Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive71

I had to share this...
WP:SOUP incorporates a quote I found on an old RfC. Feel free to redirect and delete if this text already exists elsewhere, but do I ever know what the original author meant! Guy (Help!) 13:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945
Different arbitrary POV tags persistently added by two users, promoting Russian POV. Disputing guys refuse to give any reputable sources on talk, which might testify that Latvia was not occupied by the USSR. Pretty clear case of minority POV pushing here, disguised with thriving for 'neutrality'. Advocatus diaboli 14:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Please use Wikipedia's dispute resolution process. Regards, &mdash; Nearly Headless Nick  14:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * How can you resolve anything, if the users 'worried about NPOV' refuse to recognise neither WP:NPOV, WP:Citing sources nor WP:OR? The article itself clearly says why it was legally occupation, so that I don't see any possibility to phrase it otherwise.Advocatus diaboli 14:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/December 16, 2005
Some time ago, a user created several hundred pages about a day (e.g. Dec 16 2005, as opposed to our regular articles like November 1). These articles are redundant and ultimately unmaintainable, so it was suggested that they be deleted. Rather than creating several hundred noms, created a single nom listing a handful, as linked above.

Now the point is that the arguments, and most people who commented, support removal of these articles. But, several people have argued that this is out of process. The problem with this line of thought is, that no matter how or where you want to discuss potential removal of these articles, there will always be people arguing that it was out of process. If you do it on AFD, people suggest CENT. Do it on CENT, and they'll request the village pump. And the village pump will ask you to get your shrubbery at AFD.

So I propose we look at the arguments rather than at whether or not it conforms to Da Rulez, close the AFD and remove these poorly thought-out articles. Thoughts please?  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  14:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Damn, we've had this transclusion debate before with WikiProject Cricket. I'm sure there's a policy somewhere that says we don't transclude in the article name space.  My initial thoughts are that we cut out the forum shopping,  but maybe run this one over for another week making that point clear and hope to develop a strong consensus.  I'll try and find all the cricket discussion, it's about 18 months ago, I remember archiving it all together.  That was one that spilled out onto the pump and cent as well, from what I remember. Steve block Talk 14:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Just make them go away, Radiant!, please. --Docg 14:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Aha, Wikipedia_talk:Template_namespace and Template namespace. My gut is to push towards a merge and redirect to the monthly articles. Steve block Talk 14:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

These pages are probably in the main namespace because Portal:Current events used to be in the main namespace. Several of them are still transcluded on other pages. I have suggested to move them all to subpages of Portal:Current events, as they might be archives of that page. Individual month pages like December 2005 (a page consisting mostly of transclusions of articles included in the AFD) could also be moved out of article space. Kusma (討論) 14:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC) I just wanted to say that since I started this thing (the AfD, not the articles), I'm willing to take every step deemed necessary, be it starting a WP:CENT discussion, posting on the Village Pump, or starting a new AfD with all (some 1,400) pages tagged: I'm also prepared to merge all articles into the month articles if that is the preferred solution, and to change all links to these pages (coming from article pages, not from user pages or talk pages) to better links (splitting in two parts usually). If any of these needs to be done, please drop me a note, and please also be patient since it is quite a big task obviously. I'm of course unable to do any of the needed admin tasks, be it deleting pages or merging histories. Fram 09:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Analysis suggests that a redirect isn't necessary because there are little or no incoming links, and a merge isn't necessary because nearly all the relevant information is already in the more general articles like July 2.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  14:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, I've had a look at a couple and seen incoming links, maybe ten an article. Protected redirects might stop future occurrences. Steve block Talk 14:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This might be the best suggestion. They do seem to be part of the current events format as was, and they get pushed out of the article space where they clearly don't belong.  Steve block Talk 14:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * yeah, they are a part of the current events portal, see January 2007, that's made up of transcluded pages from the portal namespace. I'm leaning towards closing as moving to portal namespace on that basis. Steve block Talk 15:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This does seem like the best solution, and is unlikely to be controversial or require further discussion since it matched the current practice. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yay. Proto has now closed the debate, stating that there is consensus to delete them, but we must nevertheless tag every single article and discuss it further in some other forum (which will undoubtedly also reject it as "out of process"). I find this a rather bureaucratic approach, and it will likely not be productive.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  15:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As stated on my talk page, someone will see a page is deleted they didn't know about, take all 1400 pages to DRV, and enough people would ask for them to be restored based on them not having been AFD tagged for them to be restored (as DRV is based on headcounting, inexplicably). If you want them to go through AFD, then tag them for AFD and do it properly. If you didn't want them to be AFD'd properly, why bring the articles to AFD?  If you want them moved to the portal namespace, be bold and just move them instead of complaining about bureaucracy. I won't mind.  Proto ::  ►  16:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * DRV is not based on headcounting, but on policy. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This is not what people who close DRV discussions have told me. Proto ::  ►  17:45, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As Undeletion policy says, Undeletion requests for inappropriate items do not succeed.. What "inappropriate items" are is an exercise for the closing admin to decide, but WP:ILIKEIT is not an appropriate reason.  There must be policy to support the undeletion, majority rules is not policy.  User:Zoe|(talk) 22:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Does your back hurt? --Sam Blanning(talk) 03:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As mentioned above, one thing you could do right now that probably wouldn't be controversial is to just move datedatedate to Portal:Current events/datedatedate. On the plus side this wouldn't require any more discussion. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * But that would create cross-namespace redirects which would need to be deleted: further we would still need to decide what to do with all the redlinks this creates (in some cases correcting (i.e. dividing) the links, in some cases moving the parent pages (month/year) to the portal namespace as well. The latter would then necessitate the correction of several hundred redlinks per monthpage (e.g. December 2005 has approx. 600 incoming links). All this may be what eventually needs to be done, but I'ld like this to be quite certain and agreed upon before I embark on such a move / delete / correct party (which I'm still willing to do!). Fram 12:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Myriad articles on bootleg albums
is creating dozens of articles on bootleg releases (kind of an oxymoron) from the band Cradle of Filth. Since bootlegs are generally neither terribly notable nor really verifiable, they're getting tagged for deletion right and left, though I'm not sure there's really a speedy category that applies. Anyone have any thoughts on action that should/could be taken? Doesn't appear to be responding in any way to notes on User Talk page. Fan-1967 02:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Nuke the lot. Bootleg albums are by nature almost without exception undocumentable per policy (WP:V) and guideline (WP:N). Guy (Help!) 02:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Neither WP:V or WP:N are speedy criteria. However, WP:IAR may be applicable here.--Docg 02:40, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hey, there are rules? Guy (Help!) 02:52, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm waste time in AFD or invoke "Speedy per SNOW"? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 09:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the answer is in the question. Guy (Help!) 21:14, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Some bootlegs are notable, but one should be able to present sources about them. 75.84.99.10 21:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC) (this was me; somehow I got logged out. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 21:16, 14 January 2007 (UTC))
 * Pretty sure this is a case where can be applied. Admins can use common sense to judge whether articles so tagged can be speedily deleted. Gzkn 03:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

What to do about images tagged for 7 days and deleted, then re-uploaded
I'm talking about images that are tagged as having no fair use rationale, no source, no copyright tag, etc. that are tagged for a week and deleted, then re-uploaded without satisfying the conditions required for keeping. An example I found is Image:Dabf162.jpg, which was recently deleted as being tagged without a fair use rationale for over a week and then re-uploaded (by a different user), under the same name as the original, still without a fair use rationale. This would technically not be speedyable from my understanding since recreation of deleted content is only speedyable after an XfD, which images that are deleted via this process do not go through. On the other hand, if we allowed this it would be a loophole people could exploit to repeatedly upload an image and not have it deleted for a week. VegaDark 11:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It was uploaded more than a week ago originally, correct? And no improvement has been made to its licensing statements in that time, correct? In that case, WP:CSD. --tjstrf talk 11:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, it is easier to extend that logic in this particular instance since it was re-uploaded under the same name. But what about a different name, or an almost identical picture but technically different one?  VegaDark 11:40, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * We regularly speedy delete articles that are things like My semi-plausible idea I made up and then reposted as Semi-plausible idea of my own invention. Images should be the same way. The title is nothing but what filename it's being stored as on the server, it's the same content. If the image were slightly different, that might be policy grounds for waiting a week, but if the uploader is being incorrigible just speedy delete it anyway. --tjstrf talk 11:48, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

If it was a recreation of a speedy delete, you can't delete it under G4 "recreation of deleted material", but you can use another criterion to delete it, including the same one that speedied it in the first place, if the conditions are still the same. Tyrenius 12:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Remember that 'speedy' deletions of images involve a seven-day delay. So, the question is,do we have to let the 'speedy' deletion run its course for a re-upload of the same image? -- Donald Albury 14:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's necessary. Tyrenius 15:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for opinions on block
There's a discussion at the moment at WP:AN/I on which I'd be grateful for admins' input. The "callous personal attack" which appalled the original poster was:
 * "Its about time you had a weekend off, its all you ever seem to be doing(going on wikipedia)."

This, together with a few other examples, most of them no worse, some even more innocuous, has led User: HighInBC to issue JFBurton (talk • contribs) with a four-day block. That seems to me to be outrageous. I'm inclined to lift the block as unwarranted, both in fact and in extent, but I'd like to get other opinions first. --Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 17:08, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm looking at the block log, and I see that said user has been blocked four other times for personal attacks and/or disruption. Mackensen (talk) 17:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * All in a period of less than two months. --Majorly 17:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but for what? I haven't done all the work necessary to find out, but if the earlier blocks were as poorly justified as this one, I'd say that they were also unjustified. Anyway, the main point is that nothing he's said this time warrants a block, in my opinion. --Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 17:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Ahh this is here too. Just for the record, the block was for the compounded reasons that the user was fully warned(warning which were removed), had been blocked for the same thing in the past couple months 3 times, the several example of incivility were all from the last few days, and the fact that the user was uncivil right after being warned, while I was reviewing is contribs. Is 4 days really such a long block? It seems minor considering the week long block the user received in December for the same thing. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 17:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * 1) Removing warnings from a User's Talk page is not a blockable offence.
 * 2) It doesn't matter how many times someone has been blocked for an offence; even if the earlier blocks were justified, the new block has to be too. The definition of incivilty doesn't get weaker just because someone has been uncivil before.
 * 3) Given that the comments are so mild, barely uncivil at all, the fact that they were made right after a civility warning is irrelevant. --Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 17:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Per point 1, I agree, however it does reveal if the person was knowledgable of the policy. Per point 2, I disagree, a user being block for the same thing over and over is a clear indication of unwillingness to follow policy Per point 3, I disagree again, continued incivility past warnings is a blockable offense. You seem to be of the opinion that someone can be just a little bit uncivil as long as they want, I do think the amount of incivility plays a part.

My point is that a user that is ignoring warnings and continuing to violate policy needs to be blocked. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 17:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that your view of point two goes against Wikipedia and natural justice. You seem to have misunderstood my third point, though, so perhaps you misunderstood the second point too. --Mel Etitis  ( Μελ Ετητης ) 17:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've just left this on his Talk page:


 * The block, I still hold, was unjustified on the basis of the evidence offered. However, User:FisherQueen has explained the background of this, with regard to your behaviour towards her (and I've seen your edit of her User page, and although four days is a lot, I don't feel like helping you out over this.  I agree with Asterion that you need to start behaving and writing like a considerate adult.  Perhaps when the four days are up you'll rethink how you interact with others. --Mel Etitis  ( Μελ Ετητης ) 17:46, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Curious behavior on an article on AFD
Yesterday evening, I placed Daigacon on AFD. This morning, while I was checking for related changes in Category:Anime conventions, I noticed that Silentsam84 copied the entire article to his talk page with the comment "For use if deleted." added to the top. This is a rather strange thing to do for an article on AFD and gets me wondering if he plans on recreating the article later. --Farix (Talk) 17:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not really that odd - he could be doing it because he feels that in it's current state, it's sure to be deleted but he wants to work on it so that he can try and recreate an improved article some time down the road. Have you actually asked him about it? --Larry laptop 18:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Not unless I restore his original talk page, which he blanked while copying the article. --Farix (Talk) 23:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Will someone please reinvite Germanium?
He was banned for editing an article and saying that the definition of one thing divided by nothing (1/0) is that it is an absolute and perfect non-cancelling combination of + and - infinity, something that is self-balanced and united as in the spirit of everything unified together, ala a theory of everything. Much like the complete and dynamic corrolation held in the eastern idea of yin and yang. Germanium would like to be reinvited so that he can teach us more about this line of thinking which leads to a perpetual source of energy and absolute abundance - a wonderful and unignorable chance for peace on earth — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.114.185.27 (talk • contribs)

Looking at the edits from your IP address, would I would wrong to assume you are Germanium? --Larry laptop 00:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am he — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.114.185.27 (talk • contribs)

from the sound of it (and looking at your contributions), that's just a recipe to add various bits of wacky original research. What's the purpose of an unblock, if the intention is to carry on as before? Is the intention just to carry on adding your own theories on things? --Larry laptop 00:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As you were told, you were banned for posting WP:OR - you clearly were posting your own theories. If you would acknowledge Wikipedia's policy on the matter, and promise to stop, you could certainly be unblocked. -Patstuarttalk 00:56, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * History of earlier actions can be found in this archive of this page in the section entitled "Gödel's incompleteness theorems". Also see Articles for deletion/Law of no laws. Author in question seems unable or unwilling to accept the basic principles of No original research. I see no reason for unblocking, and think blocking may be appropriate. Fan-1967 00:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that's our answer folks - I suggest an IP ban - no point continuing this conversation. --Larry laptop 01:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Good name for a group, that. :) Tevildo 04:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. He's so convinced of his rightness that Wikipedia rules are irrelevant to him, and he has no intention, or even consideration, of respecting them. Fan-1967 01:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I certainly don't want to see this talk page fill up with OR. -- Donald Albury 01:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Gone. -- Steel 01:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki map
Request help in cleaning up this page, in particular removing sites that are (1) defunct or (2) inappropriate external links.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  12:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

and WP:STALK
User:Oden is doing useful and unthankful job of enforcing our increasingly more strict policies of the fair use image by patrolling old images. It is a delicate task there it is critical to explain users that how their images that were celebrated catch just a few months ago now are considered shameful policy violations. Obviously, the users should receive all the explanations over the policy changes, be encouraged to find the free equivalents of the fair use, there should be an honest dialog over their reasons while the free images are unsuitable for the articles. The most important the users should not feel that tagging of their images is a sort of a personal harassment or a vendetta. I am not sure Oden is doing a right thing in this respect. He has chosen to patrol the fair use images based on the uploader. Often he has a disagreement with a user, then "review" all his her image over years. As a result the uploader feels harassed and persecuted even if Oden's claims are valid. From the point of view of stimulating the search for free images mass tagging of images by a single uploader are counterproductive: if tagging one..two images per week stimulate users to find free substitutes or releasing the images under free copyright licenses, mass tagging just lead to apathy.

Oden was many times warned by different admins not to violate WP:STALK and to be more thoughtful about user's feelings see , , , , , , , , , . I have counted at least five different admins and two prolific users in good standing. Still after all this warnings he behaves exactly the same. E.g. after a mild personal attack from [[User:Kuban Kazak] . Oden within minutes started tagging Kuban's images:, , , , . He never had any ineterest in Kuban images.  I wish to apply [[WP:AGF]] but it is difficult not to see the usage of copyright issues as a weapon in a personal conflict, the thing a few admins including me specifically asked Oden not to do. Very similar methods are used by Oden in his personal conflict with Irpen. Irpen is not a problem user out of hundreds of the images he uploaded only a couple were found wrong but he does not take the stalking lightly. I specifically asked Oden to leave irpen's upload log along. Still after all these warnings Oden is still bragging about searching this log.

