Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive122

HELP ME
My wiki-account name is markcambrone... for some reason I can't sign in... I can sign in on the Danny Phantom wikia but not here, it keeps saying I have the wrong password and I know didn't cange it! 71.118.167.20 (talk) 04:23, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, User:Markcambrone has no email set, you won't be able to have a new password emailed. As there is no way of verifying you are who you say you are there is not a lot more that can be done, short of you remembering your password (or taking off CAPS LOCK.) --119.11.7.7 (talk) 04:28, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * According to the Wikimedia privacy policy, "If you do not provide an email address, you will not be able to reset your password if you forget it. However, you may contact one of the Wikimedia server administrators to enter a new mail address in your preferences.". DuncanHill (talk) 04:30, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Mmm, how can the devs know it's the same person? -- lucasbfr  talk 12:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * IP check, maybe? - Rjd0060 (talk) 15:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The IP is dynamic, the last time the user logged into Wikipedia the IP could have been different. Rgoodermote  18:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Block review, plz
I just came across after seeing someone who vandalized a school page posting to the editor's user page; the page looked like quite an impressive blatant attack page, and has for quite some time. A look through the user's contribs turned up absolutely no productive edits and quite a lot of vandalism; in fact, relatively early in the editor's career, I left a warning myself. Thus, I applied an indefinite block that I think is probably well earned, but I'd like a second opinion, being relatively new with the magic extra buttons. Anyone have thoughts on the matter, please? Thanks. Tony Fox (arf!) 04:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks like a reasonable block to me. The kid was warned, and yet he continued to vandalize.  I didn't see any productive edits from him, and I doubt he ever had any intentions of legitimate edits.  --Elkman (Elkspeak) 04:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't lose any sleep over this one. Good block. MastCell Talk 22:15, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My suggestion is to make a time machine, go back to mid-December 2006 and block him then. That the account survived this long does not show well for us.  —Wknight94 (talk) 22:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Silence as consensus
Have created and new essay: Silence as consensus → Aza Toth 19:15, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Dbachmann
This arbitration case has now closed and the decision may be found at the link above. Dbachmann is reminded to avoid using his administrative tools in editorial disputes in which he is personally involved, and to avoid misusing the administrative rollback tool for content reversions. Afrocentrism and Race of ancient Egyptians are placed on article probation. For the arbitration committee, David Mestel(Talk) 20:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Tor nodes
An ongoing discussion is in progress regarding adjusting the blocking policy in reference to TOR nodes. The discussion is here. Regards, M- ercury at 13:18, January 8, 2008


 * Trying to add a time-stamp to see if the archival bots will get this --Iamunknown 03:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Time
Maybe I'm just slow and everyone will be sniggering about me behind my back, but I've just found, under My Preferences > Gadgets, an option to put the time in the personal toolbar, which I found useful as I'm not sitting in UTC, and can never do the 24 hour clock math when trying to work out if someone has violated 3RR! --Stephen 04:15, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Gadgets are relatively new. I keep to UTC on Wikipedia – easier that way for talk page purposes (also when I used to do a lot of unsigned work).  All I have to remember is that the day starts at 4 PM my time. hbdragon88 (talk) 05:01, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm, what "24-hour clock math" does it take to determine if somebody has violated 3RR, and how is it dependent on the time zone you use to display the history? :-) Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Zeraeph
This arbitration has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The case was renamed upon closing from "Zeraeph-SandyGeorgia" to "Zeraeph". User:Zeraeph, including any socks and future accounts, is banned from Wikipedia for one year. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 14:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that there is no resolution concerning the unblock which contributed to all of this drama.  Corvus cornix talk  22:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * See item two here: Requests_for_arbitration/Zeraeph/Proposed_decision. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 01:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

CSD
Could anyone help? There's a really bad backlog. Cheers, Rudget . 21:35, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * seems to have been cleared. DGG (talk) 01:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/R. fiend
This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. Because, the subject of this case, has resigned his adminship, this case is closed. If R. fiend wishes to seek administrator status again in the future, he may do so only through a new request for adminship. The Arbitration Committee finds that R. fiend's unexplained block of Ed Poor on October 1, 2007 was unjustified. An arbitrator will make an appropriate notation in Ed Poor's block log reflecting this determination.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Daniel (talk) 22:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Ipblock exempt proposal
A proposal has started to allow established or trusted editors to edit via Tor, or other anon proxy. This discussion is located at

talk page

The proposed policy in its “needs to be worked on” form is located at

project page

Regards, M- ercury at 23:22, January 14, 2008
 * In before "OGM SAME AS ROLLBACK" flamefest. Nakon  23:23, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * My [[Image:Symbol wtf vote.svg|15px]] drama detector beeps as well. Миша 13 23:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Folks. M- ercury at 00:02, January 15, 2008

help with history merge
Hi everyone, I'm an administrator but I really have no idea how to do anything outside the area I normally work in (image issues). Can someone help me move the article Fornication to Extramarital sex? On the talk page several people have brought up that "fornication" isn't exactly NPOV, and I agree. There's some history though at extramarital sex though and I'm not sure how to patch it up. Any help welcome. Thanks, Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually never mind, these articles need to be actually merged.... I thought extramarital sex was a redirect... Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hang on, I'm a bit confused here. Merging? Merging Fornication and Extramarital sex has previously been rejected, and for good reason - they're not the same thing.  BLACK KITE  00:23, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm curious to read the discussion, then, since I can think of a case for merging. Do you happen to recall where that discussion took place? Natalie (talk) 02:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * On the talkpage of Extramarital sex, though it's a little confusing as it covers other merge proposals too. I suppose you could make a case for merging, but I would have thought keeping them separate was more logical.  BLACK KITE  08:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Apart from the issue of whether they should be merged, we don't history merge articles with divergent history. Just copy the content to one article, naming the other article as a source, and turn that that article into a redirect. You would leave one of the page histories at the redirect. Merging pages with separate history is bad because it senselessly shuffles the edits together, destroying all context. Please don't do that. Cool Hand Luke 08:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Potentially unfree picture on the main page
The concern was originally raised at Main_Page/Errors, but I think it requires a wider audience. The In the News picture's copyright is a bit unclear: The ITN image should be replaced with something else as the current image may not be a free image. The license tag claims it's public domain US-government/NASA but the copyright statement linked to from the page suggests this may not be the case and it is potentially not free. The NASA template specifically states don't always assume that images from the NASA page are public domain. Also could the admin either unprotect it or tag it as listed in Possibly unfree images. Nil Einne (talk) 12:30, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The original image is Image:Messenger.jpg, you might want to tag it yourself ;). Meanwhile I'll be digging a bit around. -- lucasbfr  talk 12:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * On second look, the website states thatMESSENGER is a NASA mission and adheres to the space agency's guidelines for image use and reproduction, which would imply that the images are not copyrighted. -- lucasbfr  talk 12:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I noticed that but I think it's still unclear since the guidelines don't say they are always in public domain/not copyrighted just generally. In any case, I've taken this toVillage pump but I really think this should go. The source says "© 1999-2007 by JHU/APL". While this image may be okay, I definitely don't think it's clear enough at the moment for it to stay Nil Einne (talk) 12:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "Copyright JHU/APL" is not NASA and is very not public domain. --Carnildo (talk) 19:40, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you think, should we preemptively remove the picture from the main page? Or can someone with a better NASA-related copyright knowledge have a definite answer regarding this image's status? -- lucasbfr  talk 13:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it is fine. Pictures on the NASA website that are restricted (eg. SOHO pics) tend to say so when you dig around a bit. These ones only have boilerplate stuff similar to all NASA pics. Carcharoth (talk) 16:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you're fine too, but on the pic's page it might be worth some discussion of whether these are truly public domain vs a free license.--72.43.62.131 (talk) 17:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

what is abusive semi-protection?
either myself, or the arbcom, appear to have problems understanding our policy on semi-protection. Please review Wikipedia talk:Protection_policy. dab (𒁳) 14:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Chris Dodd presidential campaign, 2008
User:Hoary, User:Southern Texas, and User:Kendrick7 keep vandalizing the article Chris Dodd presidential campaign, 2008 by adding unnecessary pictures. --Datang (talk) 15:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I looked over the pictures in question. A couple are okay, but most are clearly not necessary or helpful to readers. But either way, this is a content dispute, not vandalism. — Satori Son 15:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well said, Satori Son. Datang seems not to have read my recent addition to this. -- Hoary (talk) 15:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * [edit conflict]This is a content dispute plain and simple (you may want to read WP:VAN and try to WP:ASG in other users). When it comes to content disputes, admin have no extra control over these situations. Their imput is equal to non-admins. I don't see any need for admin action. In the future, if you want to report 3RR please use WP:AN3, if you want to request page protection, please use WP:RPP, or if you have a specific incident that does require admin action that doesn't fall into any other category, please use WP:ANI (this simply isn't a WP:AN issue, but I know it can get confusing with all the many places to get admin attention). For content disputes, you can always ask for a WP:3O or start a WP:RFC. Hope this helps.-Andrew c [talk] 15:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think we should create an administrators' noticeboard specifically for content disputes. Nobody seems to use article talk pages any more, or the WP:RFC process.  --Elkman (Elkspeak) 16:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, if we created such a board, it should be a redirect to Dispute resolution. Admins decisions regarding content have no more weight than ANY other editor.  Admins can take measures to see that other editors work appropriately with others, but have no special standing to make decisions as to which version of the content is correct.  Remember, we're the Janitors, not the Principals, of this school... --Jayron32. talk . contribs  19:45, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * *taps nose* --Haemo (talk) 19:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've seen Kendrick7's name on this page a lot lately. Looks like a real trouble maker to me. -- Kendrick7talk 20:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC) oh, wait, that's me!
 * Probably more like WP:RFC. The value in "administrators" as content conflict resolvers is that we're generally well behaved experienced editors, which is a valuable asset in any attempt to resolve a conflict. Of course, any other such editor is similarly valuable. Wily D  20:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

User:SamuelM555
I have blocked this user for a month, for the last week his only edits has been persistently moving his user and talk pages into the main space and readding fair use images on his user space, even after being warned against doing so, this behavior was topic of a thread here five days ago, and I tried to resolve it in a lenient manner but that didn't appear to work. I would like to know the opinion of other admins concerning this case, as I was tempted to issue a longer block since it has become apparent that this user has decided to only disrupt the project, thanks for your attention. -  Ca ri bb e a  n ~ H. Q.  16:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

A month is a little much don't you think, I would have issued it for 48 hours. The user seems to have moved his talk page into mainspace 5 times. Certaintly not a one month block that I would say is a 24 hour block. But if you add in the continued readding of imagery to his userpage. I would say a 48 hour block would have sufficed a month is mostly for those who do not get it the first time they get blocked. By the way not an admin I just wanted to put my word in. Rgoodermote  18:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I have deleted Samuel Mouly as WP:CSD R2, and protected it for a year due to the persistent abuse. If the protection is too drastic, I wouldn't mind if another admin reviewed it or possible reduced/removed it. And if we protect the article, it may help prevent the user from continuing the pattern of abuse which resulted in the block (and therefore, a reduced block may work in conjunction with the article protection). But then again, that only deals with half the issue. Not sure what we could do to prevent the user from adding non-free images to the user space. I'll try to contact the user.-Andrew c [talk] 18:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The user knew that his actions violated the images copyrights, as that was one of the things that I noted in the first notice, he was then warned twice before issuing the block, copyvios are more serious than common vandalism they can carry legal trouble against the project, and if after receiving a concise final warning he ignored it and disrupted the encyclopedia just to try and prove a point I certainly think that a 24-hour block is to short, maybe not a month but certainly not a day. -  Ca ri bb e a  n ~ H. Q.  18:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There is also the fact that he hasn't attempted even to communicate with those that have tried to explain policy to him, even to the point of showing complete disregard for it after the last warning. If a user tries to explain their actions to me I would at least give it a last try at explaining, but this user's actions just appear to be motivated by a desire to gather undue attention. -  Ca ri bb e a  n ~ H. Q.  18:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * If the user starts to dialog, and shows regret and a new understanding of our policies, I think we should allow a second chance or reduce the block. But I agree with you (mostly:), and I don't believe we should simply reduce the block without communication from the user.-Andrew c [talk] 18:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Its probably a tad long, and if the user requests an unblock and shows contrition after a few days, it may be OK to unblock him. But if he shows no sign of wishing to communicate with others, then let it stand... --Jayron32. talk . contribs  19:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * A long block is always open to reduction, so I don't think it excessive. It may also alert the editor to the seriousness of their violations. Short blocks may not deter someone who is determined to disrupt the encyclopedia - they can wait out the couple of days, commit the same edits again, and then wait out the next short block. Further, when varying a long block one should always approach the original blocking admin for their input; that way a reasoned debate can occur before any unblock is performed. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Non free image violations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:L9788990768094.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:8989587182_1.jpg

These both violate CSD I7. I tried to mark them, but the uploading author reverts. Because I have already been banned for edit warring with him, I choose not to revert him again.

Also, if you could help me with an RfC on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Duk-ki, I cant seem to get it to work.

Addendum: The article has been plagarized from several sources. It is templated with the copyvio template —Preceding unsigned comment added by RogueNinja (talk • contribs) 22:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, RogueNinja talk 21:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * is "One sentence" is copyvio? he claimed that one sentence is copyvio.. and i already delete this sentence. but he countinually do personal attack. Manacpowers (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Much more than 1 sentence is plagiarised, see the talk page for details. Also, I have made no personal attacks.  RogueNinja talk 22:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It seems the issue is whether these images violate WP:FUC. It's not immediately apparent to me that they do. WP:IFD may be the best place to discuss this. This noticeboard is certainly not it. Sandstein (talk) 22:15, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, instead of a RfC, you may want to try WP:3O. Sandstein (talk) 22:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Its much more than the images now. The entire article is a pastiche of other websites.   RogueNinja talk 22:18, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Well in regards to the images, I believe Image:8989587182_1.jpg's it's use in the article to be to fair use to show what the individual looked like. But on the otherhand Image:L9788990768094.jpg's use in the article is purely decorative. It is the front cover of a book he wrote, but there is little to no commentary on the book itself mentioned and I have removed it from the article. — Save_Us  †  22:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism bomb of Tucker Carlson
There was a recent vandalism bomb of the Tucker Carlson article. I did what damage control I could, but could a more experienced admin check it out and see if I missed anything or overstepped anywhere. Here is the sequence of events: Any comments? --Jayron32. talk . contribs 22:29, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Tucker Carlson article started receiving a HUGE amount of IP vandalism. Two users, User:Elliskev and User:Ember of Light tried to handle it, but it got WAY out of hand (10-15 vandalisms a MINUTE).
 * Elliskev asked for page protection, followed by several other editors who seconded it. I semi-protected the article for 1 day.
 * Immediately after semi-protection, several usernames started the EXACT same pattern of abuse.
 * I fully protected the article for 1 day, and also blocked the usernames that vandalised for 1 day.
 * Looks like you did good here - your version matches the last good one (180 revisions ago ). Personally, I would have indefblocked the accounts. east. 718 at 22:39, January 15, 2008
 * I'll be watching those contribs list from them. They will get an indef block the next negative edit they make.  If Corvus below is right, and they are NOT really sockpuppet accounts, then a short term block was more appropriate... --Jayron32. talk . contribs  01:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

This was apparently precipitated by a Carlson interview on the Bubba the Love Sponge radio show, where Bubba suggested his listeners vandalize their articles. Fortunately, only one editor vandalized the Bubba article.  Corvus cornix talk  23:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Copyvio on Dufuna canoe
The article Dufuna canoe is a fairly blatant copyvio of http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=003581 which itself appears to be a copy of content from an offline source; there is neither attribution nor any indication of permission to reproduce. The article had been up for speedy deletion, but was not deleted. KurtRaschke (talk) 04:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * More specifically, this post: http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=003581;p=1#000006. Viridae Talk 04:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh and I deleted the copyvio and replaced it with a short stub. Will expand it when I am not busy. Viridae Talk 04:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Isarig is no longer with us (RtV)
This is to inform that have exercised their right to vanish and are no longer active as a Wikipedia contributor. It should be noted that both their mentors (User:Avraham and myself) have agreed to that according to WP:RTV. The user have been explained not to come back editing again as per WP:RTV, a thing they agreed to. The 'right to vanish' request has been accepted by OTRS members and a notice has been sent to the ArbCom mailing list. As a consequence, all edits by User:Isarig have been deleted from their main account and transfered to an account place holder known to the ArbCom, OTRS members and their mentors. This same notice has been cross posted to Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles. -- FayssalF  -  Wiki me up®  15:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Added RtV to the header because it made it sound like he was dead. Avruch talk 15:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. -- FayssalF  -  Wiki me up®  15:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I thought someone died from the header, too.  нмŵוτн τ  15:53, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Just a query here. If someone exercises the right to vanish, and then realises it was a mistake, can it be reverted so they can have their pages undeleted and so on? I'm sure some people might genuinely think they were leaving permanently, and then change their minds. Of course, coming back with another account after RtV, and not saying anything, is not allowed, but what about wanting to reverse a RtV? Carcharoth (talk) 15:58, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - Coming back as a completely new identity after a m:Right to vanish has been performed, and acting/editing in such a way as to be unidentifiable with the original identity, is not only permitted, but at times the only way for editors whose identity has been so affected by on-wiki issues or real-life problems to return to editing. Of course, if the same problems arise, the sockpuppet banhammer is to be applied with extreme prejudice [[Image:Face-devil-grin.svg|25px]] -- Avi (talk) 16:09, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you are confusing the bit about name-changing at m:Right to vanish with coming back under a new account. Starting a new account is OK, but not if you've exercised RtV. The changing-usernames bit of RtV is not to allow people to start editing under a new identity and retain their old contributions, but to disassociate their edits from the name (possibly their real name) that they chose when they arrived here. Instead of having people always be able to say, "Look, John Q. Smith made these edits here", the point is to change the username so that the link between the edit and the real name of the departed user are weakened. On the other hand, that meta page recently had an extensive rewrite, so I'm not sure about any of this any more! :-/ Carcharoth (talk) 18:25, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * By the way, maybe an arbcom member should re register User:Isarig to make sure it remains unused? -- lucasbfr  talk 15:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Avi, i don't quite understad your comment (especially the 'new identity' part of it). Care to explain further? Thanks. -- FayssalF  -  Wiki me up®  16:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * He's right that technically it is impossible to detect this sort of thing, but if discovered (through similar editing patterns and so forth) and found to be abusive, it should be stamped on (hard) because it is not allowed in policy. What is allowed is to discontinue use of your account and start a new account with no connection to the old account, as long as you don't go back to using the old account. But that is different to right-to-vanish (which is a permanent voluntary departure, usually when someone no longer wants to be involved with the project and regrets their involvement). The difference being that the old account is still there even if it not being used. Carcharoth (talk) 18:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, we use "right to vanish" pretty loosely. In effect, it's often translated into "right to have my old account and track record expunged and start afresh with similar behavior, whilst accusing anyone who brings it up of failing to assume good faith." Generally, for the right to be applicable, one needs to actually vanish. There are obvious exceptions; we've had well-known cases of users who have faced serious harassment and invoked the right on that basis, which is completely reasonable. I'm not talking about that. I recently had the experience of receiving a hostile, and fairly personal, message from an account I'd never heard of. It took some time to figure out that this was a renamed account; in the rename, the account's block log had been wiped clean. This was chalked up to "right to vanish". I don't have a problem with User:Isarig vanishing or his account being effectively deleted if he's permanently leaving the project; it's just that given some of the history which is being wiped clean, it would be nice to be clear that one of the handful of people in the know is monitoring this. MastCell Talk 18:34, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

m:Right to vanish currently says "Therefore take care with your login name usage, and be very careful not to edit your old pages or pages you habitually visit, when you are logged in with a name you do not want associated with that account." - surely it should not be saying that? Carcharoth (talk) 18:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

