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Current issues
Request for more admin eyes on an issue (RE:RfCU result)
Moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Mantanmoreland.
- Time stamp. hbdragon88 (talk) 06:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Broken process management on particular article
Moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Corey Delaney discussion
- Time stamp. hbdragon88 (talk) 06:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Indefinitely blocking vanished users
On the "Right to vanish" talk page on Meta there's been discussion about indefinitely blocking and removing all user rights from users who exercise their right to vanish. It seems like a perfectly logical step to take. The right to vanish is a serious thing that should entail serious consequences. The discussion is located here.
I'm thinking that we should adopt a standard practice when someone exercises their right to vanish on en.wiki that includes an indefinite block (including e-mail) and having any user rights removed by a steward. Thoughts? (Feel free to comment below or on Meta.) --MZMcBride (talk) 00:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Strongly oppose. How is this a problem? Admins have left and come back. There's no need to kick them out the door on the way out. Corvus cornixtalk 00:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- This is, I presume, only for users who specifically indicate their intention to permanently vanish, and request deletion of their user page, and won't be applied willy-nilly to users who simply haven't been heard from in a while but haven't expressed any intentions regarding the future of their account? *Dan T.* (talk) 00:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Only upon request (regardless of what our blocking policy says) could be considered part of the right to leave. But not when someone just leaves. The same way some choose to leave with wikidrama, others may choose to return in silence. If someone really, really wants to leave forever, he would delete the email preference and choose a long random password which, by all means, is the same. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 00:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, sorry if there's been confusion. This is not for a {{retired}} template applied in a fit of anger or anything like that (inactivity, etc.). This is for the users who have their user talk pages and user pages deleted and have made a conscious decision to split permanently from the project. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Go own yourselves more. catbus Steve Nash micronation --71.139.26.235 (talk) 07:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with this. Vanishing an account is no trivial thing; it should be done only when someone truly wants to vanish forever. If someone's gone (or at least left their account behind) forever, then there should be no issue with a block. And if they don't really intend on being gone forever, then they shouldn't be invoking the right to vanish. -Amarkov moo! 00:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Amarkov, you made my point for me. нмŵוτнτ 01:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree, and it sounds great on paper, but I think it happens way too often that vanished users come back. I'm unsure of the need for this, unless it is simply to emphasize that vanishing is a serious thing. I guess this would be ok, given that the user could still log in and request unblock on the talk page, but I personally, I'd have to think about this.. -- Ned Scott 01:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Vanished users should not be coming back under the same account. Period. The process of invoking the right to vanish involves destroying many records of bad behavior; how can we go back and undo all the edits replacing the username with "Former user X"? Vanishing and coming back with the same name looks far too much like a free user history wipe, and that is not good. -Amarkov moo! 01:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- (e/c)I would agree with this as well. I think part of the reason is so that if they come back, they don't just start editing again, they'd be fully un-vanished first, to avoid people using RTV as a way to hide something by only vanishing temporarily. Mr.Z-man 01:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Where's the difference between a vanished user returning under his old username (with the bad behaviour records deleted) and a vanished user returning under a new username (with the bad behaviour records deleted)? The latter makes it even harder to spot any previous wrongdoing, actually. We would only make one of the two impossible if we'd block the vanished user, unless we treat such users as banned and block their new accounts as well. And I doubt anyone is trying to propose that. --Conti|✉ 02:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree, and it sounds great on paper, but I think it happens way too often that vanished users come back. I'm unsure of the need for this, unless it is simply to emphasize that vanishing is a serious thing. I guess this would be ok, given that the user could still log in and request unblock on the talk page, but I personally, I'd have to think about this.. -- Ned Scott 01:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Amarkov, you made my point for me. нмŵוτнτ 01:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I would definitely support this. As Amarkov says, RTV should only be implemented when a user really is leaving....for good, so I see no reason not to block the account, and remove any user rights. - Rjd0060 (talk) 01:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any need for or value to taking this step, at least in the absence of very unusual circumstances such as a user vanishing in lieu of an impending indefinite ban for serious case. Otherwise, I see this as a solution in search of a problem, and a deterrent to once-valued contributors, having become temporarily disenchanted with Wikipedia but then changing their minds, returning to us. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Giving people the option for a permanent RTV block could be a good thing, if they want to really cut the cord. If that happens, I can see also deleted their talk page and protecting vs. recreation. Gone with the option of coming back, vs. gone and gone for Good with a big G. Lawrence § t/e 01:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- The problem with this is that there is no necessary correllation between how strongly a user believes that he or she wants to cut all ties to Wikipedia at the moment he or she is upset enough to vanish, and whether he or she might want to come back a few days or weeks or months later. People want to come and go for all sorts of reasons, both real-life-based and wiki-related, and if we eliminated from the ranks of Wikipedians everyone who at one point or another announced that he or she was leaving forever, we would be without the services of many, many decided contributors and administrators. Unless the "vanished" user had been a serious problem before departing, I don't see why we would want to add even slightly to the disincentives that face a departed user who is thinking about returning. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Though they can always request a unblock. Tiptoety talk 01:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- People should not request RTV if there is any possibility that they will be returning. -Rjd0060 (talk) 01:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Many unhappy users simply don't always think that way. People change their minds. We shouldn't discourage people from coming back unless there's a real reason to. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Reading through the RTV page on meta, suggests it to be a permanent solution, as it should be. There are other options aside from vanishing. Users need to weigh them, and if they do decide RTV is the best way to go, that should be the end of it. - Rjd0060 (talk) 01:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Like I said above, there is a real reason to. Vanishing completely destroys records of user history, and that is not good if the user isn't really gone. -Amarkov moo! 01:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Many unhappy users simply don't always think that way. People change their minds. We shouldn't discourage people from coming back unless there's a real reason to. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- NYB has it exactly right. There are plenty of irritating editors, there are a fair number who vanish, there may even be some who irritatingly vacillate between vanishing and appearing. If there are too many in the last category (which I doubt), send some of them my way and I'll vanish them and resuscitate them as requested (as long as it's merely a matter of bog-standard deletion and undeletion). I'll even welcome them back with personal messages, not tedious boilerplate. And I expect that I won't be alone in making such an offer. Meanwhile, no need to turn up the menacing tone and add to the drama. -- Hoary (talk) 08:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- People should not request RTV if there is any possibility that they will be returning. -Rjd0060 (talk) 01:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think I like the idea of indefinitely blocking departed users, but I had always assumed that the removal of userrights was standard practice. An unattended account with rights is infinitely more dangerous than a fresh vandal account. I could very quickly do a lot of damage with a compromised bot account; more still with an admin account. A compromised bureaucrat, oversight, checkuser or steward account would, of course, be disastrous. Even something like rollbacker or autoconfirmed is potentially more dangerous than a fresh account; and if the editor was well known in the community, their edits are more likely to pass unnoticed in recentchanges or watchlists than an unknown new account. An unattended account is much more likely to be compromised than a used and monitored account. And if an editor does decide to return, his or her rights can easily be restored if they left in good standing. So if removal of rights isn't already standard practice, it certainly should be. Happy‑melon 10:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Many administrators or other users with higher-level user rights often give up their extra abilities upon resignation from the project, however, there has never been any solid rule that enforces all those with special rights to resign them at once should they decide to leave. I don't particularly see how an unused account has a higher probability to become compromised in any form than one that is actively used, and accounts that have been compromised have often been detected quite quickly, as prior situations have demonstrated. Spebi 10:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps I should rephrase: of course the chances of someone guessing/cracking the password of an unattended account are no different to that of an account in use. But an unattended account, once cracked, can be used indefinitely by an invader, until it is realised that it has been usurped. The most common reaction to an admin account being compromised is, apparently, to edit the mainpage to a large and usually obscene image: this is a fairly good indication that the account has been compromised, and the time for them to be desysopped is usually extremely short (I've heard 3 minutes). I imagine, although I doubt it's happened, that a compromised bureaucrat account would be used first to desysop Jimbo or similar. This crude and attention-grabbing use of compromised accounts naturally results in quick identification and blocking. There are much more malicious uses a compromised account could be put to if it is possible to have some preparation time. You might be able to put a penis on the mainpage for twenty seconds with a crude edit, but if you took the time to bury it somewhere deep in the transclusion structure it could be five minutes before anyone worked out how to get rid of it. Every time I put my mind to this question I come up with more effective ways to damage the site with a stolen admin or bot account: I can think of ways to irreperably remove all external links from all pages, to slow the loading of 95% of articles to a crawl, or to place a penis at the top of all our featured articles. But with time to prepare, to make a number of edits which don't appear to be nasty until you hit the one edit that drops the lewd image, you can do more insidious damage. The point is that an active account will notice these edits: if you look at your contributions and see something you don't remember doing, and don't understand why, you would get suspicious. If there's no one legitimatley using the account, that's not going to happen.
- In fact, it's fairly immaterial whether the compromised account is used or unused by its legitimate owner. We all know that accounts with userrights can potentially be dangerous: that's why we have RfA, RfB, RfBA, etc. If the owner of the account has left, they are not going to be using their userrights for the benefit of the project, so it makes absolute sense for them to be reset. Why have more potentially dangerous accounts lying around than are genuinely necessary? I'm not saying that, once removed, those rights should not be restored if the editor returns - as I said above, if the editor left in good standing there is no reason why they should have to do anything more than ask. But leaving admin/bot/crat accounts lying around when we all know their potential for misuse strikes me as an unnecessary weakness. Take them away automatically as part of RTV, give them back automatically if they return. If their account is compromised in the meantime, they'll have to stick to ordinary vandalism. Happy‑melon 16:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Wow, that was longer than I expected
:D
! Happy‑melon 16:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)- It was pretty on the button, though. I would concur that any inactive account with a good pedigree - with extra tools or not - is a prime target. The good faith shown toward a returning editor of some standing may allow some of the less obvious malicious edits to survive much longer. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Bureaucrats can't desysop people. Only stewards can. Stifle (talk) 14:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- Wow, that was longer than I expected
I'd have to disagree, strongly. We have admins who "leave" the project only to come back within days. Some repeatedly. We have rules against admins blocking themselves or other users for "wikibreaks" - why are we wanting to block a user for a "rtv", which is but the ultimate "wikibreak"? Why is this, of all possible admin actions and consequences, to be the one thing you don't get to change your mind on? Yes, it's a serious act, but it's wholly in the realm of that users concern, not the projects. Achromatic (talk) 01:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- The point in all this that seems to be being missed is that 'right to vanish' is serious. When people use it to make a dramatic, pointy, disruptive exit, they are abusing the right to vanish, and that abuse is doubled if they return later. Please, if you want to leave the door open for a future return, blank your pages and use the {{retired}} template, or leave some other sort of message. There seems to be a need to leave a 'message' by having your user and/or talk page links in signatures turn red. Instead of asking for pages (especially user talk pages!) to be deleted, you can leave dramatic messages and departure essays on your user page, but using 'right to vanish' as a standard departure method is wrong. Most departures can be handled other ways, and there need to be good reasons for exercising 'right to vanish'. The main one being that you really do want to vanish, or you need to disassociate from your real name. The only way, regrettably, to discourage frivolous use of the 'right to vanish' is to make much clearer that if you do return, that everything that was done to enable the vanishing will be undone, except the removal of user rights. Carcharoth (talk) 08:59, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I could not agree more with this. RTV is not a form of "wikibreak." Invoking the right to vanish means the user wants to leave permanently. Vanishing to create drama, only to come back a couple days later, should not be an option. RTV is a serious thing, and it should have serious consequences. --L. Pistachio (talk) 05:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- Somehow, I can't help but feel that this is a solution to a problem we don't yet have. (There are too many people out there connected to the Internet to say definitely that any specific behavior will never occur.) What about a compromise? On the second exercise of the Right To Vanish, the user is also blocked indefinitely. If we agree to this, then let's keep a count of how many of these kinds of blocks were given, then revisit the issue in 6 months or a year. If the number of these cases are few or none, then obviously doing this is overkill; if there are a lot, then we should consider blocking after the first time this right is invoked. (And yes, I am being vague about the numbers. I would rather give this approach a try then argue if too many RTV incidents repeated, than delay the experiment because we couldn't decided how many is too many.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:08, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- This sounds like a really good compromise, llywrch. I agree that RTV is probably not being abused much, but since it has the potential for abuse, it's certainly a valid thing to have brought up. I also like the idea of leaving it at blocking the second time for good, to catch only people that it's likely to continue to be a problem with. delldot talk 19:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
- Personally, I think that indef blocking on the first RTV could work, provided that the block is made without prejudice, something in the lines of a username block, with a notice on the RTV page that the account may be resumed on request, but that the user's deleted pages will then be restored. I rather like the idea of an RTV block, not just to make clear to users that it is a serious decision, but also to ensure that they don't just quietly resume their activity with a "clear record". --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've noticed this problem, too. I'm a little bit concerned about adopting an einmal ist keinmal attitude towards something as serious as RTV. As Carcharoth pointed out, this is supposed to be a rare and grave request designed to help people who need, for well-thought-out and significant reasons, to utterly disassociate themselves from their Wikipedia identity. It's grave because it's permanent, and total and rare because you need a good reason; GDFL contributions are for good, you can't throw a hissy-fit and demand back the rights to your donated free-content (on The Free Encyclopedia). Bottom Line: It's a major WP:POINT violation regardless of whether the person really meant it right then. I believe those requesting RTV should be indefinitely blocked in exchange for our willingness to waive our rights under the GDFL by allowing you to Indian-give your freely donated contributions. Evidence of repeated use of RTV on multiple accounts by the same user should be viewed especially harshly. I simply can't see the value of it for anything other than real, honest cases; this isn't some web forum, and we're supposed to be building an encyclopedia, not playing games. If you're stomping off in a grand huff so everyone can say just how much they're going to miss you, I don't think you deserve to gut a bunch of good articles on your way out, or cover up a bad history. Bullzeye (Ring for Service) 14:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Agreed, the RTV is wholly different from a wikibreak or simply ceasing to edit. It's a formal announcement that one no longer desires to be part of the project and wishes to be expunged. The issue is less that of ease or difficulty of deleting pages as it is the intent behind vanishing. Though it's common sense that the RTV shouldn't be used to duck out of arb hearings or other binding resolutions, I'm of the opinion that it should be formally so. This is not an idle threat or promise, and the right to unvanish should be negotiated through at least admin oversight. WLU (talk) 21:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Improper RfC
This discussion has been moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Mantanmoreland.
Placing community ban on User:David Lauder et al
The consensus is to impose a ban, despite this user's many positive contributions that partly mitigate the disruption. ArbCom may, of course, lift the ban if they consider that such a request should be honored. DrKiernan (talk) 08:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
User JoshuaGrant12 sockpuppetry
JoshuaGrant12 (talk · contribs) has created some odd thing in the templates, categories and wikipedia namespace. Particularly, Category:Cireta need move pages, Template:Edit this page, Template:Tennis-poc, Template:Tennis-icon, Category:Curret Pages that has ridrects, and Wikipedia:Tennis-icon which redirects Wikipedia:Tennis icon. It's hard to discern the intent of these because of the funny language. They might be for personal use, so they may need to be userfied. Can and admin take a look at talk to this user? --ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk | Contribs) 16:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I looked a little deeper appears to be a sockpuppetry case with various usernames of joshua grant and maybe some ips like 70.236.8.153 (talk · contribs) . If you look at the contributions by those they are similar. I haven't actually dealt with sockpuppetry, so could someone give me a hand with this? --ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk | Contribs) 18:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hi DeadEyeArrow, accounts JoshuaGrant1 to JoshuaGrant14 have now been blocked - refer to the note on User talk:JoshuaGrant4.--Addhoc (talk) 19:03, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for looking into it. Do you think you could do something about the all the subpages and whatnot those user accounts created. They're mostly just copy and pastes of pages and are a waste of namespace. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DeadEyeArrow (talk • contribs) 19:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
- On clicking through the link to the Listusers, I saw that JoshuaGrant15 and 16 have popped up, so have listed them at WP:AIV. Next stop WP:RFCU to get the underlying IP blocked... GBT/C 13:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- JoshuaGrant15 and JoshuaGrant16 now indef blocked. Tonywalton Talk 14:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- On clicking through the link to the Listusers, I saw that JoshuaGrant15 and 16 have popped up, so have listed them at WP:AIV. Next stop WP:RFCU to get the underlying IP blocked... GBT/C 13:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Indefinitely blocked troll, User:AFI-PUNK continuing to edit via IPs
I had received a message from User:Timmeh regarding disruptive editing by that particular editor via multiple IPs on several articles. The editor via multiple IP addresses was repeatedly changing the music genre of several articles without explanation. The account was blocked for sockpuppetry after a Checkuser was made. However, on the message I've received, he is still doing the same edit pattern via IPs address from Deutsche Telekom AG which has a long IP range. Among the articles targeting were Papa Roach and AFI but looking at contributions from some of the IPs used by the editor, it was several other articles that were also affected at varying degrees. I did re-protected Papa Roach and eventually if he continues on the same pattern, we will have to contact the network provider, so we will have to watch the 79.xxx contributions for now--JForget 18:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have been dealing with this serial vandal since about the time they were blocked in May 2007. AFI-PUNK's user page has a lot of evidence on it but if individual diffs are required then I'll provide them.
