Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive101

Communtiy ban on User:AFI-PUNK?
This user has been blocked indefinately since May, and is a puppet master of 16 sockpuppets.. Can we get consensus to add him to Wikipedia:List of banned users?Hoponpop69 06:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This should be posted on WP:CN. However, from what I can tell the user and his socks have not been active since mid-July, so there's no reason for a community ban at this point. --Coredesat 07:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Or just be bold and add him. If he wishes to contest he can contact any admin he chooses or arbcom. ——  Eagle 101 Need help? 04:23, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * If the person has been using 16 KNOWN sockpuppets (there could be more) then I see no reason not to issue a community ban. Burntsauce 16:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Linkimage
Template:Linkimage has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Will (talk) 23:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Is there some reason for which this would be of interest especially to admins (as against to the general community, with, if necessary, a note at VP) or would require administrators' intervention? Joe 23:38, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's alleged to be a censorship/disclaimer template.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  10:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/BJAODN
The Arbitration Committee has adopted a motion in the above arbitration case, stating, "As the underlying dispute has been satisfactorily resolved by the community, and as no evidence of bad-faith actions by any party has been presented, this case is closed with no further actions being taken." This notice is given by a clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 03:45, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I applaud the closure of this matter by the Arbitration Committee, and by the closer of the recent AFD as well. Burntsauce 16:58, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Friends, a dark cloud has been hanging above our heads over the past weeks, and personally, I have been quite worried, even somewhat melancholic. Worries ranged from fear of change, fear of losing the community spirit, and fear of annoance rising from something that shouldn't be a problem. Indeed, every time I thought of the BJAODN ArbCom case, all I could think of was sad clowns in the rain. I thought I was going mad; it was a completely irrational association, no matter how appropriate. Such great and deep worry just illustrated how complex things have become in Wikipedia. Now, the clouds have hopefully passed. So what could we do now? The article on carnivals appears to need some work. I urge people to fix that article in honour of a swift and hopefully conclusive resolution of this complex matter. And, yes, thanks to the ArbCom and the community to hopefully wrapping this up properly for now. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 18:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Uhg, that's enough literary devices please. I don't think anyone really cared that much. -- John Reaves 19:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Concern about admin actions of User:Caltrop
I have twice tried to contact User:Caltrop about his undeletion of Image:Garjoel.jpg, at the time an image description page without an image. Both times he has responded by deleteing his talk page, once with the comment "cleaning snark". He also deleted his talkpage in response to someone asking about a copy-and-paste move of Genga that Caltrop performed. This is hardly appropriate behavior for an admin; what should be done about it? --Carnildo 18:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not see any major offenses committed here. It seems a tad impolite that he would delete his talk page without giving a tiny response to the comments or concerns posted...but again doesn't seem that controversial or questionable.  I'll leave a note about the notice posted here on his talk page and see if he cares to comment.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk)  18:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That really is rather unusual. It's certainly expected that administrators be willing to communicate through their talk pages, though things may have been different when he got his sysop bit.  (I don't know when he was promoted, but it was apparently before RfA existed in its current form.)
 * If someone could have a polite word with him to explain how things work now, that might be best. The 'if you have a problem, email me and wait at least twelve hours for a response' model of communication just isn't how we do things any more.  (If ever it was.)  I don't think there's any need for torches and pitchforks as long as he undeletes his talk page and starts using a more usual archiving scheme. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * So long as Caltrop is active, his talk page needs to be restored. As I understand our standard practice, user talk pages are only deleted if somebody is acting on their right to vanish. Caltrop's contribs do not indicate he is leaving. - auburn pilot  talk  19:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Arbcom made quite clear at Requests for arbitration/Jeffrey O. Gustafson that this sort of thing is not appropriate. Caltrop shouldn't do it. Chick Bowen 01:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Image for deletion, approaching 3 weeks and still no action
Images_and_media_for_deletion/2007_August_10 There are a few images that need deletion and have been sitting around for more than 2 weeks.

Image:027 ERP gantry.jpg‎

Image:Stigma uc lc.svg

Image:Mangroves.jpg

Heidianddick 21:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Those were all deleted from en.wikipedia. The link you are seeing is a file with the same name that exists on Commons. Resolute 21:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, it says so in the discussion areas, except the gantry one which was closed because it was not listed properly. —Wknight94 (talk) 21:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I blocked this fellow for a week for 3RR (5th block): however, since then, I've filed a a request for arbitration concerning his conduct. He should be unblocked to present his statement, yes? If so, please unblock him ASAP, as I'm going offline shortly. Moreschi Talk 22:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, he can just post his statement on his talk page and someone will post it across to WP:RFArb for him. I personally think that for a user that isn't a massive threat to the project when unblocked, it's best to unblock them to present their side of the story to arbitration. If I was you, I'd unblock them on the condition that they only edit arbitration pages for the duration of their block, if he steps out of line, he can be re-blocked.  Ry an P os tl et hw ai te  22:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds opened
An Arbitration case, Requests for arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds, has been opened. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Requests for arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Requests for arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 22:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Vision Thing dismissed
The Arbitration Committee has passed a motion to dismiss the Arbitration case entitled "Vision Thing". This has been passed with the rationale that there is a lack of usable evidence. For the arbitration committe,  Cbrown1023   talk   00:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 Closed
The above named arbitration case has closed. The remedy is as follows:

The remedies of revert limitations (formerly revert parole), including the limitation of 1 revert per week, civility supervision (formerly civility parole) and supervised editing (formerly probation) that were put in place at Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan shall apply to any editor who edits articles which relate to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts in an aggressive point of view manner marked by incivility. Before any penalty is applied, a warning placed on the editor's user talk page by an administrator shall serve as notice to the user that these remedies apply to them.

The full case decision is here.

For the Arbitration Committee, - Penwhale &#124; Blast him / Follow his steps 00:46, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:BANNED libel
I realize that John Bambenek isn't the most popular topic here, but is it really necessary to libel him in WP:BANNED? The hording of the deletion process and abuse of sysop powers banning anyone not agreeing with the "consensus" is bad enough, but comments like User:Jbamb's entire edit history being solely directed to keeping his Wikipedia article simply aren't true. There are over 2000 edits that were made by that editor before he was banned by a sysop who was later sanctions twice for abuse of sysop powers. He started POV Cleanup for instance, and that was no small undertaking. Do we really need to continue to harass someone who has no right of response simply because he wrote articles criticizing Wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.134.253.87 (talk) *** 03:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's certainly not an issue of libel, but the wording of the explanation for Bambenek's community ban is rather indelicate and, it seems, inaccurate (I'm only mildly acquainted with the issue, but it's my understanding that, irrespective of the motivations of [much of] Bambenek's Wikipedia-related activities, he did contribute [in part, and at one time] non-disruptively and not exclusively with reference to his article; please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Even as the issue is relatively insignificant, it is probably best for us to be accurate and not to antagonize anyone unnecessarily, and so I tweaked the wording slightly; I think that should suffice. Joe 05:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Hate speech
I have had no experience dealing with hate speech on talk pages, so I am going to defer the case here by to a more experienced admin Borisblue 03:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * They've received a stern warning, and can be blocked if they do it again. That's about all the response needed for this level of disruption. --Masamage ♫ 03:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * We gave him a vandalism template? This isn't exactly vandalism... isn't there a more appropriate message?Borisblue 03:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Then you end up having a content dispute with them - you don't want to get into an argument about whether group X really is superior/inferior or whatever. It is vandalism really. Secretlondon 03:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Whether we split hairs over whether it's vandalism, or trolling, or just nasty and disruptive, it's unacceptable whatever we call it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There are also incivility warnings, of course. This was certainly that, but it was also vandalism because they removed somebody else's post. Most effective would be a custom message that addressed the specific wrongdoing, but it doesn't matter much, because anyone who makes posts like this is unlikely to have a change of heart based on a paragraph from someone they can't see.--Masamage ♫ 04:00, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that the part stating "kill kelings" goes a bit beyond simple vandalism to being a threat since it is advocating bodily harm to an individual or individuals. --Strothra 04:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've tried to explain the warning. -- Hoary 06:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Source or status Image:Gold-Petersburski.jpg

 * 1) According Image use policy and di-no source: Source information must be provided so that the copyright status can be verified by others. I suggest, that the description of this image haven't enough information about its author/source/license-status (I have reported about this problem to Halibutt two times). I can't verify information about this file, for using in Ru-Wiki and/or reupload to Commons. Could any admin check the status of this image?
 * 2) Also, I ask you to examine behaviour of Halibutt in next edits:  and espessialy . Is it normal to give other user fake information in the form of sarcastic verbiage?
 * P.S. At ru-wiki (ru:Изображение:Gold-Petersburski.jpg) we had found the possible source of this image, but there was not enough information about its status. I don't want to delete this image, I want to know - is it really free, or is fair-use more preferable? Alex Spade 21:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm tended towards fair use but really to fairly use an image one needs to have at least an idea of its source, can you expand on the ru-wiki theory about its origin? Its not quite over 100 years old which is annoying (though it's not that far off), but at the same time its low resolution and clearly not a great photograph even for that time period. An easier route may be to find an alternative picture if one exists that hopefully either is copy-free or can be used under fair use rationale, who knows, it might even be better quality! WikipedianProlific(Talk) 21:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Update; a very quick google search found this site with a roughly double sized version of the image though it may be an enlargement of ours, I can't tell, its full of artefacts though. The bottom of the site reads "Copyright 1988-2006 Murray L. Pfeffer. All Rights Reserved", but its hard to say if they actually own the image or are just using it. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 22:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The musical act was formed in 1926, so it cannot be public domain for being 100 years old. According to, the second website mentioned that has the photo didn't even host it until around Sept 06, which was months after Halibutt uploaded the picture on Wikipedia. Pretty much, I am starting to think it was a scale up from our image, since I see the same artifacts and white border that we have. I would suggest just for a relicense of the image to make it where it is true. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 18:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm concerned that people increasingly report all sorts of petty grievances on this page rather than on WP:ANI. If there is no distinction between the two noticeboards, we should think about merging them. --Ghirla-трёп- 17:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this is probably in the best place as although it involves a specific user its not really an incident report, its more of a copyright matter requesting assistance. Its useful in my opinion to have ANI, AIV and AN for two reasons: first is volume, one combined page would be very big, by the time you'd edited it you'd get a 'another user has edited this page' warning. Having several makes it more manageable. Secondly, ANI and AIV can deal with largely misconduct issues while this page can deal with less immiedieate problems that require some investigation, such as this case. Anyway, back on topic I missed that User_talk:Zscout370, nice find. Yeah sounds like relicense is best. Shame its not easier to find out where its definately from. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 20:28, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The tricky part is what license to use? From poking around at the Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-Polish seems to be an appropriate license, but I need some double checking to be sure. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 09:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That seems like a good choice, though obviously it depends on the photograph being polish in origin but all the evidence seems to suggest it is, plus, the image is all over the internet and the license seems viable to it. I'd use it as that, then just explain in the description that as best we know thats the score. If new information comes to light we can always correct the license or remove the image if need be. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 13:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

All takers, close this
The exceedingly annoying and DRV-ridden Spells in Harry Potter (3rd nomination) AfD has passed the requisite five days. I hope someone with a level head tries to sort through it. David Fuchs ( talk ) 14:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Majorly closed it as keep, he should have given a good reason why though, as it's one of those chaos AFDs that should have had a reasoning no matter what. I myself would have closed it as no consensus leaning towards delete as the keep side was fairly weak and several of them were protest votes, not valid reasons for keeping, but comments like "uncyclopedic fancruft" isn't helpful nither. It's clearly not a keep though. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 15:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There was certainly no consensus for it to be deleted; not even close. I don't generally give reasons for closes, but it seemed to me on this 3rd AfD in less than a month that the general consensus favoured keeping it. People are of course welcome to DRV it (again), but I can imagine it getting similar results.  Majorly  (talk) 15:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There was no consensus for keep nither though, no consensus is much different from keep or delete straight up, and btw, anyone who does a WP:DRV on that again it's obvious WP:POINT and should be blocked/warned, we don't need anymore DRV drama. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 15:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that "no consensus" would also have been reasonable. Overall, however, this article has been the victim of overly much process wonkery. First it was nominated for deletion. This was snowballed because the nomination was withdrawn and nobody else suggested deletion, and it had an overwhelming number of keeps, which is reasonable. A few days later it was nominated again, which is doubtful (it should have been discussed with the previous closer, or taken to DRV). This was speedily closed on grounds that it was discussed last week, which is likewise doubtful because that discussion was snowballed. This was sent to deletion review, which was about evenly split (which is telling!) and in which many of the responders focused only on whether early closing in general is useful, and missed the actual reasons for the first snow close. Then, lacking an obvious consensus either way, the DRV was then speedy closed by someone who remarked that deletion debates should never be speedily closed (irony alert!), and relisted again even though by now it was blatantly obvious that it would result in no consensus for deletion. Perhaps we shoild have a WP:WONK page to list this kind of issues on as an example, like WP:LAME does for other kinds of issues.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  15:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I think Radiant! says it quite well. It's been on AfD 3 times in the past month, and only one of those times was really a suitable nomination - the first one. It should have gone to deletion review if people disagreed with the close, not renominated, but the DRV was closed early, and renominated again purely for process. There was clearly no consensus for deletion at any time.
 * As for closing as keep, I felt the delete comments weren't policy bound as much as the keep comment. "I don't like it" and "Not a fan site" didn't really go far when I looked at the article. Sure, it needs work, but it's a major series, which reliable sources can be found for.
 * Also, I suggest renominating it in about a months' time if no significant improvement has been made on it. And please ask me to clarify if you need any more explanation (or you think I was completely wrong, which I sometimes am! ^_^)  Majorly  (talk) 16:12, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I doubt it will get better, but this will probably be like List of Battlefield 1942 mods- nominated so many times they'll vote 'keep' because of WP:POINT concerns, although the main issues were never addressed... However, the question I had, looking over the AfD and deciding how I might have closed it, is what constitutes original research.


 * Going into all that, the only real reference was an about.com article on the possible latin translations for the spells- but even though they are apparently based on Latin, there hasn't been any sort of response by Rowling as to whether these translations have merit. The "Keep"ers were adamant about this not being OR, but I was curious about what others thought. Thanks for providing rationale, btw Majorly. David Fuchs ( talk  ) 16:33, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If Rowling did provide an official translation, it'd be dismissed as non-independent.-- Nydas (Talk) 17:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Sad, but so true. KTC 00:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This seems like a perfectly reasonable close to me. I was thinking about closing it myself and was on the fence between keep and no consensus (it could have gone either way). Personally I am more bothered by Jreferee's (who closed the DRV) opening statement in the nomination of the AfD. It sounded basically like a delete !vote in the nomination. I personally think it is rather bad form to relist with anything but a "procedural" nomination. Anything else insinuates bias in the close of the DRV. IronGargoyle 18:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

"OMG, AfDed three times in a month!!". Three AfDs were formatted out of a technicality. The first AfD was closed because no one at that time (after only 10 hours) had a major reason to delete it (a retracted AfD is just that, retracted). A second AfD was started with people who did find other reasons to support deletion, and should have been seen as unrelated from the first AfD. Then everyone was forced to take it to DRV just so we could continue that second AfD, which was formatted as a 3rd.

I don't have a problem with the 3rd AfD close (although I would have called it no-consensus), I'm just pointing out that there is a difference between this messy situation and a normal spree of three AfDs. -- Ned Scott 18:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. Although the third AfD was closed properly, the first two closures were not handled correctly. Our coverage on fiction is so divisive that there should never be a snowball keep. &mdash; Deckiller 20:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Whether there should or should not be snowball for any particular topic is of course up to the community, but would you had a problem if the 1st one was closed as nomination withdrew, because the nomination was withdrew. KTC 00:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Arguments that "we should never snowball this" are at least slightly missing the point, because the first AFD met the speedy keep criteria.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  11:07, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Request IfD closure
Request an admin familiar with WP:NFCC to close. Thanks! Videmus Omnia Talk  03:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅. Neil   ム  09:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Someone reversed the Recent Changes page
I have no idea how this happened. I know Firefox has an option to let you reverse a page, but I wasn't using it, and it was only reversed after a certain edit, not the whole page. [Screenshot] Kat, Queen of Typos 16:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's okay now. Shalom Hello 16:07, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Someone probably used the Unicode symbol of doom in an edit summary.  The one that looks like a clump of 8 apostrophes, and reverss the order of other characters (something to do with assisting typing in Cyrillic). I won't use it, as evil things happen.  Neil   ム  16:07, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, I just learned of that character's existence today. I don't even know how to make it. Evil indeed. Kat, Queen of Typos 16:11, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a minor annoyance at best. In a week or two everyone will forget about it again. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Dino Renzo (moved from UAA)

 *  This is a thread over at WP:UAA. However, it is a lot more than just a WP:U violation, so I'm moving it here. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 16:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC) 


 * &mdash; Violation of username policy because: Is an attack on an specific user; I don't know what's going on here, but this user page seems to be a problem, i suspect the user was solely created to attack the name.. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: User:Rascals has additional and similar information, with reference to Dino Renzo. At first glance, I'd have trouble pegging what it is supposed to be, an article practice, a bragging page, or fiction. Ariel ♥ Gold 13:08, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * See the deletion log for Dino Renzo in article space. -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 13:25, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * User probably needs to be blocked, but I don't see any UAA violation -- lucid 13:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The situation seems to be wide-spread. There is also User:Simone Wentworth and user User:T-Rex Entourage. I was about to suggest the primary contributor of User:Dino Renzo move the article to article space when I realized it was not only unsourced, but also not his page. --Moonriddengirl 14:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I vote for deleting the pages and blocking the users, even this isn't a username issue.Rlevse 14:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * See also Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive93. I too foresee a deletion spree. -- zzuuzz (talk) 14:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * After I added the missing page to that, I realized it was an archive, lol. Do these pages need new incident reports opened, or can CSD tags be placed? Ariel ♥ Gold 14:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * And a brand new one: User:Dino Antonio Renzo. Evidence suggests that the anon IP that was working on User:Dino Renzo has registered the account. --Moonriddengirl14:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There also is User:Dino Antonio Renzo, User:Simone Wentworth, User:T-Rex_Entourage. -- Jreferee  (Talk) 14:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've blocked the underlying IP, while this gets cleaned up. -- zzuuzz (talk) 14:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm going though contributions as well. Please feel free to assist in this. -- Jreferee  (Talk) 14:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This all might be the work of User:Rascalpatrol. If someone has the time, please consider seeking a check user for these new accounts. -- <font face="Kristen ITC"><font color="Blue">Jreferee  (Talk) 15:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Or probably not. Rascalpatrol was a confirmed sockpuppeteer of a number of different accounts used to edit Canadian political articles, not fictional gangster posts. -- <font face="Kristen ITC"><font color="Blue">Jreferee  (Talk) 15:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Here is a list of pages to review: "Alberto Renzo, Damon Dales, David Chapman, Deanna Jones, Denzil Smith, Dino Renzo, Franklin Coles, Fredo Caan, Jacob Street, James Thornton, Lee Quoins, Leon Atkins, Mark Alexander, Roberto Renzo, Ryan Buzz, Simone Wentworth, The Rascal Mob, T-Rex Entourage, User:Alberto Renzo, User:Damon Dales, User:David Chapman, User:Deanna Jones, User:Denzil Smith, User:Dino Renzo, User:Franklin Coles, User:Fredo Caan, User:Jacob Street, User:James Thornton, User:Lee Quoins, User:Leon Atkins, User:Mark Alexander, User:Roberto Renzo, User:Ryan Buzz, User:Simone Wentworth, User:The Rascal Mob, User:T-Rex Entourage"-- <font face="Kristen ITC"><font color="Blue">Jreferee  (Talk) 16:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I have looked through all these and don't see anything required. Most have made no contributions at all, it appears, and the actual articles are genuine, I believe.--Slp1 16:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I concur. Of the three blue linked articles, Two are disambiguation pages, and one is a valid article. <font color="CC66FF">Ariel <font color="FF69B4">♥ <font color="0066CC">Gold 16:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Most of the edits and userpages have been deleted, so unfortunately only admins can see them. Some of these pages are also potential pages. -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * For follow up on this matter, please post at Suspected sock puppets/Dino Renzo. -- <font face="Kristen ITC"><font color="Blue">Jreferee  (Talk) 16:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The guy complaining about Yamla
Is there a reason not to revert and block on sight? Tom Harrison Talk 13:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I must have missed something...?  ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 18:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This guy for example: Tom Harrison Talk 17:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't think of one. Bottom line, we softblock TOR.  End of story.  The individual doesn't like that and has a problem with Yamla (who does quite a bit of cat:rfu clearing) not unblocking the IPs, but not being part of the Chinese government there isn't a whole hell of a lot we can do for him (other than perhaps someone telling him to chill out, mail unblock, and request a login).  I'd just treat it as spamming, revert on sight, and either report the IPs to WP:OP or investigate yourself if you know how.  In a way he's doing us a favor by pointing out more TOR exit nodes and open proxies that need to be softblocked.--Isotope23 talk 17:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


