuppet. I believe this would drastically decrease the amount of vandalism to semi-protected pages on Wikipedia and prevent pages such as Brock Lesnar (just a single example among many) from being indefinitely protected due to fear of a single vandal. We're currently being held hostage by vandals with "sleeper" sockpuppets who are able to vandalize pages after waiting the amount of time needed to edit semi-protected pages. We need to make it so in order to edit semi-protected pages you need at least 12 good edits and must be a registered user for at least 5 days. When I say "good edits" I simply mean edits of anykind because if they were vandalism, the person would be banned before ever being able to get to the necessary 12 to vandalize semi-protected pages. Both the waiting period and the minimum edit-count would be required to curtail many vandals who vandalize semi-protected pages. It should be both a waiting period of a few days as well as an edit minimum prior to being able to edit semi-protected pages. If they had a choice they would choose to build sleeper sock puppets, making several at a time just to wait out the time period and then vandalize pages. There needs to be both a waiting period as well as an edit minimum prior to being able to edit semi-protected pages. I got support for this when I posted it on Wikipedia talk:Protection policy and was told I should bring it here which has higher traffic. I would like some input on this proposal as well as methods for enacting such a policy. I believe it would drastically improve our ability to fight vandalism against semi-protected articles and spot vandals prior to them being able to edit semi-protected articles. I also posted this in the village pump.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 11:41, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

As soon as I read this, my foremost thought was "this is why we need a moderation system, where edits need to be approved". But on second thoughts, it is going to be havily abused. How about we increase the threshold to, say 2 weeks and 100 edits with no blocks in the last week? In the meanwhile, if they want to edit protected articles, they will put a request, and established editors will review their contribs and promote them prematurely if their contribs are legitimate. --soum ^talk 11:53, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by "abused"? Perhaps a 12 edit minimum is too small but a 100 edit minimum is too much. Perhaps somewhere in between such as 20-30 "good edits"(edits that don't result in a ban) plus a 1 week waiting period before being able to edit semi-protected articles? And as you say, legitimate users will be able to request the changes if they want them to be made prior to that. It's a lot better than our current scenario.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 12:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Abused as in a lot of articles could get into moderation mode, against our motto that anyone can edit. And 20 good edits seems way too low. We cannot define "good edits" as taking an article from stub to FA in two weeks. Typo fixing and formatting also counts as "good edits", and it is not really tough to create a throwaway account and pile up 2 typo fixes before going on a short burst of rampage (if a vandal is really determined). Maybe something like 3-4 edits a day (which adds up to 50 odd edits over a two week period) is better! --soum ^talk 13:25, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• This could work, but probably not here on Wikipedia. Maybe it should be tried at test.wikipedia first, before being used here, just to see if it's popular enough, and if it causes any problems... --SunStar Net ^talk 12:29, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe it would be a definite improvement to Wikipedia to help curtail vandalism on semi-protected articles. See what you can do help get this proposal tested and enacted.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 12:33, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Response to Soumyasch: "Good edits" would be simply defined as ANY edits. I.E. edits that result in a block. I don't see how 20 edits is too low. How many vandals will go through the effort to make 20 edits and wait a week just to vandalize a page one time? Not that many, that's for sure. If not 20 edits then 30 seems reasonable. 30 edits and a 7 day waiting period before one can edit semi-protected articles. Anything higher is unreasonable, Tests are too difficult to enforce and are tedious.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 13:30, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Sleeper accounts are not really a problem, they spend a week brewing up 10 accounts, and get them all blocked in an hour. Accounts that are clearly just there to edit semi-protected pages can be treated as single purpose accounts. ^(H) 13:32, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, It's definitly a problem. Check out the Brock Lesnar page for an example of a specific user who has (apparantly) been creating sleeper accounts then vandalizing the page. My proposal would prevent this from occurring in most cases.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 13:35, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

A few reverts, a few blocks, the guy is back at square one and are article is as it was. No big deal. ^(H) 13:38, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Two Admins there are using it as justification for basically an indefinite full protection of the article. I tried requesting an un-protected and it was denied, I tried talking to the two admins and they both refused to discuss it any further, I requested a comment concerning the dispute and got none. So I think this might remove their (in my opinion already invalid) justification for fully protecting the article as well as would help wikipedia semi-protected articles drastically.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 13:41, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

This is, hopefully, a complete response to the points mentioned above. The issue with Brock Lesnar is that the person doing the vandalism has had dozens (literally) of sockpuppets, not just one or two. over the period of months. The goal of the protection is to wait until he gets bored and goes somewhere else.

Very similar to moderation is Wikipedia:Flagged revisions, which will help a lot once it's implemented.

You ought to suggest policy changes on the village pump, not this page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:02, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Privacy advice

A good idea on the mailing list: add a link to a page with privacy advice to the welcome template. Something about not adding personal information, especially if you are a minor, and being mindful of the potential for people to try to find your personal details if you edit contentious subjects. Guy (Help!) 18:17, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Selective release of incidental checkuser discovery of Tor usage

Hello, At the CharlotteWebb Rfa[42] a user with Checkuser rights revealed that the candidate had used TOR proxies to edit.

Is this disclosure acceptable to the community?

There seem to be a few possible answers to this:

1. Yes it is acceptable to reveal Tor usage by all editors (anonymous or non-anonymous) as the use of Tor is against policy. To be consistant, Tor usage by all editors should be revealed.
2. Yes it is acceptable to reveal Tor usage, but only for editors seeking Administrator privileges. There is no need for consistency, only names that randomly come up during a checkuser will be revealed and even then, only if the one performing the checkuser chooses to reveal them. No attempt will be made to reveal Tor usage for all candidates for Administrator.
3. Yes, it is acceptable to reveal Tor usage by editors seeking Administrator rights, but it is not acceptable to reveal Tor usage by current Administators.
4. No, Tor usage by non-anonymous users should not be revealed if no checkuser was indended to be performed for that user.

I may have missed some choices. Uncle uncle uncle 00:51, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Users can be blocked for using Tor, in which case the blocking summary will reveal it. So revealing it without blocking can't be any worse. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Clarify, please... TOR IPs are blocked on sight, but are users who have used TOR to edit Wikipedia specifically blocked as well? To be clear, I'm not talking about autoblocks here. My understanding is that Accounts that use TOR are not blocked, just the TOR IPs themselves. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 01:16, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking of autoblocks. It isn't standard to bock users just because they have previously editited from tor. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:02, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the proper forum, if any, is the [[m:Ombudsman_commission|Ombudsman commission] if there is concern about violating policy. However, I don't think any personally identifiable information was released. In fact the policy seems to specifically note that there is nothing amiss when saying that the user is part of a large system the probability of releasing personally identifiable information is low. m:CheckUser_Policy It might have been handled differently but that's a different issue I think. I would hate to see this get out of hand. JodyB _talk] 01:17, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) It doesn't sound like he sought out CharlotteWebb to checkuser ... he encountered her username while checkusering vandals. As for revealing that information? Good grief, no, that's inappropriate ... but what is there to discuss here? I think a WP:RFC would be more appropriate. --BigDT 01:19, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

By creating an account you are allowing Wikipedia to track your edits despite your anonymous position. So I don't see the point in blocking usernames for using tor. ^(H) 01:19, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts: Checkuser can be quite personal and it shouldn't be used liberally ("Let's go and check up the IP addresses of a random user over lunch while my work is being printed."). Checkuser should be reserved when requested (in good faith via WP:RFCU) or perhaps during disruptive sockpuppet/meatpuppet activity at WP:AN and WP:AN/I. On the other hand, it might not hurt to run checkusers on potential Administrator candidates to ensure they are not former banned users. I'm not sure if people are running them as the candidacies come in, but if they are, I think that people should know because not everyone is happy to have some part of their IP nature revealed (as demonstrated above).

However, I do think that if it is demonstrated that a candidate is using Tor/open proxies to edit, then it should be revealed. Lest the candidate gets blocked instead and the reason cannot be revealed (transparency?).

So I guess it comes down, to me, to whether "silent" checkusers are being performed on RfA candidates - something that should've been said beforehand. I'm more inclined to say no to checkusers unless there is consensus to allow them. After all, a checkuser isn't part of the RfA process, from what I can gather. x42bn6 Talk Mess 01:20, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Read what Jayjg said on the RFA - he was NOT setting out to checkuser CharlotteWebb. He was checkusering vandals, found TOR nodes, and when listing names of users on those nodes, found her name. --BigDT 01:24, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Someone made a great point about blocking TOR on the RFA. We're blocking it to prevent admin accounts from being hijacked. But how are we preventing it if admins are IP-block exempt. If the whole reason to block TOR was just to avoid admin account hijackings, we've done nothing, because admins can still edit. And you know what, we probably have a few admins editing via TOR right now. Also, is there and can there be a checkuser log of checkusers performed (not the results, just the fact that it was done). Also, if it's possible, it could be like the oversight log, which can only be viewed by oversight users. I have a feeling that we have a few checkusers who use it whenever they feel like it, included for all RFA candidates. --(Review Me) R ^ParlateContribs_@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 01:29, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The whole reason to block TOR is not just to avoid admin account hijackings. Tor is an anonymous proxy. It is used almost exclusively by vandals, trolls, and banned users in order to evade detection. This is why we block open proxies, not admin hacking, and it is why Tor is being blocked too. There already is a CheckUser log, and there always has been, and it is viewable to all CheckUsers on all projects. I happen to think IP-exempt is a bad idea, especially if it's just for admins as a whole, which is needless hierarchy. Finally, please keep your assumptions of bad faith ("we have a few checkusers who use it whenever they feel like it"), especially for serious matters like CheckUser to yourself. Dmcdevit·t 02:09, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying the reason TOR is blocked. And about my comment, exactly, it's something serious, that shouldn't me misused. I didn't know there was a log, but thanks for telling me. I guess that eliminates the chance of someone doing checkusers against whoever they feel like. --(Review Me) R ^ParlateContribs_@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 02:17, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm missing the obvious, but if TORs are blocked, how has CW been editing? Mackan79 02:29, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking of that before also. He/she could be editing from their own IP, or from a different proxy server. --(Review Me) R ^ParlateContribs_@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 02:34, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Not all TORs are blocked, as it is not obvious that one is editing on a TOR IP until someone uses it to vandalize Wikipedia, at which time it's checked (for other editors using that IP, normally to catch sleeper accounts), logged and blocked. In this case. the Checkuser prepatory to blocking the IP found that CW had been editing from these IP's. SirFozzie 02:35, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, what Jayjg said here was that he had run across this situation with CW several times but hadn't done anything about it. Perhaps these are details we can't have; I don't know. I think a problem occurs when it reaches the stage of revealing this in an RfA, though, which does harm that editor in a way they couldn't exactly anticipate. It might also be worth considering whether this approach is the best way to enforce any of the objectives which have been offered, especially with the self-contradictory exemption mentioned above. Per User:Uncle, we currently have either policy 2 or 3 under his list, which I'm still curious to see defended. Mackan79 03:17, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the m:privacy policy largely concerns itself with "personally identifiable" information -- mentioning that someone has used Tor at some point doesn't seem, strictly, to qualify. The m:checkuser policy mentions that "Unless someone is violating policy with their actions (e.g. massive bot vandalism or spam) and revealing information about them is necessary to stop the disruption, it is a violation of the privacy policy to reveal their IP..." -- true, we have a policy against the use of open proxies. That policy, with particular reference to Tor, has recently been more and more controversial, I've noticed; likewise, it's not immediately clear to me personally what "disruption," if any, the user was engaged in or planned to engage in. It's natural enough to run into a user while in the process of checking Tor -- finding the information and releasing the information are two very distinct steps, however. Finally, I haven't yet run across any material relating to the release of private information that mentions "except if they're running for admin, then release away." I'm not ready to lead any witchhunts on this, but for the record, I am very concerned and earnestly hope this wasn't done casually, and won't be done casually in the future. – Luna Santin (talk) 02:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

That is somewhat true, but whereas before the user CharlotteWebb was completely anonymous at about one in 4 billion (or whatever the population of the earth currently is). Now, due to the reporting of information obtained from a checkuser released perhaps in violation of "If you're in any doubt, give no detail" policy [[m:CheckUser_policy#Information_release],|CharlotteWebb's identity is now narrowed down to the much smaller number of Tor users. By stating that CharlotteWebb is using Tor, Jay has in addition revealed nearly complete information about the timing for Charlotte's ip usage(through the ability to see a user's edit log) to anyone running a Tor entry node who can now compare their usage logs against Charlotte's Wikipedia usage logs to determine with high probability what her IP address is. Yes, that check could have been done before, but Jay's disclosure has very much narrowed down the number of places to look. It is perhaps worse than revealing an ISP, because most ISP's have legal privacy policies which may not be present on the Tor network. Uncle uncle uncle] 05:00, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

It would seem WP:NOP needs a revision sooner rather than later, to say in effect (per one good suggestion here) that open proxies are heavily discouraged and may be blocked any time for cause, but aren't categorically prohibited. This could involve caveats such as a prohibition for admins if necessary (to accompany the prohibition on multiple admin accounts). I generally agree with the arguments that we can't have some people openly disregarding policy, though that's mostly separate from how to check, but the the policy should probably resolve both issues. Mackan79 04:40, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

But you see, they are categorically prohibited. Wikipedia:No open proxies is a local copy of m:Meta:No open proxies, a Foundation-wide policy since March 2004. --bainer (talk) 05:50, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I assume you've seen Jimbo's statement that this should change, though? [43] I'm suggesting one way to go about that, which seems a bit more pressing with situations like this one in mind. Mackan79 15:36, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

But interestingly enough, m:Meta:No open proxies actually points users who are caused hardship by the policy to a page titled "Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall" :::::

"This policy is known to cause hardship to some editors, who must use open proxies to circumvent censorship where they live; a well-known example is the government of the People's Republic of China, which attempts to prevent its citizens from reading or editing Wikipedia. Chinese readers who wish to edit Meta should read Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall."

