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:IMH(non-admin)O, I see consensus for unblock, but not unconditional, I do believe he requires a mentor. Would one of the admins who voted to support this young man step up and take on the job? Once a mentor is found, we can hash out the details on the unblock, but I think we need that first. [[User:Aunt Entropy|Auntie E]] ([[User talk:Aunt Entropy|talk]]) 17:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC) |
:IMH(non-admin)O, I see consensus for unblock, but not unconditional, I do believe he requires a mentor. Would one of the admins who voted to support this young man step up and take on the job? Once a mentor is found, we can hash out the details on the unblock, but I think we need that first. [[User:Aunt Entropy|Auntie E]] ([[User talk:Aunt Entropy|talk]]) 17:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC) |
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::I think {{ul|Sarah}} might be a good choice here, she seems to know all the needed details regarding this user. Regards '''[[User:SoWhy|<span style="font-variant:small-caps; color: #AC0000">So</span>]][[User talk:SoWhy|<span style="font-variant:small-caps; color: #35628F">Why</span>]]''' 19:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC) |
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{{User talk:Ziggy Sawdust}} |
{{User talk:Ziggy Sawdust}} |
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Review of HanzoHattori continued if illegal editing
HanzoHattori (talk · contribs) was permmbanned in Feb 2008. Since then, he has created several socks, and seems to keep returning to Wikipedia; there is no indication that he will ever stop. His newest sock, User:Ostateczny Krach Systemu Korporacji, was just discovered and banned today (although I cannot seem to find the CU request/evidence page...?). Yet I am not posting to complain about futile attempts to keep him away; instead I am posting here in order to request the review of the permban on him. Long story short, it appears to me upon a cursory review that his socks have been performing constructive, not disruptive edits; none of his socks has violated our polices, been blocked of even warned for anything as far as I can tell - they were editing constructively for weeks or even months, up to the point they were banned upon being confirmed as socks of HH (presumably due to editing the same articles/subjects). An unban of him was proposed by another admin already few months ago (Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive470#Productive_socks) and since than we have accumulated more evidence (based on his continued pattern of editing via socks) that he wants to be a constructive member of our community. He is making constructive content edits (creating and expanding articles), he is not edit warring, and doesn't seem to be flaming or otherwise disruptive (which IIRC was a major complain against HH). As such, I believe we should review his behavior once again, since its shows signs of improvement, and consider unbanning him, perhaps under some restriction/mentorship. In the end, if Hanzo wants to help us build encyclopedia in a constructive manner, without repeating his past mistakes (as he has shown us he can), why should we not allow him to do so? Not to mention that blocking his successive constructive socks is making a mockery of our ideals that blocks/bans and such should be preventative, not punitive. PS. I'd like to strongly encourage all who had bad experiences with HH to review his behavior in the past year and so instead of remembering old grievances. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 04:23, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
- No offense but are we looking at the same sock? OKSK has edit warred, been ridiculously uncivil (including after his block), and has not shown a single solitary sign that he has learned from his past mistakes, but instead continues acting exactly the same. He hasn't shown any desire to follow Wikipedia's guidelines and policies and his "good contributions" include tons of original research and copyvio's taken straight from IMDB! What constructive editing as he done? Making a glut of unsourced video game stubs? Sorry, but I support leaving the permaban in place, and I never had interaction with HH so I'm speaking only from new grievances, not old ones. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 22:24, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- Do you have the diffs for his edit warring and incivility? The only incivility I saw was after his block, which I consider understandable (which doesn't mean excusable, of course). I did review his video game articles, and they are fine - as noted in relevant discussion, there is no obvious copyvio. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:53, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- Edit warring (for which he has a huge glaring warning on his talk page for and which is how I got introduced to him) was on Naga the Serpent[1]. His response to the warning? "oh geez, come on. Do we need a drama?" [2] I left him a sternly worded note about his attitude during the edit war with another editor (and his edit summary offering to violate copyright to prove his OR is still OR). In addition to falsely claiming he wasn't doing anything but rewriting what's there (when clear check shows he added OR content[3]), he basically responded with "No U are edit warring"[4], then saying he didn't write the info he added[5] implying another possible copyright violation. When the other editor started a discussion asking for reliable sources instead of just original research, OKSK responded demanding to have one item pointed out one thing "you EXACTLY have a problem with, I'll prove you wrong, and you will go away" even though the editor had already done just that[6]. Later, having received the warnings I already mentioned, he responds to calm, rational discussion with "I guess it may be done, but this is idiotic. I only tried to clean-up this article (actually deleted only the stupid stuff about how cosplaying Naga is banned), then cleaned-up more and asked what exactly I'd have to prove, got a warning and you guys ganged-up on me, so now go and play but without me. Bye."[7] (but of course continued the conversation).
- In Talk:Game Over (video game), his "starting a discussion" on his marking the article as censored, along with post a picture of a human nipple.[8]. He was asked to actually post a clear discussion of what he felt was wrong with the article[9], and instead asked if nipples were evil and later continuing to dodge the issue of what he actually felt was wrong with the article.[10][11] He left a note on the talk page of another editor he was disagreeing with using "You're doing it wrong" as the subject and a message of "Look what you're doing." (with no context, anything)[12] With another, he left a note saying "Please stop lying. Thank you"[13] in response to that editor having left him a note asking him to conform to the MoS and explaining why his edits to Jonestown were reverted[14] Said article was Jonestown, another place he edit warring in which two different editors reverted his image moving[15]. His history really speaks for itself. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 02:12, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- Few reverts don't equal edit warring, but if you think his return should be conditional upon 1RR restriction, that may be a good idea. As for his talk posts, they are a bit childish sometimes, but I am not seeing any serious personal attacks? But again, a civility parole and a mentorship could be beneficial for him. The point is that a user who is mostly editing constructively can benefit from our attempts to reform him, and the project will benefit from that more then from banning and rebanning user who is, most of the time, peacefully working on good content articles (ex. Lublin Ghetto). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 02:36, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- Must say I am absolutely (not) amazed that Piotrus is going in to bat for the foul-mouthed editor that was HanzoHattori. Evidence? Look at the block logs...for example. User talk:Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog/Archive 1 is full of warnings and blocks for edit warring, uncivility, etc. User talk:RamboKadyrov is full of typical HH tirades, telling the community at large fuck you on no less than 6 occasions -- this is brilliant and typical of why this user should never see the light of day again -- Quote -- "I think I am one of the best and most active users but I never looked for recognition for all my work (never cared to be whatever moderators are called here), but now I'm called "sock puppet" by some idiots (fuck you, your mother is a sock puppet) and barred from working, repeatedly. So, either I am officially allowed to return and someone says "sorry for that" to me, or fuck you, Wikipedians, for the last time.". I say let this child continue to say "Screw you guys... I'm going home!" and continue to block their socks at every opportunity. --Russavia Dialogue 00:20, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- Unlike Collectonian and Russavia, I interacted with Hanzo for years, and he was one of the most dedicated and productive content editors I have ever seen. While editing under several accounts, he made around 70,000 edits and created hundreds new articles (some precise data can be provided if needed, this is only a tip of the iceberg). I am mostly familiar with his contributions on Russia, Caucasus and Chechen wars related articles. I thought he lived in this area - so intimately he was familiar with the subject (I personally visited North Caucasus many times as a hiker/mountaineer). Hanzo was very cooperative, and we talked a lot about editing a number of articles. He did high quality work, as one can see, for example, from Beslan school hostage crisis, where he was one of chief contributors. He was very cooperative with me. If we decided to create an article, it was enough just to start it, as he was coming to help (see this article, for example). He was a very neutral editor and corrected my POV many times. But there was another side of the coin. He worked with extreme dedication (sometimes 15 hours non-stop) and definitely overworked here. He also had a lot of trouble explaining what he is doing to others, especially if they were not familiar with the subject (I remember helping him to explain others the difference between War crimes, Crime against peace and crimes against humanity). This led to tensions when he had a trouble controlling himself, which ultimately led to his ban. He also has an unfortunate habit of using foul words on talk. I would strongly support him coming back, but only under two conditions. First, he should make a promise and really to make an effort towards more polite and cooperative conversation with other users (I personally had no trouble communicating with him, but some others did). Second, he probably needs a mentorship and some form of civility parole.Biophys (talk) 00:25, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Sometimes the administrators face a tough dilemma: an editor who is obviously dedicated and able to contribute productively, yet who also--one way or another--has difficulty within a consensus environment. Per Wikipedia:Standard offer HanzoHattori seems like the kind of editor who would be a good candidate for a return, yet would go about it a different way than this. Overall, we've gotten better results in the past from bringing back banned editors who went several months without socking, than by unbanning in spite of recent socking. So here's an offer: if HanzoHattori goes six months without socking at all, or makes at least 500 productive and unproblematic edits at another WMF site within the next three months, then at the end of the time frame I will initiate an unban discussion for him and support his return. If he wishes, he is welcome to participate at any of the three sister projects where I am a sysop (Commons, Wikisource, or Wikinews), although any WMF site would be fine. Best wishes, Durova273 18:51, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- Sounds reasonable. Could somebody inform Hanzo of this? He gave no indication he is following this thread, and due to his block, he obviously cannot reply here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:05, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- Normally I wouldn't support unbanning someone (indeed, someone who's sock puppet I've been reverting), but having checked Piotr's arguments, I tend to agree with Durova on the solution.
looks fine to me. E.g. Polish, Russian or some other wiki (I have no idea of which nationality he is in fact) would be OK, too? --Miacek (t) 15:42, 5 July 2009 (UTC)if HanzoHattori goes six months without socking at all, or makes at least 500 productive and unproblematic edits at another WMF site within the next three months
- I have no problem with him coming back, as long as he is placed on 1RR and civility parole upon his return, for a period of at least 6 months. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 17:13, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Normally I wouldn't support unbanning someone (indeed, someone who's sock puppet I've been reverting), but having checked Piotr's arguments, I tend to agree with Durova on the solution.
Proposed ban for Elance user Tayzen
- http://www.elance.com/experts/tayzen
- Yaromunna (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
- Vpopescu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
- Cinagua (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
- Chabaka (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
- NEW - Desiphral (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
If you participated in the paid editing RFC, you might have come across User:Ha!/paid editing adverts. Unfortunately that only scratches the surface with respect to Tayzen's paid spam. You'll find the evidence at WT:WPSPAM#Tayzen. Differences from what was posted in the RFC:
- The spam is cross-wiki.
- Found several more confirmed and suspected paid editing jobs. These are marked new.
- I also found several clusters of suspicious edits that look like paid editing jobs.
The four accounts above are (sock|meat)puppets operated by this user.
Furthermore, there are more jobs in the pipeline: [16], [17]. These comments suggest he has no remorse. I think it's time to use the banning policy to stop this nonsense. MER-C 12:48, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
- I should note that if you want to get the full text of the Elance postings, you can append a referrer string such as &rid=18J3T to the URL. MER-C 12:52, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support ban proposal (which I'm assuming will essentially amount to a carte-blanche to indefblock all identified role accounts, such as those above, on sight). It wouldn't be so bad if the articles created followed Wikipedia policy, but blatant non-notable vanity and puff-pieces have no place here, and maybe if the editor has to return enough fees when their rubbish is deleted they'll find something else to do. EyeSerenetalk
- Oh Good Lord. Support ban proposal/eradication project. This stuff should be discouraged and made unprofitable for the advertisers. Fine fine detective work there which deserves some sort of award. --Calton | Talk 21:45, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, the copyright violations noted at commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Diablo Tranquilo Bar.JPG, and the editor's subsequent willingness to misrepresent xyrself as the copyright holder when challenged, make the editor problematic irrespective of the issue of whether xe was paid to make these edits. Uncle G (talk) 05:33, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support. The spam is bad enough but there's also sockpuppetry in disruption of our processes. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:24, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support due to the socking and misrepresenting themselves as copyright holder. Probably worth getting a CU, if not done already. Good work Mer-c. Sarah 17:23, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support. In addition to the sockpuppeting and copyright issues, Desiphral is a notorious POV-pusher when it comes to Roma articles, and is quick to accuse others of racism. He has long shown disregard for Wikipedia policies. —Psychonaut (talk) 16:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support I usually don't take a hard stance towards banning editors but he has very heavily abused our system in a way that typical POV pushers and vandals have not. I also recommend further action being taken with regards to his position on the Romanian Wikipedia. ThemFromSpace 02:04, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- Oh, my eyes, my eyes! Support ban on this spamhaus. Has anyone notified WP:OFFICE of this thread, or anyone on the Vlax Romany Wikipedia? This could have serious implications given his status there. Blueboy96 17:16, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support Ban all .Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 23:43, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support Sockpuppeteering and spamming should be enough reasons to ban. Paid editing isn't illegal just not particularly ethically defensible.·Maunus·ƛ· 03:05, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- comment Why can't i find a user:Tayzen ion en.wikipedia? I wanted to check whether the users blocklog and his talkpage for warnings but I can't find the users page. Can someone provide a link?·Maunus·ƛ· 17:22, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- See the five usernames linked at the top of this thread. Tayzen is a name the same person uses at elance, but not here. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:02, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- One more question, maybe stupid: how do we know its all him? Has there been a sock investigation? Or is it purely on the editing pattern evidence combined with the elance evidence?·Maunus·ƛ· 23:16, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- The latter. The first four accounts spammed noclaimsdiscount.co.uk (see diffs at User:Ha!/paid editing adverts). Editors who spam the same site are almost always sock or meat puppets. The fifth is by admission. MER-C 03:01, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Ok, I see.·Maunus·ƛ· 03:05, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- The latter. The first four accounts spammed noclaimsdiscount.co.uk (see diffs at User:Ha!/paid editing adverts). Editors who spam the same site are almost always sock or meat puppets. The fifth is by admission. MER-C 03:01, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- One more question, maybe stupid: how do we know its all him? Has there been a sock investigation? Or is it purely on the editing pattern evidence combined with the elance evidence?·Maunus·ƛ· 23:16, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support ban because of the puppetry and the role accounting (see below), but not solely on account of the paid editing, for the banning of which I believe we do not currently have community consensus. Sandstein 21:47, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Strong support This way we can speedy all the spam Triplestop x3 02:30, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Bad news
Hi there,
I would like to apply for this project, possessing three years of experience in this field, now with about 11000 edits, accumulated in creating wiki content in Wikipedias in various languages, under the username Desiphral (at Romani Wikipedia I am also admin). Only on the English Wikipedia my work counts currently about 4000 edits in 1300 distinct pages:
http://toolserver.org/~interiot/cgi-bin/Tool1/wannabe_kate?username=Desiphral&site=en.wikipedia.org
I have a good knowledge of organizing a new Wikipedia article, if you provide me the links for citing and processing the info in Wikipedia style. I may provide articles in English, Spanish, French and Romanian Wikipedias (the languages that I know well). Usually, more Wikipedia articles, better for the subject they treat.
I am currently available Monday through Sunday and can be reached online by Yahoo Messenger or Skype.