- I know that AFI-PUNK has been indefinitely blocked and not banned, but I have continually reverted their edits on the basis that they are disruptive vandal edits. I hope that my course of action has been appropriate. The question that I have been considering is, "How do we deal with a recurring vandal, who has been indefinitely blocked but who is not formally considered banned?" Seraphim♥ Whipp 19:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, we would have to wish (either if a user is blocked indefinitely or banned) that the user will one day stop - one day he will be tired of doing disruption (just like the Quebec vandal).--JForget 15:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Teamwork
Right. My core skills are diplomacy, tact, a light touch and a friendly demeanour.
Oh,wait, those are the skills I'm lacking.
So: who here is really good with being warm and fluffy to people? Who here is really good at spotting patterns?
Applications are invited for a multi-skilled posse. Ideal candidates will be Wikiholics, European, ethnically diverse (I'm a WASP male). Some young, some old. I want William Pietri on my side and in an ideal world I'd have David Gerard.
I am serious about this. More eyes is good, but a tea that works regularly together will recognise and develop its strengths. Volunteers, send me enail. Ploughing a lonely furrow is a Real Bad Thing. Guy (Help!) 00:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not sure what you're asking for here. I'm also a WASP. But I'm also fluffy. Where do you need help Guy? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- And I'll add that I do not have email activated, nor will I in the near future. Still, I'm ready and willing to help with whatever it is you're actually asking for...Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Sounds like a good idea. One thing that is good to build up team spirit is to work on an article together. That way, when you are out in the trenches doing triage on articles and editors, you have things in common other than just wielding a mop. Carcharoth (talk) 01:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- You lost me at the word right. Luigi30 (Taλk) 15:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Archtransit desysopped
Since Archtransit became an administrator on January 10, 2008, a number of issues have been raised concerning his blocks, unblocks, and other administrator actions. His conduct has been the subject of a request for comment at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Archtransit, where the views of Archtransit's conduct have been generally negative and his responses generally deemed unsatisfactory. Substantial community time has been expended in commenting on the disputed actions and seeking to improve Archtransit's performance as an administrator, including on ANI, on the RfC, and on Archtransit's talkpage. An admin mentor has expressed further concerns on his approaches [3], and it has appeared that the situation may lead to an arbitration case being presented with a view to desysopping.
Separate from the above, the Arbitration Committee has also received checkuser findings and extensive analysis of editing histories, and has independently concluded by an overwhelming weight of many types of credible evidence, that User:Fairchoice, User:Whoaslow, User:Bqwe123 and User:Lethte, who were variously blocked, unblocked or in on-wiki debate with Archtransit, are in fact sockpuppets of Archtransit himself. Archtransit was asked to comment on this finding privately and his answer was felt to be quite evasive, focussing on why it was better that an accusation should not be made, rather than evidence which might help refute it. Archtransit stated essentially as his defense, that if puppetry had occurred it would still not be a problem since (he felt) no false consensus was created. We do not agree with this reasoning. We conclude that abusive and disruptive sockpuppetry has taken place, involving at times gross misuse of tools. Our conclusion parallels the apparent view of the community that even apart from this, there is insufficient communal confidence in Archtransit's abilities to appropriately use the tools recently granted by the community.
Accordingly, Archtransit is desysopped. He may not seek to regain administrator status without the approval of the Arbitration Committee. All of the sockpuppet accounts will be blocked. Additionally, Archtransit may only edit Wikipedia through one account and any change of account name shall be reported to the committee.
The committee is continuing to investigate whether Archtransit himself may be the sockpuppet of any other user. Evidence bearing on this may be presented either below, or privately to the Committee. Further action will be taken if developments warrant.
By agreement of the committee
evidence summary:
- Archtransit and the named accounts edit exclusively from the same dynamic range in the same metropolitan area.
- (Point of information): There are four accounts with significant edits in the relevant area (Archtransit, Fairchoice and two others), as well as a significant number of accounts previously blocked for trolling and socking.
- Archtransit edits only during certain times of day and claims to have no internet access at other times. Each of the 3 other significant accounts on this range also edits during the same time window, and none has any edits from any other location.
- A number of the users blocked and unblocked by Archtransit are also within the same relatively small metropolitan location. This is considered very unlikely to be chance. The administrative actions of Archtransit included unblocking related accounts that had been blocked by others for "trolling".
- Further information from checkuser indicates that despite the confounding effect of the dynamic IP, these different accounts are still strongly evidenced as editing from the same connection.
- In January, on one occasion, Archtransit and another account (Lethte) edited from the same IP within 2 minutes of each other Lethte@21.40 Archtransit@21.42. These two edits were on the same IP. The IP is rapidly reallocated, but the gap between post and block is suggestive even so, because of the extreme brevity of the two minute time period. Additionally, some 9 minutes before Lethte, Archtransit was posting on that same IP [4].
- On January 22, 23, and 30 Archtransit blocked or amended existing blocks of Lethte, Bqwe123 and Fairchoice. These blocks were notable for having autoblock deliberately disabled. Other blocks for cause of other users (other than username blocks) did not have this setting.
- The edit windows and interleaving strongly support sockpuppetry rather than friends or strangers.
FT2 (Talk | email) 02:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Confirm and endorse. This is as serious an abuse of administrator tools as has ever been encountered. I would like to thank all those who tried to work with Archtransit, even though unsuccessfully, and thank the checkusers who determined that the problems were even more serious than originally thought. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Wow. I knew there was.. problems to say the least, but.. just.. wow. SirFozzie (talk) 02:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I knew this was coming much before this. 哦,是吗?(O-person) 02:57, 19 February 2008 (GMT)
- Is there a way for a checkuser to make sure there are no irregularities at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Boeing 747? I'm fairly certain it's OK, but I had one heck of a time with Archtransit on my talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Specifically, there was a strange support early on, when the article was nowhere near featured status; if that's a problem, it's pervasive. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Which user names? Thatcher 03:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Checked again, there were two supports that kept the thing going well before it met criteria: Dwarf Kirlston and Brískelly (who has a long block record on the Italian Wiki). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Both unrelated. Thatcher 03:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks, Thatcher. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Both unrelated. Thatcher 03:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Checked again, there were two supports that kept the thing going well before it met criteria: Dwarf Kirlston and Brískelly (who has a long block record on the Italian Wiki). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Which user names? Thatcher 03:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Specifically, there was a strange support early on, when the article was nowhere near featured status; if that's a problem, it's pervasive. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Is there a way for a checkuser to make sure there are no irregularities at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Boeing 747? I'm fairly certain it's OK, but I had one heck of a time with Archtransit on my talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I knew this was coming much before this. 哦,是吗?(O-person) 02:57, 19 February 2008 (GMT)
- Wow. I knew there was.. problems to say the least, but.. just.. wow. SirFozzie (talk) 02:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Fantastic. I've been really very troubled about this account since I learned about the block of Jeh and my suspicions about it only increased throughout the RfC to the point that I raised my concerns and suspicions with an arbitrator a week and a half ago. So I'm really relieved that ArbCom has investigated it and stepped in to desysop without us needing to drag it through Arb, which was an almost certainty. It's a shame that it took so long to get to this point and that we allowed him to continue trolling us in this way. Kudos to those who tried to assume good faith and tried to to help him, Ryan you don't owe us an apology at all, you're a good dude who tried to do the right thing by trying to help someone. Sarah 04:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Sorry guys - I tried to help him through the RfC even when most were calling for his head, in retrospect I should probably have let this go straight to ArbCom. Ryan Postlethwaite 03:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)There's no shame in making some extra effort to help somebody out. Hopefully we can learn from this- apart from the above open question, there's also some broader questions: How did this happen? What can we do to prevent it happening again? Friday (talk) 03:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- A while back, I suggested that we start offering a 30-60 day probationary period, with new admins encouraged NOT to use their new abilities willy-nilly during this first period, and to perhaps set up an experienced admin as a guide for the probationary period to explain things and to ease the new admin in on their path. SirFozzie (talk) 03:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- This was in my gut instinct well before his RfA, and from my earliest interaction with him over the Boeing FAC, but how can I oppose an RfA on gut instinct? As an average user (not an admin), I'll tell you that I'm extremely reluctant to oppose an RfA; it's not in the "no big deal" culture. I think the more important question is how can we more effectively desysop when problems surface? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Archtransit's RfA was successful with unanimous support. No issues were brought up at the time, so there wasn't any need to think he wasn't going to be like every other administrator. Unless you're suggesting we revamp the entire RfA system, Friday, I don't think there's any way we can determine the rogue-like capabilities of one or two editors who previously had perfect track records as non-administrators. There are, of course, ways to handle troublesome users once they have the administrator tools. Nishkid64 (talk) 03:18, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- We could surely borrow the COS's testing machine and patch to "determine the rogue-like capabilities of one or two editors who previously had perfect track records as non-administrators". Daniel (talk) 03:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Another idea might be to require all RfA candidates to submit to a checkuser. Yes, it wouldn't prove their not sockpuppting, but it might prove if they are. MBisanz talk 03:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse. Would be good to explore RFCU for all RFAs. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree with the idea of performing a checkuser on all admin candidates. For one thing, m:CheckUser policy says, "The tool is to be used to fight vandalism, to check for sockpuppet abuse, and to limit disruption of the project. It must be used only to prevent damage to any of Wikimedia projects." I don't like the idea of using CheckUser as a fishing expedition, no matter how good our intentions are. Another consideration is that we might find evidence through CheckUser that's irrelevant. For example, Appraiser (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (who I've met personally) has been caught in several autoblocks related to Kdbuffalo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) and sockpuppets. Apparently, Appraiser works for a large company that funnels a lot of users (both registered and anonymous users) through a firewall/NAT connection. Any evidence found as a result of such a CheckUser request would be irrelevant at best, or harmful at worst. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 03:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- We could surely borrow the COS's testing machine and patch to "determine the rogue-like capabilities of one or two editors who previously had perfect track records as non-administrators". Daniel (talk) 03:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
(undent)Endorse Holy shit. That's rediculous. This was FAR worse than I suspected. I am shocked, as his RFA showed NO potential problems. This was clearly planned from the outset. As an aside, I see no reason to change or alter RFA. This shit happens, like any other system sometimes this stuff gets through. RFA is not to be held responsible as a process when someone clearly intentionally games it like that. Any system can be gamed, by anyone willing enough to do so. This clearly shows that, and any attempt to add a checkuser requirement to RFA will be pointless, since that will be gamable as well. Hot damn. I still can't believe this... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Come to think of it, that's probably a good argument for not adding a checkuser requirement to RFA. Better that people game RFA and then get blown up like this than encourage them to think up ways to game checkuser... Choess (talk) 03:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
The problem with the "gut instinct" strategy outlined above is that the people following their guts tend to catch flak for it. This case with Archtransit is the perfect example. Not to say "I told you so", but I knew something was wrong with this block ... it just didn't feel right. I couldn't explain it, though, because it wouldn't have occurred to me that an admin would block his own sock (although I have seen the drive-by-self-vandalism tactic used before). I was not the only one to express concern over this block, but, without anything concrete to support it, I backed out of it.
So the question then has to be, what good is gut feeling if it is rejected by the community? - Revolving Bugbear 18:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Another sock farm relationship
I'm convinced now that Archtransit is related to another long-running sock farm. My suspicions were raised before sockpuppetry on the part of Archtransit was confirmed. I believe that Archtransit is related to the Dereks1x sock farm. See Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Dereks1x.
This comment by Archtransit seals it for me. In the comment, Archtransit makes a number of pronouncements and accusations that are spot on with Dereks1x and his socks. For example, Archtransit insists on "due process", a hallmark of Dereks1x and socks. Furthermore, Archtransit singles out Ryulong in the comment above, and I believe that some Dereks1x socks did the same in the past. Next, Archtransit discusses an ominous "letter to the editor" above and makes a veiled threat to discredit Wikipedia in the media if he's blocked. At least one Dereks1x sock has done the same (the exact sock escapes me at the moment, perhaps it was the most active sock, User:VK35). Finally, Archtransit's only interaction with me was regarding the "rights" of indefinitely blocked users. Archtransit insisted that the right to vanish allows an indefinitely blocked user who was blocked for a legal threat to come back and engage in the same discussion which ultimately led to their block. This is such an odd argument to make that it caused me to be a bit suspicious of Archtransit from my first interaction, as Dereks1x socks (particularly VK35, of that I'm sure) have made the same or similar arguments. Actually, that wasn't the only thing which caused me to be suspicious of Archtransit--his interest in aviation, a continuing theme for Dereks1x socks as well, also piqued my interest. I suspect that CU would confirm that Archtransit is editing from the same IP range as Dereks1x and socks, though the evidence for most of those is stale at this point, I assume.
I'd be happy to provide diffs of most of the above later, but I'm quite busy at work at the moment. I will refer interested editors to User:Tvoz and User:Bobblehead, who know as much about the Dereks1x sock farm as anyone. · jersyko talk 19:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Additionally, I failed to mention that Archtransit began editing in earnest soon after VK35 was indef blocked. The timing of Archtransit's account creation also lines up with the creation of other known sock accounts, I believe. · jersyko talk 19:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, we are aware of this. It's good to have the same suspicion come up in multiple independent editors who were not part of the original investigation. We have the names from the last Dereks1x RFCU; if you have anything more recent, feel free to e-mail me. Thatcher 20:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Indeed, all you need it to compare a single comment from Dereks1x to Archtransit's comments today:
- Archtransit
- ...If ArbCom seriously will grant me a fair process and not just desysop without letting me respond, then I will respond. Otherwise, it's so time consuming to write a response. That's the ethical thing to do. -- Archtransit 16:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC) [5]
- Are you also going to desysop my other administratorship? Archtransit (talk) 16:47, 19 February 2008 (UTC) [6]
- Dereks1x
- ...where I was banned for asking a legitimate ethics question to a candidate for administratorship. The person who nominated this person did not like the very proper ethics question and banned me. Those two and Jersyko are friends. This appears like a group within wikipedia are in cahoots against those who favor high ethical standards. I wish this wasn't true.Dereks1x 03:10, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[7]
- Please note the references to both ethics and administratorship. Quack quack? — Save_Us † 20:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well.. That explains why Dereks1x has been so quiet since his last sockfarm was pancaked. --Bobblehead (rants) 21:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Seems pretty flimsy to me, plenty of people talk about ethics, due process etc. You might be right or you might be wrong, but I certainly hope we don't start going around blocking anyone who (a) Has some dispute with Ryulong (real or imagined) (b) talks about ethics (c) complains of due process, we'll be blocking lots of people who meet all three, let alone meet two of them --81.104.39.63 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 21:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I didn't say we should set a campaign to block anyone who talks about ethics or due process, nor did I say block anyone at all. You seem to be twisting my language to make it seem like I want to crusade editors about potential involvement. I said they used similar terminology like "administratorship", which here on Wikipedia, is uncommon (most refer to it as adminship or [being a] administrator or sysop). I added the phrases about ethics to furthur the connection, the word administratorship is uncommon enough as it is, but Dereks1x refered to administratorship and ethics in the same post, as did Archtransit did in the same group of edits today. And as an aside, what do you have against Ryulong? Nobody even mentioned his name and you brought him up. — Save_Us † 21:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- "Nobody even mentioned his name and you brought him up" you mean other than the opening post to this section which says "Furthermore, Archtransit singles out Ryulong...". Yes I was drawing a few things together from this thread, and no I didn't mean to seem to be twisting your language, if it came across as that then I'll happily apologise. My main point was that pointing out a few similarities and saying quack quack quack doesn't prove anything, if you like I was trying to give a slippery slope arguement. There maybe a strong similarity between them, and they may indeed be related, but a couple of points like "ethics" and "due process" do not a duck make. --81.104.39.63 (talk) 21:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) To be fair, I did mention Dereks1x's beef with Ryulong above. I understand the evidence may look "pretty flimsy" to someone who is not familiar with Dereks1x et al. Nonetheless I think the case is pretty open and shut for those of us familiar with the farm. Identical editing quirks + identical arguments + identical interests + perfect timing + identical phraseology. If CU evidence confirms, as Thatcher implies above, it's a damn strong case. · jersyko talk 21:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Don't worry I'm not unfamiliar with the process, I've certainly been in the position where I'm certain that two people are the same (or very close), but can't put my finger exactly on why since it's usually a combination of many things. I'm also conscious of a certain amount of bias in looking for confirmation, which is what I was really talking about. Take any two editors with a reasonable amount of contribution and look close enough and you'll probably be able to find some common traits, I guess I'm also a little cynical about the amount of reactionary stuff we get here, something like this happens and everyone is happy to stand behind such findings, another week an admin will block a group of socks on a similar strength of evidence (taking into account that checkuser isn't a perfect infalible way of showing sockpuppetry, it just adds technical weight) and will be crucified for it. --81.104.39.63 (talk) 22:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- There is some technical evidence connecting Dereks1x to Archtransit et al, however, it is somewhat stale and therefore less conclusive on its own than the evidence tying Archtransit to Fairchoice et al. Which is exactly why it is useful to have the connection made by people who were unaware of the evidence (both here and in private e-mail), because it avoids the problem of confirmation bias if Jerseyko and friends don't know what they are confirming. Thatcher 22:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- You can't eat your cake and have it too... Will (talk) 15:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- There is some technical evidence connecting Dereks1x to Archtransit et al, however, it is somewhat stale and therefore less conclusive on its own than the evidence tying Archtransit to Fairchoice et al. Which is exactly why it is useful to have the connection made by people who were unaware of the evidence (both here and in private e-mail), because it avoids the problem of confirmation bias if Jerseyko and friends don't know what they are confirming. Thatcher 22:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Don't worry I'm not unfamiliar with the process, I've certainly been in the position where I'm certain that two people are the same (or very close), but can't put my finger exactly on why since it's usually a combination of many things. I'm also conscious of a certain amount of bias in looking for confirmation, which is what I was really talking about. Take any two editors with a reasonable amount of contribution and look close enough and you'll probably be able to find some common traits, I guess I'm also a little cynical about the amount of reactionary stuff we get here, something like this happens and everyone is happy to stand behind such findings, another week an admin will block a group of socks on a similar strength of evidence (taking into account that checkuser isn't a perfect infalible way of showing sockpuppetry, it just adds technical weight) and will be crucified for it. --81.104.39.63 (talk) 22:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I didn't say we should set a campaign to block anyone who talks about ethics or due process, nor did I say block anyone at all. You seem to be twisting my language to make it seem like I want to crusade editors about potential involvement. I said they used similar terminology like "administratorship", which here on Wikipedia, is uncommon (most refer to it as adminship or [being a] administrator or sysop). I added the phrases about ethics to furthur the connection, the word administratorship is uncommon enough as it is, but Dereks1x refered to administratorship and ethics in the same post, as did Archtransit did in the same group of edits today. And as an aside, what do you have against Ryulong? Nobody even mentioned his name and you brought him up. — Save_Us † 21:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Archtransit
- Indeed, all you need it to compare a single comment from Dereks1x to Archtransit's comments today:
I guess I'll ask: if we conclude that Archtransit is a sock of someone banned more than 10 months ago, what do we do about reverting stuff per WP:BAN? I see closed AFD's, I see closed suspected sock cases, a handful of protections, a featured article apparently... Fruit of a poison tree? I think I know the answer but wanted to bring it up anyway. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think that reverting all of his edits will ultimately be doing more harm than good to the project. Just another instance where we need to WP:IAR. Tiptoety talk 22:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, since there is no
Confirmed its academic, but anything that he did should be evaluated on its own merits (and, ideally, will have been already) rather than reverted automatically based on WP:BAN. Avruch T 22:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Nothing *requires* that the edits be reverted, in any event. WP:BAN uses the permissive language "may be reverted", not "shall be reverted". In any event, I agree that reverting all of these edits would likely do more harm than good, though his administrative actions should be reviewed carefully, obviously. · jersyko talk 22:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Per WP:BAN any edits made in defiance of a ban may be reverted to enforce the ban, regardless of the merits of the edits themselves. Of course edits you disagree with may be reverted, but extra care must be taken so that vandalism, non-NPOV edits or violations of BLP aren't added to anything. But this is all assuming that this was made in defience of a ban (i.e. if this really is Dereks1x). Although Archtransit is banned, him being banned doesn't mean we go through the same process, reverting is mostly done because of someone editing in defience of a ban (again, assuming this really is Dereks1x, it could apply here). — Save_Us † 23:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Having reviewed the contribs of all of the possible socks, I am now convinced that 1) there were no other FACs influenced, and 2) the Boeing 747 FAC is fine. It did receive substantial review from other editors at FAC, and the editors at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation say they were watching all along, and it's fine.[8] From the FAC side of things, I'm satisfied. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:10, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
[out] I don't have anything to add right now, other than to say that yesterday I also, independently, came to the same conclusion that Jersyko did, without any communication between us about it. Knowing the history of Dereks1x and those of his socks that we;ve uncovered, it is extremely clear to me that Archtransit is also one. This is not the first time he has tried for adminship, and I would take seriously his question "Are you also going to desysop my other administratorship?" and look into it. I'm available to reply here and by email if there are questions - I'm 100% sure they are one and the same, and also sure that there are many other of his socks doing damage to the project. Tempting as it is, I also don't think assuming good faith when it comes to this individual is warranted and I would recommend a very close look at all of his administrative edits, particularly closings, SSP cases and the like. This is, in his parlance, a "bad" editor and we need to be forceful in our response. He has already cost us too many hours of work. Tvoz |talk 23:49, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- One point I think should be raised is that similar phraseology can be adopted by different people. Probably not the case here, as there is other evidence, but phraseology on its own should never be enough. I've sometimes found myself starting to use phrases used by others, and that alone is not evidence of sockpuppetry. More is needed to confirm a suspicion like that, and as I said, it seems that further evidence is available here. Carcharoth (talk) 14:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, preparing a future defense for yourself, eh? Clever!