Guys, Oden is a very hardworking user and I do not want to block him, but the warnings do not have any effects so far. Can somebody talk with him and persuade him to change his modus operandi? Alex Bakharev 13:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Following a trail of contributions to find more violations is not stalking, in my opinion. Again, IMO, it is pure and simple that Oden is not in the wrong here; generally, people who breach WP:FU once do it again,and so looking back through a user's log is beneficial to the encyclopaedia. It seems, well, silly that you would consider blocking someone for it. Jimbo Wales and WMF take a dim view on bad FU images, and so should we - it doesn't matter how you find them. Cheers, Daniel.Bryant [ T · C ] 13:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Seconded. If it appears to Irpen/Kuban/whoever as though they are being stalked, this will probably be because Irpen/Kuban/whoever is repeatedly uploading unfree images in breach of WP:FU.  Proto ::  ►  14:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment.As I've said before, Oden is one of the relatively moderate folks in the anti fair-use group. But it does seem more than a bit disruptive to specifically target the uploads of individual editors as he appears to be doing. Daniel: Jimbo's opinion on the matter is just another opinion. Jimbo himself has said that trying to support something with "Jimbo said" isn't a fair argument. The argument here isn't about bad fair use images but in how people are going about tagging them, and Machiavellian tactics aren't going to help promote goodwill and community in Wikipedia. It's rude and disruptive. Proto: By this logic, then if the police go and beat someone with truncheons and haul him off to jail, that automatically makes him guilty of crimes. It's not proper in a modern society to assume that if someone is punished, it automatically means that person was guilty. And regardless of whether an editor has uploaded fair use images, WP:AGF asks that we assume good faith, which you're not advocating. As has been mentioned many times and subsequently pooh-poohed by folks who want to implement RfU, a category page with an automatic list of all fair use images should be created and then whoever wants to go throug them can do so one by one. This would eliminate this semi-wikistalking thing, and if nothing else, would give the RfU taggers an out when someone complains about their image being tagged. Instead, folks seem to insist on doing it the hard way, making people angry, making them feel stalked and persecuted, causing disruption and seriously affecting efficiency and community. I don't know why this is, but it's very backward. TheQuandry 16:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If you consider uploading fair use images after they have been removed and deleted because of breach of fair use to be vandalism, then there is no problem with his actions. When you find someone adding inappropriate external links to articles in your watchlist you usually check the user's contributions to see what else he has been doing. While I do not like "revenges" (in example, removing images because the editor who uploaded them has a conflict with you), if the images are correctly removed according to existing policy and the contributor reinserts them, he is also disrupting Wikipedia. -- ReyBrujo 17:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * TheQuandry: Are you aware that WMF/Jimbo may decide to step in and reform this process to reduce the number of FU breaches, as a Foundation edict? I was speaking to him yesterday about it, and if he does this, then his opinion does matter, very much so. It actually matters more than anyone else's, really. Daniel.Bryant [ T · C ] 23:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Daniel: If/when WMF and Jimbo step in and make an executive decision, then I suppose there will be no more room for debate. Until then, Jimbo has only shared his viewpoint and Jimbo himself has said many many times that it's not proper to invoke him like that. And as of this moment, neither Jimbo nor WMF have made a Foundation edict. TheQuandry 17:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)


 * 1) It's possible to stalk by making edits that would be perfectly reasonable under other circumstances, but which are being used to target and punish certain users. I'm not making any claims about this case, but just pointing out that if, for example, I were to be in conflict with ReyBrujo, and then trawled through his edits, correcting all his typing errors, placing (perfectly justified) wikify, cleanup, etc., templates on articles he'd created, and so on, I'd be behaving badly.  My edits would be being made, not with the intention of improving Wikipedia, though they might do that, but with the primary purpose of harrassing ReyBrujo.   This has been (rightly in my view) condemned as wikistalking in the past.  It's not always easy to distinguish from the perfectly proper business of following up a problem user's edits to tidy up after her &mdash; though when it follows immediately upon an attack in either direction, it's hard to give the benefit of the doubt.
 * 2) As I said, I have no real view about oden with regard to the stalking charge &mdash; but he has often carried out his purge of fair-use images insensitively and out of process, removing images from articles with vague edit summaries, and no previous warning message about the replacement of such images with properly licensed replacements, etc. He seems to have started taking his job personally, and that usually leads to problems.  I don't think that he should be blocked or anything like that, but he does need to be talked to, and persuaded to slow down and behave towards other editors with proper consideration, and within Wikipdia policies. --Mel Etitis  ( Μελ Ετητης ) 23:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Oden's actions are definitively not stalking as per the letter or spirit of that policy. If a contributor doesn't understand image policy, it's likely that they've uploaded other images incorrectly and thus reasonable to go through their contribution history and take the appropriate action. Image tagging is quite thankless work, yet essential to the project both legally and in the spirit of a free encyclopedia. Alex, I would suggest that you focus your efforts on helping affected users understand the image policies rather than disparaging Oden, who has done nothing wrong, imho. It's neither rude nor disruptive to correct users who violate Wikipedia's image policies. If they upload 100 images incorrectly, then all of them should be dealt with in as polite a manner as possible. Oden should use appropriate edit summaries and notify users, but he doesn't necessarily have to "slow down" (i.e. only tag one inappropriate image per user per day). Savidan 05:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that you either ignored or dismissed what I said about stalking. Also, why do you think that "slow down" means only tagging one image a day?  The point is that his lack of courtesy and proper explanation of his actions is probably the result of trying to do too much; if he slowed down, he'd have time to do things in a way that didn't put people's backs up.
 * In response to what was said in response to a previous discussion of this, I probably am a little out of date concerning the hysteria with which this issue is treated in Wikipedia now. Perhaps the hysteria is justified by the U.S. obsession with litigation, I don't know.*  Still, the idea that, for example, an image that depicts the subject of an article is inappropriate for an encyclop&aelig;dia, being "merely decorative", is so at odds with every encyclop&aelig;dia that I've ever seen that I wonder if those involved have lost sight of what we're supposed to be doing, at least in their explanations of their actions.
 * * The Nac Mac Feegle bear swords that glow blue in the vicinity of lawyers... --Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 10:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the discussion here may have turned away from the topic at some point: we're not debating the right or wrong of RfU, we're questioning the behavior of an editor who, to my eyes, is pretty clearly using this RfU issue as a way to get back at perceived enemies. According to comments towards the top, if someone has uploaded one or two fair use images that can be replaced, they probably have uploaded more. Out of hundreds of images uploaded by Irpen, Oden found a whopping TWO that were questionable enough for him to tag.
 * I STRONGLY disagree with Savidan telling Alex I would suggest that you focus your efforts on helping affected users understand the image policies rather than disparaging Oden... This is a misguided and out-of-touch argument. Just because you think Oden's results are in line with RfU, it justifies wikistalking, Alex should shut up and we should happily allow good editors with multitudes of mainspace contributions to be subject to retribution when they criticise someone's political motives? This whole thing is completely ridiculous. Apparently, the folks doing the "thankless job of tagging images" are incapable of doing wrong. TheQuandry 08:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I have blocked Oden for 48 h after the new incidence of stalking. He was blocked by User:Cburnett for the 3RR violation. I have unblocked Oden, since he promised not to edit war. In minutes after my unblocking Oden started "examining upload logs" of CBurnett (see User_talk:Cburnett) and started a lot of other activities harrassing CBurnett (just see the last seven sections of CBurnett's talk page). This is an exact definition of WP:STALK. Since Oden was warned by a number of admins (see my starting message) and since this sort of behavior was already discussed on a number of fora (see, , something should be done. Alex Bakharev 22:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. I wasn't aware that Oden has such a history of basically the same set of actions, but I think he took it too far with me.  If his actions against me aren't considered stalking then I hate to be the receiving end of real stalking. Cburnett 22:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the behavior has been overlooked and defended because Oden is seen as "implementing an unpopular and thankless task". Whether or not you agree with the implementation of RfU as per Oden and others, we must not ignore other problems or misbehaviors by someone just because they're seen as implementing an unpopular policy. Hopefully, Oden will take some time to reflect on this and implement RfU in a more evenhanded manner. TheQuandry 03:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Return of the editing of hexspeak articles
has been returning a variety of articles that were redirected per a previous issue as cited in WP:AN. I suspect that is probably a sockpuppet of this person, but I cannot say for certain, and I am not totally keen on going through with a check.

What should we do about this person who is just repeating the same stuff over and over again? The weird thing is that the person is applying the and  tags on there to deter anyone from editing them. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 06:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Check through contributions reveal that most of them have already been re-redirected back to the main article (user talk page shows that VoA Bot II did most of the work). I did laugh on the userpage: "They contain tigers. They are semi-protected. They are not vandalism." Hbdragon88 06:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah. I ended up reverting his edits and warning him not to continue and to discuss his ideas here. I really don't see why he is doing this, as the magic numbers topic is good enough. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 06:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed the ones which are not referenced on the target article. Guy (Help!) 14:03, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * What can you make of BlakeCS' user page? He seems to have all of those hexspeak articles preloaded on his user page. I saw an edit to his user page, and thought he had redid all of the articles. But in fact, after changing one of his pages to a redirect, I realised it was a sub-page. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 15:51, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I ended up putting them up for MfD. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 08:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't he break some sort of rule by recreating deleted content? Luigi30 (Ta&lambda;k) 14:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Threatening language on user page
has some vague threats on her user page... I realise I'm not neutral in the matter, so I'm bringing it here to get a neutral view and to let someone who isn't in a dispute with her pursue the matter further. Here's what it said on her user-page (It's in the third person)

"If you vandalize (redacted to intials JC) or Barrington Hall, someone will probably send her an email--and she will probably deal with you off-wiki." 

Now, no one likes vandalism, but is making threats of (fill in the blank) is a good idea? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 08:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I would endorse a good length block, but I cannot make it, since I am not uninvolved. User has been blocked before for making personal attacks against me and for sockpuppetry. She has already stated that she does not want to contribute any more to the encyclopedia, but wants to ensure that I get desysopped. She continues her disruption to this date. – . &mdash; Nearly Headless Nick  08:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well... Nether of us are unbiased so I'll just leave it at that and let someone else evaluate if the user-page comment is OK or not. I invited Cindery to the conversation to either take the intuitive and change it on her own or offer a defence for keeping it. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 09:13, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I think that's a little too vague of a threat for us to act on it. It's so vague that I'm not sure it's even a threat. But I'll let others chime in. I will say that I'm not familiar with her behavior, so this might be her way of threatening people. Just my 2 cents. --WoohookittyWoohoo! 12:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, I don't recall the exact nature of the past disruption -- I remember that there's been a (confirmed) checkuser case or two, some AN/I threads, and such. The language of current relevance isn't exactly friendly, but unless it seems to be directed at a particular person, I'm not sure if doing something about it would do anything besides inflame the situation (if similar language were used on a talk page, or especially user talk, my story might be different). Will give links if/when I dig up any pertinent information. Luna Santin 12:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd agree. Or if it was something more substantial such as a specific threat. --WoohookittyWoohoo! 13:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Cindery is certainly not a calming influence. Look at WT:EL for example. I would say that this is a direct threat aimed at Nick and Dmcdevit. Guy (Help!) 17:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It refers entirely to User:Swkap and his alternate IPs, with regards to Joshua Clover (who is also mentioned at Barrington Hall). It is something you should email Sam Blanning about. (which is what I have done and will do again if Swkap reappears.)-Cindery 18:23, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * So that's two problems then. First, threatening language on your user page; second, it's clumsily written so the target is not obvious. Guy (Help!) 19:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Only one user has ever been blocked for vandalizing JC--it's pretty specific. Naming him on my userpage isn't a good idea, because I think he could be encouraged by such attention, and it would draw unneeded attention to the sad case of (redacted to initals Sw). (About which, the less said the better.) Leaving a vague notice that my absence doesn't mean he is now free to vandalize JC preventively protects not just JC, but Wikipedia (I think he does look at my userpage, but doesn't read ANI, etc.) It is not a good idea to discuss this on-wiki, and I urge to you to email Sam (the admin who blocked Sw, and with whom Sw has corresponded via email) if you would like to discuss it further.-Cindery 20:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Or you could just say nothing, on the basis that everyone who needs to know, already does. Guy (Help!) 20:40, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Sam indef blocked Sw as a vandalism-only account, and then accidentally unblocked him because he didn't notice that Sw's email requesting unblock on the grounds that he wasn't Sw came from Sw. Sam stated that he couldn't re-instate the indef block until Sw struck again, but would reblock immediately. In the absence of a permablock of Sw, there's cause for concern. It is to the benefit of all that Sw knows I will not abandon concern for that article, even if I left Wikipedia entirely.-Cindery 20:51, 13 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but why the vague threats of off-wiki retribution? That seems totally inappropriate. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 21:11, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Because it discourages Sw from misusing Wikipedia to try to hurt/get attention from/harass people he knows in real life, which is what he was doing. If promised response to him is off-wiki, email straight to Sam etc., he doesn't get any on-wiki attention/there's nothing in it for him to abuse/vandalize Wikipedia again.-Cindery 21:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not think that using threatening language for off-wiki retribution is/was good judgment on your part. &mdash; Nearly Headless Nick  12:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the evidence that it was good judgement is that Sw has not returned, even though I have posted a wikibreak notice. But speaking of good or bad judgement,  is there some reason you are ignoring the Foundation:, after you removed 70+ links with AWB yesterday, citing "licensing information per EL"?-Cindery 16:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Can't speak for Nick, but he's not "ignoring the Foundation"; the quote you linked from Barberio is cherry-picked to support his/your position (see the full thread in question). MastCell 18:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Problematic userpage
Dwain has been asked by admins to remove polemical pages, and also had a sockpuppet that he claims was unintentional User:Pitchka. He has since moved said material to free hosting and has linked to it from his user page. Inclusive of this is a list of Wikipedians who he believes are Masons (self-identified or not), and a whole lot of disinformation and propaganda (which, he lists as "BANNED ON WIKIPEDIA" as if it were a personal issue rather than a policy violation on his part). I would also imagine that the other subpages he had here, which were also full of the same, have also been moved. Is there a way to do something about this officially or otherwise? MSJapan 03:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Remove the link? The userpage is still being abused, regardless of whether the content is hosted on it or linked to externall.y -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * You would think so, but said user did exactly what I expected, which is rv your link removal as "vandalism by another user."  So what's the next step? MSJapan 17:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It looks like he may have cleaned up the page, removing the things about freemasonry, paganism, and whatnot. If you still want to, or if he steps it back up, you'll probably want to take it it WP:ANI or follow the dispute resolution guidelines. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes and no. He edited Badbilltucker's title on BBT's comments regarding the subpage deletion to add in a link to the Geocities page, both on User talk:Dwain and User talk:Pitchka, which I have removed.  If it comes back, I'll go to ANI. MSJapan 05:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, on December 13, 2006 I added a link. Ms Japan I can see that my page of notes on Freemasonry has upset you greatly. That's too bad. I didn't realize that quotes about Freemasonry by the likes of Albert Pike, The London Daily Telegraph, and John Salza; a list of religions that find masonry opposed to Christianity; and a list of Wikipedia Freemasons who all identify themselves as such and who even list themselves under a Freemasonry category would cause so much angst for you and yours. The page no longer exists on Wikipedia so your problem should be over. You believe that you are teaching me a lesson, I guess because you feel that you are so superior to me. Actually, you have taught me a lesson. Some Freemasons are very afraid of exposure! Good luck in your cause. Dwain 15:43, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Dwain, please do not release any personal information about other wikipedians, on or off the wiki. It is rude and a violation of privacy. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * What personal information are you talking about? The fact that he is a mason? The fact that he has written about me learning a lesson or the apparent fact he is afraid? I'm confused. He has been going after me for awhile now. I'm not releasing any personal information on anyone it is already on record in Wikipedia. Dwain 16:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If the information was already public then it is not a violation of privacy. But really, what does it have to do with writing an encyclopedia? HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 16:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know how much you know about the whole issue. But as far as my page on Freemasonry went I had some collected notes on freemasonry. Some were quotes and some was info on what sects declared it incompatible with Christianity. I was hoping that some of this material would be allowed some inclusion in some of the various articles concerning freemasonry. However, I discovered soon enough that several editors of these articles were determined not to allow this information into the articles and would remove it. So I left it on my page. After noticing that these editors seemed to be defending freemasonry and trying to put it in a good light I started to see exactly wo they were and discovered that most of them claimed to be masons themselves. Now everything I learned about masonry says that they will not reveal what they profess and do within their temples. Further members are said to swear that tey will lie to protect the craft. This would seem to explain why any negative info that gets into an article is down played or refuted within the article. This explains why they won't allow links to webpages that were created by former members who tell what freemasonry is actually about. They try to discredit people and remove info they don't like even on te userpages. If they are deliberately shhaping articles to down play any negative info and to put their organization into a good light, then this is very apropos to my questions. They successfully removed my page which pointed out that members are sworn to lie to defend the organization. Did you know that members of Scotland Yard are not allowed to be Freemasons? This is because they are suppose to do the things I just outlined and are therefore not trustworthy. Apparently, Wikipedia admins don't care whether the information in these articles are accurate. Because I was reluctant to remove my Freemasonry page, my userpage was attacked by vandals like this: LOOK HERE! Whenever I wrote to and admin asking for guidence Ms Japan would follow and leave messages. These articles do not reflect reality, but reflect Mason propaganda. I think it is improtant to note this. They think it is important to prevent this info from coming out! Why? I don't stop people critizing my edits, or the Pope or Bishops. But they will not allow me to bring up that Masons swear to lie and that the lower level masons are lied to as to what their symbols actually mean, so even if they break their oaths they might not be putting down accurate info. This is why even with all the harrassment from Ms Japan and the anons who have been vandalizing my pages is not going to stop me from getting the word out. In fact, it is making me more determined than ever. Dwain 20:26, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Dwain can believe whatever he wants, but the arguments have been disproven in numerous sources, even those written by non-Masons. It is the obvious desire to push that POV on others and disseminate incorrect information (with other people's names on it) that concerns me.  To say that whatever a Mason (or anyone in any group, for that matter) says about his or her own group is obviously a lie or propaganda because someone else doesn't believe it is a tautology.  However, as Dwain isn't open to discussion on the matter, things end up here. MSJapan 00:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * You have been caught lying twice now Ms Japan! Here you say I'm "not open to discussion," here and on December 13, 2006 you say, "I attempted to open a discussion with said user about this page, and the end result was that my comments were removed from his talk page with no dialogue being opened." These are both false statements. For discussion and dialogue was forth coming from me here: User_talk:MSJapan on November 7, 2006. Both are lies! And you wonder why I would question your edits? I tried to placate the numerous anonymous users as well as Ms Japan by editing things out of my note page on freemasonry but that wasn't enough. I moved my page off Wikipedia and still he's obviously afraid, hence this listing. It's funny that Ms Japan should fear the words of Albert Pike and John Salza both having been masons!!! Dwain 03:49, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for a community sanction
, formerly (to a very high degree of probability) seems to be just fine as long as he does not go anywhere near high-heeled shoe, skirt and dress or any other article related to the wearing of skirts and/or heels by men. See also AMA Requests for Assistance/Requests/November 2006/Mugaliens. I'd suggest we simply ban him from those articles and their Talk pages, because past experience indicates that he will never give accept consensus that conflicts with his rather firm views. Guy (Help!) 23:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've also some experience with this individual and his... idiosyncratic... opinions on male fashion, but I don't think what you propose is by any means necessary. He hasn't made any objectionable edits lately, it seems, and appears to by and large abide by consensus on the contents of the pages you mention. My advice would also be to just ignore AMA Requests for Assistance/Requests/November 2006/Mugaliens; it's going nowhere and is a waste of your time. Sandstein 20:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