Uncle uncle uncle 06:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

You've clearly just read the title, because the page advises people to stop using Tor if they find themselves blocked, and use the HTTPS gateway instead (because at the time that was written, only the HTTP gateways were blocked by the Great Firewall). --bainer (talk) 10:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The meta policy permits/encourages proxies to be softblocked only, allowing users to edit through them. You must know this. The way, the truth, and the light 06:09, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

It certainly does not. "Users are prohibited from editing Wikimedia projects through open or anonymous proxies." It's pretty clear. --bainer (talk) 10:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

It's open to interpretation. Here on en-wiki, proxies are generally softblocked. Please see the related talk pages here and on meta. - hahnchen 12:45, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• A few points. It's not exactly rare that we (that is, we checkuser operators) say that an editor has been using Tor; in fact, we do so on a regular basis. Usually it's of the form "we can't tell whether X is a sockpuppet of Y, because Y's using Tor." We don't penalize people in any way for using Tor; we just plug the holes. But we've never made any effort to keep such knowledge secret. I've certainly seen Charlotte Webb's name on user lists from Tor proxies when running checkuser; I've certainly wondered why an apparently good editor like CW does that, but that was about it; there was no particular reason at the time to delve any further. Uncle uncle etc -- are you sure about the exposure there? I don't know a lot about the Tor architecture, but it seems to me that sure, someone running a Tor node could make such an analysis, but why would they think that CW had used their Tor node? It would be a fishing expedition that would come up dry almost all the time, and come up with lots of false hits, give that there are hundreds of thousands of Tor users. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 06:14, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarifications. It seems to me there's a significant difference between keeping it secret and specifically revealing it in an RfA, though. If practice is not to block all Tor addresses, or even to reveal the information, then I'd think that would be applied consistently across the board. I haven't seen the comments on the mailing list, but Jay's initial explanation was that he revealed it because he considered this an issue of trust for prospective administrators; I think there are several problems with a checkuser making that kind of determination though, and particularly in the manner here. Mackan79 16:51, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The Tor FAQ lists such an attack vector. "As mentioned above, it is possible for an observer who can view both you and either the destination website or your Tor exit node to correlate timings of your traffic as it enters the Tor network and also as it exits. Tor does not defend against such a threat model." Now that Charlotte's Tor usage has been revealed, the servers running the Tor entry nodes can use her edit logs to perform time correlation against their own logs. Previously the entry nodes had no idea where her traffic went - now they do, it went to Wikipedia. And likewise - previously no one knew where Charlotte's traffic at Wikipedia came from, now they do, it came from Tor, so if you want to know Charlotte's IP address, search the Tor entry node logs. Uncle uncle uncle 06:54, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand that attack vector. The initial node would have to know that it's Charlotte and can then cross reference the time of requests and actions at the remote end. That doesn't work in this case since (a) the source doesn't know that it's Charlotte and (b) the edit times wikipedia gives are only accurate to the minute. To look down the access log on an entry node and decide access from a source coincides to within the same minute as an edit Charlotte makes must therefore be Charlotte. That would be ridiculous, anyone doing general webbrowsing at the time that Charlotte is accessing wikipedia is reasonably likely to be making requests in the same minute as Charlotte is editing, across the whole network there are likely to be thousands of users making requests in the same minute... --pgk 16:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, this is also being discussed on mail:wikien-l, including some responses from Jayjg. – Luna Santin (talk) 07:43, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Is there a place to find this without signing up? Mackan79 16:39, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Archives are here: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/ -- Jonel | Speak 18:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I have to say, people are talking there a great deal about privacy, but I think that misses the point. My concern is that checkuser provides quite powerful information, which probably reveals a fair amount of shenanigans going on around wikipedia. To minimize the possibility that such information could be used unfairly, we seem to have rather strict limits on its use -- most importantly no fishing, no explanation of results, and a log where other checkusers are supposed to ensure that nobody is looking people up without good reason. This may not be obvious, but I think it strongly suggests that checkusers shouldn't use the incidental information they glean in any way that could appear selective, regardless of what their intent in any situation might be. Mackan79 18:41, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Related question: is checkuser a lifetime privilege? Members of ArbComm are normally granted checkuser privileges. Don't those privileges expire when their ArbComm term expires? --John Nagle 16:16, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• There's no particular time limit; it is incorrect that members of ArbCom are normally granted such privileges (some of us have them, others of us lack either the interest, the technical background, or the masochistic tendencies to ask for them.) You don't have to be on ArbCom to get the privilege; some of us are, some of us used to be, some of us never have been. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 00:45, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Incivility of Labyrinth13 (talk · contribs)

This user has been involved in disputes at Broadcast signal intrusion and Max Headroom pirating incident. The user has repeatedly deleted entire sections of the talk page, claiming it contained libel and personal attacks against him. After undoing these edits initially, he replied with these two extremely incivil edit summaries: BSI 1 and MHPI 1. Deleting the comments for a third time, he replied with these edit summaries BSI 2 and MHPI 2. Please discipline this rude and incivil editor, who is himself falsely claiming personal attacks and libel against him. Thanks. Parsecboy 16:03, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Labyrinth13 has made a series of incivil edits against me and other editors, here, herehere, here, and here, as well as here. Please render assistance. Thanks. Parsecboy 16:28, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please get an admin over to look at all of the talk pages where RHKlein accuses me of theft, and the called me a liar and a coward. All I was trying to do was remove the libel and false statements when this idiot named Parsecboy showed up and started trying to throw his weight around.

To read RHKlein's libel for yourself, go to: Talk Broadcast signal intrusion

And to:Talk Max Headroom pirating incident

Labyrinth13 17:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

This is what I'm dealing with. Labyrinth13 is trying to remove relevant comments from the talk pages, falsely claiming libel and personal attacks as justification. His disruptive editing and numerous personal attacks warrant blocking. Parsecboy 17:12, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I have indef blocked this account. I noted he had just come off a 24 block for exactly the same reasons on exactly the same articles. LessHeard vanU 21:53, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

(further comment) It looks as if Labyrinth13 was deleted at his own request prior to my issuing the block. LessHeard vanU 22:14, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Shadowbot3 Unicode problem

Shadowbot3 is having problems with high-byte Unicode characters all over the place. A number of people of reported the issue at User talk:Shadow1 and User talk:Shadowbot3. Could someone please block it until Shadow1 can work out the problem. There's already a ton of cleanup to do to repair the damage done so far. Mike Dillon 16:53, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for 24 hours. Let us know if more time is necessary. - KrakatoaKatie 17:46, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Crap. Looks like I've got some work to do before I add that Unicode support into the bot. Thanks for blocking it, I'll work on fixing the problem. Shadow1 (talk) 21:35, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Scheherazade Requested move

Resolved

 – NO immediate problem

On 5 June I started a move requests (Shahrazad → Scheherazade). The request was a supported unanimously and the page was moved on 10 June. The discussion was then reopened by Eclecticology. The discussion was then closed again by Kintetsubuffalo, then reopened again by Eclecticology. The reason given by Eclecticology in the edit summary for the reopening was "nobody has the right to close talk page discussions". Is this correct? --Philip Stevens 20:12, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you can close talk page discussions, but it isn't required, so if this other person insists on opening it again, I would recommend that you just let it sit open and let him speak his peace. Eventually discussion will die down on its own. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:58, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Article RFC looks like a user conduct RFC

Can I get some opinions on Talk:La_Toya_Jackson#Request_for_comment? Rhythmnation2004 (talk · contribs) opened this RFC about actions that I took on the article. However, the RFC seems to resemble a user conduct RFC instead of an article RFC. In other words, he's looking for comments about my actions rather than about the issue my actions were focused on (the removal of items without reliable sources). I tried to explain the difference to him but he refuses to listen to any statement I make it appears. Any thoughts would be appreciated, Metros 20:14, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Meerkat Manor

Some users keep on adding to page Meerkat Manor more information about particular meerkats and groups, and other users keep querying it and deleting it. Some of this information has been "in and out like planes at an airport". Is it possible to run an IP check on some of these users? If one of their IP's is area-specific to whatever internet nodes serve the Kuruman area of South Africa, that user may genuinely be someone in the Kalahari Meerkat Project and therefore with reliable information. Anthony Appleyard 20:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, technically, it is possible. The correct place to request a checkuser would be WP:RCU. In a case like this, however, it's highly doubtful that a checkuser request would be accepted. As far as I can see, this is a content dispute. And it's precisely for those, that we have WP:CITE, WP:RS and WP:V. Since WP is not a publisher of original thought, the burden to provide a proper citation to back up an edit is on the editor making the edit, and not on the person questioning its legitimacy. If new material is challenged, it's up to the editor who added it to provide a reliable source. Addressing this issue on the article's talk page would probably be the most constructive and reasonable way to deal with this. Please bear in mind, though, that I know nothing about this show (that is one of the reasons why adding proper sources is important - with sources, I can verify the information myself; in the absence of reliable sources, I have to take the information at face value). This isn't about choosing sides, it's really about verifiability. --S ^up? 22:34, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:COIN

We need more admins watching WP:COIN. At the moment we have at least two active COI spammers making big messes. We need to block these are quickly as possible to help keep the messes from getting larger! See [44] and [45]. Nip it in the bud, and all that. Thanks! Jehochman ^Talk 23:55, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Gene Poole

Gene Poole recently had a page of his deleted because it was abusive and attacked legitimate editors. Well, he created it again, this time on a separate website. The only reason he's doing it is to spite me, and I personally find it childish and sick. See my talk page and contributions for the full story. Honestly, I think this constitutes as abusive and could merit legal action; yes, I know I'm not supposed to go there, but this is borderline abuse and something should be done. According to him, the dispute has been resolved, but as you can see he obviously can't go without having the last word. (By the way, the reason I'm involved is that he's repeatedly adding my name to the page and a comment of mine taken completely out of context to make it seem like I'm a vandal. --Captain Wikify ^Argh! 01:30, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I think maybe it's time for you to stand up for your actions? So you called him a dick. Own up to it like a man instead of trying to cover it up. DailyHousefixer 02:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not even close to the full story. And I have the sneaking suspicion you're Gene, anyway. --Captain Wikify ^Argh! 02:12, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's the full story: YOU created the only "dispute" here, when you breezed onto my talk page and posted threats and personal attacks entirely without justification or provokation. For doing so you received several admin warnings, yet you continued, and - amazingly - still continue to whine and carry on like you are somehow the wronged party. When you sincerely apologise for your actions I will consider the matter closed. Until then it is certainly not "resolved". You need to learn that you cannot attack other editors with impugnity just because you damned well feel like it, or because someone else convinced you to attack me on their behalf. If you don't like hearing that, then it's just too bad for you. --Gene_poole 02:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

We have no control over external sites, as you well know. What do you propose we do about it? Viridae^Talk 02:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Gene Poole, your creation of this attack page, albeit on an external site, is grossly inappropriate. Contrary to popular belief, there is precedent for blocking editors who create attack pages on external sites, although those cases were admittedly more egregious than this one is to date. Your insistence on perpetuating rather than seeking to resolve the disputes created by other users' incivilities or ill-thought remarks—disputes which otherwise might be fleeting ones—is quite disturbing to me, and if you persist, I for one will consider it necessary to consider whether you should be welcome to continue editing here while persisting in this behavior. Newyorkbrad 02:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• Please read the relevant policy at WP:ATTACK#Off-wiki_personal_attacks. -N 02:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

As I have not created an "attack page" I fail to see the point of these comments. Exactly who or what have I "attacked" ? If others choose to attack me that's their business. If I choose to quote some of those attacks verbatim on my personal webspace that's mine. Nobody is being forced or directed to read it, and both the page and the link leading to it are obviously humorous in intent and harmless in effect. --Gene_poole 02:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

It obviously is not harmless as it is having a negative effect on at least one other Wikipedian. You have an extensive history of disputes with other editors extending back more than three years and if you insist on continuing to antagonize other editors in this way I do not see why you should be allowed to continue editing. Newyorkbrad 03:03, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Brad. --Captain Wikify ^Argh! 03:09, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. At this point I hope you can disengage from Gene. Please return from your wikibreak when you are ready and concentrate on other matters. Newyorkbrad 03:12, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I will. Thanks again. (If anyone needs me, please use the "email this user" function; I likely won't see my talk page for a while) --Captain Wikify ^Argh! 03:19, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

For those interested, there is now a related discussion on my talkpage here. Newyorkbrad 03:33, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Newyorkbrad's assertion that this compilation of quotes, provided with no context in order to belittle other editors, would be considered an attack page if it were on WP. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:09, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Gene Poole has now restored a link from his userpage to his external page, despite my request in an edit summary deleting it that it was not to be restored, and extensive colloquy on my talk in which I have urged him to discontinue this sort of behavior, which he has admitted is for the purpose of ridiculing another user. My first instinct is to tell him that he will be blocked indefinitely (i.e., until he desists from both on- and off-wiki harassment) if he keeps this up, but perhaps I am getting too worked up over the matter, so I would appreciate other views. Newyorkbrad 05:19, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: possibly resolved now; see my talk. Newyorkbrad 05:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The material you asserted was "offensive" and demanded that I remove from my personal website has been removed, so what's the problem? --Gene_poole 05:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Limericks about Wikipedia policy