—Wknight94 (talk) 14:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Ah ha, I did not know that. (Never tried). Oops! I've somehow managed to use the same wording as you. Let's see if I can adopt any other of your idiosycrancies and mannerisms... That will ensure you go down with me! Clever!
Carcharoth (talk) 15:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC) Seriously, consciously copying others can rebound sometimes, for precisely the reasons raised here. Try to retain a distinctive style you can call your own, unless you want to deliberately engage in satirical imitation. A prize for guessing whose style I am imitating here.
- Ah ha, I did not know that. (Never tried). Oops! I've somehow managed to use the same wording as you. Let's see if I can adopt any other of your idiosycrancies and mannerisms... That will ensure you go down with me! Clever!
- Ah, preparing a future defense for yourself, eh? Clever!
Mandatory CU on RFA
Why would this be bad again, for prospects? Lawrence § t/e 18:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Fishing is the usual response. If all admin candidates are subject to CU, then CU needs to be subject to much more stringent and careful selection (he said with complete respect and high regard for all of our current checkusers). Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 18:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Easy to evade if you prepare, so will create a false sense of security. Thatcher 18:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- It's not a perfect tool, but it's still useful as far as it goes. Suggest making this a kind of litmus test, meaning optional for RFA. I'll be opposing anyone who refuses, but the rest of ya'll can do whatever you want. Friday (talk) 18:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that it's the m:Checkuser policy that would need to be changed. The m:Privacy policy needs no amendment, as it does not cover the actual use of the checkuser tool, just what data is released from it. My point is, the community does not have the authority to change the checkuser policy to allow us to check users with no prior evidence of disruption. --Deskana (talk) 18:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Violates the privacy policy of the Wikimedia Foundation, of which this is only one project. Gives a false sense of security. Would require several additional checkusers. Low risk situation - every action an admin takes is reversible. Easy to game; dedicated trollers can easily manage to beat this system. Mostly though, it's way outside of the Foundation's acceptable use of checkuser. Oh. What Deskana said. Risker (talk) 18:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I would add that when any diagnostic tool is applied to a population with a low baseline prevalence, then regardless of how good that tool is, false positives will outweigh true positives (Bayes' theorem, more or less). Using checkuser where there is a reasonably high pre-test probability of sockpuppetry is a good idea, as it leads to a reasonable positive predictive value. Applying it across the board to a population which (hopefully) has a low rate of abusive sockpuppetry will degrade the positive predictive value of "confirmatory" results, and lead to more false positives than true positives, even with highly skilled checkusers at the helm. MastCell Talk 19:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah. What he said. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:24, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)The other thing this might help is the open proxies issue. As I understand it, checkusers can identify users operating from open proxies. So basically, if a troll tried to game the system, he'd have to know how to operate from multiple IPs and not doing it by using an open proxy system. I'm sure its technically possible, but I suspect it would raise the bar on the level of knowledge (and therefore pool of potential abusers) required to do it. MBisanz talk 19:24, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- (ec with ec)Well, now that we're all adding our two cents: mine are that this is a completely reasonable and supportable policy which does not run contrary to the spirit of anything Wikimedia has put forward, and that the foundation would have little problem with it. In fact, I will absolutely vote yes if it comes up to a vote. The only problem is that the larger Wikipedia gets, the harder it gets to change common sense proposals. I recently was part of a major policy change on commons, and I was absolutely shocked how easy it was compared to here, where even the most innocuous change (this doesn't necessarily apply) is not possible without a great brouhaha. I do believe this would catch more bad guys than hurt good guys: the checkusers know how to do their job after all. The Evil Spartan (talk) 19:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Pretty much what Thatcher says above, it's a false sense of security. Running for RFA? Know you'll be checkusered? then modify your editing behaviour and you'll pass everyone being happy you aren't an evil sockmaster, once in you can enact your plan of world domination. Do the checkusering quietly isn't an option, since you'll have to reveal as soon as you discover such a case, then it's apparent that it happens and easily avoidable. Can't see anything real to gain and plenty of headaches to be had. --81.104.39.63 (talk) 19:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- (ec with ec)Well, now that we're all adding our two cents: mine are that this is a completely reasonable and supportable policy which does not run contrary to the spirit of anything Wikimedia has put forward, and that the foundation would have little problem with it. In fact, I will absolutely vote yes if it comes up to a vote. The only problem is that the larger Wikipedia gets, the harder it gets to change common sense proposals. I recently was part of a major policy change on commons, and I was absolutely shocked how easy it was compared to here, where even the most innocuous change (this doesn't necessarily apply) is not possible without a great brouhaha. I do believe this would catch more bad guys than hurt good guys: the checkusers know how to do their job after all. The Evil Spartan (talk) 19:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Violates the privacy policy of the Wikimedia Foundation, of which this is only one project. Gives a false sense of security. Would require several additional checkusers. Low risk situation - every action an admin takes is reversible. Easy to game; dedicated trollers can easily manage to beat this system. Mostly though, it's way outside of the Foundation's acceptable use of checkuser. Oh. What Deskana said. Risker (talk) 18:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Interesting how this sits with all the drama surrounding the revealing of use of TOR nodes by an admin candidate a while back. --81.104.39.63 (talk) 19:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- There is at least one wiki that requires a CU for all admin candidates although I cannot right now remember which, or if it is only for successful ones (prior to appointment) or for candidates at the start. I therefore am not sure it violates WMF policy. Nevertheless I oppose this idea. CU is not magic pixie dust, it IS foolable, it is better for determining malfeasance than for showing innocence, and we will get too many false positives (and associated dramah) along with a false sense of security. Generally not a good idea in my view. ++Lar: t/c 20:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree with this idea. If someone wants to spend months and months of their time adding such good content that they're considered for and attain adminship - all just to say "ha ha, gotcha!" two months later, then Wikipedia wins. We end up with months and months of good content and the only price is a soap opera every once in a while (which, let's be honest, is actually a nice breakup to the monotony). Thanks, Archtransit! (Now go away) —Wknight94 (talk) 20:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- OK, that last sentence of yours made me laugh out loud. Thanks Wknight94 for your clarity and perspective. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree with this idea. If someone wants to spend months and months of their time adding such good content that they're considered for and attain adminship - all just to say "ha ha, gotcha!" two months later, then Wikipedia wins. We end up with months and months of good content and the only price is a soap opera every once in a while (which, let's be honest, is actually a nice breakup to the monotony). Thanks, Archtransit! (Now go away) —Wknight94 (talk) 20:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Basically, yes. I also disagree with mandatory c/u for RFA hopefuls. False sense of security, easily gameable, currently against existing policy, privacy compromise is unwarranted, and the whole assumption of "guilt" thing - Alison ❤ 20:34, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- And there's nothing to stop you socking after you gain adminship, after all... ~ Riana ⁂ 20:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Side question to the above
Archtransit wasn't (unless I missed something) using open proxies. But admins can edit via them, even if the IPs for proxies are blocked? Is that correct? Wouldn't this just allow someone to go totally open proxy for usage once they got adminship, and then build up another account for an RFA via their normal connection afterwards? Isn't there a simple way to stop anyone from editing via blocked IPs? Lawrence § t/e 20:41, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Imperfection inherent in the system - I imagine it would involve turning off IP-block exemption at some level. This is the huge problem with issues like this - you get to a point where you can't trust anyone at all, for the sake of a few nutters :/ ~ Riana ⁂ 20:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
(e/c) If the open proxy IP is hard-blocked, even admins cannot edit through them. They would have to unblock the IP first. If the open proxy IP is soft-blocked, then anyone can login and edit through them. I don't know if that answered your question... —Wknight94 (talk) 20:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)- No, admins can edit through hard-blocked IPs due to the ipblock-exempt flag. I'd rather like to be able to turn that off, actually, because it's useless for me to have it and it would be a security risk if my account were compromised (which seems unlikely, but better to be safe...), but the current software setup causes ipblock-exempt and adminship to go together or not at all. --ais523 20:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I guess the question would be why bother? What does two admin accounts get you that one doesn't? Sure you can be a pain in the arse with one right until it gets desysoped and there aren't many ways to badly screw things up (and many/most? probably haven't thought of them) --81.104.39.63 (talk) 20:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I kinda agree, nothing to be lost except trust (and in some people's cases, pride). ~ Riana ⁂ 20:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, yes, I just thought of this after poking around the archives to see similar cases of desyoppings. Why does any user even need the ability to edit through a blocked IP? What does it benefit Wikipedia? Lawrence § t/e 20:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm assuming that it's the likelihood that you're editing through a blocked school/college/etc IP? And basically trying to maximise an admin's usefulness as far as possible? ~ Riana ⁂ 21:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- That makes sense, I guess, but it just seems to be a bit of an odd pass to use blocked IPs. If they're behind an improperly blocked IP they can always ask for it to be unblocked, or do it themselves. Why would/should admins be able to edit from an otherwise properly blocked IP address? Lawrence § t/e 21:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I was under the impression that it didn't used to be the case, but when we had massive autoblock problems with AOL IPs it got turned on. I also know that some admins used to edit from school/college/uni which had long term abuse problems, you used to see them unblock work for an hour or two and then reblock, I guess this just removes that need. Hopefully admins have the trust of the community to not abuse it, or maybe there is a case to be made for differentiating between blocked ips and blocked open proxies at the software level. --81.104.39.63 (talk) 21:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Admins were made exempt from IP blocks within the last year or so; when I first joined it was indeed a problem. Thatcher 21:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I've found it quite useful. My school's periodically blocked due to hordes of vandals, and I'll edit from there. It actually annoys aforementioned vandals when they see me editing and they can't, so it's good for two things. It's not really doing much, and we can (mostly) trust admins to be able to edit while on a blocked IP. Solution looking for a problem? Keilana|Parlez ici 23:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Admins were made exempt from IP blocks within the last year or so; when I first joined it was indeed a problem. Thatcher 21:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm assuming that it's the likelihood that you're editing through a blocked school/college/etc IP? And basically trying to maximise an admin's usefulness as far as possible? ~ Riana ⁂ 21:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- There is no particular technical barrier to having an admin edit from proxies and then bring up a new account through a normal ISP, but there are no technical barriers to a lot of anti-community type behavior that one could imagine. Hopefully only the most dedicated miscreants will make the effort to run up multiple admin accounts, and there will be very few of them. Thatcher 21:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- That's a fair statement of wikipedia overall, we try to be open and let many participate. We could put in many more measures to stop people doing all sorts and there is a cost involved with implementing them, either in terms of greater workload on the rest of the community, or in terms of driving good contributors away. It's why I wonder why vandals can seem so proud of their efforts, we more or less leave the doors and windows wide open, it's not some great challenge to get in and do some "damage". --81.104.39.63 (talk) 22:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Someone on Wikipedia Review claimed to have multiple admin accounts wiht the full knowledge of a CheckUser, but I always considered that claim to be bollocks. I'm sure there are one or two baddies with sysop bits, but as soon as they break cover they will be on a one-way trip to ArbCom and if they never do, then the laugh is on us :-) Guy (Help!) 23:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Last heads-up
WP:ANI#Need to reopen Archtransit's sock cases and other actions
Archtransit's short career as a sysop included killing sock reports and possibly, swaying other matters too. See ANI post. Being fixed. FT2 (Talk | email) 00:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Relisting of AfD discussions is getting ridiculous
Take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2008 February 19. It's ridiculous to see how many discussions have been relisted on this one day alone. Make a decision, people. Either come down on one side or the other, or call it a no decision, don't just leave these things hanging for weeks. AfD's are supposed to last five days, not ten, not fifteen. Corvus cornixtalk 04:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Um, as a frequent closing admin for AfD's, unless you rather see a lot of "no consensus" AfD's even for articles that is suppose to be deleted, I don't think it is a good idea to make 5 days a hard rule, a lot of deletion debate do need input from experianced editors to point out whether if the article should be deleted or not, and I don't think the process needs to be rushed. Yamamoto Ichiro 会話 04:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- so what happens if there's no difference after relisting? Does it get relisted ad infinitum until it gets to a point where it's at the point a particular user wants it to be, at which point they pounce and say, "closed"? Corvus cornixtalk 04:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- On discussions where no one participates, I'll relist it twice at most, and then close it as no consensus if no one participates. If only a small number participate and there's no clear consensus, I'll relist it twice before closing it no consensus. Just my little personal rule, others may do differently. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- If you don't want them relisted, vote on them! Give admins something to work with! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)I do no think that admins are purposefully "looking the other way" and ignoring closing AfD's, they are just busy and there are a lot of AfD's. Give it time. Tiptoety talk 04:34, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- If I see an AFD that has been resisted more than once, with only delete votes or only a nom, I'll usually close it as "Delete" based on no one caring enough to try to keep it. Mr.Z-man 04:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- OMG! Really! That's quite disturbing. Just because people aren't watching over articles like a mother hen so they see one has been AfD'd they could be deleted. As someone who has been sidelined from working on articles only to try to rescue an article at AfD I find that highly problematic. Not everyone who I looking for information is also watchlisting every article worth keeping and many are not here every day or even every week. I would much rather err on keeping something borderline that needs improving rather than deleting something because the right set of editors hasn't shown up to fight to keep it. Very discouraging to creation of articles in my opinion. Benjiboi 05:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- If I see an AFD that has been resisted more than once, with only delete votes or only a nom, I'll usually close it as "Delete" based on no one caring enough to try to keep it. Mr.Z-man 04:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)I do no think that admins are purposefully "looking the other way" and ignoring closing AfD's, they are just busy and there are a lot of AfD's. Give it time. Tiptoety talk 04:34, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- so what happens if there's no difference after relisting? Does it get relisted ad infinitum until it gets to a point where it's at the point a particular user wants it to be, at which point they pounce and say, "closed"? Corvus cornixtalk 04:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- If an article could go two weeks on AFD without a single vote, that means it could have been PRODed without opposition anyway...Someguy1221 (talk) 05:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- The hope is that if the subject is truly encyclopedia-worthy, there will be more than a couple users in the pool of about 5000 active ones that want to see it kept. Mr.Z-man 06:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- (ecx2)I understand your objection, but disagree that repeated relisting is a bad thing. If you read the time stamps on many relisted AfDs, you will see they are busy in the first few days and then completely drop off. In these cases, you can suspect that relisting will lead to further discussion and consensus can often arise. Yes, at some point no consensus has to be concluded, but five or six people disagreeing is not enough to determine that consensus on the issue is impossible to come to. SorryGuy Talk 04:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Great Falls Police Department. It's been relisted twice now. How many !votes does one discussion need? And relisting things doesn't make the number of AfDs go down, it makes things worse. Corvus cornixtalk 04:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- What is wrong with it though? If it makes the consensus clearer, then so be it. Yamamoto Ichiro 会話 04:41, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- i don't think that is what happens. I think people will just harden their positions, the discussion will become heated, or else people will just say, "how many times do I need to repeat the same arguments," and drift away because they're bored with the whole thing. Corvus cornixtalk 04:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think so, a lot of times, the relisted debates are the ones with so little comments or a debate with a nomination statement like "WP:N" with absolutely nothing else on it. I don't think people will "harden their positions" if there isn't any position there to begin with. Yamamoto Ichiro 会話 04:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- i don't think that is what happens. I think people will just harden their positions, the discussion will become heated, or else people will just say, "how many times do I need to repeat the same arguments," and drift away because they're bored with the whole thing. Corvus cornixtalk 04:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- As it currently stands, there is no clear consensus (or even a slightly muddy consensus) in that discussion. If, after relisting it twice, no clear consensus is reached, I would lean toward closing it as no consensus myself, though. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't relist ones like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Great Falls Police Department. I only relist if there is no quorum, e.g. a nom. and one keep or just a nom. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I likely wouldn't have relisted it the second time. I'd have to think about the first one. I think there was enough discussion after the first relist to close it. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't relist ones like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Great Falls Police Department. I only relist if there is no quorum, e.g. a nom. and one keep or just a nom. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- If you want to fix this, try spamming AfD at the village pump and elsewhere. What's needed is more people participating, as noted above. Guy (Help!) 10:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Relisting should only be used where the debate is so sparse that it is not even possible to see that there is not agreement over what should be done (or if there was some other causal reason for restarting things). Merely having a split debate is fine - it means there is no consensus, which is a logical outcome of a process that tries to determine whether there is consensus to delete or not. Relisting just because making a decision is tricky is not correct; unless there is a consensus to X, the result is no consensus, and to answer Yamamoto Ichiro's question at the top: yes, more no consensus closures are fine if the community has not reached a consensual position on what should be done. Relisting Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Great Falls Police Department was unnecessary the first time, and just wrong the second time. Admins are charged with calling the community's position on the debate, and if there is no consensus over what should be done, then they must say so, not re-spin the wheel until faced with an easy closure. Splash - tk 10:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've just closed that onewith a merge and redirect to the Great Falls, Montana article since there is more then enough discussion even after the second round of discussion (after the first relisting). The majority didn't want to keep the article and many of the arguments on the Keep side was weaker then the Delete/Merge side. It is now merged and redirect although those who to fix/add/remove stuff can do so if necessary.--JForget 15:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Generally, I had always considered that 4 or 5 votes (or more of course and even sometimes 3 when it is 3 delete or 3 keeps or 3 redirects) in 5-7 days is more then enough for an AFD discussion to be closed without re-listing it.--JForget 15:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- The problem is that nobody
