User talk:Deskana/Archive 15

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Requests for checkuser/Case/Alienus
Deskana, User:ThAtSo is active, and is being discussed here. Given the history, there may be others. Additionally, unless there is a discussion I'm missing, Alienus' ban is set to expire very shortly.Proabivouac 22:51, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, it looks as if the one-year ban from ArbCom was extended to an indefinite ban by Centrx, who put in the block log, that it was a community ban, and that "After being banned for one year by the Arbitration Committee, this person has engaged in endless sockpuppetry, edit warring, personal attacks, etc." ElinorD (talk) 22:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link, ElinorD.Proabivouac 23:47, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

unblock
Please unblock Rulechecker. Rulechecker commented on an RFCU. He said that RFCU is not needed because all the socks have already been indefinitely blocked. RFCU only wastes checkusers' time and effort. We all agree the users are socks and we agree on their blocking. Yet the messenger says this and gets indefinitely blocked. This just creates ill feelings and possible wiki-warring. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Pope_Benjamin_ListerRulechecker2 22:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

FYI: when I make a philosophical comment like the above, I usually create a new user because I know some people are block-happy and don't read the content of my very logical message, they just block. Smart people figure out that this isn't trolling, but careful thought....not mass hysteria. Rulechecker2 22:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Your argument would be more convincing if you weren't on your third indefblocked account already. Continuing to create accounts when you know you'll get blocked is foolish at best and... well, worse at worst. --Deskana (banana) 23:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Checkuser
I don't understand. Does confirmed mean I've been "found guilty". Because it's not true so.. :S --Lancastria 12:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes it does. --Deskana (banana) 12:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Unlisted RfCU
Hi. I came across this, which was filed this morning. But I can't see it on the checkuser list. Did TBeatty forget to do something to make it appear on the list, or what? John Smith&#39;s 13:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, it seems TBeatty forgot to transclude it onto WP:RFCU. --Deskana (banana) 13:29, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I had a bash - was that done correctly? John Smith&#39;s 13:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems so. :-) --Deskana (banana) 13:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks. John Smith&#39;s 13:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Additional question ref sockpuppetry
I have been told that someone accused of sockpuppetry cannot ask an administrator to process their case. Is this true or not? Only there's a big backlog at Suspected sock puppets. If I can't ask you or someone else to process a specific case, could I ask you to try to get the backlog cleared/clearing so that my case can be processed in the near future? John Smith&#39;s 13:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh no, you're perfectly welcome to ask whoever you like to process a case you've created. You're not allowed to ask an administrator to process a case where you are the one being checked, because those requests are always declined. Feel free to pester whoever to close cases for you. If I was to help out at WP:SSP though, I'd be wearing my admin hat though, not my checkuser one. --Deskana (banana) 14:01, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, no - unfortunately I'm the one being checked. So is there anyone I can ask to process the backlog, for example? I think it's a bit unfair for my "sockpuppet" to have that template stuck on their user-page for god-knows how long. I don't mind waiting my turn, but it would be nice to see the list shrink rather than keep getting longer. John Smith&#39;s 14:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm actually confused about this. Could you please explain to me how this case is dealt with? On the template that was put on my talk page, it talked about how a checkuser request has to be made within 10 days or I can remove the template. Yet at the same time, this isn't a checkuser report. Do you need to have a checkuser report in addition to the one at "suspected socks", or is the latter sufficient?

I'm honestly confused and don't quite understand the matter - I've only dealt with checkuser requests before. Could you take me through it, please? John Smith&#39;s 20:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think I've ever really closed a WP:SSP report before. You might want to ask someone more experienced that can give you a better answer. --Deskana (banana) 21:29, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll try to find someone else. John Smith&#39;s 21:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

First edits on RfA
I noticed you commented on Chuckc192000's comment at Requests for adminship/Crockspot. Earlier today, I somewhat boldly indented another such first edit comment. Should I rather have just annotated the fact? —AldeBaer 18:36, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, it just occured to me that I forgot to indent it. I loaded my watchlist to go and do it, and found your comment :-) --Deskana (banana) 18:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok. (How does one signify that s/he read your response when there's nothing useful to add?) —AldeBaer 19:04, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * By responding saying something like "Thanks", I suppose. --Deskana (banana) 19:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. :) —AldeBaer 21:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

rawr
I can see you on my watchlist! You can't hide from talking to me *glares* --L ucid 07:08, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Banana
did you steal it ?  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 07:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

My title
Does the title look like that on my userpage also?-- Southern Texas  17:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yep. It doesn't get in the way of the edit button for me, but L said it did on his browser. --Deskana (banana) 17:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * How does it look now? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Southern Texas (talk • contribs).
 * Now it's lined up but the text still overlaps exactly the same as before. Here's a thought, how about writing in normal size like everyone else? It's easier. --Deskana (banana) 17:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, or use that template I showed you to change the actual title (you can see how it works on my talk page). You might also want to try using Firefox-- if you're using IE it isn't very standards compliant, which might explain why you don't see how horribly broken it looks --L ucid 17:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I love how you can either program for the masses (IE) or program to follow the standards (Firefox and every other browser). Damn Microsoft... he says from Windows Vista... --Deskana (banana) 17:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I messed up and created a page Template:User:Southern Texas/Title, could you delete it, I now see what L is talking about with the title?-- Southern Texas  17:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