 * We hardblock TOR, but we don't block people for using it. ... That said, we block TOR very ineffectively. I checked two weeks ago and 75% of the port 80 tor exits were not blocked. So any real troll with half a clue can just pick an unblocked exit and we'd be none the wiser. --Gmaxwell 17:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't spend much (well any really) time blocking open proxies... but I thought the policy changed to softblocks on TOR... but either way given the unintelligible complaints below I would say this can safely be treated as trolling. If they can complain here they could just as easily be editing rather than wasting time here.--Isotope23 talk 11:11, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

no, in tor, must click new identity and press f5 many times then can edit, but wait long. --饿鬼 12:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

我们只想编写几个条目，可是Yamla不要让我们编辑. 当我们投诉他，你们不但放过他，而删除我们的投诉，甚至封禁我们？--一闪一闪亮晶晶 09:11, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * "We want to prepare several entries, but do not let us Yamla editor. When we complained to him that you will not only miss him, and the deletion of the complaint, or even blocked us?" --Masamage ♫ 09:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

你们太过分了！我第一次阅读WIKIPEDIA，就想编写几个条目. 没想到，这里不欢迎中国人. --郑优秀 10:23, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

我们不认识这位家伙. 郑优秀，何兰村，饿鬼，一闪一闪亮晶晶，月亮代表我的心和我是好朋友. --韩学佳 11:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

hello. our friend zheng youxiu show us wikipedia. we want write few articles, but your admin yamla dont let us edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 饿鬼 (talk • contribs) *** 11:59, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

王八蛋！烧他们的屋子，杀他们的家人！--Sun Jiaxuan 08:57, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * They are trolls because they are Chinese? --Kaypoh 09:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If you're referring to those complaining here, no, they are trolls because of their behaviour and threatening comments (see translation of above line in my comment below). KTC 00:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * (Translation) - "<Insult>! Burn their house, kill their families!" -- KTC 00:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, so they are all personal attacks and trolling? Maybe someone who is good in Chinese can confirm. I read that Chinese cannot edit Wikipedia because of their government and Wikipedia banning TOR. They must be frustrated. --Kaypoh 14:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I have no doubt that someone is running a sockpuppet campaign to get TOR proxies unblocked on Wikipedia. Ask any CAT:RFU patroller and they'll tell you that multiple requests are being made each day to have TOR proxies unblocked or soft blocked. 99% of these requests are being made by accounts with Chinese character usernames, and these users refuse to communicate in English on their talk pages. But most noticeably, their unblock requests are always followed by a template which stands out like a sore thumb because neither MediaWiki:Blockedtext or No open proxies even mention it. Only "welcomed" users are made aware of the helpme template which is an indication to me that we're dealing with an experienced editor disrupting Wikipedia to make a point or trying to catch out the newer administrators who aren't necessarily knowledgeable about the disruption that open proxies expose Wikipedia to. --  Netsnipe  ►  12:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * These all pass the WP:DUCK test if you ask me. There is absolutely no reason we should tolerate insults against other editors no matter what language they are made in.  Burntsauce 16:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:POINT on Articles for deletion/My.BarackObama.com
, creator of the article My.BarackObama.com, has persistantly made unwarranted accusations of bad faith, and attacking editors opposed to his/her view on this AFD, including removal of comments. See talk page also. I am an Involved admin on the AFD, it would appear additional attention is needed. This user is intentialy WP:POINT in order disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate his points. See alsoUser:Italiavivi along ith the other helpful(sarchastic) hints.. --Hu12 20:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * These type of attacks really aren't necessary, especially in light of the fact that almost no one supports deletion of the article. Burntsauce 20:20, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've notified him of this thread and warned him about removing comments, which is disruptive.--Isotope23 talk 20:24, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * To be fair, the comment was moved to the talk page where a thread on the subject was taking place. It wasn't an out and out deletion.  It may have been disruptive, but it's not beyond AGF to believe that the editor simply thought it was more appropriate there. -Chunky Rice 20:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * He may of felt that but outside of really vicious personal attacks or a text dump it is generally a very bad idea to move, edit, or otherwise modify another editor's comments outside the article space. It may have been well intentioned (which is why he was cautioned instead of blocked), but it is an ill advised practice regardless.--Isotope23 talk 20:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Dissagree with Chunky Rice, it was in reponse to this edit, which was the removal of large chunk of unnecessary policy text that wasn't suitable for the main page. Followed by the comment on the talk page "People who are participating on AfD's need to be force fed WP:N and WP:WEB.". Based on the identifiable behavior and edits towards this user(and others) there is identifiable evidence to the contrary of good faith. --Hu12 20:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Er, I forgot textdumps... those should be removed as well. That is why we can wikilink.--Isotope23 talk 20:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with me about. That the fact that it was a move instead of a straight deletion?  Or that that it is amitgating factor?  -Chunky Rice 20:57, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe it to be a retaliatory edit, as the comment that was removed was in response to a comment not removed from the main page. Which is clearly shown on the left.--Hu12 21:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm still not sure what you're disagreeing with me about. -Chunky Rice 21:12, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry I didn't clarify, I dissagree that it's not beyond AGF to believe that the editor simply thought it was more appropriate there, as I pointed out above. I believe it to bad faith;)--Hu12 21:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok. It was not my intention to make an assertion for good or bad faith, which is why I was confused.  I merely wanted to present some information. -Chunky Rice 21:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it was a response to this edit, where my original comments (not the WP:WEB criteria) were moved to the Talk page by User:Leuko. I won't hold my breath for Leuko's warning, either. I also stand by my comments that I have been WP:STALKed at that AfD by editors from completely uninvolved content disputes (specifically User:Endroit), regardless of whether or not User:Hu12 characterizes stating such as an "attack." Italiavivi 20:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Forgot to mention the 3RR on the textdumps 05:42, 27 August 200716:22, 27 August 200716:34, 27 August 200716:43, 27 August 200716:48, 27 August 2007.--Hu12 21:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I have never seen such a misleading, false 3RR report in my entire time editing here. You should be de-sysopped for distortion like this. I encourage and welcome any administrator to go over those diffs, and I challenge you to immediately post those diffs to WP:AN/3RR for evaluation. Italiavivi 21:06, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * All right, I have. Whether or not it's a strict 3RR vio I'm not convinced, but it's definitely edit warring and could most certainly be considered blockable. As for your other comment, there is nothing here that remotely justifying desysopping. Please be civil. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I have looked closer at the policy based on your comment, Heimstern Läufer, and you are correct;
 * "Editors may still be blocked even if they have not made more than three reverts in any given 24 hour period, if their behavior is clearly disruptive. This particularly applies to editors who persistently make three reverts each day, or three reverts on each of a group of pages, in an apparent effort to game the system. Many administrators give less leniency to users who have been blocked before, and may block such users for any disruptive edit warring, even if they do not exceed three reverts on a page in 24 hours."
 * In this case the revisions were clearly disruptive in order to game the system. Taking in account the prior 2 blocks for revert warring it most certainly can be considered blockable. 3RR is not an entitlement. Thanks for the clarification.--Hu12 19:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You believe you don't warrent a warning in that little edit war? --Hu12 21:12, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You don't believe you are knowingly distorting those diffs? You don't believe you misrepresented why I moved WebHamster's responses to the Talk page? Italiavivi 21:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I was not clear in the initial statement, so don't "distort" it to your benefit. I did not call for a block. However they are your edits and it goes to motive for, if it was blockable, I would have blocked you for the violation. You never even got so much as warning from me, so I thought it worththy a mention. At least you learned something from you last 2 blocks --Hu12 21:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Maby someone else can make sense of this. Italiavivi, you claim the comment removal was a response to Leuko's edit @ 16:53, 27 August 2007. However you expanded an existing comment of yours immediatly folowing Leuko's edit17:05, 27 August 2007. Note what was added. The very next edit was WebHamster responding to what you just added @17:43, 27 August 2007. Claiming that the removal of that comment was in response to this @ 16:53, 27 August 2007, and knowing that WebHamster's response was directed at you, is wholey implausable. Why was WebHamster's response removed and not what you added also not removed from the main page?--Hu12 22:40, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You are simply another editor with which I am involved in a content dispute with, Hu12. You're a terrible sysop, and I'm tired of treating you as one. If another administrator wants to examine the situation fairly and warn everyone involved who allegedly acted improperly, fine (still waiting for User:Leuko to be warned for removing my comments). You are simply abusing the Administrator's Noticeboard to push your side of a content dispute. Italiavivi 03:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You were reminded several times in the AFD about your attacks, by others and by myself. You have failed to take responsibility for you conduct, be cooperative or even make attemps at WP:CIVIL behavior towards other editors. Look at your contributions of editing, comments and talk page discussions this month. There seems to be a serious pattern developing. You have not been able to delimit acceptable conduct from the unacceptable. Most everything you've done on the project this month (August 2007) has been conflict orientated and devoid of cooperation. Maby its time you take a Wikibreak. Wikipedia is WP:NOT. However, this pattern has begun to disrupt the usability of Wikipedia for its editors, administrators and other people who work to create content and help run Wikipedia. Editors who have differing opinion from yours, do not deserve your continued unwarranted accusations and hostility. Because of the personal attack on me above, I have added a warning on your page. I will remind you of the Consequences of personal attacks."Users who insist on a confrontational style marked by personal attacks are likely to end up in the dispute resolution process, possibly including the serious consequences of arbitration, and may become subject to a community ban."--Hu12 05:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You are a poor administrator, who is using the AN as a platform for a content dispute in which you are involved. I will not take your warnings seriously, and encourage any uninvolved administrator to review Hu12's behavior here. Hu12, please do not return to my User_talk space for matters related to content disputes. Italiavivi 15:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Also: Hu12 accused me of doing nothing but "conflict oriented" editing this month. I tried making a well-referenced, innocuous article away from other controversial subjects only to be met by hostile editors like yourself and WebHamster. Your aggression (including trying to scrub the article from Wikipedia before the AfD was done) has been, from the get-go, what caused the disruption here. I was taking a break from controversial articles by trying to write a nice side-piece, and got my ass jumped all over again and WP:STALKed from other content disputes. Don't tell me I haven't tried to get away from controversy, because that's completely untrue. Italiavivi 16:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Italiavivi, you have falsely accused me of WP:STALK here. You have also repeated called me a "Republican", which even if I were Republican, has nothing to do with any of our discussions.  Please stop your personal attacks.--Endroit 18:16, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You are stalking. Please stop your harassment. You are the blackest kettle in the room with regard to personal attacks, I hope you don't seriously believe you're fooling anyone with this posturing, at least no one with the ability to read your contribution history. Italiavivi 19:07, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Show us the diffs then. In which articles did I follow you around and harrass you?  The diffs will show that it's rather Italiavivi harrassing me and calling me "Republican".--Endroit 19:14, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I can only conclude Italia's aims are met by misrepresenting facts through deliberate deception and a malevolent use of Wikipedia as a battleground. Repeated assumptions of bad faith and unsubstantiated use of the terms "content dispute", and "edit war" in order to mischaracterize editors that have differing opinion in order to make them seem unreasonable or improper. In almost every case this is used, it is misrepresented in unwarranted accusations and hostility. An honest Wikipedian does not say things they know to be untrue simply to support their argument.

As an uninvolved admin on on a related page Talk:Obama (disambiguation), the results were disheartening.

Italia's conduct is inconsistent with a civil, collegial atmosphere and interferes with the process of editors working together harmoniously to create an encyclopedia.--Hu12 23:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * persistently making personal attacks;
 * persistent incivility or harassment;
 * edit warring or revert warring;
 * The discussion you link to had been incorrectly labeled as an RfM. It was confusing to all involved editors, and closed per my advice. Hu, it's that you are using your sysop platform against users who disagree with you in content disputes. I doubt anyone reviewing your posting now seriously believes you are being either neutral or straightforward in your portrayal of your disputes with me. Italiavivi 02:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I am flattered, by the way, that you are copy-pasting my writing from Isarig's Community Noticeboard discussion and trying to twist them against me. It's good to see that you can at least appreciate my writing to some extent, even if you won't acknowledge it elsewhere. Italiavivi 02:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Start going through the barrage of disingenuously-labeled diffs Hu has provided above -- I encourage it. Hu described this diff, where I tell an editor that trying to split hairs over "Wikipedia policies" versus "Wikipedia guidelines" is grasping for straws, as "incivility or harassment." Italiavivi 02:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's anything left to discuss here, as it seems we're now down to a dispute between two users. Something like an RFC might be good now, as ANI is not part of dispute resolution. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 02:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. I'm not even sure what Hu's hoping to accomplish here anymore. Italiavivi 02:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Ive seen situations like this on rare occasion, where an attempt to bring additional attention disruptive situation on wikipedia results in it itself being disrupted by the very same editor. There never was or is a "content dispute" and although i have not read, Isarig's Community Noticeboard discussion, i plan to. However, now that the AFD is closed, I also don't think there's anything left to discuss here. To close this and respond to Italia I recommend that you honestly examine your motivations. Are you here to contribute and make the project good? Or is your goal really to find fault, get your views across, or be the one in control? Perhaps secretly inside you even enjoy the thrill of a little confrontation, but to everyone who is busily trying to work together harmoniously to build an encyclopedia, you become an impediment. Perhaps when a significant number of reasonable people suggest, whether bluntly or politely, that you are being disruptive, the odds are good that you are not entirely in the right.--Hu12 13:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * And I believe that anyone who evaluates your interaction with me both here and in Wikipedia's mainspace will conclude that both sides made mistakes, including yourself. Italiavivi 15:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Enough now. Neil  ム  15:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

In response to a matter brought up at Community sanction noticeboard/Archive11, user:PalestineRemembered agreed to be mentored. Unfortunately for all involved, the volunteer mentor turned out to be a sockpuppet of an blocked user. As such, there is the need for a new mentor for user:PalestineRemembered. Personally, I would volunteer, but I forsee two issues. Firstly, my in-wiki time is always highly variable. Secondly, User:PalestineRemembered may object due to my religious and/or perceived ideological backgrounds. Of course, part of what mentorship is meant to accomplish is to help the mentored overcome the inability to interact, at least cordially, with people whom the mentored may have deep disagreements with. However, mentorship will be completely ineffective if the mentored (or the mentor for that matter) are unable to work with their partner. Thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. -- Avi 21:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've been informed that placing notices in TalkPages that certain contributors to articles are sockpuppets who are now banned is somehow out of order. Personally, I felt this was a proper courtesy to other editors who had struggled against edit-warring to improve these articles - my notification might encourage such people to come back and get on with the work of the project. Furthermore, it would remind people (who might not be aware) that sock-puppetry is taken fairly seriously.
 * Whether a mentor would have helped me avoid this apparent breach of (what?), I'm not sure. I've seen (and suffered from) far more aggressive "policing" of the policies of the encyclopedia, it's clearly not normally considered a breach of Wiki-quette to point out breaches. PalestineRemembered 22:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * (see also Administrators' noticeboard/Archive100 -nadav (talk) 20:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC))

I suggest we take this over to AAU. We need to be sure any mentor who takes it on knows what it's all about, is neutral to the ME articles and discussions, and is willing to help PR navigate that part of the encyclopaedia. I must admit I had concerns about SpecialJane from the start - something wasn't right, but I still can't put my finger on what it was. Does anyone object to me driving the request? Mark Chovain 23:46, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh - I just noticed it's already been taken there. Mark Chovain 23:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm... The request has gone unanswered for 3 days now. Any suggestions?  Would it be worth approaching a number of adoptees directly? Mark Chovain 00:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Mjaballah
This user writes on his userpage that he wants to use a bot on Wikipedia. I don't understand what he's trying to say, but I want someone who knows how bots work to assess if this presents any kind of a threat. Shalom Hello 16:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It doesn't seem like the bot will require editing privileges (or even a registered account for that matter), so there is no need for WP:RFBOT if I understand Mjaballah correctly. Perhaps the user is just alerting us out of server load concern? Seems like the user intends to use an automated process to extract all the math code/images from wikipedia to keep in a 3rd party database. -Andrew c [talk] 20:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Please extend semi-protection
There is an anon-ip user who simply refuses to sign his/her disucssions []

The page was semi-protected for a week and since then, he/she went to the anit-semitism page and created a bunch of havok related to the Alice Bailey page.

[] []

I would ask that the semi-protection be extended until this user agrees to sign their name! That's all I ask.

His/her latest set of not signing his/her name at the anti-semitism page created a whole mess of confusion as to who did what where. Sethie 17:52, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * (copied from my talk page) There is a lot to be said for getting a user account, no argument ... but we generally don't semi-protect article pages to encourage users to sign their names on talk pages. It doesn't work, for one thing. :-) Take a look at Protection policy. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 18:16, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It may not make someone do the most basic of wikipedia courtesies and I guess what I am saying he/she is is causing problems, not just on the Alice Bailey and anti-semitism page- but all over. Her talk page is full of warnings for blanking pages and vandalism. Sethie 18:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The mess was not created by the anon-ip user, at worst it is a slight inconvenience. The mess is the result of a group of editors who will not compromise over the disputed section of the article. The whole situation is crazy. There are hundreds and hundreds of messages being placed on the talk page in a dispute over a few sentences. To make it more complex, Sethie has deleted large amounts from the talk page (the parts he disagrees with), so it is difficult to refer back to what has been said. Isn't there some way to get some order in this mess? There is so much being put on the talk page that I do not even bother to try to read it all. Surely there has to be a way to restore order when things in an article have deteriated to this extent. Kwork 21:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Mr. Neutron keeps removing my (valid and polite) comments
Content dispute, not vandalism. Users are allowed to remove any warning or message from thier userspace. — M o e   ε  20:28, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Mr. Neutron has been deleting my comments from his talk page, even to the level of archiving the whole content, just to prevent anyone to see what my valid points about his behavior and vandalism on the Ilinden Uprising page are. He has also called in friends, to harass me and the said article.