votesat AFD. If an AFD gets relisted, it's because there's 3 votes, all of which conflict with each other. A solution would be if after one relist, if there's something like 4 delete, 2 keep, 2 merge for example, an admin makes a call based on the article's merits rather than consensus or lack thereof. Luigi30 (Taλk) 15:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)- Yes, that is a good example of when a relist is the thing to do - with 3 divergent opinions being the only material, it's not really possible to even see if argumentation might make a difference, and so a relist is ok. But relisting in the example given above was unnecessary even after the first time around; as in some other cases, relist was used (in good faith) despite the fact that it was apparent that there was no agreement on what the disposition of the article should be i.e. there was 'no consensus'. Splash - tk 16:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- You can also help out by closing them as keep. See WP:NAC. But then you deal with the weeks of WP:DRV that you'll have to go through. Consensus not being reached yet and discussion ongoing and article improving are all a natural and beneficial part of the process. What is so bad about relisting them? What is harmed? Why rush to make some half-assed decision or waste the discussion with a no-consensus. I relisted over a dozen on the date you listed, yes, including the fire department one. Look what happened after that relist... 5 people !voted delete and 1 merge. If the people are only participating because they are pissed off at the relist.... then good! If I closed more than a dozen in a row as No Consensus, I'd get screamed at, and delrevved to death. You can't just whine about relisting with no concrete plan for how it can be done better. Well, you CAN, but why???? JERRY talk contribs 22:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I completely agree with Jerry's assessment here. As a relatively new AfD closer, I can't imagine intentionally closing something with only a !vote or two as keep, delete, or even non=consensus without pissing someone off (either the nominator or the !voter). Relisting is the only way to go in those instances. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Keeper76, I think everyone agrees with your point, but Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Great Falls Police Department had 6 people at the first relist and 9 at the second. Splash - tk 13:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've closed far more than that in a day as no consensus, and have never once found such a closure properly executed go to deletion review. If there is no consensus, say so; it is not a waste of a process to evaluate consensus if it concludes that there is, in fact, no consensus. People wanting to delete an article merely to get it off AfD is an extremely bad situation to try to encourage, as it has nothing whatever to do with the article. A concrete plan for not relisting is to close as no consensus where no consensus exists and there are more than a few people contributing. If the debate is too tough for you to make a decision on, then leave it to a more experienced admin to handle - the trouble with relisting is that it draws the process out for weeks on end (literally, in the case of a double relist) and overburdens AfD with discussions that could have been dealt with adequately earlier. It also tends to freeze articles as noone wants to contribute to an article that might die shortly, whereas a no consensus closure gives the concrete reprieve that is needed. Splash - tk 13:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- One thing that often helps get a discussion going is to post the nomination in the appropriate Wikiproject's deletion list. Sancho 22:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Great Falls Police Department isn't a good example because it was initially relisted by a participant right after her own comment. In general, lack of useful input is a recurrent problem, advertising might help, but opining can also be time intensive. Nevertheless, commenting on an AfD with few contributions can sometimes be more helpful than relisting.--Tikiwont (talk) 16:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
We had a debate earlier where an article on a band was nominated for deletion on 3 February, citing notability. No comments were made, by the author or anyone else, for or against deletion. The debate was relisted on 13 Feb, and again received no comments at all. Since the AfD tag, the article had received no edits at all. This article was likely have been a good candidate for WP:PROD, and another admin agreed. Would it be worthwhile to treat debates where there was no discussion whatsoever after 10 days as an uncontested prod? Obviously, a request to recreate such an article would be approved immediately, as with a prod. It would be an alternative to relisting over and over again. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 16:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
help please with category abuse
Hi, I'm not sure where to turn for this but Category:Chick Publications is set-up as a sub-category of anti-Catholicism. The articles in the Category:Chick Publications don't seem to provide reliable sourcing that they are indeed anti-Catholic but I'm not sure how to correct the situation. Chick Publications is a well-known US entity probably best-known for distributing thousands of "Bible tracks" so they could be a religious or Christian publisher. Jeff Godwin article was just gutted for BLP violations and I've just tagged Jack Chick for similar issues. Any help/guidance appreciated. Benjiboi 05:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Chick Publications is anti-Catholic and they don't make any secret of it. They teach that the Catholic Church the Whore of Babylon. Their tract list has a number of anti-Catholic tracts that you can read online should you feel so inclined. They are not representative of most evangelical Christians. --B (talk) 05:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- See "The Death Cookie" and "Last Rites". Does this count as "anti-Catholicism", though? Perhaps the category would be better named as "Criticism of Catholicism", which Chick undoubtedly fits into. Ral315 (talk) 15:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Speaking as a "recovered Catholic" (born and raised, now SERIOUSLY lapsed), I'm gonna have to say referring to the Catholic Church's major sacrament as "the Death Cookie" pretty much counts as "anti-Catholicism". (I think I came across that tract on a CTA bus one day, and giggled all the way to my destination.)Gladys J Cortez 18:28, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- It should be easy to substantiate Jack Chick's specific views with citations to the tracts and articles published on his website. All these tracts are widely distributed by his organization under his name, so there shouldn't be any BLP concerns here. *** Crotalus *** 15:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not quite. If several reliable sources have called Chick's work or Chick himself anti-Catholic, we can put the category in, otherwise not.
- I do hate these anti- categories. So prone to misuse. Relata refero (talk) 17:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- See "The Death Cookie" and "Last Rites". Does this count as "anti-Catholicism", though? Perhaps the category would be better named as "Criticism of Catholicism", which Chick undoubtedly fits into. Ral315 (talk) 15:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well death cookies and Jack Chick aside, out of the 7 articles only four seem to readily support being anti-Catholic. The illustrator, Fred Carter (artist), for instance has almost no information regarding anything that he's anti-Catholic nor does Jeff Godwin whose article was gutted for BLP abuse. The Light of the World (film) is a film stub also with no anti-Catholic assertions. Benjiboi 19:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Unauthorized Bot
Saw this guy when I was looking through the sandbox history working on something totally related. Couldn't find anything relating to any sort of BRFA or approval anywhere, left him a message. Q T C 06:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- It certainly looks like an unauthorized bot. The user that runs it has less than 50 total edits on their whole contribs history. Certainly worth investigating. Take some care; I have accidentally blocked a bot in the past that was actually grandfathered in (it was a bot run by a Dev even. I had egg on my face over THAT one). However, this one has a certain quacky tone to it... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have blocked the bot as a precaution based on its creator's edits and talk page, its seems that he did inform [13] of the bot's existance but it never received the flag or at least no one told his creator if they did. - Caribbean~H.Q. 06:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, but on the other hand at the top of the page which he *should* have noticed was: All bots must follow the official bot policy. Q T C 06:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have blocked the bot as a precaution based on its creator's edits and talk page, its seems that he did inform [13] of the bot's existance but it never received the flag or at least no one told his creator if they did. - Caribbean~H.Q. 06:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I know, he is new user so its possible that he tried to follow policy and botched it. - Caribbean~H.Q. 06:47, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- True, hopefully I get a reply from him to help steer him in the right direction. Q T C 06:49, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- He started a request for approval at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/kwjbot, but it's not linked from anywhere - can someone who knows more about the process help him list this in the right place? —Random832 14:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- True, hopefully I get a reply from him to help steer him in the right direction. Q T C 06:49, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I know, he is new user so its possible that he tried to follow policy and botched it. - Caribbean~H.Q. 06:47, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Next BCBot phase
One of the BCBot issues isn't getting enough attention. Please see:
I support this next phase in principle, but it does need to be discussed more. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 10:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Indefinite block of Griot
Griot (talk · contribs) has been indefinitely blocked for extensive and abusive sockpuppetry per Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/71.139.36.105. All sock accounts have been indef blocked and tagged. All IP socks have been tagged and anon blocked for three months (with {{anonblock}} on the talk pages). See the checkuser case or Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Griot for a complete listing of socks. I am posting this so my actions may be reviewed by other sysops and to invite others to determine if a range softblock is warranted and necessary. Vassyana (talk) 10:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- The block of Griot seems reasonable. 3 months for the IP's might be excessive since many are probably dynamic or WiFi and there may be some significant collateral damage. Instead of long-term blocks for the IP's, it might make more sense to consider semi-protection of Ralph Nader, which appears to be the target article, to limit collateral damage. Just my 2 cents. MastCell Talk 19:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think MastCell is right--indef all the named accounts, but go w/less time on the IPs, and don't rangeblock because of the potential collateral damage. By all means watch Ralph Nader and Ralph Nader's presidential campaigns, and (semi-)protect if necessary; I'm not sure, but there may be long-term edit-warring by two "teams" of sockpuppets on those articles. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Griot was anon editing from those IPs and engaged in extensive sockpuppetry. As such, I blocked anonymous contributions and account creation from those IPs and placed an {{anonblock}} notice on their talk pages. I would not object at all if one of you (or another sysop) reduced the block duration on the IPs. I will place the Nader pages on my watchlist and semi-protect if anon users and new accounts edit disruptively. Thanks for feedback! It is sincerely appreciated. Vassyana (talk) 04:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I shortened the blocks on the IP's to 24 hours, as they appear fairly dynamic. If one in particular is a problem, it could be re-blocked for longer. I think semi-protection of target articles, if necessary, is the way to go since we're dealing with a pretty dynamic IP. MastCell Talk 06:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Forum shopping
- The suitability of using http://www.prem-rawat-maharaji.info/ (and other links) as "external link" in the Prem Rawat article was discussed here: Talk:Prem Rawat#By website
- Momento brought it to WP:BLPN, see WP:BLPN#Prem Rawat links. OK, I'm fine with that one (it is an appropriate forum): nonetheless the advise given there included "The matter is being discussed on the article talk page. It has not been determined that the sites in question are derogatory, and that linking to them violates policy. Let's find a consensus on the article talk page." (Will Beback's comment of 01:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC))
- Nonetheless, the issue was brought to yet another forum, WP:ANI, by Momento - see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive370#Francis Schonken. That's forum shopping. Complaining about me I can live with. Finding another forum to raise, again, the same issue for which he gained no general approval elsewhere (branding the use of certain sources as "external link" in the Prem Rawat article as being a BLP infringement) is another.
- Momento warned by me about the forum shopping: User talk:Momento#Forum shopping (note, Momento asked as a concequence of that warning not to post on his talk page any more [14] - that is why I move this to this noticeboard)
- Disruptive editing on a Wikipedia:Lead section#Bold title issue (which somehow Momento seems to make into a BLP issue for reasons unfathomable by me).
- Issue explained at Talk:Prem Rawat#Balyogeshwar: in short Balyogeshwar is an incoming redirect to the Prem Rawat article. It was not explained in the Prem Rawat article that Balyogeshwar is an alternative name for the same person, yet one of the footnotes uses this name [15].
- As a result of the discussion at Talk:Prem Rawat#Balyogeshwar I had put this alternate name of the same person in the lead section *WITH A REFERENCE* [16]
- Momento removes, stating it is unreferenced [17] (BTW leaving the reference that in fact is not a reference for the part of the sentence he has left)
I'd like an uninvolved admin to look into this. There are more instances of "slightly disruptive editing" by Momento, which if requested, I'd flesh out. Don't know whether I should mention this, but Momento has received two 24H blocks for 3RR on the Prem Rawat article not too long ago (block log). The last of these was a result of my reporting at WP:AN3, after a warning given by me on Momento's talk page: User talk:Momento#Prem Rawat (II). --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- This is the second time you bring Momento's editing behavior to ANI, without making any comments about the general disruption that has taken place in that article, including edit-waring, SPs, anon disruption, dormant accounts, and more. Mediation has been proposed, but so far there are no takers. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- This isn't WP:ANI, this is WP:AN
- Before this one, I didn't bring anything to WP:AN for as long as I can recall.
- The last time I brought a new topic to WP:ANI it regarded anonymous editing on the Prem Rawat article,[18] so, yes anon disruption as listed by Jossi.
- And yes, I replied to the WP:ANI thread Momento started on me. I gave the link above: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive370#Francis Schonken.
- I hope the notion of "uninvolved admin" is not unknown to Jossi.
- Do I have to elaborate on other & similar disruption by Momento, as I suggested above?
- Or on the uninvolved admin's opinion on Jossi's actions following my listing of Momento on WP:AN3? --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Jossi has chosen to formulate a counter-proposal below (which is his good right), #Article probation - proposal. I can't help noticing though that, again, he's protecting the editor who is experienced as most disruptive (not only by me!) w.r.t. the Prem Rawat article. --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Article probation - proposal
As the community knows, I've recused on editing Prem Rawat at this time, but one would expect that in this situation experienced contributors would know better. Should the editors there be encouraged to to engage in WP:DR in a constructive manner? It do not think it possible to make progress in improving the article in an environment in which edit-war is the rule of the day. I ask uninvolved admins to take a look, and assess if article probation may help restore some normalcy to the editing process there. I ask the community to consider article probation -- 1RR per day, or per week, NPA, and talk-page disruption probation for 30 days. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Evidence |
---|
A variety of SPAs, possible SPs, dormant accounts suddenly activated (some may be false positives)
|
- Oh, so that's what article probation means. I've been applied it recently, actually! El_C 16:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes.... see Wikipedia:General sanctions. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'd support an indefinite probation. It can always be revisited later and changed if nothing else goes wrong. Lawrence § t/e 18:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Article probation would likely be very helpful in getting the situation in-line. Vassyana (talk) 04:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Bad idea, as far as I'm concerned.