My RfA
I am still getting some questions on the talk page that I am willing to answer. Is that OK if it winds down there gradually? - Crockspot 18:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Of course, take your time. :-) --Deskana (banana) 18:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

E-mail
I thought you may be interested to know that I've sent one to you. Acalamari 19:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

CHU/U
In case you're interested, there are two requests there that are three days overdue. Would you mind doing them? Thanks. i said 19:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, no they arent. The section header is wrong. I apologize, no backlog yet. i said 19:12, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Check
I'm concerned about your justification for checking as discussed here. The header at requests for checkuser says "[o]bvious, disruptive sock puppet | Block. No checkuser is necessary," but your comment "[a]t that time, I performed a checkuser on Neil Larson, as it was suspected that he was a disruptive sockpuppet of some other account" seems to conflict with that. While you did indeed catch something here, I find the justification you used as potentially being able to get out of hand and to justify checks not sanctioned by policy. And since those wouldn't be publicly reported, I felt the need to bring this up now. Do you have any thoughts? Picaroon (t) 02:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, when I decide to perform a checkuser that nobody has requested, I always check to make sure it's inline with CheckUser policy. In this case, the following section was relevant:
 * "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 one or several of Wikimedia projects."
 * Our policy on multiple accounts says that "Good hand, bad hand" accounts are a prohibited use of sockpuppets. Therefore, my request was totally inline with the CheckUser policy. And since I never revealed any of the information I got from the checkuser other than the conclusion, it was inline with the Privacy Policy. RfCU has slightly different rules. I agree that the fact that I found something is not justificiation alone for having done the check, but I still believe the check was in line with our policies. Does this answer your query? --Deskana (banana) 09:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This kind of check is just something the Checkusers on wp-en traditionally wouldn't have touched with a ten-foot pole, I think that's why a lot of people are freaked out. Personally I found the old way really bureaucratic now that I think about it, it took dozens of hours of work before we could get a checkuser to look into (earlier requests were denied until we showed up with a tome of evidence, then checkuser was like "oh yeah, they're all the same IP"). Now you run a check just to fish... it's just a huge departure from the highly bureaucratic way things have traditionally been done around here. This is quite possibly a good thing... but some "good hand, bad hand" sockpuppets are more disruptive than others and you should really think carefully before going public. I'd advise against ruining the "career" of productive editors who just are messing around on RFA harmlessly... save this new attitude for truly disruptive socks like . --W.marsh 13:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your insight, W.marsh. I contest the fact that I ruined Android Mouse's career. Firstly, he's still able to edit, and nobody will stop him from doing that. Secondly, if anyone's ruined his career it is him, not me. You can't blame the checkuser for the result. If his career has been ruined, it's not my fault for saying they're socks, it's his fault for running them. I don't like the term "fishing", but if you mean that I was looking without any idea as to who the sockpuppeteer was, then that's true. But the checkuser policy doesn't indicate there's a problem with that, if the sock is being disruptive, which was. If the community would rather I not run checks like this, then that's fine by me, I won't risk my neck by doing it. But then we let people who are violate the "Good hand, bad hand" bit of the sockpuppet policy run free. But the community is the judge of what is appropriate and what is not. So be it. (I assure you none of this post is sarcastic, even if it would appear I have a sarcastic tone) --Deskana (banana) 13:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * On the flip side, I'm very glad that Deskana "ruined" Android Mouse's career. No way in hell would I, or many others, trust him for RFA now knowing that he used an abusive sockpuppet to disrupt other people's RFAs.  Had this CheckUser not been done, we would never have known, and he likely would have become an administrator.  Would you really want an administrator who saw no qualms with abusing sockpuppets?  I disagree strongly with your contention that his actions were "harmless".  -- Cyde Weys  13:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I thought he was just joking around, as opposed to some of the genuinely mean-spirited socks I've mentioned already from Wikipedia past. What he did was stupid and he should have been stopped... but we've potentially lost a good contributer now because of the public way it was handled. Couldn't this have been handled by e-mail, gotten him to stop screwing around and telling him not to run for RFA anytime soon, yet not put him in a situation where he felt like he had to stop editing? He was dumb, it's his fault... but at the same time, do we have to call him out publicly? There were other ways to handle this that wouldn't have lost us a lot of good edits in the future. I mean, there are probably a lot of things we could reveal over time that would make fellow editors stop editing... the net effect if we always made that decision would be really bad. --W.marsh 13:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