Since I'm no good at writing poetry, I'll just point out that I've created Wikipedia:Limericks about Wikipedia policy as a logical extension of WP:HAIKU, and that Template:Poem now needs a "limerick" setting. Would anybody care to assist in said project? ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 05:09, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you just contribute to Wikipedia:Haiku about Wikipedia policy? It doesn't make since to go creating a second page for limericks. Anyways, I think are more productive things you could be doing with your time.. — Moe ε 05:17, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I have contributed to WP:HAIKU; however, I noticed that the category WP:HAIKU was in, Category:Wikipedia poems, was nominated for deletion as a one member category. I decided to create a page of Limericks, for the sake of adding in a second, logical entry to the category. Does that make any sense? ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 05:23, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess that makes sense to try and save the category, but it makes more sense to merge the two and rename it Wikipedia:Poems or something like that. — Moe ε 05:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

There once was a page of limerick / and it made an admin rather sick / so he thought he'd have fun / and say "this is G1" / and wondered if the deletion might stick. Ok ... I'm not a poet either ... but ... well ... I hear G1 calling this page. --BigDT 05:29, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Legal Drugs

Ok, I'm at a loss when it comes to this, erm, article. It doesn't seem to meet the criteria for speedy deletion or even deletion, yet it's clearly inappropriate as an apparent "user guide" (as it were) to drugs of possible legality. The article is fairly screaming to be tagged, but with what? The information on the individual drugs mentioned could be merged into their individual articles, or new ones created.... Suggestions? Exploding Boy 05:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

You can start by removing anything that is not referenced, which is pretty much any part of the article you take issue with. ^(H) 05:17, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I moved it to Legal drugs and drugs is generally not capitalized... hbdragon88 05:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Condoleezza Rice

There are multiple IPs vandalizing article Condoleezza Rice with racial slurs. The page should be semi-protected. Help, please. Mikebar 17:57, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:RFPP Paul Cyr 16:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

68.192.56.88

So I was RCPing and come across this IP. He had blanked his own talk page, which contained several "you have been blocked" templates. I reverted it and put this message at the bottom: User_talk:68.192.56.88#Where we assholes come from. He has now decided to insult me on my user talk page User_talk:W1k13rh3nry#Blanking, and claims that I have never "set foot outside of (my) mother's basement" and when I demanded that he apologize, he said that he "didn't imply a thing" and that I took it on myself "to draw (my) own twisted inferences". I request that this use be blocked again for a longer period of time- and before you decide to let him off with a warning, I have vandalism diffs: diff diff diff diff (which was actually found before I got there) and more but this guy makes me sick so I'll stop. W1k13rh3nry 13:04, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Blanking a talk page isn't disallowed via policy (WP:USER#Removal of warnings). That said, I've warned the user about not being civil, though I suggest you apologise as well because of it. x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:19, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

You are ignoring the four diffs I gave? W1k13rh3nry 18:01, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The vandalism edits are a different matter. If he has recent vandalism edits that need enforcement from WP:AIV yet he keeps removing them, then the Administrators will check anyway. x42bn6 Talk Mess 18:25, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Bossaball

Bossaball is currently up for AFD but is a a huge copyright violation of [46] Can i Be Bold and Speedy tag the article or is that bad faith? ExtraDry 23:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

• I would say that's bad faith. You could have just asked the writer of the article (me) to re-edit it, on the talk-page of the article. Which is what I did after reading this notice : I rephrased / rewrote everything one could consider a violation of copyright.

It is not at all bad faith, it should have been speedied and a {{nothanks}} tag placed on the editor's page. Corvus cornix 07:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deleted and AfD closed, it's a copvio. Ryan Postlethwaite 07:53, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

AfDs are speedy closed all the time. That's the whole point of CSD - to avoid the five-day AfD process for articles that clearly aren't allowable. So yes, ExtraDry, you could have tagged the article. Natalie 06:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Use of BLP justification getting out of hand

For the first time, I've recently become the target of the BLP book. User:Ubernostrum has a problem with Danah boyd being located at Danah Boyd against the wishes of the subject, but consistent with media references, as well as good common sense, as noted here, here, and here, and another administrator has now overturned my actions and the consensus of many editors for over a year's time at the site of those comments. I haven't been following the development of BLP policy, and I'm no expert, but I have seen several warning signs that all our other policies and guidelines, which, in my view, have held this place together, are being torn apart by one, all-overriding policy. I do understand the importance of the policy, but when do we say enough is enough? -- Renesis (talk) 07:40, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

When it's about to be listed on WP:LAME? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 07:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:NAME#Controversial names - that pretty much sums up everything I would want to say on this. --soum ^talk 07:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think BLP applies here; uppercase last names are not seen as negative anywhere I know of. Kusma (talk) 07:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not BLP issue here, but I would suggest all parties should try and follow WP:NAME#Use_standard_English_for_titles_even_if_trademarks_encourage_otherwise. Maybe we can use the "wrong title" template that we use on eBay and iPod. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 08:08, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree this isn't a WP:BLP issue, and I think your advisement above has the right idea. --Haemo 08:23, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, shouldn't the lower case title hack be enough? Riana ⁂ 08:29, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The lower case hack would work; but I don't think it should be applied here. Many editors have agreed in the past, but now the BLP card is being thrown. -- Renesis (talk) 08:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree: the article title should follow the MOS, regardless of the personal preferences of the subject. Capitalization is a matter of editorial style, unlike spelling. So while the subject is free to spell her name however she likes, we are free to follow the ordinary English convention of capitalizing it. This is not in any way related to BLP. Other biographies which don't follow the MOS should be changed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 08:48, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

There was a June 21, 2007 post at BLPN on this very issue but the question is not really a BLPN issue and may be better answered here. I think Mixed or non-capitalization might be applicable and gives k.d. lang as an example. However, given how the matter seems to keep coming up, a better approach may be to set up a discussion on the article talk page that could be closed once a consensus is reached, e.g.

 == Header ==
 {{Discussion top}}
 The result was the name of the article should be '''xxx'''. -- ~~~~
 Hi, I would like to discuss...
 {{Discussion bottom}}

Apparently, there already is a discussion on the article talk page. If there is a consensus in that discussion, perhaps an admin would be so kind as to step forward, summarize the consensus, and close that discussion with archival templates. Then everyone can move forward. This issue really has gone on too long. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 20:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Cyrus XIII blocked

Resolvedunblocked

DragonflySixtyseven (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves) blocked Cyrus XIII (talk · contribs) over this issue. Looking at the article history[47], DragonflySixtyseven was heavily involved in the dispute . As it spilled over to Catherine yronwode, DragonflySixtyseven appears to have considered this a WP:POINT violation and blocked Cyrus XIII. However, as DragonflySixtyseven was involved in the Boyd dispute, this seems to me a questionable block. He should have sought an uninvolved admin. Also, he blocked Cyrus XIII with "e-mail blocked". That is definitely inappropriate as there was no abuse of Special:Emailuser and an admin shouldn't prevent communication by default. Cyrus XIII has requested unblock on his talk page. DragonflySixtyseven hasn't edited in some while so I'm bringing this here for wider review. -- JLaTondre 12:48, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, the e-mail block, that was an accident. Sorry. DS 13:07, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I have struck the "heavily" based upon your comment at User talk:Cyrus XIII. -- JLaTondre 13:54, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a pretty bad block to me, and poor admin behaviour before that too. I mean, come on, move-warring with a dictatorial "I am ruling that..." [48]? Seriously, who does DS think he is? Article move-protected for the moment (in the other version, incidentally), in case anybody should want to resume move-warring. And urge unblock of Cyrus. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not the first time I've barged into a dispute in which I had hitherto not been involved, and unilaterally made changes; however, this is the first time where it didn't work and people continued to be upset. Plus, I was a bit cranky at the time, and I felt like sounding majestic (seriously, "so mote it be"?). I would not have blocked Cyrus for his actions re the boyd article (and the rapid repeated moves were the result of me screwing up the move process; for several minutes I was panicked that I'd lost the entire edit history), and I did not. When I offered him several examples of articles in which that particular policy did not apply (one of which I freely admit was flawed), he started changing the examples to conform to that policy. This struck me as being a flagrant violation of WP:POINT; admittedly, he only changed one of the examples, but is that because he would have stopped anyway, or because I blocked him? We have {{lowercase}} and {{wrongtitle}} for a reason. DS 16:12, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, just three points: barging into a dispute and trying out just imposing a solution may sometimes be all nice and rouge and good, but once you find yourself up against determined opposition, it's probably wise not to push it through by edit-warring. Second, your point about your solution having appeared "blatantly obvious to someone uninvolved", as you said on my page, it can't really be that obvious, because even right here on this page there were outside opinions clearly in the other direction. And as to Cyrus' "point violation", I'm not so sure either: he's convinced that a certain rule is or should be commonly applied and mandatory; he's pointed to a few pages that appear to be exceptions, so he decides those are erroneous and should be fixed? Sounds like a perfectly good-faith editorial thing to do, to me. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd really think we should unblock the guy at this point, he's been blocked for over 15 hours now anyway and has had his unblock request on for like 6 hours or thereabouts. Any big objections? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:12, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The whole thing a little hazy, I think I'll do the unblock now. I'd recommend that future behaviour will be the basis for any further action on this matter. Agathoclea 18:30, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I was about to endorse an unblock. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:36, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

TfD closure

Resolved

Can some gracious admins help me with the deletions of the templates for this discussion? Sr13 23:42, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure, why not. I'll take Redskins through Steelers :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:49, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

These done, orphaned, and redirects to them deleted per CSD R1. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

BTW, anyone care to orphan them? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

image deletion question

ResolvedImage deleted

I think Image:Nifong-pwned.jpg falls under G10 as an attack, but it's an image, not a page. Does that qualify for G10 or any criteria of CSD? Gotyear 00:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Attack page includes images as well as articles (and other various things). G10 it is. x42bn6 Talk Mess 00:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Gone, despite my inaccurate summary :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

All the 'G' criteria apply to all pages, be they articles, images, templates, whatever. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:45, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, comments, and resolution. :) Gotyear 05:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

AfD Lost Lake (Canada)

Can I have an Admin check out Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lost Lake (Canada). There's some confusion involving a malformed AfD tag (which I had fixed at the start of it,) combined with a page move and a creation of a redirect and a disambiguation page, that has led into few (if any) editors being sure what that particular AfD is about. Thanks! LaughingVulcan 03:46, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

You just need to change the headers to refer to the correct article. I'll do it for you. --Haemo 04:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually I'm not sure; that's the painless way, but you'll lost the AfD log for the Abbotsford article. It's up to an admin to do the close. --Haemo 04:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

For everyone's convenience I have now moved my comment that explains this around the top of the AfD. Tim Q. Wells 04:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

When can AfDs be closed against consensus?

Our deletion policy says that, without a "rough consensus for deletion", an article is kept by default. However, it also emphasizes that AfD is not a head count, and if all the keep votes are meatpuppets, or the bulk of the article is a copyright violation, for instance, the article can be deleted anyway. Under what other circumstances can the AfD legitimately be closed as delete, if a majority of competent contributors voted to keep? — Omegatron 19:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• I believe the guideline you are looking for is located at Wikipedia:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators#Rough_consensus. To quote "Note also that the three key policies, which warrant that articles and information be verifiable, avoid being original research, and be written from a neutral point of view are held to be non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by any other guidelines or by editors' consensus..."

• The closing administrator or editor must determine whether or not this is the case. Also of note, exceptions are mode if the subject article meets WP:CSD it may be deleted speedily even if listed at XFD for discussion, or so this has been the case historically. I hope this helps. regards, Navou 19:58, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:BLP violations, for one. If the closing admin has a very compelling reason to close it against consensus, I would think that would fall under a legitimate use of WP:IAR. Will ^(talk) 19:58, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• Note that the "Wikipedia:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators" document is neither guideline nor policy, but is process, and not all statements on it are described in Wikipedia:Deletion policy. --Iamunknown 20:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• Well then the banner at the top of that page ought to be reworded to reflect just that. Navou 23:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course I'm asking because of a case I am involved in. A majority of roughly 19 (including 7 admins) voted to keep vs 15 (including 4 admins) to delete, as I count them. Yet the article was deleted. Even if the numbers were reversed, that wouldn't be a rough consensus for deletion, so the article should be kept by default, as I see it.

Of course our three key policies override everything, but whether the article meets those policies is decided in the discussion itself, not by the closing admin. If the topic of reliable sources is brought up in the deletion discussion, and a majority of competent editors agree that the article has reliable sources, one admin's personal opinion to the contrary can't override that, can it?