- Jossi committed to not editing the article, which I appreciate. Then he tries to get hold of the article via proxy (...Momento, anons &c). Which I don't appreciate. Then we have to deal with the disruptive POV-pushers, like Momento. Jossi still wants to protect his favorite POV-pushers, which I don't appreciate. And he knows he won't hold it that way, so tries to get measures passed for a general restriction of all editors of the article, which I don't appreciate. He has tried a protection request before. But that would still not solve the fact that we have to deal with the disruptive editors like Momento. This is only what I can tell from my personal experience. The fact that I got little or no appreciation for jumping in to work out solutions on a topic I'm barely interested in, doesn't bother me. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Your accusations are unneeded and unwelcome here, Francis. You are now involved in that article, and would hope that you would appreciate ways to encourage orderly editing there, such as this proposal. Let uninvolved admins weigh in on this and evaluate the need or lack thereof for article probation. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- This is a counter-proposal to my proposal. You're too heavily involved in preventing edits to the article. That's all I wanted to say. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- You can present evidence of that, if you have any, and make any other proposals. (and please do not refactor this page) ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- This is a counterproposal to the above #Slightly disruptive editing of Momento (talk · contribs), so I propose to keep them together, not as separate sections. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:55, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- You can present evidence of that, if you have any, and make any other proposals. (and please do not refactor this page) ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- This is a counter-proposal to my proposal. You're too heavily involved in preventing edits to the article. That's all I wanted to say. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Your accusations are unneeded and unwelcome here, Francis. You are now involved in that article, and would hope that you would appreciate ways to encourage orderly editing there, such as this proposal. Let uninvolved admins weigh in on this and evaluate the need or lack thereof for article probation. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Concur with Lawrence and Vassyana. Support article probation per evidence. – Steel 21:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Article probation is fine in some instances, but keeping an article in a sort of unmoving purgatory isn't exactly a good solution either. If the agreement is for probation of the article and that'll still help the information to grow, then that's fine. What would be ideal is if the involved parties would hold off and wait for uninvolved editors to weigh in first, and then a solution could certainly arise rather quickly. Jmlk17 21:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hmmm, as per the evidence, I believe the best course of action at this juncture would be probation. Jmlk17 21:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I protest, involved as I am in trying to get the article on the right track again, and humbly ask to have a look on my proposal above, which comes down to (more explicitly than I stated above) checking disruption, starting with the most disruptive long-term editors. So please take note of #Slightly disruptive editing of Momento.C2.A0.28talk.C2.A0.C2.B7 contribs.29. --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what "talk-page disruption probation " is. How do we define "talk page disruption"? I'm also concerned that that list of involved editors is not complete, including Cirt, Francis Schonken, and Momento, but excluding Rumiton. Momento has edited disruptively by repeated reverting material claiming the BLP exception, so I'm concerned that he will not comply with a 1RR limit either. I think that rather than target specific editors it would be better to implement a strict 1RR limit on all editors of that article. And dispute resolution is always appropriate. Will Beback NS (talk) 00:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
- Neither did I speak of nor remotely suggest "talk-page disruption probation", nor do I know what it is supposed to mean. I suggested to get Momento in line with harmonious editing. With usual measures. Two times 24H block (as already happened in a short time span), if keeps disrupting, longer block, if never reforms, get him out of the system. He cost us enough time as it is. I'm hesitant to let myself, and other more generally constructive editors, be restricted on the same par as rather clearly uncollaborative editors. That's not what we should deserve.
- BTW, why do you use an alternate account? Or is that not unusual? --Francis Schonken (talk) 01:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
- If Momento breaches 1RR, he will get dinged big time under probation. Dispute resolution was proposed, and there are no takers, Will. And, in any case, page probation will only assist in providing an orderly debate during dispute resolution. And yes, 1RR restrictions on all active editors is what this probation proposal is about. Talk page disruption is breaches of WP:NPA, and other such behaviors at the discretion of uninvolved admins. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I would argue that editors actively editing that article should allow uninvolved editors to assess if article probation is needed or not. So far, three four such editors have argued in support of that measure. Let others evaluate this without further comments from involved editors. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm involved, and for that reason said what I said. So I still invite not to look only at the list Jossi provided (and which doesn't say much when you're acquainted with the situation), but at least also have a look at the material I presented in the previous section #Slightly disruptive editing of Momento (talk · contribs), which takes a bit more time to read the stuff I referred to, but hopefully gives a clearer picture. --Francis Schonken (talk) 02:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
- Francis, you do not need article probation if there is one editor that is misbehaving. You may need article probation when there are 'multiple editors engaged in edit-wars, SPs, dormant accounts, personal attacks, and other such things. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
- Exactly, my experience (and I've been following the article quite closely for the last weeks) is that neither SPEs nor dormant accounts aren't all that much of a problem. You don't edit the article, so no worries there either. All the other editors balance more or less, without causing disruption, except Momento. I gave part of the evidence why I came to that conclusion above. I didn't want to bore anyone, but said I was prepared to give more. I don't think edit-warring is all that much of a real problem currently, and if so, I'd rather go back first to semi-protection, but even that seems uncalled for currently. The most acute problem is really one editor misbehaving quite somewhat more than the others. And I still hope Momento gets the gist of it, but the disruption he's causing has to stop, either with him behaving, or increasing periods without him. Really, I only speak about my personal experience, as an editor completely uninterested in the subject of the article (as said, I think the article's subject boring), but trying to make a high quality Wikipedia article on the subject nonetheless. --Francis Schonken (talk) 02:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Sockpuppet situation needing more research
Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Smerdyakoff established that Standshown (talk · contribs) and Smerdyakoff (talk · contribs) are related in a case of abusive sockpuppetry. The time of creation for both accounts is indicative that they are both sockpuppets, rather than one being the sockmaster.[19][20] The older account demonstrated a working knowledge of Wikipedia early on. Taking the situation as a whole, it appears that the two accounts are sockpuppets of an unidentified sockmaster predating either account. Further research and evidence is needed to fully resolve the situation. Vassyana (talk) 11:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Whoever ends up checking into the situation should probably start with the following:
- Velebit (talk · · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Velebit
There are also a bunch of anonymous IP edits by this individual, but it would have taken forever to report all of them, since this is a very determined and persistent POV-pusher, sock puppet user and vandal. Spylab (talk) 16:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- With a namesake like Smerdyakov, what can one expect? :) MastCell Talk 19:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
In case you were not aware...
WMF has started receiving death threats in respect of the Muhammad images. As ever, this issue calls for weapons-grade tact: if, like me, you can't do tact, don't go near it, and we should be willing to consider rapid topic bans and blocking for any editor who inflames the situation. Guy (Help!) 11:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Tact, what the fuck is that, some sort of tang? Let those of us who are anonymous handle it, maybe? El_C 11:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Why don't we put Muhammad, Depictions of Muhammad, etc on article probation? MER-C 12:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think that is an excellent idea. Guy (Help!) 12:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- We all think its an excellent idea because we have no idea what article probation means! El_C 12:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- It means it's somebody else's problem! Mackensen (talk) 12:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hey, I'm someone else! El_C 12:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Have a cigar. Raymond Arritt (talk) 13:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hey, I'm someone else! El_C 12:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've always found this remedy very entertaining, so I appreciate its being used again as I need a laugh today. It means that all admins are empowered to do exactly what they were always empowered to do, and everyone is warned off doing everything they were always warned off doing. It is used by the arbitration committee when it cannot think of an actual remedy, but they are certain that one must surely be applied. The fun bit is that people then go on to think that this will make some actual difference, particularly to new editors to the page who will no doubt go and read the committee's promulgations prior to hitting the edit button for the first time. Splash - tk 13:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, exactly that. It means that everybody does what they should do anyway and - the important bit - if they insist on doing something else, we stop them there and then rather than gazing at our collective navels for a month first. Guy (Help!) 13:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with probation in this case- it does encourage admins to step in earlier over the articles concerned perhaps, also I would say it discourages editors on the articles from acting daft to an extent, where things could get heated such as the Scientology articles it has encouraged people not to slag each other off I believe, to an extent. Merkinsmum 15:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- It's true that it might in theory cut out the shall we/shan't we in favour of "we shall", but although that's a nice theory, I'm not sure it's really ever made a dramatic difference when specified as a remedy. But I suppose it cannot hurt to try, as long as we don't accidentally think that mentally applying probation to it takes all the inflammation away just like that. Splash - tk 16:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, exactly that. It means that everybody does what they should do anyway and - the important bit - if they insist on doing something else, we stop them there and then rather than gazing at our collective navels for a month first. Guy (Help!) 13:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- It means it's somebody else's problem! Mackensen (talk) 12:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- We all think its an excellent idea because we have no idea what article probation means! El_C 12:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think that is an excellent idea. Guy (Help!) 12:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- It is really important to keep from inflaming the situation where you can. Please consider protections, kind warnings and blanking of trolling, baiting and inflammatory posts rather than being quick on the block button. WilyD 15:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that content-focused action (i.e. protection) is probably better for both PR and drama coefficient here. But we also need to make sure that the "not censored" evangelists don't make matters worse; it is important to display sensitivity towards the concerns expressed, as several people have done very well during this dispute. Guy (Help!) 16:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'd recommend everyone have a quick look at the mailing list, where Jimbo is laying down the law about how we think about the matter quite effectively, along the lines Guy suggests above. He correctly says that we have to find some moderation here. An interesting suggestion has been proposed that involves clickable drop-down images. Relata refero (talk) 17:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I haven't been around much nor have I been following the debate but has anyone suggested putting them in one of those windowshade (hide/show) boxes we love (it seems they are at the bottom of every other article)? Keeps the images there but shows sensitivity towards 1/6th of the Earth's population. spryde | talk 20:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- What about spinning them off into a separate article, Images of Mohammed, with a warning link on the main page? Corvus cornixtalk 21:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not censored and does not do disclaimers. We need to stay strong to maintain free speech. Stifle (talk) 21:28, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- The article Depictions of Muhammad already exists, to discuss - depictions of Muhammad. But the sort of thought around is that removing them from Muhammad where they're of clear (although somewhat debated) encyclopaedic value is still problematic under the goals of uncensored & unbiased encyclopaedia. WilyD 21:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Ok, it was jut a suggestion, I didn't even notice that the Depictions article was already discussed above. :) Corvus cornixtalk 22:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've favored hiding controversial images in some manner like that for years. I've never really understood why some of us feel we should insist on automatic presentation of the images. They should be available but hidden in such a manner that a person can choose whether or not to view them. Everyking (talk) 22:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- What about spinning them off into a separate article, Images of Mohammed, with a warning link on the main page? Corvus cornixtalk 21:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I haven't been around much nor have I been following the debate but has anyone suggested putting them in one of those windowshade (hide/show) boxes we love (it seems they are at the bottom of every other article)? Keeps the images there but shows sensitivity towards 1/6th of the Earth's population. spryde | talk 20:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'd recommend everyone have a quick look at the mailing list, where Jimbo is laying down the law about how we think about the matter quite effectively, along the lines Guy suggests above. He correctly says that we have to find some moderation here. An interesting suggestion has been proposed that involves clickable drop-down images. Relata refero (talk) 17:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that content-focused action (i.e. protection) is probably better for both PR and drama coefficient here. But we also need to make sure that the "not censored" evangelists don't make matters worse; it is important to display sensitivity towards the concerns expressed, as several people have done very well during this dispute. Guy (Help!) 16:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) Does anyone really believe that after we hide the images on Muhammad, they won't demand the same of "Depictions of Muhammad" and any other page which has an image of Muhammad (at first count some twenty articles, perhaps more)? We should not support censorship in any way, and hiding the images by default is a (weak) form of censorship; a preferring of the demands of one religious group over the neutral, open, free speech basics of Wikipedia. Fram (talk) 08:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I personally have not seen much at the Commons about the images, but I did notice we are getting messages on unrelated boards about these images. I and another user dealt with it on the image copyright help board today. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 09:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- The demands will never stop. So what's so hard about putting a warning in at the top as discussed and used in the Bahá'u'lláh article? (If that link fails, the Bahai founder dude). Then just make a shadow article called Muhammed (no images) or the like, and don't transclude the offending images. Then Wikipedia is neither censored nor offending for those faithful who wish to view the information sans-images. Bob's yer uncle. Franamax (talk) 09:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I was about to suggest that Franamax. I know in MSIE there is a feature to turn off images, if thats a universal feature that can be enabled via hyperlink (or emmulated), that could work. MBisanz talk 09:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- But turn-off-images is a bad solution. There's two factors here: one is that WP is not censored and the articles draw on all available sources; the other is that people of the Muslim faith also use Wikipedia to seek out information about Muhammed and some subset of them will be offended by images portraying Muhammed. What I am suggesting is a shadow page where those two images just don't show up, and that's the only difference. We get our thing, the believers get a page to view that has images on it, just not images offensive to the viewers. It can't be that hard to construct. Franamax (talk) 09:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- It's actually not hard at all: here's the Fmax-Muhammed, which points to the Fmax-Muhammed (no images). Did I miss something (other than being sloppy)? Of course, if someone wants to contribute to en:wiki, they have to buy in to the whole scene. And this doesn't open a big door, perhaps Howard Hughes would want the same treatment. Franamax (talk) 10:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Are edits to one page automatically made to the other page as well? Fram (talk) 10:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- It's a transclusion so I imagine so, try in my test pages, or wait for five and check live, I'm being WP:BOLD :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Franamax (talk • contribs) 10:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC) Damn that SineBot :) Franamax (talk) 10:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Proposed changes made to the live database. Revert at will! Franamax (talk) 10:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Nice! Personally, I would prefer not to change anything under pressure of petitions or other religious demands, but if consensus is that some compromise is better than no change at all, then this is so far the best solution IMO. (you did miss one image though, Image:Mohammed kaaba 1315.jpg). Fram (talk) 10:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, we haven't changed anything at all, have we? All that's changed is that I've created my first mainspace article and made some minor edits to another. I'm firmly on the in-your-face side except when it's easy to make an accomodation. Oh hey, thanks for leaving me to noinclude the additional image you spotted! Let me handle the neo-nazis gathering in the street! :) Franamax (talk) 11:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Nice! Personally, I would prefer not to change anything under pressure of petitions or other religious demands, but if consensus is that some compromise is better than no change at all, then this is so far the best solution IMO. (you did miss one image though, Image:Mohammed kaaba 1315.jpg). Fram (talk) 10:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Are edits to one page automatically made to the other page as well? Fram (talk) 10:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I was about to suggest that Franamax. I know in MSIE there is a feature to turn off images, if thats a universal feature that can be enabled via hyperlink (or emmulated), that could work. MBisanz talk 09:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hehe, and there was me playing around with the Image blacklist when
<noinclude>
tags would work just as well!! Happy‑melon 10:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I appreciate the effort at dealing with this, and no offense, but this is a god-awful idea. WP:CENSOR is not a guideline or a suggestion; it is policy. This is an end-around of official policy to stem what is largely a movement of vandals and off-wiki petitioning, and would set a terrible precedent if allowed to remain. Tarc (talk) 14:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Fork with no images, and AFD
Muhammad (no images); Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Muhammad (no images). Lawrence § t/e 14:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I was about to come here and add the link - I can understand that the article was created with good intentions but it's a terrible idea and will not provide any solution - the problem has never been where the images are placed, it's that they exist on this site at all. In addition, where do we stop? a G-D article? Penis article with no pictures? Maybe a F**k article? --Fredrick day (talk) 15:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Given the circumstances, a strong mandate coming out of the AfD is invaluable - let it run its course. WilyD 16:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- It is just a hornet's nest, so I deleted it again. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 23:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- It was an OBVIOUS Snow close. Jmlk17 23:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Aye. Nothing good was going to come out of that. The AfD doesn't need to extend the drama for five days. Black Kite 23:55, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- It was an OBVIOUS Snow close. Jmlk17 23:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- It is just a hornet's nest, so I deleted it again. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 23:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Technical solution?
Wikipedia does have numerous images that some may find offensive, naturally, and there will always be people that will want them removed for whatever reason. Either because it offends their religious sensibilities, or becuase they don't want to see pictures of genetalia, etc. Personally, I very strongly oppose any kind of opt-in solution that forces such images hidden unless the reader chooses to view them. However, what about the other way around? Could a preferences option be created that would allow a user, at their own discretion, auto-hide images that are flagged as potentially offensive? Something along the lines of MediaWiki:Bad image list. I don't want my encyclopedia censored, but if other individuals do, then give them the option. Resolute 15:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Ummm, that was actually the kind of opt-out solution I had in mind, from the Muhammed article, you had the choice to click to an alternate which was a tranclusion which specifically excluded things. As a transclusion, it was amenable to full page-protection, thus fully controlled from the master page. I'm not sure everyone who !voted there looked at the page source, but I certainly wasn't trying to create a fork. The same thing applies to Bahá'u'lláh, it's great that there's a warning that there are images of the person there, but that really just amounts to a warning to stay away (for the faithful). We need to come up with a way to make our NPOV and complete information available to all people. There's no need to fork anything. Slippery slope be damned, what's wrong with some selective creativity? And come to that, if we can have a redirect from Pneis to Penis, why not have a transclude to Penis (no images)? What are we taking away from those who want to see images of prophets or penises? They can always choose to not click on the alternate link. Franamax (talk) 16:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Problem being that content forking is greatly opposed, as we've seen in that AfD. What I was hoping for was a preferences option that would allow individual users to decide if they want to hide images that fall into an objectionable category without forking the article. Unfortunately, as WilyD notes below, this does not seem to be possible yet, though it is mentioned specifically on Wikipedia:Options to not see an image as something that could be written by someone who understands MediaWiki. Resolute 16:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- See, I don't understand where the "fork" part comes in, when actually it was a "mask". It's already there <includeonly>, <onlyinclude>, nothing was being split, nothing would diverge in future. It's just a selective view, kind of like those show/hide boxes. What is so awful about that? Franamax (talk) 16:37, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Problem being that content forking is greatly opposed, as we've seen in that AfD. What I was hoping for was a preferences option that would allow individual users to decide if they want to hide images that fall into an objectionable category without forking the article. Unfortunately, as WilyD notes below, this does not seem to be possible yet, though it is mentioned specifically on Wikipedia:Options to not see an image as something that could be written by someone who understands MediaWiki. Resolute 16:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Known technical solutions are discussed at Wikipedia:Options to not see an image, but they only work on a page by page basis or more coarsely, nobody seems to know how to do specific images. WilyD 16:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Help - user fighting to include original research in vacuum permittivity and other articles
Hello fellow editors, this is a plea for help.