--Solumeiras</b> <sup style="color:blue;">talk 22:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe I'm wrong, but using a forgettable password and creating a new account is the best thing?? I mean, I've had a past account here, but that had a difficult-to-guess password. My old username, (which I recreated after being tenamed to this current username) was blocked because I realized it sounded too commercial per the username policy. --<b style="color:green;">Solumeiras</b> <sup style="color:blue;">talk  22:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of clarification (already been said in the notice above)... User:Isarig have been informed and explained that they won't create any new or reuse any of Wikipedia account. User:Isarig informed me and Avi that this is what they want. The ArbCom members know about this and any violation (creation of a new account or recreating old ones) would be sanctioned. Please note that Isarig's mentorship and the 6 month articles' restriction ends on February 29th but that is irrelevant here. In any case, The ArbCom has made it clear... "Right to vanish" means "delete all references to your contribs and never come back". I hope this helps. -- FayssalF  -  Wiki me up®  16:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Someone here is in desperate need to administrator intervention
is willfully and blatantly violating the fair use policy by repeatedly refusing to provide the required fair use rationale for a non-free image, and openly deleting the tags that ask for a fair use rationale. ,, , . This goes on and on. The image is also replaceable as the subject is alive and well, but he keeps deleting the replaceable fair use tag as well. Reading through the edit summaries on that page, as well as the ones on his talk page, shows a great deal of incivility with comments like "total ignorance" and "*yawn* be gone", not to mention multiple personal attacks on in the same talk page edit summaries. This person refuses to follow policy and is incivil besides. The image in question has a "replaceable fair use disputed" box on it where he attacks people who tag the image as replaceable as "Wikipedians with Christian bias". User makes the same irrelevant claims on his talk page -- Nobody of Consequence (talk) 03:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Ummm... it appears this user hasn't edited the image namespace since November. I think this complaint is a little stale. Also, in the future, when requesting admin attention regarding an incident, please consider using WP:ANI. Also consider politely contacting the user yourself, or taking image disputes to appropriate pages (such as WP:CP or WP:FUR). Hope this helps.-Andrew c [talk] 03:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I marked it as stale per andrew's comment. Wizardman  03:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * He hasn't edited it because people have given up tagging the image. The image is not conforming to guidelines. Furthermore, what good would come of me posting a polite message on his talk page? He's been incivil to everyone. I'll tell you what: I'll go retag the image with the necessary templates and when he removes them (which he will) I'll be back. Nobody of Consequence (talk) 04:43, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * If the tags are removed again, send it to images for deletion. — Edokter  •  Talk  • 13:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * "Nobody of Consequence", you've done a brilliant job at blurring and spinning several facts regarding this situation, including A) you are formerly The Parsnip!, the user who originally tagged the image in the first place, which is really why you're making a claim here (to others, keep reading to understand that)
 * B) that I never used personal attacks against "Webhamster", and any investigation into said "edit summaries" would show I merely said he was "bored" at a given instance (come to think of it, so are you, having carried this unimportant issue on into the new year, several months later), and
 * C) the "Wikipedians with a Christian bias" statement was taken completely out of the context -- it was reserved for you, and it is not a personal attack, rather the true origin of your pursuit here; as The Parsnip!, you admitted to having Christian intentions in your edits. If you ask me, that's fine if you're one religion or another! But to let that impede on your edits is not acceptable on this website. You try to cover that up given your complaint here, but the record is there. If your issue was really the tag, and not the image and its affiliation with anti-religious muscians and activists, then surely you would provide debate to the tag being used, and not rush to delete the image with any discussion whatsoever. Instead of reporting you, however, I let it go; perhaps to set an example?
 * "He hasn't edited it because people have given up tagging the image." -- another clever phrasing, "people". You mean... you? The only one who bothered? In any case, all this is irrelevent.
 * You're right, I have removed the tags again, but with formal action this time. I have provided the proper tags, and the rationale is now formerly stated without any controversial remarks. Now more than ever, there fails to be a good reason to delete the image, other than (again) bias, the only possible explanation at this point. Logical Defense (talk) 03:19, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You have removed the RFU tag, which specifically states "DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG". You've also only added a fair use rationale for one article, when the image is used in two. My religion or lack thereof is not material, you are violating policy and that is that. Your threats about reporting me are laughable, I invite you to report away. I've done nothing wrong, people can see my history and see who I am, and I have nothing to hide. I'm now taking this to IFD, as recommended, since you refuse to follow the rules. Nobody of Consequence (talk) 03:41, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Sure, you have nothing to hide now, after what I've said.
 * And don't turn this into a persecution; I already said your "religion" should have nothing to do with this.
 * I also did not threaten to report you at all. Another spin on your behalf. If you would like to read again what I just wrote above, feel free.
 * Rules have been followed. The rationale tag I added is valid. An investigation is welcome. Logical Defense (talk) 03:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

BLP and off-wiki BLP violations
OK, without going into the really long version ... person X has an article on wikipedia yet an editor knows plenty more on person X and builds an off-wiki look-alike giving every detail way beyond what would pass verifiability and reliable sources on wikipedia. They now want to share the link to the off-wiki site and have been told that since the off-wiki site blatantly violates biographies of living people policies that the link should not be posted anywhere including talk pages. Do we have a policy that implicitly states that anywhere or are we all just wrongly assuming such a policy exists. Any help appreciated. Benjiboi 04:33, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Kind of like WP:BADSITES? BLP doesn't apply to off-wiki sites, but it does apply to whether something is appropriate for inclusion, i.e. it must be a reliable secondary source. If its an attack page, then it isn't a reliable source and it can comfortably be removed from article content. Not sure on what basis we would exclude it from a talk page, though. <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">Avruch <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">talk 04:36, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * BLP is just as much in effect on talk pages as on articles -- granted that the applications and concerns differ slightly, but the core elements are much the same. Users are of course welcome to fork content, but that does not translate to any obligation on our part to link to or endorse that content. Presumably the content isn't on Wikipedia for a reason, so why would linking to it suddenly become acceptable? – Luna Santin  (talk) 05:19, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Does the site pass WP:RS? Does it pass WP:EL? I strongly doubt that a content forked from Wiki passes WP:RS, thus we should not include it here Alex Bakharev (talk) 05:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

To be more clear - it seems the site was directly set up to present every bit of evidence and piece of information about Person X with full knowledge that it couldn't all be presented on wikipedia as it didn't pass OR, BLP, RS and V standards. The question is not if the BLP-violating information is allowed on talk pages, the question is if a link directing people there is not allowed. Is there any policy that states that knowingly linking to sites that violate BLP is prohibited? Benjiboi 05:37, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:LINKLOVE. <small style="background:#fff;border:#008080 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 10:38, January 16, 2008

I should somewhat rephrase what I wrote above - BLP is a content policy, i.e. it governs whether something that could be potentially libelous can be included in an article. Links aren't specifically content, and there are other policies that govern whether a link can be added as an external link or see also. While BLP applies to the talk page (as Luna points out) it doesn't apply to this situation specifically. This is an area of some controversy, related to the BADSITES arbitration, and the WP:LINKLOVE section about Debates (in addition with this)seems to offer some good guidance. When in doubt, remove it. If an editor edit-wars to have it remain, thats a conduct issue that can be addressed here separately. <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">Avruch <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">talk 17:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thankyou all, great advice. Benjiboi 18:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Copyright
Is it a violation of copyright to copy exactly what is in a section of a wikipedia page, and add it to a new page, with just a copy and paste? Or is what we add, released under fair use? If it is a violation, can CSD G12 be used? <font color="#ff0000">C <font color="#ff6600">t <font color="#ffff00">j <font color="#009900">f <font color="#0000ff">8 <font color="#6600cc">3 talk 05:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Reference what page it was taken from in the edit summary. Please don't "move" pages by copy pasting them to a new name. (dunno if you have done that or not) Viridae Talk 05:44, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, let me be more specific, I did a lot of work to the history section of Davenport, Iowa and another user just basically copied that section and pasted it to History of Davenport, Iowa, which made it look like he did all the work, with out showing that I, or other editors actually did the work. Did s/he violate copyright or is s/he allowed to do that, such as if our edits are released into the public domain <font color="#ff0000">C <font color="#ff6600">t <font color="#ffff00">j <font color="#009900">f <font color="#0000ff">8 <font color="#6600cc">3 talk 05:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * All edits to Wikipedia are under the GFDL license. This license explicitly allows redistribution under the same license, with attribution. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * NO attribution in copy pasting a section to another page though, perhaps make a null edit noting where the section came from. Viridae Talk 06:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * what do you mean a null edit? and if it is all released under GFDL, why can't you just copy and paste moves? <font color="#ff0000">C <font color="#ff6600">t <font color="#ffff00">j <font color="#009900">f <font color="#0000ff">8 <font color="#6600cc">3 talk 06:18, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * (inserting for relevance). :) A null edit is an edit that doesn't amount to much; it's purpose is the edit summary. You can't just copy & paste material because GFDL requires crediting contributors. A note must be made attributing authorship of the material. This is usually done with an edit summary wikilinking the title of the old article "Material merged from Old article". A note should then be made at the talk page of the old article that material was merged so that if the old article ever qualifies for deletion, it will instead be retained as a redirect with the template R from merge to note that it is required for authorship history. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Just do a history merge. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 06:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Won't work, as the history is still needed at the original page. Kusma (talk) 06:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Articles are constantly spun off as master articles get too big. In this case the new article creator has given a source in the 4th edit. Are you sure this isn't a mild case of ownerships?  --Stephen 08:41, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * (ud)I think the This article was created out of content from the History section of the Davenport, Iowa article and the List of mayors of Davenport, Iowa article put on the history page (by the creator) is more than enough attribution. I added the same notice to the talk page. -- lucasbfr  talk 10:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ownership?! not hardly. Currently this article is exactly the same as the other one, with very minor things added. Unless more is added, it could prob be nom for deletion <font color="#ff0000">C <font color="#ff6600">t <font color="#ffff00">j <font color="#009900">f <font color="#0000ff">8 <font color="#6600cc">3 talk 18:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Free image copyright infringement
Image:Pirrodhima.jpg was uploaded by User:Taulant23 on September 20, 2007 with license tag (requiring attribution to himself). But this image is el:Image:Pirros1.jpg uploaded by el:User:Lemur12 on June 15, 2007 with an equivalent to tag. As it seems User:Taulant23 passed the image as his creation when it is not. If Taulant23 was a newbie we could assume good faith but he states that he is a veteran user, so we can assume that he knew exactly what he was doing. A good look on user's upload log indicates that he does not care at all about correct copyright tags and attribution to creators (Image:EnverImageC.jpg, Image:Kingzog1.jpg are probably not his creations, although tagged as such). I think an investigation and a warning to this user is needed. — Geraki  T L 13:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Mmm, having a closer look, it does look like a professional photo. Are we sure that el:User:Lemur12 is the copyright holder? Note that it is a non free picture of a living person and should probably be replaced by a free one. -- lucasbfr  talk 13:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The uploader on Greek wiki seems to be a competent and prolific photographer, and he states on the image description page that the photo was taken on the occasion of the Olympic Flame being carried through the place where he lives, so I guess yes, that sounds like a plausible case to me. Sad, really, that image abuse has become so rampant we end up suspecting even our best image uploaders of fraud. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * ...Whereas Taulant's performance with image uploads is evidently problematic. All his images are tagged as self-made. Image:Tony Dovolani.jpg is another evidently fake one, it's a screenshot bearing a TV station's copyright logo. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * yeah :( But the current licensing (on el:wiki and therefore here) unfortunately looks unfree . As a side note, I left a message on Taulant23's talk page. I'm guessing 90% of his uploads are copyvio. I have an account on el:wp, I'll contact the original photographer. -- lucasbfr  talk 13:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think Geraki was right above; the tag on elwiki is pretty much equivalent to Attribution. BTW, Lemur12 also has accounts here and on commons, I guess he knows what he's doing. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * crap I misread and read "commercial use is prohibited" instead of "permitted". Nevermind (he did not activate his email address here)-- lucasbfr  talk 14:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * el:User:Lemur12 is a great contributor of articles and photos on the Greek Wikipedia, and this photo was taken in his home town :).   Geraki  T L 17:52, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

AIV
is backlogged. Rudget . 17:49, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem! :) Rudget . 17:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Phenylketonuria vandalism

 * Can someone take a look at Phenylketonuria? Someone messed it all up and I can't figure out who did what. Thks Pcbene (talk) 00:08, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Image issue
Image:St Barnabas' Church, Bromborough.jpg is scheduled to be used for DYK in around 4 hours. The image title has a character that cannot be uploaded to the English Wikipedia. Would a Commons admin protect it on Commons? Royal broil 01:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I have uploaded it now. Don't know what the problem was. Woody (talk) 01:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thank you! Royal broil  02:25, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Demote admin User:Y
During an AFD discussion, the sockpuppet of this admin, User:Arbeit Sockenpuppe, accused another user of racism because that user criticized his language mistake. See Articles for deletion/Meredith Emerson. Any user who has this kind of attitude, is not fit to be a Wikipedia administrator. If we do not demote this admin, other people could start using the same argument, accusing everyone else who doesn't agree with them of sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, and so on. The result will be the decline in Wikipedia quality. We cannot afford to have this user as admin. --Koreanjason (talk) 10:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Without commenting on the situation, I believe the exchange in question was:


 * Are you really that insecure that you have to call anyone who corrects your language usage a racist? --Koreanjason (talk) 05:41, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. Arbeit Sockenpuppe (talk) 22:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * With User:Arbeit Sockenpuppe being a alternate account of administratorUser:Y. Regards, — <font color="007FFF">Save_Us  †  10:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:RFC is over there. Is this a one-shot incident, or a common thing? – Luna Santin  (talk) 10:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it's quite obvious it was tongue-in-cheek, especially as Y's previous comment had a smiley. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  10:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Using a smiley and being tongue-in-cheek does not excuse for a bad attitude. If another user vandalizes an article and then add a smiley in it, that doesn't make it okay. Here's the complete exchange: NN murder victim, quotidian crime. We are unable to write a biography of Ms. Emerson, because there aren't multiple non-trivial reliable sources about her disinteresting life. The crime which is her death is also not remarkable, although of course reported on by the media, as all murders are. WP:V and WP:N refer. Delete. Arbeit Sockenpuppe (talk) 18:14, 9 January 2008 (UTC) --Koreanjason (talk) 11:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 'uninteresting', not 'disinteresting'. The latter isn't even a word. Other than that, I agree with your stance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Be best (talk • contribs) 03:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. 'Disinteresting' is indeed a word, derived from 'disinterest'. Technically it shouldn't be used as synonymous with 'uninteresting' but in practice it increasingly is. <font face="arial" color="#bb0000">tomasz. 13:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I could see your normative point. Thankfully, my liberal linguistics professors taught me that there is no one right way to speak (really?) and that it's counterproductive-bordering-on-racist to be normative about language. I didn't agree with them then, but I will now :) Arbeit Sockenpuppe (talk) 18:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not racist to use the right word. 'Disinterest' means 'objective, unbiased'. 'Uninteresting' means 'boring, of no interest, no importance' etc. People mix up 'who's' and 'whose' all the time too, but that doesn't make it right. However, this is an uninteresting digression, and as a disinterested commentator, I will desist.Be best (talk) 10:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Trust me, in certain faculties of certain universities, they are keenly on alert for any manifestation of racism. You see, the notion of a 'standard' dialect is an inherently racist concept, as the 'standard' one is normally just set to the one spoken by the straight white men with money and in power. Didn't you know? Arbeit Sockenpuppe (talk) 16:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you really that insecure that you have to call anyone who corrects your language usage a racist? --Koreanjason (talk) 05:41, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. Arbeit Sockenpuppe (talk) 22:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you really believe that his last comment was serious? пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  11:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's beside the point. Whether or not he was serious, the only person who knows that for sure is himself. We are not here to second guess someone's intention. What we have is the written word and the Wikipedia rules, and we should proceed from there. --Koreanjason (talk) 12:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia rules tell us to assume good faith. We don't desysop people for making offtopic remarks about whether or not correcting people's language is racism. And we usually try to talk to people instead of about them in non-urgent cases. Try User talk:Y. Kusma (talk) 12:42, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I did talk to him and he gave me the above answer that someone called "tongue-in-cheek". I don't see any chance of serious discussion with him there. --Koreanjason (talk) 13:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Wait, a debate over word usage, and the race-card was played? Can you explain how the debate over the use of disinterest versus uninterst is one that is racist? I am not seeing it here... --Jayron32. talk . contribs 13:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's exactly my point. His calling User:Be best and User:W guice racist is uncalled for. That's a very serious accusation, and not a laughing matter or tongue-in-cheek. Nobody wants to be called a racist without any good reason. --Koreanjason (talk) 13:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't find the sock puppet's twisting of the basis of the validity of dialects amusing, but I certainly found the exchange about his purported insecurity and his cryptic admission so. I laughed out loud. deeceevoice (talk) 14:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Correct. The problem is not the last two lines. It's about the lines preceding those where he throws baseless accusations. --Koreanjason (talk) 14:25, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually what he says is that the normative approach in language is viewed by linguists as a practice bordering racism, which is a fact. In other words he was pissed that someone had to correct him for his use of "disinterested", having nothing else to say about his real comment, and replied in almost the same way. He was directly accused of low language skills, and in a very uncivil way too, but he only indirectly argued that corrections in language are counterproductive. I laughed too, way to go User:Y! NikoSilver 15:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There's no issue here. Generally, you shouldn't throw around terms like "racist", but the third-party reference and tongue-in-cheek manner in which it was used here does not really concern me. I've certainly seen editors react much worse when their choice of wording is needlessly criticized. — Satori Son 15:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, how would you like it if I call you anti-Korean because you disagree with me? Not so tongue-in-cheek anymore, are we? I'm not calling you anti-Korean, but it just illustrates the point of how Wikipedia users, and especially admins are taking this issue lightly. --Koreanjason (talk) 15:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think what you meant to say was "Wikipedia users, especially all of the ones other than me, are taking this issue lightly." I don't see any admins commenting differently from everyone else (besides you, of course). I'm sorry you felt slighted, but that is obviously not what was intended, so let's please move on. — Satori Son 16:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Just because you call me anti-Korean doesn't make it true. In fact, if you tried to call me anti-Korean, and for proof pointed to the fact that I used "disinteresting" instead of "uninteresting", I'd have to reply with "Wha...?" and assume that you're either joking or have gone out of your mind.  And then I'd drop it and move on, because I know I'm not anti-Korean.  --Kbdank71 16:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for supporting me. Just because User:Y call User:Be best and User:W guice racist doesn't make it true. In fact, if he called them racist, and for proof pointed to the fact that they corrected his language, I'd have to reply with "Wha...?" and assume that he's either joking or has gone out of his mind. And then it should not be dropped and we have to deal with this, because all Wikipedia users who attack other users should be banned or desysoped. --Koreanjason (talk) 17:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Wha...? Arbeit Sockenpuppe (talk) 18:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I wasn't supporting you, if anything I was gently suggesting that you drop this and move on. I don't think Y should be banned or desysoped.  --Kbdank71 18:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I know you weren't supporting me, but I chose to use your words for my argument anyway. And yes, you suggested I drop this and move on. Why? Because your personal opinion says that this isn't important? Because you think User:Y did not attack other users personally? Because most people here actually defends him and think he's funny? (See below. I have to repeat these questions because nobody seems to give me any straight answers around here). --Koreanjason (talk) 18:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's exactly it. I do think it's funny, I don't think it's an attack, and honestly, I think you're blowing this out of proportion.  And from the responses here, I'm not the only one.  --Kbdank71 18:29, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's correct, you're not the only one. But right or wrong is not determined by majority. Right or wrong, in this matter, is about the Wikipedia rule that we all have agreed on. And no, I'm not blowing this out of proportion. If you call someone a racist, you have to expect yourself to be criticized harshly. Michael Richards used the N-word. Don Imus called the Rutgers University basketball team "nappy-headed hos". Is that funny? Is that not an attack? Did people blow that out of proportion? Maybe they are not actually racists. Maybe they were just trying too hard to be funny, and it backfired at them. But people's attack on them is not out of proportion. Because we don't want people to use the N-word as if it's nothing. It's hurtful to African Americans. User:Y called User:Be best and User:W guice racist. Maybe he didn't really think that. Maybe he was just trying too hard to be funny, and it backfired at him. Do you want people to call other people racist and be casual about it? --Koreanjason (talk) 18:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * And mocking an other user's language skills is not very civil (see WP:SKILL) in the first place. -- lucasbfr  talk 15:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see any mocking at all. Who mocked User:Y's language skill and where did you get that from? Which sentence/word are you referring to? --Koreanjason (talk) 15:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No administrator action is warranted here. He commented on the behavior, not the editor.  If you want to continue this charade, take it to WP:RFC. --<b style="color:#6666FF;">Spike Wilbury</b> <b style="color:#000000;">♫</b>  talk  16:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Again, which sentence/word is seen as mocking? Can someone tell me that? If you can't, then User:Be best dan User:W guice did not mock User:Y, and he attacked them personally. This is not a charade. This is about an admin who broke an important rule, which is that no user or admin may attack other users personally. --Koreanjason (talk) 17:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

GUYS! You are kidding right!? This is completely facetious from start to finish! How dense does one have to be to take this seriously!? Arbeit Sockenpuppe (talk) 16:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Just a little over 1.0 g/cm3 --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I tried reading said exchange, starting with the biggest frown I could muster, but I kept on laughing at the last "yes". Darnit.