How compelling of a reason do you need to close against consensus in a case like this? Closing as delete just because you personally agree with others who voted delete doesn't cut it. If that were the way things were run, the first admin to see an AfD would just ignore the discussion and close it according to their own personal viewpoint instead of voting. — Omegatron 21:30, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Depends on the situation. AfD is a discussion, not a vote. If arguments on one side are weak (for example, ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT) and many on the other are compelling and unanswered, the admin can and should choose to go with the strong, compelling, policy-based arguments in preference to head-counting. In other cases, the majority is indeed correct. Have you tried discussing the matter with the admin who closed the discussion? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The arguments would have to be pretty damn compelling to override seven other admins' opinions, don't you think?

Yes, I (and several others) contacted the closing admin, but he went on vacation a day later without responding. The article was then put up for DRV, closed without any discussion, re-opened, re-closed, and re-opened, and is now full of the exact same content-based arguments that were made in the AfD, instead of addressing the deletion process itself.

I'm not usually one to go around yelling about administrative abuse and saying that the deletion process is broken, but... it seems as if the deletion process is broken. — Omegatron 23:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

It's on DRV, in any case, which is where you go to contest deletion decisions if talking it out with the deleting admin doesn't resolve the issue. I think a large part of the problem is that I consistently see you referring to "votes", "a majority voted to..." and such. While the misconception is common, AfD is not a vote. It was in fact moved to "Articles for deletion" from the old title, "Votes for deletion", to specifically emphasize this point. While the number of people who advocate a given position is one thing to consider, it is not the sole factor for consideration—else there wouldn't even be any need for people to justify their position at all, they could simply say "Keep" or "Delete". I don't have any opinion on the specific deletion here, but you'll want a better argument than "X ignored the vote count!". It also looks like multiple previous AfDs had decided not to have the article, and while such precedent isn't absolutely binding and unchangeable, the results of previous discussions are something a closing admin should be aware of and take into account. If you look at AfD as a majority vote, or even as a supermajority vote, it will indeed often appear broken to you, since it is neither. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Admins have no more franchise on deletion discussions than any other user. Whether 7 admins voted yea or nay is immaterial to the final outcome. Corvus cornix 15:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• This whole thread looks like forum-shopping, especially since Omeghatron (a significant contributoir to the article) undeleted it after it was deleted by AfD. Guy (Help!) 16:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Change in Autoconfirmed level

Main page: Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed Proposal

After some talk at WT:PROTECT, we feel that it is time for the community to adopt a new definition of autoconfirmed. If anyone still remembers, there was a post on the en-wp list in January that we now have the ability to change the level to require a certain amount of edits before they can be autoconfirmed (edit semiprotected pages, move pages, ect). I've created a draft proposal on this, and it could probably need some work. What this would mean is that a vandal could no longer make sleeper accounts, wait 4 days, and then vandalize a page until on full protection can keep the page in a semi-good condition. He would need to wait 4 days, and make, lets say, 10 edits (and after 4 other vandal edits they'll be blocked anyways). This will annoy the crap out of vandals. So please come and support this idea (and we do need to decide how many edits would be necessary too). -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 01:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• Debate moved to the proposal's talk page. >Radiant< 13:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Unblock requests

I have declined three unblock requests - is it OK for a non-admin to decline them?? I wasn't sure if this was the right thing to do, so have come here for advice. If I've done wrong, let me know. Thanks, --SunStar Net ^talk 12:23, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-Admins can neither block or unblock. How could you "deny" an unblock request if you don't have the authority to unblock? It seems pretty trivial to me. You should direct such users to the people who blocked them or other administrators.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 12:28, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-Admins can neither delete or restore articles, how then can they close AFD debates as keep? Very easily. --pgk 12:59, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• I am aware of that. I was being careful about it. However, I was dealing with users that were either sockpuppets or had been confirmed as one by a Checkuser, and was directing them towards the relevant people, or the unblocken-l mailing list. --SunStar Net ^talk 12:31, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how it makes much of a difference really. You should always make sure they're truly sockpuppets though before dismissing them. They might be good faith editors who might have been mistakenly banned, so denying their request when you have no ability to un-ban them is sort of misleading.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 12:35, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry, Wikidudeman. My mistake. However, the talk page did say on one of them it had been confirmed by a checkuser, so I directed the blocked user to email the checkuser to discuss it with him. I'll avoid doing these unless I'm an admin. Sorry. --SunStar Net ^talk 12:38, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
  • One of your denials was just overturned and unblocked by an admin, so I suggest you avoid the unblock process again. Metros 12:42, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned non-admins in good standing can decline unblock requests all day long, if they like. I used to, pre-adminship, though usually only in obvious cases, such as checkuser-confirmed socks and/or Jacob Peters and/or obvious vandals. Moreschi ^Talk 12:44, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I know, I've discussed it with him. As it is, I was trying to be bold, but this time I failed. Oh well, I've learnt something new on Wikipedia today - non-admins shouldn't try doing Category:Requests for unblock. But Moreschi's argument is equally good as well. As it was, I declined an unblock for a checkuser-confirmed sock anyway. But I'll refrain from this, as I was clearly wrong. --SunStar Net ^talk 12:46, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-admins should not be prohibited from having a go at unblock requests, though at first they should probably stick to obvious cases. One mistake does not equate to the end of the world. Moreschi ^Talk 13:01, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

A non-admin should not purport to resolve an unblock request as granted/declined, but is free to add a relevant comment to the blocked user's talkpage for the information of the reviewing administrator. Newyorkbrad 13:39, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Sun Star, this comes up periodically and people can never agree. Some people think it is fine for established non-admins to review and decline obvious unblock requests in the same way that they help with closing obvious keep AfDs, while others think only admins should handle the requests. I personally do not have a problem with established non-admins helping out, whether by commenting or even declining the very clear and obvious ones, but you should be aware that some people who have helped with processing requests have picked up criticism at their RfAs because of it. Anyway, if you're interested in that kind of work, you might consider joining the unblock list where trusted non-admins are most welcome to sign up and pitch in and help out. Cheers, Sarah 14:02, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• The best solution here is to make very sure that you are right when doing things like this. Nobody is going to say "Oh no, you're not allowed to make correct decisions because you're not an admin". -Amarkov moo! 14:14, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

As Amarkov and Sarah have said, it's fine when it comes to unblock requests like "UNBLOCK ME NOW THIS IS TOTALLY UNFAIR", but if it's possible it could be controversial (and even checkuser blocks can end up being controversial, I got myself involved in one a few months ago) then it closing the case could very easily end up casting you in a bad light. If you don't want that, I'd stick to the simple cases. Make sure to review contribution history, block log, the admin's blocking log, etc. -- Renesis (talk) 23:35, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

One of the declined unblocks might need to be looked at by an admin. The checkuser on User:Coldmachine was not definitive.--Dcooper 20:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Sunshine Law/Policy

• I've seen a lot of: "IRC isn't wikipedia isn't IRC", and "we can't control what happens on IRC" comments. I submit that the former is patently false (based on what is really happening), and that the latter is indirectly false.

1. Since IRC is being used (by a group of admins) to discuss, and decide, what happens on-wikipedia, I submit that in a sense: "IRC is wikipedia is IRC".
2. It is true that we cannot control what happens on IRC (nor should we try). We can, however, adopt a policy of conduct for admins, which regulates the conduct of admins, and what they are permitted to do off-wiki. Many countries and states have adopted anti-collusion and open-information Sunshine Laws.

Based on David Gerard's recent edit summary, indicating that there is ownership, I'm not sure that any such policy would be permitted by the 'owners'. However, I've given it some thought, and I think that a Sunshine Policy just might be appropriate here.

If three or more admins are discussing (wikipedia) policy-change or actions-to-be-taken, in an off-wiki environment, which is not fully open (and disclosed) to all editors, then they forfeit their admin tools.

I've noticed that read-protected pages exist on-wiki. Sensitive topics, that need to be private, can be discussed on a read-protected wiki-page. IRC is not a mandatory medium, it is simply convenient. If we are all considered admins (based on something I read about all editors being admins, just some have more tools), we should all have the same access to the discussions. Specific exceptions for specifically confidential matters, again, could be made in read-protected space on-wiki.

As with any initial idea, tweaks and changes are needed, yet I think the idea is fairly sound and is already in practice all over the world.

If this post should be somewhere else, I'm open to suggestions. Lsi john 15:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

To my knowledge, we do not have any read-protected pages on the English Wikipedia, and for good reason. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. There's no way in the MediaWiki software to read-protect a specific page (while still making it editable), unless Wikipedia is running a strange extention that I don't know about. Creating and redeleting is a workaround, if we really need one, but I don't think it's necessary. -Amarkov moo! 15:57, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I stand corrected on the read-only page. The link I had was an undelete command which said no-permission. I hadn't looked closely enough. Even so, that doesn't change the idea of a Sunshine Policy, and if we dont have read-protection pages for a good reason, that only highlights the IRC problem even more. As those are read-protected conversations, by definition of exclusion. Lsi john 16:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

So you suggest that WMF has made donations to Freenode for no good reason? God forbid. How do you dare to question the absolute necessity of IRC channels for the Wikimedia Foundation? Do you think you know better than the Big Guys who run the project? --Ghirla^-трёп- 16:25, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

As a first step, why not make it an official guideline that any revision to Wikipedia policy being discussed by more than three editors on IRC may be be cut and pasted by any editor with access to IRC to the appropriate Wikipedia space, or to one created for the purpose? --Wetman 18:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of the merits of this proposal: how exactly would you prove that admins have been discussing policy in a private, off-wiki environment? Posting IRC logs would be a possibility, but they can easily be faked, and the kind of vicious arguments that would result from such accusations are reason enough to reject the idea IMO. Terraxos 02:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm challenged by your question in a couple ways.

1. The argument that you can't 'always' prove it, does not mean you can 'never' prove it. We can't always prove socks accounts either, but we still have the rule and we check for socks. Sometimes we can prove socks and sometimes we can't. And, there are several ways to obtain and confirm accurate IRC logs.
2. Working out the details on how to prove a violation, is putting the cart before the horse, and sort of assumes bad-faith on the parties who use IRC. I'd like to think that if a policy was in place, that the admins would set a good example and follow it voluntarily. And, thus, having to prove a violation would be an exception, not the norm.

The important question is, does the silent majority care enough about the IRC problem to do address it? If not, then the details of how to enforce such a policy are moot. Lsi john 04:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

To throw my two cents in, I don't care much what gets discussed about Wikipedia on IRC. What I care about is when folks on IRC convince themselves that something is a good idea, then drop it on Wikipedia -- without bothering to provide an explanation or a chance of the rest of us to provide input. It's been done at least once, & I never did get an explanation for the case I'm thinking about. IRC can be a valuable tool in fighting vandalism or spam when time is of the essence -- but in other cases, relying on IRC to create consensus simply excludes the rest of us who'd at least like to have a chance to follow the discussion. -- llywrch 23:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion help requested

Resolved

 – All deleted and page removed. -- Renesis (talk) 20:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey, if any of you admins have some free time, there are a whole ton of images to delete at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2007 June 9/Old US map images. Even if you can stop by and do 10-20 images, that would help. None of these require discussion and all have been approved for deletion. Thanks. howcheng {chat} 17:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Am doing. Should be done shortly. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Did Oregon, RI, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Wyoming and part of NC. That's enough for me :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 19:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I've done a few of the larger sections. --Deskana (talk) 17:25, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I took out Ohio and Virginia. Texas images all have talk pages - watch out. -- Merope 17:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I did New Mexico and Utah, but several of the Utah images have copies on Commons which still need to be deleted. -- Renesis (talk) 17:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I did the Dakotas, but I'm on dial-up today, so I won't be doing any more for now (takes forever). Firsfron of Ronchester 18:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

You all rock! Thanks for helping out. howcheng {chat} 20:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Copyright violations by User:Bones999

I began looking into the contribution history of Bones999 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) after investigating a copyvio complaint recieved via OTRS (ticket, for those with access).

After determining that the text in question had existed on the other site prior to existing here and did include a copyright notice, I began looking at some of the user's other contributions and uncovered further copying from the other site. I warned the user about copyright violations, and I'm in the process of cleaning up what I can find - however this is text added to existing articles as early as March 2007, and this user has over 1000 contributions so the process is slow.

Here are some diffs of his additions on articles that have been cleaned already (all YYYY_European_Cup_Final):

• [49] copy of [50]
• [51] copy of [52]
• [53] copy of [54]
• [55] copy of [56]
• [57] copy of [58]
• [59] copy of [60]
• [61] copy of [62]
• [63] copy of [64]

In most cases, he only took a few paragraphs from a larger page, but they were pasted verbatim into the Wikipedia articles.