[[File:Facepalm.jpg|150px]] Desiphral is the only administrator on the Vlax Romani Wikipedia. Does anyone here speak Vlax Romani? What do we do now? (Toolserver cross-wiki contribs and access to s3 are borked at the moment :( . )MER-C 08:07, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- I've long known that Desiphral is the only Administrator on the Romani Wikipedia, but didn't think it was possible to do anything about it. With him in power I shudder to think what sort of a point of view that Wikipedia must be putting across. —Psychonaut (talk) 16:41, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- I think the most straightforward way is to get a steward to globally lock the accounts. Not sure of the best way to approach this - perhaps through a blacklisting request of all the spammed sites. MER-C 04:01, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- I don't see anything that would suggest POV pushing issues.©Geni 03:25, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- This still leaves Romani with no administrators except one who apparently shares his account with paid editors. Anyone know what to do about this? I know this is just the English WP and we shouldn't be asserting jurisdiction over other languages, but is there a place on Meta to bring this up, and would anyone ever see it? rspεεr (talk) 04:02, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Somebody should have notified me by e-mail, the accusations are serious and those who formulated them most certainly saw that I was absent for months. Fortunately, the guys under spotlight decided it's best to tell me. I saw that their accounts were perused carefully, but it was not taken into account how I made the welcoming message on the talk page of one of them. If I would have had the intentions supposed above, I wouldn't have done that. They said they felt entitled to put the statistics of my account because they worked too under my username, but now they are very sorry for the trouble they caused me and they will stay away from it. Some years ago, other people I knew became interested in my work at Wikipedia and I gladly supported them. The initial idea was that each one should have a personal account, but in practice, since it was real life collaboration and we had available only one computer, most of their/our edits ended up under my username (this explaining also the stamina and the sudden polyglot abilities of my account across Wikipedia during some months). The situation changed during 2008 because of economic problems and I did not have the time to stay on-line and continue. I learned later that some of them managed to supplement their income by working at Wikipedia. I was familiar with the occasional bounties offered at Betawiki for the localization of MediaWiki and I thought it was great for them during these times. I didn't know about this "paid editing" issue, I read now about it (but it's a lot written, I don't know when I'll have available time). From what I could see, they did not have many choices in picking clients, but somehow it looks true what I was told, that bad and good stuff is brought together under the label of spam by users looking for quick fame inside Wikipedia. I was also told that only two accounts at elance.com are under spotlight (and this also looks true), thus simply favoring the other accounts on that website. Personally, I have a bad taste regarding the unprofessional manner I was treated, it's scary to see how the good work of years won't value nothing in a second, in the others' eyes. I am dismayed by the way the comments of the "enthusiast" Psychonaut were taken for granted. If I would have known that article could have been easily deleted because it breached BLP policies, I would have stayed away from all that drama. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 11:19, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- That didn't make a lot of sense to me, but you seem to be saying that you're letting arbitrary people -- some of whom are spammers -- use your account. That's not much of a defense -- in fact, it makes things worse. rspεεr (talk) 04:02, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- I do not let 'arbitrary' people use my account, even less spammers. In the previous years, these guys had good contributions, most of the time under my supervision, that was the context and the overall project benefited from my decision to contribute like this. The work under my account is a good work and does not deserve these attacks, the Romani Wikipedia is a first in history regarding the coverage of this unwritten language, now it's the place on Internet with most of the texts in Romani. Some of them chose to work and they walk now on their path. My account should be under spotlight only if itself creates problems. I don't know the rules of English Wikipedia and I'd like to ask what happens if an user makes such blatant attacks like this one, using without any reason expressions like "No legitimate administrators", "the sole administrator is a paid spammer", "Should the project remain open?" In this way I'd have the right to ask if the English Wikipedia should remain open, watching the unprofessional manner of conducting this investigation, the way this became the gathering place of the users who have a problem with me and the lack of respect for my work. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 08:27, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- You seem to be admitting that you've let others use your account on the English Wikipedia (presumably they also have knowledge of your password), so it's difficult to take your accusation of unprofessionalism seriously. We can only judge by what we see - you must either take responsibility for the security of your account and any actions made from it, or acknowledge that you have no control over it (in which case it should be regarded as compromised and blocked accordingly. EyeSerenetalk 21:08, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- That went without saying, of course I changed my password. Anyway, personally, I did not create problems, on the contrary, I am proud a tiny part of Wikipedia is made by me and by people under my supervision, hence I keep my accusations of unprofessionalism. And the independent edits of the guys under spotlight are presented like the "crime no.1", but somehow I am rather sympathetic to them. I can't see a serious commitment for solving this paid editing issue, but rather a kind of safari hunt of "bad users" and happy faces of hunters with trophies under their feet. As you probably have guessed, personally, I have no problem with paid editing and I am pretty sure that if the focus would be on the content, not on the user (yes, I just finished reading about Gregory Kohs) Wikipedia would be a better place. From what I discussed with them, the guys are determined to continue, but they will be more careful, this is their lifeline. You'll only end up as a police state or as an African National Park with thrilled hunters, paid editing is inevitable and, your biggest problem, it is not immoral. I was not blessed to be a friend of the money, but I am sincere to say that I can't imagine a complex social life without them. And Wikipedia is too big and too important to stay as a voluntary neverland. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 23:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- It's part of the mission of Wikipedia that its content should be free from commercial interests, and it has done just fine with the effort of volunteers so far. Your "people" are abusing Wikipedia for profit, and Wikipedia should not tolerate them for their and your benefit. I'm sure they could find something equally lucrative and disreputable to do somewhere else on the Internet. rspεεr (talk) 03:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
I note with cynicism that three of the accounts found out how to use {{cite web}} within three (spam), three (suspected spam) and three edits and the fourth (Vpopescu) correctly filled out an infobox on its 10th edit. Draw your own conclusions. MER-C 04:03, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm probably too involved at this point to block Desiphral for compromising his account and/or spamming, but I believe it should be done. It also still horrifies me that he has control over an entire Wikipedia. I brought this up -- a bit harshly and, by necessity, in English, on ("Talk:Main Page"), because it seemed a sufficiently high-profile page. Desiphral himself reverted me -- not a good sign. If it was because of using the wrong page, reverting wasn't the answer; if it was because of the wrong language, most discussions on that Wikipedia are in English; but if it is because Desiphral prefers to hold onto his unchecked power without anyone questioning it, it makes perfect sense.
- The question remains, of course, what should be done about the Romani Wikipedia. I'm looking for the correct forum on Meta to bring this up, but I think there should be a search for three or so good Romani users who are not Desiphral to be the next admins.
- rspεεr (talk) 06:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I concur - I've indefblocked Desiphral because I find their assurances about regaining control of their voluntarily compromised account (if indeed it was compromised as Desiphral claims), and their attempts to justify and condone edits that are out of line with Wikipedia policy and best practice, unpersuasive. From the above discussion I believe they see no problem with their actions or would prevent them happening again. Block review welcome, as always. I can't help with Meta discussion (I've never used Meta), but I agree that their adminship of the Romani Wikipedia - hosted as it presumably is on foundation servers - should be examined further in an appropriate venue. EyeSerenetalk 07:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Unblock requested and declined twice. MER-C 13:40, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Why? What evidence do we have that that account is going to be used for comericial activities at this point?©Geni 11:44, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- It's not the commercial activities alone, but more the fact that the account was apparently being operated as a role account (with Desiphral's approval but without their supervision or editorial control, according to their posts above). The commercial part is related to the spamming from the account, which I regard it as an aggravating factor. Although the account's services - whether by Desiphral or not - were advertised on elance as noted above, at present there's no community consensus to block for commercial editing. EyeSerenetalk 16:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Why? What evidence do we have that that account is going to be used for comericial activities at this point?©Geni 11:44, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Unblock requested and declined twice. MER-C 13:40, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I concur - I've indefblocked Desiphral because I find their assurances about regaining control of their voluntarily compromised account (if indeed it was compromised as Desiphral claims), and their attempts to justify and condone edits that are out of line with Wikipedia policy and best practice, unpersuasive. From the above discussion I believe they see no problem with their actions or would prevent them happening again. Block review welcome, as always. I can't help with Meta discussion (I've never used Meta), but I agree that their adminship of the Romani Wikipedia - hosted as it presumably is on foundation servers - should be examined further in an appropriate venue. EyeSerenetalk 07:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- At this stage, the account owner has admitted that their account was used by other people in the past, breaching the WP:NOSHARE policy, and has not given any assurance that they wont allow it again. If/when they give such assurance, perhaps it should be reconsidered but until then I don't think it should. AndrewRT(Talk)(WMUK) 16:45, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
section break
Just below that is another entry, from a "Nicholas_A":
Hi I have been an admin for almost five years and know wikipedia policies inside out. In addition I have written over 15 featured articles. You can contact me for more details.
Maybe it's nonsense, maybe it's not; but it is worrisome. --Calton | Talk 13:25, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- That's User:Nichalp. We already know about him - if he spams again he'll probably end up with a ban from arbcom. MER-C 13:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- How the mighty have fallen! (I'd throw in a quote from Paradise Lost, but it's been too many decades since I read it.) I remember when Nichalp was a valued contributor, having authored several FAs. (And I met him at the 2006 Wikimania in Boston: he struck me as a nice enough guy.) Now the conventional wisdom is that he is Just Another Spammer, & is unwanted here. I can't help but wonder what happened on his end. -- llywrch (talk) 23:13, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
While we're here, can someone blacklist spiritshop.com per [21]? (I reverted the example link at Central High School (Phoenix, Arizona).) Thanks. MER-C 03:01, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- I think there is a possible place for paid editing. But the dubious articles contributed by the people we've been seeing lead me to suspect that at least the elance service is not leading to useful contributions. There may be some people doing this right, in which case we will never notice them unless they advertise or respond to advertisements in a way we can trace. At that point we can decide what to do with paid editors who make good articles on actually notable subjects.. The current problem is the junk we've been seeing, equally bad whether paid or unpaid. I at least promise to be a little more suspicious of the sort of new articles that have shown the characteristics here. DGG (talk) 03:15, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Beyond the problems of not being able to trust content with such a blatant conflict of interest, there's also a big neutrality problem here. As it is, Wikipedia's coverage of some subjects is sketchy, but at least we can say that the gaps are fair: they're caused by insufficient volunteer interest. We don't want to get into a situation where the subjects that have Wikipedia articles are distinguished from the ones that don't by their willingness to pay. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:44, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
So are the paid articles going to be deleted? I notice in the ha! list that some are still present. - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here 06:23, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- If the proposed ban goes through, WP:CSD#G5 would apply. Otherwise I guess we still have to delete them the slow way. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:28, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- You don't seem to have read the deletion criterion you linked... --NE2 21:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Ok, I guess that one would apply only to newly created articles after a ban. So unless they are blatantly promotional to the point where G11 applies (probably not the case for articles created by experienced editors even if paid) they would have to be deleted via prod or AfD. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:08, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- You don't seem to have read the deletion criterion you linked... --NE2 21:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
It sounds pathetic, but it is still an issue that needs resolving. Despite four pokes [22] [23] [24] [25], this editor is refusing to use edit summaries. I have also bought the editor up on their position of maintenance templates on a page, guidelines clearly state that they should always go at the top (except for a handful), yet this editor seems to randomly position them on the page wherever he/she feels. It's not so much the minor infringements which are the issue here, but the editors blatent disregard to listening to comments made by other users, not replying to messages, blanking the messages shortly after.
They were recently blocked for similar disregard and refusing to listen to what people say by User:SarekOfVulcan [26] (relevant discussion on talk page [27]) Jenuk1985 | Talk 07:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- First, have you asked Sarek about it? If someone gets blocked for something, and continues doing it right afterwards, that's worth adding another block. Blanking messages are not an issue (annoying) but by policy, we just assume they've been read. Comments like this aren't productive at all. I'd like to see others who have an issue over their edits as I don't see too many issues with the orphan tagging that's currently being done. The talk page is a little light on issues, is there something I'm not seeing? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:32, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- No, I havent said anything to Sarek, as its not exactly the same situation, its just similar (showing disregard for what is being said), I pointed out the blanking to show that the messages are at least getting read, just blatantly ignored. The recent taggings should now be OK if you are viewing the live article, as I have been through most of todays and done a cleanup. It would be nice if said editor would justify why they feel they are exempt from using edit summaries, and why they feel the need to place maintenance tags in random positions on articles! It does nothing for consistency. Jenuk1985 | Talk 08:42, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- They do it because they don't care. It's easy to just do whatever you want, and there's plenty you can do without interacting with anyone. The difficulty here is the actual interacting with the other human beings part. Hell, a bot could goes around and list orphan articles all day (and I thought one did). That's not difficult. It's the "hi, let's talk" part that drives some editors nuts. There's plenty of editors for whom nothing sort of an indefinite block will make them respond or even acknowledge that other people here exist. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:59, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- As it stands, I don't think there is grounds for a block, unless the user continues on disregarding attempts to put him/her on the straight and narrow, then it becomes more of an issue. He/she went inactive shortly before I posted this, I presume they have gone to bed, so its only fair to wait and see if this brings any response from the editor. In the mean time, would it be considered canvassing if I alerted Sarek to this thread? As he has had past experience with this user, his input may be useful. Jenuk1985 | Talk 09:09, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- Oh, Jenuk, but the user continues to tag articles like a tagbot (actually, even worse than one. Less considerations, and no edit summaries!). Just look at her contribs! She isn't inactive, she just doesn't want to be disturbed with those complaints. So, Cathy isn't responsive at all, and continues this annoying behaviour, which leaves many newbies puzzled over what to do, and about if Cathy has any competence to harass them (I'm still quite a newb myself, I know the feeling). And about 20000 articles plastered with tags is a lot of nuissance! The whole business of orphan tacking is questionable in the first place, because its not a required policy. It should be better left to a bot, and everybody would be better of of Cathy would concentrate on the more productive parts of her work, like correcting caps issues in Article titles, and mocing them. Imho it would be good if at least some warning would be applied! Gray62 (talk) 10:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- As it stands, I don't think there is grounds for a block, unless the user continues on disregarding attempts to put him/her on the straight and narrow, then it becomes more of an issue. He/she went inactive shortly before I posted this, I presume they have gone to bed, so its only fair to wait and see if this brings any response from the editor. In the mean time, would it be considered canvassing if I alerted Sarek to this thread? As he has had past experience with this user, his input may be useful. Jenuk1985 | Talk 09:09, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- They do it because they don't care. It's easy to just do whatever you want, and there's plenty you can do without interacting with anyone. The difficulty here is the actual interacting with the other human beings part. Hell, a bot could goes around and list orphan articles all day (and I thought one did). That's not difficult. It's the "hi, let's talk" part that drives some editors nuts. There's plenty of editors for whom nothing sort of an indefinite block will make them respond or even acknowledge that other people here exist. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:59, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- No, I havent said anything to Sarek, as its not exactly the same situation, its just similar (showing disregard for what is being said), I pointed out the blanking to show that the messages are at least getting read, just blatantly ignored. The recent taggings should now be OK if you are viewing the live article, as I have been through most of todays and done a cleanup. It would be nice if said editor would justify why they feel they are exempt from using edit summaries, and why they feel the need to place maintenance tags in random positions on articles! It does nothing for consistency. Jenuk1985 | Talk 08:42, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- PostCard Cathy seems to use edit summaries for edits that need an explanation, and no edit summaries for edits that are self-explanatory. Although I believe that people should use edit summaries for all edits, I think that's a pretty reasonable way to use edit summaries, and it doesn't seem to be necessary to badger her about it (disclaimer: I only checked a random sample of edits from the last couple of days). Kusma (talk) 09:29, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- WP:FIES doesn't give an exemption for self explanatory edits, however that's being pedantic, and its only a minor side of why I started this thread! Jenuk1985 (talk) 09:37, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- I posted a comment about the maintenance tags since that's a simple issue that's not too bad. No edit summaries are annoying but it's not like we're talking about giant edits though. We'll see. I doubt things will change. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:48, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- Uh, no giant edits? Everysingle one for himself, certainly not. But we're talking about up a user with 21200 edits, the majority of those are tags, judging from the contribs. Many o those tags were placed in violation of Wiki guidelines (surnames aren't tagged!), leaving other editors to do lenghty reverts. That a huge nuissance. Gray62 (talk) 10:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- I posted a comment about the maintenance tags since that's a simple issue that's not too bad. No edit summaries are annoying but it's not like we're talking about giant edits though. We'll see. I doubt things will change. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:48, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- WP:FIES doesn't give an exemption for self explanatory edits, however that's being pedantic, and its only a minor side of why I started this thread! Jenuk1985 (talk) 09:37, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
The problem here actually seems to be that other people aren't understanding what Postcard Cathy is saying. I can sympathise to an extent if xe thought that xe was talking to a brick wall at User talk:Postcard Cathy#Orphan tags on {{surname}} pages, because there was a problem with quite a number of other people not comprehending a point that xe did make twice. Since I make no claims to being a member of Mensa on my user page, I'll try to explain what Postcard Cathy was saying to the editors who are making personal remarks about stupidity here:
Postcard Cathy is using the toolserver-generated list of orphan pages. In the list's description, there is a clear statement of the possibility that 'bots will go through this list and tag the pages. Postcard Cathy is working on the basis that this happens, and is stating that you should work on the basis that this happens. If you don't want to have certain pages not tagged by such automated processes, then you should fix how that list is generated. Complaining about automated or semi-automated processing of the list is a mis-directed complaint. Fix the way that the list of untagged orphan articles is actually generated in the first place. Then any automated or semi-automated processing of it will fall into line with your desires without need for any further effort on anyone's part.