Koreanjason, are you absolutely sure this person wasn't just pulling your leg? --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, and just for the record, I accepted the substantive point of the correction of my usage, and I hereby do so again: I was wrong - distinteresting was not proper usage. And I was never pissed about being corrected. (This is so much fun!) Arbeit Sockenpuppe (talk) 16:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not interested in correcting your language usage. This is about User:Y calling User:Be best and User:W guice racist. It may be fun for you to call other people racist, he may be pulling my leg, it may be facetious, but it's still a personal attack. See WP:ATTACK --Koreanjason (talk) 17:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Admin:Y is one of the worst admins in WP. She's not the worst but close. Having a sock is no excuse for an admin but should be allowed for non-admin. Some bad admin are so mean to regular editors that socks are necessary for survival. Don't agree with an admin on AN or ANI and you will be blocked forever. OTOH, even bad admin are untouchable. Therefore, there is no reason for an admin to have a sock. Y is rude, crude, and makes no contribution to Wikipedia (except trouble). I've seen it happen and if I see an article edited by Y, I stay away from it like it were AIDS. The wimpy solution is to ban the Y sock and let Y go (which is not what admin would do with regular user that have a sock). All of what I say is true yet there is a 91.35% chance that I will be blocked, 38.29% chance that it will happen in the next 5 minutes. Block the Arbeit Sockenpuppe NOW. 16:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Patrick Henry Give me lib or (talk • contribs)
 * Arbeit Sockenpuppe needs to be blocked indef
 * I am open for recall, so long as the matter concerns abuse of my administrative powers. You can start a recall discussion, or you can go away. Arbeit Sockenpuppe (talk) 16:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Diffs please. ('cause, y'know, that's kind of a blunt statement to make without proof.) Tony Fox (arf!) 16:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * He won't be providing diffs because he's a troll that created an account just to come here and drop baseless accusations, and has been blocked as such. Carry on smartly, please, there is no issue to discuss here. --<b style="color:#6666FF;">Spike Wilbury</b> <b style="color:#000000;">♫</b>  talk  16:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Can someone please close this discussion, so we can move on with life? Bearian (talk) 18:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, you're an admin. Certainly you have the powers to close this discussion. But for what reason? Because your personal opinion says that this isn't important? Because you think User:Y did not attack other users personally? Because most people here actually defends him and think he's funny? --Koreanjason (talk) 18:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No, because he's not actually abused any of his adminsitrative powers. He hasn't blocked anyone, hasn't protected any articles, and hasn't deleted any pages in a way that is against the rules.  He hasn't even represented himself as an admin as a way to gain th eupper hand in a debate or threaten to get his way.  Even if (and I don't mean they are, take it as a hypothetical) his comments are rather WP:DICKish, I don't see why such comments mean his admin powers need to be revoked.  Take it to WP:WQA if you like, since at best he's being a bit rude, but there is nothing here that shows he has misused his admin powers.  This isn't the appropriate venue to discuss his comments.  --Jayron32. talk . contribs  18:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If a normal user is rude, they risk being banned. But if it's an admin, he's going scot-free? Without even a warning? Without even having to apologize to User:Be best and User:W guice? --Koreanjason (talk) 18:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

There is no basis for desysopping, nor sanctioning, anyone. User:Y has gotten feedback, as has User:Koreanjason. I'm going to suggest the radical step of just disengaging and finding something else we can all fight about. MastCell Talk 18:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Aging AfD
Articles for deletion/Molten Group Has been going on for about a week now, and I was wondering if it would be possible to get an admin to either close the debate with a decision or advise on relisting the article in order to garner more thorough discussion on the matter. Thanks.-- <font color="midnightblue">Oni Ookami Alfador Talk 19:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

✅ I have closed it. Spartaz Humbug! 20:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Appreciate the quick response.-- <font color="midnightblue">Oni Ookami Alfador Talk 20:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Policy/Guidline/Something
Howdy, folks. I have proposed that we have ombudsmen on wikipedia, similar to universities and governments. I just started the page, located here (apologies for the rough draft it's in) and would love community feedback and development. Thanks, all. Bstone (talk) 02:52, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I posted an absolutely massive response on the Talk page that I feel warrants a mention in this string. Why do I feel this way? Because my great humility is my greatest strength. --CastAStone//₵₳$↑₳₴₮ʘ№€ 06:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Admin coaching
I have left a proposal here; this process seems to me to be a bit of a backwater, and I would welcome feedback as to whether I'm out of line. Bottom line is that a lot of the requests seem stale, and it could do with a cull such that keen and experienced enough proto-admins are being lost in the noise. I declare an interest here, as you will see from the main page, but I'm trying not to canvass, and will take my chances should the opportunity arise. Question: Is there a category for admins willing to undertake coaching? --<font color="7F007F">Rodhullandemu  (Talk) 21:43, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * As a result of a comment on the Talk:AC:RFC page, can I ask that admins who aren't currently interested in coaching remove themselves from here? That would save enthusiastic editors from approaching admins who are no longer available or willing to do this. --<font color="7F007F">Rodhullandemu  (Talk) 00:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Could someone take a peak at this talk page
Could another admin take a look at this talk page: Talk:Accelerate (R.E.M. album) and perhaps give an additional perspective on the situation from an "adminsitrator's" point of view? I am not looking for anyone to comment on the content discussion, per se, but there seems to be some civility issues going on that need looking into. Thanks! --Jayron32. talk . contribs 02:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:MFD
Could an uninvolved administrator please take a look at the following discussion and consider closing it? It's at: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:MQDuck/userboxes/Right To Resist. - Mtmelendez (Talk) 05:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I closed it as a no consensus. You can read my comments if you'd like, but for a more coherent version see Doc's comments further down the page. I stole liberally from them anyway. There's also an RFC started on the general issue of userbox content. Maybe a consensus will emerge there, stranger things have happened. (well, not many but there's always hope). RxS (talk) 06:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Someone check out this unblock request
Can someone check this unblock request out: User talk:Zhinz. I can't find any blocks on him, and I don't have checkuser to see if there are any IP blocks dinging him unneccessarily. Can a checkuser perhaps look into this? Or atleast an admin that knows what they are doing? Gracias. --Jayron32. talk . contribs 05:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * As there are no blocks on the user or the IP address, and no autoblocks from the past 48 hours from that admin, there seems to be nothing we can do here. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yup, just checked it all blocks and autblocks and nothings ever affected him - I'd advise the user to try and edit now.  Ry an P os tl et hw ai te  05:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hold on, hold on, it's part of the range block of 75.47.0.0/16. I'll sort the range block out to make it anon only.  Ry an P os tl et hw ai te  06:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * and sorted, it was blocking sock accounts, but if there's constructive users using it, let's just block the IP's. I've switched it to anon only.  Ry an P os tl et hw ai te  06:04, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

User:PuCk1337
Can an admin please attend to what is written on this user's page. It's profoundly disturbing. Bstone (talk) 06:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorted; deleted by User:East718. (User's blocked, too.) Tony Fox (arf!) 06:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Image:Sam22Stripped.jpg (NWS)

 * Apparently, this image was deleted, and yet it still loads up. ??? JuJube (talk) 10:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It is on the WikiMedia Commons The revision there would need to be deleted. — <font color="007FFF">Save_Us   †  10:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It has been. ~ Riana ⁂ 11:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Pfft, there can never be enough willies. :) — <font color="007FFF">Save_Us  †  11:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Articles for creation/2008-01-12
This AFC requires the attention of a administrator, if someone feels up to the task i would greatly appreciate it as i would love to remove this page from backlogs. Tiptoety talk 19:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks like Maelwys has taken care of it? — Satori Son 20:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep, thanks. Tiptoety talk 21:26, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Question from a new editor
Since I discovered Wikipedia, I really love it and believe it's one of the most (if not THE most) important resources on the Web.

I'm not the sort of person who usually gets involved in this sort of thing but prefer to remain a passive bystander and silently give thanks to the many people who make these wonderful resources happen.

However, today I was reading some articles about different episodes of Open All Hours, a British comedy series starring Ronnie Barker, which is one of my favourite shows.

As I native speaker, I noticed that the grammar, vocab & sentence structure of the articles was not so good, and I later discovered that these articles had been written by user fernandogoaz who I think is from Spain. Although I applaud him for making such a valiant effort in setting up these pages in the first place as he obviously also loves this show, it seems to me that there are no procedures in place for making sure that articles written by non-natives are edited and improved quickly after being created. Personally, I wouldn't dream of entering Spanish Wikipedia and writing an article in my faltering Spanish about something.

I am an EFL/ESL teacher in a foreign country, and it is important to me that the articles on the English Wiki are of good quality language wise. For example, after a lesson where my students and I watch a comedy DVD and then discuss it for half an hour, I ask them to pretend they are Wikipedia editors and write a Wiki article about what they've just seen. We then go into the computer room and they compare what they wrote with the real article, and if there's time, we discuss those similarities and differences as a group.

I intended to use Open All Hours sometime soon, and that's why I was looking up the articles, and why I was dismayed to see the poor quality of them - but in no way do I criticise user fernandogoaz for this. It just seems a bit strange that the articles have been up for about six months but nothing substantially has been done to improve them.

In my line of work I often get asked to do proof reading and I'm finding that an increasing part of my workload is editing, correcting and improving, so I like to think I have a bit of a gift for it.

So, against my better judgement, I registered and signed in for the first time this afternoon and spent a few hours editing 4 or 5 articles. When I came back to them a little bit later, I found that they had all been deleted for "notability" reasons by user TTN.

This is my real gripe and reason for writing to the administrators. What gives user TTN the right to delete articles?? How does he/she know that these articles are of no use to other people in the world? Surely the whole point of Wiki is to increase and build on the amount of articles.

I really must protest about user TTN's actions which seem to have been done with no discussion with anyone else. Also, when I investigated further, it seems that this person has been doing other similar things all over Wiki.

How can I restore the undeleted pages?

Thank you.

Roses2at (talk) 00:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Not really an admin issue, advised at talk page --<font color="7F007F">Rodhullandemu  (Talk) 01:03, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Discussed elsewhere at AN/I in fact. All the articles in question failed WP:FICT. Redirection was clearly in order. I have reverted Roses2at's undos. Eusebeus (talk) 01:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My question to you Eusebeus is why do you decide now that these articles fail WP:FICT? Those particular pages have been up for six months with many other edits in the meantime but they still do not meet basic quality of English standards (surely much more important than whether they are notable or not?). Do you feel no remorse for wasting other people's time??????? Roses2at (talk) 15:07, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It certainly would have helped to have some references so uninvolved editors could reach an informed overview. There is too much groping around in the dark going on here, and although it may be OK when you're a teenager, there does come a time when reliable information, or any information at all, helps. --<font color="7F007F">Rodhullandemu  (Talk) 02:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Dear Roses2at, as you are familiar with the topic and (very funny) show, individual episodes may be recreated if 3rd party sources note them as significant. Given the standard and high esteem much of Ronnie Barker's work is held, this may not actually be too hard. I urge you if you do have 3rd party refs (books etc. which highlight individual episodes, then these can be recreated from the article history then. I myself have been trying to add reference material from what I have at home - the shame is there is a huge amount out there which unfortunately cannot be accessed readily by sitting in front of a keyboard (and its 35C and stinking humid here which is a powerful disincentive for me to try) - thus to maintain a collaborative and constructive approach, finding material is great. If you need a hand at the time for deleted material, there are a number of admins who have offered to retrieve deleted material. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:16, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You just beat me to this. Most of TTN's redirects involve episode articles which haven't a chance of ever being notable enough for their own articles, and are thus correct; but these (while they weren't at the moment) might just have.  There *must* be enough Barker related material to source some of these, in print if not online.  BLACK KITE  02:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps someone can let me know by private e-mail if and when this issue is resolved becasue I can't be bothered to fight for the notability issue myself. My personal opinion is that single episodes of a series warrant their own page (especially in this case concerning Ronnie Barker's work) and I don't see the necessity to "source" them.
 * If it's finally decided to allow them, I will be more than happy to volunteer to proof-read, edit and bring them up to an acceptable standard of English. Frankly, it p**s*s me off that other people like User:TTN and User:Eusebeus are allowed to delete or redirect other people's hard work.
 * Roses2at (talk) 14:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Dear Roses2at, maybe you know this already, but if you want you can still find copies of the work you did, in the page histories. For example, to find your version of A Matress on Wheels, click on the link I just gave, or type "A Matress on Wheels" into the search box and click "go".  It will redirect you to a section of the page "Open All Hours".  Scroll up to the top of the page, and in tiny letters just under the title of the page you will see a blue link "Redirected from A Matress on Wheels".  Click on that link, and you will see a redirect page (a page with just an arrow pointing to Open All Hours).  When looking at the redirect page, click "history" at the top of the page.  You will see a list of versions of the page.  Choose a version you're interested in, for example the last version by yourself.  Click on the date of the version and you will see the text of that version of the page.  Another way to find the versions of these pages that you fixed is by using your user contribution list, which you get to by clicking on "my contributions" at the top of the page. --Coppertwig (talk) 17:19, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you Coppertwig, for your concern about my disppointing experience. But the point is I want my students (and of course many others) to find these pages quickly and easily without faffing around. Because even the title of that particular article has been spelt incorrectly (I didn't figure out how to change that) and it's important that non-native speakers looking at these pages are not misled about spelling, grammar, vocab and sentence structure. I'll wait a little while before getting involved again. Roses2at (talk) 17:49, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Whilst you are waiting, please read our Verifiability and No original research policies, as well as User:Uncle G/On sources and content, to learn why sourcing is a necessity here at Wikipedia. Uncle G (talk) 03:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Update
I thought these had been already through an AfD debate, but they haven't. Thus, the correct procedure to allow time for adequate sourcing is to individually place the articles at AfD by those concerned and each will be debated on its merit. This is most conducive to 'pedia building as it allows a larger forum rather than deletions and removals of redlinks to hide evidence of their existence. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:38, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Incorrect. For starters, the articles were not deleted.  They were, as said above, redirected.  Please familiarize yourself with wiki editing basics and the distinctions between redirection and deletion.  AFD is not a forum for discussing whether articles should be redirected or not.  The fora for that are article talk pages.  Please familiarize yourself with Deletion policy and the Guide to deletion.  Do not take articles to AFD where an administrator hitting a delete button is not what you want.  Article merger and article redirection do not involve deletion, or AFD, at any stage of the process. Uncle G (talk) 03:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Correct. Though it should be noted that the smerging of a long article (shortening and merging the article) can result in lots of text being edited away and made difficult to work on (not many people are aware that the previous text is still accessible in the page history of the redirect, for example). The ironic thing is that it would easily be possible to generate a list (maybe using some script) of the page revision before all of TTN's redirects, and to list links to those old articles, either on an external website or on a WikiProject page or talk page. Linking to old versions from within an article itself would subvert the entire Wikipedia process, but it is technically possible, so something should be done to forbid putting links to old versions of other articles in current articles. For Open All Hours, try this list of episode articles I generated from looking at "what links here", and filtering for redirects and then grabbing the oldid numbers of the versions before the redirects:
 * Open All Hours Pilot
 * Full of Mysterious Promise
 * A Mattress on Wheels
 * A Nice Cosy Little Disease
 * Beware of the Dog
 * Well Catered Funeral
 * Apples And Self Service
 * Laundry Blues
 * The Reluctant Traveller
 * Fig Biscuits And Inspirational Toilet Rolls
 * The New Suit
 * Arkwright's Mobile Store
 * Shedding At The Wedding
 * St Albert's Day
 * A Mattress on Wheels
 * I would suggest that in cases where lots of text is being smerged, that TTN (and others) leave such links in a central place, as a courtesy to editors who may wish to work on the removed material and provide sources. There are already talk page templates that call oldid numbers for featured articles - the same sort of thing could be done here. Would this be a workable compromise? The redirects would stick, but editors are pointed to older material to work from if they find sources. A similar principle applies at Category:Redirects with possibilities. Indeed, I would suggest that some template is used (if it doesn't already exist) to group the redirects into categories of: (a) Redirects from episode articles; and (b) Episodes of ABC. See Categorizing redirects for more on how that works. Carcharoth (talk) 15:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * A change to a redirect is an editing issue, and subject to WP:BRD. Any editor is free to revert it, and then look for discussion on the talk page. Once consensus has been reached about it, whatever the status is should not be changed without discussion. Once it has gone through one BRD round, it of course should be discussed, not reverted further. But it is fair and reasonable to revert, one time only, any redirect that was not achieved by consensus, or as a compromise solution at AFD or elsewhere. I do not know how much prior discussion may have gone into these articles. Obviously, it is always best to improve the redirected article as suggested here, rather than argue over what may be an inadequate article. DGG (talk) 23:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Arbitration proposal concerning new restrictions on exercise of admin powers
Administrators may be interested to read this discussion in a currently ongoing arbitration. It concerns a proposal from the arbitrators to bar admins active in editing articles relating broadly to Israeli-Palestinian issues from using discretionary powers in the entire topic area - not just an individual article - if they have previously been involved in a content dispute in that topic area. This would seem be a major modification of the existing prohibition on blocking users with whom one is involved in a content dispute (see WP:BLOCK), in effect setting a different and stricter rule for the topic area under arbitration. A number of admins, including myself, are concerned that this is unworkable, undesirable and would set a bad precedent that could be applied to other disputes. Input from other admins would be welcomed at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles/Proposed decision. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Admins may also wish to consider if the above mesage mees the standard at CANVASS. DuncanHill (talk) 09:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does meet the standard. Please don't troll. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Specifically is the message neutral? ie. Does it simply inform of the debate (good thing) or does it present one side of the argument as well (bad thing)? DuncanHill (talk) 09:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's canvassing because this isn't mass posted, and it's not targeting users with a particular point of view. Nevertheless, I think the concerns are unfounded.  The restrictions is limited to those administrators who seek to enforce the case's sanctions. Given the editing climate of those articles, the Committee seems wise to implement this measure. Jehochman  Talk 09:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * ordinary users are not part of arbcom's decision-making process, so it is even less like a vote than the kinds of pages that we normally attack people for "canvassing" for. —Random832 12:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This looks to me like Campaigning, which is one of the explicitly mentioned types of canvassing. Leaving a neytralmessage here would be a friendly notice. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, come on. It's posted on WP:AN! This is the proper forum to bring up anything that admins, or the community more generally, might be interested in. Posting this message to a particular involved WikiProject, or to a select few users' talk pages, or sending it as an email to selected recipients, would all potentially constitute canvassing, but I just don't see a problem here. Presumably this board is not populated with people predisposed to do ChrisO's bidding, or even receive his comment favorably. MastCell Talk 18:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Deletion debate needing a sysop touch
Articles for deletion/Bosnian Mujahideen could use a little attention. Some users are becoming a bit uncivil. The page could also probably use a gnomely reformatting. Thanks! Vassyana (talk) 09:29, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I tried to restore order, but has been undoing my work.  He's been making personal attacks too, which I have removed.  I'd like an uninvolved administrator to review the situation and take whatever actions are needed to finish cleaning up this mess. For instance, this edit needs to be undone, and that content put in chronological order, or moved to the talk page. Regrettably, I feel that HanzoHattori will need to be blocked in order for that to be achieved.  I've given him several warnings, but he has ignored them. He is obviously trying to own the discussion, acting disruptively, and violating decorum. I will not block him myself, and I will not engage in an edit war with him. Jehochman  Talk 10:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The user has been blocked by User:East718, with a duration of 17000 minutes, or just shy of 12 days (!). On a procedural note, should someone indicate in the debate that HanzoHattori was blocked for disruption of that debate? If, as one editor noted, the concern was that his conduct would keep others from participating, a note that the editor will not be further involved might mitigate that concern. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 13:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I should like to Speak My Mind here...
There appears to be a disconnect, as far as this album is concerned. On one hand, there is Speak My Mind, a protected redirect linking to the article of Beyoncé Knowles, which is a result of, as I have found out, a February 2007 deletion of the article for Speak My Mind as unsourced and unreliable. On the other hand, there is the article Speak My Mind (album), created less than a month ago, with the title apparently adopted in order to circumvent the AfD decision; the aforementioned article features one (1) source. I suppose that either the article must be merged back to oblivion (a.k.a. deleted) or the deletion decision has to be reviewed and the article moved to its proper location, as there is no reason for disambiguation in the title.