There's been a suspicion raised here here that a user is abusing sockpuppet accounts. Since this was all the justification that was needed to checkuser and publically out AndroidMouse, will you run a checkuser on Slim Virgin and reveal the results, if any? --W.marsh 02:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Is this some sort of trick question? As I indicated above, since people don't seem to appreciate me doing it, I don't plan to do it again. Either way, that account hasn't edited in two years, so its not like I could do it even if I wanted to. --Deskana (apples) 10:21, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * In the thread, people questioned whether other current sockpuppetry might be going on... same as with the Neil Larson case. If the standards for checkuser had changed to allow simply the raised suspicion of alternate accounts to justify a public checkuser, I thought maybe we could get to the bottom of the SV thing... but I see it was apparently just a one-time thing with Neil Larson. --W.marsh 12:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was, because people like yourself didn't seem to appreciate me doing it. --Deskana (apples) 12:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If it's done just to lowly bot operators without friends in high places, no I don't appreciate it. But if the public checkuser on demand policy is applied even to the well-connected, I'd actually be more comfortable with that. --W.marsh 12:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I won't do it. Call it what you want. --Deskana (apples) 12:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Request
Hi. Can you please clarify what sort of conclusions can be drawn from your response to Requests for checkuser/Case/Muntuwandi? I conclude that Gongdong-whatever can be blocked (I assume by an ANI request with a link to this CU case), but are you saying that it is obviously an abusive sockpuppet of Muntuwandi in specific? Whether or not Muntuwandi can be counted as the sockpuppeteer is important because there are a number of editors who intend to open an RFC to investigate an apparent misuse of editing privileges by the editor in question - I am wondering if "abusive sockpuppetry" can be counted as part of the said abuse based upon your CU response. Thanks in advance for clarification. Regards, The Behnam 04:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Since you're thinking about an RfC, I decided to perform the checkuser for you. They are definitely ❌. --Deskana (banana) 09:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks again. The Behnam 17:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Sonicrules2
You appear to be somewhat familiar with the troll User:Sonicrules2. Have you noticed that his original account back in February-ish is User:Sonicrules? It's not blocked. Just letting you know. - Zero1328 Talk? 13:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I blocked him. There's not too much point really, but considering he just causes trouble, he doesn't really have the right to edit anymore. --Deskana (banana) 16:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

A Link to the Past
Hey Deskana, you should see his recent activity ; he again moved Artificial Human 17 back to Android 17 & Artificial Human 18 back to Android 18 and still he refuses to abide by the consensus at WP:WPDB regarding it and doesn't care to bring another discussion up. He claims that I'm "vandalizing" Wikipedia while he's the one breaking the consensus policy. I gave him a final warning before this, could you look into this urgent matter now and revert his terribly bad faith edits to those pages? Since he refused, I'd say give a severe official warning or block him. Lord Sesshomaru 16:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm confused - are you implying that the discussion, which included opposition, which was clearly ignored by you and all facts brought up were not acknowledged by you (in fact, the only thing you had to say was "quit it"), is a consensus? That consensus is a farce. All you've been doing is threatening me with a block because I happen to think that being ignored in a discussion is a bit frustrating. Now, you don't even bother replying to me if you can't come up with a single guideline that supports using a less common name. - A Link to the Past (talk) 16:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Clearly, there was an agreement and I didn't argue further. Your only excuse is WP:UCN, and the goal of WP:DBZ is to use names that make the most sense. Dub names are inconsistent with rest of the original series and for that fact, we don't use dub info. Lord Sesshomaru 17:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Your guideline is less important than WP:UCN. UCN applies to all projects and task forces except for non-English task forces, which WP:DB is not. And no, you aren't allowed to say "well, there was an agreement, and I didn't argue further". That's not how it goes. Just because you don't want to respond to opposition doesn't mean that they don't exist. - A Link to the Past (talk) 17:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Um Deskana, the history pages of Artificial Human 17 and Artificial Human 18 are screwed up now because of Link edit warring. I'd put a note of his disruptive behaviour at WP:AN/I but I have to go deal with some real life stuff. And as for you ALTTP, don't expect things to go your way because it won't in the end. Lord Sesshomaru 17:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Um, fun fact - I had nothing to do with messing up the history, it was the other reverter. Don't blame me for something someone else did (I find it especially funny that the someone else is on your side). Anyhow, it's not my side, it's the right side. No one is allowed to make guidelines that directly contradict official Wikipedia guidelines, which the anti-dub guideline clearly does. - A Link to the Past (talk) 17:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Not much I can do really. The situation isn't as simple as either of you put it, really, and my hands are tied. If you require a more structured approach to resolving this dispute, you could try mediation. I'd be happy to help with that. --Deskana (banana) 16:09, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm also against A Link to the Past's bad faith edits. We've been having this discussion for about a week and it needs to end. Oh yeah, and I was refered to you by Onikage725. He told me that in another argument (that A Link to the Past started), everything got hectic. Ryu-chan 16:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This. Is. Frelling. Silly. Sorry. Since this is apparently getting deep, I just figured I'd offer my two cents. This really needs to end. It's a damn cartoon. Onikage725 17:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Image:Upsidedown riesig.jpg
An image that you uploaded, Image:Upsidedown riesig.jpg, is orphaned. I'm not sure what article it was originally in, or if it should still be there, so I have left it untagged. Will you investigate it, and take whichever appropriate action? Thanks, Iamunknown 21:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I just deleted it. If it's not used anymore, there's no reason to keep it. :-) --Deskana (banana) 16:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Notice of request for deletion of editor :)
, the editor you are, has been nominated for deletion. We appreciate your contributions. However, an editor does not feel that you satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in the nomination space. Your opinions on yourself are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at User:R/EFD and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ). You are free to edit during the discussion but should not remove the editors for deletion template from the top of your userpage; such removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you, and have a good sense of humor :).