For what it's worth, I did once suspect Postcard Cathy's edits of being 'bot-produced, and in the same class as my long-time wikistalker, SmackBot. Treat xem like a 'bot in this case. Doing so will obtain the result that you desire. Fix the input that is going in to the 'bot, the actual list of untagged orphan articles that is being worked from, and the output will as a consequence fix itself.
As such, a block for "refusing to listen to what people say" is not quite fair. Because the problem here in part is also other people not paying attention to what Postcard Cathy is saying.
And Ricky81682 and Jenuk1985, please use some sense of perspective. Placing a notice in a position that you personally don't like isn't "disruptive". People place article tags in all sorts of positions. I've seen {{prod}} at the very bottom of a long article before now. The encyclopaedia has yet to break from this kind of thing happening, in my experience. The advice to not sweat the small stuff is actually good advice. (Only sweat it when there are a lot of instances of the small stuff.) If you start calling for blocks of WikiGnomes because they aren't on your particular vision of what the "straight and narrow" is, you will end up losing the benefit of the WikiGnomes' activities.
Understand the fact that not everyone agrees on these things. (There's plenty of evidence that people disagree about such things. There are style issues that have gone to Arbitration, for goodness sake!) There are, further, good reasons for placing tags in different places in different circumstances, and legitimate reasons that one size — one vision of the "straight and narrow" — does not fit all. (I place certain tags in more appropriate places than all together the very tops or very bottoms of articles, and I've been recommending such placement to others, because experience has shown that it helps novice editors who are creating new articles, for about three years at this point.)
This is strongly recommended reading, too. Further understand that style warriors make life difficult for and annoy the WikiGnomes who are trying to keep up with what this week's fashion might happen to be. That isn't necessarily the WikiGnomes' faults. It doesn't improve such a situation to start calling for blocking the WikiGnomes. It only serves to turn the people calling for blocks themselves into additional annoyances.
Also understand that the goal is to deal with the issues represented by the tags, rather than to waste a lot of time mucking about with disagreements over exactly where the tags go in the article. Again, treat Postcard Cathy in this case like the 'bot that xe sometimes gives the appearance of being. Make the articles not orphans, or not listed as orphans, and then you won't have to care where Postcard Cathy might place {{orphan}} in an article. Uncle G (talk) 15:15, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- At least our bots use edit summaries. If I had any of those articles on my watchlist, I would have no clue what's going on. What is so difficult about "tagging as orphan"? If there's a style policy and other people have to redo it, it's becoming disruptive. Being a WikiGnome is fine, and being a very productive one is really fine, but not responding to questions doesn't help people. I'm not suggesting a block and I don't care where the messages are placed. However, it is generally done at the top of the page and if putting the tags where most people put them and actually using edit summaries is too much for someone, then I really don't care for their edits here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:06, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- If people don't like the guidelines that are in place, surely its more productive to get them changed, than to blatantly ignore them? Jeni (talk)(Jenuk1985) 23:43, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- I read FIES as a recommendation, not a requirement. Af least that's what the guideline says. "It is good practice to fill in the Edit Summary field, " It always helps to do it, but if we want to make it a requirement, that would need to be proposed as a change in policy. DGG (talk) 07:13, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- David, as I read through this, that's exactly what I kept thinking. Look, Jenni & Ricky, I'm a big believer in edit summaries, and have been nearly 100% with them over the past three years, but it is a recommendation, after all. There are real vandals out there who are devoting their energies to destroying good work here. Cathy may appear to be a bit on the misanthropic side, but she is trying to do what she considers to be valuable work for the encyclopedia. My advice is to spend your energy fighting the good fight, not the petty fight. (And, by the way, I know what it's like to believe that everyone else is missing the point, to believe that you are the only one that realizes that this issue is important. But withdraw from it today, and then look back at it in six months. I have found that I felt rather silly about some of the issues that I thought were "vital" to properly wikipedializing.) Good luck to you. Unschool 14:58, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- Gettind rid of orphans is "preferrable", but not a requirement, too! So, with which right does Cathy editwar other editors when they simply remove the tag for a "not required" Wiki polciy? Imho she should better help people to get their articles linked, instead of doing a bots job, and even worse than bots. Orphanbots don't tag surnames, for instance! And they loeave edit summaries! And anyhow, what'sa the point of bullying other people with tags thaqt are not required, making articles look horrible? What would you think about if Jenuk1985 would start tagging articles w2here tags are in the wrong place? It's not a required policy, but same rights for all! Don't you see that this uncontrolled tag business is about to go beyond being a mere nuissance, but becoming more and more of another turf of edt warring here, keeping good editors from doing more productive work? Gray62 (talk) 10:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- That you keep talking about "the wrong place" shows that you have still failed to grasp a basic point, stated and re-stated above. There is not a single right place. As Postcard Cathy has pointed out, what there is is a succession of people with ill-considered views of the right place, each trying to enforce their narrow and mutually contradictory views of the right place. As Unschool has pointed out, there are good reasons for putting tags in various places, according to circumstances. Uncle G (talk) 12:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- I obviusly raised the point of "wrong" placement of tags only as an example for Jenuk having equal right to tag articles that don't comply with that guideline. It's only a recomendation, just like Cathy's point that articles shouldn't be orphaned is only a recommendation, too. And My point is, where do we get if everybody tags articles that aren't completely in sync with rules and guidelines? Do you have any problems understanding my argument? You didn't really address it at all. Gray62 (talk) 15:13, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- That you keep talking about "the wrong place" shows that you have still failed to grasp a basic point, stated and re-stated above. There is not a single right place. As Postcard Cathy has pointed out, what there is is a succession of people with ill-considered views of the right place, each trying to enforce their narrow and mutually contradictory views of the right place. As Unschool has pointed out, there are good reasons for putting tags in various places, according to circumstances. Uncle G (talk) 12:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Gettind rid of orphans is "preferrable", but not a requirement, too! So, with which right does Cathy editwar other editors when they simply remove the tag for a "not required" Wiki polciy? Imho she should better help people to get their articles linked, instead of doing a bots job, and even worse than bots. Orphanbots don't tag surnames, for instance! And they loeave edit summaries! And anyhow, what'sa the point of bullying other people with tags thaqt are not required, making articles look horrible? What would you think about if Jenuk1985 would start tagging articles w2here tags are in the wrong place? It's not a required policy, but same rights for all! Don't you see that this uncontrolled tag business is about to go beyond being a mere nuissance, but becoming more and more of another turf of edt warring here, keeping good editors from doing more productive work? Gray62 (talk) 10:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- David, as I read through this, that's exactly what I kept thinking. Look, Jenni & Ricky, I'm a big believer in edit summaries, and have been nearly 100% with them over the past three years, but it is a recommendation, after all. There are real vandals out there who are devoting their energies to destroying good work here. Cathy may appear to be a bit on the misanthropic side, but she is trying to do what she considers to be valuable work for the encyclopedia. My advice is to spend your energy fighting the good fight, not the petty fight. (And, by the way, I know what it's like to believe that everyone else is missing the point, to believe that you are the only one that realizes that this issue is important. But withdraw from it today, and then look back at it in six months. I have found that I felt rather silly about some of the issues that I thought were "vital" to properly wikipedializing.) Good luck to you. Unschool 14:58, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- I read FIES as a recommendation, not a requirement. Af least that's what the guideline says. "It is good practice to fill in the Edit Summary field, " It always helps to do it, but if we want to make it a requirement, that would need to be proposed as a change in policy. DGG (talk) 07:13, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- Imho "no sweat" should apply to Postcard Cathy, too. Why does she jump into articles she doesn't know much about, and then changes features that are important for the regular editors, like the sorting keys? [She should assume that the regulars had a good reason for doing it this way. With her semseless interfering, she only distracts those productive editors! And why does she make this orphan tagging her business at all? Could be easier and faster done by a bot. She even admits it: "If I don't tag them, a bot will." So, why does she waste her sweat on that? She not even leaves spome helpful advice to the editors, who often are newbies at WP: "How to NOT get them listed as needing a tag is something I know nothing about."! And then she puts orphan tags even on a list of surnames, totally useless! No, sry, but from looking into her contribs, all I see is a user that annoys editors who try to do their best with all those tags, without really helping them one bit, and often disrupting their work, leaving them alone to deal with her mess. And who doesn't want to be disturbed, and doesn't even show the tiny bit of courtesy to add edit summaries (~95% edits without sum.). And who prefers to let conflicts escalate (with Giant27) instead of talking to him, and to leave the mess to the admins to decide on the noticeboard! Also, btw, it's rich she advises others to concentrate on serious issues - where is her serious work on an article? Afaics her actions annoyed lots of people, made their work more complicated, and so imho a call to order would be good. Gray62 (talk) 00:32, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
For what it's worth, it appears that the editor in question has chosen to either retire, or go on a wikibreak. ponyo (talk) 15:56, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
- No, she didn't. Check her contribs? She's still playing the human tagbot...Gray62 (talk) 00:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Resolution?
So, we still have an editor who adds orphan tags and doesn't use edit summaries. Most people here seem to be of the view that it's not that big a deal (note that I as an admin don't actually need any sort of consensus to block someone, but I'm going to hang back a bit) with a few noting that it's very difficult to work with. I'm reminded of this essay (particularly the social one). The notices about edit summaries in particular go back quite a few years in fact [28][29] with the more recent ones.[30][31][32]. So I ask, since the only reason method to make people change is block, do anyone have an alternative? I asked here about why it's so concerning, but if anyone has any alternatives, I'm open. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- As to the orphan tagging, I guess it's the same concern but since it was here just a few months ago with no resolution, I don't think that's changing either. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Well, an editor continuing to be not helpful, unresponsive and often outright disruptive, especially creating totally unnecessary additional work for good editors, not participating in correcting her own mistakes, sure is good reason for a renewed review. The fact that nothing really changed since last time is grounds for concerns. And then there is the edit warring complaint against Giant 27 still pending, which raises questions if orphan tagggers have the right to insist on their tag not being removed, since its only a "recommended" policy, unlike the mandate to source facts. Imho it would be a good idea to wait for the findings in that case, before deciding this one. Personally, after having spend some time looking into Cathy's "contributions", I think it may be helpful if a "tagging ban" could be imposed, for three days or so, giving the user a chance to break this somewhat fanatical habbit, and to concentrate on more useful work instead. But that's only my personal opinion as a normal editor, of course. Dunno if there are rules supporting such an administrative order in such a case, though. Gray62 (talk) 11:02, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
(comment from banned sockpuppet removed) → ROUX ₪ 11:29, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Too biased? Where is the evidence for that? Btw, Cathy seems to have been involved in tagging articles for deletion, too, so Rick may be actually be too biased for her! And WP:BITE? What does this have to do with this case? Cathy is around since 2006 or so. If anybody is "guilty" of driving newbs away, it's her, because she constantly intimidates newcomers, who just build their first stub, with her tags, but doesn't offer any help to them in coping with the alleged problem.Gray62 (talk) 09:49, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Please ignore the various trolls that seem to enjoy following me. Especially ones with names like that. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:06, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Resolution will come when you change, Ricky81682. As I wrote before, please use some sense of perspective. Go back to the above, and read and think. Think, in particular, about why you're threatening to block someone whilst at the very same time stating that the issue is minor. It is minor, and you should be practicing what you preach about it. Uncle G (talk) 12:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Uh, since I already wasted some time discussing one sockpuppet troll, is this another one, Ricky? Gray62 (talk) 15:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Flameviper ban review
Recently Flameviper (talk · contribs) contacted the unblock-en-l mailing list requesting a review of his community ban. Flameviper was community banned on 13 February 2007 and the block implemented by User:Yanksox who noted: "unrepentant sockmaster, wasted community patience and good faith efforts. We don't have time to wait for you to grow up." Following Flameviper's ban, he returned with various socks including Ziggy Sawdust (talk · contribs) and it is this account that he is requesting the community grant him permission to use if his unbanned. As Flameviper, his most noteworthy contribution to this project was the creation of the Adopt-a-user program, a program used to help many new users become familiar with Wikipedia, however, he also struggled with issues mostly related to maturity, including the socking and also difficulties dealing with disagreements with other users.
In June 2007, he successfully appealed but the ban was reinstated 11 hours later when the results of a checkuser indicated he had used a sock (User:Two-Sixteen) in the very unban discussion. For more details see Unblock of Flameviper with editing restrictions. And a further rather unorthodox appeal in June 2008 was not successful because he had created the account Ziggy Sawdust in February 2008 and used that to edit in violation of the ban for four months and then announced this fact at ANI asking to be unbanned. For further details see I am the banned user Flameviper
Also of relevance, on 21 April 2009 Flameviper (at User talk:Ziggy Sawdust) posted an unblock request which was declined by Sandstein, you can see his request and subsequent comment here.