RfCs
I have archived an RfC: Requests for comment/BooyakaDell. Durova had already provided a summary. I made rfc top and rfc bottom from the AfD templates. I think we should do more of this; RfCs that ramble on for ever and never reach closure or a conclusion are a problem. Is this a thing worth doing? Guy (Help!) 12:09, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't recall ever seeing an RFC that had a useful conclusion or a constructive result, other than blowing off steam. So probably not.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  12:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Requests for comment/Jason Gastrich reached a conclusion. But why would it be a problem to archive stale RfCs rather than leave them open indefinitely? Guy (Help!) 13:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Guy: it should be made clear when an RfC is closed via some templates (or, preferably, templates plus an explanation that provides some closure for the participants, but that may be impossible). "Closing" RfCs will stop people adding to stale RfCs when they should open a new one instead. Kusma (討論) 13:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * just as a general comment - I've never seen much of a purpose for RFC (in regards to editors) as the actual practice seems to be "Request to whine like fuck and drag up all and every little slight in the history of wikipedia and allow everyone with a grudge to leap on and try and beat the editor around the head" (I've never been the subject of a RFC by the way). --Larry laptop 14:33, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * That is a valid criticism. So what do we do?  We could make it more like ArbCom, requiring difss etc., but that would make it more adversarial (which would be bad). Guy (Help!) 15:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I suggested once somewhere that RfC could benefit from having a group of neutral coordinators or clerks who could monitor ongoing RfCs, keep them civil, close them at some appropriate time (perhaps after a week without edits, or some other similar time period), and perhaps produce a summary of the comments made that could serve as a "result" of sorts for all parties involved to make use of. The way I see that, it wouldn't be an arbitration or a trial, but a sharing of thoughts that could benefit from someone helping to keep it tidy. Right now, as it's been indicated, it's a bit of a battle royal. With someone generating a summary at the end, it would at least have a product to be looked at. Tony Fox (arf!) 19:35, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, I agree. Let's make it happen.  Where do we start?  Village pump? Guy (Help!) 22:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd say WP:VPR would be a good starting point. Tony Fox (arf!) 02:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * There have been several suggestions to amend RFC to enable it to actually create remedies and enforce them; see Requests for comment/Enforcement, Request for solutions and Community sanction. Not everyone agrees that this is a good idea, but if people are looking at RFC reform this is an angle to consider.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Daniel Küblböck
I've added a section which is considered for speedy deletion. And please I want you to remove this article completely from Wikipedia because Daniel Küblböck is not famous enough to create his article. Morris Munroe 15:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately Küblböck is famous enough to have an article on Wikipedia. You linked to an unrelated AfD, so I have reverted your edit. Apparently Daniel Küblböck has (correctly) never been considered for deletion. Kusma (討論) 15:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No, he is not famous enough and I'm rather unsatisfied with your act. I mean there are several American actors who are not available on Wikipedia but Daniel Küblböck, that German punk does exist, that's unfair. Where can I post my request? Morris Munroe 16:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * He has a number one single in Germany, thus meets WP:MUSIC. To nominate the article for deletion (which won't succeed), please use Articles for deletion. If you want to request articles on American actors, please go to Requested articles. Kusma (討論) 16:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 *  And thanks for your answer. I will request it. Morris Munroe 21:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

IP address 24.147.72.135
Hello! The IP address 24.147.72.135 has been warned numerous times by several people. Yet, they continue to vandalize articles by adding speculation or rumors to those articles. Everyone has become extremely frustrated regarding this person because this IP address has not been blocked. Several people, including me, have used the correct procedures and policies. Yet, nothing is being done to stop this person from vandalizing articles. I am a senior trainer at SeaWorld Orlando and I am ensuring that the articles regarding SeaWorld remain accurate. It is rather difficult when you have an individual constantly adding speculations or personal thoughts not backed by reliable sources. Something needs to be done because this is rather annoying and taking up too much of my time. I reported this individual on WP: AIV and they suggested that I post this user on WP: ANI instead. Can you or anyone else help me with this particular situation? Thanks! SWF Senior Trainer 16:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've given a 24 hour block. Follow up if problems resume.  Durova Charge 03:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Need help sorting out a badly initiated AfD
There's a minor problem over at WP:AfD: an editor nominated an article for AfD last night... or rather, tried to. Apparently they were unclear on how to proceed, and instead of using the normal (and admittedly somewhat complex) method for doing so they simply tacked it onto the end of Articles_for_deletion/Log/2007_January_14. I pointed out that this was not the way to do an AfD and the user attempted to do it the right way, but apparently modifying the "log" page has created a badly formed AfD sub-article anyway. (Which I've tried to at least make functional) The contested article itself has the proper template, so at the very least the notification to editors is working fine, but I'm not sure what kind of mess this might cause for the AfD side. I think an admin, ideally one with serious experience with the behind-the-scenes workings of AfD, should take a look at this and make sure AfD isn't going to explode when this is closed. -- Y&#124; yukichigai (ramble argue check) 18:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It looks like you got it fixed. Article has been created properly, AFD tag on the article properly points to it, and it's properly transcluded in the 14 January log. I've taken off the "HELP" note, because everything looks proper. Fan-1967 18:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Sealand page just gone.
I have checked, and I can load any other wikipedia page, but the main article for Sealand is just gone. I don't mean blanked, it just won't load. I've done cache clearing, and all that. Could someone else just check and see what the heck is going on? Thanks. NipokNek 20:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Nope sorry seems to work for me--Markie1234 20:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Works for me too. alphachimp  20:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry to have bothered you all then. I still can't get to it, but it must be me somehow. NipokNek 20:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I servers regularly do things like that. Try editing it and see if the text loads in the editbox. 68.39.174.238 14:18, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Help in the article Savage Islands
There is a war of edition in this article. I din´t do changes only revert the edition of Pedro because he was adding fake information and I show that is true in the discussion page. The answer of Pedro are things like that:

hã? que estás para ai a dizer seu anormal? --Pedro 18:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC) The translations is "What are you saying, retarded?" He is menacing me with be banned also but he is not administrator. Please help. Noviscum 21:27, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Please don't try to use this page for dispute resolution. See WP:DR. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Help needed on "American Conservatism"
One editor has moved the main article American Conservatism to a new title without any discussion on TALK, let alone consensus. HELP needed. Rjensen 21:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Appearently, it has been discussed on Talk:American liberalism and Talk:Liberalism in the United States. --Edokter (Talk) 23:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Impersonation
I do believe that this user User:DominiquePonchardier is impersonating wikipedia staff by placing notes on sandbox and other pages claiming it is a message from WMF. --Markie1234 21:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 22:25, 15 January 2007 Cyde (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "DominiquePonchardier (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (Troll)
 * Looks like it's taken care of. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 23:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Mark McGuinn AfD
I was looking through the 5 day old AfD's for any to comment on or close (as obvious Keeps) and I found Mark McGuinn who looks to pass WP:MUSIC and have a consensus to Keep but is included directly on the Log page with no subpage and no AfD template on the article see. Since this is a rather unusual situation I thought I would bring it up here for an administrator to deal with. Eluchil404 22:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * First thing you should do it move the debate to a sub-page.
 * As for moving from there... You could... 1. Relist properly and let 5 days pass. 2. Close it as a "techinical keep" and let someone else re-nominate it if they feel strong enough about it or 3. Close it as a SNOWBALL keep with the slight risk of being overturned in WP:DRV. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

1 month block of 88.104.202.232
I have blocked for this thread:  and a string of sneaky vandalism. Since it's a long-block I thought I'd bring it here for community review or reversal. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:35, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I would have gone with a smaller, 96 hours one, however I am not against a long term block when there is a willingness to disrupt Wikipedia. However, account creation blocked? This is where I object. The reverse DNS goes to 88-104-202-232.dynamic.dsl.as9105.com which makes me think we can have some collateral damage there. -- ReyBrujo 22:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a bit long for a first block (I might have given a 1-weeker). Honestly, though, I think it's your call, J. smith. If you feel it's appropriate (and certainly sneaky vandalism is quite bad), by all means do it. We're probably not served by having this character editing. alphachimp  22:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Ummm maybe 1 month was a bit long. I didn't see any edits from the address other then the recent sneaky vandalism... that's why I blocked account creation. If  anyone wants to reduce the length or remove the AC block, feel free. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 22:56, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Cascading protection
Why does cascading protection do about images on Wikimedia Commons? I can't really imagine it protecting images at Commons, but I'm also finding it hard to believe the cascading protection would automatically upload a local copy of an image. Does anyone have any insight into the answer? --  tariq abjotu  23:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It does nothing, the images remain on commons and unprotected. Prodego  talk  00:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I had a feeling that was it... just wondering... --  tariq abjotu  00:04, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Harassment from another editor
Administrators, I have a current problem with a wikipedian named John Reaves. We got into a disagreement today over the kidnapping of Shawn Hornbeck then went to my talk page. After discussions and his "warnings", I expressed to him the desire that he does not contact me any more on my page. He continues to come back and respond, after warnings from myself on this matter. He even challenged me to report him. I want nothing to do with this person, and do not have a high regard to him after reading of some of his past encounters with other editors. Please see that this person no longer has any contact with me, as I now consider his behavior as harassment. Kerusso  03:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I went to this editor's talk page to discuss the incivility and the personal attacks they made on Talk:Michael J. Devlin. They posted things such as "'Seems you think too highly of yourself here. This John Reaves goes around issuing people 'warnings' and such, and after looking at his profile, he has no authority to do so. Just a over jealous poster who thinks way too much of himself. I would not place much crediance in what he says.'" and "Well considering I have checked your comments on various articles and you clearly seem to think you are above all else, that is a sign of someone who thinks too highly of themselves.". John Reaves 04:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It should be noted that after all this has been pointed out to me, I pointedly made it clear to him I wanted no more comments from him, and this person has continued to keep coming. THAT is why I am here. Where I am wrong, I am wrong, and have not comment further to this person in that regards. I ended it in regards to him, and he decided he could not stop. I ask that he be requested to stop. It is simple as that, which this person can't seem to understand or comprehend. Kerusso  04:06, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This user thought they could "end it" by accussing me of stalking.  There's no policy that says an editor may not defend his character against slander such as this.  You can't "end" something by leaving open-ended personal attacks. John Reaves 04:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I will await an answer from the administrators. Also if this person posts on my talk page again, I will notify the administrators here. Kerusso  04:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Doesn't look like John Reaves has Wikistalked or harassed. It would have been better to have used a boilerplate template for the talk page warning because the wording was pretty vague.  Better still, a few polite words asking Kerusso to be more civil might have been all that was needed.  To Kerusso, any editor can post a warning to another editor's talk page.  I consider this a level 1 caution - which is supposed to be a polite tap on the shoulder.  Not much to worry about.  Have a breather and best wishes to both of you.  Durova Charge 04:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply, Durova. Kerusso  04:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I just realized this is in the wrong place. Should this be moved to Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents? John Reaves 04:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe Durova made a decision and ended it, or do you see some need to keep it going even further? Let it drop!  Kerusso   05:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Um, stop freaking out. I was just asking if it should be moved since you commented in the wrong place. This is for discussing administrative stuff, incidents are supposed to be reported to Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.  And no, I see no reason to continue this as I was proved right. John Reaves 05:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Technically, yes, this matter should be at WP:ANI, not here. But since the matter has ended, there is really no point moving it there, and there is no point continuing it there (and here). --210physicq  (c ) 05:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

system template edit requested
I already brought this up without opposition at Wikipedia Talk:Categorization:

"New users seem to have the idea that you add pages to categories by editing the category page itself. Could we add something to the boilerplate for editing Category pages, so it tells them not to edit in an article, but to add the category wiki-text to the given article? This would save me and many others a good deal of time in reverting mistaken edits to categories, and would therefore allow us to focus further on articles."