Any chance this user could be encouraged is the kindest possible way, to clean up his own mess? --Versageek 23:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Talk to him, direct him to the relevant WP: pages. Other than that, copyright vios (besides deleting blatant speedied ones) is something I haven't had much experience with... is that a blockable ground? David Fuchs 01:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• Yes. --Iamunknown 05:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
• I should elaborate. Yes editors are blocked for copyright violations, but not often indefinite blocks. For one example see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive82#Plagiarism and copyright infringement denied and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive84#Blocked apologetic user seems to be forgotten about by admins, where a user was indef blocked while cleanup took place at User:Gmaxwell/orbicle and then later unblocked. On other occasions, I have encountered editors who were blocked for a shorter period of time. It depends, but it is blockable issue. --Iamunknown 05:23, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Here are a few more, I think these are the last of the football/soccer ones. [65],[66],[67],[68],[69],[70],[71],[72],[73],[74], These last two were added within the past week, so it's not just something he did when he was new: [75],[76]. All of these have been cleaned. I haven't checked any of his non football/soccer contributions, someone probably should. --Versageek 01:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Recreate-deleted-warn

I have cross posted this from WP:VPT. I am attempting to open discussion at MediaWiki talk:Recreate-deleted-warn. Participants welcome there. Navou 16:23, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Relevant admin-related BLP discussions

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff/Proposed decision#Summary deletion of BLPs and Wikipedia talk:BLP Admin#Possibly relevant arbitration case for a proposed arbitration case principle (which may not pass) and a discussion on the talk page of a rejected proposal that may now be more relevant, both of which admins should be aware of. Carcharoth 16:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• Wow, that will be a fairly significant change to BLP in practice if it is endorsed.--Isotope23 17:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I didn't think ArbCom was supposed to be changing policies, just interpreting them. This would be a change in BLP. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Agree. -- Renesis (talk) 20:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
      • It's got five support votes now, so I guess they may change policy anyway. Hmm. - KrakatoaKatie 01:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't this is a change to policy. There are two choices in the case of a severe, complete-article BLP violation--stubiify and delete. Which of those depends on the severity of the problem, and is ultimately at the discretion of an admin, to be reviewed afterward by the community. Chick Bowen 03:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
    • It is a change to policy with respect to the way that speedy deletions are contested. Before, a contested speedy deletion would have been sent through AFD. The principle that contested speedy deletions should go through AFD is a long-standing one, and was the understanding upon which the whole speedy deletion system was originally founded, and which has been reinforced consistently since (such as with the introduction of criterion #A7). The arbitration committee is most definitely changing long-standing policy. With this revision to policy, contested deletions remain deleted, and there is no way for non-administrators to access the content and thus contribute to a discussion on whether the verifiability and neutrality policies were adhered to.

      This is a very bad decision by the arbitration committee, not least because the only-administrators-have-the-franchise system that it introduces is a recipe for more wheel-warring and divisiveness similar to what we have seen recently, not less. It's also an extra unnecessary hurdle. In order to dispute the speedy deletion of the article and have it sent through the normal deletion process, first one has to form a consensus (of editors most of whom won't even know what the article contained) to even obtain access to it at all.

      Ironically, a far better procedure (and one that seems to me to be blindingly obvious) for disputed speedy deletions that doesn't require this policy change and that doesn't introduce extra hurdles, was actually proposed on these noticeboards by one of the disputants in the arbitration case a while back: Blank the article (so that non-administrators can still access the edit history to see what is being discussed), protect it (to ensure that the discussion pages are used for the dispute), and send it through AFD in the normal way (noting in the nomination the reason for blanking and protection). Uncle G 14:12, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• There is related discussion on WT:CSD, specifically about speedily deleting BLP violations. >Radiant< 10:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

CyclePat (talk · contribs) unblock request

I just noticed an unblock request at User talk:CyclePat. While I am inclined to given him a chance to edit the encyclopedia, I also get the distinct impression from his request that he is going to attempt to continue discussion of WP:AMA and try to resurrect the historical page. I suspect such efforts will be viewed as disruptive by at least some editors given the history surrounding AMA, so I'd like to get further input here, preferably from editors not involved in WP:AMA/WP:EA. Pat can be a good contributor, but I don't want to unblock him just to see him indef'd as soon as he starts a thread at Wikipedia talk:Association of Members' Advocates. Thoughts?--Isotope23 20:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Still hasn't given up on AMA. I'm sorry to say, but I don't think he gets it yet. :( I wouldn't unblock yet. SirFozzie 21:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Only unblock on the understanding that they're not going to rehash AMA/EA again. Thanks/wangi 21:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Can he assert he will leave the AMA/EA alone? Navou 21:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but will he? And even after he does, will he stick to his word?--MONGO 21:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

If he doesn't, the great clunking banhammer will come crashing down again. We needn't worry about him breaking the agreement, provided he does actually agree. Moreschi ^Talk 22:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

With the assertion, I can agree with the unblock. This would be a net gain to the project assuming the contributions will build the article proper. If he goes against the assertion, reblocking can be accomplished very quickly. I don't have an issue with an unblock in this context. We should always be willing to let editors, especially those who have in the past made good contributions to the article proper a chance to learn from mistakes and contribute again. Thoughts? Navou 21:17, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I would say that anyone considering overturning the indefinite block placed by JzG should consult with him first, or direct him to this section.--MONGO 21:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

JzG is aware and has made it clear to Pat SirFozzie 22:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, here's a link to the earlier discussion here on the same subject. —David Eppstein 21:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I have never seen an unblock request that packed in quite so much wikilawyering, but that I could stomach, just about, if he actually said he'd drop it. Drop the AMA lark, completely. Never mention it again. Stay away from all dispute resolution, if he can (he can't meddle with ASSIST, cuz he's banned from there). I'll unblock myself, but I have to have this guarantee of never even thinking about the AMA again. I'm all for clemency, but there are limits. Moreschi ^Talk 22:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that Moreschi neatly expresses my feelings on the matter as well. Pat has shown in the past that he is capable of contributing positively to Wikipedia. If he would like to do so again, he needs to (at a minimum) drop the WP:AMA stuff and stay well clear of WP:EA. I would expect that such a provision would be phrased in clear, inflexible terms, with the understanding that such restrictions would be interpreted very liberally and that he should always err very much on the side of caution. Frankly, he would be well-advised to stay away from any third-party participation in any dispute resolution process, as he has demonstrated exceptionally clearly in his recent edits that he just doesn't 'get it'. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• sigh* It looks like Pat seems hell-bent on not understanding the problem: [77]. I give up. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yup. I'll let someone senior in "Time in grade", so to speak, explain it to him, but he's made it clear that if he's unblocked, he will continue to advocate for the AMA. SirFozzie 01:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Community ban on him discussing AMA proposed. Ryan Postlethwaite 01:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• I object to unblocking him. He has made it abundantly clear that he will continue crusading for the AMA. He needs to understand that such is not desirable. >Radiant< 10:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Possible Admin abuse of tools to erase edit history without Oversight Privileges

I'd like to request a review of what I believe to be is a loophole in oversighting of edits (removal of evidence of edits from editing history is how i'm using the term oversighting here). I believe based on the below that some admins are using the ability to delete and restore userpages, with the restoration leaving out edits made by themselves that could be considered unbecoming of an admin if brought up later.

I was accused in an edit summary on 5/27/07 [78] of being a sockpuppet (originally that edit by User:SlimVirgin had an edit summary of "rv sockpuppet"), and posted this complaint about it [79], which was also noticed by another user to corroborate the accusation was indeed made [80].

On June 11, I happened to notice that the original sockpuppet accusation edit from gone from User:SlimVirgin's talkpage edit history [81], so I clicked on the link given to show the deletion logs for that page [82] showed that another user, User:Crum375, had deleted/restored the entire user page of this user. I had previously checked that sock puppet accusation diff, and it was there only a few days before that 6/10 deletion/restoration. A query on Crum375's talk page indicated that he/she was removing vandalism from SV's page, which sounds reasonable. Why that would require a deletion/restoration of the entire page, including a 5/27/07 edit by SV on her own talk page, was not explained. My query about that unusual deletion/restoration of someone else's talk page, was met wonder about why I would care that SV's edit calling me a sockpuppet being gone would concern me, and then questioned with implications that I must be be 6/10/07 vandal that Crum375 said was the reason his/her actions were done that day.[83]

It appears that admins are using their own admin tools to delete their own user pages, then restoring them without embarassing edits, in order to circumvent what would normally required Oversight privilieges. In this case, another editor with an editing history that is consistently co-resident with the owner of the talk page, did the same immediate restore after deletion fast one. Checking the deletion policy [84] I don't see where the policy allows the deletion of an edit history from a user page by circumventing a regular admin loophole to oversight edits is alllowed. Covering up your own mistakes as an admin to prevent scrutiny by making further mistakes in abusing loopholes in wikipedia admin tools should not be tolerated. We are all accountable for our actions on wikipedia, or should be. I'd like the delete/restore habits on userpages by those 2 admins looked into. Piperdown 01:32, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

One way to remove personal info from a page is for an admin to delete said page then recreate it without certain parts of that page's history. This can be done without oversight, is permitted, and this is what happened here b/c when I accessed the deleted history I saw someone had posted personal info on SlimVirgin. That said, the admin who deleted then recreated the page histories did not recreate any page history after June 7, 2007, meaning there are 8699 deleted edits to SlimVirgin's talk page histories. I would suggest that in this case, oversight would have been the better route to use b/c it wouldn't have left so much of the history deleted. So despite Piperdown's accusations, the specific page history Piperdown refers to was deleted along with 8698 other page histories. This is merely a case of sloppy removal of personal info, not a conspiracy against Piperdown. Still, someone with oversight should clean this up. --Alabamaboy 01:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Alabamaboy, just to explain, Crum375 removed an edit that tried to out me (as I understand it; I've not looked at it yet), and then wasn't sure which edits to restore. Similar edits had been deleted in the past, and he was worried about inadvertently undeleting them, so he only undeleted some recent ones. At some point, I aim to go through them and check for the edits that need to stay deleted. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:53, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not claiming a "conspiracy". I'm claiming an embarassing edit was removed under disingenuous pretenses. If vandalism was removed, that's fine, good for Crum375. But can you explain why SV's post from 5/27 (who's contents is corroborated by another uninvolved user per my link above) was convenuently deleted in the process? Thanks for looking in the matter. I consider sockpuppet accussations used to discredit other editors without proof, especially by admins and never apologized for, to be a serious breach of adminship Piperdown 01:52, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

As I said, every single page prior to June 7, 2007, was deleted from SlimVirgin's talk page. The specific 5/27 edit you refer to was merely caught up with 8000 other deleted pages. That makes this a case of sloppy deleting and recreation of the page history. Nothing more. As for the sock puppet accusations, you will need to address that with SlimVirgin.--Alabamaboy 02:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

re:"a case of sloppy deleting and recreation". Conveniently sloppy. I did address this already with SV and was met with no response blanking.I'm not connected, not an admin, and not beyond accountability, so I'll defer to your amazingly assuredness that Crum375 is sloppy. I beg to differ based on the editing histories of both.Piperdown 02:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

If you think yours was targeted specifically, two weeks after the fact, out of 8699 other edits, then I am not sure how you can say you aren't calling this a "conspiracy"... The way it works is that you can only delete all edits. Then you have to select which edits to restore. Crum375 simply chose to only restore 16 of over 8700 edits. -- Renesis (talk) 02:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[de-indent]
I'm not claiming a conspiracy, and I can't see how you can claim I am and then educate me on how deleting/restoring is done. Do you think I should have known that already, so must be claiming a conspiracy, then feel the need to inform me about the process anyway? And why is another admin performing an Oversight action by sledgehammer instead of by scalpel? Do you not see the loophole in that? No wonder so many folks are so hot and bothered to become admins - it can be used to your advantage in content disputes and to cover your own tracks. I'm sure some vandalism is bad and should be nuked right away, but unlike admins, BLP subjects don't get the same emergency treatment on extremely offensive edits. Every time I stand up for myself on this site I get accused of sockpuppetry, conspiracy mongering, being smarter than I should be, etc. Thanks for the help regardless of the accusation. I'm getting used to it here. Piperdown 02:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for what seemed like bashing you while educating you... I thought we had already explained how deletion had happened, I was merely restating it. You'll notice that I said if you think yours was targeted specifically out of 8699 edits, dozens of which had piled up since the edit in question, then I don't know how you can deny the suggestion of a conspiracy. And I do agree, your username is ironic :) -- Renesis (talk) 05:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Like Alabamaboy said, SV's edit from 5/27 was removed along with 8699 other edits on 6/11. The deletion also occurred more than two weeks after your edit, and obviously had nothing to do with that particular edit. If you want it restored, it can certainly be done, but I don't have the time to check 8698 undelete checkboxes :) -- Renesis (talk) 02:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Someone with oversight will have to handle this baby. Checking that many undeletes is a sure way to get carpal tunnel.--Alabamaboy 02:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

You don't need to; just shift-select them. Or if you want to restore every deleted edit, just click restore with no boxes selected. Is there anything that should stay deleted before I restore it all? Prodego ^talk 02:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there are two or three recent edits with personal info. Don't recreate those.--Alabamaboy 02:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Probably more then that, but there is no way I am looking at all 8000 of those. The page was actually so huge shift-selecting didn't work, and I had to use some javascript I have in my monobook to "invert" checkbox selections. Restored. Prodego ^talk 02:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It's back. Thanks for the very quick response. For some reason I seem to be taking pride in my pseudonym's reputation and this matters more than I care to admit. You folks are good, I hope your skills are at some point used to earn yourselves a living on top of this volunteer stuff. Piperdown 02:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

What does that mean exactly, and is there an apology to Slimvirgin in there somewhere for the wacky accusation? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:43, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh that is ironic. Piperdown 02:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No, it's a question. You made an accusation, assumed abuse, and have used this discussion to repeatedly attempt to suggest that Slimvirgin and folks were "up to no good". WP:AGF is the applicable guideline here that you've disregarded, and common decency suggests an apology is in order. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 03:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It's ironic because I lost AGF after your hero lost theirs and called me a sockpuppet and didn't apologize for it. Now I'm supposed to apologize for the blanking of those queries and the removal of them from the record.Instead they blanked 2 polite user page posts about it. I didn't even bother to query user:MONGO about his sneak RFCU using the patented "wordbomb" accusation technique, which my accusers have an editing history of using regardless of who they actually bludgeon with it. Piperdown 04:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I don't really like SlimVirgin and I regularly disagree with her, but this is a basic civility issue and I'd hope you'd do the adult thing. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 04:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh. :-( SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