By the way, bid me "welcome" because it is my first message in the noticeboard (another Wikipedian editing more in the project namespace than in the mainspace, yay!). Waltham, The Duke of 15:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "Old" AfDs aren't really binding, and there's no reason to prohibit recreation of an article deleted as unsourced when sources are uncovered. I don't see any reason to be bureaucratic about restoring it - at best, just run it by the closing admin. Wily D  15:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I am being bureaucratic because this is what I do when I do not know the un-bureaucratic procedure. Thanks to you, I do now, and so I am off to the closing administrator (which actually makes a lot of sense). Cheers! Waltham, The Duke of 15:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Tried that. Failed. Closing admin hasn't edited since last April. Curse him and his whole family. (All right, only joking, I should never curse his family, just him.) What is the next step of the process, please? Waltham, The Duke of 15:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe Deletion review? I'd maybe do it myself, but I promised to lay off the deletion related matters for awhile. I've already tied up the servers for too long, I don't need to go and tie them up any longer doing things I don't understand yet. John Carter (talk) 15:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * (ec)To be honest I'd lend towards a speedy deletion under WP:CSD (and a friendly notice to the users that they should go to WP:DR), the new article does not bring anything that wasn't addressed in the AfD. -- lucasbfr  talk 16:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You can also try request for page moves. — Edokter  •  Talk  • 16:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * (ECx3) Deletion review is definitely an option. Since this is a new title, and may actually be different (though similar) content compared to what was deleted, you may wish to re-nominate this article for deletion. Obviously, the fact that it was deleted earlier would form part of your rationale. I agree that it may qualify for a speedy deletion, though. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 16:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Times three? Oh, dear.


 * In any case, the history of the deleted article exists, and the two versions are somewhat different from each other, in the sense that the intro (the only paragraph of text) has changed considerably. In addition, there is a source in the new version, and it looks quite legitimate (I am rather clueless when it comes to sources, but "Billboard" appears to be a large and well-known site). I think I will try to have the page moved first, and if my petition is rejected, I shall have to initiate a discussion in deletion review.
 * I certainly did not imagine I should be discussing a Beyoncé album when I got up this morning... Waltham, The Duke of 16:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Just wanted to note that Billboard mirrors AMG (see the bottom of the page). AMG accepts reader submissions, which may bring the reliability and notability of that in question. AMG will in some instances include bootlegs, for instance, but generally Wikipedia does not. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Contributions by a new user
Hello administrators, just a quick post here that we probably should have some more eyes on the contributions of new user User:Jbarg48. His contributions are (so far) only in regard to a public figure, former Wash. DC mayor Anthony A. Williams. My redflags are flying high - I believe this new editor (especially by this diff), lead me to believe that the honorable Mr. Williams, or someone that knows/works/lives with him, has joined our ranks. The only other contributions are spammy "What he's doing today" type links, check his Deleted contribs. IMO, the info added to the Williams article is way to specific for general knowledge and is rife with peacock language. Reads like a resumé, in other words. Any others' opinions? <font color="#654321" face="comic sans ms">Keeper  |  <font color="#C2B280" face="Papyrus">76  17:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Tag the article for COI and note on the talk page why. Bearian (talk) 18:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks Bearian, that's exactly what I just did. Let me know if you (or anyone else looking) sees anything wrong with what I did.   <font color="#654321" face="comic sans ms">Keeper   |  <font color="#C2B280" face="Papyrus">76  20:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Signsolid
A few days ago, many major news agencies reported that the French economy had overtaken the British one. Following discussions on the talk pages of UK and France, I edited the articles to reflect it and sourced it with the an article on the issue by Financial Times. The user User:Signsolid seems to hate the fact that France’s economy has overtaken the UK’s. That such is the fact can be confirmed by looking at the many sources found on the UK talkpage. The source in the article is from Financial Times, but it could also be sourced by msnbc, Financial News , Le Figaro.

When I edited the UK-article to reflect this and duly sourced it, the user started out by attacking me over my nationality. . He has been warned about such behaviour, but keeps repeating it today. . As he did not like the news of France overtaking the UK, he searched the Internet for sources contradicting it. His first suggestion was the personal home page of an unknown Greek guy who himself writes on his home page that it’s outdated, I duly informed him that it was hardly a source comparable to the Financial Times and other major business news agencies. He then found an old IMF-estimate, and immediately starting inserting it into the UK article and edit warring over it instead of using the talk page to reach a consnesus. ,, ,

I informed him many times that he was using an old estimate, and that an estimate of what might have happened hardly could replace multiple reports on what had happened. It did not stop the edit war. I admit that I made edits I shouldn’t have made. At one point I accused him of trolling, but at that point I honestly believed it to be the case. I couldn’t imagine that somebody wanted to replace the Financial Times and other respected sourced by the home pages of anonymous Internet users.

When he was warned over edit warring, he stopped the revert war on the UK article and took it to the article France. His first edit at the page was to simply remove the information about France’s economy being the fifth in the world and replacing it with France being seventh. . As this included removing sourced information just to achieve his own aim, I consider it obvious vandalism. Another user reverted his edit. He then came up with the idea to leave the information in and still claim that France is only seventh in the world by another calculation. He never showed any interest in this way to calculate before the edit war started. Another user reverted the edit once more but he inserted it again. He then went on to once again delete the information about France having the fifth largest economy, including deleting the source (still Financial Times). . Two other users reverted his vandalism, and he then returned to inserting his claim abou France only being seventh if using another calculation, despite other users (including myself) being against it. That’s of course not vandalism, but clearly a continued edit war. He inserted the same claim two times more, despite three users explicitly being against it and he the only one in favour.

Of course the user has violated WP:3RR (He’s been warned over it a few times but has removed all his warnings). Still I’m reporting him mainly because of his behaviour .I don’t know why he doesn’t like the news about the UK economy, and that’s hardly relevant. What is relevant is that he is so determined not to accept that it that he has taken to harmless but strange means such as suggesting using anonymous individuals’ home pages as sources instead of major news corporations and to insert a whole new means of calculations into introductions, and more harmful actions such as deleting sourced content and repeatedly replacing a sourced reported on what has happened with an old estimate of what might have happened and of coming. While doing this, he has attacked me over my nationality  and he has attacked me over my supposed political views. He has thrown accusations at me of WP:STALK  when the truth is that the article France is one that he followed me to after our exchange of word. (His first edit to it was yesterday, to revert my previous edit). He has repeatedly lied about my actions. ,.

I’ve been on Wikipedia for two years and have never been involved in anything similar. I must admit that I prefer quitting rather than being harassed in this way. I hope actions are taken against users of this kind. JdeJ (talk) 18:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * And it continues . Not a serious attack, but still keeps dragging up my nationality and lying about me. I've got around 2000 edits on Wikipedia and not even 100 concerns topics related to France.JdeJ (talk) 19:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * tl;dr. John Reaves 21:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm afraid I don't understand. And the user continues to stalk me to pages and attack me . I'm interested in knowing if this sort of behaviour is acceptable or not. JdeJ (talk) 22:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * And a new one . The user has violated WP:3RR, WP:NPA and WP:STALK. JdeJ (talk) 22:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to add that User:JdeJ has done nothing but try to blot out my opinions and dominate the Talk:France page and the Talk:United Kingdom page talk page and stalks me as he has just proven himself and is an experiened user using his experience to remove competing opinions, that's why I believe he is here now trying to get me banned rather than using talk pages and also when anyone else on these talk pages expresses an opinion he instantly moves in to dismiss it without any consideration or compromise so that there's no threat to his opinion dominating all others. Signsolid (talk) 22:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC) As for WP:3RR, WP:NPA and WP:STALK I believe he is guilty of these himself if you look at article edit histories, accusations of me trolling and vandalising, and obviously has proven himself he monitors all my edits. Signsolid (talk) 22:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think I ever followed you to a single page, I know at least ten pages where you followed me. And as stated above, you attacked me over my nationality, my political views (what views?) and lied about me only editing with a French bias when less than 5% of my articles deals with France-related topics. However, this is not the place to continue our dispute, any user interested in our exchanges can find them from our respective edit histories. They will find that I've always used the talk pages. What is more, I've been in agreement with every other user except you. JdeJ (talk) 22:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

As an inexperienced user I can say I have been totally put off using Wikipedia if experinced users dominate like this. Signsolid (talk) 22:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Apology
I wanna apologize my bad behaviour. This is my second contribution where I wanted another admin to let my account closed. The problem is, I have to fight against my addict this time. I'll let you know when I decide to close my account. And I'll think three times about that. Promise. D@rk talk 18:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * This is one of the many, many reasons that we don't close or block accounts that are no longer wanted. We rely on editors who choose to work here to choose not to work here any more. If you do chose that latter course [and remember that people get tired of others constantly declaring that they're going who then don't :o)] you might consider the Wikibreak Enforcer, which will do the job you're requesting nicely. Hope this helps! ➔ REDVEЯS is standing in the dark 20:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Is this a new rule, that you don't block accounts when they don't want to edit Wikipedia? D@rk talk 20:12, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * No, it's an old consensus. Jehochman Talk 20:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Corey Delaney
I'm trying to work out what the hell happened here. The page was deleted after a few minutes (didn't even know it was deleted up until now when I looked for it, I just assumed that obviously such a page would exist).

The AFD has been, to quote: "but is hidden from view for privacy reasons." Whaaatt?! Privacy concerns?! For goodness sake, his name has been blasted all over the news, all around the world (and in australia, just about constantly).

I'm totally amazed such a page ended up in a deletion consensus, such events as this makes me believe wikipedia is going badly down the totally wrong path. Wikipedia has changed a lot since I first joined, largely for the better I suppose. But in a lot of areas I'm afraid it feels like it is for the worst.

Anyway, getting back on track to my question. Could anybody please direct me to where some of this discussion regarding this has happened (i.e. why the blanking, and why the deletion), or explain here to me. To help me try and make sense of what happened. Thanks. 21:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Corey Delaney <strong style="color:#fff;background:#DC143C;border:1px solid #000;font-family:Verdana ">ALLSTAR <strong style="color:#FFF;background:#0F4D92;border:1px solid #000"> echo 22:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Full story: Corey Delaney was created and later sent to AfD (see Articles for deletion/Corey Delaney) where it was discussed for (roughly) 14 hours (mind you, it was very clear what the result was), where Daniel closed the debate as delete, deleted the article and applied protection. It was later taken to DRV (see log) because of complaints that the AfD was not kept open for the correct amount of time.
 * Later, a news article is posted about the AfD debate and the story makes the front page of the website of The Courier-Mail. Due to BLP concerns regarding Corey and attacks made on him in the history of the AfD, and the AfD being linked from various news articles relating to Wikipedia entry, some requested that the whole AfD be deleted and restored hiding the bad revisions. The page was courtesy blanked, and subsequently the AfD page was taken to MfD (see debate). The DRV is still open, and the MfD was closed as keep. Spebi 22:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the links, updates me with what has gone by. I'd found the DRV and just got back from putting my view there, can get a tad tricky to keep up to speed with the minor details (such as I'd kinda forgotten about MfD) once you have been away from actively editing wikipedia for a while. I agree with you that the AfD was quite clear in the direction it was taking (more or less), however ever to me personally that just makes it all the sadder that it shows how widespread this kind of action has became in wikipedia. Ah well, can only keep on trying to do my little bit to make the world a better place. Mathmo Talk 22:25, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection for Loup City, Nebraska‎
This article has endured severe IP vandalism over the last few days that has not been speedily reverted. Also, I'm not sure if this is where I should report problems like this, but WP:Semi-protection didn't tell where to. Thingg <sup style="color:#33ff00;">⊕ <sup style="color:#ff0033;">⊗ 22:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Vandalism has only been today. And you probably want WP:RFPP in future. But I've semi-protected for 48 hours to allow time for the dynamic IP editor to get bored. I've also reverted back to 20 December (last edit before today) as other reverts have missed quite a bit of vandalism. ➔ REDVEЯS is standing in the dark 22:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

inappropriate external link
Question regarding an external link. On Woo Bum-kon, I came across and—after taking a quick look—removed a link to a website called www.spreekillers.org. A linksearch revealed that this link was only on this one article. Nevertheless, due to its totally inappropriate nature and since it has already been inserted at least once, I would like to get some admin opinion on this. Can/should this link be blacklisted, or would that require prior massive spamming? Or am I overreacting and the link isn't half as bad as I'm making it out to be? And is this at all the correct forum for this question? User:Dorftrottel 09:35, January 18, 2008
 * I don't see a good reason for blacklisting right now, especially not using the meta blacklist (which affects all Wikimedia projects). I could imagine legitimate use of a link to this page on other Foundation wikis, for example in a discussion about how not to treat spree killers or in a news article. To request blacklisting here, the most appropriate place is probably MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. Kusma (talk) 09:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks, going there now. User:Dorftrottel 09:56, January 18, 2008

User:Yidisheryid
Out of curiosity, how far do we, as sysops, have to go taking uncalled for abuse by editor's before we can request action? The lastest nonsense from this user is here, but if you check this person's history, he has a total disregard for about all of our policies, be they relating to civil editing, notability, images, hoaxes, articles for deletion, sockpuppetry, and personal attacks. As the long-term recipient of his wiki-love, it is not my place to take action, but I'd like one of y'all to see if I have a point here, and maybe somebody else can "convince" this person to edit within guidelines or not edit at all. Thanks. -- Avi (talk) 20:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Not to be nosey but isn't there an issue with that user's signature also per WP:SIG? I've been trying to follow that debate and its honestly starting to hurt my eyes trying to figure it out.-- <font color="midnightblue">Oni Ookami Alfador Talk 20:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The SSP case has already been closed, and I see no sense in further extending the drama. The sig. matter is worth follow-up.DGG (talk) 23:13, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

DGG, you have e-mail explaining why I believe you do not understand the ramifications of this request. It is not just the SSP, but a long-term pattern of gross harrassment and abuse that I no longer wish to countenance. -- Avi (talk) 15:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've seen email from both parties, and I continue to suggest disengagement on both sides. DGG (talk) 20:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:Consensus
I'd like a little feedback around accusations of disruptive editing at the WP:Consensus. This has been escalating through the day and I think that accuastions of disruptive editing by user Kim Bruning are red herring bordering on incivil. I'm not seeking any form of punishment, just a bit more intervention than a 3O, or let me know if I'm out of line. I've reverted his changes because he keeps fussing with the policy page with no support and clear opposition from several editors at the talk page. It seems ironic at the consensus page. Cheers! --Kevin Murray (talk) 02:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Page protected with looking into if anyone had broken 3rr. Viridae Talk 04:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see any 3RR violations; at most, Kim has 2 and Kevin 3, just looking at the history and ignoring whether they were really reverting. I'll point out that there is no basis in policy or practice for the idea that WP:BOLD doesn't apply to policy pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I am quite sure it does, but the Discuss part of BRD seems to have once again been skipped, unless you can count the edit summaries. In my experience, a short protection should settle things down and foster some talk page use. It works extremely well actually. Viridae Talk 04:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed. My point was that Kevin's rationale for reverting, namely that there wasn't enough discussion before the page was edited, is not particularly strong. Despite several requests for actual objections to the material, I don't believe he has provided any. I don't think that "disruptive" was the right way to describe his editing, and it was certainly done in good faith, but it isn't in agreement with the wiki process for writing policies. On the other hand, Kim's second revert was also unnecessary. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:26, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think having it reverted once, means someone disagrees with it, and on a policy page especially you shoudl then go on and discuss it. The onus is on the person who wants to add the material to start the discussion if it is objected to (logically) Viridae Talk 04:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, and the discussion was started. I don't believe Kevin presented actual objections to the language. It appeared to me that he might have the misconception that changes must be discussed on the talk page before they can be made. So the first revert by Kim, in the 2100h time frame, seems to be a reasonable attempt to continue editing after Kevin was reminded that editing policy pages is a normal part of business. The remaining reverts, by both Kevin and Kim, were unneeded. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:43, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I did not investigate the edits very closely, I am happy to unprotect if people think the situation will be resolved. It IS always better to discuss something for a policy page first, given the potentially wide ranging effects. Viridae Talk 04:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Now that it's protected, might as well wait a little while before unprotecting. But I have to disagree about always discussing first; that contradicts WP:BOLD and the wiki process, which is a foundation principle. One shouldn't make changes that will obviously be reverted if they are not discussed first, but one also shouldn't revert changes only because they were not discussed first. Moreover, there is rarely any reason that changes need to be reverted immediately; it's easy enough to leave a note on the talk page that says "can you explain those changes". — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with you on most points. Viridae Talk 04:53, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

We have been stuck on the talk page all day! I have been trying to stimulate normal healthy editing on the page, but currently a number of editors are actually opposed to that very process, it seems. I've handed things off to others, as I've been getting rather frustrated and am not at my most diplomatic. ^^;; --Kim Bruning (talk) 04:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for looking at this. Clearly this is a thorny issue.  --Kevin Murray (talk) 05:43, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

After reading through the discussion above, I thought that I should look at WP:BOLD to verify Carl's advice that I'm in contradiction. However, I found the following quote interesting: "Although it is generally fine to be bold in updating articles, it is easier to cause problems in other namespaces by editing without due care. The admonition "but do not be reckless" is especially important in other namespaces."  I don't say that this is compelling support for my position, but I do think that it expresses concern in that direction. --Kevin Murray (talk) 06:46, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It sure does. Now discussing this on the Wikipedia:Consensus talk page. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 07:58, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Acting to allow unprotection
People are holding the page closed because they state they are in conflict with me. It think this is grossly unfair to others. Even though I'd like to edit, that would be counterproductive at this point in time.