Essay on how 3RR hurts the project and a proposal to fix it.
Hi! I would appreciate it, if you could give me your thoughts on this essay: Accusations of collaboration: 3RR hurts Wikipedia --Alexia Death the Grey 08:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's interesting, and you make good points, but you'll have difficulty upturning a policy that existed for quite a while, I think. --Deskana (banana) 20:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Not to upturn but to reform, to make better, to make it really serve the interests of Wikipedia as a project for creating content. Nothing worth while is ever easy. I'm not saying that what I have thought up is the perfect solution. I am just trying to start people thinking that there might be a better way and hoping that starting this discussion eventually brings a change for the better... --Alexia Death the Grey 20:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I just reread what I said; I apologise if my bad phrasing made you think I thought it was a bad idea. A policy to replace 3RR with no specific numbers on might help with the (many) people that attempt to wikilawyer out of 3RR blocks, but it might also introduce a lot of frivolous people saying "zomg he edit warred, he reverted one of my edits! BLOCK!". That's what I think :-) --Deskana (banana) 20:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Administration wise, it does takes a bit more effort, but if the process is set with per edit limit it has no more risk of that kind of complaints than the current one. Against that there are violation reporting forms. If form is not filled properly, blocking cant happen... I would really appreciate it, if you could bring your thoughts and concerns to the talk of the essay.--Alexia Death the Grey 20:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Re: SineBot
called CosineBot
 * You know, strangely enough I was already planning something similar, except that it would be used on-demand for pages that have lots of unsigned comments when it would be a pain in the butt for someone to go fishing through the edit history to find out who signed all of them. Thus, on-demand the bot would be able to crawl through the page history and sign any comments that sinebot would normally have signed-- no matter how long ago they were made. Obviously I need to get everything smoothed over with SineBot first. :)  -- slakr  21:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You should call that TangentBot, since it's got some of the properties of SineBot and CosineBot but doesn't work quite the same way. :-) --Deskana (banana) 21:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you
For changing my username from Mascal4 to my name.  Marco Alfarrobinha  {chat} contributions 21:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

A request for some advice and help
Hello, I've seen your actions on wikipedia, and given that you suggest people with a problem can send you a message and you will try to sort it out, I hope you don't mind me asking you for some advice?

The issue I would like your comments on can be seen by reading the following messages that show my problem as clearly as I can: WP:AN, and, given that WP:AN doesn't seem to be dealing with the main issue of concern to me: Wikiquette alerts. I am quite happy to accept that I made a mis-identification of the edits by Brian.gratwicke as vandalism, but I feel that this must be done at the same time as he accepts the inappropriateness of accusing me of being a troll, and/or a stooge of ZanuPF merely for reverting his inappropriate edits on Robert Mugabe. Can I ask for your advice about this? I do think it has some relevance, in general terms, to the ideals of wikipedia. DDStretch   (talk)  22:26, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I think I agree with what you've said, but there's very little you can do if you don't get an apology from him. --Deskana (banana) 00:02, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the comment. It is what I was thinking myself, given the responses I have had so far when I have raised it. I do think, however, that in these sorts of instances, some more clear-cut action should be seen to be done, to persuade the user and others that such allegations are just not the way to deal with warnings they think are inappropriate. Thanks again.  DDStretch    (talk)  09:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Requests for adminship/Crockspot
I believe that a significant number of the opposition votes in this request for adminship resulted from the introduction of off-wiki statements largely unrelated to Wikipedia or its editors for the apparent purpose of disparaging the candidate's moral character. I believe that the presentation of such statements at the RFA constitutes a personal attack, and that most of the oppose votes occurred as a direct result of this personal attack, and of similar personal attacks presented in off-wiki canvassing for oppose votes, as discussed at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Crockspot. Furthermore, it appears that Bmedley Sutler posted the personal attacks on behalf of a banned user, and was engaged in additional harassment of Crockspot on behalf of the same banned user, as described in Thatcher131's comments here. Immediately prior to the introduction of the personal attacks against Crockspot, the RFA had 73 votes in favor of promotion, and 11 votes against, which would have been sufficient for promotion at 86.9%. I am interested in your rationale for closing this RFA without promotion, and your views on what remedies, if any, would be available to address the improper conduct that occurred in the course of this RFA. John254 01:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I was wondering when I'd get questions about this. If you look at the RfA when it started to go downhill, a lot of editors that I have heard of as good users were opposing. Also, there were many that I had not heard of but did indeed appear to be good editors opposing too. Were I to totally ignore all the users who I'd not heard of and could possibly be sockpuppets (applying the term possibly broadly, to make my example), it was still very close to recieving 100% oppose votes in the last few days. There is no way that I can call his a consensus to promote, if within a few days of the end of the process, respected and veteran editors from the project are opposing the candidacy, and it's not recieveing much support. To ignore their votes and promote would have been incredibly foolish of me. Does this answer your question? (I also note that you support well before it went downhill) --Deskana (banana) 01:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I do not claim that most of the opposition votes were attributable to abusive sockpuppetry. I do claim that a number of respected users stated that their opposition votes were based entirely on the personal attacks that Bmedley Sutler posted (see, for example, and ).)  It is a reasonable conjecture, based on the state of the RFA prior to the introduction of the personal attacks, that the RFA would have succeeded had the personal attacks not been introduced. The mere fact that votes in an RFA are cast by respected users does not imply that they must be counted, when the votes provide clearly improper rationales, or are reasonably believed to be attributable to such. For instance, if an RFA were closed at 50 votes in support and 200 in opposition, but 195 of the opposition votes stated "oppose, this candidate is gay", all 195 of the votes containing personal attacks would have to be discarded, regardless of the status of the editors casting them, resulting in promotion at 50 votes in support and 5 legitimate opposition votes. Opposition to Crockspot based on claims that he is homophobic and a racist, when it is conceded that Crockspot hasn't made any homophobic or racist edits on Wikipedia itself, or off-wiki in relation to other Wikipedia editors, is really no less of a personal attack than "oppose, this candidate is gay". Personal attacks do not become acceptable merely because the alleged beliefs or affiliations that an editor is being criticized for are extremely unpopular. Indeed, No_personal_attacks gives the following as an example of a personal attack: "Using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views -- regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream or extreme." To deny Crockspot adminship on the basis of personal attacks made against him in the RFA would effectively be endorsing the personal attacks. As I stated at Requests for adminship/Rockpocket, I have serious concerns as to whether RFA's are "going to be debased with the personal attacks and mudslinging that often characterize political campaigns". John254 02:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No offense, but it's clear that you're biased since you supported. So far, I have recieved very little feedback on the Crockspot RfA, and all the feedback I have recieved has been approval. To say that not promoting means I am endorsing personal attacks isn't the case. It means I've taken into account the fact that over half of the people voting opposed the RfA. --Deskana (banana) 09:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You do realize that except for possibly your second link, everyone opposing had more of a reason to oppose than just his off-wiki comments? Now, yes, seeing his off-wiki comments might have spread the vote around far more than is fair, but there's still a very clear consensus amongst other editors that he was not fit to be an admin. Granting this RFA anyway, just because of the timing of a question, is bias in itself, and assumes that almost everyone who opposed was doing it as a personal attack. I'm not going to go into why off-wiki comments are particularly inappropriate in this case, but really, the only vote I've seen that suggests the person was ONLY voting that way because of the statements he has made off-wiki is your second link, which is a very small majority -- lucid 09:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Race and crime
Hey --Deskana (banana) can you do me a favor and look at the Race and crime article. As you will note on the history page this piece was considered for {Afd}. However, an individual believed a consensus was made to “Keep”. I am sorry, I feel this article is clearly a WP:POV involving original research. At its best, it is inflammatory and derogatory from its opening sentence to the list of links. Thanks for any input on this matter. Shoessss | Chat  01:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You could try prodding it I guess. --Deskana (banana) 09:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Please Stop
, I'd also appreciate it if you stopped. Your skimpy clothing is distracting myself and other editors. Dfrg.msc 09:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Happy Birthday
Yes it is weird that we have the same birthday (none of my friends from home were even born in August). I'm 20 now, which of course means one more year 'til I can drink (legally)  New  England  Review Me! 03:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Happy Birthday Captain Deskana (salutes). Atomic Religione 03:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Happy Birthday Lord Deskana (bows down). -- bullet proof  3:16 03:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Happy Birthday, Deskana -- $U IT  03:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Happy Birthday! /me gives Deskana some alcohol. You'll probably be drinking more than a normal day :). -- (Review Me) R Parlate Contribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 04:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, you gotta love the UK. And thanks for fixing my userpage too, I forgot I put my age on there  New   England  Review Me! 05:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Happy Birthday! Dfrg.msc 05:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh snap, happy belated birthiversary! Onikage725 21:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