And the edit history for the 5/27 post in question is gone again. Interesting edit history on that tonight. As the admins who helped out tonight saw, that edit was not something that qualifies for oversighting and if an attempt is made to frame me for something else just for raising this complaint, I'll take this to Jimbo. Piperdown 04:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This is troubling in so many ways. I don't understand why Crum375, SlimVirgin and Jayjg are always at the center of this nonsense or who is really in the wrong. I honestly have no idea what it is, but all the intrigue that centers around those three is really detracting from the project. As far as "outing", how does that justify blanking the whole page? This deleting of edits from the history should be reserved for only the specific violations and used as little as possible. It's very, very troublesome to think that edits can just disappear at the whim of certain bureaucrats - shouldn't the history indicate at least that there was Some edit at the time, even if it's been deleted. I don't agree with the anonymity of administrators either, we should know the names of anyone with that much power over the flow of information. Why wait to take it to Jimbo? I'm not sure what response you expect though, I don't think any of this would be news to him. Fourdee 04:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This has been explained above, but let me try again. Admins can not selectively delete revisions. The delete function deletes all of a page's history, every single edit, with no option to do otherwise. When an admin restores a deleted page, he or she is presented with a list of all the edits to that page. The admin may check "restore all" or may click individual edits to restore them. To delete one edit that revealed personal information, Crum could easily delete the whole page, but then would have to manually click the checkboxes on over 8000 non-harmful edits. Some admins use javascript to make this process faster and easier but this is not mandatory. On the other hand, Oversight can selectively remove a single edit, but only about 15 editors have oversight privilege. There was nothing dastardly or underhanded about Crum's deletion, it was just a clumsy way of doing things. Thatcher131 13:08, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

You are however forgetting that I restored all those edits, and then they were redeleted. Prodego ^talk 16:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

So basically, with a combination of javascript and deleting the article then restoring edits, any admin has the oversight privilege? Sounds even worse. You're right, that is clumsy - and seems to try to avoid the fact that the power to delete an edit is resricted to a few people and certain circumstances. *shrug* Just wondering why these same names are alwasy coming up in disputes. Fourdee 13:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No, deleted edits may be viewed by any other admin. Edits removed by oversight are hidden from everyone (except the developers). Thatcher131 13:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

How did I get into this? And if you admittedly don't know what is going on, then you shouldn't be pointing fingers and making accusations. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what accusation I made. Fourdee 12:51, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

You said I don't understand why Crum375, SlimVirgin and Jayjg are always at the center of this nonsense and all the intrigue that centers around those three is really detracting from the project. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Any admin can see deleted edits, so the ability to delete revisions is a far cry from oversight. If anything nefarious had gone on it would have been founds, but it seems all was in good faith here. ^(H) 13:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that anyone, admins or "regular" editors, who desire "outing" or personal attack edits removed from a page in the project ask an oversighter to do it instead of an admin clumsily using the page deletion function. The page deletion function obviously doesn't work well for surgically removing offending edits and it appears that this is what the oversight function was created for. CLA 16:59, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

There are alot less people with oversight than with admin. If something needs to be gone NOW, admin delete is probably a good way to go. Then, request oversight on top of that. It depends though on the level of information posted. I think admin delete of innapropriate revisions is a fairly common activity, I know that i have done it several times then usually request oversight over the admin deleted revision. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 17:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It works fine if done properly, however in this case it was not. Prodego ^talk 17:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a tempest in a teapot. Let's get the 8,000,000 non-offending edits restored, leave the ones claiming to reveal personal details deleted (and ideally oversighted), and move on. Fourdee, please stop shopping for forums in which to attack SlimVirgin, Jayjg, etc. I'm not clear why User:Crum375 re-deleted all of the edits, though. There's no problem with deleting edits that claim to reveal personal information, but collateral damage of 8,000+ good-faith edits and page history isn't acceptable. I'm assuming it's just a technical issue with finding the right diffs to delete. MastCell ^Talk 18:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Daniel Brandt, et. al. and WP:COIN

A number of editors have cited WP:COI in their reasoning at the deletion/DRV discussions for Daniel Brandt, Seth Finkelstein, and Angela Beesley. So here's a challenge: if you've posted that those articles ought to be kept because it's a conflict of interest for these people to want their biographies off our site, then please follow through by helping the backlogged conflict of interest noticeboard. There's more corporate spam, vanity, and pov-pushing over there than the board's core of loyal volunteers can keep up with. We need your help! Durova^Charge! 01:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll resist the temptation to suggest that Durova may have a conflict of interest in distracting people away from the Daniel Brandt DRV (JUST KIDDING!). :) But I totally agree - there's a lot of real COI junk, so we don't need to worry as much about the "avoid self-reference" stuff that passes for COI in the eyes of the beholder. YechielMan 03:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

That DRV closed before I posted. And seriously, I'd love it if even ten percent of the people who participated there chipped in at WP:COIN. Durova^Charge! 17:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Review of my deletion

Resolved

Could I have some reviews on my deletion of User:ALM scientist/Muhammad face Pictures? This was nominated for MfD (see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:ALM scientist/Muhammad face Pictures) 5 days ago. Consensus points to delete right now. Before the MfD concluded, ALM scientist blanked the page which was perceived as a desire for a self-delete and deleted by Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). After he deleted it and closed the MfD, ALM scientist recreated the page with the edit summary "recreated. No need to delete it after I blanked myself." with the content "." Thoughts? His creation of the page seems to be a protest against the MfD discussion and is basically just to spite people. Metros 14:05, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It's fine. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Will ^(talk) 14:08, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

And it's disruption to make a point. Will ^(talk) 14:09, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with the deletion. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your deletion. Blanking != deletion, and the consensus at the MfD was pretty clear.--Isotope23 14:52, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Indecent images

Resolved

 – This seems to have been a simple misunderstanding ^(H) 15:26, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I have been patrolling for vandalism recently and decided to check the new images, there are multiple images being uploaded by User:H2g2bob that constitue pornographic images, although some have a slight educational application, most of these images appear to be uploading for no other reason than to put pornographic images onto wikipedia. Although I have marked some of the worst for speedy deletion I believe further input is required to check the validity of these images MarkBolton 15:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I dont see any indecent images here. Already deleted, are they? --soum ^talk 15:17, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Deleted images would still appear in his upload log, afaik. Seems to me a frivilous report. -N 15:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Not only that, but this user appears to be tagging images ON COMMONS for speedy deletion. I think a warning is in order. -N 15:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

MarkBolton is referring to images like Image:Cunnilingus 2.JPG and Image:UC-smile.jpg which H2g2bob tagged as {{badimage}}s. They do appear to be on commons and uploaded by other people there, but since the only action in the edit history here is the tagging by H2g2bob, it's easy to see why MarkBolton just assumed that they were uploaded by H2g2bob. Metros 15:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was going to point the same thing but you beat me to that. --soum ^talk 15:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the input people I think there should be some guidence on the images pointing to a wikipolicy regarding images or content such as this as there is already the {{badimage}}s, having looked around i could find none, and since they appeared on the new images pages i assumed that they were wikipedia images, then thought to ask the question here, I think the warning was a bit quick since i only requested deletion for a couple and then asked the question here MarkBolton 15:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Right now, no pages on the English Wikipedia link to Image:UC-smile.jpg. Image:UC-smile.jpg does seem like a good, raw image of Unassisted childbirth but it also seems unsettling. I posted a note at Unassisted childbirth talk page to give them a change to use the image if they want. Also note that the person in the image seems to be the one granting the license on the image page, but it usually is the person pushing the camera button that is the copyright holder of this kind of work. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 16:51, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a lovely picture. --Tony Sidaway 17:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I have to disagree slightly with your assessment of the copyright situation. If it's my camera and I ask you to take a picture of me, it should be considered a work-for-hire and the copyright still belongs to me, even though you actually composed the shot and pushed the button. howcheng {chat} 23:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Change to CSD I7

After seeing Connie Talbot (Britain's Got Talent final).jpg uploaded, I noticed that no image criteria for speedy deletion covers fair use images uploaded under a free-content tag (though G12 may cover it), so, to cover such uploads, I've slightly changed the wording from:

Non-free images or media with a clearly invalid fair-use tag.

to:

Non-free images or media with a clearly invalid licensing tag.

I know there should be discussions and all that, but this is really a no-brainer. Will ^(talk) 16:08, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This is one of those "existing practice" things; fairuse images uploaded as PD or GFDL-self or whatnot are technically copyvios and Subject To Ardourous, Painful and Futile Deletion Process Unless License Is (Eventually?) Changed By The Uploader at best. From a purely practical point of view, this really should be a CSD criterion, with some reluctance; people sometimes can't bother with even thinking of the licensing and stick a PD or GFDL-self license on stuff they found on random websites or on screenshots they made. *sigh* License stuff is so very complicated! --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 18:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I support deleting obvious copyright violations on sight, and anything that can be done to fix that (like tweaking the CSD wording) is welcome in my eyes. -N 18:17, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Special:Upload already says we do this, and block the uploaders besides. —Cryptic 19:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

um no really bad idea. If you can show it is non free it is covered by g12. In future disscuss on CSD talk first.Geni 19:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why it's such a bad idea. An album cover with {{logo}} is still bad. So is an album cover with {{pd}}. They're both copyvios. Will ^(talk) 20:05, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Correct. I agree with this change completely. Policy is descriptive. --Deskana (talk) 20:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Did you just try to argue that it is imposible for there to be such a thing as a PD album cover?Geni 20:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I said tagging an image with an incorrect license is bad, whether it's a free license or a non-free license. Will ^(talk) 20:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

If you can show it to be incorrect it is covered by G12. Otherwise it is rather hard to be certian.Geni 21:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I3: Improper license. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The wording of I3 seems to only include permission-given licenses, not any incorrect license. So tagging something that is fair use as PD, for example, wouldn't be covered under I3, according to its description. --Deskana (talk) 20:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

True, though I consider Fair Use images tagged with Free Use tags to meet the spirit of the criterion. Vague? You bet. But it allows me to clear out obvious problems without worrying about not having a 100%-specific CSD reason. (I try to fix it before I just delete it, but sometimes deletion is the best path) EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you in principle. I delete blatant incorrectly tagged images on sight, too. Perhaps it should be reworded if it's vague?

Isn't this discussion better suited for Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion? howcheng {chat} 20:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Block this proxy

Resolved

Blocked.

Can someone block User:69.64.84.92 as a proxy? ([85]) --ST47Talk 22:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Fop revert war

Resolved

 – clear 3rr violation

I just blocked Petercrapsody69 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for 24 hours after he made 6 reverts in about 30 minutes to Fop. He want's to add a picture of himself and consensus is no. I probably should havn't been the one to block because although I didn't remove this particular image I have been against his vanity and I removed the original. Posting for a review. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 16:25, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

It's an obvious 3RR violation. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Could some take a look at this. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 16:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Some background is also useful here. It's a single purpose account to insert vanity. After another vanity addition to the article, I did some further investigation of this, and it seems to be a horrendous vanity campaign by one Alex Ghionis, who's MySpace can be seen here. He's also making vanity edits as an IP, such as this, these and these. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ghionis & McKee is relevant as well. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 16:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I have notified the real Alex Ghionis and brought your potentially libelous claims to his attention. What do you think you are doing? That is very much uncalled for, especially considering you're incorrect. Please keep our discourse civil, please. Petercrapsody69 07:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I just want to point out that my account has begun work on building pages for the short stories of Anton Chekhov. I would appreicate it if you looked into the account history properly before you decide to label it as a "single-purpose" account. Your other piece of questionable research - that I am someone named "Alex Ghionis" from what appears to be Northern Ireland - raises another interesting point when your user page is considered. You clearly take a personal and political bias toward the issue of Northern Ireland. This raises the suspicion that your edits against me are political and biased in their nature. That is against the nature of Wikipedia, as I'm sure you know, and it leads me to argue that the "consensus" reached on the Fop issue is, at best, flawed. There were several posts that supported my edit, but those are overshadowed by several particularly active editors who were determined to have their voices heard. I also raised several relevant points regarding the issue that were NEVER addressed, by you or the other few particularly vocal editors who were determined to see the outcome they wanted. I was trying to discuss the issue civilly. I ask you to please stick to the points and issues at hand. By the way, I live in Hong Kong -- indeed, am typing to you now from Hong Kong -- and have never been to Northern Ireland.Petercrapsody69 07:44, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Please see no legal threats. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 07:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Please no wikilawyering. Petercrapsody69 07:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Please also see wikilawyering while you're at it. You've played the "political bias" card on every editor (including administrators) that has attempted to stop your campaign of vanity. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 07:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I have just pointed out your flawed "research" into my "personal life." Can you please address that, and prove that it was not biased? Petercrapsody69 07:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

There's no need. Take me out of the equation, and every other editor still says the photo doesn't go in, for reasons of vanity, spam, conflict of interest or biographies of living people. Please stop wasting community time and accept this. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 07:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