Can an administrator please implement this? Thank you, --Urthogie 04:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that falls into the reign of the devs here. I think BugZilla is the way to get the idea implemented. Hbdragon88 04:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * But admins can edit such messages according to Administrators. I've done a search of past BugZilla requests, and ones such as these are often considered too specific to enwiki to be even considered.--Urthogie 04:41, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * You can also try to give the idea at Village pump (technical) or Village pump (proposals) to get some feedback from other community members and developers. -- ReyBrujo 04:43, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If I do bring it up at both pumps and it gets double approval, would you be willing to edit the template? Or are you just sending me there?  Thanks, --Urthogie 04:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Wait, can you point which template? -- ReyBrujo 04:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well I see it doesn't exist as of yet, but couldn't an admin create it? It would be very much similar to MediaWiki:Talkpagetext.--Urthogie 05:27, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah... hmm... well, not sure which template is the one that appears when editing a new category. You should go to proposals asking for that template name and the modifications you want. -- ReyBrujo 05:32, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki pages are listed at Special:Allmessages. I don't think there's a separate page for the category edit window, but I'm not the most knowledgeable about such things. Chick Bowen 08:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki:Categories? -- Agathoclea 12:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Unwatched pages
Approximately how many pages are there in Special:Unwatchedpages, or is it kept empty? James086 Talk 12:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Heh! What a lot of redlinks I got before I purged the cache... Guy (Help!) 14:07, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Only the first thousand are viewable, and lets just say that that doesn't even get through the '1's. ;-) Prodego  talk  01:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Wow I would have thought it would be much smaller. Haha someone should make Wikiproject unwatched. James086 Talk 02:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I occasionally entertain myself by culling the pages that begin with symbols (which are usually garbage), either deleting, redirecting or moving them. I tend to lose faith in humanity by the time I've gotto the start of the '0's, but that first part is pretty well patrolled.  Personally, I would allow unwatchedpages to be seen by everyone, as 90% of vandal fighting is done via recent changes, anyway, and the benefits of getting some of these cleared up (a lot of the unwatched pages are also garbage) would outweight the risks of letting people know which pages aren't watchlisted.  Proto ::  ►  13:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * If everyone can see it then I would suggest only after 4 days like the ability to move pages. I'm quite interested by that list and I might put in an RfA soon so I can dive in. James086 Talk 03:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * For those who are curious, when I just looked, the 1,000th (and last visible) page on the list was 1964 (emulator). It's on  my watchlist now, so don't even think of vandalizing it. :-)  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 01:05, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Reference desk (Misc)
I do not want to single any individual editors out but I'm a little concerned (maybe that's too strong of a word) about the Reference desk/Miscellaneous (the others could be similar I haven't looked) and what could be developing there. There seem to be a number of editors who seem to post only to that board and in a manner more suitable for general forums than an encylopedia. Not asking for any particular course of action but if a few people could keep it on their radar... --Larry laptop 10:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This is a long-standing problem. I am also rather surprised that we tolerate the "sandboxians" who engage in anumber of behaviours explicitly forbidden within the project, such as writing original fiction. Guy (Help!) 11:09, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * We should probably dump original fiction on MFD.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  12:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe that JzG is talking about the people whose sole activity here is to use Sandbox itself as a chat room or a free wiki hosting service. But yes, there are other pages such as Sandbox/Poetry/One more time, Sandbox/video game ideas, and Wikipedia:Sandbox:DavidNoi that appear to have no benefit to the project whatsoever.  However, see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Sandbox/Poetry. Uncle G 12:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Since there appears to be a concerted effort to ruin my argument by deleting my examples, I shall trawl Special:Allpages/Wikipedia:Sandbox again, to turn up Sandbox/Bands, Sandbox/Arguments, Sandbox/Flash Game Contest, Sandbox/Poetry/Peices, Sandbox/Random Vandalization Page, Sandbox/Thesandboxisgreat, Sandbox/scienter, Sandbox/lkd, and Sandbox/revert war. So there! &#9786; Uncle G 17:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Journalist seeking assistance
If an administrator could take a look at this Request for Comment and assist in answering this request from User:Edwardlucas (husband of Cristina Odone) it would be appreciated. Catchpole 13:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I wish more people disclosed their potential conflicts of interest as candidly as Edward Lucas and handled disputes as well. I've left my response.  Best wishes,  Durova Charge 14:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Ditto. Tyrenius 01:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of interest
There are changes in question at the Wikipedia Conflict of Interest guideline being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest regarding the extent to which our guideline should reflect conflict of interest in general (example: admin power use) or should be resticted to the recent consolidation of the former vanity guideline and the former paid-editor guideline. WAS 4.250 16:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

archive comments
Administrator Gurubrahma gave me a link about archiving comments. I hardly understand anything because I'm from a foreign country and my English is not well. Can you please summarise this link? Please leave a comment on my talk page if you agree. Thanks. Morris Munroe 16:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll reply on your talk page shortly. Sandstein 18:12, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:Eguor admins
Some events from the past couple of weeks inspired me to create a new category and populate it with myself. Join me if you think this is cool. If you consider it a horrible idea then tell me why: my flameproof suit just returned from the dry cleaners. Cheers,  Durova Charge 21:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Responded on the category talk page. Chick Bowen 21:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Another possible POV to watch for
We've got the corporate PR types trying to put their spin on their corporate articles, it looks like labour has discovered the same - might be a good idea to keep an eye out for POV'ness and WP:V on any article where labour disputes are underway -- Tawker 03:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That's fairly blatant. Dandy. Would that kind of work fall under the COI guidelines, considering they're suggesting focusing on the union message in labour disputes? Tony Fox (arf!) 06:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a soapbox is a policy of long standing. Uncle G 12:36, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I also notice they seem to get the impression we're a "company" (However I may have misread that). 68.39.174.238 13:42, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Aren't we? Wikimedia Foundation :P Luigi30 (Ta&lambda;k) 14:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I did notice he said he added a paragraph "filled with links to the company's website", in other words, the edits he made were sourced and (presumably) verifiable. He also advocates discussion on talk pages when challenged, which is also good. The only troubling thing I saw was persistent use of the definite article with the name "Wikipedia". It always makes me shudder when people say "the Wikipedia". —Angr 10:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Move gone really bad.. Intel Pentium III & friends..
I tried to switch places on 'Intel Pentium III' and 'Pentium III' however it seems wikipedia engine won't let go of 'Intel Pentium III' redirect page so the move is screwed up. Could someone please move the Article 'Pentium III tmp' -> 'Intel Pentium III'. And put a link from 'Pentium III' -> 'Intel Pentium III'. Please help with this..! I feel really bad about this screwup, but the database management software seems to have been caught in a momementum 22. Will not try this again, as it seems the database simple can't handle article switches. Again.. HELP! ;) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Electron9 (talk • contribs) 06:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC).


 * Fixed. --210<font color="#0000C0" face="Comic Sans MS">physicq  (<font color="#0000C0">c ) 07:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks!, btw could you swap 'Pentium Pro' and 'Intel Pentium Pro' ..? Electron9 07:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * There was no consensus for this move. It was decided a long time ago that microprocessor articles should not have the manufacturer's name in the title. A while back, some guy decided to move all such articles, and those moves were reverted. This move should not have been made. jgp TC 07:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh crap. So I have to fix it back? --210<font color="#0000C0" face="Comic Sans MS">physicq  (<font color="#0000C0">c ) 07:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I guess so. Not your fault, really... jgp TC 07:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Moved back after a bit of deleting. No big problem. --210<font color="#0000C0" face="Comic Sans MS">physicq  (<font color="#0000C0">c ) 07:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * To prevent future confusion, it might help if you added a paragraph to the MOS somewhere with a link to where this decision was made.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  11:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Question
Is it possible to set a half block to this IP? I mean, is it possible to block this IP from editing Wikipedia but not from creating an account or signing in? 193.154.194.38 10:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Technically, yes. But why would you want that? Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Blocks on request are specifically prohibited under the blocking policy, though. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 11:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * If he asks he'll probably give us a reason in a few minutes. Luigi30 (Ta&lambda;k) 13:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Violation of WP:USERNAME
User:Ken Fogarty has the same name as Ken Fogarty. He even contributed 4 times on the article.--<font color="blue" face="comic sans ms">Ed  <font color="maroon" face="comic sans ms">¿Cómo estás? Reviews? 22:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I filed a request on WP:RFC/NAME. Let's wait and find out. Hbdragon88 00:11, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'm sorry for posting my request in the wrong place, but some admins at IRC told me to go here.--<font color="blue" face="comic sans ms">Ed  <font color="maroon" face="comic sans ms">¿Cómo estás? Reviews? 00:42, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not a violation if he's the same guy. Then you just have to worry about WP:COI. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 11:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Why would the subject of the article write that he is living under a freeway in Houston? Hbdragon88 22:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Template:Admin 100b and others

 * Template:Admin 100b
 * Template:Admin 1000d
 * Template:Admin 2000d
 * Template:Admin 200b
 * Template:Admin 500d
 * Template:Admin 500b
 * Template:Admin 5000d

Would anyone object if I went rouge and just deleted these as being potentially divisive, in making blocking and deleting seem like a big fun competition, or will I have to take them to TFD?

Not that three are not used at all, with Blnguyen using two of the seven (500b and 5000d), and PinchasC and Moondyne using one each (200b and 1000d respectively). If I do have to go via TFD, is there any way to link multiple TFD notices to the one discussion (as with AFDx)? Proto :: ►  13:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe suggest he moves them to his userspace? yandman  13:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, but I'm suggesting they be got rid of, not shifted to userspace. Proto ::  ►  14:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * They serve no useful purpose (and sort of imply that someone's worth as an admin is in how many blocks, etc, they've imposed). I won't deny that I've considered speedying them myself before. -- Steel 14:11, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Speedy the unused and {{subst} the used ones. No one will complain, and if they do tell them Aaron "save the userboxes" brenneman suggested it. - brenneman  14:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I say delete the lot of them, and make yourself a nice template that says "this admin has deleted at least 7 templates on enwiki", then delete that as well. Repeat as necessary.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  14:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I killed the 100b one, now we just need a few more other rouge admins to take out the lot. -- Cyde Weys 14:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Someone is deleting them before I've had chance to subst them appropriately.(ahem!) Proto ::  ►  14:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah... I thought of that afterwards. Just C&P the text. -- Steel 14:25, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * All done now. :) Proto ::  ►  14:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Not sure how many deletes I have to my name, but I do enjoy the irony of so many templates boasting these statistics now taking their destined course. :)  Can&#39;t sleep, clown will eat me 14:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I am not far off the 5,000, and approaching a thousand blocks. I need to get out more.  Guy (Help!) 23:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I am not far off 50, and approaching twenty blocks. I need to get out less, . -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Do any of the counters actually tell you how many of each admin action on has performed? Proto ::  ►  10:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No, I think you just go to your log and hit "next 500" a bunch of times and count.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  11:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Interiot's tool does, when it's working. Chick Bowen 22:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Free Republic
There's a real mess over at that page. It's been the focal point of a hot dispute for long enough that I've considered opening an arbitration request. User:Carolyn-WMF performed some deletions recently that included cited material, which has created confusion. The editors are presumptively respecting it as an office action but wonder why it was done. Jossi seems to be the most active admin. I looked into things today after I opened an e-mail from one of the disputants that contained a serious allegation and a broken hyperlink, which I've tried to chase down in the page history but haven't verified yet.

I'm not sure what to make of this whole situation. If it weren't for Carolyn's edit I'd contact Jossi and probably start drafting an arbitration request. Comments and suggestions are welcome. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 19:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Whoa whoa whoa, straight to arbitration would be skipping a few steps. Has anyone tried mediation? Or maybe an RFC? -- Cyde Weys 19:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd have to look up some old diffs to be certain, but I think I pointed them in that direction two months ago. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge
 * This mess is about to get huger now... And I am probably the most active admin. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  21:05, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * And I'm not certain I have a good solution. That's why I'd like to discuss it here.  Any ideas? <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 21:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually I think Merzbow is doing an excellent job as a stabilizing factor, and essentially a mediator, and that over time that should calm things down. However, it is possible, as you suggest, some more immediate remedy be preformed. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  21:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That's not the impression I got when an editor petitioned me by e-mail. I'm on thin ice here because I was asked to treat it as confidential, yet I'd really like to see the page get some fresh eyes and additional feedback. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 21:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is not so much content disagreements at the moment (I've found the long-time editors on this page intelligent and very willing to compromise), but the actions of a notorious banned user. I'm not going to speculate anymore on the alleged actions of this user (at least until the Wikimedia people clear some things up), but all the bizarre details are at the article's talk page. In fact, I doubt there is anything more any of us can do until Danny et al respond. - Merzbow 21:49, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Would it help if I did an investigation the way I did with BooyakaDell/JB196? Some old fashioned gumshoe work proved that Booyaka was a sockpuppet of a banned account that had been dormant for too long to get a checkuser.  I'm sure you've got other irons in the fire.  Yet I'm here if you need me.  I've already been on this case for part of the history and I think I know who you're talking about. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 22:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd welcome your input Durova. Jossi was doing a GREAT job mediating until a notorious sockpuppeteer (now banned) started creating numerous sock puppet accounts to sway consensus and 'vote'. Although this user is banned, he is still affecting the article, and I believe he even might have contacted the foundation impersonating someone else and asking a Wiki employee to edit the article. Most unseemly. - Fairness And Accuracy For All 22:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a very serious accusation. Level it with caution. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 23:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * You're familiar with what's being discussed? The banned user's claims here were proven to be completely false here - Fairness And Accuracy For All 00:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm familiar with them, but they're pretty tough to encapsulate in a short request here. Please accept my apologies if I oversimplified.  Bear in mind that, although your accusation may be meritorious, frivolous charges of that sort far outnumber real ones.  The safe course is to be slow about making such a charge unless you're absolutely certain and ready to back it up with page diffs that connect all the dots. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 00:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Good advice. Once I confirmed that the user's claims regarding authorship were bogus, I did speculate as to how it happened that a foundation employee ended up editing the article. Better to wait. - Fairness And Accuracy For All 01:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

"Presumptively respecting" something as an office action is insanity. If something is aOffice Actions it needs to be clearly and explicitly stated as such. Have we learned nothing from the past stupidity (including dead-minning) with respect to this? There are "vanilla" edits as well from this account, like where she's listed herself as bookkeeper. Her removal of the section with citations should be treated just as any other user's would be. brenneman 23:42, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It is this edit, in which she says she works at the office that causes some speculation. Also, she actually removed herself from the employee list in the edit above??? Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  23:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * You're correct of course. Not that it matters, I simply meant it as an example of a "normal" edit, I could have used another example.  I do note that the request for clarification has gone unanswered.  We cannot and must not be put in the position where we are afraid to make straight-forward edits based upon random speculations.  I am going to examine the removed section as I would if under normal circumstances, and if I'm satisfied by the reference I'm going to uncomment on it. -  brenneman  23:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've uncommented out the section, re-written it since it was copyvio in the form of a long quote easily summarised,added details to the bare html reference, and noted on the talk page that I've done so. I stress this here again: Verification is not negotiable.  In teh absence of either a real source saying Walker didn't write the piece or some real indication that this was "official" then the citation must stand.  It is worth noting that the Walker part of the article is only very small, and the came citation could easily be used without mentioning the guy. -  brenneman  00:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

One of the reasons I posted here is because of the confusion about whether something was or was not an office action posted by a Foundation employee in the normal course of work, or a hoax, or something else. It deleted referenced material on a page with a longstanding edit war without explanation, which is definitely something I'd like to see the longstanding sysops comment on. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 00:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Bryan is now trying to recruit people to insert material for him. See [www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1549132/posts this FR thread]. He specifically mentions the articles: Kwanzaa, Abortion, and President Bush. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  16:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Now? That thread's entire lifespan was December 2005. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 18:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * He bumped it after it had been laying dormant for 8+ months. Trollific. - Fairness And Accuracy For John Titor 18:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I see.[www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1549132/posts?q=1&&page=257#257] Although I'm not entirely clear on how you identify this as the same Wikipedia editor, I'll trust Prodego's conclusion.  What would you like me to do? <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 19:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I would like you to contact Carolyn and/or Danny, ASAP, possibly by phone. Frankly, I am shocked that Carolyn would NOT be checking her talk page after taking such drastic and unusual action. This needs to be addressed as well. - Fairness And Accuracy For John Titor 20:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That is not necessary. It can be assumed that she made a normal edit, and it can be removed just like any other. However, just like any other, you should explain why you do, if you do. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  20:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * A Wiki employee makes an edit after recieving a mysterious phone call, possibly from an imposter, who we KNOW gave her false info - she deletes sourced info that a notorious banned troll happens to want deleted - and you call that a 'normal edit'? I'd hate to see what you'd consider an 'unusual edit'! ;-) - Fairness And Accuracy For John Titor 20:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I mean, that she is an employee should not carry any weight in this matter. She should be considered like any other editor. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  00:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Something new to watch for?
Can someone identify or explain what this edit was? Spam? Vandalism? Something really nasty? Or a mistake-- note that the previous edit by the same IP was a good edit --no it wasn't; I misread it as the other way around somehow. Perhaps this was just simple vandalism, then, in which case, I'm sorry for taking your time. Chick Bowen 23:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks like just a new user playing around, light vandalism/spam. -Patstuarttalk 00:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) It seems to be the latest fashion in vandalism. I saw one like this the other day. Not quite sure how it's done though. Tyrenius 00:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The part that messes up the page display is the unclosed  near the end of the added content.  Most of the rest is simply dumped on the page verbatim.  (BTW, I added diffonly=1 to the diff link above — doing that is probably a good idea when posting diffs to something that messes up the page.)  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 04:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * They have dumped a ready made myspace layout onto the page hoping it will look the same as on myspace. Viridae Talk 12:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah--this is quite useful, and I'm glad to know of the diffonly trick. Thanks. Chick Bowen 22:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Piotr Blass
I feel that my page Piotr Blass is being vandalizes and targeted for deletion Please look into this. Thanks Dr Piotr Blass www.pblass.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pblass2002 (talk • contribs) 02:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC).
 * No problem here: it's being discussed at WP:AFD. If the article is worth a keep, it will be kept. If not, then deleted. -Patstuarttalk 02:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I apologize, again, Dr. Blass, but his article, always an autobiography, has been deleted many times, and was recently allowed to be undeleted because it's deletedpage status was removed.— Ryūlóng ( 竜  龍 ) 03:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Deletion log— Ryūlóng ( 竜  龍 ) 03:30, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As a question, isn't courtesy blanking (as was done for his first AFD) intended for people who wish to go away? It seems he doesn't want to leave, he just wanted to remove the first round of embarassment. Fan-1967 03:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No, the result was delete before it was courtesy blanked. Check the log history (not providing a link, as it defeats the purpose of the courtesy blanking). -Patstuarttalk 03:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I understand that. It just seems that for him to request the AFD be blanked, and then recreating the article, is gaming the system. Maybe I was wrong. I viewed courtesy blanking as an extension of right to vanish. Fan-1967 03:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, thank you. Misunderstood your comments. Patstuarttalk 03:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I have restored the AFD as Dr. Blass has shown no attempts to actually leave. I will contact Jimbo about my actions.— Ryūlóng ( 竜  龍 ) 03:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Addtionally, if someone feels that I was out of line, I will not object to its reversion.— Ryūlóng ( 竜  龍 ) 03:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I concur with the opionion that Dr. Blass has been gaming our system. The new article offers little of substance beyond what was deleted before in the prior version and the user appears to be canvassing for support.  My comment at the deletion discussion reflects that. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 04:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, I forgot and — Ryūlóng  ( 竜  龍 ) 04:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Groan...salt the earth if possible. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 04:42, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It was. Centrx went out deleting deletedpages. That's how he remade Piotr Blass— Ryūlóng ( 竜  龍 ) 04:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * At the very least, let's not extend any more courtesies. Fan-1967 04:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive135 for a former discussion that I brought up.— Ryūlóng ( 竜  龍 ) 04:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * And, the original account.— Ryūlóng ( 竜  龍 ) 04:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I see Dr. Blass's IP address was blocked for a month last year for a threat. He's started four different threads on Jimbo's talk page today. How much do we tolerate before discussing a community siteban? He doesn't raise new points, just repeats himself. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 05:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Let's see, sock of banned user, recreation of deleted pages. Why are we even continuing to discuss? Fan-1967 05:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Have any of his accounts actually been banned? <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 05:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * My mistake. I thought had been. So why's he using the sock ?