I promise to not edit the page until Monday (UTC). This removes all possible further grounds for page protection, AFAIK, at least over the weekend, so it should now be ok to unprotect. --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'm also going to stay off the talk page 'till Monday, because the discussion between myself and Kevin is getting too disruptive, and isn't useful to anyone anymore. --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Salt
I've never salted a page, so I'd like to get some feedback: the page Credu has been repeatedly created and deleted over the past couple months (advert/non-notable company), and it seems to me it ought to be salted. So I ask those of you with more experience in this area, is this a good case for salting? Cheers, faithless   (speak)  06:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yep. James086 Talk &#124;  Email 08:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Absolutely appropriate on this one. I've never seen any firm standards, but my personal criterion is to salt if an article has been created and deleted three or more times in a relatively short period of time. — Satori Son 15:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input! faithless  (speak)  17:43, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

template vandalism
User:George in Australia vandalised a couple of templates with the image: Image:Face-monkey.svg. This has left a lot of image links for the Image:Face-monkey.svg. Is it possible to purge the image or do I have to do null edits on all the pages? Also a review of the block would be helpful. Thanks. Woody (talk) 17:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The link list is harmless, it'll go away in a few hours at the most anyway, see Help:Job queue. —Random832 17:53, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. Woody (talk) 17:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

semi-protection
Hello. Might I suggest that administrators setting some protection for articles leave a template or some sort of unarchived note on the talk page giving the date and somewhat detailed (just a few lines...perhaps actual facts, times, figures?) reason for the protection? Lots of articles are protected for a long time; finding the exact date and reason can be a tortuous process. Also I reckon a person's first stop would be the talk page (why click a little lock?)

I would like also for the excellent FA of the Day protection ideas to be kept in mind for other high traffic main page stories, such as might appear in In the News, as in the recent death of Bobby Fischer, and indeed to be extended in so far as it is practical to all articles in the encyclopedia.

Semi-protection is in effect a huge series of blocks, so all this seems reasonable. And it strikes me that an open encylopedia is great, and the vandalization of it therefore fundamentally lame, whereas a less open one is just another online clique, like a sort of lofty, ridiculously hackable myspace. 86.42.111.78 (talk) 21:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You could, you know, register for an account. Rather than being less anonymous, it actually is a superior form of identity protection. The only downside is if you have a dynamic IP - then your contribs follow you under your username, as they wouldn't under the IP. Its a vandals protection, though, in my mind. As for semi-prot - the logs have the name of the protecting admin and a brief reason (not that most IPs will know to check the logs, either). A long term semi-prot template on the talkpage is probably a good idea. <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">Avruch <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">talk 21:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There are many excellent reasons not to register, but they are irrelevant here. Registration is not required to edit wikipedia and this should be therefore made so to the largest extent. If you disagree, agitate for a policy change to a less open wiki (and be well on your way to killing the project IMO). Do not go around protecting articles. Besides, I would like also for the excellent FA of the Day protection ideas to be kept in mind. Here is a link: Main Page featured article protection. 86.42.111.78 (talk) 21:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You can check the protection log to find out when it was protected. Also, Avruch, there are various reasons for why one might edit anonymously – there are at least two IP addresses who refuse to register at all, and a third one, Louis Epstein, said that he wished to keep his computer free of cookies.  It may also be an old user who has officially retired but comes back to edit under an IP (JuJube, Lucky 6.9, and Fonzy have all admitted to editing anonymously). hbdragon88 (talk) 21:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. The protection log would be useful if it were easy to find from a protected article and the summaries were less cursory. 86.42.111.78 (talk) 21:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Questions about warnings
(1 e.c.) I've noticed recently that administrators are not warning IP's properly, for instance going from to  to  to  to a block. Some administrators I've noticed don't even follow this structure. Take for instance this IP talkpage. The first warning to the user was here. However, instead of following the proper structure, in this case   etc.. the admin went straight to which seems a little harsh for the IP. The admin went to which is fine. The IP was given a Last Warning in March, yet was never blocked an another warning followed directly afterwards! And then further down the page we have three last warnings in a row. It really seems like we are letting IP's get away with things around here. My point is: Do any administrators at all follow the system that is currently in place with regards to warnings - if not, then why do we have them. We are meant to be harsh towards IP's, not let them get away with every little bit of vandalism. Or am I missing a something here? D.M.N. (talk) 22:02, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I think folks sometime skip the less harsh warnings on IPs whose vandalism has been particularly offensive or ridiculous. I don't know that "we are meant to be harsh towards IPs" is really an accurate description - IP editors are free to add content and edit like anyone else (with the exception of creating new articles) and more importantly we have to be careful on blocks with IPs. If there are gaps between warnings on a potentially shared IP, then it may not be the same person and proceeding to a block from a previous 'final' warning is not necessarily merited. <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">Avruch <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">talk 22:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, warnings can be given by anyone - admins have the ability to block. Quite often cases referred to AIV (or even WP:ANI) are refused blocks since proper warnings (in relation to the seriousness of the vandalism) have not been given. It is a matter of judgement. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Warnings are not essential. I often don't warn editors for blatant vandalism. In my opinion, we are too easy on vandals.  Majorly  (talk) 22:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've had a few vandals bail on a L4 template rather than face a block. Though I couldn't imagine how many of them returned later as a valuable editor.  Though with IPs, one can't assume that once a vandal, always a vandal.  For more severe vandalism, I'll often go with L1/2/3 -->L4 --> block.  Basically, three strikes and you are out.  For people playing around/testing/ learing I'll usually go with all four levels.  As was noted by Avruch, it depends on how ridiculous the vandalism is. Resolute 22:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There was a discussion about six months ago (wish I could recall quite where it took place) where a few editors discussed the effects of warnings and there were a number of editors, me included, who have this same experience - a significant number of editors who are vandalizing or behaving poorly do desist in the face of escalating warnings. There is that group, though, that laugh in the face of any warning, particularly when they pile up 10 or 15 deep on a page with quite a few 'last warnings' sitting about. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 03:53, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Per WP:WARN, "They [template messages] are not a formal system that you have to use: they are a shortcut to typing, nothing more." — Satori Son 22:41, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Quite right, but it does help in tracking how someone has been warned and the history of that. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 03:53, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Please review a block

 * 75.71.67.100
 * 68.184.44.204


 * 71.137.230.14
 * IPs blocked 6 months for one single edit, no warnings given.


 * Also unlike what the block log says, the IP was not trolling or harassing, he was actually the victim of a common trick played on 4chan. A user posts a link to a vandalised version of a user page, and then says "go to this page and click save to see the nude pictures" (or in this case I think it was autopsy pictures).  Perhaps the person behind the IP deserves to be blocked I don't know, but 6 months for one edit, they are blocking the potentially dozens of persons who will have this IP over the next 6 months.  Most of the edits are simply gullible people, who don't understand what they are doing and are tricked by the promise of porn, or other weird stuff.  They have never even herd of Jaranda.  Didn't anyone stop and wonder why all of a sudden there was a series of reversions by unrelated IPs to the exact same version ?  Ok so being trolled can't be fun, but these were not trolls, they were tricked.  Blocking the IP will not help.  Jackaranga (talk) 23:05, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Notified the blocking admin of this post, for the record. Tony Fox (arf!) 23:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Would think there's more involved, seems fairly directed.--Hu12 (talk) 23:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There was a personal info violation, encyclopedia dramatica related violation set of edits. Note a few indef blocked sleeper user accounts as well.  This behavior was part of an extended harrassment / attack campaign and is not tolerated.
 * If you have firsthand knowledge that the IP addresses were in fact IPs trolled on 4chan or the like, and not controlled by the people who set up the named sleeper accounts which were also indef blocked, then please post the 4chan thread info so we can review. Ignorance is not an excuse but will ameliorate the sanction, if that's demonstrably the case.  Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:12, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

disspute
Marshal of the Soviet Union page Edit War  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Staygyro (talk • contribs) 01:28, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you explain the problem and what needs to be done? (copied to OP's Talk Page) --<font color="7F007F">Rodhullandemu  (Talk) 04:24, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I have looked into the history of the article and it looks like Staygyro is edit warring against pretty much everybody else. He wants Joseph Stalin to be a political Marshal of the Soviet Union while his opponents want him to be a Political/Army one citing his position in the World War II and the Russian Civil War. I gave Staygyro a 3RR warning and asked to argue his case on the talk page. IMHO there is no reasons to protect the article yet Alex Bakharev (talk) 05:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Serious defamation
Would somebody check out 90.154.200.172. The user is constantly inserting highly slanderous and completely unsourced statements in the article Georgi Parvanov, current president of Bulgaria. The user has been given a warning over WP:3RR but has reverted back to it no fewer than six times in less that 24 hours, , , , ,. He should of course be blocked for violating 3RR, but I'd also like to suggest a semi-protection on the page. JdeJ (talk) 23:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Stop x nuvola with clock.svg User(s) blocked. - for blatant edit-warring. I don't think it's page protection time yet, though -  A l is o n  ❤ 23:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles
This arbitration has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The area of conflict in this case shall be considered to be the entire set of Arab-Israeli conflict-related articles, broadly interpreted. An uninvolved administrator, after issuing a warning, may impose sanctions including blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project. The Committee shall convene a working group, composed of experienced Wikipedians in good standing, and task it with developing a comprehensive set of recommendations for resolving the pervasive problem of intractable disputes centered around national, ethnic, and cultural areas of conflict. The group shall be appointed within two weeks from the closure of this case, and shall present its recommendations to the Committee no later than six months from the date of its inception. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 01:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Matt Sanchez (3rd nomination)
Would someone close this? It's past its prime, has quite the consensus to keep, and has a related Arbcom case open as well that could/probably will supercede whatever the close decision is anyway. <strong style="color:#fff;background:#DC143C;border:1px solid #000;font-family:Verdana ">ALLSTAR <strong style="color:#FFF;background:#0F4D92;border:1px solid #000"> echo 04:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I am taking care of it. SirFozzie (talk) 05:01, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. <strong style="color:#fff;background:#DC143C;border:1px solid #000;font-family:Verdana ">ALLSTAR <strong style="color:#FFF;background:#0F4D92;border:1px solid #000"> echo 05:03, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Going to need someone more familiar with wiki-markup then myself to fix the references problems, but I've stubbed it down a bit, and asked folks on the talk page to remember BLP/NPOV/RS/V going forward. SirFozzie (talk) 05:14, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Admin involved traffic accident
appears to have been involved in a road traffic accident. I hope he's alright.-- Phoenix -  wiki  16:13, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * While I hope that the notice itself is just vandalism (and if not, hoping for a speedy, and full recovery), that message by its very nature is likely to make Rudget's userpage a magnet for vandalism. Resolute 16:20, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's been fully-protected. But, really, should Rudget's account be indefinitely blocked? D.M.N. (talk) 16:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it is a standard response when somebody is editing from an account who is not the owner. It is especially pertinent given that he has admin tools. Woody (talk) 16:26, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Admins can unblock themselves. -- Flyguy649 talk 16:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I doubt its vandalism, the edit actualy came from his account, so unless the account has been hacked this is most likely him or a related person. -  Ca ri bb e a  n ~ H. Q.  16:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Um, but this means that Rudget's close relatives will not be able to update us on his condition via his userpage if the account is indefinitely blocked. Rudget's relatives would not know how to use the tools too, D.M.N. (talk) 16:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * (EC) My only worry there is that the family apparently used Rudget's already logged in account to post the message about his condition, and will likely do the same for future updates on his status. Someone should monitor the account's edits, and mind that it hasn't or isn't compromised - but, unless someone makes contact with the family and provides a means to pass information along, I'd be hesitant to block the account. A temporary desysopping would not be unreasonable, though - that would remove the tools while permitting communication as needed. I'll add that Rudget is my Admin Coach, and we had just started working together - but if I can help by watching over his account's contribs, I'm happy to. This is awful. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 16:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Remember that even if blocked (or temp desysopped and blocked) they can still provide updates on their user and talk pages. -- Flyguy649 talk 16:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I seriously doubt the account would be used for any misconduct of any sort. And you can only edit your talkpage when blocked. D.M.N. (talk) 16:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem here is that we don't know what's happened. I think a checkuser has been done and determined that Rudget's IP address hasn't changed in two days, but I don't have access to the checkuser logs, and I got this information through IRC, a very useful tool in such circumstances.  Maxim (talk)  16:32, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * His account does not seem compromised. --Deskana (talk) 16:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Deskana, the checkuser will only tell whether someone from, for example, the US jacked the account. We don't know who posted this, and that's the biggest problem here, aside from the fact the Rudget is possibly dying in hospital.  Maxim (talk)  16:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My last statement wasn't perfectly clear, but I can say that those last edits almost certainly came from his computer. It's sad if it's true, just I can't imagine my mother posting on Wikipedia if I'd been rushed to hospital. --Deskana (talk) 16:38, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If he edits Wiki most of the time, they (his family) probably wanted to inform us in case it does come to the worse. D.M.N. (talk) 16:42, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My mother would be in hysterics, and would certainly not being thinking logically. Given that he last edited an hour before the post saying that he's in hospital, shouldn't his mother be in hopsital to? Do you think she'd rush away from her child's bedside to go and post on Wikipedia? --Deskana (talk) 16:43, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My brother's girlfriend was in an accident, and her sister started calling everyone on her cellphone to let them know... so I got a call before my brother did, since she just numbly went down the list. I imagine Rudget's mother knew of his committment to the project, and wanted/needed to tell someone what had happened. Those first minutes after news like this is nothing less than utter shock, and people think of funny things to do first. I know. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 16:45, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's possible, but not likely, in my opinion. We have to wait and see what happens, and hope for the best. --Deskana (talk) 16:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think he should be unblocked. Maybe someone could e-mail him and hope that a family relative replies. D.M.N. (talk) 16:34, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've just noticed a one hour gap in his contributions from his final proper post to the userpage post. Something is not right. D.M.N. (talk) 16:39, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've unblocked the account, please don't block it unless it does something warranting blocking. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  16:40, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * rang the police and they wouldn't give any info. He's on the phone to the hospital now, inquiring if there have been any accidents in that area over the past few hours.-- Phoenix -  wiki  16:41, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Please you don't have to do that. Rudget . 16:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Something is wrong here Rudget... Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  16:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If you're Rudgets next of kin, how do you know his password? Or how to use templates...-- Phoenix -  wiki  16:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Looking at Special:Contributions/Rudget, he's been making several valid and in-character edits until 8:53 this morning (my time). The accident report came in at 9:52 this morning. Somehow, I doubt that in the span of 59 minutes, he'd get into his car, have a serious traffic accident, be rushed to the hospital, and then have his mom come in to Wikipedia and leave a note saying that his injuries are life-threatening. I don't think a mother's first instincts in that situation would be to write a status update on Wikipedia -- a mother would most likely rush to the hospital herself and sit at her son's bedside, worrying frantically. Something doesn't look quite right about this accident report. I don't think a block is in order, but we should keep an eye on Rudget's contributions and admin logs really closely until we know what happened. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 16:49, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If this is real, accusing Rudget of not being honest or something more suspicious going on is not going to help circumstances at all, lets just not be judgemental until we have further information. The fact he signed his post is a bit suspicious as only experienced users do that, but Rudget would never do this, I know that. We don't have all the information, so lets not try to jump to conclusions. <font style="font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 105%">Qst 16:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I only see three options, we have either a hacked account by someone who doesn't want to do any damage and knows how to use wikipedia, or what I like to call 'going out with a bang syndrome', or there really was an accident. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  16:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The first. This is the actual Rudget, I can verify. My account appears to have been compromised. Block until I can change the password. Rudget . 16:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * What I don't want to happen is have us speculating about whether it happened, whether its true or not. I find it shockening that some can speculate. The account seems not to be compromised. I think we should just be thinking about Rudget at this moment in time. If anything happens in the forthcoming hours, we should take the necessary steps. D.M.N. (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked for now, per (possibly) user request. If it's not a legit user request, then it IS compromised. Anyway, I'm sure people are looking into this more. The block of course should be undone without prejudice, using an appropriate message indicating the status, once we know more. Friday (talk) 16:56, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I've notified User:Lar. This should be investigated, and precautions taken to make sure there are no lingering security risks. Per WP:BEANS, I won't enumerate what those might be. Jehochman Talk 16:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * DNM, He just told us it was compromised. Rudget is not dying in hospital. The evidence suggests it was him (He was checkusered), and though I don't want to believe that, it must have been him or someone he knows who he invited to his house.- Phoenix -  wiki  17:01, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes I know. I got caught up in 2 edi conflicts. D.M.N. (talk) 17:06, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * On his talk page he claims it was probably his cousin. I'd say now that he's been checkusered we extend him good faith. - Revolving Bugbear  17:03, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's unlikely that, after hearing their child might be dying, a parent would think only of the need to tell Wikipedians, as crucially important as we all are. SlimVirgin  (talk) (contribs) 17:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds to me like Rudget left himself logged in, and his cousin decided to have a laugh at our expense. That would explain the checkuser. A large helping of trout may be in order, but otherwise I'd suggest accepting his explanation. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 17:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * With the name of this cousin's account, we can see if it is true or not. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  17:13, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