Capricornis 19:12, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * So? He can do almost whatever he wants to his talk page.  Use diffs if there's a problem.  He can't erase history without the intervention of an admin.   Orange Marlin  Talk• Contributions 19:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * If you've warned him about vandalism or other behavior and he erases the warning, then it can be treated as read and acknowledged. If you feel there's an ongoing problem with vandalism, then you can raise it at WP:AIV. However, it appears from a cursory glance to be a content dispute and not vandalism - in which case you may want to follow the steps outlined in dispute resolution. MastCell Talk 19:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Opuscalgary again
User:Opuscalgary has been involved in a long running debate with another editor, User:BZuk. After I gave him a 48 hour block for repeatedly insulting him, he started insulting me instead. I permed him, with instructions on what do to to unblock. Instead of following this advice, he insulted me again. His remaining privs were removed by another admin as a result.

He then returned on an anon IP, which I assume is the same as the registered account, and posted more taunting. I blocked for socking and insults. Another IP then showed up, which DNSed back to the local phone company instead of the cable company (Telus, Shaw, respectively), and was again blocked for socking and insults.

He has again returned on another IP, but this one does not RDNS usefully, and I believe may be some sort of public-access terminal (just a guess, based on a threatening e-mail he sent me). Another admin noticed this and blocked. My guess is that this behavior will continue.

So, what do I do? Is an RfC or ArbCom useful? Or do we just keep blocking when he returns?

Maury 15:09, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's much that ArbCom could do. He's already indefinitely blocked - this is more of a technical problem. You could request an IP check on User:Opuscalgary at WP:RFCU, to identify and block any relatively static IP's he's using - though that won't really help with the dynamic ones. If he's not already, you can re-block him with email blocked to prevent abusive emails. As to the IP's, I would suggest revert/block/ignore. You could also semi-protect your user and user-talk pages temporarily if you're feeling harassed. Eventually life will go on and he'll find something else to do. MastCell Talk 15:21, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Both Shaw and Telus use relatively static IPs, so if he is already using public access terminals, the IPs of he and any friend(s) are likely already blocked. There are only so many public access terminals in Calgary, so he'll likely run out of options soon enough.  Seems that RBI may end this soon enough. Resolute 15:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys, I kinda figured that, but its always safer to ask! I'm always a little afraid of being seen like a ban-hammer, going around blocking IPs, so I figured I should see if there is some formalism I should be following. Anyway there's a bit of a twist in this case, it may be that the blocking of the IP in question and my receiving an e-mail were entirely cooincidental, the user who was attacked in this case has reason to believe the edits were from another problem user, not Opus. Maury 17:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Concerning Image:Pin tumbler with key.png
Resolved

Hi, I'm an admin from Commons. This picture was uploaded over there and deleted here, but few data were preserved. Could one of you please provide me with the original description and file history? Thanks, Jastrow (Λέγετε) 15:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll put it on your talk page. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:43, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:FAP - new measure against template vandalism to main page FA
I've created the page Today's featured article/Protection (shortcut = WP:FAP) after another wave of vandalism to the templates on the main page FA. The simplest way of guarding against a lot of template vandalism is just to keep a copy of the main page FA on a separate page that is cascade protected. That way all the templates that are on it will be automatically protected (however numerous they are - we had one FA with over 60 templates not that long ago). It won't cover new templates added during the course of the day but there are unlikely to be many such valid additions. Just copy and pasting the whole thing seems quicker than identifying and listing all the templates. Comments welcome - if this is a stupid idea for reason I haven't foreseen do let me know. Oh, and if we run with this, volunteers to update the page would be good - I'd suggest a Bot but unfortunately the page is protected :(. WjBscribe 01:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I like this idea. Perhaps Cyde's bot could do it if it gets +sysop. -- John Reaves 01:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Wave of template vandalism? To which templates/articles? (I must have missed that.) Grace notes T <span title="Wikipedia:Administrators&#39; noticeboard">§ 06:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Moon was the last one (see templates The Moon and E) - but there's been a general rise in people targetting the main page FA's templates in the last few weeks. WjBscribe 15:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

That has got to be the greatest shortcut EVER. hbdragon88 00:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hell yeah. &mdash;Crazytales (t.) 03:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Since clearly the only reason why this page exists is because of its shortcut, I suggest we reject it as frivolous! ;) Or most seriously, cascading protection is very complete&mdash;perhaps too complete for our purposes. With reasonable timing, I could protect any page I wanted (if only temporarily). Template vandalism comes and goes, and I suggest that we don't implement this unless it gets really bad for a period of time. Grace notes T <span title="Wikipedia:Administrators&#39; noticeboard">§ 05:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand your objection. This doesn't interfere with anyone editing the main page FA - they can still edit text or add/remove templates and images. What is the negative consequence that concerns you? Vandalism to templates have been a perennial problem- we get a disproportionate numbers of complaints (and public criticism) about the images it allows to be introduced into an article we hold up each day as an example of our best work. It seems like a resonable vandal-prevention step to me. Oh, and I did not create the page for the shortcut - the shortcut idea came later (and its only having just looked up the word on urban dictionary that I know realise why people are finding it amusing). WjBscribe 21:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Serious abuse of admin privileges
Hi. user:the JPS has been abusing his admin privileges by deleting outright an established article (Christopher Nudds). He has done this on the grounds that a vandal, obsessed with this individual has returned, when in actual fact this article has stood for several months now and been edited by several established users. He has banned my account (user:Toasted Sandwich Machine) simply for creating an appropriate redirect regarding this case, even though I'd had nothing to do with the article up till then. Given that I'd also helped tag some sockpuppets belonging to a "Badger Vandal", user:the JPS has also proceeded to connect me with this individual also. Please can someone help as this is really very unfair and in my opinion it is the direct result of one administrator abusing their rights in defiance of the will of the community here. 81.132.213.148 21:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Tagging sockpuppet pages is hardly a good way to start with an account. That is always going to be very suspicious. GDonato (talk) 21:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No it isn't 81.132.213.148 21:52, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Considering that your IP comes from the same place the Badger Vandal comes from  it is quite obvious you are the same vandal. Find a new hobby. <b style="color:green;">IrishGuy</b> <sup style="color:blue;">talk  21:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * And oh yeah. That "established" article has been deleted SEVEN times. --WoohookittyWoohoo! 08:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's now salted. Neil   ム  11:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * LOL!!! If you check the two IP's that Irishguy has provided as evidence you'll notice that they are completely different!?!!?! I'm the Badger Vandal btw (hahaha) although I dare say I'll mind too much about being connected with other vandalism that has occurred. PMSL!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.108.222.111 (talk) *** 18:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * now blocked... &mdash; Scientizzle 19:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

BetacommandBot running again
Heads up: BetacommandBot is tagging nonfree images again. This bot looks for images that violate WP:NFCC and tags them for fixing or deletion. WP:NFCC requires the image description page to contain "The name of each article in which fair use is claimed for the item, and a separate fair use rationale for each use of the item, as explained at Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline." In this phase the bot looks to ensure that the name of each article containing the image is included in the image description page's text. In the case where there is a fair use rationale but no article name, the bot will correctly tag the image as a violation. This is trivial to resolve (if the rationale is correct) by adding the article name. In the case that the image is used in multiple articles, the policy requires some independent justification for each use. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 02:06, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I do hope that nobody is dumb enough to delete an image because it is used in multiple articles, but only meets NFCC for some but not all of them. The correct remedy in that case is to remove the image from the non-compliant article(s) while leaving it in the compliant article(s).  GRBerry 02:19, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * dont worry. its only tagging images that dont include any page names for where its used. βcommand 02:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Still, dealing with these deletion tags will require attention on the part of the admins who do it. In many cases the right resolution is a combination of removing the image from some articles and adding article names for the fair use rationale given. Unfortunately, the rationale is often so generic that it cannot really be said to apply to any article. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 02:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I hope everyone sees this not as cases where images should be deleted, but their rationales corrected. To delete an image because the article is not mentioned is absurd, considering the article will be listed at the bottom of the image page, and a single edit rectifies the situation. - <font color="#0000cd">auburn <font color="#EF6521">pilot  talk  02:31, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't it be better if the bot just commented out uses of the image where no rationale presently existed and made a note on the article's talk page? Neil   ム  08:59, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Isn't that what the 48 hours is for? An image that does not comply with this policy 48 hours after notification to the uploading editor will be deleted. is pretty clear.  --Kbdank71 20:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Dalmatia opened
An Arbitration case, Requests for arbitration/Dalmatia, has been opened. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Dalmatia/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Dalmatia/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 20:12, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations
Could we get as many people to watch this page as possible? It's supposed to be a faster version of WP:CP, but we're getting backlogged. 2 days at the moment. It's a pretty easy page to monitor. Either the page is a copyvio or it is not. Thanks. --WoohookittyWoohoo! 08:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * How is this a faster version of WP:CP, or indeed any different from CP? It appears to be exactly the same page, albeit a version that fewer people know about and therefore has fewer throughput.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems faster because listed pages (that turn out to be copyvios) are either scrubbed clean or deleted immediately, whereas at WP:CP the typical action is to wait for 14 days before deleting. It is also different, because three bots report suspected copyright violations for examination.
 * Note that I am not defending either page, and have my own opinions about both, but I don't feel that it would be appropriate to share them here. --Iamunknown 01:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well the big difference with WP:CV is that a bot watches new pages against a yahoo-search and adds them to the page if there's a match. The idea is to patrol new pages and someone either G12 tags/deletes them for blatant cases, sends it to WP:CV for non-blatant cases, or removes the report if it is a false positive. It also detects cut and paste moves. The bot catches a lot of G12s (2 or 3 times more than new pages patrollers) -- lucasbfr <sup style="color:darkblue;">talk 08:03, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Running a bot
Do I have to be an administrator in order to run a bot? <font color="red" face="papyrus">NHRHS2010 Talk  11:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No. Or, at least, I don't think so. Moreschi Talk 11:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You do not. You do, however, need permission - see WP:RFBOT.  You should also consider running the bot on a seperate account to your main one.  Neil   ム  11:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Then how do I get permission and create a bot? <font color="red" face="papyrus">NHRHS2010 Talk  11:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * See WP:BOT, WP:BRFA, and WP:BAG. Should have everything you need. Moreschi Talk 11:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You also need a reason to run a bot too. Running bots for the fun of it is not really needed. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 05:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Finding a reason isn't all that hard.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

24.243.187.152
This user appears to be very inflammatory. I warned him about vandalising trivia (disambiguation) and he put this on my talk page. Reginmund 16:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Blocked for a week. IP has a history of personal attacks, vandalism, and general foppishness.  Neil   ム  17:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * "General foppishness"? That's a new one. While he deserves banning for the other 2 reasons you give, Neil -- as well as for his foul mouth -- I wouldn't say that an anon IP could be considered "over dressed." -- llywrch 20:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I meant it in the Thomas Nashe sense ... like a Fop & an Ass must be making himself a public laughing-stock ;) Neil   ム  08:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Koavf and mass renaming of bilateral relations
Within a day or so, and without discussion (and notwithstanding even some objections), the above user has moved tens upon tens of bilateral-relations articles from terms that are conventional in the historiography to ones that are stylistically uniform. I suggested he establishes a centralized discussion with changing-x-to-y list, allowing others to express their opinions. I have started moving some of these back to the status quo, but it's pretty massive (and, the user also went to articles which link to these entries and changed the redirects; ironically, he failed to change the lead sentences in seemingly all the articles he renamed). I admit, as someone who works largely in the area of modern history and historiography, that the super-imposed stylistic conformity bothers me. I am going to stop undoing the changes, as I have to get going, but perhaps an admin (i.e. admin-moves) with a grasp of history can review the rest of his changes so that the helpful renamings (there are a few) are distinguished from the ones which are otherwise unconventional in geopolitical-speak, and return the status-quo to these; for now, at least. El_C 22:06, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Just adding that I had raised a few similar objections to Koavf's moves, and have been in a constructive discussion with him about the issue on our talkpages. Maybe that discussion should be moved to some central space. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned to him, I thought that the best idea would be to have him list, in a centralized discussion, x-to-y renaming proposals. El_C 22:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Also to add, this user has done this before, has been blocked for it before, and caused many sporting wikiprojects to spend a lot of time cleaning up the result. Resolute 22:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Again? I spent an entire 24-hours reverting his 4,000 mass page moves about a month ago. I suggest we actually block for a long time for this one. That is ridiculous. — M o e   ε  22:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, then certainly more caution should have been exercised. About the cleanup, Perhaps FPaS is up to the task...? El_C 22:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm in the process of reverting much of it back to it's original title. I couldn't do a couple because it was moved twice though. Feel free to revert any and all back to the other version if the other one is prefered. — M o e   ε  22:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Alright, I'm finished with most of the page moves.. again. Koavf should really take the communities feelings about 1) Article titles and 2) Mass page moving into consideration once more. — M o e   ε  22:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Moe, for making the reverts. Just in defense of Koavf, let it be said that he apparently did seek some input on the village pump or somewhere and got no opposition to his plans; he also used the RM mechanism in some cases and wasn't opposed there either, so we can't really accuse him of totally unilateral action. He also responded reasonably and constructively to my requests, and I'm not aware he continued making these moves after people objected to them. A block would have been quite inappropriate, in my opinion. But I agree most of the moves were not a very good idea (my thoughts on the matter itself are on his talkpage.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Your welcome. Oh, well at least he attempted to get consensus, so a block probably wasn't in order, but I would prefer a discussion for a page move on every talk page proposing these moves and a tag on the article header suggestion that there may be a page move for controversial moves. It seems blanket terminology won't be acceptable in every case as different discussion take place in seperate areas of Wikipedia. I think this was the issue Kvoaf had the last time he made mass page moves. — M o e   ε  07:32, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Image question
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cleft.jpg Hallo, I need the allowence to publish the image above on my homepage www.aktiendaten.de You can see it already on the section "Machtmißbrauch"...."Kirche/Sekte"....at the end. Stephan Seit —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.156.107.208 (talk) *** 08:08, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Stephan, the image is in the public domain, so you can use it anywhere you want. Within the bounds of propriety, of course... ~ Riana ⁂ 08:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * NSFW, for what it's worth; I expected a cleft chin/lip photo and got something else entirely :) Ral315 » 13:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I was expecting a geological formation... --Hemlock Martinis 15:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * (to Ral315)If you rotate it 90degrees... that is what you get. LessHeard vanU 15:40, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Abusive admin goes on blocking spree
Just indef blocked User:Hazabaza5, User:Hazabaza6, User:Hazabaza4 and User:Hazabaza3. I have left User:Hazabaza2 unblocked for now. Users 2, 3 & 5 were all used for minor vandalism. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 12:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could continue the abusive tirade at User:Hazabaza1. Cheers Kevin 12:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. I looked for Hazabaza but forgot the 1. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 12:35, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I have indef blocked Hazabaza2; I noted the others and concluded that H2 was also not interested in contributing positively. LessHeard vanU 15:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

User talk:Rambutan/Archive4
User talk:Rambutan/Archive4

This archive is the subject of a dispute involving Rambutan and Sceptre: Sceptre wants edits by a banned user removed, Rambutan wants them kept. Due to the edit warring, I protected the page. Upon further examination, it seems that there is personal information there, so I removed the content (essentially, participating in an edit war after I protected the page). The content has been oversighted elsewhere - therefore, it should not be visible here. Also, the edits were made by a banned user. I'm leaving the page protected for now, until possible oversight, however since I'm not neutral at this point, any admin is free to unprotect if they believe that the content is not oversightable.

First: Should the content be allowed to be added?

Second: Is it oversightable? I believe it was used publically by the user in the past.

Third: Should the page remain protected?

--ST47 Talk&middot;Desk 17:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There should be no discussion. The IP is that of a user who has been harassing me and User:Matthew since late last year, both on wiki and off wiki (primarily ED). Any admin who wants evidence may email me for it. So, no, yes (I've had no objections from oversight-l in the pass), and yes. Will (talk) 17:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

It's public info, and I quote ST47 saying: There's no information there at all. That is true. Secondly, I am willing, indeed desirous, for the comment to remain despite the fact that it's a banned user; I think that WP:BAN gives leniency in the context of willing users' userspace. Finally, Sceptre's behaviour over this whole matter has been apalling, and a block or rebuke is definitely in order. I clearly said that he should get a wider view on this, rather than ignoring the ongoing discussion and reverting, and what did he do? Finally finally - I will replace it with a diff if a policy specifically says that it must be deleted, and since there's "no information there at all", there's no need for it to be deleted while this discussion goes on.--Rambutan (talk) 17:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:BAN, which doesn't give leniency to userspace. Will (talk) 18:08, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Rambutan, you're being ridiculous. Banned users are banned from everywhere, not just mainspace, and frankly this is the sort of thing we'd oversight normally, or at least cover up - yet you are actively trying to keep it. It's a talk archive, and I cannot understand your need to keep that particular piece of text. There aren't your pages anyway. Oh, and I'd be much more inclined to block you than Sceptre. He's not the one trying to keep unwanted personal information open.  Majorly  (talk) 18:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've no idea why Rambutan is warring over this as Will has made it clear he would like some privacy. I can only guess Rambutan has not been harassed off-wiki and so does not realise how damaging this can be to Will, a minor. Matthew 18:17, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether or not this user is banned is irrelevant, IMO -- if our oversight personnel have previously deemed this information sensitive and oversighted it several times in the past, it's perfectly sensible to remove it while oversight is requested, to avoid any potential GFDL headaches caused if any later revisions are made. -- K r  i  m  p  e  t  18:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

A right pair
In between User:Coolguy10101111 doing their thing I have this edit and then noticed this invalid block notice. I have no idea who User:Agwin is. I'm busy at work and don't have time to deal with it. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure what's going on but this seems relevant. ~ Riana ⁂ 17:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Blocked. seems interested in pursuing an unblock... &mdash; Scientizzle 18:10, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Community_sanction_noticeboard
People may want to see this proposal. Durova Charge! 12:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This isn't something the CSN can decide. See WP:SIP.  This sort of decision should be made by the Wikimedia Communications Committee (and I would imagine their response would be "no, we will not block the entire US House of Representatives from editing Wikipedia for the best part of a year").  Neil   ム  14:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Jimbo seems to have weighed in rather unequivocally on the matter - it should probably be closed, considering. Tony Fox (arf!) 15:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Although I agree that the semiprotection wouldn't be appropriate, Jimbo's word isn't law. There would be strong opposition to this proposal even without Jimbo's comment. As a side issue, it has never been particularly clear to me what WP:CSN does have authority to accomplish. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the answer to that is "until the community take a dislike to it and shut it down". That's not meant to be a snide comment, but a realistic one. I think someone should do a list of pages or projects that the community can't shut down (or shouldn't). I often use WP:ARBCOM as an example. It seems to be doing OK at the moment, and it is unlikely that that institution would ever be drastically shut down or changed, but times do change, and I don't think 'never' is a recognised word on Wikipedia. Other 'pillars' of the community are WP:AN and WP:VP, but many people never go near these forums. If the community ever fractures to such an extent that some areas become backwaters, cut off from mainstream opinion, then there could be problems. As always, it is a question of both scale and renewal. Sometimes you return to once-active areas and find them deathly quiet. Sometimes increases in scale overwhelm things for a while, until things are reorganised and settle down again. Sometimes inappropriate growth is found and some weeding is needed. I think the Wikipedia = a garden analogy can never be overdone! Carcharoth 16:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * A pity. It appears that WP's sensitivity to the potential public outcry against Wikipedia for attempting to stop malicious editing of political articles emanating from the very bastions of democracy and free speech is going to give the go ahead for large organisations to massage their own pieces. It is a pity we don't have a policy regarding Conflict of Interest. Oh, wait... LessHeard vanU 19:51, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Except that I'm sure that these sensitive articles are being watched by editors, political advisories, and the subjects themselves no doubt (or their staff). If there's something wrong, we'll hear about it. We can't just ban ranges because of potential edits. And you saw what Jimbo said. We have no jurisdiction over this. Take this to the WMF, not us. -Royalguard11 (T·R!) 19:48, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Request for administrator attention
Hi folks. There's a user conduct RfC right now for User:Commodore Sloat that I think is in need of some fresh admin attention.