If I take you out of the equation, I am still left with repeatedly unaddressed and valid points that I have raised on the Talk:Fop page. If you would like to justify your editing decisions, I ask you to address the issues and not spoend your time wikilawyering by citing sometimes contradictory "policies."Petercrapsody69 07:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Will someone please address the issues? Petercrapsody69 08:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

(deindent) Which ones? Other pages are just as bad? --Haemo 08:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I thought wikilawyering was frowned upon.Petercrapsody69 08:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not lawyering; the whole point of the page is that it's invalid to protest a deletion, or removal, because you claim other articles suffer from the same problem. Lawyering is when you apply a narrow, or misplaced, interpretation of a guideline in a way which is not in the spirit of it. --Haemo 08:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Great, then can we open a new thread to discuss the actual issues and go through the arguments? I think there is a valid point here, and it's being lost under glib justifications citing various "policies." All I am asking for is a fair debate, please. Petercrapsody69 08:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

You've had your "fair debate" -- policy is totally clear; you are citing a picture of someone as a "fop". This requires a source, because "fop" can be a derogatory term. There's no real debate on this, because it's directly from the guidelines. --Haemo 08:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Where in the policy does it say prima facie pictures don't require citations unless construed as "derogatory." Who determines what is "derogatory"? Certainly, if the subject of the picture is comfortable with it, then it is not "derogatory" to the only party who could be offended by it. The fact is, that edit simply illustrates the article, thus improving it. There is nothing about that photograph that decreases the quality of the article. How does the quality decrease, my friend? Petercrapsody69 08:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Based on Talk:Fop and the contribs history, I see nothing wrong with the block or with the image removal by User:One Night In Hackney and User:CambridgeBayWeather. The only ambiguity is whether the image removal should be because of vanity, spam, or BLP. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:55, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, there was hardly a "consensus" on the issue; just several particularly vocal editors. There were dissenting opinions -- valid ones -- that were never addressed. I have explained above why the editor, [User:One Night In Hackney]] was apparently biased in his decision-making. I ask you to please look at the relevant issues again. That's what Talk Pages are for. Petercrapsody69 07:44, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I again refer you to wikilawyering. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 07:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

May I please refer you to wikilawyering, which is what you have been doing with all of your "policy" citations, despite the fact that you appear to have a different agenda. Petercrapsody69 07:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Look, you're wrong here -- the overwhelming majority of your edits have been disruptive, and it is clearly against policy to insert an unsourced image of someone calling them a "fop". Your personal attacks against Hackney are not helping. --Haemo 07:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Why was my "personal life" researched and posted onto the pages of Wikipedia? It wasn't even mine. It was an innocent bystandard. I don't think that should be ignored. My arguments about Fop are clear and on the Talk:Fop page. I am just pointing out now that there was bias in the consensus.

Whether or not you are the person in question is immaterial -- you have still been disruptively editing, and the picture clearly violates guidelines. You can throw the rest away - the only "bias" here is towards enforcing guidelines. --Haemo 07:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Then may I please ask you, Haemo, to enforce these same guidelines on the pages for duck and soldier? Petercrapsody69 08:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

(deindent) It's prima facie obvious in those cases, and if you click the images on those pages you'll see the say what the subject is by attribution. You really don't see a difference between labeling a picture of someone a "fop", and labelling a picture of a duck a duck? In any case, see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. --Haemo 08:04, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Despite the fact that prima facie is law language (wikilawyering), it can be argued to be prima facie in this case as well. Have you seen the recent picture, which satisfies the definition of "fop"? Petercrapsody69 08:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

"It can be argued" contradicts the definition of prima facie. That's the whole point you seem to be ignoring -- that, and the fact that the examples you gave both clearly show attribution on their image sources. Yours is a subjective call, without a reliable source, and is a derogatory term. It's like claiming you can identify a gay man from his picture. --Haemo 08:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not "derogatory" -- that is a matter of your opinion. The examples I cite lack citations proving what they are, as does, Hippie and Dandy. You're correct that I misspoke with "it can be argued." It simply is prima facie.08:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Petercrapsody69 is trying to insert the photo into the article again, despite there being a clear consensus against this, and having been specifically told not to add the photo by an administrator here. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 09:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Petercrapsody69 is now indefinitely blocked for serving no purpose to the encyclopedia. I will be deleting his portrait, as well.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Too late! It's gone - Alison ☺ 09:27, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well... Someone decided to upload it at the commons as Image:Alex-fop.jpg—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

(ec) gone again. Down with narcissism, I say! :) - Alison ☺ 09:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Sadly Image:Alex-fop.jpg is still on Commons. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 09:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I love the way Hackney thought PeterCrapsody or whoever was me. I am the real Alex Ghionis! a modern day Scarlett Pimpernell, a seventeen year old student in northern ireland, yes, shocking isnt it? I have no computing knowledge excepy how to edit wikipedia and such a commotion has been blown up from it! Love it! Peter Crapsody or whoever is a good lad, i say we delete hackney - hes a bit of a tosser yea?

User:ArmedBlowfish

Resolved

 – Armedblowfish is not banned from Wikipedia

Some of you may recall that ArmedBlowfish is effectively "banned" by our software because he runs a Tor exit node. He's unwilling to give up running the node, but he feels that he has suggestions for policy changes that may be of use. He wants to post, on his own talk page, an essay about how to resolve a problem.

He feels banned. I'm pretty sure that he isn't banned, in the sense of Wikipedia:Banning policy. He just happens to be running routing software that is blocked from performing edits on Wikipedia. He accepts this and is reconciled to it.

So this might sound weird, but I'd like to get consensus that it's okay for ArmedBlowfish to post his policy suggestions on his talk page, the only page he is able to edit while the proxy is blocked.

Just that he doesn't feel that it would be right to participate in wikipolitics without consensus.

I'm asking here because obviously if he isn't allowed to do this, and he tries, you chaps are the ones likely to protect his talk page.

So comments please. Is this okay? --Tony Sidaway 10:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I've said it before and I'll say it again...the Tor blocking policy is crap and all need to be made into softblocks, as they effectively keep out highly valued contributors such as this. Let him post it I say. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 10:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Armedblowfish is not banned, he may post if he wants and others help him. And Tor blocks must not be turned into softblocks. Kusma (talk) 10:51, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

^demon, softblocks mean that vandals can use Tor and avoid autoblocks; pick the next account in their bag and carry straight on. Applies to all open proxies. As Jimbo said, there are uses for proxies to provide privacy, editing Wikipedia is not one of them. Guy (Help!) 10:54, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so block the individual users. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 14:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• Like we do with JB196, you mean? Guy (Help!) 20:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but meanwhile is it okay for ArmedBlowfish to post an essay on a policy proposal to his own talk page? He really is watching and waiting for an okay before he will do it. --Tony Sidaway 10:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I dont see anything wrong with it. Users who are banned are allowed to discuss on their talk pages! After all what ArmedBlowfish is doing is starting a discussion. --soum ^talk 11:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't see a problem with putting forward ideas for discussion. Tyrenius 11:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I: don't see an issue. It's on his talk page, and we'd allow any user to make an unblock request on his own talk page... which this seems to qualify as. Firsfron of Ronchester 11:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Guy, you might want to see Jimbo's most recent statement on Tor proxies at Wikipedia_talk:No_open_proxies#A_general_statement. - hahnchen 17:12, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• He is a good faith user, so it is most definitely acceptable for him to post suggestions on whatever he likes. >Radiant< 11:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Given the fact of the current discussion in the community regarding Tor, I think ABF's contribution to the discussion would be helpful and enlightening. He puts a real face on the controversy. JodyB _talk 11:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No issue. ABF is not banned, software does not make that call. Others can help him too. Side note, and if he likes, if HTTP exit is precluded by the tor software, then there should be no issue with the unblock of the IP he edits on, however, this may be between him and a checkuser, unless he chooses to publically disclose the IP for http exit denial confirmation. Navou 12:54, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed, he should be allowed to post it on his talkpage; he isn't banned. I'd be interested to see it because I can't for the life of me think of any acceptable policy change that would allow him to edit while running a TOR exit node. It would require a software change for him to be allowed to edit.--Isotope23 13:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
• I support ABF, I even voted support in his RfA, but we all make choices. He knows his ip is banned from Wikipedia because he chooses to run a TOR node on it in violation of policy. It's his choice that the computer he runs from his banned. He could always petition to get the IP unbanned or even just use a different computer. If I switched from my home internet to my cellular modem I could change my ip in seconds. Futhermore he could maintain multiple IPs for a nominal cost, one of which he could leave off TOR. This is his choice that he's banned. -N 15:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

And the result of all that is here: his essay. --Tony Sidaway 06:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

• The idea of using the TOR network's own documented features to apply a consistent policy to all nodes, and only active nodes, has definite merit. Guy (Help!) 12:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Fixing link to archived discussion on protected talk page

Resolved

In order to allow admins (and other users) to follow the full discussion at User_talk:RJII#Blocked, can someone please fix the link which currently points to this page, so that it points to the following place?

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive47#User:RJII

Od Mishehu 06:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. Viridae^Talk 07:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

MPFAP - the return of an old chestnut

I have suggested a change to MPFAP here which removes the "disputed guideline" tags and is just a page telling people that MPFA isn't generally protected, except when under extreme vandal pressure. I'd appreciate comments here. The rewrite doesn't solve the larger issue of whether the current practice should change, it's just a way of removing the disputed tags by replacing "should be" with "is" (you can't dispute something that is, because it either is or it isn't!). DrKiernan 07:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Comments requests on new exception to WP:3RR

I've recommended an addition to the exceptions for our WP:3RR policy. Comments requested please at Wikipedia_talk:Three-revert_rule#Recommended_additional_exception. Thanks, --Durin 14:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Ambiguous votes in AfD and other votes

Dear admins, what is the proper way to proceed when an editor casts an ambiguous vote in an AfD, e.g. one in which his reasoning or parts of it contradicts the vote cast at the beginning of the line.

1. Is it a proper way to go to inform the editor in question of the ambiguity and, for the moment, to strike the ambiguous vote? This in order to ensure an unambiguous vote? Or is that considered vandalism?
2. Is it proper for the editor that has cast the ambiguous vote to lambast the messenger with foul language and unjust accusations? Is such language considered a personal attack?
3. Does it make a difference that the messenger is the same editor who has created the article subject of the AfD.

Thanks for your consideration. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 14:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, at articles for deletion, they are not really a vote, more of a discussion, so I probably would not strike another editors comments in any context.

It would be proper to question an editor with regards to a comment at afd, that is part of discussion. It may be inappropriate to strike another editors comment regardless. The editor should only be striking his or her own comments. I hope this helps. Navou 14:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd say if you think it's ambiguous, it's better to notify the editor without striking the vote. It's less likely to cause offence. Striking through is normally done only by the person who made the comment. I see in this case it was made clear that the striking through was done by someone else, as it was written underneath it. But still, it would surely have been enough to have put a comment underneath it that it seemed ambiguous, without actually striking through. The striking through certainly wasn't vandalism, which is a bad-faith attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopaedia. Bad language happens on Wikipedia, and most people don't get upset about it. A pity this escalated. It's obviously two good-faith editors who have got on the wrong side of each other. Hopefully it will calm down. ElinorD (talk) 14:19, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks I understand now that not striking it would have been better. But I want to ask - was it justifiable for me to strike it just for the moment until the other editor would get back and clarify?

And what about the other two questions? Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 14:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

No, no striking of comments, not even temporarily. With regards to the properness of casting an ambiguous comment, there it no real policy against it. These things happen and the closing editor (the one who closes the AFD) will take these things into account. The closer reads the entire discussion and does not tally "votes". I would not consider it vandalism. Vandalism is a bad faith attempt to damage the article proper. However, this term is easily misunderstood. A personal attack would be if I said "you suck" or "your a nasty <whatever>". Fowl language happens. Both of you appear to be acting in good faith and it is important to understand that you both will need to continually assume good faith and understand this is a misunderstanding. If I were in the same situation, I might apologize and move on. I don't see any difference to whether or not you created the article or not, the action would likely have the same consequence. However, if you created the article, you actions at AFD may be looked at slightly differently. With regards, Navou 14:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think it would have been better not to, but I wouldn't call it a heinous offence. The question to ask is probably was it necessary? Writing an indented note underneath it, saying that it seemed ambiguous and you'd contact the user on his page, would have been enough. Striking his comments may have given the impression (and in this case unfortunately did give the impression) that you thought you had the right to alter a signed comment by someone else. I'd call it entirely innocent and excusable, but I think that once you saw the reaction, it would have been better to say, "Oops, sorry, I didn't realise it would seem like trying to alter your vote", rather than leading to a situation where one good editor is furious with another good editor. Question 2 is a bit loaded. Admins don't act as the manners police, and everyone can reach their own conclusion about the language used. Question 3, again, I don't see that anything terribly improper was done. Certainly, striking the vote, and indicating clearly that it was you and not the other users who did so, was not going to help you to get the article kept. That was certainly obvious, so I can't see that there was any sneaky motive or anything like that. But it certainly looks better for the article creator not to be the one to tamper with a delete vote. Just as in an RfA, the nominee shouldn't strike through an oppose vote even if it's clearly invalid and from a sockpuppet. Leave it to someone else if it needs to be done (which in this case it didn't). I think everyone needs a cup of tea! ElinorD (talk) 14:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict, replying to Navou) I did not consider it vandalism but an honest mistake, a vote that hasn't been thougt through fully.