Just as recreating a page automatically contests a prod, recreating a page implies waiving your right to a courteousy blank. Savidan 05:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * has been speedied and salted. Fan-1967 05:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

<devil's advocate> Anything to suggest this the the real Blass other than his claim to that end, and does it make any differance? Just exploring the possibilities here... brenneman 05:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * He's invited me to one of his lectures, at some point. Also, it's hard not to tell its him.— Ryūlóng ( 竜  龍 ) 07:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's inconceivable that anyone other than him could duplicate that level of vanity. Besides, the argumentative writing style is inimitable. Fan-1967 07:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've been receiving quite a few emails from him, as in the past I tried communicating with him and explaining what Wikipedia is and such. Unfortunatly the last time we talked he was convinved Wikipedia is a cult... I cannot guarantee it's the real Piotr Blass, and it's one person, but the level of disruption - good of bad faithed - has reached the level where I'd support ban as well, even if only to stop real Piotr Blass from geting defamed more for vandalism on Wikipedia.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Ban time?
Based on Dr. Blass' constant abuse of Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and the community, I propose that we ban him from contributing to Wikipedia because he has clearly exhausted our patience. His only contributions to the project are his autobiography, the article on Zariski surfaces, Jimbo's talk page whenever his article is up for deletion (appealing to a "fellow Floridian"), and the talk pages of those who oppose him, because they are not knowledgeable in the fringe area of mathematics. This would include a ban on, , and the IP as well as any others he may use.— Ryūlóng  ( 竜  龍 ) 08:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Endorse. Clearly has abused Wikipedia. Edit history on the latest article (before it was deleted) showed that when anyone else tried to edit the article, he immediately reverted or added a bunch of "yes, but..." text. Apparently believes that the subject of a Wikipedia article can WP:OWN it when the Wikipedia community has already decided (repeatedly) that the article doesn't belong here at all. What he wants to use Wikiopedia for is totally at odds with what Wikipedia is. Fan-1967 15:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Endorse. Not only is his campaign to establish a vanity bio on our site a waste of volunteer time, it would set a dangerous precedent if the vanity-by-attrition strategy actually succeeded.  A ban could be a useful deterrent for other users. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 15:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Endorse per the above. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:42, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I tried to explain to him what Wikipedia is. I failed. I have no choice but to endorse per my comment above.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Sitebanned
This has gone far enough. While the siteban discussion was underway Dr. Blass started yet another thread on Jimbo's user talk and made a vanity insertion into Zariski surface. Support for a ban has been unanimous so far and the prominence of Jimbo's page sets a bad example if we're too slow. I'll be slightly bold and implement the ban now. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 20:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * And another endorse. Vanity and excess of zeal we can forgive, obdurate refusal to get the point after many, many patient explanations is more of a problem. Guy (Help!) 20:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Good call. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 20:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

His favorites
Seeing that he is not a notable individual, all that remains is the Zariski surface article, which JzG doesn't think is significant (that is what I believe he means from that diff at least). Google solely mentions the Zariski surface without Dr. Blass' name a total of 374 times, some of which are solely on Oscar Zariski's Wikipedia articles and its mirror.— Ryūlóng ( 竜  龍 ) 22:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Put it on the block and see if the chicken squawks before the cleaver comes down. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 23:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I know it's hack and thoroughly overdone, but LOL! That genuinely did make me laugh out loud, and I will file it for shameless plargarism later. Oh, plargarism - that one came from a discussion on H2G2 a very long time ago. Guy (Help!) 15:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Done— Ryūlóng ( 竜  龍 ) 01:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Even more Primetime
I did a little browsing of 's back catalog, and lo, more stuff, namely re-creating the copyright violation that is Reinhard Sorge by -- the violation which got him busted in the first place -- and into John Abbey by. (Their last edits were in October, unfortunately, so Checkuser presumably wouldn't work.) Looking over the list of copyright violations from his user page, all the links which I recall being red are now blue: perhaps an admin can compare the new articles and additions with the deleted copyvios:



--Calton | Talk 02:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Note: the user names I suspect to be sockpuppets up to monkey business are listed on the Checkuser page, but let me list them here also:


 * (minor contribution to Reinhard Sorge, may be inadvertent)
 * (minor contribution to Reinhard Sorge, may be inadvertent)
 * (minor contribution to Reinhard Sorge, may be inadvertent)

--Calton | Talk 04:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Reposting:
Okay, I'm reposting this item:


 * because it involves a long-term vandal
 * because it involves repeated and deliberate insertion of copyrighted material, which could damage Wikipedia in the long run
 * because it requires administrator action
 * to confirm that the inserted material is the same copyrighted material that was deleted (not reverted, deleted)
 * to confirm that new articles are re-creations of the same copyrighted material (not reverted, deleted)
 * to delete recreated articles and, perhaps, delete the copyvios from existing articles

and, of course


 * because no one has done bupkis.

Anyone want to actually step up to the plate (or step up to the crease) here? 'Cause I can't do this. --Calton | Talk 14:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, they may have done nothing to block the accounts, but I certainly looked at them, and decided it was too much for my pore brane to take in. Plus the pay is crap for being an admin so I have to do work on the side. Guy (Help!) 18:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * You know, if this were the "JZG Noticeboard to Pester Him Personally" you might have something resembling a point. But since this is the "Admin Noticeboard" for notifying several hundred active admins? Not so much. --Calton | Talk 04:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * My point was that I, for one, did not "do bupkis" about this. I am sure others looked at it and decided they did not have the time or the knowledge to fix it either. Guy (Help!) 14:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think I'm familiar enough with Primetime to really judge all this, but after about 20 minutes perusal things look okay. Michael Snow removed Primetime's copyvios from these articles on 18 May 2006, so I just browsed the diffs since then and nothing glaring popped up.  Lmbjk and OK1900 contributed heavily to articles on Latin-American subjects, they could be the same person but I don't think it is Primetime based on the concentration of their editing.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go cash Guy's paycheck.  Teke ( talk ) 18:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * They look ok because I removed the most egregious of the reinsertions, some of them word for word copies of the deleted articles. The obvious socks have been blocked, Lmbjk and OK1900 have not because I have doubts that they are. Thanks fo keeping an eye on this Calton. pschemp | talk 19:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm going to keep digging, I found that Anna Cora Mowatt was recreated by . Both the article and the user are now gone, of course.  I'll add it to the LTA page and browse some more.  Teke ( talk ) 20:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Salvatore Quasimodo and Chester A. Crocker also had problems. Socks blocked, more later as I am hungry now.  Teke ( talk ) 21:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm going through his contributions to list articles that match his particular style in copyvios, the page will be kept here. Teke ( talk ) 21:37, 17 January 2007 (UTC)  Never mind, I've found the info I need elsewhere.  Teke ( talk ) 22:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Johann Hari's entry
I have tried for over three months to reach consensus on the entry for British journalist Johann Hari with a wiki user called ‘Felix-Felix’. I'm pretty concerned at the attitude and approach of Felix-Felix and I'd appreciate some advice.

Hari is a fairly well known young liberal journalist who writes a column for the Independent and has written for the New York Times, Le Monde and others. Felix-Felix appears to be motivated by extreme hostility to Hari, who he has described as “a little tyke”, a supporter of “genocide”, and in favour of "the destruction of untermenschen." He described the original wiki entry for Hari – which included accusations that he was soft on paedophiles, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, “fat”, “a Stalinist”, and “naïve” – as “a love letter”, which gives you some sense of how low his opinion of Hari is.

I'm afraid this user has repeatedly tried to insert false and libellous arguments into the article. To give just one example, he has tried to claim that Hari – a left-wing writer from a working class family – went to Harrow School, one of the most expensive and elite public schools in Britain. Even when it was pointed out to him that this was wholly false (Hari went to a nearby school!), Felix-Felix kept trying to insert this claim.

He also admits to inserting meaningless sentences into the article, "out of frustration".

Felix-Felix has a strange perception that Hari is some kind of right-winger, and has attempted to delete from the entry the copious evidence that contradicts this claim. For example, Hari supports total nuclear disarmament by the US, Britain and all other nuclear states, and is a vociferous campaigner on the question of global warming. Felix has tried repeatedly to delete these facts, on the grounds that these positions are “uncontroversial”. I pointed out that far from being “uncontroversial”, the idea of total nuclear disarmament is widely regarded as a radical position and is supported by, for example, just 6 of 651 British MPs, and no US Congressmen at all. He refused to accept this and just kept deleting it, even when the polls he himself cited showed that almost half of Americans oppose disarmament.

He is presently trying to delete all the major criticisms of Hari in the entry from prominent right-wingers (presumably because they contradict his view that Hari is himself a right-winger). He has dismissed criticisms by Bjorn Lomborg, who was named as the twelfth most important intellectual in the world by Prospect magazine, and David Starkey, who was later named as one of the 100 most important intellectuals in Britain by Prospect. He claims these figures are “spurious” and “unimportant”. However, he believes that a minor blog-based group called Medialens, who he happens to agree with, should be quoted at great length (without quoting Hari’s response).

I believe in quoting a range of critics from across the political spectrum (and as it happens I personally agree with the Medialens criticism of Hari). So I repeatedly offered Felix-Felix a compromise: we should quote Medialens at length, provided we quote other critics at length and quote Hari’s responses. He has consistently refused to do this. He insists that we quote the critics he agrees with, and almost none of the others, no matter how eminent, and give only a single sentence of Hari’s response. This seems to clearly contradict the rules on POV.

I am concerned that Felix does not even seem to have read Hari’s work, and offers summaries of it that directly contradict what Hari actually says. For example, Hari wrote several articles claiming he was wrong to have supported the Iraq war. He wrote:

“The lamest defence I could offer – one used by many supporters of the war as they slam into reverse gear – is that I still support the principle of invasion, it’s just the Bush administration screwed it up. But as one anti-war friend snapped at me when I mooted this argument, “Yeah, who would ever have thought that supporting George Bush in the illegal invasion of an Arab country would go wrong?” She’s right: the truth is that there was no pure Platonic ideal of The Perfect Invasion to support, no abstract idea we lent our names to. There was only Bush, with his cluster bombs, depleted uranium, IMF-ed up economic model, bogus rationale and unmistakable stench of petrol, offering his war, his way. (Expecting Tony Blair to use his influence was, it is now clear, a delusion, as he refuses to even frontally condemn the American torture camp at Guantanomo Bay).

The evidence should have been clear to me all along: the Bush administration would produce disaster. Let’s look at the major mistakes-cum-crimes. Who would have thought they would unleash widespread torture, with over 10,000 people disappearing without trial into Iraq’s secret prisons? Anybody who followed the record of the very same people – from Rumsfeld to Negroponte – in Central America in the 1980s. Who would have thought they would use chemical weapons? Anybody who looked up Bush’s stance on chemical weapons treaties (he uses them for toilet paper) or checked Rumsfeld’s record of flogging them to tyrants. Who would have thought they would impose shock therapy mass privatisation on the Iraqi economy, sending unemployment soaring to 60 percent – a guarantee of ethnic strife? Anybody who followed the record of the US towards Russia, Argentina, and East Asia. Who could have known that they would cancel all reconstruction funds, when electricity and water supplies are still below even Saddam’s standards? Anybody who looked at their domestic policies.”

Yet Felix-Felix tried to summarise this statement as “half hearted-apologising for Bush mucking up an invasion which he would have supported if it had been done better.”

Felix-Felix’s summaries of Hari’s arguments are consistently so far from what hari has actually said I can only assume he hasn’t read them, or is deliberately misrepresenting them.

It is hard to achieve agreement because, as looking through the archive will show, Felix simply denies facts which do not match his world-view. For example, Hari is a consistent defender of the Enlightenment tradition, and was nominated alongside Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali by the National Secular Society as one of the best defenders of the Enlightenment in Britain in 2006. Felix-Felix, however, declared that Hari was not a defender of the Enlightenment and this was simply an attempt to big up a “trivial op-ed writer”. I tried to answer him by offering evidence which included Hari’s attacks on postmodernism, which prompted Felix to deny postmodernism opposed the Enlightenment. Even when I pointed out that the wikipedia entry on postmodernism included in its first paragraph that fact that postmodernism opposes the Enlightenment, he insisted it did not.

Nonetheless, I have been keen to try to achieve consensus on the page with Felix in any way I can. In the archive, you can see over six instances in which I say, “I’ll compromise on this, what will you compromise on?” and receive no answer.

Some posters on the page have occasionally agreed with Felix, and some have agreed with me. I have compromised and engaged with those who agree with specific points by Felix. However, Felix by contrast has simply accused anybody who posts in agreement with me of being a sock-puppet and ignored them. (Indeed, he ignored me for a long time, claiming I was Johann Hari, until somebody who we both know pointed out that I am not). Several of the posters have become so exasperated with this that they have taken the unusual step of offering their telephone numbers so Felix can verify their identities – but still he continues to accuse them of being me. He has started attacking other people who post, and following them to their wikipedia entries and negatively editing them (see Van Badham).

He has also persistently ignored the wikipedia administrators who have intervened. For example, the archive shows Charles Matthews, an administrator, clearly telling him to “stop deleting well-sourced material for the sake of it”, and Felix proceeding anyway.

Last week I discovered that Felix-Felix is a defender of the notorious anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon, and denies it is anti-Semitic to write this: "We must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously...American Jewry makes any debate on whether the 'Protocols of the elder of Zion' are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews (in fact Zionists) do control the world." He has also written articles describing Israeli strategy called "The Protocols of the Edlers of Zion (part Two)".

It's pretty worrying; does anyone have any advice about what I can do to stop this guy trashing Johann Hari's entry? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by David r from meth productions (talk • contribs) 16:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC).
 * David, it sounds like you have a good attitude towards this -- based on your description, you are trying to engage Felix on the specifics and (mostly) not personally. Have you offered to try the various stages of dispute resolution with Felix, either with regard to your overall dispute or some specific issue?  Thanks, and good luck, TheronJ 16:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * see Talk:Johann Hari and Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2007-01-04_Johann_Hari Catchpole 17:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The mediation request is open, and the page is protected, so there doesn't seem to be any imminent threat.  I have just stuck my nose into the debate, but I will see if the parties will accept me as a mediator.  TheronJ 17:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

More Cplot... (*sigh*)
After seeing yet more of Cplots quite futile and "self-sacrificing" (ie - he's clearly doing nobody any good, including himself) reverted edits at VPP, and seeing it was the same account repeatedly, I went to his talk page. On seeing what at least appeared to be a little bit of gloating about "the admins" missing him this time around, I couldn't resist adding the following advice which I felt may be reasonable for him to note - here.