Whether to re-invigorate discussion, close the RfC or anything in between, the conduct and content there appears to me to be somewhat atypical and without characterizing the behavior of any editor (including myself) as productive or non-productive, I think some fresh perspective is required on the matter. Thanks. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 02:00, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * An updated request for assistance: In what appears to be a direct violation of policy, 3 certifying editors have placed 'Outside Views' on the RfC in addition to their certifications. The policy on the page itself reads:


 * Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.


 * All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.''


 * If this is a commonplace practice, despite what I read as clear policy, please advise here on the talk page. Thanks. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 02:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I found the relevant info on the WP:RfC/U page. My moving of the 'views' was inappropriate, since the guidelines provide a lot of flexibility for independent 'views' and 'outside views' by certifiers and respondents alike. Sorry to all who were inconvenienced. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 20:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Please note: Following a good-faith apology by the RfC's target (User:Commodore Sloat), he and the RfC's originator (User:Bigglove) have now both requested closure. Thanks. -- 03:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * If the originator and the subject of the RfC are satisfied with its resolution, just archive it according to the instructions at WP:RFC/U. Anyone can do it. MastCell Talk 15:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks MastCell. For the good of keeping heads cool, after my misjudgment above it won't be me who closes it. :) -- User:RyanFreisling @ 20:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Update: the RfC has been closed. Thanks MastCell and others! -- User:RyanFreisling @ 04:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Attachment Therapy closed
This arbitration case has been closed, and the final decision may found at the above link. DPeterson is banned for one year. All parties are reminded of the need for care when editing in an area with a potential conflict of interest. For the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 20:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Simple request
I believe the revisions of Quebec Route 111 that were just deleted to allow Quebec route 111 to be moved there were improperly cut and pasted to Quebec route 111 a while ago. Can somebody please undelete the deleted revisions of Quebec Route 111? Thank you. (The same is true for Quebec Route 397 and Quebec Route 399, but I realized it there and made a note.) --NE2 22:15, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Quebec Route 111 history undeleted. You might need to reset your cache. --W.marsh 22:17, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

User:TJ Spyke
Apologies for the length It was decided a month ago that TJ Spyke was to be indefintly blocked from Wikipedia for excessive revert warring blocks and for using multiple sockpuppets. He contacted me by e-mail a month ago about the inital thought that a IP he used was used to commit vandalism (its still unknown if that is true or false). In any case, what I told TJ Spyke was very clear: The community was sick of the revert warring, so sick they have indefinetly blocked you (refering to TJ). Before the indefinte block was placed by User:Alkivar, it was agreed that TJ Spyke was to serve an multi-month block, which he had never recieved before. I told him by e-mail to serve out a month of no editing and to come back in a month if he was still interested in editing. Editing for him is literally impossible at this point, all accounts and IP's are blocked. I told him in a month I will have his talk page unprotected so he may comment. I had this done yesterday. You may view the comment here. I gave him very sturdy ground rules if he was to return to editing (that is if the community lets him back). This would require: On the talk page you will see that every criteria I placed to him has been accepted by TJ Spyke, again, given that the community decides to unblock him.
 * 1) Limiting himself to one account (i.e no more sockpuppets, period)
 * 2) Placing him on revert parole (1RR preferably)
 * 3) Admit any past accounts he has formerly or currently had, and admit their usage was wrong. (this was essential since he never did admit to the fact he used them)
 * 4) Apologize for his disruptive behavior openly.
 * 5) And if he violated the limitation of the account numbers, or violated revert parole, he can be reinstated with an indefinite block.

What I propose is that with the limitation of accounts and revert parole placed, that TJ Spyke be allowed to continue editing. An indefinite block can be reinstated if either are violated again. This is a hard working editor for the most part. The only problem he had was revert warring where it wasn't appropriate, and where most of his blocks came from. This is all moot if the community doesn't want TJ Spyke back, but I believe this editor wants to make a solid effort to regain our trust. Thoughts? — M o e   ε  04:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe that he should have one last chance. However, I'm hesitant to support him being unblocked this very day. I think that it would be fair to go back to the idea that was garnering the community's consensus at WP:CSN before Alkivar took the initiative to indef block him. Said idea was to set the block to expire on December 1, and then place him on the paroles. It doesn't seem right to not make him sit through a multi-month ban since that was the main issue that people had with just permanently banning him outright. However, I would be fine with any admins passing by turning the blind eye to him editing his talk page. There are many users around who still see him as a mentor, and he is knowledgeable on policies whether he has had the self control to obey them in the past or not, so allowing him to have a place to communicate with those who wish to contact him seems like a profitable decision. <font color="Steel blue">The <font color="Maroon">Hyb <font color="Green">rid  06:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Nevermind <font color="Steel blue">The <font color="Maroon">Hyb <font color="Green">rid  19:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I seriously doubt the validity of that claim from a non-checkuser, non-admin claim. — M o e   ε  21:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Apparently that was a mistagging of his userpage.. — M o e   ε  21:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I also agree with that deal. -- KBW1 06:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with this: just as long as people are committed enough to check all of his edits. Many times he claims "vandalism", but it's just his personal view of what he thinks is vandalism. So this is one more thing, that people need to watch out for when it comes to TJ's edits. RobJ1981 04:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The guy sent threatening emails POST-block... repeatedly edit warred on his talk page which had to be protected... you people are crazy for even considering this.  ALKIVAR &trade; &#x2622; 04:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * NPA please, Alkivar. <font color="Steel blue">The <font color="Maroon">Hyb <font color="Green">rid  04:32, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Alkivar, it's very obvious that you have issues with TJ Spyke and it's becoming increasingly clear that you should not have been the blocking administrator in this situation, nor should you have protected his talk page from communicating, claiming an edit war on the templates which he long stopped nor should you have put an e-mail block on his account so no one could communicate with him entirely. You blocking him is reason enough to overturn it and let someone else block him for the appropriate time limit. — M o e   ε  18:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Alkivar has always had it out for TJ Spyke -- KBW1 06:01, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Based on earlier experience, I'd say that TJ is a net negative and a detriment to the project. We don't need the kind of user that needs to be "watched closely" by more experienced editors to prevent him from attacking others.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  10:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Eh? He isn't being watched to keep out from attacking editors, he would be watched to make sure he doesn't edit war or use another account, thats a completely different thing to say he is attacking someone. — M o e   ε  18:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * TJ Spyke never sent me harassing emails, but I will say this: My major concern is that he has zero respect for our WP:BLP policy AND has a proven history of using sockpuppets.  He has even gone as far as to restore BLP violating content on more than one occassion.  We most certainly do not need this type of editor on the project.  I'm sure he can find a pro-wrestling wiki to contribute to instead.  Burntsauce 16:52, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Look everybody, the man said he was sorry and that he wasn't going to do it no more. Thats all he can say is his word. Either you believe him or don't. I have some faith in him still. -- KBW1 19:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It took an indefinite block for him to even ADMIT and come clean that he was using sockpuppets, after multiple blocks and multiple conclusive checkusers confirmed it. Given the nature of the violations by this user, I agree with Radiant that any more time wasted here is a net negative.  My suggestion is he try Prowrestling Wikia instead, which has much looser policies regarding biographies of living people.  Burntsauce 20:23, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't even joke about that, it's just as or is going to be as hard as Wikipedia BLP. I suggest you don't go treading there. — M o e   ε  20:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Burntsauce, where as everyone commenting has had both positive and negative experiences with TJ, the only experiences that you have had with him, or anyone else involved with wrestling articles other than JB socks for that matter, have been negative experiences relating to a difference in opinion. This subject is a conflict of interests for you since you don't have the experiences with him to look at him objectively. Please, let those who have seen both sides of him debate what will become of him, and stop making snide remarks about the Pro Wrestling Wikia where you know Moe is a BCrat in an attempt to provoke him. You aren't helping matters by trying to get attacked. If you have a beef with Moe, then sort it out elsewhere, and don’t anyone shove WP:AGF down my throat. I pray that everyone is intelligent enough to see what Burntsauce was trying to do. <font color="Steel blue">The <font color="Maroon">Hyb <font color="Green">rid  22:38, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Still, he was instrumental in bringing an article up to featured status, and I think a multi-month ban or even a topic ban should be considered. I'm just saying... Grand  master  ka  22:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd let this guy cool off for another month or two, he might be an ass, but he does make many positive edits. - hahnch e n 00:07, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hahnchen, that comment was a personal attack and entirely incivil, NPA still applies to editors who are currently not editing. Don't make them again. — M o e   ε  06:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Can you not see the forest for the trees? - hahnch e n 16:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * So, should we just let this sit for another month or two before seeing what everyone thinks again, or actually set a date on the block? <font color="Steel blue">The <font color="Maroon">Hyb <font color="Green">rid  01:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I would just take the suggestion by the two editors above of the multi-month block (i.e. two months from the day I originally told TJ to take a break which is December 21). It seems the community isn't ready for TJ Spyke to return yet. I will start a thread on WP:CSN a couple of months from now and see how that goes. I know TJ Spyke is watching this thread, so e-mail me TJ if you have any questions. — M o e   ε  06:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've took it to CSN, discussion here. Davnel03 14:11, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/DreamGuy 2 opened
An Arbitration case, Requests for arbitration/DreamGuy 2, has been opened. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Requests for arbitration/DreamGuy 2/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Requests for arbitration/DreamGuy 2/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, David Mestel(Talk) 20:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Is there a reason why we're being told?
Sure, it's useful for us to know the results of cases - but when they open? Surely those who are interested will know already. Moreschi Talk 21:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * One of the arb's suggested it was a good idea so users that didn't know the arbitration case was happening were made aware. I thinks it's because a number of users have expressed concern recently that the cases were moving too quickly and were unaware of them.  Ry an P os tl et hw ai te  21:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Moving too quickly ? Pull the other one! Bishonen | talk 22:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC).
 * A couple of people complained that a particular case, which moved usually quickly, had moved from opening to closing before they were aware of it. Frankly, I think that in most of the cases this has not been an issue, so I don't feel strongly about these notices one way or the other. Newyorkbrad 21:54, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Meh, couldn't hurt, might help. However, I am definitely lol with Bishonen on this - arbcom moving too quickly? The Evil Spartan 01:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I suppose it can't hurt - but ArbCom moving too quickly? That's made my day, that has - and it's only 9 in the morning. Classic! Moreschi Talk 08:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this is useful. I used to have the arbcom page on my watchlist, so I could tell from its history which cases were being opened, but given the penchant of people to add lengthy rants to that page that is no longer such a practical approach.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * What might be useful to do (and what I've just done) is to put Template:ArbComOpenTasks on my watchlist - that way, you get notified on every new case, and every case that moves from phase-to-phase. I can see where these notices might be useful, though.  Ral315 » 13:56, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep in mind, quick for ArbCom is measured in meters per century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luigi30 (talk • contribs) 12:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Gaimhreadhan
I'm not sure what the deal with this is editor is. Per this edit and this thread, there are claims that he is deceased. The link to the thread is to an account named User:W. Frank. W. Frank was indefblocked a couple of times for being a Gaimhreadhan sockpuppet was unblocked. Are these two different editors? And should we go ahead and take the usual steps with deceased editors and indefintely block the account and protect the user/user talk pages? — M o e   ε  03:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There was an AN thread about the same issue about three weeks hither, when first Gaimhreadhan's putative death was announced; I don't know, though, that any conclusions were ultimately reached as to whether we should understand Gaimhreadhan as being deceased and consequently block the account, etc., and in the absence of such conclusions (I have no reason to disbelieve W. Frank, but I know there to have been some uncertainty), I would continue to suggest that we err on the side of not blocking. Joe 05:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, they're two different editors - I can vouch for that. May I suggest we leave Gaimhreadhan's account alone for the moment, though? There isn't any major reason to block it and categorise it, and Frank asked me in email to defer from doing that for the moment. Note that Gaimhreadhan's account has been inactive since August 8 - A l is o n  ☺ 05:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's in the blocking policy that any editor who is deceased, their account is blocked, thats pretty much a norm, as with the protection. If there are outside circumstances currently with doing that, it shouldn't be a problem, but it should be done eventually. — M o e   ε  06:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I personally think it should be blocked. I don't really care if the protection and categorising or whatever else gets delayed for as long as the NOK wish. But there is a risk having the account left unblocked. We don't know if he stored the log in details in his computer or whatever and who might have access to it. I think it should be blocked. Sarah 06:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's actually not in the blocking policy and is largely down to individual admins' judgement, but with respect to Sarah's comment above, I've blocked the account indef and left an appropriate comment in the logs (goodness knows, I blocked and unblocked his account enough while he was alive) - A l is o n  ☺ 07:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, well it was in the blocking policy at some point unless I dreamed it, and I don't think I did :) It said that editors who were proven to be deceased should have the account indefinetly blocked so it can't be compromised, same thing for the protection policy. — M o e   ε  08:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, I agree. I've done it myself before, just that there were specific circumstances here and a request had been explicitly made regarding it - A l is o n  ☺ 12:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Advice on User Alternate Acc template for a banned user
(This is moved from WP:ANI.)

I'm being petitioned by a banned user to remove templates I added to several IP addresses he claims are not his. Would it be reasonable of me to ask that this user add a User Alternate Acc template to his current IP Talk pages (linking back to his banned User page), or would that just create problems for him?

Trying make the good faith effort and do the 2nd chance thing. / edg ☺ ★ 00:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If they're banned, they're banned. That means no requesting edits by other people, in my opinion. Plus, is there really any evidence to the contrary?<font face="Trebuchet MS">Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 04:14, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That is true, and I don't really want to unilaterally overturn the ban. Having reviewed the IPs he wants unblocked, I'm about 65% certain they were all him.


 * However, he is editing anyway. Should I encourage him to do so in good behavior, or just start a sockpuppetry case? I've not had good results with these recently, and the impression I'm under is he'll just keep coming back, and won't be worth the effort to investigate and block repeatedly. / edg ☺ ★ 06:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The 6 IP addresses in question are listed here.
 * – the account that sent me the request.


 * He's not engaging in the behaviour he was banned for (re-creating deleted articles) because as an IP he can't. However, he is resuming old tendentious behaviour around restoring deleted (and improper) categories, and doesn't seem to think it's that big a deal.


 * Tell me what to do and I'll do it. / edg ☺ ★ 06:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Where is the ban that you're talking about, in the first place? <font face="Trebuchet MS">Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 13:44, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I suppose I should have said "blocked" user.
 * User_talk:YourLord
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=135940078&oldid=135888511
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:YourLord
 * / edg ☺ ★ 14:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, file a SSP case, or even a CheckUser against him. <font face="Trebuchet MS">Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 20:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Filed: Suspected sock puppets/YourLord. Thanks for your feedback. / edg ☺ ★ 02:36, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Block review, please
Resolved

I issued a for the maximum tariff of 1 year - see User talk:69.48.16.210 - which was questioned by another editor. I had previously given my reasons at their talkpage, to which I would only comment to draw attention to the notice regarding persistent vandalism at the ip talkpage. I would welcome a review of my block, and will adjust the duration if so desired. LessHeard vanU 13:24, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That IP has had a number of prior 1-month blocks before the 6-months one, has produced nothing but vandalism to-date, which has always restarted when the block expired. Given that it's an anonblock and editors with accounts are not affected, I see no issues with this block duration though I'd probably have wavered between 6 months and a year myself - A l is o n  ☺ 13:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * (double edit conflict) Given that it's a softblock, I endorse the block. Secondary schools are often sources of anonymous vandalism, and the block will have minimum collateral damage (if any contributors exist there, they are only hindered in acquiring an account, which can be done from home or by request). Although the block is long, the school has been repeatedly blocked - it seems unlikely that shortening the block would be productive. <font color="#275CA9">Nihiltres ( <font color="#000">t .l ) 13:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Long term softblocks on schools are normal if escalating shorter blocks fail and much of the contributions are unhelpful. That is why we have schoolblock. Good call. (( 1 == 2 ) ? ((' Stop ') : ('<font color="Green">Go ')) 13:45, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Given that block log, I would have made the same decision. Good call. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 13:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems there's consensus. Good call. And good on you for seeking review. --Dweller 14:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I do make mistakes, but nobody has noticed 'em (much, yet), and comment is always appreciated. LessHeard vanU 14:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I endorse the block also, seems the last constructive contribution was in 05--Hu12 14:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I see this is marked as resolved and the concern withdrawn (maybe?), but just for the record, I support this block as well. It looks like there has been little, if anything, but vandalism from this IP, they've had plenty of warnings and nine previous blocks of durations varying from 3 hours to 6 months. The good kids can still edit at school from their accounts and if they don't have one they can create one at home or they are more than welcome to email us at unblock-en-l and we will create one for them. Sarah 17:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Another year-long school block: Corvus cornix 18:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Unsurprisingly, I concur. Have you seen the contrib history? I just found my evenings task... LessHeard vanU 20:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC) Actually, not so bad - nearly all the intervening vandalism was on one subject, their local rivals I presume. LessHeard vanU 20:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I wasn't objecting, just reporting. :) Corvus cornix 22:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Another school needing a block?
- blocked in February for 6 months, back today vandalizing again. Corvus cornix 21:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's that time of year. Blocked. --ST47 Talk&middot;Desk 21:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Broken redirects
graciously ran a query of the en.wiki database to find all of the broken redirects. I've been deleting them for the past few days under WP:CSD, however, I don't really like to deal with User and User talk namespaces, and, in addition, I'm a little burned out after having deleted over 2200 broken redirects. The list of broken redirects in those two namespaces is available here, free to any administrator who would like to delete these unnecessary pages. However, be forewarned, some of the pages are false positives, i.e., they're not actually broken redirects. Cheers. --MZMcBride 02:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll give it a whirl. :) --WoohookittyWoohoo! 10:44, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Me too. It goes pretty fast if you use Twinkle. - Krakatoa  Katie  01:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Not entirely sure what to make of this...
I logged in this morning to find that a message had been left on my talk page (See item 3 on User_talk:Iceflow) - I have no idea why it was posted there, since I have no power to do diddly on Wikipedia other than edit. Could anyone tell me why this has been posted and whether other users on WP have received the same? I am bewildered. It claims to be from someone who is mystified at being Checkusered, and protests his innocence! If this is in the wrong place, please put it where it should be. I just didn't know to where I should direct it. Thanks. Thor Malmjursson 10:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Have you edited an article that this "group of Portuguese editors" would have worked on, you figure? Sometimes, we get messages like that from the desperate folks who are going through the alphabet.  The place to direct them....  Let them start at the Help Desk.  The folks there at least know where to direct the fellows, but may I suggest that you alter the heading on your talk page to remove or spam-proof the e-mail address they left.  Web crawlers will be clobbering them shortly, otherwise.  Geogre 14:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Help needed
Hello. I once created an article on a Russian band named Dvar. I'm not their fan but i just know how importent and notable they are on the Russian goth scene. The article was 5-lines and bad so it was nominated for deletion and deleted by concensus. Now i restored it and re-wrote it adding a history section, making a nice discography, trivia and style sections, added an infobox an offcourse, informatiom. But it was deleted by another administrator. I tryed to explain him on his talk page that this band is notable and that it is now better but he just won't listen. I offered him to restor it and then nomi nate for deletion and let the editors decide, but he refuses. Since it's hopeless with him as i see i hope another administrator could restore it and nominate for deletion to let the editors decide. M.V.E.i. 10:54, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Deletion review is this door. Max S em 11:15, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:LOCALFAME Jackaranga 12:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Please avoid offensive WP:THIS and WP:THAT. Dvar's fame is not local enough to dismiss notability. I never listen to their music but I've certainly heard of them. This is an international project, not restricted to the subjects famous among the anglophone audience. --Irpen 20:28, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Since when is "I've heard of them" a valid notability criterion? Any more than "I never heard of them" is a valid deletion criterion.  Corvus cornix 20:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * M.V.E.i. actually said "i just know how importent and notable they are on the Russian goth scene", I dont think they were suggesting the band was noteable simply because he'd heard of them. But these are discussions that are better hard on a deletion review than here. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 21:25, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I've never said that the subject is notable because I've heard of them. Past deletions of MVEi's article on Russian rock-bands have been rightfully overturned. I was bemused by deletion (now restored) of his Voskreseniye a group certainly at the very foundation of the Russian rock. It is partly his fault of not citing refs, true enough. But claiming that refs' being "Russian" somehow undermines their validity is just a bullshit argument. --Irpen 21:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