If you look at Talk:Vacuum permittivity, User:Brews ohare has been fighting to get the following original research claims (or things that imply one of these claims) included in a variety of Wikipedia articles (from vacuum permittivity to vacuum permeability to relative static permittivity):
- That it is possible to measure the linear permittivity of vacuum (as opposed to its being ε0 by definition of the units, as sources like Jackson say); this is equivalent to the claim that it is possible to measure the speed of light in vacuum (which authoritative sources state as impossible because the vacuum speed of light defines the meter, and hence is c by definition).
- That there is more than one kind of vacuum, a "hypothetical" vacuum in which the speed of light is c vs. a "physical" vacuum in which the speed of light may differ. In particular, he wants to propose a (circular) definition of "vacuum" as the medium in which the speed of light in vacuum in c.
There are lots of logical problems with these claims (essentially, they are impossible to measure because there is no reference unit to compare against), which I tried to explain to him on the above Talk page, but ultimately the objection from Wikipedia's standpoint is that he is unable to provide sources, hence the above claims are original research. (There are, of course, references to the contrary, but he claims to understand electromagnetic units better than the referenced sources, e.g. better than Jackson, author of the canonical graduate textbook Classical Electrodynamics, or otherwise he redefines "vacuum" in a nonstandard circular way to claim that the references are irrelevant.)
The problem is, I can't keep up with him on my own (especially as I'm about to leave town on a trip), nor do I want to be in a one-on-one revert battle, nor can I continue to correct him without violating the three-revert rule. Please help, and look carefully at his [ohare|user contributions] to see the variety of places he is trying to insert the above (or things tantamount to the above).
(Another problem is that these issues are subtle and many readers will not notice the errors.)
—Steven G. Johnson (talk) 14:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
PS. There is a separate argument as to whether the vacuum permittivity article should be called "electric constant". Standards organizations have begun to prefer the latter name, but have not stated that there is only one official name or that the older name (which they continue to list as a synonym) is deprecated or unofficial, and the former name (and variants) remain far more popular (as measured e.g. by literature searches). My understanding of WP:NAME is that, in such cases, our longstanding policy is to use the most common unambiguous name, but a couple of users (including Brews) feel we should promote the term preferred by standards organizations and have been changing all the links in wikipedia to point to electric constant. However, this is merely a matter of convention and terminology, so in my opinion it is not very important compared to the above question, which is a question of fact (of the mathematical implications of the unit/constant definitions). I mention it here only so that you don't confuse one dispute for the other. —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 14:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think you probably need to bring in the Science Wikiproject team. Guy (Help!) 16:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- These worries are overblown. I am not trying to insert original research. I had hoped to clarify the way vacuum was used in these articles, and even exchanged e-mail with Barry Taylor (coauthor of the CODATA report on fundamental constants) at NIST on the subject. I quote his e-mail:
- Dear John,
- You raise an interesting question that I must confess I have not thought about previously, nor do I recall ever reading a discussion about it. Off the top of my head, I would say that Maxwell's equations in their SI form in vacuum apply to a "hypothetical" or "conceptual" vacuum where c = 299792458 m/s exactly, mu_0 = 4pi x 10^-7 N/A^2 exactly, and c = sqrt(1/[mu_0 x epsilon_0]) exactly. If one could achieve such a vacuum in practice, then one would presumably find, if one could actually do such an experiment, that the relative static electric permittivity of vacuum was exactly 1 (and similarly for the relative static magnetic permeability) of vacuum. On the other hand, we know that the modern picture of the vacuum is that it is a frothing sea of virtual particles coming into and going out of existence in times consistent with the uncertainty principle. Thus, in this sense, the "hypothetical" or "conceptual" vacuum can be viewed as not really a vacuum at all. With this view in mind, see my two brief comments in red below, but I would perhaps say that the key measurement one should make to determine if a given "vacuum" is really our "hypothetical" or "conceptual" vacuum is that of the speed of light.
- With best wishes,
- Barry
- My view is that Steve has gone overboard on this one, and is forcing his personal agenda on the articles. In any case, I have no intention of pursuing this matter except on talk pages. Wikipedia is welcome to be illogical (one step worse than inaccurate). My latest edits on these pages are innocuous. Brews ohare (talk) 17:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- An unpublished personal letter is not a reputable source for Wikipedia, sorry. And as he says, he's writing "off the top of his head." I provided a Rev. Mod. Phys. reference that includes quantum electrodynamics effects and still states that the linear relative permittivity of vacuum is (exactly) unity.
- The reason I asked for help here is that it was turning into an edit war, and by policy this is not something I can handle on my own (nor do I have time). —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 17:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- No idea on my part that unpublished source is suitable for Wikipedia. Does show though that a well-established expert doesn't find the idea of "vacuum" quite as Steven does.
- In addition, reduction of the argument to whether "vacuum" has relative permittivity 1 is a complete misstatement of the issue, as I agree with this statement 100%. Brews ohare (talk) 17:41, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Brews, you "agree" with that statement by redefining "vacuum" (circularly), as I pointed out. And the question is not my opinion or your opinion or an unpublished opinion "off the top of his head" by a guy at NIST, but published, refereed work. And all of the published, considered analyses that I can find contradict what you are saying, nor have you been able to find any that agree with you. The problem here that you think we should base the article on your arguments rather than on published references, and you seem willing to suck up endless amounts of time in a pointless debate about unpublished speculation.
- Guy, I did post a note on WikiProject physics as well. You're right that someone with physics training is better equipped to evaluate this case, but the pages on edit wars said to leave a note here, and it was turning into a clear-cut edit war where Brews kept trying to insert his opinion that he has been unable to back up with published sources.
- —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 17:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Nonresponsive and inflammatory. Brews ohare (talk) 18:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, you have all the answer you're likely to get: it's original research, it can't be cited as a source per policy, and it's directly contradicted by sources which can be used per policy. The burden of proof is always on the editor seeking to include disputed content, in this case you've failed to persuade so should stop inserting it in articles. You are of course at liberty to continue discussing it on talk pages, but do bear in mind that if you labour the point too long you may be seen as disruptive. OK? Guy (Help!) 22:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
CAT:CSD is highly backlogged again
CAT:CSD has over 120 pages currently, need help clearing it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Down to 15 now. Hut 8.5 17:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Getting a wave now of empty categories that are part of various wikiproject importance classification system. I clicked Delete on a number of them, but am now starting to wonder if that's the correct option. THese are part of a normal structure for rating of various articles. Just because a project has been efficient, and cleaned out their Unknown-importance category, does that mean that the Unknown-importance category should be subject to C1 speedy deletion? If the general opinion is no, these should not be deleted, then I (and maybe some others) have some undeleting to do. - TexasAndroid (talk) 19:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'd go with no it should not be subject to deletion, it seems a special case. Any time a new article is created and a project banner applied to the talk page, the category will be repopulated (at least long enough for the new article to get an importance review). ++Lar: t/c 20:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Most have now been deleted by another admin. If it is decided that these should not have been deleted, they can be found by any admin here. I'll go drop a note on any other deleting admin's talk page to ask them to come join this discussion. - TexasAndroid (talk) 20:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- The -importance and -class categories should not be deleted. The ones that have been deleted need to be restored. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:41, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Gah! Restoring them all. east.718 at 20:44, February 19, 2008
- I believe they have all been restored, maybe we should add something to WP:CSD#Categories saying these shouldn't be deleted in the future. – Gonzo fan2007 talk ♦ contribs 20:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Gah! Restoring them all. east.718 at 20:44, February 19, 2008
- The -importance and -class categories should not be deleted. The ones that have been deleted need to be restored. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:41, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Most have now been deleted by another admin. If it is decided that these should not have been deleted, they can be found by any admin here. I'll go drop a note on any other deleting admin's talk page to ask them to come join this discussion. - TexasAndroid (talk) 20:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'd go with no it should not be subject to deletion, it seems a special case. Any time a new article is created and a project banner applied to the talk page, the category will be repopulated (at least long enough for the new article to get an importance review). ++Lar: t/c 20:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Getting a wave now of empty categories that are part of various wikiproject importance classification system. I clicked Delete on a number of them, but am now starting to wonder if that's the correct option. THese are part of a normal structure for rating of various articles. Just because a project has been efficient, and cleaned out their Unknown-importance category, does that mean that the Unknown-importance category should be subject to C1 speedy deletion? If the general opinion is no, these should not be deleted, then I (and maybe some others) have some undeleting to do. - TexasAndroid (talk) 19:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I deleted some of those last time. Hm... tricky to say. Why to have an empty category? Just because that some articles may appear there some day? In fact, I don't object, if there are some categories with content and one without but fits in logically, it can stay. But then it would be nice to modify the CSD criteria so they don't get deleted again. --Tone 21:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Backlog at WP:SSP
Would appreciate some help here, especially with Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Eliko, which I posted on Friday. In this case, the alleged puppetmaster was in an edit-war with another user, and an arragement was coordinated (on my talk page) in which the two editors agreed to leave the article alone until they agreed on a consensus, working from a sandbox version. If the sockpuppet allegation is true, then that arrangement is void. The other (non sockpuppet) user has been asking me if it is ok to start editing on the main article again, and I don't want to keep him waiting unnecessarily. Thanks — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've agreed to avoid editing the article, and so far I've been obeying the arrangement. Is the arrangement void? Eliko (talk) 20:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
- Let me put it this way: I've agreed to avoid editing the article, and so far I've been obeying the arrangement. Now, assuming that the sockpuppet allegation is false, a very severe question arises: if one party breaks the arrangement unilaterally (i.e. without getting the other party's permission) - is the arrangement void then? Eliko (talk) 21:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
JdeJ
I was given a warning by this editor that I feel was unwarranted.
I referred to one of his edits as being racially motivated.
I would like a non-western editor to review the edits I made and give an opinion as to whether his automatic reversion of my contribution, without discussion, could or could not be explained as racially motivated.
I am aware that using such a word can be inflammatory, but I feel that in this instance it was accurate.
I would also like to point out that he has labeled me as abusive and disruptive. I take offense to that. Zaq1qaz (talk) 00:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- You called this edit was removing "racially biased POV". I think it speaks for itself. Making bold changes is fine; however, when you are reverted and asked to discuss it on the talk page you should probably do so instead of claiming other editors are biased. Name-calling isn't nice. --Haemo (talk) 02:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- No, I call this edit [21] biased.
- I also object to big .jpg's placed on my talk page without discussion, warning, or any recourse. The Warning was placed with the comment that it was my last warning. Can anyone put a picture of a stop sign on any page and say "you've been warned, the next time I'll block you" or words to that effect? There's no recourse, no notification or board postings about that?
- I think this editor's refusal to discuss the reversion he made speaks volumes about him. He never discussed his reversion, his reasons for his reversion on any talk page. I tried to discuss the matter with him on HIS talk page and he ignored it while making snide posts on MY talk page.Zaq1qaz (talk) 03:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Object all you want. This is the way things work. He doesn't have to respond to you. You can remove the warning if you want. Everyone is allowed to post warning templates. His next step would be to post to WP:AIV and if an admin decided that it was appropriate, you would be blocked. If you want to complain that his edit was biased, give him a warning as well. Then you can move to WP:AIV. An admin will decide what to do. From your talk page, you seem to be having a discussion about it now. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
As an admin, I vehemently disagree with Ricky's proposed solution. Instead of escalating the dispute in this way, the better course of action is to DE-escalate by using the article talk page and working out your differences there. If that doesn't work, there are almost a dozen options availible to find outside help to resolve the dispute, all can be found at Dispute resolution. Don't be eager to take revenge or escalate to the point of sanctions. Instead, de-escalate by attempting to work civily, even with those you disagree with, and attempt to reach common ground on the article talk page. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- It is true that I have warned Zaq1qaz, based on this edit summary [22] that I feel is very unsuitable and violates both WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. It wasn't the first time the user attacked other users in his edit summaries.[23] As for his accusation that my edit was "racially motivated", I invite everyone to have a look at the edit I reverted [24]. I doubt anyone can find anything even remotely "racially motivated" in reverting it, all I found was a lot of WP:OR, WP:WEASEL and WP:POV. JdeJ (talk) 07:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- User JdeJ continues to refuse to discuss the contributions I have made to the article. Is there some Wikipedia (WP:WEASEL?) policy that addresses an editor who deletes without discussion something that at least two other editors feel is on point?
- Also, isn't the deletion of statements contrary to ANYONE's viewpoint, against WP:POV? Why is HIS POV the correct one?Zaq1qaz (talk) 13:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, no point of view is preferred to a contested one. If an addition to an article is contested, standard practice is to leave it out of the article until consensus is reached to re-add it to the article via productive talk-page discussion. The conservative approach is that any contested additions remain OUT of the article until and unless consensus exists to put them back in. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Also, isn't the deletion of statements contrary to ANYONE's viewpoint, against WP:POV? Why is HIS POV the correct one?Zaq1qaz (talk) 13:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
McTrain editing around the block
User McTrain has a dynamic IP and frequently edits under it. This is most obvious in this edit [25] where he rewrites one of the IP signatures to clarify that it his own, though following the edit history of virtually every page he focuses on will confirm this.
McTrain is currently blocked for harassment of other editors [26] after being reported multiple times [27] [28] [29]. In spite of this, McTrain is still editing under the dynamic IP.
On Lucien Ruolle as 65.142.236.114 [30]. On O.A. Thorp Scholastic Academy as 65.142.236.114 [31] and 65.141.156.175 [32]. Edward321 (talk) 00:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Add 65.141.156.67 [33], User:Cancanit [34], and 65.141.156.1 [35]. Deor (talk) 03:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- and blanking the AfD selectively. I thought he was leaving? Travellingcari (talk) 03:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Not sure what to make of this
Shortly after I happened to make an edit to Boy, the other day, I got an email via Special:Emailuser from User:Wikigender, letting me know that the OECD is starting a new wiki (of the same name as the user) and inviting me to participate. The email mentions it was prompted by my having "created or modified an article related to gender." Have any other users been getting similar emails? The account has very little on-wiki behavior, so I'm wondering if its main purpose may be sending such messages. Is this an acceptable use of an account? – Luna Santin (talk) 02:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I see no reason not to block the account and blacklist the site - it is only here for spam. --B (talk) 03:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- That sounds kind of dodgy to me. I'd be wary. No opinion about the above recommendations. --Haemo (talk) 03:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- (Assuming no one else has already) I'm going to block with email disabled. They've got a couple of other complaints from people they've spammed on their talk page. As well, they shouldn't be using the username "Wikigender" when that is the name of the site they're promoting. All their edits seem to be in relation to promotion of their website. Sarah 03:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Is it valid to semiprotect an IP talk page to keep the IP from removing warnings?