Flameviper was very young at the time of the ban and he tells me that he has matured a lot over the last year and is now ready and willing to abide by Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. He also assures me there has been no recent socking. If the community decides to unban him, I would recommend some sort or mentorship, a restriction to one account (User:Ziggy Sawdust) with the ban reapplied if further socking or disruptive behaviour resumes. For the record, I would be willing to help and advise him and generally provide backup mentorship for him but unfortunately I lack the time to be his "full time" mentor, but hopefully another admin or experienced editor would be willing to do that in the event he is unbanned.
For folks not around back then and not familiar with Flameviper's history, you may find further discussions here: Flameviper needs a coach Flameviper and the relevant sock categories are Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Flameviper and Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Flameviper.
Flameviper has written a letter to the community which I am posting below. Also note that in the section below we're transcluding from the User:Ziggy Sawdust talk page so that Flameviper can respond to comments and answer any questions so please keep an eye on that section for his responses (hopefully I've set the transcluding up correctly, I'm rather a noob with this sort of thing so apologies if I've made a mess!). Thank you for your consideration, folks. Sarah 07:04, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Hi. I'm the user known alternately as Flameviper, Lumberjake, Two-Sixteen, Ziggy_Sawdust etc. I've been banned from en.wp since February 2007.
- There's a very long story behind this, and a lot of things have happened. In short, the original ban was because of "personal attacks" on the user Elaragirl; I have talked to her since then and we're cool [for lack of a better term].This, of course, followed a lot of short blocks/immaturity/etc on my part, and a lot of arguments between me and the admins.
- Now, being thirteen, and enthusiastic about editing the encyclopedia, I decided to do what I'd been recommended to do before and simply create a new account with no ties to the old one. Which worked fine, until my old account's name was revealed. This led to a block on the new account, despite my having done nothing ban-worthy on it. This continued with a few accounts until June 2008, when the crap really hit the fan and Ziggy_Sawdust was permanently banned. Apparently, no amount of positive contribution to en..wp was good enough to let me stay.
- Anyway, I'd like to request an unblock under Ziggy_Sawdust and a clean slate on en:wp. This whole thing is ridiculous, to say the least - pretty much every administrative decision regarding me has been made based on stuff I did when I was twelve.. Although I'm probably the only one who's ever done something immature at that age, hopefully we can put this behind us and I can resume editing.
- At the time of the block, I was working on a few articles and getting them to GA with rewriting and research. I was doing some AV/newpage work with Twinkle too, and cleaning out the categorization/cleanup backlogs. I don't want to be pretentious, but I started WP:ADOPT too. As for anything else, you can look at any of my contributions from any of my accounts.
- And yes, I know a lot of stuff happened. I did a lot of stuff I regret doing, and I'm not going to make excuses for it. However, I'd like to think I've grown up a bit in the last two and a half years (!), and that I can put the drama in the past - editing WP was a hobby of mine for a while and I'd like to help build an encyclopedia again.
- PS. If you disagree with something I've said here, please don't just pooh-pooh the post, I'd be more than glad to have correspondence with you about any questions/concerns you may have.
- PPS. Links for reference below...
- Special:Contributions/Flameviper
- Special:Contributions/Son_of_a_Peach
- Special:Contributions/Two-Sixteen
- Special:Contributions/Lumberjake
- Special:Contributions/Ziggy_Sawdust
- User:Flameviper, sent via email 30 June and posted here by Sarah 07:04, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose Unblock. I don't think that with the age flameviper now is, maturity will have increased that much. People who've seen me around will know that I normally stand on the other side of the line from people like Friday when it comes to ageism, but in this case I'm willing to make an exception. He's saying he did stupid, immature things when he was twelve, and he's all adult and mature now that he's... fourteen? I doubt it. He's moved from being a child to being a hormonal child - that doesn't traditionally bring instant maturity. My normal argument is "if someone is immature, we should be able to see it in their contributions" - in this case we have. Essentially he's had a one year gap between his socking and now, not two, and I didn't see a big jump between twelve and thirteen, so why should the gap between thirteen and fourteen be any different? Ironholds (talk) 13:42, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support Unblock While I understand where Ironholds is coming from, I think there is a very big difference between 12 and 14 - in very much why there is this thing called "teenager" that is a transitional stage between child and adult - in that behaviours do change drastically in this period. The other reason for unblocking is that it is very easy to block again if the communities trust is misplaced - AGF and all that. LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:07, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Extremely Hesitant Support With the understanding that he's gone for another two years the moment he reverts to his old ways. I still remember some of his antics, so I'm not terribly moved by the unblocking request. However, I do acknowledge that there is a bit of growing up that happens between 12 and 14, which is really the only reason why I'd be willing to give him [yet] another chance. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:29, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- (non-admin) Comment Looking through his statement, I was disappointed to see no word from him addressing his socking and how it was wrong to do so, especially from a user who continued to sock after User:Two-Sixteen was blocked. Also, looking through the archives that Sarah posted, I saw that at the last discussion, Durova mentioned that Ziggy/Flameviper had expressed an interest in editing the Simple Wikipedia to help facilitate his reform and return to this project. Did he ever do so? Auntie E (talk) 15:32, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- sulutil:Ziggy Sawdust shows at least some edits on SE, and sulutil:Flameviper shows a smattering of contribs elsewhere under the WMF umbrella (mostly just throwaway userspace edits, and most are very, very old). I would certainly be happier if his Simple English Wikipedia edits were a bit more recent than October of 2008. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:56, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Hrmm...If I was convinced via checkuser that he hasn't been socking in the past 6 months, I will consider supporting an unblock under a strict probation. (Unfortunately, I can't just AGF that he hasn't been; It's not easy for a hardcore sockpuppeteer to go legit.) Auntie E (talk) 19:48, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- sulutil:Ziggy Sawdust shows at least some edits on SE, and sulutil:Flameviper shows a smattering of contribs elsewhere under the WMF umbrella (mostly just throwaway userspace edits, and most are very, very old). I would certainly be happier if his Simple English Wikipedia edits were a bit more recent than October of 2008. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:56, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support unblock - it's been a long time since I've heard anything from Flameviper, and I think he should be given a new chance. Flameviper appears to have not caused any recent problems, and appears to be willing to reform. As long as he understands that he would be reblocked if he resumed old disruption, then I'm fine with an unblock. Acalamari 16:21, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Comment per Aunt Entropy, would consider endorsing a return per Wikipedia:Standard offer. That would mean either six months without socking, or three months without socking plus 500+ useful edits and good history on a sister WMF project.
Doesn't seem like we're quite there yet, but would be glad to support Flameviper's return a little way down the road if he goes along with that.Durova273 16:22, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- I don't know Durova, he says he hasn't socked for over a year and so far no one has produced any evidence showing otherwise and even the CU who exposed the 2007 socking-while-appealing has supported. Do you have any evidence to suggest it has actually been only less than 6 months? If so, I'd be very interested to see it. Otherwise I'd suggest you might reconsider? He has tried to do the right thing this time by contacting the unblock mailing list to appeal and I think you might be being a bit of a hard task master by requiring he do more time and edit another WMF project, if he has already sat out over a year, as he says. Thanks for your consideration though. As one involved in previous discussions and having lived through that history I appreciate your input. Sarah 05:03, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support unblock Noone has mentioned any particularly bad behaviour, only immature. As such, two years later, with promise not to do it again, seems plenty of time. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:28, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support unban - Flameviper/Ziggy seems really does seem to regret his past sockpuppetry and immaturity. To be honest, from reading the past discussions about him, I have always believed that Flameviper had the best at heart for Wikipedia – especially with him having founded the Adopt-a-User program. If the consensus is reached for Flameviper to be unbanned, then I would be delighted to lend him a hand if he ever needs one. → Dylan620 (Toolbox Alpha, Beta) 16:44, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Support unban He seems like he's really trying to be honest and responsible, and he seems to want nothing more than to legitimately and honestly edit the encyclopedia. At that age, a year or two makes a huge difference in maturity. Being in my twenties, I can remember a marked difference between in my maturity every single year in that range (between 12 and 16). hmwithτ 16:45, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support unban It's been long enough; this editor should be given a fresh start with the slate wiped clean. Looie496 (talk) 16:56, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose unban - I remember all the nonsense created by Flameviper's activities while he was still around. Tracking down socks is tedious work, and he made us do a lot of it. The only case for unblock I'm perceiving is: (a) he wants to be unblocked, (b) some time has passed.
Per Durova's comment above, I'd support the WP:Standard offer, which requires either six months without socking, or three months plus 500 edits of useful work on a sister project. Durova observes that he has not yet met this criterion.My continued reluctance is strengthened by
- His past abuse of efforts to get himself unbanned (using a sock to vote in support of his own unbanning)
- He has not come forward with a complete list of his socks
- Nobody has yet volunteered to be his mentor.
No evidence that he ever did the proposed work at the Simple English Wikipedia that was mentioned above by User:Aunt Entropy.His contributions are at this link.
- EdJohnston (talk) 17:21, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Postscript by EdJ - Thanks to all for the comments and updates. He *does* appear to meet the terms of Durova's WP:Standard offer. I did take a look at his contributions at Simple English Wikipedia, about forty edits in August and October 2008. It's not a terrible record, but there's not much evidence there of judgment or maturity. (Check some of the edit summaries). Since his past record here was so terrible, I've not felt moved to lift my Oppose vote, though I admit the grounds aren't as strong as before. Sarah originally proposed that he be unbanned subject to mentoring, but I observe that no mentor has yet been found. EdJohnston (talk) 17:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- Could you clarify what socking has occurred within the past six months? I haven't been able to see any less than a year old. Looie496 (talk) 17:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you for your review, Ed. Flameviper has left a response for you in the section below and I would just add that I'm unsure why Durova believes that he hasn't sat out six months. I'm personally not aware of any evidence that suggests he isn't telling the truth when he says he hasn't edited for over a year and I spent a few hours reviewing his case and compiling information for the above statement. I would very much welcome seeing any such evidence, though, if Durova or anyone else has any. Also note that Jpgordon, the checkuser who identified and revealed that Flameviper was using a sock during the June 2007 unban discussion has endorsed unblocking. Thank you for reviewing the appeal; I do appreciate you taking the time. Sarah 08:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support unban WP works on the spirit that everyone makes mistakes and that most of them can be forgiven. We have admins afaik who were once indef banned from the project, came back and proved that they have indeed learned from their mistakes. We should extend the same offer to Flameviper. We have banned him in 2007, more than 2 years ago now and I for one think that people can indeed mature in 2 years. Let's unban him, under conditions (see Durova above) and if he really starts acting up again, the block button is very easy to push. There is really nothing to lose here but we might gain a matured editor who knows their way around the project. Regards SoWhy 19:15, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Comment I'm indifferent to whether or nor the editor is unbanned, but if he is unbanned, shouldn't he use Flameviper (talk · contribs) as the new main account instead of Ziggy Sawdust (talk · contribs)? I ask this because it appears the Ziggy account was a sock.--Rockfang (talk) 19:18, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- Not necessarily. The community could unban him and restrict him to the Ziggy account if it wishes, or it could unban him and restrict him to the Flameviper account. The community can basically do anything it wants (within law and reason, of course). After all, policy is just a description of what has generally happened in the past, not what we have to do in the future. Plus WP:IAR and all that jazz. I'm aware of a couple of cases in the past where we have unbanned people and allowed them to use what had been a sockpuppet because they didn't want to edit under their original username for whatever reason. Sarah 09:13, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm of the same mind as Ironholds. I'm not sure why aging from 12 to 15 and 7 months (which, btw, I have no idea how he did in two years) indicates a marked improvement in maturity, especially when we know how spectacularly poorly he behaved before. That said, I'm mildly inclined to support unbanning per AGF, but with the basis that any repeat of the behavior for which he was banned results in an instant re-ban with no more chances. ÷seresin 00:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, it's a tad confusing, however, he was originally indefinitely blocked on 22 June 2006, then unblocked but had problems leading up to the reblock in February 2007 and I think when he says he was 12, he's referring to the period between those two blocks. In the letter I posted above he states he was 13 when banned in 2007, which would make him 14 in 2008 and 15 in 2009. I would certainly agree that any repeated bad behaviour should result in a no-second chances reblock. Sarah 05:21, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support unban. I first ran into Flameviper on his 13th birthday, when I was asked to oversight an edit from him saying that it was his 13th birthday. We routinely oversight the ages of minors, so that was easy. I then encountered him in January of 2007, when some very gross edits were made from his account; I issued an emergency block, figuring he'd left himself logged into a public terminal or something. For whatever reason, after that, he started making himself more and more obnoxious, leading to the community block, and a string of sockpuppets. I probably blocked some of those, seeing as how that's what I do to sockpuppets. When he managed to get himself unbanned, I double-checked to make sure he hadn't been socking again, and of course he had been, so door ass bang. A heck of a lot can happen between the ages of 12 and 16. Some people actually develop things like a sense of what is acceptable behavior. (Some never do.) Has Flameviper done so? I'm willing to think he might have, at least enough for us to give him rope and see if he chooses to hang himself with it or instead help us build an encyclopedia. I think he needs to proceed as User:Flameviper, with an intact and honest history; if his return is successful, he will be a fine example of how a troublesome kid can return as a useful member of our community. If not? Minor annoyance, reban, end of story. --jpgordon::==( o ) 04:06, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support unban The shackles can always be put back on. ChildofMidnight (talk) 07:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support unban - a good amount of time has passed and Flameviper seems to be genuinely repentant. Granted, there is no way to accurately judge someone's intent based upon text alone, but in the spirit of WP:AGF and the fact that he hasn't caused us any grief in some time make me willing to support a tentative unban at this point. That said, he should be kept on a short leash - no leeway should be given in situations that in any way mimic the previous problems that lead up to the ban, and any regression toward those behaviors should be met with a quick reinstatement thereof. Also, for what it is worth, I must echo jpgordon and Rockfang in that I would prefer to see him unblocked as his original account (Flameviper) for the sake of an honest and transparent history with the project. Shereth 17:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- Note: I'm not completely convinced he hasn't been continuing his sockpuppetry -- if I were asked in an SPI, I'd answer "possible" -- but it's much easier to detect if he's openly editing with his main account. I do know his list of socks and the sock category is not complete, since checkusers will often just block socks of ongoing annoyances without tagging their user pages. I'd be more impressed if he'd provided us some names we hadn't tagged. But he can't prove a negative, and neither can we. --jpgordon::==( o ) 15:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support unban as a provisional measure. Increased maturity is not only likely, but to be expected, in someone of this age group. Let's give them a chance. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 18:00, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- Support unban - In the two years that have passed since FV was banned, I have confidence that he has matured, and can contribute to the encyclopedia more than he did. A lot of growing up happens between 12 and 14, and I'm willing to let him have a second chance. His statement above sounds extremely genuine, and I have faith in him this time. (X! · talk) · @261 · 05:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Of course he's willing to edit under the Flamviper account (and he can confirm this himself); he's just saying that it's his preference to use a different account. He's been banned for two-and-a-half years so he's not going to be stupid enough to quibble over accounts and refuse to edit as Flameviper. Please try not to get too hung up on the issue of the account. There's no policy reason I'm aware of that would prevent the community or an administrator from allowing him to use his preferred account. Even people who have been sanctioned at arbitration for socking and restricted to one account have been allowed to choose their preferred account. One example that comes to mind is the account Privatemusings which was originally a sockpuppet, see this finding, limited to one account. The important issue at hand is whether the person behind the Flameviper account should be given a second chance and if you're indifferent to him being unbanned then the matter of which account he would use doesn't matter, right. Sarah 07:50, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- A "second chance"? Be realistic; this would be a fourth chance. He screwed up the second chance, though he lasted five months; and he screwed up the third chance (by totally unnecessary socking with the two-sixteen account, so yeah, he's could very well be stupid enough to quibble unnecessarily). --jpgordon::==( o ) 17:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Reply to Sarah - You say: "Of course he's willing to edit under the Flamviper account...". It wasn't obvious to me, which is why I asked it. I am indeed indifferent to whether or not he is allowed to edit here or not. It just would seem kinda odd if he used a sockpuppet account as a new "main" one. Just because something isn't written down in a policy doesn't mean it can't be done.--Rockfang (talk) 17:38, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Discussion seems to be dying down -- can I suggest that some admin who hasn't contributed make a decision about whether there is consensus here? Looie496 (talk) 16:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- IMH(non-admin)O, I see consensus for unblock, but not unconditional, I do believe he requires a mentor. Would one of the admins who voted to support this young man step up and take on the job? Once a mentor is found, we can hash out the details on the unblock, but I think we need that first. Auntie E (talk) 17:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
hi folks i'm ziggy sawdust i like to write about all sorts of cool stuff on the wikipedia internet website this is my talk page just take it easy and have a great time ok
Repost of Template:BlockUsername
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World Cannabis Laws
Hey Ziggi, thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. However, your "improvement" to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World-cannabis-laws.png was unfortunately not helpful. While you are surely right that a red/bad-green/good color scheme feels most natural to most of us, it unfortunately makes the map unreadable for people with protanopia colorblindness. See for yourself on the colorblindness simulation website http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ I thus reverted the image to the previous version. Please don't take it personal, i am sure you did not mean to create inaccesibilities for colorblind persons. Cheers!-- ExpImptalkcon 22:43, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
Doggy woggy listed at Redirects for discussion
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Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:48, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!