Should my good faith intention of attaining a clarification be considerd vandalism? Should I be lambasted for it (using the word "vandalism" and other words). Should admins that are part of the whole discussion and hence have a POV stake in there as well issue warnings about this affair? Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 14:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Elinor, for the advise. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 14:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Admin advice (just a CYA)

I have rewritten Tanbur (actually still in progress) and am working on a rewrite of Tanbur (Persian). I have found myself in an intermittent content dispute over these articles with an anonymous user (but see User talk:Johnyajohn), who claims to represent tanbursociety.com and is trying to effectively mirror articles on that website. I've presented my issues on the articles' talk pages and have just left a note at WP:RF3O. Anon user has already been warned about removing content, maint. templates, etc. from these articles. After his/her last edit I left a "final warning." Assuming we go through another round: Would I be abusing my privileges if I were the one to impose a block? Should I instead leave a note at WP:AIV? I thought AIV was for current vandalism (i.e. happening right now) and I usually don't see the edits until a few hours later. Thanks in advance. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

IMO, since you were involved in editing it would probably be best to post on ANI and have another admin review and take action as appropriate.--Isotope23 16:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Block request for anonymous user 69.223.169.170

User 69.223.169.170 (talk · contribs) continually adds the questionable entry of Carlos A. Cook without justification for entry's importance. The page has been previously marked for deletion. Further, the user deletes vandalism warnings and other community warnings on the user talk page. Suggest strong administator warning or possibly temp ban.--Ewhite77 17:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Said user has only been given a third-level warning. Once he gets a fourth-level warning and still vandalizes, WP:AIV will bring down the blockhammer. hbdragon88 18:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Featured articles

The matter has a pretty old history and probably was already noticed. Anyway, I want to expose it anew since in my opinion we faced a proceeding tendency, related to featured content. The featured articles to a greater or lesser extent are a common target to be affected by some backlogged tags in that way they aren't a featured articles anymore by definition. Most of them are marked as having unsourced statements, even such vital articles as Cheese or Technetium. As of June 20, 2007 among crippled FAs were or still are absinthe, alchemy, Azerbaijani people, black pepper, Boy Scouts of America membership controversies, caffeine, cheese, Duke University, Mozilla Firefox, paracetamol, trade and usage of saffron and so on.

One may consider that the relevant act to combat that issue would be an ordinary deletion of crippled sentences per WP:IAR. Otherwise I think that some relevant Wikiproject or Task Force might be able to assist. Ultimately we should put an end to FAs, backlogged in such way. Brand спойт 19:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you for most of the articles, but some like trade and usage of saffron fit my perception of an FA. bibliomaniac15 ^{BUY NOW!} 20:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not certain this wouldn't better be situated elsewhere; this is not, unless I'm missing something, a matter that particularly requires administrative intervention or is relevant principally to administrators, and so I would encourage you to raise the issue at WP:VPP (and, with at least a link to the antecedent discussion, at WT:FA). Joe 21:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Shaykh Nazim al-Qubrusi

I previous AfD'd this article. It has been restored, and I note that a lot of the text is based on the previous version of the article [86]. I'm not interested in challenging it as a repost (mainly because it doesn't read quite so much like a worship piece anymore). I'm thinking that for GFDL purposes we should quietly restore the article history though (unless you feel like deleting it again, but as he has a lot of followers I don't think that's going to work). Yes? -N 22:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Meh. It looks like it was rewritten from scratch - the oldest diff is just one sentence long. YechielMan 23:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Turkey on the loose

Could someone with the ability to correct moves take a look at Turkey? Aycan (talk · contribs) has unilaterally moved it to Türkiye, with no discussion that I can see. I'd try and work it out, but am cramped for time, and think it'd take an admin to undo the move anyhow. Tony Fox (arf!) review? 22:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

• I've moved it back and issued a {{uw-mos1}}. I can't believe we even have a template for that. -N 22:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I can't believe we don't use it more often :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:03, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion and redirect request

Speak 06:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

 – Redirected. -- Jonel

Action requested: That Haruyoshi Hyakutate be deleted and redirected, along with a redirect for Seikichi Hyakutake, to the Harukichi Hyakutake article.

Background: The kanji for Hyakutake's given name can be read as Haruyoshi, Seikichi, or Harukichi. No documentation apparently exists that documents which reading Hyakutake preferred, but Harukichi appears to be the most common in availble sources (see list of references for Guadalcanal campaign). I've already merged the information from the Haruyoshi article into the Harukichi article. The merge tags have been on both pages since January 2007 and no one else has commented on the proposal. Therefore, appears to be non-controversial and uncontested. CLA 00:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

• Looks fine, but can you not just replace the page with a redir, rather than deleting? It's important to preserve the article's edit history, least of all to show at a later date as to how the merge went and what happened. - Alison ☺ 00:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I've taken the liberty of redirecting both the Haruyoshi and Seikichi pages to Harukichi Hyakutake. -- Jonel | Speak 02:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Thank you for the quick response. CLA 02:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous threats....

Yesterday and the day before that I took the time to proved the page Baccara with a detailed discography and also making a few minor - note: minor - edits to the existing biography. Today I received this rather unpleasant and anonymous message:

Please stop modifying Baccara's article This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spain, and it's written by close friends to both María and Mayte. Indeed, it's a mere translation from the Spanish article. At least tell us your ideas in the discussion page before you tear apart our work. Take a look at Wikipedia's policies. If you keep modifying the article, it loses its neutral point of view. Thanks in advance. And by the way, there's no such thing as an extended version of "Sleepy-Time-Toy". The difference between 7" and 12" was the sound quality. Any more changes, and we'll have to make a vandalism report.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dreamer.se"

Any reactions?

S.

Well, it was an unsigned message from Oaobregon (talk · contribs) who seems to have ownership issues around the Baccara article and, given your good faith edits, should probably tone it down a bit. Then again, have you tried discussing it with them or mentioning it on the article talk page? It's a little early for admin intervention - Alison ☺ 09:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

About our discussion with User:Dreamer.se... Well, we're not against changes and improvements to any article. But do you consider more than 20 changes in one single day healthy to the article? At first, we didn't revert his changes because they were, indeed, good ideas. But when he added an "extended version" of the single "Sleepy-Time-Toy", we did revert it because that "extended version" does not even exist. When reverting, we did give a good reason, but he just didn't care and kept on modifying it with something that is not true. We told him: <<There's no such thing as an "extended version" of "Sleepy-Time-Toy". The difference between 7" and 12" was the sound quality.>> Don't you think this was a good reason to revert this modification? And next, he added a table with some chart positions (copied from the German Wikipedia) that is not entirely verifiable. As we understand, Wikipedia's articles must contain facts, not gossip. Once again, we thank any positive contribution... But don't you think any major changes should be first discussed in the article's appropriate page? User:Oaobregon

In what way were the edits disruptive? Was the information untrue? I agree that the editor might want to use the Show preview button more often, but unless the information is untrue, a BLP violation, or unsourced, then to remove it and threaten a vandalism warning is over the top. Please review WP:OWN. Corvus cornix 17:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

They should probably also review the prohibition on role accounts. You each need to get a separate account on English Wikipedia. Natalie 06:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Request for other admins opinion on Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Petri_Krohn

I would be grateful if another admin would take a look on this candidate RFC/U and express their opinions on questions risen...--Alexia Death 08:05, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to ask such a silly question (I'm new to this), but where exactly do you want me to comment, there, your talk page or where? DrKiernan 09:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest. On that pages talk page would be best :)--Alexia Death 09:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit Page

The article on Frank iero is wrong. He has FOUR dogs, as stated (by himself) in a recent edition of Kerrang!

I'm not an admin but I think you've posted this comment in the wrong place, this is for discussing administrator related actions, if you need help you may wish to leave a comment at the help desk, Cheers --The Sunshine Man 16:05, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Weird Bio Getaround

I noticed the user User:Charlie_Snow as well as User:Bubba_Yarbrough and User:Zach_Ze. I belive the Charlie Snow user (which is the name of their band) was created as a way to get around the bio and notability guidelines - whats the best way to proceed? I know it is a sockpuppet of one of them, but is this legitimate and it is a violation of policy to get around notability requirements this way? Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 02:15, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Charlie Snow needs to be asked about his actions at the talk page. His only edits have been to his own userpage, so it's probably a sockpuppet. If he shows no interest in working on any other part of the encyclopedia, action will need to be taken. --Masamage ♫ 02:17, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, i'll comment later, I have to rush off now but I thought i'd drop this note in first. Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 02:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

User:Charlie_Snow is obvious spam -- period/full stop -- and I've speedy-tagged it, like I have a few dozen others. After all, accounts are for individuals, not bands, companies, or groups. --Calton | Talk 07:35, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I have declined speedy on the user page. Its not anything promotional or advertisement. Barring the notability criterion, its otherwise okay. And since the notability clause does not apply to user pages, I think a chance a be given to the users to sort it out rather than deleting it on sight. --soum ^talk 07:49, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted all of their user pages. If they don't contribute to the encyclopedia, then they don't deserve the privelege of having a userpage. Wikipedia is not a free webhost.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Administrator Ryulong

I have been keeping my eye on this administrator and listening to some of his comments. It seems like he's breaking a lot of rules. What's with the you cant have a your own user talk page if you have not contributed comments. He's made them several times, like here [87] and here [88] — Preceding unsigned comment added by TV2007 (talk • contribs) 2007-06-21 11:19:59

If you followed the link he provided, Wikipedia is not a free webhost, you'd see exactly this:

Wikipedia pages are not:
Personal web pages. Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia. If you are looking to make a personal webpage or blog, please make use of one of the many free providers on the Internet. The focus of user pages should not be social networking, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration.

Wikipedia is very lenient considering some of what I see, but no, if you haven't edited anything but your User page, and that has nothing about your Wikipedia goals, then no, it's not within the scope of Wikipedia. All I think is that he should have left a note more clearly on the User Talk page to save himself some grief if they complain.--Thespian 11:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I see nothing out of line here. Ryulong is most certainly correct. Why he may be skirting policy technically in the way he's going about the deletions, I see that as a good thing. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 11:44, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

interesting TV2007 15:56, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Right, so TV2007 is a sockpuppet of EverybodyHatesChris and other related accounts. Now what?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we're done? The sockpuppet's been blocked, his trolling can be ignored, and we can go about our business. MastCell ^Talk 23:28, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Undo a deletion request?

I don't want to hit a permissions error, so I'll hand this over to an admin. A brand new, 3-edit editor has flagged the thorn in wikipedia's side article of Wikipedia Watch for deletion. After making my comment, I thought it odd that no one else had commented on that in the next hour. At that point I found that all that had been done was adding the template and creating the AfD (which is one of the three edits). It was not added to the AfD Log, which is either being unable to follow the instructions or mischief-making (I'd assume better faith if the user had even one edit before yesterday :-P ).

Of course, you'll want to check for sockpuppetry, all the tricks, but I'm wondering if, in this case, my action should be to a) remove the template from the page, and tell them to redo the nom properly if they want it, b) link the page from the AfD Log the way that it should have initially been done, c) leave it up to the admins, it'll be fine now? ;-) --Thespian 11:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

• See /Incidents#Disruption via multiple accounts. Uncle G 11:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your work on this whole rat's nest. --Thespian 19:23, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppet user

Resolved

It is suspected that user Playguy is a sockpuppet of user WikiTweak

For the past couple of days ExcellentEditor has been edit warring with Wikitweak on the mama's family page. This is the way ExcellentEditor reverts the page. [89] and he Wikitweak gets rid of the information calling it vandalism[90] which I disagree with. I thought it was good for the article. Anyway, a 3rd editor got involved to try to solve the problem by making this edit which was meant to be a compromise. He shortens the information and puts it in a different place [91]. However, PlayGuy, suspected sockpuppet of WikiTweak, comes today and reverts it back to the way Wikitweak had it, with incivility in his edit summary. [92]. Also, his only edits have been on ExcellentEditor's page and Ebyabe's page, if you look here [93]. This is what he says to the 3rd editor who got involved to help the matter [94]] and this is what he says to ExcellentEditor [95] TV2007 16:16, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

• Perhaps you might explain why User:ExcellentEditor, User:TV2007, User:PlayGuy107, and User:EverybodyHatesChris (among others) are all at the same IP. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 18:35, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of an explanation, it would seem that the most likely scenario is that these are socks of the indef-blocked EverybodyHatesChris (talk · contribs), particularly given an apparent fixation on Coral Smith. Given the generally unhelpful quality of edits from all of these accounts, I've indefinitely blocked the four accounts named by jpgordon (a few had already been indef-blocked for various offenses). If there are more accounts from that IP, chances are they'll turn up soon enough, unless jpgordon feels it's appropriate to block them now. Hoist by one's own petard... MastCell ^Talk 20:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Confirmed. MastCell ^Talk 20:47, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

AfD in limbo

Resolved

AfD closed as Delete

Would someone like to step up and possibly close Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of films by gory death scene (3rd nomination) please? Thanks. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 18:10, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. SirFozzie 18:17, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Actualy there was soem kerfluffle about this, see User talk:SirFozzie for my take on it. DES ^(talk) 18:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/TingMing

The above named arbitration case has closed. TingMing (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is banned from Wikipedia for 1 year. Please be advised that TingMing is currently indefinitely banned, therefore the 1 year ban will not start unless the indefinite ban is lifted.

For the Arbitration Committee,
- Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 19:32, 21 June 2007 (UTC)