What your birthday!? I forgot! This should make up for it though:

Vandal problems
I recentally found a user who seems to be another sock puppet of User: Sonic Shadow Silver who has been blocked repeatedly in several accounts he even has the same user page of his previous socks. Can you block him before he starts ruining Dragon Ball articles again? The account is User:Shin-Broly and I think his Sock puppets are listed in the page with all the cases of sockpuppetry (which I can't seem to remember the name of). Thanks! DBZROCKS Its over 9000!!! 12:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Non latin usernames
Hi. You know we allow users to have non latin usernames? Username_policy has the details. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Secretlondon (talk • contribs).
 * I agree with you - I'm unhappy with people having usernames in non-latin alphabets and I refused to rename betacommand to a greek letter for that very reason. We currently have a user who has a username in an Indian script which is hard work for everybody else. Consensus does seem to be quite strongly in favour though, as misguided as I think it is. However I don't think oe is that bad, considering. It's readable on people's screens without additional language suport, and probably isn't that different to having an accented letter. Secretlondon 17:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Courtesy blank
Can you go ahead and blank my RfA and its talk page? Thanks. - Crockspot 14:55, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Just wanted to make you aware that if you google my username, my RfA is now the top hit, and the unblanked version is in the cache. Just mentioning this in light of the comment that you made before about it not ranking high in google. Any wiki page that has a particular name on it so many times is going to rank pretty high fairly quickly. - Crockspot 18:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

CHU box
Oooh, I like the "Checkuser since" box. Are there any more positions that "foo since" userboxen can be made for? EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 19:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC) The bulk of the work is done by the same code (which I should probably standardize before attempting to make more), and it could just be tossed into the same surrounding code as a WikiProject's existing userbox. It wouldn't be that big of a hassle at all, really... though I don't particularly feel like being the one to do it. :) EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 19:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * -Member of Wikiproject bar since...-? Making one for every Wikiproject would keep you busy for awhile. -- lucid 19:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You underestimate my ninja-like CSS-coding skills. :P