If his crime is leaving himself logged in in his own house, it's difficult to call that negligent. Many of the rest of us are just as foolish for falling for this unlikely drama. Friday (talk) 17:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the trout option myself, once Rudget has confirmed that the account has been re-passworded and is logged out while he's away so long as the errant cousin is about. If we ultimately do find out the cousin's own a/c, checkuser can verify and we can act accordingly - A l is o n  ❤ 17:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't get it. How does info about some other account help us determine who was sitting at Rudget's own computer?  We can narrow it down to a particular computer (or, quite possible, a particular HOUSE, if there's NAT involved.)  We can't go further than that without driving to his house and interviewing the cousin.  Friday (talk) 17:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Quite, but as his cousin's from Ireland, all they have to do is log in, make an edit, and can be verified in that manner. Hardly necessary, really, as Rudget says his account is back in control (and said cousin is likely involved in some RL punishment right now!) - A l is o n  ❤ 17:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It doesn't, I'm taking to him on IRC now and apparently his cousin was at his house and did that, then left. Unless Rudget is suffereing from Munchausen syndrome, I see no reason why we can't forget this and move on.-- Phoenix -  wiki  17:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Much Ado About Nothing. I recommend an archive, and I did so on the talk page.  Any seconds?  <font color="#654321" face="comic sans ms">Keeper   |  <font color="#C2B280" face="Papyrus">76  17:57, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Clarify - I recommended an archive there. I didn't archive it.  <font color="#654321" face="comic sans ms">Keeper   |  <font color="#C2B280" face="Papyrus">76  17:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I saw Jehochman's talkpage message to me about this, but it appears it's now sorted out without the need for any more CUs. If not, and there is an action item here for me, please let me know... ++Lar: t/c 20:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

User:JzG
Jonathanwins (talk) 19:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)I feel that this user is using inappropriate language towards other users, he describes (on his talk page) another user as being "batshit insane", as someone who works in mental health, I believe this is a slur, like someone calling a black person by the n word. This is also against wp:civil as well. Jonathanwins (talk) 19:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Could you stop posting this everywhere? Thanks, Addhoc (talk) 20:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ugh... talk about SPAs, there is a case about this already. -  Ca ri bb e a  n ~ H. Q.  20:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser requests check
I put my name down for AWB but noticed that there is a request there from 6 days ago so i just wondered if there was any1 available to process this and my request. Seddon69 (talk) 20:20, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ - the one remaining is being looked into by another user and may be controversial. The other two I approved as they're clearly suitable. Orderinchaos 20:59, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Please delete
Bob Shaloob. Was PROD for 5 days and now says it may be deleted.. creator did not improve, copyedit, source, rename or merge the page as the notice said do, but instead he/she simply removed the PROD template. I have since restored it and now request the article be deleted. <strong style="letter-spacing:1px;font-family:Verdana">ALLSTAR echo 22:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * We don't restore prods once they have been removed. That's what the pr9ocess is for. It now needs to go to AFD. Spartaz Humbug! 22:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * (post resolved comment) It isn't encouraged for the article creator to remove PROD's without expansion or legitimate reason, otherwise PRODding would soon be deprecated. I note that there was some explanation given in the edit summary while removing, but still... LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That is incorrect. Article creators are free to disagree with the prod just as much as anyone else. -- JLaTondre 22:50, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * From WP:PROD:
 * Contested deletions: If anyone, including the article's creator, removes Template:Prod from an article for any reason, do not put it back, except if the removal was clearly not an objection to deletion (such as blanking the entire article, or removing the tag along with inserting blatant nonsense). If the edit is not obviously vandalism, do not restore tag, even if the tag was apparently removed in bad faith.
 * Pretty unequivocal there. - Revolving Bugbear  22:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay (third correction wins you a prize... ;~) ) LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:54, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

(see Articles for deletion/Bob Shaloob) <strong style="letter-spacing:1px;font-family:Verdana">ALLSTAR echo 23:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It might help to give a more detailed rationale than "non-notable", perhaps including a link to the relevant policy or guideline. One of the problems with prod is that they're often contested by new editors who don't understand Wikipedia's guidelines - "I'd have thought a candidate for congress was notable" is actually quite a reasonable thing for someone not familiar with WP:N to think. Cheers Iain99Balderdash and piffle 23:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Contents/Categorical index
Hi. Err, call me dumb, but should this page start with an article about the Khmer Serei Party ?? CultureDrone (talk) 19:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed. <small style="background:#fff;border:#4682b4 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 19:25, January 20, 2008

Ipblock exempt proposal
Wider audience for commenting requested...

A proposal has started to allow established or trusted editors to edit via Tor, or other anon proxy. This discussion is located at

talk page

The proposed policy in its “needs to be worked on” form is located at

project page

<small style="background:#fff;border:#4682b4 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">Mercury at 20:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Requests_for_arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan_2
Note: I have changed the title of this section so that it points to the right place. — Gavia immer (talk) 14:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The Committee has approved new remedies in this case and it is available at the link above. An uninvolved administrator may impose remedies, after warning, to include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project. Discretionary sanctions may be appealed. An administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she has not previously participated in any content disputes on articles in the area of conflict. Enforcing the provisions of this decision will not be considered to be participation in a dispute. This shall not affect any sanctions already imposed under the old remedies. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 02:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

User:PrincessKirlia
seems to be using her User space to create a choose-your-adventure game. Is this proper use of the User space? <font face="Comic Sans"> Corvus cornix talk  03:49, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the answer is generally no, but I'm tempted to suggest that we let it slide and see what they do. Probably should point them at MySpace or free web hosting companies that offer MediaWikis.  Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:17, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Support GWH's approach here (saw the notice you left on their talk page). R. Baley (talk) 18:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Template:Aircontent
The stuff in the section |sequence= isn't displayed!

At C-130 Hercules for example it should display:

Designation sequence C-127 - C-128 - C-129 - C-130 - C-131 - C-132 - C-133

Same problem with other plane articles.

--78.48.2.131 (talk) 12:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The sequence variable was removed from the template here. Nakon  12:36, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Whois and beans - consequences of convenience
I have run across a couple of cases were an IP address is publicly resolved to a specific personal name in the WHOIS data resources (for instance). Though we are not responsible for breaching privacy by providing a link to the WHOIS resource (templated on IP talk pages), I think it is in our best interests to in some way inform or assist the persons so affected. My thinking is to craft a template that has a couple of effects: a) it informs the IP user that they are STRONGLY encouraged to create a username/password rather than editing through IP; b) it suppresses the WHOIS link-containing banner footer. My feeling is that most people won't even realize that their name is being exposed publicly until it is pointed out to them. Thoughts? --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 12:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * If someone's knowledgeable enough to buy their own netblock they're pretty much guaranteed to be knowledgeable enough to know what a WHOIS will show. --bainer (talk) 12:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Not if the netblock is assigned by an ISP as part of an internet access package purchase. In that case, the user might have no idea about whois. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 12:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, some ISPs do give static IPs and then register the customer details on the whois. Customers often do not get told the details of this. One thing to be aware of is that performing a whois is not hard. Hence a public notice of "Your IP gives you away!" may encourage more people to perform a whois, even if the standard link is surpressed. LinaMishima (talk) 13:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I did actually consider whether my saying anything here was a case of my spilling the beans, but I thought that the benefit outweighed the risk. Whois is not a widely known resource, I think; usually it is wrapped behind "find your highschool chum" like websites or telephony white pages.  Even less well known are the rwhois server queries, but that's another story and requires client software.  What I am getting at here is a logical extension of the notion that we discourage people putting their personal information on Wikipedia.  The whois functionality is an assist to admins and editors alike, but I think that we should consider the consequences of that convenience.  In other words, I don't like the idea of Wikipedia inadvertently spilling WP:BEANS; I hasten to point out that there are very few sites like this that a) allow signature by IP and b) allow users to look up details of that IP in one package.  If the consensus is "surfer beware" and no action needed, I am ok with that, certainly.  I am considering sending a note to the ISP information email and asking whether users have opt-out capability for revealing identity via whois, to see if that is an option, in which case I might ask them to pass a message on to the user saying "umm, did you know ..."  That route could be taken by anyone as a personal action choice without any changes or disruption to wikipedia.  --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 13:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * P.S. I encourage archiving of this thread prior to it being picked up by bot, maybe after active contribution subsides. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 13:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I want to point out that it is stated that when you edit using your IP then you have no privacy and that it is suggested you make an account see here<span style="font-family:Papyrus, sans-serif; color:#775ca8;">Rgoodermote  13:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It does not say "you have no privacy". It says "Your computer's IP address can sometimes be used to find information about you, so registering increases your privacy by hiding it."  There is a pretty big difference between those two statements. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 03:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It basically (should have used that before but I was in a rush) says..no privacy. By saying that anyone can find information about you is saying that you do not have privacy of location, identity and anything you can think about that can be found through a Whois seach. By the way...isn't this technically settled (this section)? <span style="font-family:Papyrus, sans-serif; color:#775ca8;">Rgoodermote   18:08, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The wording pointed out above by User:Rgoodermote, that is currently found in Tutorial (Registration), seem very well-chosen: Your computer's IP address can sometimes be used to find information about you, so registering increases your privacy by hiding it. Not immediately clear how it could be improved. The WHOIS banner-footer is helpful in anti-vandal work, and I suggest it be kept. Is User:Ceyockey suggesting a special warning message to be given only to static IP users who are not institutions? (There is not much need to warn the Omaha Public Library, or Giant Worldwide Industries Inc., that they are losing privacy due to use of a static IP.) EdJohnston (talk) 18:12, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I will admit it was very well chosen, but that is not the problem at hand. I would say like the others adding a template that tells a person that you can find information about a person by simply clicking a URL is just opening Pandora's box. I have (for once) no solutions for this issue. <span style="font-family:Papyrus, sans-serif; color:#775ca8;">Rgoodermote  19:02, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The only cases I am concerned about in this particular context are those that contain information about a single individual. I agree with folks who have expressed concern that posting a note just draws attention to the issue.  I outlined a personal-action solution above.  I think we can close out this thread as a relatively complete treatment of the topic. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 14:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Rudget ....
... has just left the building. In deference to his wish to have his talk page redirected, I'm posting this here. This obviously relates to the incident earlier today and I just want to say that I'll miss him on the project here and would personally welcome him back here again - sysop bit an' all - whenever he's ready. Sad to see him go - he's one of the good guys - A l is o n  ❤ 02:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Bummer. Rudget was a good contributer and I'm sure he would've worked out to be a superb admin. Seems like a rash decision he is making, and a bit overboard, but it is his to make. <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">Avruch <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">talk 02:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * To be as frank as possible, this sucks. Keilana|Parlez ici 03:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * As far as I'm concerned, the only bad thing that happened in this incident was Rudget leaving. Other than that, there was no harm done and I really don't think we needed his cousin's account name;  if that account vandalises, it will get blocked, and if it doesn't, it doesn't need to be.  I hope he'll change his mind and come back. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps he feels that if it happened once, it could happen again. I remember last year when the admin accounts were hacked, and I think he's thinking of that too. HalfShadow (talk) 03:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I hope he invokes RTV. Whatever the case, I have taken on his admin coachee.  bibliomaniac 1  5  03:38, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It is a great loss. I hope he comes back. We have also just seen Rlevse leave as well. WP is getting too stressful. I hope Randy comes back too. --Bduke (talk) 03:40, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Horrible. Rudget was a great contributor, and the absence of this users contributions will be noticed. -- Rjd0060 (talk) 04:15, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

As above. <small style="background:#fff;border:#800080 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">Mercury at 04:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * My only advise to Rudget if he comes back is to not leave his fly open...-- Phoenix -  wiki  15:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Seeking feedback re: proxy editing
I'd like to sound out the community and make sure this stays on the right side of policy. Privatemusings is banned from Wikipedia for 90 days. He's learning the ropes at Commons now and doing some good work there. I've added one of his uploads to the Andrew Symonds article because it showed the athlete's face and the previous image didn't. I'd like to sound out the community about doing a little more of this for obviously helpful image edits, such as adding the commonscat template to an article after he creates a Commons category. Does anyone have an objection to these image edits, as long as the subjects are uncontroversial? I don't intend to alter any text content, except to provide an occasional plain vanilla caption. Durova Charge! 07:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * As his edits are off this project aren't a violation of his ban, per BAN. As long as the edit wasn't made under his request (per BAN), it should be fine, IMO. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:11, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually banned editors sometimes do quite well on other projects. Poetlister has become an admin on Wikiquote, I believe.  Durova Charge! 08:53, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Poetlister is probably a bad example, as he is an apparent sock puppet of, who had been an admin here until he was blocked for abusive sock-puppetry. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:14, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know a few things about that. Durova Charge! 09:30, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think there may be good reason to believe that the lumping in of Poetlister with Runcorn sock puppets may not necessarily be a good aggregation. And even if it is, Poetlister has done a lot of very good work. The WQ adminship was obtained before the second set of sock allegations came to a head, and the wq community decided that Poetlister's contributions were such that allegations elsewhere should be disregarded. I can't comment directly on the exact allegations as I have not seen the evidence. I do have testimony from checkusers I respect that it was solid, and yet, on the other hand, I know CU is imperfect, that circumstantial evidence can mislead, and that everything is not always as it seems. I think a thorough reexamination of matters might be merited. ++Lar: t/c 16:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) May we return to the original question? I helped explain the Commons category structure to Privatemusings by showing him a couple of Wikipedia articles' commonscat links. His Commons uploads have been uncontroversial stuff. If he gets into the habit of category sorting professional cricket players, or something like that, then does anyone mind if I add category links from the related Wikipedia articles? This seems like a far cry from the kind of behavior the proxy editing clause was intended to stop. Durova Charge! 20:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Go for it. Viridae Talk 00:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I promise to avoid any topic that's not cricket. ;)  Durova Charge! 00:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Account should be blocked as vandalism-only
No recent edits, so not an emergency, but obvious vandalism with every edit several times over past couple years. Also suggest blanking the account's userpage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jordanashley11

-- MeekSaffron (talk) 08:38, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Blocked as a vandalism-only account. Last contrib was in SEP07, a little stale, but, unlikely to turn productive. SQL <sup style="color:#999">Query me!  09:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Sideshow Bob Roberts
<div class="boilerplate metadata discussion-archived" style="background-color: #f5f3ef; margin: 2em 0 0 0; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA;">
 * The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

User:Sideshow Bob Roberts is an editor given to hostility whenever his pov is challenged. I'm requesting that his most recent outburst from Talk Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (below in italics) and his user discussion page be reviewed. He has been uncooperative and has declined to engage in good faith efforts to reach consensus since May 2007. He is territorial and resistant to good faith editing within "his" articles which generally related to the International Criminal Court.

"Raggz, this is absolute nonsense. The Rome Statute is a treaty between states. The law of treaties applies. You will not find a single person who understands international law who thinks otherwise. As usual, you're just making this shit up as you go along. Sideshow Bob Roberts (talk) 16:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC) If you are correct, you will find many reliable sources. Offer just one, please? We do not have Consensus for you to modify without reliable sources. Raggz (talk) 03:45, 19 January 2008 (UTC) Raggz, we both know the claim that "the Statute is not a treaty between states" is just something you made up. The reason I know this is because you could not have read it anywhere. As I said, nobody who understands international law would ever say this. You will not find a single source that agrees with you. The Rome Statute is clearly a "treaty between states". ''Article 125 of the Statute[1] makes it clear that only states can become party to the agreement. And if you look at the list of participants,[2] you'll notice that they're all states. The European Union can't become a party to the treaty, nor can the United Nations or Amnesty International, because the treaty is only open to states. It's a treaty between states. If you'd bothered to do five minutes of research, you would've realised that your claim that the law of treaties does not apply is ridiculous. Instead, as usual, you chose to make a crazy claim, delete relevant material for a patently false reason, and then demand that other editors take the time to disprove your crazy theory — even though you know damn well that it's just something you made up and you don't have a single source to support your theory. As I've said before, those of us who contribute to these articles have better things to do than repeatedly explain the basics of international law to someone who has no interest in the facts. Sideshow Bob Roberts (talk) 23:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Rome_Statute_of_the_International_Criminal_Court"

Of late he has been also editing some the pages where I edit where he had not edited prior. There have been no problems with these articles as of yet, the problems to date are limited to articles that he "owns", those relating to the International Criminal Court and I request that he be banned from these indefinately. A temporary ban will only result in his turning up again with the same simmering hostilty that boiled over again(above). If he will (or cannot) not commit to a good-faith effort, I believe that a permenent ban is the only effective approach, this problem is of long duration and I do not believe that he is capable of adapting. If he decides to make a commitment here - to changing his editorial style, I will believe him and recommend that the administrators also believe him. However, I do not believe that he will admit to any error, nor that he is capable of committing to any changes. If he does so, he should be taken seriously.

ARBITRATION
I once suggested that we request arbitration, but that did not work out. If we were directed to arbitration, that would be fine. I have no problem working with him again if he will engage with a collegial good-faith effort. He has a lot to offer, if he decides to engage in good faith efforts. Raggz (talk) 02:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

TINY-MINORITY CLAIM

 * FROM: International Criminal Court
 * The majority of the world's population have decided to live without the ICC. Are these people a "tiny-minority"? Why have they declined the ICC? Kissinger speaks in part for this "tiny-minority. Raggz
 * Raggz, even if a majority of the world's population passionately hates the ICC, that doesn't mean every conceivable criticism of the ICC is significant. You're simply wrong to suggest that the majority of the world's population thinks the Prosecutor “has virtually unlimited discretion in practice”. The only person saying this is Henry Kissinger. That makes it a "tiny-minority view". If you are correct that the majority of the world thinks the Prosecutor “has virtually unlimited discretion in practice”, you should have no problem finding someone who agrees with Kissinger on this. I asked you to do this last June, but you haven't done so. If you can find any evidence that India or China thinks the Prosecutor “has virtually unlimited discretion in practice”, feel free to add it to the article. Otherwise, it's absurd to suggest that the majority of the world's population agrees with Henry Kissinger. Sideshow Bob Roberts (talk) 00:21, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

ICC effectivness to date

 * DELETED FROM: International Criminal Court AS ORIGINAL RESEARCH

The primary limitation for ICC effectiveness was reported to the UN in 2006 as: "Over one year has passed since the Court issued its first arrest warrants and all five subjects of the warrants remain at large. The Court does not have its own police force to arrest those persons. If trials are to be held, States and international organizations must assist the Court by arresting and surrendering those persons and others for whom warrants are issued in the future." Raggz (talk) 02:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This is all a load of complete nonsense. Raggz is a pathological liar.  As I've pointed out on this noticeboard before,  he persistently lies in articles, edit summaries and discussion pages.  And every time we have a dispute, he makes up a bunch of outright lies about me.
 * For example, his claim that "Of late he has been also editing some the pages where I edit where he had not edited prior" is a blatant lie. (Raggz, please name one article I've edited recently that I hadn't been involved in previously.)
 * I encourage admins to review my contributions for any evidence of POV-pushing or ownership issues. Sideshow Bob Roberts (talk) 04:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Taulant23 & complaint

 * See his contribs and stop/ban him now please.I have had it with lying calling me names ruining pages......And


 * Note to admins.Just like Thomas Lessman Thomas Lessman-World History Site.Thomas has maps on Wiki and he puts them in his site too.I do the same and i have photobucket and flickr accounts and other sites.I research,make them,put them in wiki and than in other places.For example This is meMegistiasOlvios01:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)Megistias (talk)
 * Without prejudice to the content at hand, I note that these edits  seem quite nasty, as an attempt to discredit the person complaining.  x42bn6 Talk Mess  01:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You should see his other edits calling me names that he never apologised for in my talk page.Megistias (talk) 01:14, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * talkpage historyHe writes that i have shit in my head and that i am an asshole(malaka)Megistias (talk) 01:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I want to be protected from that dude and his lies and his harrassment.He spams slur and he doenst even know what a sourced item is or how anything works regarding articles & images.Megistias (talk) 03:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Not to mention his baseless accusations of sockpuppetry [talk:Lucasbfr&diff=185538292&oldid=185536596]. It's all reflected in his talk page.  --Tsourkpk (talk) 18:40, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Should perhaps move this to AN/I. <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">Avruch <strong style="color:#fff;background:#000;border:1px solid #ccf">talk 18:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Note from "involved" admin: There were multiple previous complaints about Taulant23 during the last few days, and Moreschi gave him the Macedonia Arbcom warning just the other day. Sanctions probably in order. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:46, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Please see our contribs and history.Taulant has not changed behaviour nor his spam provoke tactics.Megistias (talk) 09:03, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Again...Megistias (talk) 09:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Gaming the system
Hello, I am not expecting anything to be done about this, so you may pretend you didn't notice this post. I know there is nothing that can be done against administrators' superior knowledge of the system and their miss-use of it, I would like though to expose what happened in this case just for posterity, and general interest.
 * I nominated Truth & Consequences an article about a heroes episode for deletion. Logically an AfD should end in delete, keep or no consensus (AfD discussion).  However in this case it ended in redirect to List of Heroes episodes.  So someone starts a DRV (Deletion review/Log/2008 January 9), and it was closed as moot).
 * Recipe
 * 1. Close the AfD in an obviously incorrect manner, that preserves the page history (make sure nobody provides any proof of notability for better effects at step 3)
 * 2. Start a DRV
 * 3. Undo the redirect and add some shoddy notability links, claiming they prove the AfD is now wrong
 * 4. Close the DRV as moot, or some other nonsensical result.
 * OK, now what can I poor little editor do ? I just want to help keep it an encyclopedia, but I am denied the use of AfD, because they won't give me a valid result, and I am denied the use of DRV because they used it for some minor point before I had the chance to.
 * And the AfD closer has the guts to say However, in future, I respectfully request that merge discussions take place editorially. Maybe the fact that I was using the Articles for deletion, process would have been a clue that I was aiming for deletion.  If the consensus is that the article should be kept then just come out with it, that's fine, if notability is no longer required for TV series episodes, then so be it, I have no problem with consensus going against what I thought was best.  But the wheeling and dealing whereby no decision is made but the deletion process is shut off to me is annoying.