Hello, Ziggy Sawdust. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
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Incorrect Archiving Resulting in Page Deletions
Somebody (or somebodies, I haven't looked into who yet) has configured ClueBot III incorrectly for talk page archiving across a lot of Talk: pages. This has caused ClueBot III to archive a whole bunch of talk pages at "Talk:Page Name 1" instead of "Talk:Page Name/Archive 1". As they show up as orphan talk pages, Orphaned talkpage deletion bot is deleting them. This is really content that should be kept.
I've asked both bot's operators to update their bots to fix this problem. Archiving at a non-subpage (especially in the Talk: namespace) should be pretty rare. ClueBot can easily add a check (extra key, etc.) to avoid this configuration error. Orphaned talkpage deletion bot can easily check to see if the talk page was created by ClueBot and if there exists a page at "Talk:Page Name". If so, it should flag the page for fixing vs. deleting it.
Meanwhile, there are a bunch of deleted talk pages that need to be restored, moved to the correct place, and the ClueBot archiving parameters fixed on the source Talk: page. Looking at Orphaned talkpage deletion bot's deletion log, pages that need to be examined are the ones of the form "Talk:Page Name 1". It looks like about 100 pages are so. Anyone want to help? -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- It looks like all the deletion were from today. I have done the ones starting with A & B (plus a couple assorted before I figure out what caused it). I'm done for the moment. If anyone else could help work this off, that would be appreciated. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:40, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
- I've shut off the bot so I doesn't delete any more pages, and I'll try and clean up the rest of the pages in a moment --Chris 00:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- I traced back to this discussion because I was about to ask User:Ibaranoff24 why he placed these archive bots on dozens of Talk pages when, at a glance, none of them seem to be nearly active enough to require archival. I mean, I noticed it at Talk: Michael J. Nelson, which was 3.5k and got taken down to 1.5k by the bot. That's ridiculous. I changed the parameter on that page but I'm not going to manually go through a hundred other Talk pages to see if they all need fixing, too. Propaniac (talk) 15:46, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- Because I thought it would be helpful for posts to be archived after being inactive for so long. I am sure that I posted the correct configuration. I seriously have no idea what happened here. Looks like these bots went haywire. The content is not lost - it still exists within the history. If any talk page has an archive problem, the missing posts can be added to the correct archival pages by editing the old revisions. (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 22:49, 7 July 2009 (UTC))
- Your configuration was incorrect. You set the "archiveprefix" equal to the talk page name which caused the archive page to be created at "Talk: Page Name 1" instead of as a subpage. The archive bot did exactly what you told it to do. The archiveprefix needs to specify a subpage. It has already been fixed by Chris G. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'll see about fixing it later today or tomorrow. I actually check that the page name is a substring of the archiveprefix -- I guess I just forgot to check for the '/' as well. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 05:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Could you pls tell normal editors, unfamiliar with ClueBot, who came up with this idea of archiving talk pages, without the user's stated intent, at all? Was there a discussion about that, and consensus established? Imho user's talkpages shouldn't be subject to robot interference. And while sure some users like the help in getting their old stuff archived (me, too), I think it would be preferrable if tose users add their accountnames to a "to Do" list of the robot. Only my two cent, but, really, Cobi, where is the discussion about that bot? Gray62 (talk) 10:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'll see about fixing it later today or tomorrow. I actually check that the page name is a substring of the archiveprefix -- I guess I just forgot to check for the '/' as well. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 05:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Your configuration was incorrect. You set the "archiveprefix" equal to the talk page name which caused the archive page to be created at "Talk: Page Name 1" instead of as a subpage. The archive bot did exactly what you told it to do. The archiveprefix needs to specify a subpage. It has already been fixed by Chris G. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Because I thought it would be helpful for posts to be archived after being inactive for so long. I am sure that I posted the correct configuration. I seriously have no idea what happened here. Looks like these bots went haywire. The content is not lost - it still exists within the history. If any talk page has an archive problem, the missing posts can be added to the correct archival pages by editing the old revisions. (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 22:49, 7 July 2009 (UTC))
Wikipedia:Civility/Poll - 93 editors so far
To date 93 editors have edited Wikipedia:Civility/Poll. We really need to see quite a few more to get a broader idea of consensus. Even if the subject doesn't interest you please drop in and let us know what you think. Let's really get a broad consensus this time. If you feel the wrong questions are being asked, then propose one yourself at the bottom. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:45, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- I find the last sentence of this post a bit of sick joke considering the recent largescale removal of 20-30 editors contributions to that page, based on one person's idea of what civility is. Is it a community debate on the civility policy, or not? I would say not. MickMacNee (talk) 12:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- I have to say that 93 people is a fair chunk of the community, considering that many aspects are decided by much small groups. Sure, it's nice to get more feedback, especially on a fundamental aspect, but already we've attracted more attention then most RfCs ever get. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 13:16, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- @MickMacNee - I'm guessing you're talking about this, which is way too close to the line for most people after what happened. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 15:45, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- Except the people who took it as meant, and discussed it as meant, before it was magically dissappeared. MickMacNee (talk) 15:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- @MacNee: Why do you keep referring to it as dissappeared [sic] when it's right there? I find your answer to your own question odd since you don't seem to have ever blocked anyone — which would seem to be due to this. Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Imho most users (like me), who are not regular contributors or admins, will agree that a section which can only be found in old revisions of the page is not "right there"! Without knowing that smething has been deleted, onyl the most curious would check old revisions of a discussion that is still going on. Who deleted this, where is the explanation, and why isn't there at least a link to that deleted stuff? Looks like a blatant attempt at manipulating the discussion to me! Gray62 (talk) 10:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- @MacNee: Why do you keep referring to it as dissappeared [sic] when it's right there? I find your answer to your own question odd since you don't seem to have ever blocked anyone — which would seem to be due to this. Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Except the people who took it as meant, and discussed it as meant, before it was magically dissappeared. MickMacNee (talk) 15:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- @MickMacNee - I'm guessing you're talking about this, which is way too close to the line for most people after what happened. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 15:45, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- @Cas; will chip-in furthur. Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I refer to it as disappeared because that's what it is. It certainly has not been courtesy blanked or archived (not that we archive Rfc sections). Just make your mind up, and decide whether you considered it a valid discussion (as you did when posted, and seem to want to do know), or you want to claim after the event that you agree with its summary yanking on principle, irrespective of how many people had taken it as meant, when Risker turned up days later and tarred all participants as de-facto violators (that ironically includes you Jack). MickMacNee (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- And it's accessible by any number of links or other means at this point. It rather has been courtesy blanked, not quite as I expect you mean, of course; a courtesy to Bishonen and to Daedalus. Just because I participate in a discussion does not mean that I consider it valid; I comment in ludicrous discussions rather often; this one, for example. No tar (or feathers) on my hide, Mick (seems we're back to first-usernames). Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:09, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Where are those links? I added my two eurocent to that poll recently, and was totally unaware that a whole section had been deleted! Then, could you pls explain about that "courtesy to Bishonen and to Daedalus" stuff - what do you mean, I have no idea? And it's certainly not up to you to decide if a discussion is "valid" or not. And I doubt that a member of the arbitration committee was given the rights to interfere in this way, without regard to the proper procedures. Gray62 (talk) 10:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- And it's accessible by any number of links or other means at this point. It rather has been courtesy blanked, not quite as I expect you mean, of course; a courtesy to Bishonen and to Daedalus. Just because I participate in a discussion does not mean that I consider it valid; I comment in ludicrous discussions rather often; this one, for example. No tar (or feathers) on my hide, Mick (seems we're back to first-usernames). Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:09, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I refer to it as disappeared because that's what it is. It certainly has not been courtesy blanked or archived (not that we archive Rfc sections). Just make your mind up, and decide whether you considered it a valid discussion (as you did when posted, and seem to want to do know), or you want to claim after the event that you agree with its summary yanking on principle, irrespective of how many people had taken it as meant, when Risker turned up days later and tarred all participants as de-facto violators (that ironically includes you Jack). MickMacNee (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Well I don't think it will matter, because policies on Wikipedia basically never matter. It matters how many people you have on your faction. The only policies that are close to being applied reasonably are FA/GA/FL criteria, vandalism and spam, the latter two because established editors have no reason to partake in them. As for civility, people use two different standards for their mates and their enemies. Just look up everyone's speeches YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- eg, I have seen in the past, some rv wars on major WP policies, those that affect every article, NPOV related stuff. But only 4-5 people bothered to discuss or rv war, even though it affects 100% of articles. OTOH, teh FA criteria affects maybe 1% of articles (0.1% are FAs and others are aspriing to FA) but maybe 50-100 people joined the discussion. Why? because the FA criteria is used at FAC/FAR and articles are scrutinised. As for OR policy, it doesn't matter what the policy says, heaps of people flagrantly ignore it anyway, and the only point of changing the policy is to move the boundary line and "convict" an opponent of breaking rules. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I must say, YellowMonkey, your cold-blooded cynicism is delightfully refreshing, coming from a plush yellow mammal. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 02:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm dead serious. NPOV policies are mostly irrelveant. I know of an entire ethnic group on Wikipedia (admins among them) who insist on using "freedom fighter" all over the place. Look everywhere and you will see a person using one interpretation of some policy for one thing and another when their opponent wants to cite a blog or whatever. If you want arbcom attention, you turn something into a big circus. Else, you won't get attention, most likely the arbitrators find the topic of dispute to be deadly boring. From when I was on arbcom there were about 5-6 arbcom cases related to a certain geographical area. The first five were about POV allegations and there were a handful of posts on the mailing list, in some cases one or none. In one case that was actually about embarrassing rioting and juicy conspiracies, there were about 50-100 .... YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- And thus the YellowMonkey turned away from such scum, and wrote little articles on cricketers and vietnamese. :) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 02:32, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Well, I have only made some noise to some arbitrators a few times this year. Every time, nothing happened, except until it made it to WR or Jimbo's talk page and turned into a big scandal. The first was about User:Nichalp and the second about User:Utgard Loki. I thought it was a big deal that admins weren't allowed to used socks but I guess I complained to the wrong ones: either friends or political allies of the admin or they just don't care because it doesn't do anything [positive] to their popularity rating. In theory it's good to do things quietly without drama but a lot of people tend to avoid disputes for political success YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 04:47, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- And thus the YellowMonkey turned away from such scum, and wrote little articles on cricketers and vietnamese. :) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 02:32, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm dead serious. NPOV policies are mostly irrelveant. I know of an entire ethnic group on Wikipedia (admins among them) who insist on using "freedom fighter" all over the place. Look everywhere and you will see a person using one interpretation of some policy for one thing and another when their opponent wants to cite a blog or whatever. If you want arbcom attention, you turn something into a big circus. Else, you won't get attention, most likely the arbitrators find the topic of dispute to be deadly boring. From when I was on arbcom there were about 5-6 arbcom cases related to a certain geographical area. The first five were about POV allegations and there were a handful of posts on the mailing list, in some cases one or none. In one case that was actually about embarrassing rioting and juicy conspiracies, there were about 50-100 .... YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I must say, YellowMonkey, your cold-blooded cynicism is delightfully refreshing, coming from a plush yellow mammal. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 02:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
I will try to be as concise as possible here. Firstly, what I am about to bring up is a systemic, on-going, pervasive issue about the POV and disruptive editing issues present within articles related to Falun Gong. It has become very serious over the past few years, and I don't know if this is the right place to go. The amount of POV-pushing on Falun Gong and its related family of articles (Li Hongzhi, Persecution of Falun Gong etc.) has grown to a point where it needs dire attention from not only an administrator, but much higher Wikipedia authorities. Questions you may ask at this point are:
1. What has been done about this issue in the past?
- Numerous editors have reported instances of pervasive pro-FLG editing habits by several users to this noticeboard, to the Arbitration Committee, and various other Wiki-policy enforcing authorities. An arbitration on this issue has been conducted before, but its rules have not been enforced. In fact, if you search the administrator's archives, the issue of constant pro-Falun Gong editing has been mentioned no less than on ten separate occasions. None of the resolutions have yet become effective in keeping the contents of these articles NPOV.
2. What exactly are the issues here?
- Disruptive editing, severe degrees of Wikilawyering, whereby sources critical of Falun Gong are constantly removed, regardless of where they are from.
- POV-pushing. A read through the article and you will see that some of the POV-laden phrases are hidden quite subtly, are within the boundaries of the letter of applicable policies, but are outright against the spirit of these policies.
- Article ownership. Critical responses to Falun Gong on the talk page have been constantly defended by four specific editors.
- Abuse of other users. A look through the archives of the talk page (of which there are now 24), it is apparent that many editors have been branded as "agents of the Communist Party of China" and discredited as such. Much of the responses to any postings critical of Falun Gong involves very personal attacks, or personal swaps at credibility.