See User talk:75.47.140.0 and User talk:Rschen7754#User talk:75.47.140.0 - it's my understanding that this shouldn't be done, but I may be wrong. --NE2 04:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- My interpretation is that this should only be done on a case by case basis and is not the guaranteed right of the administrator. --Rschen7754 (T C) 04:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Please allow me to jump in, but I'm sure NE2 was asking someone else out there on the noticeboard. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 04:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have a right to defend my actions... --Rschen7754 (T C) 04:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I wouldn't do it. The only situation I can think of where it's necessary to prevent an editor from editing their own talk page is if they're blocked and abusing the unblock template. Most of us ought to know that a warning-free talk page does not mean a clean editing record, and the warnings are still in the history, so there's not that much reason to insist that they remain visible. It could look a little vindictive, to be honest. -- Vary | Talk 04:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- However, when deciding whether to block or not, the administrator frequently does not look at the history - neither do the bots. --Rschen7754 (T C) 04:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Bots don't block and administrators damn well should be looking at editors' histories before blocking them. --ElKevbo (talk) 04:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Bots report people to be blocked. Also, in regards to AIV, the editor will never report the vandal to AIV if there is only a test2 template, even if the vandal removed 30 other templates. Finally, all an experienced IP vandal has to do is keep removing the vandal warnings, and then they would escape detection for a long time. --Rschen7754 (T C) 04:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not if people check the talk page history. I don't know how the bots determine what warnings to leave and when to report, so I can't speak on that, but I do know that checking the current revision of their talk page for visible warnings is not the best way to figure out an editor's recent history. Flesh and blood editors at least should not be relying on an admin to prevent an editor from removing warnings so they won't have to spend a few extra seconds checking out the talk page history. If you're concerned that the editor is going to 'escape detection' by removing one first-level warning, I'd think that watchlisting the talk page and keeping an eye on it would be a less bitey way to handle the situation. -- Vary | Talk 05:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- However, I do not stay on the computer 24/7 - I have to sleep and go to class and stuff. --Rschen7754 (T C) 05:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- So deal with it when you get back. How much damage do you think one IP can do in twelve hours without someone taking notice, blanked warnings or no? -- Vary | Talk 05:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Quite a bit. --Rschen7754 (T C) 05:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- You shouldn't be blocking anyone if you aren't prepared to look at the talk page history each and every time. Frankly, I'm finding this conversation more than a little unsettling. Sarah 05:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Quite a bit. --Rschen7754 (T C) 05:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- So deal with it when you get back. How much damage do you think one IP can do in twelve hours without someone taking notice, blanked warnings or no? -- Vary | Talk 05:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- However, I do not stay on the computer 24/7 - I have to sleep and go to class and stuff. --Rschen7754 (T C) 05:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not if people check the talk page history. I don't know how the bots determine what warnings to leave and when to report, so I can't speak on that, but I do know that checking the current revision of their talk page for visible warnings is not the best way to figure out an editor's recent history. Flesh and blood editors at least should not be relying on an admin to prevent an editor from removing warnings so they won't have to spend a few extra seconds checking out the talk page history. If you're concerned that the editor is going to 'escape detection' by removing one first-level warning, I'd think that watchlisting the talk page and keeping an eye on it would be a less bitey way to handle the situation. -- Vary | Talk 05:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Bots report people to be blocked. Also, in regards to AIV, the editor will never report the vandal to AIV if there is only a test2 template, even if the vandal removed 30 other templates. Finally, all an experienced IP vandal has to do is keep removing the vandal warnings, and then they would escape detection for a long time. --Rschen7754 (T C) 04:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Bots don't block and administrators damn well should be looking at editors' histories before blocking them. --ElKevbo (talk) 04:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- However, when deciding whether to block or not, the administrator frequently does not look at the history - neither do the bots. --Rschen7754 (T C) 04:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Please allow me to jump in, but I'm sure NE2 was asking someone else out there on the noticeboard. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 04:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- (in rs) Unsettling? I find this potential for vandal abuse unsettling. --Rschen7754 (T C) 05:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
For the record, this wasn't even a vandalism warning; the IP blanked a talk page that was simply a redirect to another because he thought the non-talk title should redirect to a different place. --NE2 05:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- That wasn't my call - however, the IP has been making disruptive edits anyway. --Rschen7754 (T C) 05:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Not sure if this makes a difference, but the IP removed the warning with the summary "No Legal Threats"... —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 05:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I thoroughly endorse Yamamoto's unprotection of the talk page. I actually went there to do it myself. Sarah 05:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- [36] --Rschen7754 (T C) 06:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- What's your point? I don't get what you're trying to say by posting a diff of someone restoring a message in reply to my endorsement of the unprotection. I don't really care if IPs are allowed or not allowed to remove messages but I do care that you seem to think it's a-okay and acceptable practice to go about blocking blind. If you don't have time to check talk histories or just can't be stuffed, leave the blocks to someone else. There are plenty of times when talk pages are very misleading and I find the idea of you going about blindly making blocks without checking the account properly very disturbing. Sarah 06:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- In this instance, the error would reside in not blocking the IP - so you can't say that the user would be blocked unfairly. --Rschen7754 (T C) 06:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- What's your point? I don't get what you're trying to say by posting a diff of someone restoring a message in reply to my endorsement of the unprotection. I don't really care if IPs are allowed or not allowed to remove messages but I do care that you seem to think it's a-okay and acceptable practice to go about blocking blind. If you don't have time to check talk histories or just can't be stuffed, leave the blocks to someone else. There are plenty of times when talk pages are very misleading and I find the idea of you going about blindly making blocks without checking the account properly very disturbing. Sarah 06:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- [36] --Rschen7754 (T C) 06:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
IP's don't fall under Wikipedia:User page, page trolling and blanking on anon IP talk pages is Not acceptable and is vandalism.--Hu12 (talk) 06:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Says who? --NE2 06:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- So AOL or any other SHARED IP are treated the same under WP:USER, don't think so. We block shared and multiple user accounts, you can't assure against ths IP being a different individual in a month, can you? Wikipedia offers wide latitude to "users" to manage their user space as they see fit such as delete warnings. However, pages in user space still do belong to the community, IP's are not considered userpages. If they are, Where?--Hu12 (talk) 06:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- IP addresses are just like other users in the sense that they have every right to edit an article that any normal registered user can (with exceptions in the technical regard). Wikipedia:User page says "Wikipedia provides user pages to facilitate communication among participants in its project to build an encyclopedia" (emphasis partly mine). IPs are participants as much as any normal registered user, so blanking of a talk page is commonly accepted and should not be reverted or classed as vandalism. Not all IPs are vandals. Spebi 06:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Agree that there is a person editing behind the IP and he/she deserves all the consideration and respect as any other user, however IP's are not userpages, nor are they given the latitude under WP:USER. Blanking or trolling of a shared/dynamic/proxy/TOR/ect IP talk page is vandalism.--Hu12 (talk) 06:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm slightly confused here. I'm not particularly sure what the situation is here, but I am sure that any user, registered or not, is allowed to blank their own talk page to remove warnings. What do you mean by "however IP's are not userpages"? Spebi 06:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- A user page is devoted to exactly one person. An IP page refers to anyone using that IP, which may well be many people, not just one. I may have the right to blank "my" user page; I don't have the right to blank one I share with others. - Nunh-huh 11:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Messages on talk pages are intended for just one user - the one who receives the orange message bar. If the message is intended for them and they have read it then they can remove it. If the message isn't intended for them they can remove it too because no one else is going to get the orange message bar. -- zzuuzz (talk) 12:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Removing a message and blanking are two different things. An IP page and a user page are two different things. - Nunh-huh 12:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Blanking and removing a warning are exactly the same thing if the only message on a Talk page is a warning, which was the case here. And your assertion that "an IP page and a user page are two different things" is laughably false.
- I tire once again of editors, particularly administrators who should know better, treating anonymous editors as second-class citizens in this project. --ElKevbo (talk) 13:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, Nunh-huh is correct; IP address users are not allowed to blank their talk pages, only registered users. I'm not sure where that's written down,--or if it is at all, rather than being standard practice only--as I was told by Snowolf. · AndonicO Hail! 13:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Removing a message and blanking are two different things. An IP page and a user page are two different things. - Nunh-huh 12:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Messages on talk pages are intended for just one user - the one who receives the orange message bar. If the message is intended for them and they have read it then they can remove it. If the message isn't intended for them they can remove it too because no one else is going to get the orange message bar. -- zzuuzz (talk) 12:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- A user page is devoted to exactly one person. An IP page refers to anyone using that IP, which may well be many people, not just one. I may have the right to blank "my" user page; I don't have the right to blank one I share with others. - Nunh-huh 11:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm slightly confused here. I'm not particularly sure what the situation is here, but I am sure that any user, registered or not, is allowed to blank their own talk page to remove warnings. What do you mean by "however IP's are not userpages"? Spebi 06:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Agree that there is a person editing behind the IP and he/she deserves all the consideration and respect as any other user, however IP's are not userpages, nor are they given the latitude under WP:USER. Blanking or trolling of a shared/dynamic/proxy/TOR/ect IP talk page is vandalism.--Hu12 (talk) 06:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've just semiprotected this IP talkpage for the length of their block, (for somewhat obvious reasons) and I'd also do it for abuse of unblock, but that's about it I think. Black Kite 07:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- If a person is abusing their talk page while blocked, then the page should be fully protected for the duration of the block. Black Kite's protection meets that sandard. When the block expires, the page should be unprotected. If a person (IP or username) is not blocked, their talk page should not be protected. In any case, removing warnings is not abusive, it is perfectly acceptable, even if it leaves the page blank. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- These things have to be handled on a case-by-case basis. The idea behind allowing users to control their own talk pages is that we don't want to humiliate people by forcing them to edit with warnings on their talk pages, as though we've forced them into the stocks and are throwing rotten tomatoes at them. So generally, if someone removes a warning, we know they've seen it, and that's the end of it. However, there are situations where the behavior of a user is particularly egregious and we have reason to believe that an administrator may shortly need to see the warnings — for example, during a block that might be contested, or where the behavior has been repeated — and then I would say it's valid to protect or semi-protect the page to stop the warnings from being removed. This applies whether it's an anon or an account, though the more established the editor, the more we should assume good faith. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 13:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, I think the opposite is true. IP users and new users are the ones who benefit the most from an assumption of good faith. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- There's no opposite. Case-by-case basis is sound. Be flexible, use common sense, and do not invoke rules for the sakes of following rules, blindly. (I suppose that in your case, CBM, I may be arguing for naught, but still, perhaps you'll pick up on it — it's possible) El_C 14:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Case by case makes sense, but nobody should be edit warring over IP talk pages, that's just silly. Instead, make sure that any warnings given (including the level and page affected) are also in the edit summary so that others can quickly look and assess the situation. R. Baley (talk) 03:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
- There's no opposite. Case-by-case basis is sound. Be flexible, use common sense, and do not invoke rules for the sakes of following rules, blindly. (I suppose that in your case, CBM, I may be arguing for naught, but still, perhaps you'll pick up on it — it's possible) El_C 14:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, I think the opposite is true. IP users and new users are the ones who benefit the most from an assumption of good faith. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
User:Rschen7754/Problems with Wikipedia --NE2 02:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
- That is not relevant to this discussion alone. --Rschen7754 (T C) 03:01, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Heads up - protected a bunch of templates
Just to let you guys know that I spent my sick, rainy Wednesday going through Special:Mostlinkedtemplates and protecting anything that wasn't already locked in the top 500. i.e. anything with over 8,368 transclusions is now either semiprotected or full protected. I was surprised by how many weren't already locked! This is following a spate of silly vandalism to high-risk templates, which people tend to not be able to figure out quickly.
If you need anything downgraded to semiprotection (it's a bad idea to leave these completely unlocked, methinks) please ask on my talk or WP:RUP. If you just want something changed, please used {{editprotected}}. Cheers, ~ Riana ⁂ 10:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Personally, I think it's worrying that there are over 8,368 overly long plot summaries :/ Will (talk) 12:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- True. We don't need, for example, a blow by blow account of Deep Throat.--Rodhullandemu (Talk) 13:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for your work, Riana. However, it seems that something has gone wrong with at least one of the templates right about the time you protected it. Please see Template:WikiProject College football. The template has its spacing thrown off - similar to what happens if one puts a space at the start of a sentence - it throws the text into a box like:
is part of WikiProject College football, an attempt...
This template includes other templates so the problem may be with one of the included ones. I am having trouble finding the problem. Could someone please take a look? Johntex\talk 15:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Er, does anyone know what's going here with Lisa the Sociopath (talk · contribs)? --Calton | Talk 13:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- A look at the deleted history seems to suggest she's using it as a personal journal and tagging it with {{db-userreq}}, then immediately starting it up again. Weird but not "evil". She's editing in good faith based on a quick glance of the article contributions, so I would say let it go. Neıl ☎ 13:39, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what to make of this article. Intervention by more awake admins gratefully received. --Dweller (talk) 17:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- My brain just snapped. -Jéské (v^_^v +2 Pen of Editing) 17:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
How rude of me not to come back and thank you, Natalie. You, too, Jéské, for making a tired man laugh. --Dweller (talk) 17:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- When Abbey Road was released, "Late Night Line Up" commissioned a number of short films as accompaniments to the broadcast of the album in its entirety. I remember watching it. However, since no information seems to be available at present, there is nothing to support this article. It's not a hoax, however. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 17:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Talkpage deletion
This is puzzling me a bit. Used on several articles is this file from commons. Its completely unsourced and I keep on having to remove it from articles. I'd prefer to warn any prospective linker that I intend to remove it. When you click through to the image page, it of course gives you the placeholder for the image in commons, with the standard copy of the description page from there. However, the last time I put a note on the associated talkpage with a reminder that an unsourced image shouldn't be used, it was deleted as an orphaned talkpage - and that's happened before. When I asked a deleting admin - Majorly - about it here he was singularly unhelpful. Does anyone have any ideas? Is there a standard approach to discussion about such images? Or a note on the talkpage telling people not to delete the damn thing? 18:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, commons and wikipedia are two completely different sites, with their own admins, policies, and editors. There are many people who edit both, but there is no action taken at Wikipedia that can or should effect commons files. Please try asking your question here: at the Commons Village Pump, where you are likely to get a more positive response. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Obviously I was not adequately clear. When you click on a commons image in articlespace, you are taken to a placeholder page in wikipedia, not in commons. Very few users click through that to the commons page. So I'm talking about the talkpage associated with that placeholder page - only the placeholder page doesn't exactly exist, so the talkpage shows up as orphaned.
- As you can see, this has nothing to do with commons. Relata refero (talk) 19:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- If there is a significant concern about an image meaning that it should not be used on the english wikipedia, I think that would merit a note on the image description page (the "placeholder page") itself. But, anyway, CSD-G8 _specifically_ does not apply to local talk pages of images existing on commons. I've noticed people are very overzealous in deleting any orphaned talk page despite the fact that there are numerous exceptions to the criterion. —Random832 19:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Why is Wikileaks still on the front page? It's a totally trivial news story which shouldn't have got there at all. Given its total lack of importance and significance (compare it with the other candidates). Take a look at the discussions on the candidate page - Wikipedia:ITN/C#Wikileaks. Apparently, it was added due to "consensus" on the WP:ITN/C page - Template talk:In_the_news#Wikilinks, but that page shows that no, this is not a worthy candidate. Please can an admin right this. - hahnchen 19:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Please bring this up on the appropriate page, which this is not. Wikipedia:ITN/C#Wikileaks. Lawrence § t/e 20:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Mass-spamming by User:John Carter and User:Betacommandbot
The Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Interfaith work group, with three signed-up active members, have taken it up themselves to use Betacommandbot to spam thousands of articles with their large banner on the talk page, where it is always placed above all other project tags, including GA & FA ones (eg Talk:Paul the Apostle). A good percentage of these articles have nothing to do with religion in any sense (eg Regeneration (Doctor Who), and for those that do this banner will be a useless and unwelcome addition to the vast majority, which are mostly already tagged by more specific projects. In the hour since the spree began, I am far from the only person to object at both the Project [37] and at Beta's talk page (where protesters are referred to John Carter, in the usual 5 minutes before beta delets them): [38], [39] (multiple comments each diff). Is there any way this spam can be reversed? Johnbod (talk) 19:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I watched it go by on my watchlist (Otto von Bismarck and Benjamin Disraeli). I don't see how either article would fall within their mandate, and I'd love to know what criteria were used. Mackensen (talk) 19:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- That's easy - Disraeli is in Category:Converts from Judaism to Anglicanism and Bismark in Category:Anti-Catholicism! Johnbod (talk) 19:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- (ec) I too noticed this. Celestial spheres? This is entirely too indiscriminate. Deor (talk) 19:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)Talk:Aliens Act 1905 was where I noticed it, the link is very loose in my opinion. (Oh and your edit is fine Johnbod). Woody (talk) 20:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've tried to contact Betacommand on IRC. Some of the articles tagged are really irrelevant, unless I've missed something - Steve McQueen?! I haven't blocked the bot, because it's stopped, but this doesn't look completely helpful. Black Kite 20:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Steve is in Category:Converts to Christianity. Johnbod (talk) 20:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Illustrates the point, then. The templates should really only be on articles where the subject is the main, or a major, focus. Black Kite 20:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Steve is in Category:Converts to Christianity. Johnbod (talk) 20:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- (third ec) Considering the effort several of us put into cleaning up talk pages of FAs when {{articlehistory}} was added, it would be nice if people tagging talk pages would look for {{WikiProjectBanners}} or {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} and add their tags within the banner shell. Not doing so is just rude. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Isn't convention that they go under articlehistory as well. Woody (talk) 20:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- That's where I put them, but that may fall under preference of regular article editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Betacommandbot does thousands of useful edit...blah..blah..important function...blah..blah.....sanction...blah..blah.....can't sanction..need a sub-page to discuss this......blah..blah..no action needed...drastic action again. Well I think that covers all of the conversation - anyone else for a ride on the merry-go-around ? Sure it plays the same old tunes but we love them. (Note: I wouldn't want people to think I'm making light of the problem highlighted here - just a general sense of frustration at constantly seeing those issues come around and around and around). --Fredrick day (talk) 20:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- If Betacommand would revert the false edits, there wouldn't be much of a problem, but he/she hasn't in this case and didn't either in the past.--Carabinieri (talk) 20:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- This isn't really a BetaCommandBot issue. Black Kite 20:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Betacommandbot does thousands of useful edit...blah..blah..important function...blah..blah.....sanction...blah..blah.....can't sanction..need a sub-page to discuss this......blah..blah..no action needed...drastic action again. Well I think that covers all of the conversation - anyone else for a ride on the merry-go-around ? Sure it plays the same old tunes but we love them. (Note: I wouldn't want people to think I'm making light of the problem highlighted here - just a general sense of frustration at constantly seeing those issues come around and around and around). --Fredrick day (talk) 20:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- A quick look here [40] and here [41] will show why this was being done. I have tried to discuss this with John Carter here [42]. There is a definite problem here that needs to be addressed and a consensus reached as soon as possible. MarnetteD | Talk 20:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I very much question the almost judgemental failure to AGF of the originator of this thread. I believe that the two articles mentioned above included in the category Category:Interfaith topics or one of its subcategories. Specifically, Bismark was involved in Anti-Catholicism, and is actually categorized on that basis. Disraeli was a religious convert. The categories for converts and religious discrimination are basically the reason the group was initially created. It is unfortunate that the banner hadn't been adjusted earlier to include parameters for the group, but I take some time for me to learn things. The initial reason for the formation of the group was a rather heated discussion regarding Bob Dylan's conversion to Christianity, and one since banned editor's efforts to even delete articles on the basis of mention of the matter, because the conversion didn't meet certain regular guidelines. Unfortunately, the group he converted to doesn't keep records of baptisms, so the definite proof being sought was absent. Unfortunately, as we all know, there are often heated discussions regarding conversions and persecutions, and it is often the case that articles dealing with these matters provoke high emotion. The purpose of this group, even more than the other religion groups, is to gather together individuals so that the content regarding these matters can be rationally discussed. Granted, it isn't necessarily the case that each and every article will ever rise to the level of heat regarding Dylan, but such unfortunate misrepresentations or overrepresentations are far from uncommon in such subjects, often even, perhaps unknowingly, making inaccurate judgemental statements regarding one or the other "sides".