I'm not generally one for incivility or any such thing, nor am I usually one for either failing to assume good faith or "feeding the trolls". I don't think I've done either, but I would appreciate it if somebody could just double check that I haven't said anything that's in any way inappropriate. As I say, I doubt it, but it's probably worth checking (for my own peace of mind if little else) that others see the message in the same way I intended it. I certainly hope that he see's the futility of it all (well, explaining the reality of it was worth a try! lol) Crimsone 17:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Civil, but it's kind of like throwing a few chips and some guacamole to the hungry green critter who lives underneath that bridge. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 18:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Note looks fine, Prodego indef blocked the account. He did make a point in letting that username slip through; looks like he expected to be found right away and was surprised to not be.  Teke ( talk ) 18:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Many thanks to both of you for that - it's much appreciated. To be honest, I do find it all a little bit painful to watch. Even so, if it was troll food I apologise. Here's hoping that sooner or later it'll dawn on him that the message I wrote actually said what it said, rather than what he's like to think it said (or he otherwise reaches the same conclusion) Crimsone 18:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately there are some people who construe any response at all into affirmation: if absurdity receives a reply then they claim it merits discussion, then dignify it into difference of opinion, etc. Over at User:Raul654/Raul's laws my first contribution was no. 98: Any editor who makes an assertion that is simultaneously wrong on three or more levels is a person who is immune to reason.  Or as Louis Armstrong used to say, There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 19:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

It looked like a polite comment in my opinion. Anomo 19:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Getting a feel for unblock flow
Attention fellow administrators, you may want to check this out: User:Cyde/List of requests for unblock.

It updates every hour, making a list of the current talk pages in the category on unblock. What's interesting so far is that every hour it's run, it's had something to do (if the list didn't change, it wouldn't commit an edit). So the unblock stuff has a bit of a higher turnover rate than I would expect. I'll let this run for awhile, and we might get some good statistics out of it. Certainly we'll get a better feel for how the unblock process works. -- Cyde Weys 02:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Similar concept, different category: User:Cyde/List of candidates for speedy deletion. Yeah, there's an image bug right now, I'm working on it ... Cyde Weys 02:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I approve of this. Easier to navigate than the Cat for sure.  Teke ( talk ) 02:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Very very nice. Patstuarttalk 02:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The image bug is fixed now. -- Cyde Weys  02:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, how's the time period sound? Is once every hour good enough? There's not really a threat of going too low, because if the category hasn't changed at all, then no new edit will be committed. -- Cyde Weys 02:35, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks excellent. The next thing it needs (I know it's easy to make suggestions like this) is an indicator of which requests have been reviewed yet or not.
 * If it's going to be used purely for analytics, every hour is fine. If it's going to be used by admins to make sure all unblock requests are reviewed on a timely basis, I believe it should be much more often than that. Newyorkbrad 02:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As for which have been reviewed, that is a bit harder to do. Not that hard ... just download the texts of all of the pages in the category, grep for the reviewed template, and strikeout items on the list accordingly ... but it will take a little bit of work to manage.  I'll see if it's worth it.  -- Cyde Weys  02:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'd say every 10 minutes would be a good balance between server load and lag time. I'm liking the CSd list too, but I'd prefer if they were listed chronologically instead of alphabetically.  Can you set the thing not to include items already on the page, so that new ones are at the end and working down the list will be roughly chronological? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 02:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorting chronologically is something entirely different than what I had in mind here. I could do it (might take a bit of work), but that would involve not only looking at the texts of all of the pages, but also their edit histories, to see when the template was added.  That would involve downloading the texts of lots of revisions (sometimes many edits are made after the template is added).  And pyWiki doesn't yet have code to parse out histories.  Or I could have the bot run frequently, keep an internal state of which is on the list, and add all of the new items to the bottom.  That would be a lot simpler.  -- Cyde Weys  02:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The latter is what I was thinking. You don't need to run frequently either; just insert a horizontal bar or section break after each update and reload the old list to make sure you aren't adding dupes, then you have blocks based on which run they were added during.  Close enough to chronological to keep things from getting stale. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 02:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll look into doing that on another page. I'll probably want to make a separate bot for that right now; as it is, I'm almost over-extending what category.py is supposed to do.  -- Cyde Weys  02:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I've bumped up the run-times to once every 20 minutes. -- Cyde Weys 02:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've never really looked at how many people are in the category/on the list at once. If it's 7, as it is now, I suppose it's no big deal for a reviewing admin to quickly skim each. If there are times when there are dozens of names on that list then adding the "already reviewed or not" functionality could be more helpful. As for sorting chronologically, we could ask the user making the request to fill in the time (of course that assumes the typical blocked user can speak UTC and would provide accurate information, which might be too much to ask). Newyorkbrad 03:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, a useful suggestion: if you add these two pages to your watchlist you don't have to keep track of the actual categories. Just whenever you see these ping on your watchlist, it means there's something you might want to do. Anyone have any other ideas for categories that might make sense to watch closely? -- Cyde Weys 03:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Pages tagged as db-attack would be a good one. Those should be dealt with quickly and I've seen them linger for hours. Newyorkbrad 03:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * So, just Category:Attack pages for speedy deletion? That's certainly doable.  Doesn't look like much traffic in there, though.  -- Cyde Weys  03:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The unblock list that pops up on watchlist is great. Thank you, Cyde! I don't think an extra attack page list is strictly necessary: I check User:Dragons flight/Category tracker/Summary every time it is updated and always check out the attack page category if it is nonempty. Usually it is empty by the time I get there, only minutes after the summary updates. Kusma (討論) 10:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

This user seems to think that he owns Vandalism. I have made some cleanup edits to the page and he has reverted them for no real reason and accused me of being a vandal just for editing the page. Could an admin please talk to him? Thanks.--<font color="Darkred">Azer Red <font color="Red">Si?  04:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Here is the most recent diff of this reversion.--<font color="Darkred">Azer Red <font color="Red">Si?  04:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Both parties basically got into a bit of a hot edit war. I'm already on it. Hopefully I can just mediate this quietly. :-) --Kim Bruning 05:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I dropped an neutral opinion note, I don't plan to participate further. Teke ( talk ) 05:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It is obvious that Azer is not a vandal, so John's accusatory tone is inappropriate, as is his use of the "final warning" template. I've also tweaked the header here since John isn't a vandal either. I'll have to do some more thorough reading about what the dispute is over, but it sounds like a difference in opinion about the wording of a policy page, of the kind we can usually reach a compromise on.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  10:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Removing images on sight
I have started removing images which I tag as copyright infringements or policy violations from the article pages. The reason for this is that our hard-working administrators sometimes forget to remove the images from the article pages before deleting them. Ever so often I encounter dead links to deleted images (diff diff). Leaving a red link for a month is not very pretty, and certainly must appear confusing for some of our readers. There is also the possibility that the deleted media will be uploaded again by a user following the red link.

This matter was also discussed at WP:AN/I (here). I will continue removing tagged images on sight, while still staying within WP:3RR if the deletion is contested (except for egregious errors). --Oden 07:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * And I quote from WP:3RR:
 * It does not grant users any right to three reverts every 24 hours or endorse reverts as an editing technique, it is not an entitlement, but an "electric fence". 
 * Emphasis is not mine. Cburnett 16:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Who authorized you to "have started removing images which [you] tag as copyright infringements or policy violations from the article pages"? Isn't that the job of the Administrator who closes the IfD debate on a particular image?  I think you are too bold in doing so.  -- Jeff G. 22:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

OrphanBot already removes links to images that have been tagged as lacking source or licensing information. There's no reason for a human editor to waste time doing so. —Angr 10:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Going through Category:Soviet cosmonauts I found red image links in:
 * Konstantin Feoktistov (permanent link) - Image was deleted November 15, 2006
 * Viktor Gorbatko (permanent link) - Image was deleted June 18, 2006 and June 30, 2006
 * Pyotr Klimuk (permanent link) - Image was deleted July 1, 2006 November 15, 2006
 * Yuri Malyshev (permanent link) - Image was deleted November 15, 2006
 * Andrian Nikolayev (permanent link) - Image was deleted October 23, 2006
 * Vladimir Shatalov (permanent link) - Image was deleted November 15, 2006
 * Gherman Titov (permanent link) - Image was deleted November 16, 2006
 * Vladislav Volkov (permanent link) - Image was deleted January 5, 2007
 * Vitaliy Zholobov (permanent link) - Image was deleted November 27, 2006
 * Nine out of 75 articles in that category have red image links. Granted many of the images were deleted from the commons which the bot might not have detected, but there still seems to be a problem. --Oden 18:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Troll organization
This article was voted to be deleted and redirected to Internet troll per afd, but the page was simply redirected and was not deleted. Could an admin please delete it and recreate it as a redirect? Thank you.--<font color="Darkred">Azer Red <font color="Red">Si?  16:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. KillerChihuahua?!? 16:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Articles for deletion/Troll organization was closed as redirect, not delete and redirect. Azer Red is one of two people who said 'delete and redirect per nom', the other contributions to the discussion varied from keep, to merge, to redirect, to redirect and protect. Azer Red, if you have some genuine reason why it needs to be deleted, rather than redirected, you should say so, rather than misrepresenting the result of an AfD.
 * KillerChihuahua, you missed the talk page. That is still a redirect, and its history is still viewable, as seen in this version of talk page before it was made a redirect. I'd hold off on deciding what to do until more input arrives in this thread. I'd suggest moving Talk:Troll organization to be an archive of Talk:Troll (Internet), or at least to link it from the archives of that page (effectively merging the two talk pages). Carcharoth 21:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think that there is a difference between voting "redirect" and "delete and redirect". If the consensus is to redirect, there is no reason to keep the past revisions of the page intact, and this prevents users from going against the consensus by reverting the redirect.--<font color="Darkred">Azer Red <font color="Red">Si?  03:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * If there was anything to merge, I presume that has been done (?) and whatever is left was found not valuable to the encyclopedia. Is there any reason not to have deleted? I'd prefer not to compound any disputes by undeleting a completely unecessary and unused page unless there is a good reason to do so. KillerChihuahua?!? 03:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * OK. Two issues here. Please correct me if I get any of the following incorrect. (1) What happened (that is something that KillerChihuahua can answer, or should have had the answers to before deleting) and (2) What the closing user stipulated should happen (that is something Azer Red could have discussed with the AfD closer before coming to WP:AN). Firstly, 'redirect', the term used by some of the !voters and the AfD closer is a vague term. 'Redirect' should be qualified by saying what happens to the content already at the page. ie. the two redirect options are merge and redirect, or delete and redirect (there is a third option of blank to a redirect, effectively keeping the content available in the page history, but not merging it). (1) If what was done was merge, then past revisions are indeed needed for GFDL attribution of the merged content. If no merging took place, then delete and recreation of the redirect (or blanking back to a redirect) is OK. Looking at the page history for Troll (Internet), there is no edit summary for the dates concerned to suggest that any content was merged. KillerChihuahua might like to double-check that there was no mergeable content in the page that was deleted, instead of presuming that this was done (I find it is always dangerous to presume someone else has done something on Wikipedia). In all probability, there isn't any mergeable content, but those page revisions probably contain stuff that is no worse than stuff in the page history of Troll (Internet). (2) The AfD closer said 'redirect'. The question here is whether the analysis here should override any need to find out what the AfD closer really meant. Probably not, but I'll drop a note off on the talk page of the AfD closer. Finally, the talk page. I'll move it to the archives of Talk:Troll (Internet), and link from the archive box on that talk page. Then someone can delete the redirect. I wonder if the AfD should be updated as well, to clarify what has actually happened? Carcharoth 11:40, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Carcharoth is correct, I did not do the thorough due diligance I should have done (and usually do.) Lesson to me not to get lazy! I saw no merged content, but I could have missed it. I have added to Carcharoth's note on Yuser31415's page a specific query about any merged content. KillerChihuahua?!? 12:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi. No, I did not merge any content, simply blanked and redirected. Was that against consensus? I think not. Also, it happened to be my purpose to leave it that way, instead of deleting all of the previous history to normal users. I'd appreciate if KillerChihuahua (is that spelt right? ) undeleted it to my revision. Cheers. Yuser31415 19:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * My concern is that the dreaded GNAA is linked from there, but if that is not seen as an issue, and if consensus is that the article should have been blanked and redirected rather than deleted and redirected, I will cheerfully do so. KillerChihuahua?!? 23:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That was a request for input, apologies if I was unclear. KillerChihuahua?!? 23:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed, I'd appreciate the article to be undeleted and redirected as per my decision in the relevant AfD. Yuser31415 04:30, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of salted pages
There are a few people who routinely remove WP:SALTed pages. This is fine, they are an eyesore and for the most part the original creator loses interest after a month or so. But some, like Piotr Blass above, get re-created every time the delete protected page is removed. And nobody seems to get notified when the protected pages are removed. Is there a list of formerly delete-protected pages anywhere, or if not can some botmeister create one? I look every now and then for bluelinks in my deletion log but with around 5,000 deletions on file that is a long job. Guy (Help!) 18:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 18:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * People who deleted salted pages MUST take a good look at the history and work out what's going on first. Most can be deleted after a few weeks, but in some cases not. We've had slow-burning slanders re-inserted, and libellous redirects cropping up every few months. Some things when killed need to stay dead.--Docg 18:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not a great one for raising artificial hurdles or excessive process. Most are not a problem, a few are a problem.  If we can come up with a bot to list salted pages, and another bot to transfer them to an unsalted salted pages list when they are deleted again, then a few eyes down the list will be enough.  HighInBC's idea has merit, or we could simply subst the template and recategorise them into a separate category for serial problem articles.  Or put a comment in the list for those and ask Centrx and others to work from the list instead.  Lots of ways to solve a minor but persistent problem.  Guy (Help!) 19:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * A bot already lists salted pages and protected redirects on a page linked from WP:SALT. —Centrx→talk &bull; 23:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It isn't process to ask people to look at the history of an item before deleting it, and to apply a little common sense. Indeed one should always do that before pressing the trigger. However, the ultimate solution to this has always been to nag the devs to allow us to protect actual deleted pages as deleted. Then they wouldn't show up in searches, and we could leave protection on them pretty well indefinitely, unless someone makes a good case for a real article. That would be a lot quicker and less process than your suggestion (which I could buy as a good interim fix, btw). It would also avoid silliness like this which was caused by people (with reason) insisting that we didn't have a long-term SALT, in the face of constant recreations (thankfully, a little creativity has now solved that particular problem).--Docg 22:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sure. I just don't think we need to formalise anything, is all. Many, probably most, are completely uncontroversial (although February is approaching). Of course if the logs show multiple deletions over many months, then deleting the salt is likely to invite trouble, that's not in dispute. I'm just trying to be fair, here, and emphasising that I do not imply any kind of censure of Centrx. Guy (Help!) 23:05, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Without getting rid of them, there would be 10,000+ of these pages. As it stands, there are 1350. Hundreds of readers see them as results to Special:Random, and many inhibit the creation of legitimate articles. The vast majority are never re-created at all, and of those that are re-created some are created as legitimate articles or have been changed into redirects. It really does take hours to look at every log in the way you are suggesting—I used to do it, and I was the only one doing it. If other people want to help get rid of these pages, or to follow up on all the many pages they protected one day in May because one person was re-created some joke for 5 minutes, please do so. —Centrx→talk &bull; 23:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Centrx, how likely is it that something would get salted if there seemed any good chance of a legitimate article following? And what's the cost/benefit between letting editors petition for desalting when necessary vs. relisting cruft for deletion and community banning the persistent cruftmasters?  I guess you do what you do for good reason, but I'm not in your shoes and would like to understand the logic. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 01:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * A significant portion of SALTed pages are simply personal names, names which belong to several different people. That little Timmy created a vanity article about himself one day does not mean there is not a Tim Jones that can support an article, which is not going to be created if someone finds they have to go through a bizarre three-step process to create it; on Wikipedia, you do not need to "petition" to create an article. The second issue is that these are non-articles in the main namespace. They show up in Special:Random, so hundreds of average readers encounter them even when their number is kept to a minimum, they inflate Special:Statistics, and they appear as A-OK blue links. They show up in Special:Shortpages where they need to be maintained in a special way or that special page becomes completely useless, so they probably affect other things as well. This has not been encountered as a big deal because the number of these pages has been kept low, but if thousands of active users and tens of thousands of average readers encountered these SALTed pages on a regular basis, and the article count was 10,000 higher than it should be, then 20,000, etc., the discussion here would not be "how could you delete those three pages that we had to re-protect again!" but "someone please delete these thousands of useless pages, by any means possible!" —Centrx→talk &bull; 02:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Do redirects show up in Special:Random, Special:Statistics, and Special:Shortpages? The SALT template could be turned into a redirect to a special (?Wikipedia-space) page containing the text of the current template. (Yes, they would still be blue.)  -- ALoan (Talk) 10:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a good idea. —Centrx→talk &bull; 13:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * A list of formerly protected-deleted pages can be found in the page history of the current listing. Listings prior to September 23 may be found in the history of the old listing. I do not know of any non-extremely-old listing prior to July 2006. —Centrx→talk &bull; 23:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we can make a separate salt template for pages that are recreated every time they are unsalted. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 19:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) Or just a parameter for the number of recreations, so that an admin would be quickly able to say whether removing the protection would attract people to recreate the article or not. After all, the template parameter can only be edited by administrators. -- ReyBrujo 23:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Tourette's Guy, Tourettes Guy, Briefsism seem to be frequently re-created, perhaps these should be left salted. I've just had an email asking where the Tourette's Guy article went... and I told the sender it's not going to come back. --SunStar Nettalk 01:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Sometimes things are salted for really serious (perhaps even legal) reasons. I salted a couple of libellous/attack redirects at one point, that aimed at associating people's names with other articles. Admins deleting salted articles MUST at least take the time to see what's going on. Else we'd have Brian Peppers back every two months.--Docg 02:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, considering that deletedpage pages are usually sorted in Special:Shortpages, I suggest forcing a parameter with an explanation about why the page has been salted, that would make things easier for everyone. -- ReyBrujo 02:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen a single one like that be in the category. Brian Peppers is in Category:Office protected; similar situations I have seen do not use the protected-deleted template. If there is a legal or other situation where the page for some reason needs to protected for more than 3 months, it doesn't go in the SALT category. What legal situation would go on for 3 months yet OFFICE would not be involved? What SALT protects against someone just putting whatever illegal text at another title? —Centrx→talk &bull; 03:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I kindly invite you (or anyone, for that matter) to unprotect Gay Nigger Association of America in 3 months. -- ReyBrujo 03:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That's not a legal issue, and if it were re-created it would quickly be deleted and protected again. I would notice to put it on my watchlist anyway. —Centrx→talk &bull; 12:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible for the devs to change it so sysops can protect empty pages, thus keeping it as a redlink that wouldn't show up on stats, random page and the like, but preventing obvious garbage from being recreated over and over? The talk page of said garbage could have some kind of standard 'this is what to do if you honestly believe this could be a valid article' on it, as talk pages don't affect the above.  I don't know much about what is and is not possible - can empty pages be protected?  Proto ::  ►  09:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Please don't forget to watch-list every formerly salted page you delete. Kusma (討論) 10:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * By default protection is harmful to the project. Salted pages included. In every case we need to weight the benefits of stopping recreation with the harm having it protected causes. We can't lose sight of that delicate balancing act. I think Centrx did the right thing for the right reasons and it is likely that only a few of the articles will end up being re-salted.
 * I think the best idea would be to create a new template... longtermsalt that must be substed and includes a timestamp and make the common practice only to un-salt those pages with a WP:DRV or after 6 months. With the troublemakeing articles out of the mix we can get more aggressive with deleing the other salted pages. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 20:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I need some fresh opinions
Articles for deletion/Jim Shapiro (second nomination) is taking some strange turns and if a few people can take an interest, I would like to bow out. Jim Shapiro is without doubt worthy of being taken notice of in wikipedia. Exactly how we do that is up to the community. Well, take a look and see if you wish to get involved. Thank you. (The issue of Wikipedia articles named after living people but not really biographies is involved here, too.) WAS 4.250 22:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It most certainly is a biography. And even if it wasn't, BLP still applies. Sarah 10:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Unusual behavior
I ran across this edit while doing RC's, and it quite raised my eyebrows. It's his own userpage, and he's not done anything since then, but someone might want to keep an eye. Seraphimblade 11:31, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's nice of him to warn us. Proto ::  ►  12:32, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I hate to say it, but his former minibio looks almost as though he's refering to several notorious vandals, the first one is Antifinnugor[sic], the second the notorious Loyola dude, I don't know about orthodoxy, and the last is Bonaparte. I know this is a little tenuous, but he may have had this in mind for a while? 68.39.174.238 14:19, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh come on... it's a fun thought in a somewhat eerie way, but let's be realistic. The guy has always be a brilliant contributor, and he's genuinely competent in his academic subjects. A link to either Antifinnugor or Bonaparte is totally out of the question. And by the way, his bio seems to be genuine too . Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Copyvios
I have stumbled across a user all of whose contributions (multiple articles) appear to be copyvios and is in the process of reverting all of my speedy tags. I have to leave for work right now. Can someone take up where I left off? Only tagged a few articles and reverted one speedy tag removal.--Fuhghettaboutit 13:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It is spam. I will see what I can do. -- ReyBrujo 13:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * He seems to be on his lunchbreak. Looking at his contribs, he'll probably start again in about an hour. yandman  13:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I have speedy deleted three articles due copyvio, prodded their software, and removed the advertisement stuff in the other articles. We will see if he recreates them. -- ReyBrujo 14:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * They're back at it. I haven't the time to focus on it right now, though - anyone else want to look over the user's contribs? Tony Fox (arf!) 16:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've blocked the user while we fix this. Many links to pile.com, and a pound says the user works for that company. Guy (Help!) 16:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * A pound of what? hehe. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 16:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That's his dollar, pal. And it's better than yours or mine. ;)  Durova Charge! 17:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help and apologies for having to make a living. I have just finished a final cleanup, including sending one of the articles to WP:CP, as it was still substantially similar to the website is was previously wholly pasted from.--Fuhghettaboutit 01:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Restoring an article's previous edit history?
I have Hazrat Ali on my watch list, because I did much of the work creating the article. There hasn't been much activity on it. Last night I saw someone had edited the article, and saw it had been scaled back to a stub.