- Various other abuses that are visible as soon as you take a look through the article's edit history and the history of its talk pages.
3. How can we verify that this is true, and not just an attempt at reverse POV-pushing in itself?
- Go visit the article's edit history beginning around 2005, and especially since 2008. Visit the article's some 24 archives of disputes, unseen anywhere else on Wikipedia.
- For one, the users that have taken ownership of the Falun Gong article have gotten very adept at bypassing Wikipedia policies. They will likely come to this very noticeboard after I post this notice and attempt to defend themselves vehemently. In the event this happens I urge you to listen to every word of their defence and assess their credibility yourselves.
4. What is being proposed at fixing the issue?
- As other options have been attempted in the past and have been exhausted, an investigation led by neutral, third-party administrators or higher Wikipedia authorities, must be conducted thoroughly into the sheer abuse of Falun Gong and its related articles by Falun Gong and its related editors.
- The issue is extremely serious. It would not be unfair to say that the continued existence of the articles in their current state severely compromises Wikipedia's credibility in these controversial topics. To my knowledge, nothing of this scale has ever occurred on Wikipedia. It has persisited for several years now and will continue if nothing is done. Something enforceable must be done.
Colipon+(T) 20:03, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- To be honest? I think that, without even looking at the dispute, I think there may be an issue here. Wikipedians tend to be, among other things, a little too pro-Amnesty International. An admirable real-life stance, but on Wikipedia taking AI's word as gospel can severely affect neutrality; they have a bias themselves. Sceptre (talk) 20:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
- To be honest, in many cases the only thing approaching objective reporting on the cases AI reports is AI itself. (Responses like this one, while of interest to some users of Wikipedia & worth a link, don't merit more than a passing reference.) Where there is a more-or-less independent news media, Wikipedians can -- & obviously should -- present other points of view on the case. -- llywrch (talk) 18:17, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I would draw your attention to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Falun Gong. You may wish to review the findings, and see whether they encompass your complaints above and whether the principles expounded are being adhered to (it doesn't matter if the parties names are different). If you believe the principles or findings are being violated you may take up the matter with Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement, and if you believe that the findings and principles require clarification then you may find Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification useful. If none of these seem to resolve your concerns you might consider opening a new Request for Arbitration. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:14, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Hi. I'm one of the accused. It would probably do no good to give a point-by-point response. I welcome an investigation into both my conduct and editing behaviour, and into whether the Falun Gong article adheres to wikipedia's content guidelines and is an accurate reflection of reliable sources on the topic. Let's hash it out. (note: the page in question has mostly been in its current form for about two years) What's next? --Asdfg12345 04:48, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I will comment briefly: the Falun Gong articles mostly contain references to high-quality academic sources, many of them peer-reviewed. As a rule of thumb, such sources do not resort to sensationalism, and seek to understand Falun Gong based on fieldwork, facts and solid arguments. This is apparently very disturbing to those who have different notions. In most cases, such editors have been unable to back up their views with credible and verifiable sources (for instance, we've had endless discussions about the personal website of Rick Ross, who clearly fails WP:RS). Referring to Wikipedia policies and guidelines frequently gets called "wikilawyering" and "rule-page bashing" (without concrete elaborations on the accusation), because the proponents of fringe views a) are usually not familiar with the Wiki policies and what they entail, b) find it frustrating that the "other party" is able to back up their claims by references to existing policy, c) are on the losing side of almost any debate, because their sources do not qualify, and what prominent academics say is not consistent with their anti-Falun Gong ideology. Just like Asdfg12345, I welcome any outside investigators. Enjoy yourselves — this is an interesting show. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 09:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
apart from the admin fireStar, who may have retired, basically all those who edit those articles are SPAs: either devotees of this organisation, or strongly pro-CCP/nationalist people. The articles are basically always going to be a joke, more or less. ArbCom can't change this, apart from deleting the article, unless they decide to read up on FLG (or anyone else) and fix it themselves. This actually would apply to a lot of new religious movements. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 13:01, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- There is nothing wrong with most of the sources currently used in the Falun Gong articles. As for myself, I am not a "devotee" of any "organisation", and I find such labels insulting. I practice Falun Gong, just like some people practice tai chi or martial arts; I have never joined any organisation, as there is no organisation to join. I am also majoring in religious studies, and I am well-read in the scholarly works on the topic. I know the Wikipedia standards of conduct, and I know what it means that Wikipedia is a tertiary source. As long as all sides adhere to the rules and justify their stances through references to policies and guidelines, the articles will naturally be good and comprehensive.
- Objectivity and neutrality are methods in themselves: a fair and balanced article does not mean equating low-ranking sources with high-ranking sources. Wikipedia has explicit criteria by which to judge the quality of a source. Even in their present form — which undeniably leaves some room for improvement — the articles are far from being a "joke". They contain references to most top researchers in the field and quite accurately describe their position. Abstract accusations and generalisations cannot help us get forward; we need people with a rigorous, methodical attitude, tangible suggestions, reliable sources, convincing arguments, knowledge of the policies and guidelines, and good faith. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 13:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
YellowMonkey, I would welcome you to point out how, exactly, the Falun Gong fails to comply with wikipedia's content policies. You have read it, haven't you?--Asdfg12345 18:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Request for admin help in creating an archive page for my talk page
Hello. I would like to create the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jamielang77/Archive3. Wikipedia is not allowing this; but says I need to get admin permission. Could I get some help, please? Thank you for any assistance/direction. Jamie L.talk 03:24, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Works for me see User talk:Jamielang77/Archive3. MER-C 04:47, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Question
I'd like to pose this question to my fellow admins: If a user is blocked for an inappropriate username, then requests unblocking to change their name and the request is granted, is it ok for the editor to request their username change, then continue editing before the username change is put into effect? Toddst1 (talk) 03:55, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Probably a tough call. If the user filed a properly formatted username change request in good faith, then they probably have no reason to avoid editing. Have you judged the quality of their edits? Are they generally disruptive, or are they editing in good faith? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- It's actually more complicated. The editor Fhue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was blocked for 31 hours for edit warring, then the block was changed to indef for username violation. After unblocking to file a username change, the editor filed the name change request but editor returned to the previous conflict, (on a talk page this time). I reblocked because the unblock was specifically to change username and I'm questioning my own action.
- To answer the question more directly, the confrontational user has a confrontational username. Toddst1 (talk) 04:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- In interests of full disclosure, I undid Toddst1's reblock (rather brashly). IMO, it is not unreasonable to ask an editor with a particularly offensive username to refrain from editing until they are renamed... but if that isn't done, we should stick to what we say. This case was further complicated by the fact that the new username the user picked was taken, and the request is now at WP:USURP. It's been approved but won't be carried out until July 14th. Mangojuicetalk 04:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I marked this one resolved, as the name change request has been processed so this is no longer an issue. If other issues with this user exist, they can now be dealt with seperately, as this is no longer a valid problem. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm sure that microbiologists around the world will sigh in dismay to learn that Wikipedia administrators think that FhuE, the E. coli receptor protein for ferric coprogen, is a "particularly offensive" word that mustn't be used on talk pages. Either that or they'll laugh. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 05:42, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
New user makes request
I'm new to "Wiki" but I've just registered an account . I want to request whoever responsible to "EDIT" The Republic Of Ghana's political history, the later part between 1996-2008 . I will give you a clue; Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings won elections 1992(4yr term) and 1996(4yr term).In year 2000 elections John Agyekum Kuffuo won the electon two terms 2000-2008 . Current it is Arthur Mills in power after winning the recent election. —Preceding unsigned comment added by OWUSU-BOATENG (talk • contribs) 09:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- It does look like Kuffuo or John A Kufour as the Electoral Commission of Ghana states [33] won in 2000 & 2004. And that fact is covered well in theHistory of Ghana article and the President of Ghana article. The main article can't possibly contain all of the details, which is why there are sub-articles. You perhaps should discuss this on the article talk page. Jezhotwells (talk) 17:00, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Request review of MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist request
I left a request at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist#astore.amazon.com/onthemargins-20/detail/0029347807 for white-listing (rather than WP-blocking) the site, that is, URL
http://astore.amazon.com/onthemargins-20/detail/0029347807
That site contains an extensive sole-source excerpt of ch. 1 from the book Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications by Oliver E. Williamson. Action on the request was in the "not done" category with the note 2 Edits later that:
- I'm still not convinced; if another admin viewing here thinks differently they can go ahead and add it. Stifle (talk) 18:38, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Upon the generous counsel of Stifle yesterday at User talk:Thomasmeeks#MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist#astore.amazon.com/onthemargins-20/detail/0029347807, I am seeking a review of my request. I have found only 2 subsequent admin actions of any kind at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist since June 21 other than by Stifle, suggesting that the request might have been overlooked rather than rejected.
I did add a note on June 21 after Stifle's ccmment at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist#astore.amazon.com/onthemargins-20/detail/0029347807, bottom. It makes the case for the request succinctly and I hope more clearly trhan before. Thank you for your consideration. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 14:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Unrelated to the above but related in general, why don't we funnel all our Amazon links through an affiliate link (which would be the only whitelisted one, so no one could do any games) that funneled to the WMF directly for the profits to be 'donations'? rootology (C)(T) 21:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Canvassing on Lyme disease
See this forum. Coincidentally User:Simesa just opened a RfC on the talkpage to address "NPOV issues" and stated that they were basing their complaints on "comments from others in another forum" (diff). Could somebody talk to Simesa about canvassing? Tim Vickers (talk) 18:56, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- This has been an issue before (see most of Talk:Lyme disease/Archive 3) - not with Simesa in particular, but with extensive off-wiki canvassing, activism, sockpuppetry, and meatpuppetry designed to use Wikipedia to further a specific agenda at Lyme disease. Outside eyes headed this off in the past and would be useful again. I suppose that editors or admins thinking of getting involved should be aware that emotions on the subject run high. MastCell Talk 19:09, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- (ec) Are you suggesting that one of the forum posters is Simesa? Although off-site recruiting and POV pushing of fringe material is an old problem on the Lyme Disease article (exacerbated by the fact that the Lyme activists/conspiracy theorists seem to think we're all in the pay of the US political-military complex), as long as Simesa is editing within Wikipedia rules and isn't a sock of one of the many blocked editors that have haunted that page, I don't know that there's much we can do. If they become disruptive by trying to circumvent WP:UNDUE, edit-war over content, or game consensus, that's another matter. EyeSerenetalk 19:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- PS: forgot to mention that I've watchlisted the article and will be happy to help out with the tools if required - give me a kick if I'm not paying enough attention ;) EyeSerenetalk 19:35, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Writing this up, I've decided there's enough evidence to strongly suggest sockpuppetry, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Simesa. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, probably a case of Simesa making a well-intentioned attempt to deal with issues raised by people that they know from this forum. However, as the original poster did state that they'd been banned, I've reminded Simesa about the dangers of appearing to edit on behalf of a banned user. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I agree that's the most likely interpretation. However, your reminder about the possible consequences of proxying - even if done in good faith - is timely. In the light of your second diff above and the history of fringe-group activism on that article, I'd also urge Simesa to be scrupulously careful about their edits on Lyme disease and punctilious in selecting reliable sources to support them. Proposing them on the talk-page to gauge consensus, before applying WP:BOLD might be a very good idea ;) EyeSerenetalk 20:08, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- There seems to be a misunderstanding - I meant a forum outside of Wikipedia. I'm on the Mensa forums, two Lyme-Aid groups (who did not ask me to edit here), Facebook, and several other "forums". No Wikipedia editor or reader asked me to edit Lyme disease. I've heard of sock-puppets but never known one personally. I've only known one Wikipedia editor who had to be temporarily suspended (let alone banned), and that was partly through my actions.
- I asked for an RfC because, frankly, it seemed obvious that unbiased eyes were needed. Since, as I recall, the article is semi-protected I thought we were guaranteed of getting experienced ones.
- Although, based on both research and personal experience (my wife now has chronic Lyme disease despite many weeks of doxycycline), I am concerned that the Lyme disease article seems so heavily slanted in favor of laboratory studies as opposed to actual patient experiences I am still not unduly worried - the real action on this topic is now at the federal level. I fully expect that the article will have to be 60% re-written in maybe 18 months. Simesa (talk) 20:56, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- ADDENDA - Just looked at the link. I didn't know that Healingwell.com existed. Simesa (talk) 20:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm still a bit confused, when you said "comments from others in another forum", which forum were you referring to and who made these comments? Tim Vickers (talk) 21:01, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I have to modify a statement above - My wife has done far more informal reading and research about Lyme disease than I have, and I had her double-check her notes and e-mails. We found that a number of months ago she joined Healingwell.com, but has not posted to them nor received posts from them (after the initial "hellos"). As for her reading the website she says she hasn't since joining, but I have no way to verify that. (This may seem like an odd post, but I have a policy of correcting all errors.) Simesa (talk) 23:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm running a check so as to accurately answer Tim's question with correct times. Simesa (talk) 23:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- The check has taken over a half hour so far and hasn't completed. I'm continuing it, but won't be able to monopolize our line endlessly. Simesa (talk) 00:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- The check is taking too long to wait for completion, I'll just report the times as shown. Specifically, the forum I saw a note on was Yahoo's Lyme-Aid group. My first edit on Lyme disease was at 07:05 on 27 June. I made a change there at 14:19 on 5 July and then worked on a large number of changes that I posted cumulatively at 21:44 on 5 July (dial-up is a slow way to research and I have to share the line)(times are as reported in my Wikipedia histories, which are 1 hour earlier than current Eastern Time). The (on the Yahoo group) post "Wikipedia entry on Lyme" was made at 19:15 on 5 July by a "Sara R..." (I can't tell what that time means, if it is when entered or when actually shown or Eastern or Pacific) - in any event, I didn't see it on 5 July as I was researching (my attention was called to it the next day). Simesa (talk) 01:29, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- OK, that checks out fine. Unfortunate coincidence that two people on different forums were trying to recruit advocates simultaneously, one a banned user. You might tell Sara that it wasn't the case that "Wormser" wrote the article, it is just that we have to follow WP:NPOV and report what the reliable sources state on a topic. You might also point her in the direction of WP:TRUTH, but she might not see the humour in that essay. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:17, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you, Tim. By the way, my check finally completed long after I'd gone to bed (my wife stays up later, partly due to Lyme pain) -
the Yahoo group time is when shown on the board(current Eastern Time). (I had to change this note after double-checking - my wife's note is wrong.) Simesa (talk) 09:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC) - In the interests of completion (I'm somewhat anal-retentive on getting details right), I need to modify the above statement. Each Yahoo post apparently comes with TWO times. Inside the post is the time when submitted (which for Sara R...'s post was 19:15 on 5 July). On the list of posts page is the time that the post is actually shown - which for Sara R...'s post was 04:05 on 6 July (which is similar to the delay my own check experienced). I apologize for the confusion. Simesa (talk) 10:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you, Tim. By the way, my check finally completed long after I'd gone to bed (my wife stays up later, partly due to Lyme pain) -
Portal image
Might be a good idea to protect File:Wikimedia-button1.png. It is used at the bottom of http://www.wikipedia.org - Gurch (talk) 19:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- And File:Bookshelf-40x201 6.png. Seriously, is nobody keeping track of these things? Gurch (talk) 19:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Yikes. Thanks for the heads up. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Looking into this further, the images on the portal are scattered across enwiki, commons, and meta; looks like several of them are protected only by virtue of being transcluded on commons:Main Page, which is cascade protected. Didn't find any other currently unprotected images, though. – Luna Santin (talk) 22:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
- Did everyone just forget about WP:BEANS? Nobody did it because it hasn't been used that way before. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:21, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Unilateral banning of everyone one side of an editing dispute
One noticeboard is enough, thank you. This can now be found at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Admins vs contributors, where the context is more apparent and the discussion was already occurring. Uncle G (talk) 23:47, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Editcounter
The editcounter is displaying "Gateway Timeout - Processing of this request was delegated to a server that is not functioning properly." preventing access. Browser = Safari. Don't know if this is a browser problem or something; but the edit counter has been apparently down from the start of July 7. Shannon1talk contribs 01:43, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Might I suggest posting this at the Technical Village Pump? We're pretty knowledgeable over there, and this problem has hardly anything to do with administrators. Most importantly, however, what edit counter are you referring to? See here for a list of them. Thanks, The Earwig (Talk | Contribs) 01:54, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Should be working now. Mr.Z-man 02:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
AfD in need of admin action
Can an admin either close or relist Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samuel Mehr (2nd nomination)? It appears the nomination was never properly finished and thus didn't appear on the deletion log for June 29. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Since it was relisted, it is now properly shown in the deletion log for July 6. Looks OK to me. EdJohnston (talk) 04:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
I can't not be for administration!
