User talk:Bgpaulus/Archive 1

216.162.88.89
Stop reverting my changes to articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.162.88.89 (talk) 13:03, 14 May 2010 (UTC)


 * If you'll kindly avoid making unconstructive edits (like this one), then you probably won't have to worry so much about having your changes reverted by me or other members of the Recent Changes Patrol. -- Bgpaulus (talk) 15:51, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

221.120.250.74
Why am I getting messages that I am incorrectly editing pages. I have never edited a single wiki page ever... let alone recently :S What's up with this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.120.250.74 (talk) 21:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, it appears that someone is using (or has used) a computer with the IP address 221.120.250.74 to edit Wikipedia today (click here to see a list of the recent edits they've made). If you didn't make the edits yourself, and the computer is located in a public place (like a library, for example), then maybe it was the person who used the computer before you. This is known as editing Wikipedia anonymously, which is okay, but some of the edits haven't been up to Wikipedia's standards. When another editor (like me, in this particular case) finds such edits and reverts them, it's polite and proper to post a note on the reverted editor's talk page to let them know that some of their work has been undone and why. If they disagree, then we can discuss it further via the talk pages (a bit like this conversation, actually). I hope this answers your question. Please let me know if there's anything else I can help you with. Cheers! -- Bgpaulus (talk) 22:33, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Twinkle
Hey, I've noticed you undoing a lot of vandalism lately. I don't know if you know about Twinkle. It's an anti-vandalism tool, that allows you to "Rollback" (Undo) changes by vandals, and warn that vandal. It's so much easier than manually undoing vandalism. Pilif12p : Yo  20:18, 1 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Pilif12p! On the one hand, it's been a real learning experience for me to undo the graffiti and vandalism manually, but I believe I'm about ready to add a few well-chosen tools to my toolbox so I can edit more effectively, especially whenever the barbarians come howling at the gates. I've been trying to read up on both Twinkle (TW) and Huggle (HG), but haven't quite yet been able to wrap my noodle around it all, especially considering that I normally use Internet Explorer (IE) on Windows Vista. I've already downloaded Google Chrome and Safari in anticipation of needing HG/TW-compatible alternatives to IE, but there's a learning curve associated with those products, too. If you have any hints or suggestions that would help me move forward in a particular direction, then please do feel free to post them here. Thanks again! -- Bgpaulus (talk) 04:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, huggle is a standalone app, but you need Rollback to use it. I love it though. Pilif12p :  Yo  21:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification and encouragement. I'm pleased to report that I just performed my first successful vandalism rollback and warning with Twinkle using Safari. It was so easy, it was almost scary. Cheers! -- Bgpaulus (talk) 22:43, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Anon IP Warning
I have rectified the warnings I issued previously, when I looked at the differences at the time entire sections had come as blanked. If it were a British/American spelling thing I wouldn't have cared. I do apologize for the mis-understanding. Mcmatter (talk) 23:48, 15 June 2010 (UTC)


 * That's okay, friend; these things do happen. :) Thanks for your ongoing help with improving Wikipedia! -- Bgpaulus (talk) 15:17, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

my change
All I did was enter a fact. Check any source and it will confirm it is true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.17.61.36 (talk) 13:47, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi and thanks very much for your note. I presume you're talking about this edit to the Toronto mayoral election, 2010 article. What you wrote may be true, but you didn't cite any references for it. Without a verifiable reference, there's no way for me or any other editor to "check any source" and "confirm it is true", as you suggested; we do assume good faith on Wikipedia, but I'm afraid we can't just take your word for something like that. Please take a look at this and this for more details and, by all means, do let me know if there's any way I can help further. Cheers! -- Bgpaulus (talk) 14:14, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Disney's House of Mouse
Hey there. I know you're keeping an eye on Talk:Disney's House of Mouse, as I am. What I'm hoping to do is leave it unprotected as much as possible, because it then gives an easy target for the IP to hit. Whilst this might seem counter-intuative, I'm blocking the IP that adds that rubbish the talk page on site, for 6 months or more as a rule.

If I see the IP adding, I'll rollback and block. If you see it before I do, can you undo, and drop me a note on my talk page, and I can take it from there. I'm abandoning the usual 4 warnings as this is a persistent IP hopping block evader.