 * Obviously admins know best and have more experience, but the attitude of using such knowledge to stop newer editors from using the process for their designed purposes is really not helpful to the project as a whole.
 * How on earth this article doesn't fail WP:NOT is beyond me, all I know is that next time I will think twice before deciding to be nice and only nominating 1 article at a time, if the only reward I get is people using their superior experience of the system to deny me proper access to it. The first thing on every page is the free encyclopedia, why won't you let me try to apply this ? Jackaranga (talk) 03:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I understand your concerns, but there's a few issues happening here that make this a rather complicated process presently.
 * There's a current big to-do over television episodes, notability, and how to deal with non-notable episodes. You case see and participate in some of the discussion at WT:EPISDOE, WT:FICT, this RFC, and the ArbCom case.
 * As noted in the AfD discussion, deletion of episode articles is discouraged - instead, articles should be redirected to the episode list of interest. This allows any editor to come back later to recover the article text retained even with reversion as to improve it to meet notability aspects.  Thus, the AfD should have never closed with "delete and protect" as the subsequent deletion review indicates.
 * Again, episode notability is current under question but the addition of reviews shows good faith effort to establishing notability and thus there should be no rush to merge or redirect the article. It's not a lot however, and the current trend in the above discussions for notability may require more, but for now, good faith efforts are appropriate.
 * I would suggest that presently, the best you can do is, instead of sending articles to AfD, is to tag them as non-notable throught the notability template, and explain your concerns on the talk page and work with the editors to improve it. --M<font size="-3">ASEM  03:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, just a note, things like redirect and merge are common AFD outcomes. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, just because the title says "Articles for deletion" does not mean that delete/don't delete are the only options. But, I'm not sure what you are complaining about, no one on the AFD except for you supported deletion, deletion is not a possible outcome for that AFD. Its not "gaming the system," its consensus. Mr.  Z- man  03:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I echo Mr.Z-man's comment, as well as adding that the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit does not mean that anyone is free to write whatever they want. It means that the content of the encyclopedia is free to distribute, and that anyone can edit without cost or obligation.   Keegan talk 05:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You still have no answer for my question, why is the article not a redirect now ? Basically consensus was redirect, someone went against consensus and restored the full article, and at the DRV you just say moot, instead of enforcing consensus or finding a new consensus (if the new consensus is keep, just say it please, don't say moot).  Waiting for the end of the AfD before bringing up the notability links is gaming the system, because they knew they would not stand scrutiny during an AfD process.  The fact that the DRV option closed as moot is gaming the system, the fact that nobody commented on my concern at the AfD that the article failed WP:NOT is gaming the system, the fact that people said the episode was notable but did not provide any proof of it is gaming the system.  The fact that there is no clear final decision as to whether it should be a redirect or an article is gaming the system.  If consensus is keep I have no problem with that just say so.  Jackaranga (talk) 17:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The AfD was closed as Redirect based on the article's text during the debate. Later, during the DRV, a new version of the article that addresses concerns from the Deletion debate was restored, and the DRV closed as moot as a result. If the redirect result relied on flaws in the article that no longer exist, then why would it be enforced? If the current version is unsatisfactory in some way, and discussion on the talk page cannot resolve the problem, then a re-nomination after some time would not be unwarranted. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 17:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

vandal user Megistias/PLZ HELP/what side are you on team
Hello Administrators,please try to help in here.

Albanias page and my user rights have been vandalizem by Megistias (talk) by deleting my comments in discussion page of Albania and in Edwin E. Jacques discussion page.As I have stated in the discussion page of the Albania article,Albania s page its been attacked by Greek nationalists so they will claim lands or erase the history of the Albanian people,the burden of proof is on your shoulders.

The page its a mess and so far no one has said or done anything to fix it.I'm disappointed that User:Future Perfect at Sunrise is clearly taking sides in this dispute. Perhaps he's been long enough to these topics to have lost the balance he should have as an administrator?

Wikipedia has lost her value only because of them.Since when Megistias (talk) opened his account in Wikipedia it is been a hell of a edit-warring with him.I stoped in here because I know you can make him reason.I did reported him on the other admin too,I do have faith in you,since you had helped me before. He has not done anything to improve the article,deleting all that impressive amount of source materials put by other users.Edit-warring and revert-warring accomplishes nothing. If he continues to be uncooperative,he needs to be banned,I hope that you will help.Thank you again for your time,I assume a good faith and I hope we can help each other.Thank you.--Taulant23 (talk) 09:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I am adding these part because of the abuse that Megistias (talk) is doing in my message to the Administrators.--Taulant23 (talk) 10:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * They can read the history of pages taulant stop misleading.Megistias (talk) 09:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)<<________Here another abuse from him,in my books a typical vandal..--Taulant23 (talk) 09:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My opinion on this is that Taulant has to be banned for several years.There is not "wiki" sin he hasnt commited he hanst shown remorse and he only gets worse with leaps and bounds.Megistias (talk) 09:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)<< number two, as we can see he does not know the rules of wikipedia,or he pretends like he does not,typical vandal--Taulant23 (talk) 09:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Stay tuned for more drama on As the Wikipedia Turns. JuJube (talk) 10:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, definitely too much drama between these two guys during the last few days. I'm getting convinced that we need sanctions against both to keep them off each other's throats. Taulant certainly, as I've said during the last days, but it becomes more and more apparent that Megistias aggressive mode of response is not helping at all. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * He should just stop .He undehandedly attacked me and called me Malakas and that i have shit in my head.Megistias (talk) 10:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * He hasnt even been punished for slandering on my maps and other lies against me.He has offered nothing.Megistias (talk) 10:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Your maps are created (photoshoped) by you,so they have no significant value or so.Keep it comming.Thank you.--Taulant23 (talk) 10:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * They are sourced(read some wiki rules) and your attacks were that i am "Greek ...propaganda".10:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Most maps in wiki are created from scratch like theseMaps.Megistias (talk) 10:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

They are photoshoped by you to achieve your nationalists dream of claim lands in Albania, like your personal photobucket account where you stored all your misleading maps (I am sure its closed by now, or you deleted the shovinist maps and pictures).Its 2008,wake up buddie.--Taulant23 (talk) 10:47, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Can someone protect me from this kid?Megistias (talk) 10:48, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ban him forever.Anyway the photobucket is mine so what?...Chauvinist maps?Only ancient maps in general..I had pics of my family too moron.Megistias (talk) 10:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)<<<<___See another abuse,please Apologise,no buddie is calling you names.Your so called maps take half of Albania,example Illyria-1 pic.--Taulant23 (talk) 10:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * YOu called me malakas and that i hae shit in my head.There was no albania in antiquity.Megistias (talk) 10:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

First,you should Apologise and second keep your shovinist ideas of North Epirus way from Wikipedia,you will create hate between our people,and i know what is truth & what is propaganda, its sad to see that there is still people stuck in the past....'''Wiki isn´t propaganda platform!!! '''.plz do not replie here,stop trolling too,this is my message to the Admins,have a good night and thank you for your contribution.--Taulant23 (talk) 11:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Since he is not gonna change whatever you do in general do it fast.Megistias (talk) 11:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)<<<____ another typical vandals way,stop it,don't you know when to stop,I said have a good night,take a break Megistias.--Taulant23 (talk) 11:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Both of you are warned of the remedies detailed in Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2. In particular, you need to maintain a basic standard of civility. If the inappropriate behaviour occurs, you may be subject to editing restrictions not limited to blocks, topic bans or civility parole. MER-C 11:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * What does Armenia-Azerbaijan have to do with this.I never edited Armenia-Azerbaijan articles.Megistias (talk) 11:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Editors contributing to articles on Eastern European history, broadly defined, are under instruction to behave themselves: Requests for arbitration/Digwuren. This is the result of three similar Requests for arbitration: Digwuren, Piotrus and Armenia-Azerbaijan. All of which resulted from similar cases of disruption. DrKiernan (talk) 11:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, the Macedonia case is even more directly relevant, and Taulant was already warned for it. Please, somebody, put some measures in force now, I think this is past the time for mere warnings. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Both blocked. DrKiernan (talk) 14:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. I've blocked Taulant23 for 72 hours and placed Megistias on supervised editing. The extra block won't hurt, though, these two have caused way too much grief recently. We need to be vigorous in enforcing Requests for arbitration/Macedonia. Balkans articles have been a total mess for way too long. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 14:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually taulant is winning since i am thinking of quiting wiki.He should have been banned forever a long time ago.Spend some time reading his "sources" and the sum of his activities.Megistias (talk) 14:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Great.
So, in 24 hours alone, Wikipedia has lost two-good faith administrators, Rlevse and Rudget. Obviously there is not much we can do about the Rudget situation, but to do with the Rlverse situation, as noted on the ANI board, the situation with him got taken completely out of proportion. I think some users need to think about the effect their posts can have on others before posting it. Just thought i'd let you now about these two very sad departures. D.M.N. (talk) 10:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't worry about it. I've seen many administrators quit in a big cloud of drama, only to quietly return to editing days or weeks later, sometimes with a new account. Catchpole (talk) 11:12, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. There is an unlimited number of highly qualified people who will anonymously contribute to the project regardless of the hostile working environment. After all, they have no other options if they want to contribute to the common good, and they cannot write anywhere else. Tom Harrison Talk 13:17, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Eh, I sort of disagree that the Rudget situation was out of our hands. He really got the shaft from the community. See, when the real Rudget came back, he was given the third degree in a big way about whether his story about what happened would check out and all that. It ended in a bunch of people saying they would "assume good faith" even though "they found it hard to believe" or "despite all evidence to the contrary". He got handled pretty roughly, despite being the clear victim in this case. I'm not surprised it drove him away -- I was a little disillusioned too. - Revolving Bugbear  13:31, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * People make mistakes. I'd much rather have an admin that makes occasional mistakes and fixes them readily, than one that only very rarely makes mistakes but does not admit mistakes were made and does not fix them. I think it was more likely that Rudget was in the first category than the second. ++Lar: t/c 19:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Mayhap, although I'm still not convinced. Nothing we can do about it now, though. - Revolving Bugbear  22:53, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm positive Rlevse will be back sometime in the future after he's had a bit of a break and time to cool down, though I doubt Rudget will edit from that account again.-- Phoenix -  wiki  22:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Rlevse has returned. <b style="color:#FF0000;">Hut 8.5</b> 19:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

RFCU backlogged?
Requests for checkuser has cases more than 48 hours old. I favor public handling of cases when possible. Speedy processing helps promote transparency, avoids bad blocks, and discourages disruptive sock puppetry. We don't want folks to give up on the process and be tempted to make blocks based on incomplete information. Jehochman Talk 18:26, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'm working on the backlog now. I've a ton of other stuff to do but will focus here. FWIW, a lot of work goes on with checkuser that folks can't normally see and certain cases can take hours to get a definitive result on. It's a lot of hard work, and most of it is stultifying in it sheer drudgery - A l is o n  ❤ 19:47, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * What? Checkuser is not magic pixie dust? hbdragon88 (talk) 22:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There's a backlog of tough cases at WP:SSP. I am feeding them one at a time to RFCU so as not to overwhelm.  Thank you, Alison!  Jehochman  Talk 22:47, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Do we have a shortage of checkusers?  bibliomaniac 1  5  00:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I thought that a few new ones were added in recently. I think the new arbcom members are allowed to obtain checkuser if they ask, maybe that will help the backlog a bit. Wizardman  00:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm yeah there are a few. Although check the actual recent cases to see the unbalanced workload.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 00:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed. BTW - Blnguyen (yeah, that guy right there!) is doing a huge amount of the casework on RFCU right now. Kudos to you, sir! - A l is o n  ❤ 00:52, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Off-site collusion to disrupt Wikipedia
As some of you may know, for the past few months there has been an IP editor who has repeatedly added the word 'tender' to a sentence in The Streets. Much discussion has taken place, and it was overwhelmingly decided that such language was inappropriate. The IP was undeterred, and continued inserting the word, leading to his/her being blocked and to the page being protected. The vandalism increased dramatically in the last few weeks (Example 1, Example 2, Example 3). The IP has admitted to recruiting their friends, resulting in the aforementioned spike in disruption. To top it all of, the editor has now started a Facebook group in order to encourage others to come to Wikipedia with the sole intention of disrupting the encyclopedia (the Facebook page was posted to Talk:The Streets here). As the page is protected, this was clearly an exercise in futility. My question is, can something be done to end this nonsense once and for all? This has gone on far too long as it is, and the actions of the IP make it clear that they have no intention of letting it die any time soon. Cheers, faithless   (speak)  01:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe I'm low on patience today, but this (the "tender" controversy, not Faithless's post) is, to a first approximation, the stupidest cause to fight for in the history of the Internet. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Lol. Keep the page semied untill they get bored. bingo, no more fun. Viridae Talk 01:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "Untill (sic) they get bored" seems to have already come actually. There hasn't been an edit since the 15th to the article nor has there been discussion at the Facebook page about it.  Metros (talk) 01:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I hate the word until, I always miss-spell it. Viridae Talk 01:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but I'm an English major so I'm legally required to make such notations in quotations :) Metros (talk) 01:48, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Skinner acquired his first keyboard at the tender age of five after moving to Birmingham from Barnet, North London.