Confusingly, when I checked the history, I learned that the article had just been created.

I contacted the administrator who deleted the original version, and the deletion was due to human error. A vandal blanked the page, an editor camed along and marked the blanked article for deletion because it was blank, without checking the history. And the administrator didn't notice the nominator's lapse.

The administrator copied the penultimate version of the original iteration to my User space, and I have merged it in to the current article. But they weren't able to merge the edit history from the previous instance with the current instance. My recollection is that this is possible. The administrator thought it was possible too. He just didn't know how to do it.

He suggested I ask here, for a friendly administrator to try to merge the edit histories. And I am following his advice.

Thanks in advance, and after too!

Cheers! -- Geo Swan 14:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I have restored everything, including the blanking and the CSD tag. The article spent over two weeks without content after the blanking, so the deletion was understandable. -- ReyBrujo 14:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the restoration. --  Geo Swan 17:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Beeing a bit too quick on the delete button I can understand, I am a bit more worried that he don't know how to undo it though. I know all the new buttons can be overwhealming for fresh admins, but I would sort of expect them to either, ask, "RTFM" or play around on a user subpage before they run off and start speedy deleting stuff (or at least try out the link that says "View or restore XX deleted edits?" when viewing a deleted page). No offense to this particular admin, but learning how the basic admin features work and how to undo them rely should be required learning for fresh admins. Maybe linking things like Administrators' how-to guide and Administrators' reading list a bit more prominently from the RFA page would help... --Sherool (talk) 08:32, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Help deleting an obvious spam page
Talk:Jason Kottke/ consists only of obvious spam, but it won't let me save any changes (like nominating it for speedy delete) because it has a blacklisted url on it. Recury 15:19, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. --Ed (Edgar181) 15:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Userpage:PRODs
I'm trying to clean up the PROD backlog right now and I'm seeing a bunch of Userpages on PROD for WP:NOT a Social networking site. Most (if not all of these) are inactive editors and many are converted vanity bios and the like. I don't see this as necessarily a WP:USER violation, but they probably are not necessary as well. Has anyone dealt with these before? Any thoughts on this? --Isotope23 17:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's still a 5 day prod. I don't think it's much of a problem, either, but I also don't think it's a big enough deal to protest the prods.  Besides, contested prods get speedy-undeleted, so it's no biggie. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Show me someone who would speedy-undelete something that should be deleted merely because of some arbitrary five day thing, and I'll show you someone who values process to the point of actively interfering with and hampering doing the right thing. -- Cyde Weys  19:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Speedy undeleting prods is doing the right thing. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Not when it's material that rightfully deserves to be deleted. -- Cyde Weys  21:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Just delete them. You should pull the deletion trigger on userpage stuff with even less hesitation than articlespace stuff. -- Cyde Weys 18:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * MfD is that way, 7th door on the left. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, WP:NOT applies to userpages as well, a prod is a fine way to mark them. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 19:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The vast majority tend to be for drive-by editors who showed up to create the profiles and haven't been seen since, so for the most part there's nobody to challenge the Prod. Easy way to just clean them out. Fan-1967 19:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Drive-by editors -- excellent way to put it. When I've cleared these, I've been fairly careful about it -- if somebody's only made 10 edits to their vanity bio, and nowhere else, and hasn't posted anything in months, it's fairly safe to say they're not coming back, no? Where people have been even minimally active, or anywhere inside at least a month or two, I usually play it safe (waiting or going for MfD, as appropriate). But that's just my thought. Luna Santin 19:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd agree. I've looked at some of the ones on my watchlist. Some are articles that were userfied, and when they were informed that this isn't myspace, they went away and never came back. Fan-1967 19:36, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

User pages of non-editors have been eligible for PROD tagging for months now, per Template_talk:Prod and long-standing precedent at WP:MFD. After having tagged several hundred of them, I'm convinced that userfying is a waste of time, since the vast, vast majority of those whose vanity bios/nonsense/MySpace page substitutes have been userfied don't do anything afterwards. Which is how I'm finding them: I'm just using data from the Move Logs of some admins to work through the candidates, and boy, is it depressing. --Calton | Talk 00:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Can someone invoke IAR and just whack these uesr pages: User:Marc-oliver (only edits to user page), User:Daniel.kim (apparent sockpuppet of Wikiman09 as self-admitted), User:Wikiman09 (very few mainspace edits), and User:Jpfeehery (only edit to create a vanity article, userified by Guy)? Hbdragon88 04:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Just prod tag them.  Proto ::  ►  12:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No need to rush. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No, but the WP:PROD idea is a good one. Creative use of process. Wikiman09 is still here, though, albeit not very active. Guy (Help!) 13:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Why wait? I'm only up to October's batch of drive-by pointless userfications, but what the hell: PROD tag added to & . If they want to play silly buggers with vanity pages, let 'em go to MySpace. --Calton | Talk 14:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Nstab-special
There's currently an editprotected request, here, proposing we change the tab from "special" to "special page." The change was made, previously, but was apparently reverted (possibly accidentally) during a spate of April 1st jokery. Seems like a good idea, to me, but thought I should run it by somewhere, first, to make sure this is something people would like. Luna Santin 19:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Done. I lowercased it as well, to match the other types of pages. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  01:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

2004 Madrid train bombings
An unusual request:

The request: I ask for an administrator to check if my own edits on this article (history) starting 31 December 2006 are valid or should be reverted.

The reason: There´s a (IMO) POV-pusher (see his/her contributions )asking for the deletion of all the contributions made by other users:


 * It's unfortunate that removal of your imposed changes also means removal of other users changes in response to yours, but it's an unavoidable consequence of you deciding to impose partisan changes. I hope that other users who have become involved in the discussion will join attempts to resolve the disputed content of this page by common agreement.


 * Anyone who has made contested changes to the article should have their changes removed and be invited to join the discussion on how to resolve the conflict over the content of this article.

Why?. Because he/she was on vacation, and he/she supposed that the article should be untouched during 4 weeks. Seems that we should have wait for him/her:.


 * My going on vacation does not justify any of your actions, an article does not cease to be disputed because someone goes on holiday

I am afraid that this issue is well beyond Arbitration, and, if I am asked to do so, I can write a complete report about the (I think) hard-as-nails reasons that leaded me to reach this somber conclussion.

Admin attention is also needed at Talk:Aftermath of the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings: The article is a bag uf unsourced assertions, but the POV-pusher refuses to engange in any kind of constructive action.

This same guy rejected (after weeks of work and discussion) a RfC

Important note:
 * Number of sources provided by this user to Wikipedia in six months: ZERO.
 * Besides the massive blanking linked in his/her talk page, he/she also blanked a whole section (never restored, BTW) months ago , asking for "discussion and consensus".
 * The fruits of the "discussion and consensus" with this user can be seen at Talk:Aftermath 2004_Madrid_train_bombings and subsequent sections.
 * At the beginning of Talk:2004 Madrid train bombings you can see three new sections full of sources and new facts, all of them stopped by the POV-pusher.

My one-word assesment of this user behaviour: STONEWALLING.

Randroide 20:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:OWN: articles don't go on Wikibreak because particular editors go inactive. I dealt with this dispute before.  An arbitration request becomes reasonable after months of fruitless WP:DR.  Durova Charge! 03:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * AFAIAC, case closed. Thank you for your attention, Durova. Randroide 08:28, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Leaving aside the strong temptation to reply to the tendentious, and in some cases, patently false claims made by Randroide in his description of the situation, I would like to ask for some clarification. The contested changes imposed by Randroide were made after agreement had been reached to submit a mediation request, and in defiance of the disputed nature of the page. Also, the users (plural) who objected to these changes were not absent from the page when many of the changes were made – their objections were simply ignored. Is it not appropriate in these circumstances for these disputed changes to be reversed pending resolution of the dispute by mediation or arbitration? Is there any impediment in Wikipedia policies to this being done? What options are available to me to prevent further imposition of contested changes while the dispute resolution procedures are being exhausted? Southofwatford 09:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Jeet Kune Do
There's been a lot of mess concerning this article. After edit warring, I have protected it but now some new accounts are making legal threats. Can someone keep an eye on the situation, I am not sure how to handle all of it. A permanent block would probably do it but since I've previously acted in favour of an established user, I would prefer someone else to take care of it. --Tone 21:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This is also being discussed on AN/I: Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents. Anchoress 01:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Backlog at Category:Proposed deletion
Would seem to be around 200 articles sitting there over the five-day limit. Is this usual? Moreschi Deletion! 21:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Make that 168. Moreschi Deletion! 22:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of prods, these may be useful: Particularly, if you see things being removed from the list of current prods, it might be something worth investigating. -- Cyde Weys 22:51, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * User:Cyde/List of old proposed deletions
 * User:Cyde/List of current proposed deletions

A rouge admin?
cburnett is an administrator who seems to lack a good grasp of being a good sysop. Here are a few examples of cburnett's actions:
 * Applies 3RR as a 2RR (diff 1 diff 2 diff 3 and log). (I know 3RR is not a literal rule, I usually apply 1RR personally except when enforcing policy. I terminate libel, original research, POV-statements, unverified statements and copyright infringements on sight.)
 * Does not know the difference between a block and a ban (diff). (Yes, I know that the edit which prompted that remark was inappropriate, I have since self-reverted and made sure that the user knows that I know that the edit was inappropriate here.)
 * Issues blocks so that users will learn a lesson (diff). Where is that in our blocking policy?

I have suggested that this sysop take some time to try to learn more about Wikipedia in order to reduce the risk of making mistakes (although avoiding them entirely will probably be impossible). --Oden 22:36, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 22:40, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Ryan! The title is a little tounge-in-cheek. I am suggesting that someone with more experience could take cburnett under their wing.--Oden 22:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict)Ok, let me be more verbose. Enforcing the 3RR policy for a 2RR is legitimate if it is in the spirit of the policy. Using the word ban instead of block is more often a mis-choice of words than a lack of understanding about policy. And as for blocking someone to teach them a lesson, blocking is used for preventative reasons, not punitive, and blocking someone to teach them a lesson is a preventative from of block. In short, I don't see what this user has done wrong. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 22:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think that's really necessary; my Spidey senses are telling me you're a bit bitter about a decent block (or rather two decent blocks). --  tariq abjotu  22:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: Oden added an extremely long and verbose post to Alex Bakharev's talkpage, consisting in great part of copypasted quotes from January 11; then also copypasted the whole thing to this noticeboard, in a separate thread just below this. On the basis that we really can't have the noticeboard spammed in such a space-wasting way, I've removed it. Here is a diff link to it instead. Please note this technique for future reference, Oden. Bishonen | talk 23:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC).