Hi, Deskana!
Please visit my request for user name change here. Ho rn et ma n16  (talk) 03:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Signpost updated for August 20th, 2007.
You are receiving this message because you have signed up for the Signpost spamlist. If you wish to stop receiving these messages, simply remove your name from the list. Ralbot 04:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:BLP
Re these diffs: The second one I find very strange, combining as it does a replacement of the photograph and other minor fixes with a gratuitous swipe at this Dunn fellow. Thank you for removing this nonsense. The first, I'm more curious about. It is sourced, but at least one of the articles relies upon Ms. Dunin herself, and is this a notable enough event in her life to warrant the Dunn material? I don't know the answer, so I thought I'd ask your opinion.Proabivouac 10:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I just deleted the whole section. I thought about it before, and it seems that it doesn't even really have that much to do with her at all. It does seem to just be an attempt to disparage the man. --Deskana (banana) 12:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for acting. Frankly, I suspect that the anon who added the second bit has some connection to the article's subject. User:Matt57 has been blocked again for an infraction he didn't commit, and I've been threatened here and on Commons. Impartial supervision is sorely needed.Proabivouac 12:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Kylu was the blocking admin, yes? I'll talk to her so I can get more information, but by the time I talk to her the block will probably have expired anyway. --Deskana (banana) 12:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Alternately, you can just unblock Matt57, it won't expire for awhile. Though I'm not privy to the details, I've no doubt Kylu acted in good faith.Proabivouac 12:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't appreciate that implication. I said I'd contact Kylu on IRC because that's where I see her most. I did not say she made the decision on IRC. And I will not simply unblock Matt57 because you say the block is wrong. Undoing admin actions that I know nothing about requires discussion with the blocking admin. --Deskana (banana) 13:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Deskana, there was no such implication. Mike H told me this discussion (at least part of it) occurred on IRC. I didn't (and don't) see where you said you'd talk to Kylu specifically on IRC. I'm sorry for the confusion.Proabivouac 13:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, I thought I said I'd talk to her on IRC. Sorry. But still, I'm not undoing her actions without talking to her first. --Deskana (banana) 13:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No worries, they're already undone.Proabivouac 13:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * As regards the "pathetic attempt" language that was inserted by the anon editor at my bio, no, I had nothing to do with it. To be honest, now that the whole section has been removed, I'm actually a bit relieved.  The particular incident in question after 9/11 was really an appalling example of human behavior, and if it were up to me (which I know it's not), it would be my preference that the whole incident just be left alone, rather than further promoted to give it more attention.  As for who the anon was, if I were to make a guess, I'd say it's probably one of my customers who play DragonRealms, since several of them were very strongly and negatively impacted by the incident.  The reason I think this, is because after the anon added the "pathetic attempt" wording at my own bio, they then went and added the entire section to the DragonRealms page as well.  I have no strong preference on whether the information is kept there or deleted.  As I said above, it's not up to me as to whether it should stay there or not, but I figured I'd bring it up. The incident definitely was notable enough to have multiple newspaper articles written about it.  So, I'll leave it up to the community to decide. FYI, Elonka 23:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Move Request
Can you please read my move request. It's right here. It's the one about Artificial Human 17. Ryu-chan 16:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll check it out later. I'm about to go out. Are you asking me to do the move for you? I'm not sure :-) --Deskana (banana) 17:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This is what I wrote...


 * Android 17 → Artificial Human 17 —(Discuss) — Just like the Artificial Human 18 article, Artificial Human 17 is the more common name dispite the usage of Android in the English dubs and English manga. The Japanese term for this is Jinzō'ningen, which commonly trasnlates as Artificial Human. In the manga, the reason they used Android was to follow the anime. In Dragon Ball volume 6, when they met Artificial Human 8, Viz translated it as Mechanical Man, which is proof that they were following the manga. It should also be mentioned that Artificial Human 8 was actually an Android, and was never human, unlike 17 and 18. In the Dragon Ball series, 17 and 18 were run away humans who were captured by Dr. Gero and experimented on. Thus this makes them cyborg's and not Androids at all. After the defeat of Cell (Dragon Ball), they just call them 17, 18, etc... Ryu-chan 18:47 20 August, 2007 (UTC)

--Ryu-chan 17:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * But it's not the most common. Your Googlehits are tainted by web pages unrelated to Dragon Ball - the fact that when Dragon Ball was put into quotations, the Googlesearch lost almost all of its hits shows that almost all of the articles are unrelated to Dragon Ball and, conversely, the character. - A Link to the Past (talk) 17:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Like I've tried to tell Ryu before, he needs to make this request via WP:RM. -- Ned Scott 04:46, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've looked, and I'm not quite sure what you want me to do. Someone will eventually look at the request for you. --Deskana (banana) 20:45, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

My RFA
Thanks Deskana... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Balloonman (talk • contribs).

Grimlock ← Grimlockfr
Thank you very much to have done the usurpation ! Grimlock 07:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

re: Chris G's RfA
Thanks Deskana. In general, although being bold is good I prefer the (marginly) softer approach, leaving actual movement of comments in discussions to admins or 'crats. Thanks for your kind words! Pedro | Chat  12:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

:-(
It seems we're not liked :-(. ~   Wi ki  her mit  15:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I like that. You tell them they're violating GFDL and they indef block you. I guess GFDL is a liberal conspiracyTM. Flyguy649 talk contribs 15:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I have a list of 10 reminders on my desktop. One is "don't waste your time arguing with an idiot." Raymond Arritt 15:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That applies to a single idiot. But what about a herd of them (or is that swarm? A pack? Almost certainly not a school!)? --Stephan Schulz 16:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Note to self: stating the truth in a conservative Wikipedia is wrong...I should have known that. Atomic Religione 15:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, my NeutralParty self was too neutral. It appears "they aren't interested in NPOV". ~   Wi ki  her mit  18:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * But some of your edits killed! Hogwarts and Dirt... classic. Flyguy649 talk contribs 18:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, they really run things with an iron fist over there. Sometimes I wonder whether their aim is to promote the religious-right POV (which they mistakenly call "conservative") or just going on a power trip. Probably a little of both. Raymond Arritt 18:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