Obviously if the page is getting hit repeatedly, I'll protect, or if I'm not around, feel free to protect at WP:RPP. Thanks in advance! Ged UK  12:56, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Sure thing, Ged; always happy to help a fellow vandal-fighter. Cheers! -- Bgpaulus (talk) 17:19, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Introduction
I've found what I currently believe is an anonymous IP editor who has persistently and subtly vandalized over 20 articles, all regarding cities or counties in Iowa. The pattern that is emerging is that this editor changes demographic information, subtly adjusting various percentages of White, Black, Asian, and other ethnic groups.

Cedar Falls, Iowa, example
The edits are usually limited to the integer (or "left-of-the-decimal") portion of the percentage. For example, in this 17 June edit to the Cedar Falls, Iowa article, the percentage of Whites was changed from 90.14% to 87.14%, the percentage of Blacks from 3.57% to 4.57%, and so on. In this 18 May edit, this same editor changed the percentages of Whites from 90.14% to 84.14% and Blacks from 3.57% to 6.57% (that earlier edit was reverted by another editor seven minutes later).

Please note that, according to the |04000US19|16000US1911755&_street=&_county=cedar+falls&_cityTown=cedar+falls&_state=04000US19&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=160&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=ACS_2008_3YR_SAFF&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null:null&_keyword=&_industry= US Census Bureau's web site, the correct figures are 95.1% for Whites and 1.6% for Blacks. A search for "90.14" using the WikiBlame tool reveals that the correct figures were modified in an extremely similar manner four months earlier by. In that 20 January edit, the figures for Whites were changed from 95.14% to 90.14% and Blacks from 1.57% to 4.57%. Waterloomattw has only edited five articles, all about Iowa cities, all on 20 January, and all following the same editing pattern I've described for. I am unable to determine if the two editors are actually the same person, but for practical purposes, I have decided to assume they are and, therefore, have included these edits in my analysis.

This editor made a series of vandalizing edits, most on 14 February and most of which are Iowa-related. Although similar to the other vandals identified above, this editor's changes tended to focus on income instead of ethnic numbers, and also included adding statements to make various cities look like they were more affluent than the correct facts indicated. At least some of these edits have already been reverted by other editors. At this time, I'm considering adding these edits to the list, even though I'm currently inclined to believe that this is a different person.

I've found an additional 20 edits by, starting with this 27 February edit and ending with this 27 March edit. Note that this most recent edit is the only non-Iowa article (Springdale, Arkansas) that I've found so far, but it also fits the vandalism pattern. If they haven't already been included, I'll add these to the list of articles that have been vandalized and need review.

I've also found three more articles edited by that fit the same pattern of subtle demographic changes described above:


 * 00:32, 4 April 2010 (diff | hist) Elk Run Heights, Iowa ‎
 * 00:31, 4 April 2010 (diff | hist) Evansdale, Iowa ‎
 * 21:00, 1 April 2010 (diff | hist) Cedar Rapids, Iowa ‎

I've updated the table below to include this additional information.

List of vandalized articles
This is a sortable list of all confirmed or suspected vandalizing edits to articles. Italicized article names are those few which are not in Iowa. A date in the "Review status" column indicates that the article has been reviewed and either corrected or needed no corrections, a question mark ("?") indicates an article that still needs to be reviewed, an asterisk ("*") indicates an article that has been reviewed and needs to be corrected manually, and a blank value indicates an earlier (but not the most recent) vandalizing edit:

Plan of action
Based on what I've seen, I see no reason to assume good faith on any of these edits. I will immediately revert each of the seven articles which have the (top) flag next them. Following that, I'll review the edit history from the last six months for each of the 22 articles and, where necessary, cross-check the vandalized information against the 2000 Census data available on the US Census Bureau's web site.

Request for feedback
I also need advice on what to do about the vandal. Should I report this to WP:AIV, to WP:AN, post warnings to the vandal's talk page, or do something else? I'd like to think that a "uw-error3" or "uw-vandalism4im" or some other appropriately-worded warning would be sufficient to get their attention enough to mend their ways, but I somehow doubt it.

If anyone has any suggestions, as well as comments or questions, please post them here for discussion. Cheers!