There is no specific way I cannot be an administrator. I've gotta be there.
PRIVATE TO OTHER USERS---------- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kcreeves (talk • contribs) 03:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Just in case you haven't heard it yet - welcome to Wikipedia :) I'm glad you're so excited at the idea of helping out - give yourself a few months to learn your way around and then take a look at the Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship. Shell babelfish 04:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- See WP:RFA and WP:ADMIN. While there are no minimum requirements to be an admin, you have no chance at the current date for being one. However, get some experience in both article editing, vandal fighting, and policy discussions and come back in a few months, and apply. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Proposal: RFA reform
I have created a proposal for reforming many aspects of RFA, including some new processes, in order to address what I have seen as the major ways in which the process is severely bent if not actually broken.
The proposal is here, talkpage here.
I have kept this in userspace for now as I feel it would only make sense to put it in projectspace if any parts are generally approved by the community and edited to reflect such possible approval. I would have no objection to the pages being moved out of my userspace if someone else thinks I am mistaken in that. I invite discussion from all sides. Crossposted at WP:VPP, WT:RFA, WP:AN. Please repost if I have missed anywhere. → ROUX ₪ 06:24, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Possible problem link
Can someone check the link that User:Goatsemarathon posted on their userpage, as I suspect it's NSFW (which is where I am)? The name popped up at UAA and I doubt the user is here to contribute anything useful. TNXMan 13:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Definitely NSFW and non-encyclopedic. It's exactly what you think it is.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 13:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Hell in a Bucket
Hell in a Bucket (talk · contribs) seems to be on a WP:POINT run right now. First, he tagged Meridian Mall, an article with plenty of secondary sources, for A7 (diff) when it clearly didn't meet it. Then, he did the same thing to Lansing Mall, which is also far from lacking in sources (diff). He has since listed both articles at AFD with a rationale of "it's just not notable", citing a 2 1/2 year old AFD on Lansing Mall from an unsourced, stub version of the article. The fact that he has targeted two articles which I wrote in such rapid succession has me thinking that something is up. (He also AFD'd Frandor Mall, which is justified as that article is a wreck and was mis-named.) Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 17:16, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- the user seems to be working exclusively on nominating articles for deletion via one process or another, without paying any heed to whether the speedies meet the speedy criterions, or whether articles can be merged, or are likely to have sources. Quite a few different admins and other good editors have complained to him by now, about 2/3 of them have been good, though often using the wrong process--and, if anyone was wondering, I going by what other admins have said & the snow keeps on his afds, not primarily the ones I declined. This is an unacceptably high error rate. At the very least, the user should be asked not to use Twinkle DGG (talk) 19:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- (ec x2) I've speedily kept both AFDs, and I'm gonna leave a note on his talk page. Agreed, with that high an error rate he should have his Twinkle yanked. Blueboy96 19:48, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- That sounds like it would hurt. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:12, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Sounds NSFW, too. Only problem with yanking his Twinkle is that even if you edit protect his monobook, it's in the gadgets. IIRC, short of blocking the editor you can't yank their Twinkle. (Off to scrub the "twinkle yanking" image out of my brain.) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 20:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Wow, people seem to be a bit trigger happy here. Isn't that what you've accused me of? Hmmmmmm makes you think doesn't it? I believe this entire thread is complete nonsense, it was opened because I didn't respond within ten minutes because I was at the local Walmart preparing for a camping trip. AFDS are for a community discussion and clearly these malls are not notable. Just because they eist does not give them notability. The American mall or greeat mall that has an amusement park now thats notable. This is just a chance to toot a local horn. I sympathize that this may seem harsh but this is just my good faith opinion, on improving the encyclopedia. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 21:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Well, since you asked... While I agree that it might have been nice to give you more time to respond to the most recent query, after TPH raised the mall question on your talk page, instead of answering him, you sent another mall article to AfD. So I can also understand why he might think you were ignoring him altogether. As to why others (myself included) are concerned, well, the problem of CSD tags isn't exactly new to you. User_talk:Hell_in_a_Bucket#speedy_reasons had quite a bit of information for you about what can be speedied (although ThaddeusB got notability and importance mixed up). User_talk:Hell_in_a_Bucket#Splurve_Ball had another mention of inappropriate CSD tagging. The concern is that after these two events (and possibly more under your old username -- I don't feel like looking), most editors would get a clue and read WP:CSD carefully. My good faith opinion is to take a few minutes to read WP:CSD, WP:BEFORE and WP:DEL. Mull it over a bit, then go have a blast on your camping trip and come back to Wikipedia with a clear head.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:35, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Wow, people seem to be a bit trigger happy here. Isn't that what you've accused me of? Hmmmmmm makes you think doesn't it? I believe this entire thread is complete nonsense, it was opened because I didn't respond within ten minutes because I was at the local Walmart preparing for a camping trip. AFDS are for a community discussion and clearly these malls are not notable. Just because they eist does not give them notability. The American mall or greeat mall that has an amusement park now thats notable. This is just a chance to toot a local horn. I sympathize that this may seem harsh but this is just my good faith opinion, on improving the encyclopedia. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 21:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Sounds NSFW, too. Only problem with yanking his Twinkle is that even if you edit protect his monobook, it's in the gadgets. IIRC, short of blocking the editor you can't yank their Twinkle. (Off to scrub the "twinkle yanking" image out of my brain.) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 20:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- That sounds like it would hurt. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:12, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- (ec x2) I've speedily kept both AFDs, and I'm gonna leave a note on his talk page. Agreed, with that high an error rate he should have his Twinkle yanked. Blueboy96 19:48, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- the user seems to be working exclusively on nominating articles for deletion via one process or another, without paying any heed to whether the speedies meet the speedy criterions, or whether articles can be merged, or are likely to have sources. Quite a few different admins and other good editors have complained to him by now, about 2/3 of them have been good, though often using the wrong process--and, if anyone was wondering, I going by what other admins have said & the snow keeps on his afds, not primarily the ones I declined. This is an unacceptably high error rate. At the very least, the user should be asked not to use Twinkle DGG (talk) 19:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Comment, I'm going to have a blast camping. I am often wrong in the eyes of the community and I have no problem admitting it. I only hope that everyone understands even though in your eyes I'm wrong I am only trying to maintain a high standard of inclusion to the encyclopedia. If mine happens to be more discriminating it is only a difference of opinion and I have reviewed csd's a few times so I'll have one more go at it, you can always catch things you didn't catch before.Hell In A Bucket (talk) 23:23, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- I have been trying to advise Hell in a Bucket for some time now, and we have butted heads several times. That said, I do think he is acting in good faith and he does seem to be improving. I have tried to explain to him several times that being not notable isn't a speedy deletion criteria and that being "important" isn't the same thing as being notable. He still doesn't seem to comprehend our policies fully (assuming good faith), but I do feel he has at least tried to improve. Still, it might be in his own best interest to concentrate on areas outside of deletion until he gets a better handle on our policies - and that is what I'd advise. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:04, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Comment To add to what User:TenPoundHammer has said,I have observed many of the AfDs Hell in a Bucket has brought up, and most fall in the two extremes, either easy deletes or easy keeps. Not much of the borderline cases which leads me to believe that he doesn't understand the notability guidelines or the process of bringing something to AfD. Also some of the CSD taggings are plain absurd, as in the case of Ellie Cole, where there was also a misplaced 3RR warning and his arguments at the AfD. Also, another series of AfDs started with Global Adjustments - three AfDs within six minutes, one of them within five minutes of the article being created and another within a minute of the article being created, clearly indicating that there was no effort to check on anything before nominating for deletion. While there's enough speediable material created out there to give a good success rate, some of them are disruptive. Until such time when he understands the processes, it's possibly best to either set a limit on his CSD tags per day and an AfD limit per week, if not an outright break from these activities for a while. -SpacemanSpiff (talk) 00:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Comment I've seen problems with this user a few times before. At this point, he's been around a while, but still shows little hope of clue acquisition. And this was a bit over the top. --LP talk 04:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to bring to your attention the constant stream of misleading/nonsense redirects, edit warring and other unacceptable behaviour by Mr Taz. The following examples are really just the tip of the iceberg.
Yesterday the redirect England Government, one of a number tagged by me which had been created by Mr Taz, was speedily deleted by Tnxman307. Twenty four hours later, it reappeared, the work of the same editor. This is not the first time he has done this with his highly original and misleading redirects (see his Talk page), about 80 of which I had speedily deleted a couple of months back. He also engages in edit wars to reinstate the indefensible, such as "national days" invented by him (see Talk:British Day and also the edit history of Foundation Day) etc etc. Despite having been banned for a week for his edits at the latter he was back again today trying to reinstate his imaginary "Foundation Days", as this edit shows. His latest creations included Flag of Great Britain and Ireland as a redirect to Flag of the United Kingdom. I've got so tired of it that I now tend to let the purely nonsense or illiterate redirects such as Regional Development Agency for the Yorkshire and the Humber (redirected to Yorkshire Forward) pass by as I just don't have the time to keep up with it all. Other recent POV (not sure exactly what it is!) redirects include Great British Central Bank and Great Britain Central Bank (redirected to Bank of England). I should add that these redirects, together with minor edits, are all that Mr Taz "contributes" here. He just will not listen to reason. Something needs to be done about this; all he is doing is creating work for others who have to deal with his edits. Could you please look into this, bearing in mind that much of the worst has been deleted so isn't on his contributions log? Administrators involved thus far include DGG, Bencherlite and Tnxman307. Enaidmawr (talk) 17:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Regarding the imaginary "Days", you might also consider these requested articles, just posted. Enaidmawr (talk) 17:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- I have to agree with the pattern of edits pointed out by Enaidmawr. Many of these redirects are not helpful. See, for example, Governor and Company of the Bank of England (which redirects to Bank of England) or James VI of Scotland and James I of England (which redirects to James I of England) and are very unlikely search terms. TNXMan 17:30, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm off to check WP:ANI's archives, but I think there was an issue with Mr Taz raised there (maybe even here) in the past month or so - a mission to invent "foundation days" for the United Kingdom and also the Kingdom of Great Britain. The consensus at the time, if I recall correctly, was that it was bizarre behaviour. Cheers, TFOWRThis flag once was red 17:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Aye, and apparently I got involved, which is obviously why it rang a bell ;-) Full gory details here: Mr Taz was blocked for a week. Cheers, TFOWRThis flag once was red 17:39, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm off to check WP:ANI's archives, but I think there was an issue with Mr Taz raised there (maybe even here) in the past month or so - a mission to invent "foundation days" for the United Kingdom and also the Kingdom of Great Britain. The consensus at the time, if I recall correctly, was that it was bizarre behaviour. Cheers, TFOWRThis flag once was red 17:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with Enaidmawr about this long standing disruption of Wikipedia by this editor. For further background into the Foundation Day edit war in particular, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive542#Persistent disruption by Mr_Taz, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive544#Continued disruption by Mr Taz and Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 May 8 (top two entries). Since the beginning of March Mr Taz has embarked on his disruptive crusade to add a day or days he has made up to the Foundation Day disambiguation page, and despite two previous blocks for edits to that page or closely related to it, today he returned to his usual disruptive ways and added his nonsense again. I believe it is time he was told that any further attempts to add those days to that page will result in a block. Thank you. O Fenian (talk) 17:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- It isn't only redirects, it's all sort of needless or plain wrong little changes,e.g. [34]. some of the work he does here is useful e.g. [35], or [36] I even think some of the redirects are defensible--as East New Jersey. But the general pattern shows lack of judgment, and the insistence on them is unconstructive. (I finally protected the "English Government" redirect to prevent re-creation--but there are 100s of them. ). I don't think he's working in bad faith, but I don't know how to get him to understand. DGG (talk) 17:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Blocked
After continuing to review this user's contributions and seeing previous blocks for the same issue, I have blocked Mr Taz indefinitely. I am, of course, open to changing/reducing this block if the user can agree to contribute constructively. TNXMan 19:09, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Good block, imho. That he kept arguing that Foundation Day isn't imaginary after being blocked is pretty much all we need to know about his intentions. As for the other pages.. I've gone back as far as mid-May-ish to nuke the more useless/pointless edits and request speedy on the more useless/pointless redirs. I haven't got the strength for more.. → ROUX ₪ 20:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
(comment from sock removed)
- Most of them have now been deleted. They were nonsense, along with the user's stubborn insistence on including a nonexistent holiday, as well as e.g. renaming Prince Charles' investiture to Investiture Day, amongst a host of other largely nonsense and/or useless edits. Also, I don't believe it is within the purview of WP:SOCK for alternate accounts to participate in internal discussions. → ROUX ₪ 22:12, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Can an indefinitely blocked user remove the indef block template from their user page?