User talk:Eyrian
I was just wondering if it is appropriate for an active administrator to keep his talk page protected (User talk:Eyrian). Apparently, the user left some days ago, at the time deleting his talk page and user page (see this ANI thread), but he quickly returned in active duty to Wikipedia. His talk page is stil protected though. Obviously, I cannot contact him directly on his talk page about this. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 18:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see any contributions from Eyrian since 26 August, when last his user page and talk page were deleted and the latter was protected; unless I'm missing something (eminently possible, of course), then, I don't see that he has returned after his apparent departure. It is, I think, in exceedingly bad form for an editor to have his/her talk page deleted consistent with right to vanish and then to return without having had the talk page undeleted and unprotected&mdash;indeed, that should never be done&mdash;but it doesn't appear that that's happened here.  Joe 18:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Ehh yeah I see you are right. Apparently he "left" for the first time on August 16, returning a day later (see the ANI thread), but he "left" the second time on August 26. After reading his statement that he "returned" on August 17, I assumed his talk page was still protected from that first time "leaving". Nevermind then, if he "returns" a second time, I assume he will unprotect and restore the pages. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 19:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That's what he did the first time he returned.--Chaser - T 21:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Concerning Image:Basil Zaharoff.jpg
Hi! I'm an admin from Commons. This picture is tagged NoRightsReserved and mentions en: as a source, but does not mention who is the author or why the license should apply. Was there any more information here? Thanks in advance. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 19:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No, it was deleted here for lack of sources. Max S em 19:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll delete it from Commons as well. Thanks. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 20:10, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Please unprotect my talk page
I have been inactive for almost a year, and had previously had my page locked, but I'm back for the moment.--Edmonde Dantes 21:48, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. Crum375 21:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Great Irish Famine
This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The article Great Irish Famine is placed under the mentorship of three to five administrators to be named later. All content reversions on this page must be discussed on the article talk page. Further terms of the mentorship are contained in the decision and will be amplified on the article talkpage. Sarah777 may be banned from editing any page which she disrupts by engaging in aggressive biased editing or by making anti-British remarks. MarkThomas is placed on standard civility supervision for one year. This notice is given by a clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 22:00, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Page move; undo?
I created a subpage a few days ago with the title Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry (suspension). Today, someone has moved it to Suspension_of_Iftikhar_Muhammad_Chaudhry. I think this is inconsistent with wiki naming conventions, right? I am not skilled at moves and have never undone anyone's edits before. Is it possible for an admin to look at this and, if the original title was appropriate, move it back? Thanks -- LisaSmall T/ C 01:12, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In this case, the latter title would be more appropriate, as is references an event around a person. Parenthesis are mainly used for disambiguating articles of the same name, but with the person and events having their seperate titles, no disambiguation is neccesary. The old title is automatically redirected to the new article. — Edokter  •  Talk  • 01:25, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Yet another United Kingdom vs Homes Nations revert war
This would be bordering on WP:LAME if it wasn't so destructive an intractable to solve... Having got caught up in the arguments that were an attempt at a Manual of Style, I don't think my stepping in one way or the other will bring peace.

There's been yet another round of edit wars to articles on organisations and places in the United Kingdom, with the contention being whether or not they should just give the constituent country or the constituent country & United Kingdom together. And overall these edit wars have generated all the ardent unionism and nationalism, assertions of consensus & conter-consensus, calls for consistency with other relevant articles, umpteen reverts, assertions of uniform rules for such matters vs assertions of a special case, and so forth that keep coming up in such matters. A recent attempt at Manual of Style (United Kingdom-related articles) just descended into very long threads in which assertions that particular POVs are NPOV and claims of "imperialism" and "separatism" got thrown about, with no steps towards a resolution. The "leave it to individual articles" is proving a nightmare to keep consistency on.

The current contibuter I can see doing this is Special:Contributions/ but other editors have been involved as well e.g. British Energy where I think there are some 3RR violations.

Enforcing the 3RR alone is not going to solve this overall problem and I'd appreciate it if some administrators, preferably from outside the UK (as it's getting to the stage where anyone inside the UK is being accused of having problems with understanding their nationality!), could take a look and try and get some way forward on this seemingly eternal problem. Timrollpickering 01:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's way more than just 1 IP or user account. I can see it happening at least in university's pages where we have one person adding, with someone reverting, and then someone else adding and yet again someone else reverting, and the cycle goes on.... KTC 05:14, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The WikiProject Cornwall decided to standardise on "England, United Kingdom" so that either nationalist viewpoint could be included/reverted as required. There is an understandable argument that it reads "clunkily", but the articles have become a lot more stable. LessHeard vanU 15:59, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure this is solvable. I'm sick of people from Scotland and Wales telling me I'm English rather than British.. Secretlondon 06:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:DTTR upgraded
Since WP:DTTR seems to reflect the widely held position by the community I upgraded it from the essay to the guideline status. If upheld, this would hopefully save us all some serious grief. --Irpen 03:42, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I am not sure if this has the consensus of the community. How many users have heard of it? Is it indeed uncontroversial? Considering its past history (recent MfD, for example), I wouldn't be so hasty with it.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 05:11, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Plenty of people heard of it. Enough to nuke the counteressay and derail the RfAdm of the counteressay's author. Also, it is very frequently sited at ANI and this board. You are lucky enough to not have noticed it because you have a luxury of not having to monitor these boards since your opponents do not use the block-shopping as a part of DR. Lucky you. --Irpen 05:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Tend to agree. WP:DTTR is pretty well sought out to be uncontroversial. Templating regulars, despite the unclarity of what a 'regualar' is considered, is often frowned upon. I think the distinction between regular and non-regular is what is written in the message said to the user and based on what the user was doing, and should be used on a case-to-case basis. But that by no means says we should blanket together new users and refer to them as 'someone to template'. — M o e   ε  05:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that page needs the guideline tag. It serves us well as an essay; why add instruction creep? Grace notes T <span title="Wikipedia:Administrators&#39; noticeboard">§ 06:29, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't quite understand Gracenotes' objection. Guidelines are no creepier than essays, and it seems to me that the time to upgrade an essay is precisely when it has turned out to serve us well as an essay. Presumably nobody would propose upgrading an essay that wasn't serving us well. I agree with the new tag. Let's try it out and have some discussion on the talkpage. Bishonen | talk 07:10, 1 September 2007 (UTC).
 * Eh. I have qualms about making WP:DTTR enforceable as a guideline, but there's no harm in trying it out. Likely we'll see no difference (I hope). Grace notes T <span title="Wikipedia:Administrators&#39; noticeboard">§ 07:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I share Gracenotes sentiment when it comes to enforcement. I really would be fearful to see this being even more aggressively forced with this elevation to guideline status.  I'm afraid of bite episodes in particular.  At least the behavioral guideline tag at the top states it should have its occasional exceptions.<b style="font-family:comic sans ms; color:purple;">¤~Persian Poet Gal</b> <sup style="color:purple;">(talk)  07:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I have similar sentiments, but isn't that why it's a guideline and not a policy? Seems to me that a guidleline is something that should be considered a norm, and with case-to-case exceptions, something else is allowed, isn't it? Policies are really the only thing meant to be enforced, while guidelines are meant to be encouraged. I don't think enforcing DTTR would be productive, as the only way to enforce it would to be to warn the user giving warnings to change their warning o_0 — M o e   ε  20:10, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I take issue at heightening the barrier to entry into Wikipedia, and I foresee promoting WP:DTTR as such an action. But at this point... meh. --Iamunknown 07:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Please continue at Wikipedia_talk:Don%27t_template_the_regulars. I merely announced my proposal. It is better discussed at the narrower page. --Irpen 07:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I've explained on its talk page why I ask that it be changed back into an essay, please. For one thing, it clearly doesn't have a consensus as a majority of commenters on its talk page appear to be opposed. For another thing, it directly conflicts with existing policies which require, e.g., the testX series of templates before action can be taken against vandals. Those policies don't make any exception for experienced users and WP:DTTR doesn't even define who is and is not a regular, making it impossibly vague. Please change it back to an essay. &larr;BenB4 08:29, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Whoa! The voices on the talk page are at present going to reflect the simple selection bias of people who are unhappy.  The unhappy are more motivated than the pleased.  Furthermore, we need only take a look at the "what links here" to get some ideas of whether it's in use already as a guideline.  I think it's pretty good as a guideline, and "enforcement" is more or less beside the point, as the thing doesn't have any punishments or sanctions in it.  "Enforcing it" means simply saying, "You know, we don't do that."   I don't see how anyone is going to be victimized by that, except for the people who love tags and hate argument.  Geogre 15:00, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. And simply put, there's already a pretty clear consensus that in general you shouldn't template the regulars. Making this a guideline would just describe what's already in practice now. I'm surprised by the objections on that talk page but I think anyone reading AN/I etc over the last year knows that it has all the acceptance it needs to be considered a guideline whether it has the right template at the top or not. RxS 20:22, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Please continue this at Wikipedia talk:Don't template the regulars rather than here. Discussion there is quite lively and someone already downgraded it back. The goal of my announcement was only to attract the attention to the matter. If this provokes a discussion, good, but the discussion belongs to the talk of the page being discussed. --Irpen 20:29, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

As an update for those not following the discussion, demoted  WP:DTTR back to essay status while consensus building is ongoing. --Kralizec! (talk) 16:42, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh I didn't see the discussion here before now. I undid the edit after seeing there were some kind of opposition at Wikipedia talk:Don't template the regulars and somewhere else (can't find the page back). -- lucasbfr <sup style="color:darkblue;">talk 17:07, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandelistic page deletions
Repeated deletions of page Protection is requested for the article: "Please Delete This Page". Editors have continuously deleted the article without regard for its noteworthy information. For unknown reasons an almost identicle article "Please Do Not Delete This Page" has remained unscathed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.245.11.11 (talk) 16:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, what exactly are you talking about? Could you provide links to the articles in question?ugen64 04:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Neither Please Delete This Page nor Please Do Not Delete This Page exists... and I sure don't see anything in the log for these pages. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 06:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection request
Hey Admins I was wondering if a semi protection lock can be placed on the article on Serbia? So as to prevent anonymous abuses and vandal acts on that page. Thank you, Regards: Bluewings —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluewings (talk • contribs) 07:36, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Please make such requests at WP:RFPP, not here. Od Mishehu 17:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

POV template
User:Howdybob asked a question (still unanswered) here that I also have wondered about...when can a POV or related template be removed? Obviously if agreement is reached. But what if the person tagging the article stops communicating, quits wiki, is clearly being unreasonable, has a pattern of disruption, etc and so on. Rlevse 11:29, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know about "rules" but if I came across such a tag and the person who placed it was unresponsive and I honestly disagreed with it, I would remove it. I don't think they are irremovable. Then if someone else reverted me, I would then try to discuss it with them. I would just treat them like anything else in an article. If there is no consensus or known reason for it to be there, why leave it there forever? Sarah 11:44, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Sarah, I believe its a case of common sense prevails. Obviously if you remove it and someone is upset about it, best to put it back up while you both reach a discussed conclusion. General POV and weasel words are usually fairly easy to identify anyway, its only when the whole article is slightly slanted to portray just one side of a several sided story that it becomes difficult to identify just how POV it is. Is there an article that this directly relates to, I'd be happy to take a look? WikipedianProlific(Talk) 11:56, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Having reviewed the article in question (Boy Scouts of America) it does indeed have some POV issues. Its that tricky kind of POV where theres no one single sentence that is overtly someones POV but rather the whole thing reads rather like an advertisment. I have begun to clean it up though so hopefully we can remove that POV warning tag soon. I would say the main problem is that the articles citations are mainly from scouting documents not unbiased historical sources. This doesn't make it NPOV though. Say some product claimed to be the best of its type in world, It would be slightly tasteless for me to say on the products wiki article "its the best in the world" and then source an advertisment. Obviously scouting isn't a product in quite the same sense but some of the literature thats been cited is really just advertising published by the BSA or associates. The major problem revolves around this issue whereby the BSA has excluded certain members from activities due to their gender, relgious beliefs or sexual orientation. Its then portrayed as though the organisation has recieved both support and critisism for this, I think honestly though anyone looking into the matter can see the organisation has recieved a massive amount of critisicm for it and a limited amount of support. An extreme example; Hitler recieved some support for his actions... but he also recieved a tremendous amount of critisism. So you can see why its important that we keep these views in perspective. I would leave the POV tag for now, and we can discuss on the article a POV free compromise hopefully? and when thats sorted we can get rid of the rag WikipedianProlific(Talk) 13:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This topic has arisen before and generated really hot arguments. I wrote User:Geogre/Templates to express my view and to try to reason out some rationale for templates and tags and boxes, but the one rule that I think should shine is this: The tagger has no more authority or rights than any other editor.  An average editor does not become superhuman by putting in a tag.  If any other edit were made that seemed completely out of line to you, you would just remove it.  The tag might prompt you to think, consider, and never to war, but it's just an edit.  The tagger should be bold, and so should all other editors.  Geogre 14:31, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Troubled by semi-protection durations
I am troubled by some of the semi-protection durations being applied by admins at WP:RFPP. It is not one admin in particular but more of a general trend. On more than one occasion, there have been articles that get one vandalism one day, a second vandalism the next day, and maybe even two vandalisms the next. Suddenly the article is semi-protected for two months! Or six months!! What happened to the days when 10-14 days were considered a maximum while 2-3 days were the norm? Worse yet, I've seen a case or two where an article that was rarely edited would suddenly get barraged by some coordinated effort. Suddenly it's protected for two months! In cases like that, a two-hour protection is probably all that's needed to outlast the kiddies' attention spans. Anonymous editors do a lot of good work here and it's a shame to let the occasional gay person's friend ruin it for everyone else. This is more or less a rhetorical call for common sense but if someone can shed some light on the recent trend, please do. —Wknight94 (talk) 01:10, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that in general, too many admins sprotect too quickly. This should be a last resort to vandalism, not the first thing we try. --Deskana (apples) 01:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I probably do protect for too long, though I haven't been doing it much at all. Have a look at Earthquake, which I recently protected for *gasp* two months: there are five productive edits in the first 100. Five. In. One. Hundred. A look at the log will show "escalating" protection: a couple of weeks, a month, now two. This also appears to be a trend. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Fvasconcellos, I appreciate your response. Please don't think I am singling you out...  Since you were the first person to mention an example, I took a look at Earthquake.  It is semi-protected for the next two months so I took a look at the previous two months of edits.  What I found was more than 25 good-faith edits which would not have happened had the article been semi-protected for those two months:  (these last two were popup reverted with no explanation) .  Yes, there was vandalism and yes, much - but not all - of the vandalism was perpetrated by IPs.  But I argue that the 100 or so vandalism reverts in that time are far outweighed by the 25 or so positive contributions which are still in place.  I can understand wanting to give watchers of the article a break for a few days - or even a week.  But months of semi-protection start to become detrimental to the project IMHO.  Again, I am not picking on Fvasconcellos and I cannot say if Earthquake is part of what led me here but I suspect analysis of other articles under long-term semi-protection would yield similar results.  —Wknight94 (talk) 02:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree protection should be proportionate to the timespan of the vandalism and protection by increments is prob a good idea. That said sometime long protections are needed. For example, the other day I protected Allie DiMeco for 6 months after responding to a RFPP request. The article had been protected for increasing lengths of time since March and in each case heavy vandalism had resumed after - some of it going unreverted for a significant amount of time. The most recent vandalism included an edit that required the use of oversight - apparently disclosing the home address of the subject of the article. So yes, admins should use common sense and err on the side of short protections - or not protect if vandal reversions are adequate to deal with the problem. But we should also not be shy of taking more drastic steps where they are called for. WjBscribe 01:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * WJBscribe, I can't comment much on Allie DiMeco. It has only been unprotected for seven days out of the previous six months.  It's hard to believe that it needs to be semi-protected for 51 out of 52 weeks but I can't prove otherwise.  —Wknight94 (talk) 02:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyone who is troubled by this trend should take a look at List of ethnic slurs. It's been protected for 8 months. Except for a few short stints, it's been like that for almost 1½ years.--Gnfgb2 03:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Indefinite semi-protection happens, it's not that uncommon. The fact is semi-protection would be readded within a few hours if we remove it. For pages like that, George W. Bush, etc. it's a must. — M o e   ε  05:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, certain pages need to be pretty much permanently semi-protected - you only need to look at the protection log of George W. Bush to see how swimmingly the experiments in unprotection went. Neil   ム  08:31, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * George W. Bush is a pretty extreme example though. I agree with Wknight94, some admins are very eager to protect (I probably fall into this category myself, though I have improved after being taken to task by Deskana in my initial months!) I have seen lots of reports at RFPP that I would have declined and others have protected instead. Sometimes it's when there are just one or two users reverting and it's easier to block for edit-warring and try to set them on the right path. ~ Riana ⁂ 08:48, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec) I partially agree with escalating durations of semi-protect. If the recurrence of vandalism is shortly after the sprotection expires, it could possibly be the same group of kids who have been anxiously waiting out the protection. However, if there is a quiet time between sprotects, then you are probably locking out a completely different group of people each time so the escalating duration is pointless. From looking at the edit history of Earthquake, the initial IP edits after the last sprotect expiration were largely constructive. It only started to degenerate after several weeks. In that case, escalating the duration is treating IPs as some sort of collective Borg, taking prior bad acts by other Borg into consideration. That accomplishes nothing IMHO.
 * I think escalating semi-protection sounds like a reasonable approach. It appears that admins start with short protections, and use longer ones if the previous one didn't work. It's a matter of signal-to-noise ratio. Plus, the overwhelming majority of our articles are never protected, and it's not like it's difficult to register or anything.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There is something to be said for indefinitely protecting and remembering that "indefinite" does not mean forever - certain pages I've recently semiprotected (look at the history of Andrew Keen, for example) were indefinite purely because I don't want an expiry date to be visible, which would give the hordes of vandals who dislike Mr Keen a target date (remember Brian Peppers Day?). I'll manually unprotect it at some point in the future.  Neil   ム  09:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Given the wording here, initiating a sprotect with a fairly long term duration, and then reviewing/reducing/removing it after a shorter period, would serve to discourage ip / newly created SPA's currently active but release it for general editing in about the same time that a regular sprotect would (but without some of the consequences). I think that this would need to be an issue for individual admins, since I don't believe any policy/guideline has (or should have) a principle of imposing severe conditions which are then to be relaxed once the initial effect has passed. LessHeard vanU 10:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Regardless, the cases that are bothering me are where the vandalism is not really that disruptive. I think WP:ROUGH is flawed in that it uses percentage of vandalism edits as the basis. To me, the frequency of vandalism should be the determining factor. As a community, we should be able to absorb two or three vandalism edits per day to popular pages without needing sprotection. If someone thinks the page needs a break, try a day or two - not months. In the case of Allie DiMeco, the vandalism rate is quite impressive so sprotect has been warranted. My problem there is that sprotection started at two weeks. I've seen numerous cases where a quick short sprotection term - like two days or even less - is enough to shake persistent vandals. I'll concede that Allie DiMeco, similar to George W. Bush, is the counterexample to what I'm bringing up. The IPs significantly outnumber the registered editors and few, if any, of the IP edits are constructive. —Wknight94 (talk) 11:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree fully with your Borg comment. Extending the Star Trek analogy... Even if IP vandals were Borg, the recommended procedure to penetrate their shielding until the next regeneration would be to take them out one-by-one while varying phaser frequencies, not escalate the duration of phaser fire or widen its intensity. We should be clear about this. Escalating the duration of sprot accomplishes only one thing: preemptive sprot. --HailFire 03:17, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