They are truly the annoying cousin of the Wikipedia's. Atomic Religione 19:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * They should probably be glad that I can't be bothered evading the block. It's actually not that hard. --Deskana (banana) 20:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yikes, linking to wikipedia is prohibited. Too bad they tailored MediaWiki to cut out Special:Linksearch, or else someone would have a backlog to clear. I think we can do them a favor and purge Examples of Bias in Wikipedia first, right? ;) Grace notes T § 20:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Conservative and Trustworthy in the same sentence...never thought i'd hear that. Atomic Religione 21:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Potential Usurption
I'd like to usurp the username User:Paradox, but would like your opinion as to whether it would happen given the relative newness of my current account. I've edited under a few different IP addresses and don't know if this would qualify me as an established user. Check out my user page for a listing of the IPs I've edited under. Pairadox 01:19, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, I don't whether to interpret the lack of response as positive, negative, or just a lack of interest in responding. Pairadox 15:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply
Quite frankly I haven't had the time to get on it. I've been busy with moving to a new house and doing a lot of traveling. I got back from Chicago just a few days ago. I try to get on it when I can. I'll be on it this weekend for sure though. Happy B-Day BTW! Damn man! Unlimited alcohol! God bless the UK indeed! -- bullet proof  3:16 03:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

RE: Recoome tags
I went and reverted the rest of the edits made by User:219.89.175.105,, to restore the sock tags you placed on each of the pages. I hope that was okay to do! (Saw you'd reverted a couple already, thought I'd lighten your load a bit.) Ariel ♥ Gold 12:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That's fine. I only noticed the one because that page is on my watchlist. Thanks. --Deskana (apples) 12:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and undid a few more edits by the Recoome ip, did you know about ipsock? This is actually more handy than the regular sock templates. Just discovered it, I think I'll start getting used to that one when in a case as this. If you're not occupied Deskana can you see this question I asked Krimpet and also possibly reply here to this matter that you never sought? Thank you, Lord Sesshomaru 17:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Nailed them. Can you indefinitely semi-protect these pages ? Recoome's sock ips continue disrupting them and I don't think WP:RPP is needed here. Lord Sesshomaru 19:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Mediation Committee/Nominations/Deskana
Just FYI, I've brewed up some questions on your nomination for your consideration. Take as much time as you need pondering on them, and I look forward to reading your answers! Best wishes, Anthøny   ん  18:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've almost finished answering them, actually. --Deskana (apples) 18:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * One follow up question posted as well :) Thanks for your time - your answers are providing a valuable insight into your ability as a Mediator. Anthøny   ん  20:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I quite liked your last edit, where you blanked half of the request. ;-) --Deskana (apples) 20:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that - I've done it properly this time :) Regards, Anthøny   ん  21:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Displaying an image only on the main page
Hello! As you're probably aware, it turns out that the image from TFA is in the public domain. If, in the future, there is some reason to display an image only on the main page, there's a better way to do it; simply insert the code   after it. For example:

This would suppress the image's display on every page other than Main Page (even when someone actually transcludes Main Page elsewhere).

Of course, we should strive to avoid placing non-free images on the main page at all. —David Levy 12:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I figured there was a parser function to do it, but I'm not great with them so I didn't know it. Thanks for the info. --Deskana (apples) 12:58, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks
I'd just like to say thank you for the name change, i really appreciate that! - kevinbocking 20:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