I also note that the originator of this thread first contacted me regarding the Doctor Who article, seemingly one of the few he is directly involved in, which was placed by someone else in the Category:Reincarnation, as was already explained to him, and that category falls as a subcat of Category:Interfaith topics. And, as stated, that was already explained to him. I am in the process of going through the articles to see which if any do not belong either within the scope of the group, or in the categories in which they were placed, again, as was already explained to the originator of this thread. If the categories and banners are irrelevant, then I will try to ensure that they are placed in more appropriate categories or have the faulty categories, and banner, removed outright.John Carter (talk) 20:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I very much question the almost judgemental failure to AGF of the originator of this thread. I believe that the two articles mentioned above included in the category Category:Interfaith topics or one of its subcategories. Specifically, Bismark was involved in Anti-Catholicism, and is actually categorized on that basis. Disraeli was a religious convert. The categories for converts and religious discrimination are basically the reason the group was initially created. It is unfortunate that the banner hadn't been adjusted earlier to include parameters for the group, but I take some time for me to learn things. The initial reason for the formation of the group was a rather heated discussion regarding Bob Dylan's conversion to Christianity, and one since banned editor's efforts to even delete articles on the basis of mention of the matter, because the conversion didn't meet certain regular guidelines. Unfortunately, the group he converted to doesn't keep records of baptisms, so the definite proof being sought was absent. Unfortunately, as we all know, there are often heated discussions regarding conversions and persecutions, and it is often the case that articles dealing with these matters provoke high emotion. The purpose of this group, even more than the other religion groups, is to gather together individuals so that the content regarding these matters can be rationally discussed. Granted, it isn't necessarily the case that each and every article will ever rise to the level of heat regarding Dylan, but such unfortunate misrepresentations or overrepresentations are far from uncommon in such subjects, often even, perhaps unknowingly, making inaccurate judgemental statements regarding one or the other "sides".
- I imagine any concerns about my good faith will have been dispelled by this reply. What exactly are the three of you in the group hoping to do with the thousands of articles you have now taken under your wing, which go way beyond the parameters you mention. How on earth are even going to be able to assess "if the categories and banners are irrelevant", and did you actually look at what was in Category:Interfaith topics and the other 100-odd categories at Wikipedia:BOTREQ#Bot tagging request before ordering the spamming? You have tagged the whole of Category:Crusades, Category:Ancient Roman Christianity and dozens of other specialised categories you will be able to do nothing about. Plus it has been done in a very overbearing way. With a very few exception, the whole lot should be reverted. Btw, you are confusing me with someone else, if you look at your talk page, and just below. Johnbod (talk) 20:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- If you can point out to me a specific policy or guideline which agrees with you, I will be more than willing to do so. However, the only policy or guideline which I know of which might be relevant is WP:OWN, which would say that the banner could be placed there. Can you point out a contrary one? John Carter (talk) 20:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- On the contrary, there seems to be a clear Wikipedia:Consensus here and elsewhere that, a) your edits were done inappropriately by forcing themselves above GA & FA banners as well as those of more involved projects and b) the scope of the categories marked for tagging goes well beyond what is reasonable for such an excercise. Johnbod (talk) 21:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- If you can point out to me a specific policy or guideline which agrees with you, I will be more than willing to do so. However, the only policy or guideline which I know of which might be relevant is WP:OWN, which would say that the banner could be placed there. Can you point out a contrary one? John Carter (talk) 20:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- A quick look here [40] and here [41] will show why this was being done. I have tried to discuss this with John Carter here [42]. There is a definite problem here that needs to be addressed and a consensus reached as soon as possible. MarnetteD | Talk 20:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- As can easily be seen I did not start this thread and it looks as though everyone here has come here independently. The inclusion of the page Louis Auguste Blanqui in this bots work shows the pitfall of the mass inclusion of categories in the request to the bot noted above. I have suggested that this projects banners need to be done by a human and not a bot. Even then some pages inclusion in the project will need to have a consensus of editors to verify the inclusion. MarnetteD | Talk 20:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Nothing wrong with the idea, just that the categories could've been a little more carefully selected. Some of the more borderline ones probably needed to be done by hand. Black Kite 20:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I looked over the cats and they looked ok, John carter is a trusted user, I am not that familiar with WP:RELIGION. But every thing looked ok, so I went ahead and tagged them. the same thing that I have done countless times before. βcommand 20:37, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
(multi ec) The bot request that lead to this situation may be found at: Wikipedia:BOTREQ#Bot tagging request. The request includes several categories that are not appropriate for the tag, as they are not within the scope of religious studies. (For example, Category:Anti-Defamation League and Category:Anti-Jewish pogroms.) The inclusion of apostate and convert categories also seems seriously questionable. Religious affiliation does not indicate that that an article is within the scope of religious studies. I often defend BetacommandBot and its operator regarding fair-use tagging. However, Betacommand's assertion that it's essentially not his problem in this instance is very disturbing. He undertook the actions and he is responsible for the actions he takes. Responding to a request is not an excuse to disclaim responsibility. For example, if an admin makes a bad block for edit warring based on an incorrect 3RR report, the reporting user isn't blamed for the bad block, the block admin is blamed for the bad block. Regardless of John Carter's request, Betacommand is responsible for the edits he made and should be responsible for cleaning up any mess made by those edits. Vassyana (talk) 20:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- My apologies to JohnBod regarding the mistake. Actually, I specifically made sure that the most borderline ones weren't included at all. I should also note that I am separately trying to combine the extant religion banners into no more than, hopefully, five or six separate banners, one for Christianity and all related projects, one for Judaism, one for religious texts, and as many others as possible in the main Religion banner. Unfortunately, it is often the case that articles are relevant to several religions. Martin Luther is currently tagged for 6 religion projects, Bible 9. However, even there, it would be useful knowing which subprojects want assessments on the articles, and placing the banners in advance, so that it becomes easier to know which terms to add, I think makes a bit of sense. And, as stated, I am going through these articles by hand to place the banner in the shell templates, if such is required, and assess them. It might take a week or so to go through them all. John Carter (talk) 20:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- One, Two, Three, Four, Boone (by that I mean, don't sweat, it's an honest mistake that happened because of the instructions it was given - when I asked for UK road articles to me mass tagged, I had to be careful not to get Edinburgh Castle tagged, but some wayward tags happened anyway) Will (talk) 20:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
(usual BCB-thread ecs)Perhaps people could see this through the lens of WP:AGF - if someone, in good faith, asks BC to run his bot to add something to talk pages of articles in good faith, then BC has no reason in good faith to not do so. That there is a problem that others have with this is fine, but please point me to anyone here who was not acting in good faith. Central tenet of the 'pedia: AGF until proven otherwise; and remember the miles of rope we extend to the various POV-pushing, nasty-minded sockpuppeting trolls and compare that to the mere millimetres we give to BC and BCB. ➔ REDVEЯS knows how Joan of Arc felt 20:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Completely agree. It was a good faith request made to the Bot request page, Betacommand acted in good faith here. If I knew the first thing about bots I would have done the same and I am sure that can be said about most people commenting here. Woody (talk) 20:37, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I perfectly believe both users acted in good faith. However, good faith does not preclude poor or contentious decisions. Vassyana (talk) 20:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think it was a poor decision. He probably compiled a list in AWB and gave it to BCB, and guessing the magnitude of WP:RELIGION, I don't think he checked too closely. Will (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- As Vassyana, above. Everyone acted in good faith, yes, right up until the point where βcommand responded to requests to stop with an imperious, "Go talk to the guy who asked me to do it."
The run should have been stopped immediately, andβ should have investigated the accusations of improper tagging. The ability to make hundreds of thousands of edits to the Encyclopedia in a machine-assisted way is granted with the assumption that the controller of the bot will exercise due restraint with it, especially given the difficulties and overhead inherent in mass-reversion. β may have exercised due restraint here in accepting the request, but the poor decision, in this case, lies in continuing to perform the edits even after multiple people raised concerns about their applicability. As such, he has fallen short of the standard I'd expect for bot operators. Jouster (whisper) 20:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)- The bot made a total of four edits after the issue was brought up. I re-directed questions to the person who is best to answer them, I am not part of WP:RELIGION and john is a better person to ask. βcommand 21:10, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Again, don't beat Beta up about it. He trusted John to think he'd checked the list thoroughly. WP:UKRD is a small project and it has 1429 articles. RELIGION, like BIOG and LGBT, is bound to be very big. People don't have time to check through a list of 20,000 articles in great detail. Just fix the mistakes, and let's all move on, shall we? Will (talk) 20:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- As Vassyana, above. Everyone acted in good faith, yes, right up until the point where βcommand responded to requests to stop with an imperious, "Go talk to the guy who asked me to do it."
- I note that no one seems to question what is probably the primary problem here, which is the unfortunately huge problem of miscategorization or failure to adjust categorization over time. One of the few ways we have available to indicate that articles might be miscategorized is this means. I have just noted the rather inclusive(?) nature of the extant Category:Antisemitism, which doesn't seem to allow for differences between communist antisemitism and Christian or other antisemitism, and have requested the creation of a new, more defined, subcategory by the Judaism WikiProject. Unfortunately, as stated before, and in this case by Kirll Lokshin regarding the various subcats of military history, one of the only ways to find out when articles are miscategorized or poorly categorized is to see what they logically link to. As it stands, Category:Jerusalem is still a distant subcat of Category:Religious texts, which strikes me as seemingly nonsensical. The lack of attention that categorization has received is probably one of the biggest problems we have, and, even if by making errors such as some of those here, this may be the only way to get people to address those existing errors, or failures to adjust categorization as new categorization is developed. John Carter (talk) 20:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Why on earth should Category:Antisemitism have to "allow for differences between communist antisemitism and Christian or other antisemitism" just for your benefit! Categorization is more important, and usually given far more thought, than project banner tagging. You should look at the category trees before you ask them to be tagged. Johnbod (talk) 21:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think it was a poor decision. He probably compiled a list in AWB and gave it to BCB, and guessing the magnitude of WP:RELIGION, I don't think he checked too closely. Will (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I perfectly believe both users acted in good faith. However, good faith does not preclude poor or contentious decisions. Vassyana (talk) 20:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't see that as the primary problem. There had been a discussion about the role of WP:RELIGION shortly after it was first created, and there was a general sense that it was a useful forum for cooperative efforts and discussing particular issues but that focused expertise was needed in each individual religion to evaluate articles and the individual religion WikiProjects could supply that. Obviously any WikiProject, even one with a small number of members, is welcome to tag and evaluate articles. However, strongly suggest seeking consensus before asking a bot operator to place ones own project's tag at the top. --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- In the past year, after a rocky start where the WikiProject presented itself as a hierarchical umbrella project over all religion WikiProjects to general disagreement, the project regrouped and had been quietly making contributions to the encyclopedia and gaining in use, trust, and members. I've used it myself for a number of issues of potential interest to members of multiple religions. Efforts that tend to convey an impression to the rest of the community that one is in charge and bypass seeking the community's processes for approval do not lead to trust, and this latest incident is very much a setback for the WikiProject's efforts to be a useful and valued forum and collaboration platform. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Loathe though I am to keep flogging the horse, the majority of Beta's ill-deserved flak for this would have been avoided if he were to move tasks such as this to User:BetacommandBot II or similar. Surely it can't be that difficult... Happy‑melon 21:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- And, of course, who could resist to blame something else on Betacommand. Global warming? Also Betacommand. *sigh* Whether the tagging would have been done by another bot account or not the accident would still have occured, and Betacommand would still have been blamed. Lay off of him, for crying out loud. — Coren (talk) 21:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Oh don't get me wrong, Beta deserves none of it; he was just unfortunate enough to be the first bot operator to see the request with enough time to act on it. I'm just saying that it might be in his own interest to split the accounts, since he must be quite legitimately sick and tired of everything BetacommandBot does being automatically slated just because of its work on non-free images. Full marks to him for putting up with it - I just wonder why he doesn't make it easier for himself. Happy‑melon 21:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't know that the above statements by Shirahadasha are necessarily accurate about how the project first "presented" itself, I wasn't here at the time. However, I should note that the responsibility for the tagging was entirely my own. It should also be noted, again, that the tagging wasn't for the religion project per se, but rather the interfaith work group. And, regarding individual editors questions, there are and always will be questions regarding any group's even existence. Actually, I do not see at all how placement of a banner is and I quote an attempt to "bypass seeking the community's processes for approval". It is by definition impossible to know what the "community" specifically relevant to any article is. I have just since I started assessing the articles recently tagged, and I have been assessing them for all the projects which have already tagged them as well, found a few articles which really weren't relevant to the interfaith group, but were clearly relevant to other projects, including Hinduism and other religions, which hadn't yet tagged them. In fact, in several cases, no project had tagged these articles, religious or otherwise, even when they clearly dealt with religious subjects. Was I similarly bypassing processes for approval by tagging those articles for the appropriate projects? John Carter (talk) 21:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- It wasn't tagging the articles, it was placing the tag on top (even on top of FA tags). But I also realize that you may not have had any input into where the tag was placed on a talk page, and this may have been a programming issue. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- As I recall, when Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion was formed, it was not going to tag articles already tagged by more specific "daughter" projects. Its scope was to be general religious topics and more specific religious issues that lacked a dedicated wikiproject. Did this change? Gimmetrow 01:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Where does the bot approval process come into play. I continue to take exception with the fact that BetacommandBot is permited to work outside of the standard approval process. Am I totally in left field? Is this not a new function for the bot? A user makes a request for a bot to make thousdands of edits without any clear indication that there is any concensus for the edits and a bot operator decides that it sounds like a good idea and goes ahead and does it while totally ignoring WP:BAG It would appear that the functional policy regarding BetacommandBot is that it is permitted to do anything its owner decides to do and that it is not accountable to anyone. To quote one of the requirements from Wikipedia:Bot policy performs only tasks for which there is consensus Where was the consensus for this request? But since Betacommand is always right, and since he has alrealy labeled me as a troll, feel free to disregard what I have written. Dbiel (Talk) 01:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
- Dbiel, wikiproject tagging is a very standard procedure, Ive been doing it for a long time, see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot#WikiProject for my "recent" WP approval (April 2007), and my original approval [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot#BetacommandBot New task Bot operators dont need approval for each individual tagging run. Please check your facts before making wrong statements. βcommand 03:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
- βis right that bot operators approved for wikiproject tagging do not need approval for each individual tagging run. Although, above, I question whether this particular tagging was appropriate, β may not have known the history. Gimmetrow 05:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
IP abuse
It would be useful if one could search the history of all IPs in a given subnet. Is there a tool that does this? Guy (Help!) 21:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- WikiScanner can do that. (http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/). Jon513 (talk) 21:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Unblock abuse
Identityandconsulting (talk · contribs · block log) has been blocked for 1 week with the reason of disruption, and has since posted four unblock requests. I declined the third, but am wondering if this page should be protected and/or the block extended because of the further disruption because of the unblock requests? -MBK004 21:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've protected the page, but I have not removed or declined the unblock request. I don't have time to review the situation in depth at the moment, but looking at the unblock request, it appears they may be fulfilling the request of the second decline. Someone please review this and handle accordingly. Lara❤Love 21:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- It'd be handy if the admin dealing with this is fluent in both English and Spanish, since the user claims they are a native Spanish speaker. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 22:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Try a category intersection of Category:Wikipedia administrators and Category:User es-5, using AWB's filter options. That's what I did when I needed to find an admin who could read arabic. Happy‑melon 22:13, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- User:Caribbean H.Q. speaks Spanish. --Agüeybaná 22:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I speak fluent Spanish and English. I have just looked at the case. The subject matter is over my head as I am not an expert in this subject. The user seems to be AGF with just a misunderstanding because of the language barrier and his lack of knowledge of WP's rules and policies. He has been pointed to WP:NOT and WP:OR and seems to have understood the gist of the problem as evidenced by his comments on having posted his essay elsewhere. I believe the block to be correct and the declined unblock requests to be justified. I do not know what I can do to help. I wrote to him in Spanish in his Talk page, which I normally avoid doing in en:WP so every other editor can understand the exchange, but it might help here. Basically said he can email me with questions and I'll try to help his understanding of WP's policies and maybe point him in the right direction once he comes out of block. Alexf42 23:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- User:Caribbean H.Q. speaks Spanish. --Agüeybaná 22:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Try a category intersection of Category:Wikipedia administrators and Category:User es-5, using AWB's filter options. That's what I did when I needed to find an admin who could read arabic. Happy‑melon 22:13, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- It'd be handy if the admin dealing with this is fluent in both English and Spanish, since the user claims they are a native Spanish speaker. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 22:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have reduced the time of the protection on the talk page to equal when the block expiry is (24 February). Lara protected the page originally until the 27th. -MBK004 23:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)