People used to go through and unprotect stuff after a month or so, I guess that's not as common any more, with built-in expiration dates? --W.marsh 13:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I still do it sometimes but not usually when other admins have set an expiration. There are some awfully touchy admins around and the "wheel-war" term gets thrown around too often for me to feel comfortable overriding other admins' set expiration dates.  But if we want to make that option more clear - as LessHeard vanU alluded to above - that would be a positive step IMHO.  —Wknight94 (talk) 13:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * If the duration is changed by another admin right away that may be grounds for getting touchy. But if some time has passed then reversing or changing the duration of a protection is fine as the situation will have changed. (( 1 == 2 ) ? ((' Stop ') : ('<font color="Green">Go ')) 13:48, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. The infamous "wheel war" term has many people scared. Everyone's afraid of even remotely being seen as wheel waring. I think as admins we should be grown up enough to take some criticism from our fellow admins. The spirit of Wikipedia has always been "If you think it's wrong, then change it" sofixit . Nobody should be afraid to follow that spirit (of course to a certain point, eg pedophile userbox wheel war). -Royalguard11 (T·R!) 15:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

But it is not only George Bush who needs longer term sprot. A page like Barack Obama, for example, has been the target of many, many, many vandalism attacks, often viciously racist, by many IP/new vandals - and we've had to have it semi-protected repeatedly -sometimes very short-term, then longer term. Each time eventually there's been a request to lift it, or maybe it expires, the protection is removed, and it doesn't take the vandals long at all to start up again. I've said elsewhere that the nature of the vandalism attacks on this page is usually not the "Hi Mom" or "Joe from Milwaukee rocks" variety - or even the "Roberto is gay" type - the attacks are much more often targeted at who Barack Obama is, ranging from the Osama-Saddam Hussein-he's Muslim garbage to the outright racist attacks to what I see as malicious dirty tricks a la Donald Segretti and the like. That plus the garden-variety drive-by vandalism that popular pages get adds up to a hell of a lot of vandalism to be monitored. Yes, the page has many eyes watching it - and much of the vandalism is reverted fairly quickly. But some of it lasts 10 minutes, 20 minutes, sometimes longer - and even the short term stuff like last night's pornographic image of black men that graced the page for 2 minutes twice - the  assault - all does damage to Wikipedia as it presents an image of the encyclopedia as crap being put out by unprofessional idiots to anyone who has the misfortune of landing on a vandalized page. And it could open us up to BLP-related complaints/suits/etc. That the page is reverted shortly afterward doesn't matter to the people who see it when they land - nor do they know or understand how we work. So I am in favor of sprot when needed, with escalating lengths of time as appropriate, and sometimes - rarely I hope - with indef sprot on a really high-profile, very trafficked, controversial subject, and with that "indefinite" reviewed periodically. But of course the review has to take into account what's going on in the world as well as the level of vandalism that has occurred with the more patient marauders who are willing to wait the 4 days before starting up their attacks. Tvoz | talk 20:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Bigger problem
I'm more concerned by the fact that non-RFPP protections are still being issued for indefinite periods of time, take for instance Jimi Hendrix that's been sprotected since 6 July 2007 with no expiration date set, in response to 1 act of short term vandalism (Correction, I've just checked the edit history of Jimi Hendrix, and there isn't any vandalism on the date it was protected, or for several months prior to protection). Add to that dog, cat, or virtually any/all articles accessible via google are all indefinitely sprotected. Most of these articles don't even have the correct protection tags, and virtually none of them have expiration dates set. --69.118.235.97 16:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The protection on 6 July 2007 was changing the move protection from semi to full (protection log). The semi-protection was implemented 02:34 20 April 2007, a few hours after vandalism from an IP . Chaz Beckett 16:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Still, that was 5 months ago, don't you think it's safe to say that one IP isn't coming back? Not only that, that particular act of vandalism was reverted by another anon just prior to protection--69.118.235.97 17:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the example. I've unprotected that page and, as always in such cases, will add it to my watchlist.  —Wknight94 (talk) 18:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Duration of semi-protection on U.S. presidential candidate articles
For articles containing biographies of leading U.S. presidential candidates, can we build consensus that semi-protection expirations counted in days are preferable to those counted in weeks or months?

Unfortunately, due to the high visibility of these articles, the choice is between faster expirations or de facto near-indefinite semi-protection. The good news is that these articles are so closely watched that unhelpful edits are reverted quite quickly. Can we agree to introduce sprot only after first remedy user warning/blocking solutions are are unable to keep up, and then only briefly?

In a sense, these articles with high readership are "on the front page" every day; greater good justifications for keeping them open are arguably similar to those for newly featured articles appearing on the main page.

To narrow the points in search of consensus, here's two questions offered here for discussion:


 * 1) What is a reasonable duration before expiration of semi-protection on these articles to ensure that "anyone can edit" gets an even chance?
 * 2) What levels of vandal editing, when it occurs, may be worth tolerating on closely watched articles belonging to leading candidates for the sake of preserving Wikipedia's editorial openness and unique role in this media saturated topic area?

Thanks for reading (and editing). --HailFire 08:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you're trying to codify things too much. While yes, reverting is generally preferable to semi-protection, adding a rule that "people must be warned first" doesn't really help.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  10:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I can see that. Too much codification is definitely not a healthy thing here. While I would like to see more evidence that less intrusive methods are tried before pulling the sprot trigger, it is the duration to be set for sprot expirations on these articles that I'm more concerned about. Right now it looks like there is a community of editors and Admins who think these articles should be semi-protected as much as possible, and are quite willing to set expirations of one month or longer that result in de facto preemptive sprot.  I am just trying to bring the debate more into the open so all views can be heard and to discourage these different views from being addressed through  wheel warring. If this is not the right forum to seek consensus on this kind of thing, please point me someplace else where Admin views can be solicited. --HailFire 11:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd say the problem isn't nearly as bad as you suppose, based on the low amount of pages that are presently semi-protected. This page is not really a good spot to bring it up because it has relatively low traffic and visibility. I would suggest the admin noticeboard for more discussion.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  13:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Semiprotection complements user warnings and blocks, but solves a different problem. Semiprotection is for when there are numerous IPs that each vandalize the article only once or twice, and thus don't get blocked. If the vandalizing IPs were getting blocked, we wouldn't use semiprotection.  The duration of semiprotection has to be determined on a case by case basis depending on how long the vandalism has been ongoing, the protection history of the page, the nature of the vandalism, etc. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Following six vandal edits to Barack Obama in 24 hours, User:B applied an sprot duration of two weeks and later declined my request to reduce it. I would like to hear what other Admins think, not for argument sake, but simply to understand better what " anyone can edit" means to the rest of you. According to Wikicharts data, the six vandal edits represented less than 1 out of every 100 visitors to this article. Thanks. --HailFire 20:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not an admin, but these are my thoughts on it. My concern remains with the damage that such vandalism does to the subject and to Wikipedia, which I think, regrettably, takes precedence in certain instances. Tvoz | talk 21:09, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Admins able to lend a hand in supporting consensus building between Tvoz and myself, please visit the discussion at User talk:B, talk page of the Admin who most recently applied sprot at Barack Obama. Thanks. --HailFire 05:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Bgdigital
I wonder if an admin can take action with regard to User:Bgdigital who is uploading a large volume of images, all of which are untagged and look like coppyvio? I have checked out four images for Clift Hotel, an article that I'm watching, and marked them up for speedy. The other images all look like publicity shots taken from the web. Unless action is taken we could be faced with a huge deletion workload! BlueValour 23:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Looking at this editor's contributions -- all the image uploads are taken from various hotel websites, for example, and the promo-type text additions -- I'm guessing that this is a conflict of interest situation. --Calton | Talk 01:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Requests_for_arbitration
The motion to restore Betacommand's sysop privilege has failed to gain a majority approval from the Arbitration Committee. The vote is currently still visible on the main RfAr page, and in a day or so will be moved to the appropriate page.

This notice is given by a clerk on behalf on the Arbitration Committee. - Penwhale &#124; Blast him / Follow his steps 21:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * OMG, why can't Betacommand and whoever wants him to get the tools back simply nominate him for RfAdm? Obviously at the time of desysopping he had no community trust, the major requirement for valid adminship. RfAdm is the way to gauge whether his activity since desysopping made him more trustworthy in the eyes of the community. The closing 'crat cam than sift and discount the votes from trolls or aggrieved users who are simply unhappy about their images being deleted. The rest of the RfAdm participants would be a good indicator whether the community thinks the Wikipedia would benefit from him getting the block and delete buttons back.


 * Last time I saw his name popped up when his new idea, the spree of deletion of the sleeping userpages, showed up ANI. Not very encouraging, I must say, judging from the feedback. But anyway, maybe this is just me and the community will just bring him the buttons back on the plate. It certainly will if he deserves it.


 * So, please next time make the red Requests for adminship/Betacommand 2 blue rather than try an ArbCom workaround. --Irpen 00:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm actually not sure that this negative vote on a motion needed an announcement here, and I certainly don't see much value to piling on comments at this point. Let's close this thread. Newyorkbrad 00:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In agreement with Newyorkbrad. Mr.  Z- man  01:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

What is going on with this account?
This is weired and i cannot work it out.

User:Tbeatty is down in the new user long as being created today But this is an old user. At first I thought it was a doppleganger account. But it doesn't look like it is. Look at the contributions history - none, now look at the block log, old account! WTF is going on? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 08:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Renamed user perhaps? That is strange. James086 Talk &#124;  Email 09:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, he was renamed and then recreated the account. You can see it in the deleted history of the talk page. Sarah 09:06, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I just blocked it anyway in case it was someone else who created it (which is what happened to me when I first renamed my account). He can unblock it if he wants and if he was the one who reregisterd it. Sarah 09:10, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * You can recreate an aold account after it has been renamed? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 09:11, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, you have to unless you want anyone to make it anew. That's how it's always worked. Secretlondon 09:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, you have to reregister the old account name after you've had it renamed. I think Tbeatty's account has been reregisterd by a troll, judging by the userpage. Sarah 09:16, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Is there any point to that er feature? It seems stupid to me. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 09:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It saves the bureaucrats making the new account and then blocking it - which is what we used to do originally. It was decided that we wouldn't any more a couple of years ago (I think). Secretlondon 09:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah but, why is the old account deleted in the first place? Is it worth contacting a developer here? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 10:43, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Otherwise we'd have two accounts claiming the same edit? How would you see it working? Currently all edits are reallocated and the old name disappears. If you kept the old name what would it say? Would it have no edits? Would it have the creation date, currently that moves to the new account. Secretlondon 10:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Why doesn't the block log move with edits? Is there a particular reason for it or is it just the way things work when you do the rename? That is something I would like to see changed. Sarah 10:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm told it does now, that the developers fixed it. Secretlondon 10:58, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Tbeatty's block log didn't move . The only block that should really be on that account is my indefinite block, the rest should have gone to the new account. Also, I'm pretty sure that Matthew's block log didn't move, but he might have been renamed before the developers started working on it. Sarah 11:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You are right - I was misinformed. Secretlondon 11:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The devs fixed the fact that deleted edits didn't use to move on renaming - they now do. But there's been no progress with the logs... WjBscribe 11:54, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd like to see the old account, with no edits, kept and automatically blocked so that trolls couldn't try to take it over.Theresa Knott | The otter sank 11:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * We need a developer to implement that. I agree that there is no project benefit in the recreation of old accounts by random people. Secretlondon 11:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I would just block the account and redirect it to the new userpage to the new account. — M o e   ε  09:18, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No, he had the redirects deleted for privacy reasons. It's in the deleted history of the pages. I think it should be left without redirects until he's had a chance to respond. Sarah 09:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree - as I understand it the point of this rename was privacy, removing the redirects was always planned. I think he discussed this with Deskana before requesting the rename. WjBscribe 11:56, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I've flagged up this discssion at Wikipedia talk:Changing username which is where renaming people hang out (and is much lower traffic than here). Secretlondon 11:28, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I mostly agree with Theresa; furthermore, I think that the block log should move along to the new username; I'm not really comfortable with problematic users changing their name to hide the fact they've been blocked a dozen times.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  08:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, his block log indicates there is only one "valid" block there. Two others were mistakes and he was quickly unblocked.--MONGO 16:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * No one objects to the block log moving as far as I know - its a bug. Hopefully it will be fixed one day soon... And in some cases, crats block the new username for a second to link to the old block log so admins will be aware of the past history. WjBscribe 08:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Action w/r the overview page (http://wikipedia.org)?
I'm not sure if this is the place to bring this:. Help'd be much appreciated. Thanks. Yury Tarasievich 09:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * We have no control over this, I'd suggest contacting a developer. GDonato (talk) 11:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Heres the list of metawiki developers, best to contact one of them, ideally one that can speak the language in question if there is one. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 11:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I imagine if it is to do with language naming that it is somewhat contested. We'd need to find someone who understands Belarusian politics (and isn't a POV warrior) to be sure. Our article does say that беларуская мова is the name, but it also says here that there are two Belarusian wikipedias. Secretlondon 12:28, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are two. Starting in March 2007, the official spelling was moved to be.wikipedia.org and the classical spelling was moved to be-x-old.wikipedia.org. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 02:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Slightly odd hoax
I just deleted this hoax; it's worth an admin or two noting due to its odd nature.--Rambutan (talk) 08:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * How do we know that's a hoax? It's not at the patent nonsense level.Rlevse 10:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

There's no such person as Hartford Shrop. A Google search throws up nothing other than that same sentence on Wikipedia mirrors. Even if the person existed, there's no confirmation that the UFO incident is true. Bryce Blightly, the "noted poet", is completely fictitious too!--Rambutan (talk) 11:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah. okay.Rlevse 11:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The anon IP has only made two edits. Likely a fly by, but if it reoccurs, I'd say report on the vandalism noticeboard.Rlevse 11:30, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Autobiographical/COI articles
I noticed Special:Contributions/JaneEden (seems like a WP:SPA) after spotting W. Hock Hochheim (seems to be the husband of Jane Eden) and W. Hock Hochheim's Stick Combatives. I don't have the time to deal with this, and I can't remember where the best place is to flag this up (WP:AFD, WP:COI?), so I'm leaving a note here in the hope that someone else will run with this. It could be notable, but the autobiographical style makes it difficult to assess properly without a knowledge of the topic. Carcharoth 13:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems to be a drive-by, but this is textbook COI stuff so I removed the articles (virtually zero Google presence and an AfD will almost certainly result in WP:BLP violations), plus this amusing bit of vanispamcruftisement. Guy (Help!) 13:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

'Norman'
What's up with this guy? Norm Talk page 'abuse', $Deity knows how many more puppets he has laying around. Q T C 13:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear Norman. Not sure the appropriate way to address this, so --since I came across your comments here THROUGH A PUBLIC SEARCH ENGINE and they were indeed so off base--I will address it here. I am Jane Eden. I'm an editor, a publisher and a writer with 15 years experience. My conduct is now and has always been, ethical, moral, legal in my private and my professional life. I do not ever participate in inappropriate marketing practices. I have never "spammed" anyone or anything. I'm insulted that you've accused me of it here in a forum using my name that can --and did-- turn up in a public search.

I have many accomplishments, I'm known for many things, but the thing lease public about me is that I am married to W. Hock Hochheim--so I find it interesting that you even knew this, and how you gained this information? I also find it interesting that you find this reason enough to refuse the submission--as if by association--what I've posted could not possibly be true? While it is true that the information came from me as spokesperson of the facts of our organization--I am in the best position to accurately state those facts. If you chose to dismiss them simply because I am associated with the company it seems incredibly shortsighted. To automataically assume that because I am affiliated with the company all would be false and self-serving is simply not logical. And to also dismiss what I've written or remove the post simply because you do not have time to check out the facts is also not fair to the facts themselves or to your organization. Do you only list entries that require no time to verify? If this is the way you proceed, how accurate is ANY of the information on Wikipedia?

I own Lauric Enterprises, Inc. We have the broadest distribution of self-defense products by any female owned industry of it's kind in the world. Those who know me, know I am moral, truthful, ethical. When I listed information under Close Quarter Combat about W. Hock Hochheim and his rank as instuctor in that field at wikipedia, it replaced information that was TRULY inaccurate and self-serving, placed there by someone else I will be polite enough not to name. What I replaced it with was information about Close Quarter Combat and Hock's interest as a force for training and education in that arena. Currently if you Google Hock he has about 4500 hits on his name alone--hardly insignificant. If you google the SFC, or his website, or his magazine, there are that many more individual hits. He receives about 500K hits a month on his website. I won't relist all I wrote under the topic and you cheerfully removed without checking your facts, but if you care to verify, you can at our www.hockscqc.com/bio. If you'd like credible endorsements, check out the endorsement page. Are the endorsements of the worlds most decorated military hero sufficient (Hackworth)?

My work through Lauric as a publishing and production company, and his work through the SFC are significant, unparalled in the industry. They are noteworthy. They deserve a listing, not for us, but for you. If you continue to remove listings like ours that are accurate and replace them with the most middle of the road, wattered down versions of the truth imaginable, as you have done, you diminish what wikipedia was originally designed to be, cutting edge and accurate.

And since time is of the essence for you, if you Google Close Quarter Combat, you will find that we are number 1 out of 317,000. If you google any of our other subjects like Stick Combat, Knife Combat etc, it is the same. There's a reason for this--Norman. Perhaps, at some point, you will find time to check it out and be kind enough to put up the information that I posted once more. Or if you like, I will resubmit it for posting. And in the meantime I'd appreciate if you'd take my name and Hock's off this post because I feel your comments (though perhaps unintentional) truly slander me for no good reason.