RFCU codes
I know you're still getting the hang of things around there, but just to clear things up, code E is a probable 3RR vio, code G is anything that doesn't fit into A-F. Hope that helps a little. Kwsn  (Ni!)  21:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Please check the RFCU case. You seem to have not read the requester's description of the situation. --Deskana (apples) 21:32, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Kungfoofighting1
It very obvious by the CheckUser results that User:Kungfoofighting1 is a sockpuppet of User:JB196 who is a banned editor who operates under open proxies. Can you block all the accounts involved on the CheckUser results. — M o e   ε  23:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Done it. --Deskana (apples) 00:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Eh? Why leave Kungfoofighter1 unblocked? —  M o e   ε  00:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * My bad. Done it, now. --Deskana (apples) 00:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks Deskana :) — M o e   ε  00:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Main page image
Hi there. I was following up what happened with the main page Goebels image, as I noticed several days ago that the image was tagged copyright and tried to get the issue resolved in time. I noticed you removed the image, then got reverted by jdforrester "per discussion". Do you know which discussion he was referring to (I'm asking him as well). I'd also be interested to know if you noticed it was (at the time) labelled as non free, or whether you noticed my post about this at Talk:Main Page and only then removed the image? I see the image later got tagged as PD. I suppose I should have done that anyway, but I was also wondering whether anyone would even notice? I was hoping there would be more response to my attempts to get something sorted before it went on the Main Page. I invariably have Main Page/Tomorrow bookmarked, and check the image there if I have time. If you make a habit of checking images, maybe you could do that as well, as otherwise not many people will. Carcharoth 01:28, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There was a discussion on IRC. Someone mentioned a fair use image on the main page, and I noticed it was transcluded all over userspace, because it was part of the featured article. I was later told you can make it display just using parser functions. I'm not crazily opposed to fair use images on the main page (though I'd prefer us to not use them), but I am crazily opposed to fair use images in userspace. --Deskana (apples) 11:48, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Right, so the people on IRC didn't bother to look on-wiki to find the discussions there? There were at least three places: Talk:Main Page; Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/August 25, 2007 and Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. I get the impression that the same discussion on IRC concluded that the picture was public domain. It would be nice to know if these discussions were independent of the on-wiki discussions, or whether they were a response to the on-wiki discussions. If the latter, it would be courteous at least to update the on-wiki discussions for the benefit of those who do not use IRC. Carcharoth 16:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * People aren't necessarily aware of every discussion on the wiki. I was unaware of any other discussions. Besides, all I did was change where the image was placed, not the tag. You should be talk to Jdforrester about this, not me. --Deskana (apples) 16:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks. Changing the tag is not what I'm talking about. I thought you had removed the image with this edit, but now I see that you placed it directly on the main page. It's more not having a brief moment when there is no image, so I'm wondering if the editing of the main page could have happened first. Anyway, I have also asked Jdforrester, so I'll see what he says. Carcharoth 16:48, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, I was careful to make the edits at the same time so there was only a gap of about a second where there was no image. Both edits were made in the same minute. One second where there is no image is better than one second where there are two. I assure you I know what I'm doing. --Deskana (apples) 16:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Oops. I missed that. Quite right, and I apologise unreservedly. I still feel a bit "left in the dark" by the IRC process though. When I checked the history to see if anything had been done or not about the image, I spent some time ferreting through contributions trying to find this "discussion" that was mentioned. If the edit summary had said "IRC discussion", I would still have wanted an on-wiki summary of the discussion to refer to, but failing that at least saying it was an IRC discussion would have saved me time looking for the on-wiki discussion. AS you say, I'll speak to Jdforrester about that. Carcharoth 16:57, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Everything, but everything, should have on-wiki documentation. Let us suppose Jdforrester the greatest sage in the world (and I've heard he is, but I'm saying this in case his own testimony isn't acceptable) and made the most sagacious decision ever seen.  Let's suppose the discussion on IRC was in no way comprised of sentence fragments and disconnected thoughts, but rather was eloquent, dispassionate, and unprejudiced.  Now, wouldn't it be keen if future editors were able to benefit from all of this balled up wisdom?  I mean, what's the point of having the most sagacious sages with the most eloquent thinking, if no one can learn humbly at their feet?  I think that we should strongly encourage Jdforrester to document all of this vast reasoning so that the masses might benefit.  Deskana....  What you did was appropriate in the issue, but "discussion on IRC" means "no discussion at all" if it isn't explicitly and clearly replicated on Wikipedia.  I know you know that, and I don't want to sneer at you, but, goodness gracious, it wasn't a sudden issue, if Carcharoth had been trying for a while.  Geogre 20:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I understand what you're saying. Thank you, Geogre. --Deskana (apples) 20:48, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * This is nonsense on stilts. There is full documentation of all decisions on-wiki, and I am disappointed (but not surprised) at the response. The fact that I was alerted to a problem with the wiki through discussion on IRC rather than through my watchlist is absolutely and entirely coincidental, and bears no relevance. Had I been less forthcoming and truthful in my edit-summary (and so seemingly followed "fashion" amongst many sysops who hold themselves out as models - "rv" indeed!), no-one would have noticed that IRC had been used to facilitate the process. Editors must always take responsibility for their own actions. In this case, I made the alterations of my own accord and by my own reasoning. There is thus nothing further to say about the manner in which I came to make my decision, given that it does not violate the letter, nor the ethos, of any rule, written or proper, for the English Wikipedia.
 * James F. (talk) 22:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Requests for checkuser/Case/TorstenGuise
Thank you for your judgement in this case. The circumstances surrounding Sherzo's allegations in this case are long and complicated, but I'm happy that it's water under the bridge now. TorstenGuise 20:14, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Uncalled for
''Stop trying to twist the situation, he's not got off lightly at all. He's been blocked for a week for using sockpuppets abusively. You seem to be seeking an indefblock? Right now it's just making you look like you have some sort of vendetta. I suggest you drop this matter, since your continued pushing for a block extension isn't portraying you in a good light at all.''
 * I did nothing to warrant this kind of assumption of bad faith from you. Italiavivi 20:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You're repeatedly pushing for a block extension where both the admin that blocked him (WJBscribe), the checkuser that confirmed the sock (me), and an uninvolved admin (Ryan Postlethwaite) have said they don't agree with it. You don't see why I'm struggling to assume good faith, from you? --Deskana (apples) 20:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Re:Canvasing
I'm stopping. Didn't realize the problem. -- ZeWrestler  Talk 20:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I had gone out to run some errands. That's why there was a lack of response. -- ZeWrestler   Talk 23:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, I realize you are trying to prevent canvassing, but please don't revert my talk page. WikiProject NJ was the first project I joined so my interest in improving NJ articles is long-standing and I would have added my vote on ACID anyway. Wl219 21:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Your talk page is owned by the community, and is expected to conform to community standards. WP:CANVASS is a community standard. A note saying "Please comment" may have been acceptable, a note saying "Please support" is not. --Deskana (apples) 21:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)