Bgpaulus (talk) 21:39, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Feedback/discussion from other editors
I only caught the Waterloo vandalism since that page happened to be on my watchlist as a result of some past "notable natives" vandalism. At first, I thought it was simply someone trying to update demographics to 2008 or 2009 Census numbers, but failed to provide sources. However, none of the 2008 or 2009 Census estimates provide that level of detail. In good faith, I put the corrected numbers back, only to have him revert me (which I then reverted). Now that I know its happening to more articles, and if the editor does not respond to good faith efforts to engage him on his talk page, I would recommend asking an Administrator for an IP block.DCmacnut &lt; &gt; 22:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I've blocked this IP for a week. Since this vandalism has been coming for over a month from the same IP, we can assume that it's a static address — if it were a dynamic IP used by many people, surely they wouldn't all vandalise in the exact same way — and can thus treat this IP as a registered user to an extent.  By the way, you need not verify the data yourself: look at the article history.  Except for a few articles that were created before late 2002 and for a few places that have incorporated since 2000, all US municipality articles were created by Rambot in late 2002 with the demographic statistics that still are in use.  These data were taken directly from the Census Bureau Factfinder, so there's no way that they can be wrong unless the Census Bureau made mistakes.  That's the reason for this edit.  Nyttend (talk) 22:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow. Thanks, y'all! I didn't know about the Rambot-thingie when I fact-checked the Cedar Rapids demographics a few days ago, but knowing that there's a way to fix all of that in one swell foop takes the sting right out of having my work undone. I'll continue reviewing the edit histories for these articles and, hopefully should have all of them fixed a few hours from now.


 * So, now that has been blocked, is DCmacnut's suggestion to try engaging them on their talk page moot, or should I still try to do that? I'm happy to take a shot at bringing them back from the Dark Side, but will it be a one-sided conversation, or can the blocked IP still edit some things? For that matter, could someone please tell me how these IP editors even know when we've posted something to their talk pages? I'm sure there are a wiki-pages on all this somewhere that I could read instead of asking you, but I'm not quite sure where to look. Anyway, cheers! -- Bgpaulus (talk) 23:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * An IP address will still get an orange banner, if I remember rightly. And no reason not to try to engage him/her if you or Dcmacnut want to try, although I don't think it likely enough to succeed that I'll try myself.  Nyttend (talk) 23:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Also — like logged-in users, IPs can edit their own talk pages while blocked, unless the blocking admin disables it. Nyttend (talk) 23:55, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I usually catch it when the vandalize one of the cities on my watch list, and then 95% of the time I'll look at the contributions, and revert all other vandalism. I will add more of these cities/counties to my watchlist. Perhaps we could make a public Iowa watchlist for Iowa related articles note the Simpsons example, so it will be easier to catch and rvt vandalism. C T J F 8 3  pride 00:38, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for the information and advice, everyone! I'd like to hold off taking any action until I've finished my analysis and have a better handle of the scope of this issue; I've found a couple more editors which I believe are very likely the same vandal. Cheers! -- Bgpaulus (talk) 13:19, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I just finished reviewing and correcting the last of the vandalized articles (yay). I'm still mulling over the wording for my post to |vandal's talk page. I've also been considering Ctjf83's suggestion to create a public Iowa watchlist -- in just the alone there are almost 1,000 articles, and that's not including counties, townships, and other unincorporated areas, which could double that number, so is there any way to automate that process? Or do we just add an article after we discover subtle demographic vandalism? -- Bgpaulus (talk) 17:18, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Vandals
Thanks for your message. Thankfully there r other active users to help out. In the future, severe issues that require attention from an admin can be posted at WP:ANI. There is also WP:BLPN for BLP issues but ANI is okay too. I won't be as active now but you can certainly post any questions that you have as there are other users who'll help out. Cheers - Tommy! [ message ] 21:58, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * ¡Muchas gracias y ten un bien dias, amigo! -- Bgpaulus (talk) 03:16, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * gracias - Tommy! [ message ] 11:31, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

User talk:99.236.125.59 reversions
Thanks, as the vandal is accusing others of being vandals, I felt it was important to have the warning displayed for the convienence of others. Bevo74 (talk) 17:45, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that you are correct, the IP is now blocked. Bevo74 (talk) 17:54, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Subtle vandalism example
Your recent catch is fascinating (regarding substituting letters). I've proposed various edit filter ideas in the past, but there are some programming restrictions on what edit filter can do. The main problem is that the edit filter variables don't indicate blackline changes like the html does when you use a browser. The API works like the browser too, but apparently edit filter's using something else. Take a look at this flagged edit for example; while it indicates new lines, it doesn't indicate where the change (what would be red on your web browser) was in the line. That's what you'd need to have to do the kind of change you're talking about.