Non-admin help with Request an account wanted
WP:ACC is getting quite a big backlog up, now, which can only be solved by non-administrators. (If you're unaware of how the page works: first non-admins have to test the accounts to see what's preventing them being created by trying to create them (using the 'create' link followed by the 'by email' button); if they can create them, then no problem, if they can't (due to similarity with another username), then they have to figure out whether an admin ought to create them or not.) The problem is that there's rate-limiting on the page; non-admins can only create 6 accounts per IP per day, and my sockpuppet has now reached that limit. (Admins aren't affected by the throttle, but they aren't affected by AntiSpoof either, which means that trying to test an account to see which username it's too similar to can't be done from an admin username as the account would just be created straight off.) So this is an appeal to the non-admins out there who like to do admin-type work (who I figure have this page watched; I know I used to when I was in that situation), and also to any sockpuppets of admins out there who are looking for something to do, to take over the page. (There's been an unusually large spurt of account requests in the last few hours, for some reason.) --ais523 17:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll head over that way later tonight and see if I can help clear some of the backlog. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 17:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Unreferenced template up for deletion
Unreferenced has been listed for deletion on templates for deletion. See its entry on the main TFD page here.  Sebi  [talk] 22:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I have boldly closed it as speedy keep. Consensus was overwhelming, but since I'm not an admin, I welcome a review. — Edokter  •  Talk  • 00:36, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I dislike the template, but I dislike all templates that remove human judgment or hide the person making the assessment. However, the point I would make about closing it is that 2:29 passed between the announcement and your closing.  Give things longer.  I would point out to you and to all that not all of us are in the same time zone, and I would say that neither "speedy keep" nor "speedy close" should occur when half the world hasn't had a chance to hear about the issue.  Give things at least 18:00 to run, at a minimum.  Geogre 14:35, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The template is used widely for article cleanup, I cannot imaging why it would be deleted. Nor do I see how it removes human judgment or hides anything. An early close makes sense at this point as I see no possibility of a consensus to delete forming, regardless of time zone. (( 1 == 2 ) ? ((' Stop ') : ('<font color="Green">Go ')) 14:39, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * And, therefore, allowing time for that delete consensus to not emerge would allow the disaffected to know that they had their voices, that they were part of the process. Again, I see no logic to being peremptory.  As for whether that particular template removes human judgment, I disagree, because it has within it the same nonsense as below: the person who applies the tag gets to set in motion many other processes, and the poor sucker who disagrees is suddenly supposed to be quiet and humble before the power of the mighty tag.  That's a separate matter though from whether or not debates should be closed before anyone even knows they're being held.  AN is not the place for an argument on the particular, but it is good advice to all administrators to be aware of the curvature of the earth and the need to ensure that we honor our volunteers by not telling them to shut up.  Geogre 15:03, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The nominator is an SPA, it was a WP:POINT nomination, there was no need for them to have their say, the speedy close is appropriate. Corvus cornix 23:10, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree. I don't want to sound like a New Age psychologist, but if someone's going haywire and doing a POINT, presenting a wall of silence is not likely to make things better.  Sometimes, our hallowed assured processes have a lot of discontent.  That doesn't mean they should be changed, but it does mean that the discontent should at least be allowed.  If it isn't, we just fuel the churlish and moronic "anti"- Wikipedia nonsense.  Granted, that stuff would happen anyway (POV warriors and radical philosophies would gravitate), but every time we say, "You must shut up now," we put people one tick closer to joining.  This is why sticking by universally stated practice helps.  If we close with a speedy keep after 18 hours, say, then we can say, quite properly, "This is when things get closed that are SNOW."  If we react like we've just had a hot wire pressed to us, we both validate the WP:POINT and the idea that Wikipedia has some animals more equal than others.  I see no good from that.  Geogre 11:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * There are more places then TfD to talk about improving citing- and referencing templates, and their use. I can't think of any project that deals with this from the top of my head, but may I suggest taking this dicussion to Citing sources and it's talk page? That way, everyone can have their say and no-one is pressured by a deadline of an impeding deletion. — Edokter  •  Talk  • 19:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikia Search
I have no idea where is the right place to raise this but I have just seen this article. Can someone clarify a couple of things for me - as far as I can see, wikiasearch actually has nothing to do with wikipedia or the foundation (besides the fact that Jimbo Wales is connected to the two)? If that is the case, do we (or more properly the foundation) needs a standard response or correction to media sources to indicate this? Because otherwise I can see a lot of PR being generated off the back of this being a wikipedia project when it is in fact nothing of the sort (athought there is a very confusing overlap of personal). --Fredrick day 18:29, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * This new project is run by wikia.inc the for profit component of jimmy wales various operations. Wikipedia is run by the wikimedia foundation, a not-for-profit organisation supported largely by donations, but both organisations cross over into basically the same thing. I don't think there will be too much media confussion, and clearly it is intentional that wikia will glean some of its notoriety from wikipedia else it wouldn't be called wikia. Basically the two organisations are the same people doing the same things, I don't think we need a standardised reply to the press as PR is not managed by editors on en.wiki anyway. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 18:40, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * A minor note&mdash;Wikia probably draws its name directly from wiki, just as Wikipedia does. The word wiki predates both Wikia and Wikipedia, and is used to describe a whole class of collaborative editing websites and tools. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe the name wiki was concieved originally by Ward Cunningham and applied to wikipedia (then nupedia) purportedly by Larry Sanger but what I mean is the publically noteable part of the group (i.e. what joe public thinks of when he heres the word wiki) is wikipedia, so its clearly intentional that wikia will be associated with wikipedia for the purpose of increasing its popularity. It has been suggested it will use the wiki software but since search protocols are one of the weakest points in the current software release I expect it will at least be a heavily modified version. In any case, PR isn't under our control, best people to ask about this are wikia.inc. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 14:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * There seems to be a great deal of combined efforts and staffing between Wikipedia and Wikia, if this article is to be believed. To me, it seems to be bordering on questionable interaction.  --Dude Manchap 16:35, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Questionable in what sense? Theres nothing wrong with the not-for profit organisation and the for-profit organisation being run by the same people. The only thing that would potentially violate this would be if the not-for profit donations were used for personal profit, but as far as anyone knows they aren't. I think its fairly safe to mark this as resolved now since neither the question nor answers fall under the control or judgement of en.wiki. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 16:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Did you even read the article? The same person who is responsible for the books at Wikimedia Foundation is responsible for the books at Wikia, and he owes someone over $800,000 that he's apparently hidden from judgment.  That's questionable. --Dude Manchap 17:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * wikipedia review is not the world's most reliable source.Geni 17:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Quack. Corvus cornix 18:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Sources beyond Wikipedia Review are outlining the evidence, Geni. Sources like Nik Cubrilovic on TechCrunch, the Wikia website itself, the judicial system of the State of Illinois, and the Foundation's own IRS form 990, Line 80 which the Foundation has avoided posting on its otherwise "open" website.  They seem to prefer sharing the 2005 version, which lacked any mention of Wikia in the federal documents.  Additionally, I've learned from the Foundation's auditor that they cautioned management over a year ago that the Foundation lacks a sufficient reporting mechanism for fraud, abuse, or misconduct.  Has the Foundation implemented that recommendation?  So far, I seem to be pointing out plenty of reliable sources of questionable activity, but the main reaction seems to be to deny it or wring hands that "nothing can be done" at this level.  Are we sheep or are we thinking human beings? --Dude Manchap 02:27, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * We're encyclopedia writers. If you have concerns about the relationship between the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikia, contact the foundation's board and the management of the company. What do you expect commenting on this noticeboard to do, start a revolution to topple Jimbo? Picaroon (t) 02:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Dude: you fail to mention that 1) we adopted a Whistleblower Policy and 2) hired more accounting help to be sure that the books were in order after the auditor's recommendations. (Actually, there is one more accountant not listed on the current staff page: we're not so good with updates.) Since you seem to be otherwise capable of thorough research, as per your citation of the above links, the lack is bothersome. The omission of the current Form 990 on wikimediafoundation.org is simply an oversight in that no one who can update the public site thought to do it; I'll do it shortly. Enough with the veiled accusations already. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 03:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC) And now the current 990 is here. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 03:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The same people running both wikia and wikipedia doesn't bother me so much as the little link boxes that are popping up in articles saying "Wikia has more information releated to this" or some such, which seems to me to be very "special" treatment for wikia links.Gtrevize 02:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * See Template:FreeContentMeta, the template which creates these links. The text there states that it should be used for linking to other free-content resources (with some restrictions). You're correct that many of these links go to Wikia's wikis, because they are free content resources, but there is nothing stopping other such sites from being linked. Picaroon (t) 02:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

why is page considerd for deletion - no answers in discussion section
I am new to publishing on Wikipediea.

I just created three pages, one is fine the second, Swami Shankar Purushottam Tirtha says at the top it is being considered for deletion. I left a msg in discussion requesting advice what to do to remove this and make the page acceptable. Yet it seems neutral and non-commercial. No one is replying to this discussion. I need advice how to make the page acceptable or if the consideration is there by mistake, how to remove it.

the third page, Siddhayoga I created says it needs cleaning up, and one person has kindly replied several times to the discussion and I've made many changes. So my question is, is it ready to be considered cleaned up? If not, what else is requried?

Hoping I have made all proper requests here. --Babaji108 19:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia has various guidelines on inclusion of content. Other users feel that the content you contributed does not conform to these guidelines.— Ryūlóng ( 竜龍 ) 19:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

That other might object to something is understandable. What I am looking for is the reason for objection so they can be amended if valid. There is nothing glaringly objective to my eye so this request for specific feedback on the sites. Thanks --Babaji108 19:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * In the warning box is a link, labeled "this article's entry," to the discussion about the deletion at Articles for deletion/Swami Shankar Purushottam Tirtha. That's where the concerns are listed and discussion is ongoing. —C.Fred (talk) 19:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed. In this specific case, the nominator was unsure whether or not the subject of the article is notable enough to warrant a biographical article on Wikipedia. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 19:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this link out to me. Babaji108 21:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Requisition
This prod has been up since January...far longer than 5 days. Could someone please sweep by and look at it? Thanks. --UsaSatsui 20:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems like it got lost in the cracks. It's deleted now. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 20:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thankee. --UsaSatsui 20:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

POV pusher in Ottawa Senators-related articles
Over the last week or so, has been editing articles related to the two NHL franchises named the Ottawa Senators. This person has been trying to put in the fact that, because of a few PR stunts, the original franchise and the current team are linked if not the same franchise, despite both community consensus from the Ice hockey project and facts from the NHL and the current Senators that state that the franchises are separate. Despite this, Alaney continues to insist on different talk pages that his interpretation is correct, and continues to add such information to the Senators articles.

An uninvolved user tried to mediate a settlement and it seemed to have solved the problem, but since then Alaney has continued his same habits. Now, in the last couple of days, Alaney's edits have become more frequent. When his edits were reverted, he made a WP:POINT by removing somewhat similar information from other hockey team articles. He has also created the POV fork History of Ottawa Senators teams. All of this has been incredibly frustrating to the Ice hockey project members, and it's very clear that he will try to push his POV on the articles regardless of community consensus or recorded facts that back up that consensus. Can we have an uninvovled admin come and help deal with this user's antics? NeoChaosX (talk, walk) 01:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I think I should abstain] from any activity with this, due to me being a member of the project, and living in Ottawa (and being a supporter). However, I you feel I can help you with this, by all means talk to me. As a sidenote, I feel the best course of action would be to protect the Ottawa Senators page until the disputes are settled.  Maxim (talk)  02:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia ad-banner inviting users to join IRC
I am generally opposed to those banners as it make the WP look sloppy as one of the inferior sites, but some seem to want them, so I accept that.

But Image:Qxz-ad8.gif is rather a divisive add since the perception of the medium it calls users to join is rather uneven in this community. prod is considered inappropriate for the image space. So, I thought I broach the subject here. Please opine. --Irpen 04:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think we can have a discussion on the rights and wrongs of Wikipedia's usage of IRC here. What would you want an admin to do about it anyway? Secretlondon 05:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You will be well served to investigate the difference between WP:AN and WP:ANI before posting comments of this sort in the future. By the way, has the wonderful idea of "WikiProject Biography Spring 2007 Assessment Drive 16" also been elaborated on IRC? What a brilliant answer to all our problems! These assessment drives are the thing Wikipedia needs the most. A dozen surplus assessment drives - and our biographies will put the Britannica to shame! --Ghirla-трёп- 06:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not exactly sure what I did to deserve that response. Do I go on the wikipedia IRC channels (even the l33t sysop one?) NO! I see IRC as a negative influence in the community. I still don't see what admins can do about this crass banner ads as they clearly have public support. Secretlondon 06:33, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not really sure what is wrong with it. It doesn't say, "You are inferior because you don't use IRC" or anything like that. It points to a Wikipedia project space page, which quite accurately explains that your activity on IRC does not carry any additional status here on-wiki. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 05:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This is a flagrant advertisement of an external website and a crass example of draining Wikipedia of so much needed contributors. IRC is evil, as my user page makes clear. It has nothing to do with our aim of writing enyclopaedia. "Answers and advice from experienced contributors" is either a provokation or a joke, because no really experienced contributor will spend his day on IRC, for what I know. Those who keep chatting there day and night sorely lack Wikipedia experience. --Ghirla-трёп- 06:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That is sufficiently over-the-top that I think it can pretty much be discounted. --Masamage ♫ 06:20, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Freenode is an external website. Wikipedia makes a point of advertising it wherever possible, and the ever needy Foundation makes donations to keep it afloat. If you are happy with this direction, fine for you. I am not. That's not what Wikipedia purported to be when I arrived here three years ago. We were writing an encyclopaedia back than, rather than simply chatting, buzzing around, and starting assessment drives as "experienced contributors" do nowadays. --Ghirla-трёп- 06:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * One minor item of disagreement: that you call it a website. A website is part of the World Wide Web, which uses HTTP. A server that responds to the IRC protocol is not part of the Web and is not a website, although it is part of the internet. Grace notes T <span title="Wikipedia:Administrators&#39; noticeboard">§ 06:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Do they make money on their internet activity? --Ghirla-трёп- 06:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, Ghirla, I do use IRC, I do answer questions, and I have a bit of experience, and I see experienced contributors on there all the time. I see nothing wrong with directing people to the project page that clearly explains that IRC is not an official part of Wikipedia. I know you had a bad experience with it, and I sympathize, but I've seen the ability for us to communicate in real time do a whole lot of good too. (As to making money, as far as I know Freenode is nonprofit.) Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Having spend a couple of weeks on #wikipedia-en-help, I would respectfully but completely disagree with your assessment that "no really experienced contributor will spend his day on IRC". KTC 05:09, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Freenode is indeed non-profit - it is run by the Peer-Directed Projects Center, which is, like Wikipedia, an IRS 501(c)(3) not-for-profit, tax exempt organisation. Neil   ム  09:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, no, not advertising for the pathetic "assessment drives" of the equally awful biography project. The amount of harm and drama those things cause is simply incredible, not to mention the amazing amount of BITING that goes on. Reviews by botlike "people" who know absolute eff-all about what they're reviewing are nothing short of meaningless - not to mention the diarrhea-like talkpage clutter spewed. I'm sorely tempted to nuke this, if only for that reason. Moreschi Talk 10:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps WP:IFD? Grand  master  ka  10:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't particularly think much of the assessment drives; I'm not sure what value, if any, they really add to Wikipedia, but at the same time, I'm not sure they do as much harm as Moreschi states. Their main drawback is they suck people who want to help into misdirecting their effort, spending more time judging than improving (in the time it takes to "rate" an article, they could have just improved it).  Neil   ム  11:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

So... not everyone likes IRC. Not everyone likes assessment drives. It's almost as if someone will always object to something. Actually that's one of the many things Wikipedia has taught us. I'm not really sure what the point of this thread was except to snipe at IRC people... that's so 2006 anyway. --W.marsh 12:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Not everyone likes copyright violations. Not everyone likes vandalism. Should it prevent us from discussing these issues on Wikipedia rather than off-wiki? Talk pages exist there for a good reason. If IRC is valid and compatible with the original concept of Wikipedia, let's ask the developers to remove talk pages and continue this discussion on IRC. --Ghirla-трёп- 19:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Ironically enough, the preferred method to contact a developer is via IRC. I don't think anyone with a sane mind is even insinuating that IRC is an adequate exclusive method of communication. It is just a tool. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 01:11, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I, for one, can't see what really is the big problem with the ad; it's merely pointing to the already existing IRC stuff. The image should be considered for its merits, which is currently to promote the WP:IRC; merit and need for such ads in general can be called to the question in my opinion, but this ad as such isn't any worse than other internal banners we have. The use of IRC in general is another matter, but the key point is, the banner points to an in-wiki page that details an established... thing. But further commenting about this would be best reserved for other venues - this isn't really the place to get anything done about it. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 17:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, and singling out the IRC ad is ridiculous. Adminship banner is clearly disrespectful toward the administrators. (How dare they suggest Wikiadminning is stressful, now that Betacommandbot has returned to the regularly scheduled thermonuclear bombing! Muahaha.) WikiProject Totalitarianism ad implies that they're "more equal than others", i.e., they clearly consider themselves to be an elite group exempt from our normal policies. Burn the ad and the WikiProject immediately! NPOV ad implies that the "tipped scales symbol" is a preferred symbol; it is trying to pervert the meaning of this hateful symbol (originally conceived - and still used - as a symbol for POV problem, not NPOVness!) to be positive one! [Disclaimer: Heck no, I'm not serious. Just trying to say that this whole discussion is a bit silly and dangerously close to veering off the road.] --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 17:20, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I may not agree with the banners but I will defend their right to exist. At worst, they are amusing. IRC is here to stay for good or worse, in any case.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 05:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Has there ever been a thread started by Irpen anywhere on Wikipedia that you refrained from commenting on? --Ghirla-трёп- 19:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It's OK, I am used to it :) . More amusing is that the editor with such an editing pattern dared to claim being stalked elsewhere. --Irpen 22:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

IRC is not evil. IRC is a useful tool. Any conversation that could be held on IRC can be held over e-mail. It's better that we have channels controlled by WMF representatives, rather than disbanding these and then having unofficial ones controlled by rogue agents. --Deskana (talky) 19:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know what "WMF representatives" you talk about. The amount of insults I have seen in the logs is impossible to believe, and some of these came from the so-called operators. If I repeated here some of the things thrown about on IRC, I presume I would have been banned from this website forever. Anyone who justifies the vehicle for insults as a "useful tool" embarrasses himself. --Ghirla-трёп- 19:45, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If someone want to throw insults around, they could do it wherever. You say IRC, I say I could do it on Wikipedia. You say one would be banned here, I say determined enough people would find way rounds it. Wikipedia itself, IRC channel, mailing list, Usenet, online forum, social networking site, ... If someone want to throw insults, they'd find somewhere to do it. Labelling any particular media as "vehicle for insults" just because you don't like it or the few who misbehave on it is just like the RIAA labelling anyone who ever uses P2P automatically a pirate. KTC 22:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Fine, perhaps "WMF representatives" was the wrong word, but what else do you want me to call them? Official contacts? No doubt someone will take exception to me calling them that, too. --Deskana (talky) 22:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's just stick to the subject, OK. Many people want to dump IRC from any association with WP. The success of this drive has been considerable but only partial. So, let's put the issue aside and concentrate on the narrow one at hand. That IRC is viewed as controversial by a very significat part of the editors is undeniable. Why have a WP-wide ad for it? Can we avoid controversial issues in the banners? No one would seriously see any controversy in calls to go around copyediting articles, join the content project or do some wikilove. But this particular slogan raises passions among the reasonably high percentage of editors. Why have it? --Irpen 22:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Is anyone seriously suggesting a wikipedia-wide ad? I think this is about a voluntary user-page banner. The fact is that IRC is very useful for those who are fighting vandalism, members of the OTRS team, admins and those who like to monitor the helpme category. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 22:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Exactly. If you don't like the ad(s), don't use this completly optional template. End of story.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:56, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Is "end of story" WP:CIV, Piotrus? Now, back to the issue at hand. Widely used userpage banner over whose content individual users have no control is not exactly a wiki-wide ad, but it is rather close to it. As for the J.S.' entry, please note that I am not to argue pros of IRC against its cons here. The fact that IRC can be both useful and harmful is unquestionable. Whether its pros outweigh the cons is an issue of a huge disagreement that is at least over a year old. So, why advertise the subject which is at least a matter of a wide good-faith controversy? The point is not that I subscribe to an opinion that the cost of IRC outweigh its benefits. The point is that it is a view held by a wide enough group of unquestionably good-faithed editors, unlike, say, copyediting project or the call to remember using summaries, both uncontroversial.