 * Good grief! --Tony Sidaway 01:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally I prefer "Skinner acquired his first tender keyboard at the age of five after tenderly moving..." but no one asked me. Metros (talk) 01:48, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Aha hah, you forgot the very important fact that the tender keyboard was obatined after he put asked for tenders from keyboard manufacturers and one of them replied with a suitibley cheap tender. Viridae Talk 02:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd be fine with "Skinner tenderly acquired his first keyboard..." :P Newyorkbrad summed up my feelings perfectly, that this is just about the stupidest dispute I've ever come across. I'm fine with keeping it semi'd until they finally get bored and go away, if everyone thinks that's the way to go. faithless   (speak)  02:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The whole thing is an obvious candidate for WP:LAME.--<font color="7F007F">Rodhullandemu  (Talk) 02:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, keep it semied and move on.....let um be stupid and continue to block them if they dont stop. What more can you do? Tiptoety  talk 06:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I would play them Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem's version of "Tenderly" until they begged for mercy. --<font color="7F007F">Rodhullandemu  (Talk) 07:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Semi-protected for great justice! -- llywrch (talk) 23:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Search rangeblocks link broken
The "search rangeblocks" link at Special:Ipblocklist is broken; the correct link is this one. Could somebody edit the appropriate MediaWiki page? (I don't know how to locate it.) - Mike Rosoft (talk) 10:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC) The message is located at MediaWiki:Ipblocklist-summary (I am not updating it since I don't know how the Tool namespace's url are working and the toolserver seems to be down). (Special:AllMessages is handy to look for a particular message) -- lucasbfr  talk 12:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * By the way, the autoblock tool returns outdated information; for example, my log ends on 25 November last year. (Is there anything that could be done about that? Just asking.) - Mike Rosoft (talk) 10:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I see. The page uses "Tools:" interwiki, and as a result the software translates the URL parameters (using "?foo=bar" syntax) into "%??" elements. I'll try replacing it with a direct link. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 13:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, the link works now, but displays a stray external link symbol. Feel free to revert me (and remove the parameter altogether), or fix the page in any other way. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 13:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Bah after all, it is an external link :) -- lucasbfr  talk 13:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I just added a to it to get rid of the external link symbol thing.  Mr.  Z- man  19:31, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Requests_for_arbitration/Kingofmann
This arbitration case has been dismissed and the final decision is available at the link above. The community can take care of this entire issue itself -- the article has been deleted and User:Kingofmann has departed wikipedia. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 21:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Hadseys
Is that OK? Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 01:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I have seen it doen before. I have no problem with it personally. Viridae Talk 01:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is hurting anything. Tiptoety  talk 05:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Suspected sock puppets/Omniarerum
I've had this case listed and evidenced for several days now without any comment from anyone except the accused puppetmaster, who has mainly been editing to place his rebuttals in the evidence section instead of the comments. (Which I've finally moved; his comments contained no "evidence" to counter the claims.) I would greatly appreciate some experienced editors reviewing the evidence and weighing in here; this may need to be administrators specifically, since a fair percentage of the edits are to a now-deleted article. Many thanks! Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 01:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've given my opinion, I'd like an administrator to offer a second opinion. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 03:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Resolved, per Shalom's suggestion. There was nothing actionable. Jehochman  Talk 04:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Posting a notice about an RFC on the watchlist
I'd like to ask the opinions of administrators regarding the addition of a notice about Television episodes/RFC Episode Notability to the Template:Watchlist-notice. Yesterday User:Riana helped me add the notice as I had little clue how the code works; the edit was reverted a few minutes later by an administrator (User:Phil Sandifer), who asserted that the issue didn't meet the "requirements" of inclusion, which in fact did not exist (in written form). There was a brief discussion which went nowhere here, for some background information. As far as I am aware, four users who got involved have agreed to adding the RFC notice, including User:Hiding, User:Riana, User:Seraphim Whipp and me (three of whom are administrators); User:Phil Sandifer was the only one who expressed his disapproval on the grounds that the notice would set "too massive a precedent" (which I considered a slippery slope), his view makes me doubt whether he appreciates the importance of this RFC notice. I'm posting here because I'm sure a many users who visit this noticeboard regularly in the past year are aware of the considerable controversy which have led to numerous reports concerning the matter on this very page. It's not necessary to set strict limits against a move that would definitely help improve the project (and this is worth a consideration of WP:IAR), but that's just my opinion. Comments please? - PeaceNT (talk) 13:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't looked at the discussion, so this is just my general opinion. I think that the use of the watchlist notice needs to be kept rare, so that it can be used to convey rare but critical news to editors. My feeling is that this means that ordinary content discussions should not go on the watchlist notice, since that would mean it was more or less always used. There are many other ways to announce them: village pumps and the centralized discussion are two. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I strongly recommend you read the original discussion first, where PeaceNT, in my opinion, has given some indubitably good points reasoning her decision to add the notice on the watchlist. In addtion, as you seem to be unaware of what is going on in the assumed "ordinary content discussions", let me recapitulate the situation. The practice of WP:EPISODE and WP:FICT has long been the focus of altercation among both the editors whose editing fields are directly concerned and other unconcerned. This debate was initiated from a phenomenon of tempestuous redirection and merging, continued escalating to 2 RfCs, one arbitration case and advancing to the threshold of the second arbcom.  The ongoing RfC, aforethoughtly or not, was placed in a subpage of Wikipedia talk:Television episodes, thus it doesn't draw enough attention from editors who have interest in the debate like it should have done. Furthermore, your suggestion to popularize the existence of the discussion will undoubtedly fail to work out  since many people rarely or never visit village pumps (myself included). However, with a notice on watchlist, the effect undoubtedly can't be denied. Once again, I have to address that this discussion is of great importance, for its influence may lead up to a new conception of notability. Perhaps some sketches above help you visualize the situation and reconsider your opinion. @pple complain 14:21, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I was aware that this subject has spawned two arbitration cases, has been discussed on the mailing list, and has otherwise been ostentatious. Editors who want to comment on issues like this need to check the village pumps from time to time; those are the designated forums for community discussion. Of course an RFC that is only publicized on the episodes page won't get much attention. But if it is listed at the village pump, the "centralized discussion" list, and the RFC list, that is more than adequate notice for editors who are paying attention. As I said, I prefer to save the watchlist notice for use on a very occasional basis. Disputes like this happen frequently enough that they would never leave the watchlist notice blank, which would lead to an erosion of its utility. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, it turned out that you have been fully aware of the dispute in question. What bother me is your description of such event as "ordinary content discussions", which is an unthoughtful undervaluation with respect to the colossal impact of the debate outcome on a significant division of encyclopedic topics. It decides the inclusion of thousands of articles on Wikipedia; it is believed to be the determinant factor in policy/guideline reestablishment and redefinition of notability concept. If this kind of dispute happens frequently as you state, I really doubt the fast development of Wikipedia as nowadays. The contribution of editors, which should be mobilized as much as possible, is the core material for discussion advancement. How many events in the year that need a watchlist notification? Is the number of usage excessive enough to the extent that we have to "save" it for "occasional basis"? Or only some events like arbcom and steward elections that take the merit of having notification? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; the debate is directly related to the kernel of Wikipedia: articles. A notice just bringing beneficial result does no harm but good to the project. Additionally, you seem to hold of the wrong end of the stick. I know that village pumps are designated as forums for community discussion, I know that the dispute is listed dispersively somewhere else. But what is the point here? Does an editor who yearly does the work of an editor bother to go to the RfC list to check if there is recent event related to her field of editing? Would she suddenly find it interesting to pay a visit to VP and discover a dispute notification among other numerous notifications like that? We can't wait the luck to come and faithlessly hope somebody will find it somewhere. There comes the proposal of watchlist notice, a simple method that warrants the certainty that almost all of editors, concerned or unconcerned, are well-informed. @pple complain 17:49, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * One option that may help is to put the Centralized_discussion template on your user page or user talk page. Similarly, some editors put a table of RFA candidates on their talk page, so they "don't miss any". Among the recent issues that could conceivably be suggested for putting on the watchlist are:
 * The ambox implemention (standardization of cleanup message boxes)
 * Disagreements with articles about highways
 * Disagreements about articles for TV characters and episodes
 * Proposals for new speedy deletion criteria
 * Disagreements about the manual of style
 * Changes or rewrites of any number of policies and guidelines
 * The issue of nonfree images in list articles
 * Other issues with deletion of nonfree images, and rationales for nonfree images
 * Issues with WP:N and other notability standards.
 * Issues with articles about Palestine and Israel, or Kurdistan, or other contentious topics
 * All of these are being discussed, in various forums, right now. In my mind, although the disagreements about TV episode articles are serious, so are the other issues above. And I am sure my perspective is very limited, and there are many other important discussions that I have missed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm the one that set up the RFC and made sure it was announced at WP:VPP and (eventually, thanks to a misfiring bot) onto the RFCPolicy page, but as I've noted, I have never seen the watchlist notification used for something so specific, and about content as well. It would have been one thing if the ultimate question "Is or is not Wikipedia a fan guide?" (this question is not being asked, this is just an example!) which would have significantly more impact than the episodes RFC and even then, I don't think it's an automatic inclusion in the watchlist notifications.
 * Arguably, it would be nicer if there was a way to guide people to certain pages if they would like to help and understand policy more ((WP:VPP is not readily connected to the typical Welcome message), but that's exactly what those type of places are for - wide area announcements of issues that likely do not affect the whole of Wikipedia. --M<font size="-3">ASEM  14:34, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I've given a suggestion of using WikiProject banners as ways to give mass notification to a set of articles, as seen on Template:WikiProject DIGI. Personally, I'd like for such an RfC to be more organized and have a wider scope before being on a watchlist notice. Just putting a notice on and saying "go to X page" isn't enough, and newcomers need some kind of summary or context. This RfC is also just one step of a larger issue within the episode-article debate. -- Ned Scott 04:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

By my estimate, if we had an article on every episode ever of every American television program in the last 50 years (which we don't) that wouldn't crack 5% of the total encyclopedia. To say that this is of wide concern involves a fundamental miscalculation of scale - 95% of articles have nothing to do with this, and we can assume a similar percentage of editors. To start using the watchlist notice for this level of wide appeal diminishes the usefulness of the notice. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Phil, your estimate is on the conservative side by a country mile. You've only covered the US. If we broaden it out to only the larger English speaking countries which this wiki is nominally supposed to cover we need to multiply by something like five, (Australia, Canada, the Commonwealth Caribbean, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America), giving us potentially a quarter of the encyclopedia.  Other than that, I think there needs to be wider input into the issue at the RFC, and would appreciate any other options for getting this out to the widest possible audience. Hiding T 12:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes - you can expand it a fair bit. You can also point out that I assumed hour-long shows, and many shows are/were half-hour. Though the international thing won't expand it five-fold: notably I was estimating five networks producing 18 hours a week for 22 weeks of the year for the US - an output that the other countries don't come close to matching.
 * Here's the thing, though: List of I Love Lucy episodes. List of Full House episodes. NYPD Blue currently has season pages instead of episode pages. Most reality shows go with season pages. Which is going to backslide you dramatically from the 5% number, especially since outside of a few "crown jewels" of other countries (Doctor Who) you don't have episode by episode coverage of most of them. Even Slings & Arrows, Due South and Sandbaggers don't have episode by episode coverage. Which is why I wasn't too worried about leaving out international television - because I knew the assumption that we actually had episode-by-episode coverage of all of the shows was going to inflate the number to well higher than it could possibly be in reality.
 * To give you an idea of the drop-off, looking at 2007-08 United States network television schedule (figuring that presentist bias will give us an upper bound on episode-by-episode coverage - that is, more shows from this season will have episode by episode coverage than any other season). My estimate was for 90 shows that would produce episode articles. In reality, there are a total of 83 separate shows running. Of those we have articles on more than the first two episodes of 23 of them. So optimistically, we probably have 25% as many articles on episodes of American television as I estimated. And, again, that's factoring a massive presentist bias in. If you go back to 1975-76 United States network television schedule we don't even have articles on every *series,* little yet every episode - there, again, I assumed 90 shows worth of episodes. In reality there are only 60 shows there, and only 2 have episode articles, meaning the number for that season was actually only 2% of what I estimated. So even with the ignoring of international television, my 5% estimate was high. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, I give. I still think we need a line in the sand on which episodes get coverage, but that's not the debate here.  Hiding T 13:31, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Makara Jyothi
I’ve had a general cleanup in the article Makara Jyothi and asked for third opinion about removing all three tags placed. I listed it in RFCreli list also. Before doing it, asked another admin’s opinion also. I would have removed all tags as no consensus formed yet after a massive cleanups made. However, since it is a disputed article, administrator’s intervention is imperative in this case. Until now, no action taken yet. Please verify the current article and remove (if ok) all tags placed. -- Avinesh Jose <font style="color:#FFFFFF;background:#000000;font-family:Verdana;"> T  08:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Wider attention for significant AfD: Adult-child sex
I'm not sure if this is an appropriate place to post this, but I thought editors here might want to know about this AfD, because it is an important issue for Wikipedia and would benefit from the clearest possible result, considering the controversial history of the topic and the other articles related to this one.

This is a neutral request for comments at the Afd for Adult-child sex

My intention is not canvassing. I'm not the nominator of the AfD and I'm not posting this to find others to agree with my position in the debate. More editors will be better for the results, whichever way it goes.

The AfD will be closing very soon I think -- it's page is here:

Articles for deletion/Adult-child sex (2nd nomination)

It seems like the best thing for Wikipedia would be for more editors to enter comments at the AfD, so that whatever is decided, it is done with wide participation, so it can be better seen as a community consensus.

Thanks. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 09:52, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * On how many boards have you posted a notice about this? I seem to recall seeing about a half dozen a few days ago... Pairadox (talk) 12:56, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm....seems a little contradictory, if you ask me:

This is a neutral request for comments at the Afd for Adult-child sex

My intention is not canvassing. I'm not the nominator of the AfD and I'm not posting this to find others to agree with my position in the debate.  More editors will be better for the results, whichever way it goes.

I'm tempted to clain DUCK on this one! :)

That friendly alien from the Vorlon Home World, previously known as Kosh —Preceding comment was added at 16:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Posting a notice about an RFC on the watchlist
I'd like to ask the opinions of administrators regarding the addition of a notice about Television episodes/RFC Episode Notability to the Template:Watchlist-notice. Yesterday User:Riana helped me add the notice as I had little clue how the code works; the edit was reverted a few minutes later by an administrator (User:Phil Sandifer), who asserted that the issue didn't meet the "requirements" of inclusion, which in fact did not exist (in written form). There was a brief discussion which went nowhere here, for some background information. As far as I am aware, four users who got involved have agreed to adding the RFC notice, including User:Hiding, User:Riana, User:Seraphim Whipp and me (three of whom are administrators); User:Phil Sandifer was the only one who expressed his disapproval on the grounds that the notice would set "too massive a precedent" (which I considered a slippery slope), his view makes me doubt whether he appreciates the importance of this RFC notice. I'm posting here because I'm sure a many users who visit this noticeboard regularly in the past year are aware of the considerable controversy which have led to numerous reports concerning the matter on this very page. It's not necessary to set strict limits against a move that would definitely help improve the project (and this is worth a consideration of WP:IAR), but that's just my opinion. Comments please? - PeaceNT (talk) 13:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't looked at the discussion, so this is just my general opinion. I think that the use of the watchlist notice needs to be kept rare, so that it can be used to convey rare but critical news to editors. My feeling is that this means that ordinary content discussions should not go on the watchlist notice, since that would mean it was more or less always used. There are many other ways to announce them: village pumps and the centralized discussion are two. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I strongly recommend you read the original discussion first, where PeaceNT, in my opinion, has given some indubitably good points reasoning her decision to add the notice on the watchlist. In addtion, as you seem to be unaware of what is going on in the assumed "ordinary content discussions", let me recapitulate the situation. The practice of WP:EPISODE and WP:FICT has long been the focus of altercation among both the editors whose editing fields are directly concerned and other unconcerned. This debate was initiated from a phenomenon of tempestuous redirection and merging, continued escalating to 2 RfCs, one arbitration case and advancing to the threshold of the second arbcom.  The ongoing RfC, aforethoughtly or not, was placed in a subpage of Wikipedia talk:Television episodes, thus it doesn't draw enough attention from editors who have interest in the debate like it should have done. Furthermore, your suggestion to popularize the existence of the discussion will undoubtedly fail to work out  since many people rarely or never visit village pumps (myself included). However, with a notice on watchlist, the effect undoubtedly can't be denied. Once again, I have to address that this discussion is of great importance, for its influence may lead up to a new conception of notability. Perhaps some sketches above help you visualize the situation and reconsider your opinion. @pple complain 14:21, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I was aware that this subject has spawned two arbitration cases, has been discussed on the mailing list, and has otherwise been ostentatious. Editors who want to comment on issues like this need to check the village pumps from time to time; those are the designated forums for community discussion. Of course an RFC that is only publicized on the episodes page won't get much attention. But if it is listed at the village pump, the "centralized discussion" list, and the RFC list, that is more than adequate notice for editors who are paying attention. As I said, I prefer to save the watchlist notice for use on a very occasional basis. Disputes like this happen frequently enough that they would never leave the watchlist notice blank, which would lead to an erosion of its utility. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, it turned out that you have been fully aware of the dispute in question. What bother me is your description of such event as "ordinary content discussions", which is an unthoughtful undervaluation with respect to the colossal impact of the debate outcome on a significant division of encyclopedic topics. It decides the inclusion of thousands of articles on Wikipedia; it is believed to be the determinant factor in policy/guideline reestablishment and redefinition of notability concept. If this kind of dispute happens frequently as you state, I really doubt the fast development of Wikipedia as nowadays. The contribution of editors, which should be mobilized as much as possible, is the core material for discussion advancement. How many events in the year that need a watchlist notification? Is the number of usage excessive enough to the extent that we have to "save" it for "occasional basis"? Or only some events like arbcom and steward elections that take the merit of having notification? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; the debate is directly related to the kernel of Wikipedia: articles. A notice just bringing beneficial result does no harm but good to the project. Additionally, you seem to hold of the wrong end of the stick. I know that village pumps are designated as forums for community discussion, I know that the dispute is listed dispersively somewhere else. But what is the point here? Does an editor who yearly does the work of an editor bother to go to the RfC list to check if there is recent event related to her field of editing? Would she suddenly find it interesting to pay a visit to VP and discover a dispute notification among other numerous notifications like that? We can't wait the luck to come and faithlessly hope somebody will find it somewhere. There comes the proposal of watchlist notice, a simple method that warrants the certainty that almost all of editors, concerned or unconcerned, are well-informed. @pple complain 17:49, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * One option that may help is to put the Centralized_discussion template on your user page or user talk page. Similarly, some editors put a table of RFA candidates on their talk page, so they "don't miss any". Among the recent issues that could conceivably be suggested for putting on the watchlist are:
 * The ambox implemention (standardization of cleanup message boxes)
 * Disagreements with articles about highways
 * Disagreements about articles for TV characters and episodes
 * Proposals for new speedy deletion criteria
 * Disagreements about the manual of style
 * Changes or rewrites of any number of policies and guidelines
 * The issue of nonfree images in list articles
 * Other issues with deletion of nonfree images, and rationales for nonfree images
 * Issues with WP:N and other notability standards.
 * Issues with articles about Palestine and Israel, or Kurdistan, or other contentious topics
 * All of these are being discussed, in various forums, right now. In my mind, although the disagreements about TV episode articles are serious, so are the other issues above. And I am sure my perspective is very limited, and there are many other important discussions that I have missed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm the one that set up the RFC and made sure it was announced at WP:VPP and (eventually, thanks to a misfiring bot) onto the RFCPolicy page, but as I've noted, I have never seen the watchlist notification used for something so specific, and about content as well. It would have been one thing if the ultimate question "Is or is not Wikipedia a fan guide?" (this question is not being asked, this is just an example!) which would have significantly more impact than the episodes RFC and even then, I don't think it's an automatic inclusion in the watchlist notifications.
 * Arguably, it would be nicer if there was a way to guide people to certain pages if they would like to help and understand policy more ((WP:VPP is not readily connected to the typical Welcome message), but that's exactly what those type of places are for - wide area announcements of issues that likely do not affect the whole of Wikipedia. --M<font size="-3">ASEM  14:34, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I've given a suggestion of using WikiProject banners as ways to give mass notification to a set of articles, as seen on Template:WikiProject DIGI. Personally, I'd like for such an RfC to be more organized and have a wider scope before being on a watchlist notice. Just putting a notice on and saying "go to X page" isn't enough, and newcomers need some kind of summary or context. This RfC is also just one step of a larger issue within the episode-article debate. -- Ned Scott 04:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

By my estimate, if we had an article on every episode ever of every American television program in the last 50 years (which we don't) that wouldn't crack 5% of the total encyclopedia. To say that this is of wide concern involves a fundamental miscalculation of scale - 95% of articles have nothing to do with this, and we can assume a similar percentage of editors. To start using the watchlist notice for this level of wide appeal diminishes the usefulness of the notice. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Phil, your estimate is on the conservative side by a country mile. You've only covered the US. If we broaden it out to only the larger English speaking countries which this wiki is nominally supposed to cover we need to multiply by something like five, (Australia, Canada, the Commonwealth Caribbean, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America), giving us potentially a quarter of the encyclopedia.  Other than that, I think there needs to be wider input into the issue at the RFC, and would appreciate any other options for getting this out to the widest possible audience. Hiding T 12:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes - you can expand it a fair bit. You can also point out that I assumed hour-long shows, and many shows are/were half-hour. Though the international thing won't expand it five-fold: notably I was estimating five networks producing 18 hours a week for 22 weeks of the year for the US - an output that the other countries don't come close to matching.
 * Here's the thing, though: List of I Love Lucy episodes. List of Full House episodes. NYPD Blue currently has season pages instead of episode pages. Most reality shows go with season pages. Which is going to backslide you dramatically from the 5% number, especially since outside of a few "crown jewels" of other countries (Doctor Who) you don't have episode by episode coverage of most of them. Even Slings & Arrows, Due South and Sandbaggers don't have episode by episode coverage. Which is why I wasn't too worried about leaving out international television - because I knew the assumption that we actually had episode-by-episode coverage of all of the shows was going to inflate the number to well higher than it could possibly be in reality.
 * To give you an idea of the drop-off, looking at 2007-08 United States network television schedule (figuring that presentist bias will give us an upper bound on episode-by-episode coverage - that is, more shows from this season will have episode by episode coverage than any other season). My estimate was for 90 shows that would produce episode articles. In reality, there are a total of 83 separate shows running. Of those we have articles on more than the first two episodes of 23 of them. So optimistically, we probably have 25% as many articles on episodes of American television as I estimated. And, again, that's factoring a massive presentist bias in. If you go back to 1975-76 United States network television schedule we don't even have articles on every *series,* little yet every episode - there, again, I assumed 90 shows worth of episodes. In reality there are only 60 shows there, and only 2 have episode articles, meaning the number for that season was actually only 2% of what I estimated. So even with the ignoring of international television, my 5% estimate was high. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, I give. I still think we need a line in the sand on which episodes get coverage, but that's not the debate here.  Hiding T 13:31, 22 January 2008 (UTC)