I've been working on a program that can do that kind of analysis. It's not ready to be released yet but I plan on doing that at some point. I'll look for some more of those kinds of changes (it messes up all kinds of automated edits, copy paste, and other database uses). I wouldn't be shy about warning those editors either. None of those edits were accidental and I can think of no legitimate reason to make those kinds of changes like that IP did.

You might be interested in the IDN homograph attack article, which I'll use to try and determine other character swaps that could be a problem.

There are really two ways to attack this thing. One is to look for the changes as they come in, and the other is to crawl an offline dump looking for substitutions like that because one would expect them to persist. That pretty much will require a dictionary, but once you have the page text that kind of analysis should be doable, if a little intensive. Anyway, great find.

[I'll post a shorter version of this at the SVT page]. Shadowjams (talk) 04:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Ideas for searching
So now you have me thinking about programming ideas to search out this kind of edit. First part is you'd have to use an offline wiki dump. There are libraries out there that make this kind of thing easy. I'd imagine program steps would be this:
 * 1) Take wiki text, strip out markup
 * 2) Split article into individual words
 * 3) Analyze each word. If it doesn't have a minipulable character skip it.
 * 4) See if the word's in the dictionary. If so, skip it. (this step would also add words that are likely to be legitimate, like the title, categories, some other obvious things)
 * 5) Take the remaining words and do every permutation of swappable characters, checking each one against the dictionary. If it matches something, flag it for human review.

Maybe there's an easier way to do this but it's Friday... let me know if you have any ideas. Shadowjams (talk) 04:54, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The people of lowa listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect The people of lowa. Since you had some involvement with the The people of lowa redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Bgpaulus (talk) 22:37, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you re: Wineville Chicken Coop Murders
I appreciate your ongoing effort to correct typos in Wikipedia articles, especially finding and correcting the subtle "lowa" versus "Iowa" in Wineville Chicken Coop Murders. By my estimation, the typo has been in the article for over two years. For your information, the original cited article also had Iowa misspelled. --Dan Dassow (talk) 09:59, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Re AIV etc
Replied on my talk. EyeSerene talk 17:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

My contribution to article
Michael Joseph (photographer) Not sure what that problem was about. Can you take a look at the rewrite I did, make the needed edits, and post? TY —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shwepp (talk • contribs) 18:24, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, Shwepp. Sorry for the confusion, but I believe you'll need to pose this question to and/or . I only reverted your blanking of the talk page for the article on Michael Joseph (photographer). Teapotgeorge and Yworo reverted your edits to the actual article which, to paraphrase their edit summary, sounded like advertising and perhaps also a possible conflict of interest. My concern was that you simply didn't realize that it's generally frowned upon to blank article talk pages; you should archive them, instead. I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions. Cheers! -- Bgpaulus (talk) 19:14, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hello again, Shwepp. I see that you're now suspected of being a sockpuppet and, accordingly, have been blocked. This restriction will likely prevent you from holding a conversation with me, so I think I'll just put our conversation on hold until that's been resolved, one way or the other. If/when you're unblocked, please let me know there's anything I can do to help you with editing Wikipedia constructively. Best of luck. -- Bgpaulus (talk) 19:29, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

198.123.48.35
This address is a work wifi which appears to have been used by more than one of us. While I did the MFF edits, I did not do the Hanger 1 edit the month before. I should get around to getting a username having met Jimmy and Larry from the early days, however, I am finding wikipedia to be increasingly dominated by dogmatic people more concerned with form over content. That fleshing out technical material got rejected because of one form of referencing over another has so pissed me off and interrupted an important train of thought, I've almost given up. Too many clueless people have involved themselves in wikipedia that this is increasingly irking me. 198.123.48.35 (talk) 18:51, 4 February 2011 (UTC)