Finally, should seeing the banners be opt-in rather than as currently opt-out, see Template:Wikipedia ads. --Irpen 23:22, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I would prefer they be opt-in. It would be easy technically, but probably not-so-easy in terms of gathering support.  --Iamunknown 00:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Why does any of this matter? The ad's not harming anybody. It was the eighth ad created, and I've never heard any previous dissent about it. --Hemlock Martinis 01:35, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

People keep all kinds of stuff on their user pages. One ad won't really make any difference, they are rather tastefully made and have valid purposes.

About IRC. It's a nice place to have more human discussion with other editors and fast way to get your problems solved and disputes resolved. Specially helpful for new people who are not exactly aware of the wikipedia workings and need a lot of advice in the beginning. Suva 05:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

As long as User:Ghirlandajo can contain your opinions about IRC, someone else's userpage is free to contain theirs. (ESkog)(Talk) 14:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

User:ProhibitOnions vs. anti-Fascist editors (redux)
In connection with Digwuren's never-ending spat with anti-Fascist editors, I have noted that Digwuren keeps commending ProhibitOnions for his latest block of an anti-Fascist editor. I investigated the matter and discovered a pattern of "discretion blocks" of those wikipedians who dare mention the Holocaust atrocities in the Baltic States:


 * Back in October, I saw ProhibitOnions remove anti-Fascist edits and block his opponent for "revert-warring". Several days later he issued a strange one-hour block to another participant of the edit war, but failed to provide the rationale for his actions and address concerns about his habit of "using the block button so liberally". One could infer that lessons were learned. Not at all.
 * Several days ago, he picks the only anti-Fascist editor from a group of folks edit warring on the question of the Estonian Holocaust and blocks him for 48 hours, this time for editwarring and possible sockpuppetry, an allegation which even Digwuren found improbable. After the block expired, he flatly refused to explain his rationale for singling out this particular editor and giving a free pass to his opponents who dismiss the Holocaust-related evidence of the Simon Wiesenthal Center as "Russian accusations", especially at the time when the issue is under scrutiny in ArbCom.

ArbCom holds the opinion that "Administrators must be willing and prepared to discuss the reasons for their administrative actions in a timely manner." Unfortunately, ProhibitOnions refuses to give any reason for his liberal blocks of anti-Fascist editors other than "I did not like his contributions". This is really alarming. I'm on the point of opening a RfC concerning the administrative actions of ProhibitOnions and seek feedback before doing so. --Ghirla-трёп- 08:34, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If there is either incorrect or no reasons being given for possibly contentious blocks I would comment that, i.) the claims of anti-Fascist bias in applying blocks is unproven, and ii) that an RfC on the concerns regarding blocking actions is entirely appropriate. LessHeard vanU 09:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No real comment other than to note the diff Ghirla provides after "I did not like his contributions" is not what the diff says, at all. Neil   ム  09:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Neil, please bother to read the relevant talk page discussion. You will see that it is the third time that ProhibitOnions is accused of issuing discretion blocks to anti-Fascist editors without bothering to seek community input for such controversial issues and that he deflects all critical remarks with "Have a nice day" and other unmeaningful retorts. The adminship is all about trust. I feel that PO's repeated failure to engage in discussion of controversial blocks is incompatible with adminship. I would not dispute the substance of his blocks (let his own conscience be the judge), it is the facile attitude to blocking and arrogant reaction to good-natured queries that I find alarming. --Ghirla-трёп- 19:08, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I would point out that Ghirlandajo is obviously trying to capitalise on the Russian ethnographic meaning of "anti-fascist", which, possibly unbeknowst to him, means quite different things in English culture space than he would seem to expect. Put into context, he's trying to Godwin himself in order to throw mud at an administrator who dared to block a pet troll of his friend, Irpen. Digwuren 10:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The blocks look pretty fast, unwarned, and for lavish amounts of time. The fact that they're dressed in the language of fascism and nationalism shouldn't dissuade community investigation.  We just don't block people for content issues.  We block for disruption and edit warring, not being wrong or unpleasant.  Geogre 15:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * And on top of that, arrogant refusal to answer perfectly reasonable questions is a definite no-no as lead to several ArbComs which expressed itself perfectly clear on the issueas the ruling "Administrators must be willing and prepared to discuss the reasons for their administrative actions in a timely manner" have passed 11-0 by the arbitrators. RfC is highly in order. --Irpen 19:47, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


 * An admin that feels so strongly about a topic that he can not distinguish point of view disputes from vandalism should not take admin action regarding those topics, and if he does, an RFC is the appropriate venue to air out the allegations and see if they have merit. Both PMA and Konstable had this problem and they were both eventually desysopped.  Have you considered an RFC? Thatcher131 03:00, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * In skepticism circles, there's an old saying: "You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts."  In case of RJ CG's involvement, his POV is "Estonians are evil Nazis", and in order to actuate this POV, he's making edits, often easily provable to be factually false, into various Estonia-related articles.  It's a clear-cut case of disruption, and any postmodern ideas about relativism do not enter into the play. Digwuren 10:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Firstly, I strongly object to naming this thread "User:ProhibitOnions vs. anti-Fascist editors (redux)". This title is inherently POV, suggesting that ProhibitOnions is pro-Fascism - and that he is mass-blocking anti-Fascist editors. The editors in question may or may not be anti-Fascist - but those two editors in "second episode", (now ) and  are both dedicated edit warriors with a history of WP:SYNTH, WP:POV and WP:UNDUE. Ilya asked to be unblocked, stating in his unblock request that he promises to continue edit warring after being unblocked, his block was reviewed and unblock declined by . RJ CG is at the moment blocked again for edit warring and incivility by , who has presented his views about RJ CG here. Note that I was warned by ProhibitOnions about edit warring - I presume that I was not blocked because of lesser degree of involvement, more substantiated edits and because my edits were an attempt to diminish WP:UNDUE material inserted by Ilya.
 * I support ProhibitOnions actions, but he could have explained his reasons for blocking better (from the thread on his talk page I suspect he simply got annoyed by the accusations of tendentious blocking), but, in my opinion, he explained his blocks reasonably well already.
 * For the record, ProhibitOnions has not been informed of this thread. I will do so now.
 * Sander Säde 06:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Dressing up ethnic-nationalist disputes as anti-fascist is particularly distasteful. Secretlondon 06:35, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Digwuren 10:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Title of the thread aside, the main issue as I see it is the arrogant and dismissive treatment of perfectly legitimate questions asked by the blocked editor. This refusal to engage into a meaningful communication about the block (your interest is?, have a nice day, etc) and sockpuppetry accusation is the narrow issue that I see unacceptable. PO's own inclination to [{WP:OR]], his POV and its pushing may be brought up in an RfC but is not my concern as far as this thread goes. --Irpen 06:51, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Hahaha, Anti-Faschist Editors? That's one of the funniest threads I have seen in wikipedia. (The most funniest is probably the WP:IAR editwar.) Update do WP:DYK: Did you know ... that most disruptive edit warriors see themselves as the sole protectors of The Truth? Oh well. Have fun. Suva 11:54, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree with Suva. When I first saw this I had a good chuckle. It sure sounds like a self-parody.


 * It must have taken quite some time for Ghirla and Irpen to trawl through, and then selectively cite, my edit history; and to distastefully lump these things together as somehow being against "anti-fascist editors" certainly takes a lot of gall. (For the record, both of my grandfathers were the sole survivors of vessels destroyed by fascist forces during WWII, and numerous other family members were lost as civilians or in combat.) For this reason alone, I am highly reluctant to respond.


 * Here's what they're not telling you: The first block, listed above, was for the notorious edit-warrior User:Nixer. On the article cited (which I had not recently edited) I initially thought a revert of Nixer's latest editwarring (which Ghirla links to above) and a warning would suffice; however, having looked at Nixer's earlier history I changed my mind and decided stronger measures were necessary (he had already been blocked thirty-eight times for this). So I blocked him, and undid my reversion instead, leaving Nixer's last edit in place. (I also reluctantly blocked Dude, who was drawn into the edit war.) To no avail: Nixer continued his edit-warring and sockpuppetry, and was eventually banned from Wikipedia.


 * As soon as I had blocked Nixer, Ghirla and Irpen both protested on my talk page, and Ghirla bizarrely accused me of "Holocaust denial" even while stating that he thought Nixer was a "troll". (As with the current accusation, and this one, he presented no actual evidence of this very serious, hateful charge.)


 * Fast-forward to the present day. User:Ilya1166 edit-warred on Bronze Soldier, an article to which I have never contributed, and that I had considered nominating for GA status for its balance. Ilya's umpteen tendentious edits and reversions, mixing of unreliable sources, and unwillingness to discuss things on the talk page, are a matter of record. I blocked him for 48 hours (I was the fourth admin to do so for this reason, and other blocks had been significantly longer), but offered him the chance to have the block removed immediately if he'd promise to stop. He did not take me up on this, and instead promised to continue his edit-warring if unblocked; his unblock request was denied by User:Sandstein. (And this time I did "learn my lesson"; instead of giving a symbolic block, as I had done to the editor who'd been drawn into Nixer's edit war, I simply warned the other party that was most involved -- as, incidentally, Irpen had previously suggested.)


 * A short time later, the same pattern of edits to Bronze Soldier continued where Ilya had left off, now from User:RJ CG. This time I wasn't feeling as charitable, and I gave him the same block as Ilya. RJ CG, like Ilya1166, is a relatively new single-purpose account who has been blocked before and since by other admins for the same activity.


 * Incidentally, Ilya has since created a new account (User:Miyokan), which was quickly noticed by User:FayssalF‎ after both accounts were used to edit the same article simultaneously . Whether this was genuine sockpuppetry caught out at an early stage, or just a new account with a clean history, quietly introduced, I shall leave up to others to decide, although I defer to Fayssal's judgment. It, and the fact that both Ilya and RJ CG jumped into controversial editing from almost their first days as registered users, certainly suggests that this isn't the first time this has happened.


 * As to my "unwillingness" to discuss these things: Despite Irpen's characterization, I did indeed spend some time responding to the block issue on my talk page, although I found it very odd that Irpen was so interested in the matter and seemed to do all the talking. I concluded (correctly, it seems) that his at first superficially friendly questioning was just a series of rhetorical traps to gather material to use against me, so after a while I asked him what his particular interest was in the whole matter, in light of the fact that other users have plausibly accused him of using "pet trolls", specifically these two users, to add controversial points to articles (i.e., sock- and/or meatpuppetry). He did not answer. Other uninvolved users described this behavior as "harassing" and inappropriate.


 * Furthermore, I feel no need to respond to "questions" that are phrased as accusations; the likes of "I'm sorry for being so insistent, but you (probably acting on a snitch from the group who's involved in repeated personal attacks on yours truly) injected yourself in pretty heated mess", from the very first entry, is neither civil nor in good faith, but a form of harassment.


 * So there you have it: Over the course of a year, I issued three short-term blocks to which Irpen and Ghirla both objected in unison, accusing me of supporting first Holocaust denial and now fascism. Of the two blocks that were challenged, both were upheld by other admins; I have no doubt the third would also have been. One of the users I blocked is now permanently banned for this behavior, a decision I was uninvolved in; another has quietly shed his account and started to use another, raising questions of sockpuppetry; and the third has since been blocked for a longer term by another admin for exactly the same behavior. I note that Irpen and Ghirla don't seem to be bothered, say, by my permanent block of User:Ethnonazi.


 * Incidentally, on my talk page, it was Irpen who claimed he was "draft[ing] something on this separately". But here, the accusations are coming from Ghirla, with Irpen behaving in the manner of a third party who merely stumbled upon the discussion. Whatever the collusion here, it seems to have worked on a couple of users who may have glanced at this highly selective presentation of events. However, neither Irpen nor Ghirla did the courtesy of mentioning this show trial on my talk page, presumably so their accusations could gather some steam before I found out about them. (They still have not done so.)


 * Ultimately, the title of this section says probably more about Ghirla and Irpen than it does about me. Anyone with another viewpoint, or who gets in their way, is a "fascist" or a "Holocaust denier" with a "nationalist agenda"[], whose views do not deserve the courtesy of open-minded discussion or compromise; and it is astonishingly difficult to find any examples of this in the edit histories of either one.


 * It might help things along here if Irpen and Ghirla could explain to us their relationship to one another and to the short-term accounts they are so quick to defend. They have already been accused of using "pet trolls" to shout down other users; if they are not involved in this kind of meatpuppetry this would be an opportunity for them to show it. Pro hib it O ni o ns  <font size="-2">(T) 14:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Good grief! You're putting up your fists and announcing that the people questioning you are acting out of bad motives, bad faith, and somehow out to get you?  The question is the blocking, nothing else.  You think there is a Russian cabal?  Ok.  You think there is a Polish one?  Ok.  None of that matters.  What matters is the blocking, at least here, which is the administrative noticeboard.  Using "has been accused" is so intellectually shabby as to be astonishing.  F.D.R. "has been accused" of being a Communist, and George Bush "has been accused" of being Satan, and Mohammed "has been accused" of being the anti-Christ....  "Have been accused," indeed!  At this point you "have been accused" of using administrative powers as part of a POV battle on articles.  However, none of that is relevant.  None of that is even interesting.  Given how often everyone is accused of something, it is utterly non-germane.  The question is merely this: are you blocking as part of a content dispute, or are there solid reasons to believe that there is actual disruption, edit warring, violations of policy.  We do not block people for being wrong.  Geogre 15:11, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This is amazing! I thought they just pushed that holocaust denial thing at us, Estonians, but apparently there are others and this is a pattern. "Anti-fascist" is an overstatement even in quotes. They seem to be trying to terminate any other view than their own and push out any balancing editors when it comes to history of Eastern Europe. Ghrilas bread trick is demeaning generalization. He takes one in some way disgraceful and usually either oversipimlified or plain untrue piece of trivia, states it as a fact and then generalizes it so that it includes all the people who he has a dispute with. If one has not seen through the trick, you might be tempted to correct him... No point. Hell just keep on doing it until you loose your cool and then you are screwed.--Alexia Death the Grey 17:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I do block for edit warring if it is persistent. I never block when i am involved. This principle causes me sometimes frivolous reactions and accusations from the part of the blocked people. But it is just my firm principle. The first question we should ask is if the blocking admin is involved. If not we go further and see the reason of the block. If it was because of systematic edit warring than chapeau for the admin. If not, then that would be another matter. Simple as that. -- FayssalF  -  Wiki me up®  15:39, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

What I see in the above is name calling and name calling and name calling. Irpen asked about the blocks. He sees them as taking part in an edit war, and so he offers links to the fellow's strong point of view and participation in the debates. I can agree that both of those are demonstrated. Then we have, "Irpen's nasty" and "Ghirla's nasty" and "PO is nasty" and "Nunh-huh, you're nasty" and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. I do wish that people would confine themselves to the matters at hand. Is Prohibit Onions blocking people with whom he is in a content dispute? Seems like it to me. Is that prohibited? Fayssal, and probably most folks, would say that by itself that's not disallowed, although it is very bad practice. Are the blocks excessive? Seem that way to me. Did he warn the users? Doesn't seem like it to me. This is about the use of administrator's powers not about who you like, whether someone wears a brown shirt, blue shirt, or a picklehaub. It's just whether these are appropriate blocks. I don't think they are. Others think that somehow the villainy of the other side makes all the rest ok. That's not how Wikipedia works. Geogre 17:56, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * ProhibitOnions has no content dispute with these users, as he has not edited any of the articles in question. Sander Säde  18:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If what you are saying was true, this thread would be titled "Has ProhibitOnions misused his admin rights?". This apparently is NOT the case. What does this tell you about the intentions and mindedness if its starters? Are they assuming Good faith? I don't think so.--Alexia Death the Grey 12:35, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if PO is involved because i haven't checked the block as i mentioned to RJ CG on Aug. 27. All i know is that the policy allows blocks based on disruption (including edit warring as mentioned in the policy) while prohibits blocks based on disputes where the blocking admin is connected to EXCEPT when it deals w/ BLP (as mentioned in the policy). So the policy is crystal clear. Now clearly, this mutual "anti" accusations should stop. -- FayssalF  -  Wiki me up®  19:08, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Let me just state my position clearly. I said nothing about fascism. I was talking about blocks. Blocks may be good or bad. Here goes:
 * Discretion blocks for disruption are allowed but should threaded with the great care.
 * Unless there is an emergency or a clear 3RR violation, conferring at ANI is a good practice per WP:BLOCK.
 * Placing a slurrish accusation of socking in the block log and refusing to follow up in taking it back or backing it up is a poor practice.
 * Further, refusal to answer reasonable questions asked by the editor once the block expired (note, questions were, "You blocked for WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, please show me where they are" and answers were "and your interest is?" and "have a nice day") is more than a bad practice but a blatantly abusive admin conduct.
 * I never objected to FayssalF's block of the same editor a while ago. I thoroughly endorsed that one. It was preceded by an elaborate ANI discussion and was handled with the superb decency.
 * I even said nothing about the merit of the PO's current block, although I strongly feel that placing a sock-accusation into the block log is a slur. My concern was a refusal to engage into any discussion and coming up instead with arrogant and dismissive responses.
 * This is counter-policy and counter Arbcom (see Worldtraveller/InShanee case FoF cited above.) --Irpen 23:31, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I think your concerns are rather trivial in comparison to the odious slur implicit in the title of this incident User:ProhibitOnions vs. anti-Fascist editors (redux), which you seem to condone. Martintg 01:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I also would like note, that the first diff that was provided is clear vandalism. Could be compared with replacing George W. Bush intro with: "George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the person who likes to kill Iraqi people and also a forty-third and current President of the United States of America (a racist country which likes to wage war against others who have oil)."

I didn't even check other diffs, but I expect them to be in same style.

Calling this anti-fascist is offensive towards anti-fascism. Also, it is a clear personal attack against ProhibitOnions.

I have never seen Ghirla say something like this, and I really didn't think he would ever get so low. I would be really careful about this though. I have seen the strategy before. For example when there was graffiti "Ансип Пидераст" ("Ansip is gay") in Tallinn and it was removed. It was mentioned in a estonian newspaper. Some russian newspaper also had a little particle about it, under the title: "Estonia removes anti-fascist graffiti".

Maybe I am bit paranoid, but I wouldn't be surprised if this ended up in the russian news front page under the title: "Wikipedia has fascist Administrators!"

"Wikipedia fascist administrators like ProhibitOnions persecute russian heroes who fight with ethnonazis from baltics, Poland, Georgia, and other european countries. An anonymous anti-fascist editor commented: "Yes, it's hard. The ethnonazis don't stop at anything, I have gotten thousands of death threats from wikipedia administrators and as administrators know where I live, I am becoming really afraid of my life. But I am willing to take those risks to fight for the truth!" Suva 05:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Why don't you just cut the nonsense? The issue here, as far as I am concerned, is blocking. I have my own opinion about PO's political views, how they relate to his editing practices as well as WP:OR in his own edits. I keep this out of this thread. Administrators should use the block button responsibly, confer at ANI, unless there is an emergency or a clear 3RR or other blatant violation and be ready to explain their blocks by answering the reasonable questions better than with "have a nice day". --Irpen 06:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)