Here's the diff: [37] - I can't find anyplace that says they can't do this, but it seems sensible that their user page should show their indef blocked status. Dougweller (talk) 21:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- (Non-admin response) - That is generally from my experience a big no-no. I would revert it and if they keep it up, request protection on the talk page. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 21:23, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Well, if it is an indef blocked user ... then the anon is either not the user in question, in which case they shouldn't be editing the content of an indef blocked user's page ... or it is the indef blocked user, in which case they are logged out to get around the block and shouldn't be editing regardless. In either case, I think reverting is appropriate. And, if it continues, temporary semi-protection of the page. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Per WP:BLANKING, "Important exceptions [to allowing users to remove talk page content] may include declined unblock requests and confirmed sockpuppetry notices". I would say that indef-block notices fall under this as well and should not be removed. TNXMan 21:30, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Sorry, I'm tired. Obviously a blocked user can't edit ther user page. The IP is clearly the blocked user, he just put an indef block notice on the Admin who blocked him. I'll give the IP a week's block right now and deal with the user page. Dougweller (talk) 21:32, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Per WP:BLANKING, "Important exceptions [to allowing users to remove talk page content] may include declined unblock requests and confirmed sockpuppetry notices". I would say that indef-block notices fall under this as well and should not be removed. TNXMan 21:30, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Well, if it is an indef blocked user ... then the anon is either not the user in question, in which case they shouldn't be editing the content of an indef blocked user's page ... or it is the indef blocked user, in which case they are logged out to get around the block and shouldn't be editing regardless. In either case, I think reverting is appropriate. And, if it continues, temporary semi-protection of the page. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Governance review
A review of governance on the English Wikipedia has been started here. The input of everyone with any interest in the project is welcomed and encouraged. --Tango (talk) 21:56, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Not getting the results wished for at Wikipedia:Arbitration Role of Jimmy Wales in the English Wikipedia so trying it again? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 07:55, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- The results are very interesting - the fact there are now several pages all of which are heavily subscribed and dedicated to variation of this theme, show that a concerningly high number of people are interested in the subject or are you just criticising Tango for posting it here? Giano (talk) 07:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm criticizing Tango for posting it anywhere, since the sentiment of the community has already been determined. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 17:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- The results are very interesting - the fact there are now several pages all of which are heavily subscribed and dedicated to variation of this theme, show that a concerningly high number of people are interested in the subject or are you just criticising Tango for posting it here? Giano (talk) 07:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Block request
Extended content
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User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz continues to edit articles with which he has a COI. Please warn and put a stop to this. -- Rickywatcher (talk) 21:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
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Topic ban proposal for Interestedinfairness (talk · contribs)
Comment: This was posted on the Incidents page and I have moved it here after I was told that the Incidents page wasn't the right place for this request.
I am proposing a topic ban for Interestedinfairness (talk · contribs) on Kosovo-related articles. Kosovo is an article and area of interest under probation by the Arbitration Committee. Not only has this user blatantly engaged in edit warring on the Kosovo page, for which he was blocked twice (block log), but he has ignored every single argument that does not support his own POV. Many users have accused him of POV pushing and he has shown complete unwillingness to respect other people's opinions.
The most recent incident, however, is just too much. After a marathon discussion in the Talk:Kosovo page, Interestedinfairness realized that there was no consensus to call Kosovo a country in the lead sentence, but changed it anyways (link), just because he "knows" this to be a fact and nothing else matters. While the dispute here is that Albanians (and those who support them) see Kosovo as a country or state and Serbs (and those who support them) see Kosovo as a province, a long standing consensus was reached to call Kosovo a disputed region or territory, since this is as true as the Alps are a mountain range and it offends no one. However, Interestedinfairness (who speaks Albanian and has the Albanian coat of arms on his userpage) was so bent on pushing his own POV that other users got sick of it as well, and this is evident on the talk page.
This user is currently blocked for the 3rd time for edit warring on the Illyrians article - same story: It's either his way, or the highway. What's worse, some 12 hours after this user was blocked, another user, Mr.Neutral (talk · contribs) (whose username, in a way, has the same message as "interested in fairness") was created and continued "defending Interestedinfairness' views" on the Kosovo talk page. He even went on to give Interestedinfairness a little barn star :P This is probably a case of sockpuppetry, as one administrator said on that talk page, so it would be a good idea to check.
If this was a one time thing, I wouldn't be reporting this. Some users just don't understand how Wikipedia works at first, but then adjust to the five pillars and contribute in a constructive way. This user had his chance and he did not change at all. He did promise to change, but he didn't, which just doesn't make his promises credible anymore. This report was suggested by User:BalkanFever ([38]) for Interestedinfairness' problematic behaviour (edit warring, incivility, refusal to get the point) and is supported by Athenean ([39]), dab ([40]) and probably many more... So, I think a Kosovo-related topic ban is necessary because he (or his puppets) simply will not stop pushing his POV. --Cinéma C 18:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- I've launched a sockpuppet investigation against User:Mr.Neutral here [41], as I am fairly certain it is a sock of User:Interestedinfairness. Experienced user, long-term disruption on both Kosovo and Illyrians, treat with severity. --Athenean (talk) 19:13, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Supported by me too! Because of this pointless marathon discussion about one known criminal of Albanian origin, and his constant reverts to "his" NPOV, and because of numerous disruptive editing on Kosovo: Can You Imagine? ([42]), Serbia ([43]), Yugoslav wars ([44]), and much more... Tadija (talk) 19:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Yeah, I hate to say "this isn't the right place" again, but have you tried other methods of dispute resolution such as WP:RFC and WP:WQA and WP:MEDCOM and WP:MEDCAB and things like that before jumping straight to "let's topic ban this guy". I agree that the problem needs fixing, and soon, but have other methods been tried? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:29, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
This user has been active for a long time. He has been explained everything several times. He was blocked when he couldn't control himself, and he's blocked for the third time. Several users agree on a topic ban. He was given several chances, but his latest incident showed that he has learned nothing. Believe me, all other options have been exhausted. Take a look at his contributions and every talk page he has written on - it's all there. A complete unwillingness to cooperate. Any further threats will simply get him to make new promises which he'll break, just like he did the previous ones. He is here for one reason and for one reason only - to push his POV to the end. --Cinéma C 03:10, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Um, I believe that pretty much any uninvolved admin can impose discretionary sanctions related to Kosovo. In fact, User:Manjojuice topicbanned him in June if I'm right. Has anyone asked him? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:38, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Ok, he'll also been blocked indefinitely. Suggest closing and moving on? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- You are blocking the wrong person. Administrator dab is the one behind the scene responsible for most of the povish pro serbian Kosovo articles. --Tibetian (talk) 16:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Please start another section if you have something against dab. There is community consensus against Interestedinfairness 'contributing', and he is already blocked indefinitely for sockpuppetry. Case closed. --Cinéma C 17:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- You are blocking the wrong person. Administrator dab is the one behind the scene responsible for most of the povish pro serbian Kosovo articles. --Tibetian (talk) 16:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Anna Anderson
Third-party opinions are required at Talk:Anna Anderson#cleanup. In the words of User:Gwen Gale, there is an "edit war" between two administrators. DrKiernan (talk) 12:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- I didn't say that. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:43, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Today's featured article
Just a note that today's FA is getting a higher level of complaints than usual due to its title. Be prepared with liberal doses of WP:NOTCENSORED and WP:DISC. Stifle (talk) 13:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- We've only got eleven hours to cope with now... :) weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 13:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Eight OTRS tickets and counting... Stifle (talk) 13:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- One side of me thinks the article is wonderful, keenly sourced and written, educational (I learned) and it cracks me up, too, may even be fit marketing for the project. Another side asks, shall we soon have fuck and erm, (warning, not work or family safe in any way) this one (warning, not work or family safe in any way) as FAs? I'm bringing this up only to stir some quiet thought, I've no worries about this FA: Is there a bright line? Is there a foggy one? Where does clever, funny wordplay end and middle school pranking begin? Gwen Gale (talk) 13:40, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- This isn't "clever, funny wordplay" in the first place, so that question is a loaded one that assumes a faulty premise. If there's one thing to learn from this article it is that such names aren't and weren't wordplay. They were straightforwardly descriptive. The article does say this in its introduction. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 16:15, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- One side of me thinks the article is wonderful, keenly sourced and written, educational (I learned) and it cracks me up, too, may even be fit marketing for the project. Another side asks, shall we soon have fuck and erm, (warning, not work or family safe in any way) this one (warning, not work or family safe in any way) as FAs? I'm bringing this up only to stir some quiet thought, I've no worries about this FA: Is there a bright line? Is there a foggy one? Where does clever, funny wordplay end and middle school pranking begin? Gwen Gale (talk) 13:40, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- I thought we complied with all sensible requests made through OTRS? Are people being sent an automated reply or something? Fuck you bitch, Wikipedia is NOT censored! Get that through your thick head you goddam N00B. Or something like that maybe? MickMacNee (talk) 13:44, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- The co-founder of Wikia and Chair of Wikimedia's advisory board seems to disagree. :) weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 13:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- The OTRS emails are getting a reply like this one. Stifle (talk) 14:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Think of the fictional children! Sceptre (talk) 14:12, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- And when we ran an article about a Nazi as TFA last December, it got no complaints that I'm aware of. But run an article the title of which includes a mild expletive, and boom.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Words have meaning, folks can and do get stirred up over them, funny how that is. Altogether, I think this was a clever marketing stunt. That's ok, I think it's funny, I like the article, but I'd hope FAs like this are far and few between. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:50, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- See jump the shark for more on where this kind of thing can lead, quick. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Not that I have any problem with today'[s featured article, but if "cunt" is mild, what is severe? Many consider "cunt" to be among the foulest words in the English language. Mike R (talk) 16:01, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- It's almost certainly not because of the title. This isn't the Scunthorpe problem in action. It's because of the content, which directly addresses one of the seven dirty words and its relation to some street names.
Ironically, whatever the OTRS complaints might address, the issues on the article's and major contributor's talk pages so far have been about the reliability of one of the sources cited, the correctness of the linguistics, and the notability of a single street name. Outside of OTRS, most people are bringing up issues that are valid editorial concerns, in calm and reasoned manner. Uncle G (talk) 16:15, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- And when we ran an article about a Nazi as TFA last December, it got no complaints that I'm aware of. But run an article the title of which includes a mild expletive, and boom.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Interesting to see the immature attitude that's being taken to this controversy. It seems like everyone is acting like victims from an onslaught of the politically-correct brigade and must pull through for the good of the encyclopaedia. A 'mild expletive'? You really think the Britannica would feature articles on the subject of expletives of any kind on its homepage? I shake my head in disbelief. --78.146.235.139 (talk) 15:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- This is not Brittanica. MuZemike 15:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Good point. If it's worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia it's encyclopedic, and if it's encyclopedic it's FA-worthy. Not that I nurture any misapprehensions that Autofellatio will ever make it to the main page. Exploding Boy (talk) 15:57, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- I do not dispute that this article may be well-written (I admit I haven't read it in its entirety) - any article may be worthy of FA status. What I object to is painting it on a sign and shoving it in the face of anyone who cares to visit the homepage. I'm being completely sincere when I say think of the children. --78.146.235.139 (talk) 16:05, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Good point. If it's worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia it's encyclopedic, and if it's encyclopedic it's FA-worthy. Not that I nurture any misapprehensions that Autofellatio will ever make it to the main page. Exploding Boy (talk) 15:57, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- This is not Brittanica. MuZemike 15:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Why has someone added bullet points to all the comments here? It was totally unnecessary to refactor everyone's posts that way. Exploding Boy (talk) 16:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Oh, believe me. Most "children" I run into on the Internet cause nothing but grief and trouble for others; see YouTube, 4chan, etc (BTW, I run into "children" like these all the time on YouTube). IMO, they shouldn't be allowed to be on the Internet at least until they are able to type in coherent English and are able to refrain from communicating in Internet slang, including ur gay, lmao, rofl, foad, emoticons, huge amounts of cuss words, kthxbai, omg, zomg, lack of capitalization and/or punctuation, etc (I can keep going). MuZemike 16:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
As the pejorative of the article states in it’s introduction, “….."it is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock."
It goes on… “The word "cunt" is generally regarded in English-speaking countries as unsuitable in normal public discourse and has been described as "the most heavily tabooed word of all English words.”
So it’s shocking, offensive and unsuitable in normal public use and has managed to disenfranchise thousands of academic and business users due to the Scunthorpe problem and people can defend it being stuck up on the homepage!
As a user of the word I’m not disturbed by it, but as a user of the encyclopaedia I’m disappointed in the thoughtlessness behind this being made an FA, no matter how well written. leaky_caldron (talk) 16:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- As above. I've left a note for Raul on this one; normally I don't have an issue, and just wince at some of the FA choices, but with this one I'm waiting patiently to see when the detractors start jumping up and down on us. And thanking goodness I don't have filters on my work system. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- As a one off, it's ok, because it's ok to try things in good faith, even marketing stunts, but if something like this happens again any time soon, it'll be aught but this (I'd slap the image up on this thread but it's fair use). Gwen Gale (talk) 16:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Well, I learned more from this FA than I ever have from articles about old video games or a recurring character from a 7 episode arc of a TV series. And I certainly thinks it is healthier to have this discussion than to be preoccupied with date de-linking or the proper spelling of "yogurt". Thatcher 16:44, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Yes! I like the article a lot and learned from it. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- I agree, I thought it was an interesting article (though shorter than I'd expect for an FA), and kudos to the editors who brought it there. It's the decision-making process that put it on the main page that I'm concerned about. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- The way my english friend uses the word "cunt," one would think it was a comma and not an offensive pejoritive. Livewireo (talk) 18:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- You should try Scotland ;-) I grew up partly in England, and moved to Scotland when I was 18 - I was shocked at how often it's possible to get "cunt" into one sentence. "Nae cunt" is a common idiom, equivalent to "no one" in regular English - think more "nae cunt's at the bar", rather than "nae cunt talks to me like that". On the whole I found England much more refined - I've heard folk respond to "cunt" with "don't f****** use language like that in front of me, you b******"...and that's more than enough bad language for me today. Time for a nice cup of tea. (I'll leave you all to ponder why I self-censored some words but not others...) Cheers, TFOWRThis flag once was red 18:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- The way my english friend uses the word "cunt," one would think it was a comma and not an offensive pejoritive. Livewireo (talk) 18:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Well, I learned more from this FA than I ever have from articles about old video games or a recurring character from a 7 episode arc of a TV series. And I certainly thinks it is healthier to have this discussion than to be preoccupied with date de-linking or the proper spelling of "yogurt". Thatcher 16:44, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- As a one off, it's ok, because it's ok to try things in good faith, even marketing stunts, but if something like this happens again any time soon, it'll be aught but this (I'd slap the image up on this thread but it's fair use). Gwen Gale (talk) 16:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Wrote a hoax article that was speedied; now he's going around adding nonsense to articles like Knoxville, Tennessee and Palafox Battalion. This the right place to report that? (Apologies; I'm new at this sort of thing, still.)
(And yes - I did hit 3RV in reverting his edits; I figured it might be a mitigating circumstance in my favor that they were obviously hoaxes.) --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 16:40, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- 3RR isn't relevant to blatant vandalism which is what that was and the user is now blocked. Next time, WP:AIV would be the best place to go. Regards, Woody (talk) 17:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Danke much...and thanks for the advice. --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 17:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Dukedom of San Donato
On the talkpage of Dukedom of San Donato (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), an IP/anon editor is alleging a bunch of problems with the article and its authors. Unfortunately, I know nothing of the article's subject, and I don't read Italian and don't have access to tools like OTRS to check what is being alleged. Can someone take a look at their allegation and raise a sockpuppet incident if appropriate and/or do something with the article. Thanks. Astronaut (talk) 19:04, 9 July 2009 (UTC)