Inforceing the 3RR as 2RR is not aceptable.Geni 01:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've only had a superficial look at the history of "Standard_test_image" but in the event of questions of copyright policy is very clearly on erring on the side of caution: After any good faith removal of images where a violation is suspected, the image is not to be replaced until consensus is reached on it's status. - brenneman  01:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

A question, 3 suggestions, and a request please
First, a question. I have had two different administrators delete articles I was working, one of them doing so just a few minutes after I had created it. This surprised me. I thought administrators were only authorized to delete articles at the end of an afd discussion; five days after an uncontested prod; or if someone had placed one of the speedy tags on it.

The administrator who deleted the article within minutes of my saving of the first draft, kept asserting that WP:CSD was the policy document that authorized her to delete articles on sight.

The other administrator also assured me he was authorized to unilaterally delete articles. But he didn't cite which policy document authorized him to do so.

I spent a considerable time, going over all the many policy documents, procedure documents, and and guidelines that concern deletion, looking for the document that authorized administrators to unilaterally delete articles, without waiting for them to be tagged by another wikipedian. The closest I could find was a passage in Deletion process. It doesn't say anything about checking that the tag the first wikipedian left was valid. And this could imply that authority.

So, is it really a standard, accepted practice for administrators to unilaterally delete articles, on sight, with no consultation or discussion?
 * 1) If it is, perhaps the policy documents could be amended to spell that out more clearly?
 * 2) I've got to say that this seems to be very open to abuse.
 * 3) Even if administrators are authorized to unilaterally delete any article, on sight, I'd like to suggest that they should still check the validity of the tag, if they are performing a deletion of an article because another wikipedian tagged it.

I asked the seocnd administrator to move the article he deleted Jennifer Tharp, and its edit history, to User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/Jennifer Tharp. He refused. Here is our exchange.

I don't think asking for the article to be moved to my User space, so I can work on it, and see if I can turn it into an article that I feel confident would pass afd is an unreasonable request. Can I ask another administrator to move it to my User space? Thanks. -- Geo Swan 03:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This is a common question, so clearly we need to work on making it more clear.
 * The first line of the speedy deletion page says The "Speedy deletion" policy governs limited cases where administrators may delete Wikipedia pages or media "on sight" without further debate. The tags are intended only to bring the attention of an administrator, nothing more.
 * The first line of "Deletion process#Speedy deletion" is Decide whether the page meets one or more of the criteria for speedy deletion. It doesn't say anything about tags at all, please notice.
 * You're 100% correct, this means that administrators have wide (very wide) latitude here. The potential for abuse is proportional to the visibility of the articles, however.
 * I occasionally make a mass purge of various stub-classes, deleting as fast as I can push the button, and have never had a complaint... but ask someone else about the "biscuit wars" and understand that egregious mistakes (as determined by the community) are usually corrected in short order. Many eyes make light work.


 * The general consensus is that the additional "paperwork" does not add increased "safety" in that for the (rare) times someone goes to far a squeaky wheel will laugh loudest. Or something like that.


 * If you ever want content restored again, deletion review has a section specifically for that. I'll restore the article for you now.


 * brenneman 04:25, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Now at User:Geo Swan/Jennifer Tharp. I've put a  on it, which of course you can remove but I'll be dissapointed if you do so without moving it out into mainspace first. -  brenneman  04:30, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If you want to get it back in the article space, I recommend you fix whatever got it speedy deleted. - Mgm|(talk) 11:02, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

An odd unsourced image situation
I know how much we all love unsourced images. Aren't they great?

Sorry, been reading WP:SARCASM. Anyway...

I was browsing the Minor characters in 24 article when I came across the entry for the character Haas. I was a bit taken aback, because instead of the image that currently resides there I saw this. That did not strike me as how Fox might portray a man who assasinated a former president.

After doing a little poking I discovered that the problem was with the image Haas.jpg. Apparently uploaded an image of the wrestler Charlie Haas over the existing image; why they did this is unclear, though I think the numerous "no source/license information" warnings on V-Line's talk page may be somehow related. Anyway, I've since reverted the image (though someone tried to do that once and was reverted in turn) and removed the link from the Charlie Haas article. Unfortunately we are now left with two archival copies of the image of the wrestler, which was never sourced properly.

The long and short of it is that I'm guessing that the wrestler versions of the image should be deleted; they completely lack source information or a fair use rationale, to say nothing of the possibility of some well-intentioned but clueless wrestling fan thinking this was some kind of "24-fan conspiracy attack." Provided I'm right, could someone please delete these unneeded versions of the image with all manner of haste? -- Y&#124; yukichigai (ramble argue check) 04:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. This happens all the time.  You might want to consider downloading the image and re-uploading it under a more specific name. Chick Bowen 05:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Sock evading block to keep reposting vanity page
after repeatedly reposting a fatuous and vain autobio, and  is blocked for another 46 hours. Sokwhan Huh, identical to the last deleted version, has just been posted again by. At the very least can we salt the page titles? Fan-1967 04:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sokwhan Huh protected by Physicq210, Sokwhan protected by me. Teke ( talk ) 06:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Community ban of sneaky spammer
This was discovered because of the amazing research skills of Hu12 and the full research can be read on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam project page.

The user in question is. Over the course of quite a campaign this user changed references to link to a series of legitimate looking websites. He also created dozens of articles with these websites as the sole source. On the surface all of this activity seems like it might be good faith... however, every one of the dozen or so website he's linked too uses the same AdSense account. Here's a short list of what spam Hu12 was able to discover:


 * onlineloanofficers.com www.onlineloanofficers.com search wikipedia for
 * edits-


 * shaadibliss.com www.shaadibliss.com search wikipedia for
 * edits-


 * crazysportsfan.com www.crazysportsfan.com search wikipedia for
 * edits-


 * gurusofdating.com www.gurusofdating.com search wikipedia for
 * edits-


 * yourmoviepal.com www.yourmoviepal.com search wikipedia for
 * edits-


 * presidentpolls2008.com www.presidentpolls2008.com search wikipedia for
 * edits-


 * amifobornot.com www.amifobornot.com search wikipedia for
 * edits-


 * nflsystems.com www.nflsystems.com search wikipedia for
 * edits-


 * camsfaq.com www.camsfaq.com search wikipedia for
 * edits-


 * didbarrycheat.com www.didbarrycheat.com search wikipedia for
 * edits-


 * lasvegasbuyeragent.com www.lasvegasbuyeragent.com search wikipedia for
 * edits-

It is our suspicion that this user owns every one of those sites and has engaged in a campaign to increase his PageRank and advertising revenue though the use of wikipedia. The user was never warned, but the sophistication of the deceit and the shear amount of work involved to hide it shows foreknowledge that spamming is unacceptable.

I propose a community ban of this user. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Ironically, the user cleans up other spam while adding his own. The user does have "good faith" edits, but I suspect they are there to obfuscate his activities. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 17:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Endorse banning. My next edit after this post will be to award a barnstar to Hu12.  Durova Charge! 17:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Endorse barnstar. Oh, and endorse ban as well. Overwhelming proof against pub-3279714273926761. A pity, he seemed a good user. -- ReyBrujo 17:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Endorse - Absolutely, this is outrageous behaviour of someone who is obviously well versed in Wikipedia, and well versed in SEO/spam. - hahnch e n 17:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Um, it seems like the first warning the user was given was today. I'm all for stopping continuing spamming, but why not at least give him one solitary chance to reform, and then go for the community ban. I'd be for that if he doesn't stop right away, but a first and final warning and immediate ban seems just a little much. Of course, it would be worth asking/checking if it's gone on in other languages. - Taxman Talk 18:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The editor was acting in bad faith for nearly 8 months before we caught 'em. The editor quoted WP:SPAM when removing competitor's links. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That doesn't mean there is no need for a warning - we aren't here to punish people, we are here to prevent abuse. Now that we know about it, we only need to make sure it does not continue. -- Renesis (talk) 18:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Quoting the policy he's violating does strongly indicate bad faith, I hadn't had a chance to go through them to see that. And trust me, I'm the last person that's going to defend someone that's not helping Wikipedia, but now that we have these links, we know what to look for to revert/blacklist/etc. What's wrong with once simply asking the person to stop? Really it comes down to, after the links have been removed and can't be put back in, what is the upside in banning, how will it help the project? - Taxman Talk 19:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Endorse wholeheartedly. It bugs me when people make money at the expense of Wikipedia when it is ran by volunteers. Basically I see unauthorized advertising it as a form of theft. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 18:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Taxman about a warning first, but most importantly, we need to blacklist all of these sites. We also ought to make sure this is the only account being used and the only sites being advertised. -- Renesis (talk) 18:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Personally, I believe this is one of those cases when an exemplary measure must be taken. Be sure, he is not the first one to do it, nor will be the last one. And it took Wikipedia months to discover this. He was quoting WP:SPAM, knowing at the same time that what he was doing was morally wrong. We use warnings for people acting in good faith. This is a case when good faith just can't be assumed. This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. -- ReyBrujo 18:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * "We use warnings for people acting in good faith" - no, we use warnings for all sorts -- level 1 warnings (if that) are the only that are for people acting in good faith. I am not saying to go easy - I just don't see the point.  He would know now that there is no way he could continue this, so a ban really only hurts us (unless the punishment makes us feel better).  His game is over now. -- Renesis (talk) 19:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As I said, I personally think this is an exception. Other spammers will know about this (WP:BEANS), and do it until warned. As you said, game over for this guy. But it is at insert coin for others thinking about how to make easy money here. -- ReyBrujo 19:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I just noticed it can be misunderstood: Wikipedia is easy money for us all, as long as we follow a set of rules when using its content. The fact that the user wanted to make profit by setting up almost empty sites that were used as references is what really damages Wikipedia. So, in this specific context, easy money implies forging references and external links that, overall, decrease the quality of the encyclopedia and deliver a blow against our open community. -- ReyBrujo 19:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * A great piece of work by Hu12 - if we don't have a "sherlock holmes" barnstar, we need one! --Larry laptop 18:51, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Warning someone who is already aware of the rules is pointless. Warnings are to educate, not intimidate. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 19:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Endorse ban. A warning is irrelevant.  He knew full well that what he was doing was bad.  I'll never understand the attitude of "Oh but you can't punish them unless they were warned first."  Here's a hint: in the real world, it most definitely does not work like that.  And real world judicial systems have had thousands of years of refinements, so I think they know what they're doing.  -- Cyde Weys  18:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * When you use the word "punish" and "judicial" you're thinking of it wrong. The best thing for articles and the project is the only thing that matters. Punishment is only likely to make people angry and not help anything. I don't buy into the absolutes that we can't block/ban without a warning either, but that also doesn't mean warnings don't have some value. - Taxman Talk 19:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and what's in the best interests of the articles and the encyclopedia right now is to ban the person who was undermining them by using them not for their intended purpose, but to try to make money with Search Engine Optimization. -- Cyde Weys  21:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of a Sherlock Holmes barnstar. I also agree with Cyde that the person knew it was against policy, evident by the surreptitious manner in which the links were added. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 18:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Bah. I just blocked him indefinitely. He knows exactly what he's doing -- masking his SEO work with trivial but mostly useful edits so that we have exactly this conversation and these second thoughts. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 19:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I was actualy hopeing Professorgupta would issue a statement on his own behalf. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * For what? Entertainment? --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 19:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

This does highlight the problem of spam in general. Don't think I'm defending the spamming, just that when it's been identified and removed, the banning of that user is a bit of a separate issue. I am glad to see people coming out strongly against letting spam go on. It's increasingly becoming a problem and we need to work on more advanced ways to fight it. With so many articles, not all are being watched (and can't all be watched in a coordinated manner), and more spam slips through unnoticed. Perhaps we should get some tools listing the number of links to certain sites, like what the spam reporter channel does, but keeping a cumulative list accross the project. Then when we see a certain site has 27 links to it over a few weeks it can be investigated. Ideally with legitimate sites like CNN with 27,000 links to it from articles we could take it off the tracking list, to leave only unreviewed potential problems. Perhaps also some tools to remove all links to a certain site in one go would help, for example a link in that would allow zapping them all in one go rather than reverting one by one. - Taxman Talk 19:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * #wikipedia-spam[-t] monitor spam and dumps a list of people adding links at User:Veinor/Link count/January 12, 2007, I was just told. I used to have a bot at that spam link to put everything in a sqlite base so that I could query which were the links that had been inserted the most, the users that had inserted the most items, etc. Now, with this "new" kind of spamming, I am thinking about a bot that downloads the external link inserted in articles to verify whether this Adsense vandalism is used. Note that at WP:SPAM there is another investigation going, a user inserting links to sites with the same Adsense id. This is not an isolated case, and that is why I endorsed the ban. They will come back, most likely, but at least, and hopefully, we will have the right tools awaiting. -- ReyBrujo 19:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I have a concept for a bot... I'll drop a request with the BAG people latter. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 20:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * What's best for the wiki is that we make an example of this hardened, systematic, and hypocritical misuse. Firm action has a deterrent effect.  Durova Charge! 20:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The offending diffs could do with being deleted too. Jimbo has already set a precedent with regards to this - was blocked indefinitely and Jimbo proceeded to delete every version of the pages containing the spam link. <font face="Arial Black">--Kind Regards -  Heligo  land  21:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've just come along to gloat, and to bitch, pretty much in equal measure. If either we had enough users and especially enough admins in irc://irc.freenode.net/wikipedia-spam 24/7 to check the bulk of the links that come in, this shit would never have happened. Yesterday, we spotted the first link being added at 17:37UTC and by 22:58, the IRC bot was warning that User:Professorgupta had added links to 5 pages that day. If we had enough manpower, especially trusted users and admins, we could have been checking the website out and deciding what to do, if needed, we could have been adding these links to User:Shadowbot and having edits inserting those links reverted automatically. We're short of people to help, short of admins to roll back, block and we lack the time to explain why we need blocks when our admins aren't around. <font face="Arial Black">--Kind Regards - Heligo  land  20:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm IRCphobic but am willing to use my tools when contacted with evidence. Durova Charge! 20:40, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah... I need to spend more time in the IRC channel... It would also be nice to get some other admins activly involved in the spam wikiproject. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 20:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Endorse ban. This is a simple common sense issue for me. He was obviously familiar with the policy, which is the reason that we warn people in the first place. Sneaky and systemic abuse. Savidan 20:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I am going to backup just what heligoland just said. We do need help. Becuase of the channel feed bot, we are now able to compile statistics, like User:Veinor/Link count/January 13, 2007, and User:Veinor/Link count/January 17, 2007. There is data on the rate of link insertion found at User:Heligoland/Link. These are all generated from linkwatcher feed logs. If people are afraid of IRC for whatever reason, I strongly advise people to please start checking some of the resources that are coming on line. Cheers! —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 20:46, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Endorse pernament community ban. And I mean pernament. These kind of people are abusive of Wikipedia, and they know it, gaming the system to stave off bans to add a few more bad links to hit up their google pages.  This is just ONE abuse, and it's something being dealt with at the highest levels of Wikipedia.
 * Other areas of abuse have also come up, to the point where some arbitrators have been helping us deal with them. This includes Ebay sellers that are spamming their accounts, or the items they are selling on Wikipedia.  People that see this occurring should contact Dmcdevit or Jimbo with the diff, user account, and the ebay account being spammed, and it will be dealt with.
 * I find it almost kind of laughable that there was debate about the banning. These people know what they are doing, and citing the policy you break shows that they are acting in bad faith.  People that are damaging the wiki willfully should not be permitted to be here.  To me, it is really that simple.
 * As Jimbo said once on IRC, "isn't this the thing we should indef blocking people over?" My answer is unequivocally "YES".  Cheers. ✎  Peter M Dodge  (  Talk to Me  &bull;  Neutrality Project  ) 21:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Endorse community ban - what Peter said. We cannot have Wikipedia being abused in this manner for promotion. Moreschi Deletion! 21:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Endorse community ban. In my RC patrolling time, I find much vandalism, but nothing is more hated than the dreaded spam. Perhaps it is because advertising goes against the philosophies and purposes of Wikipedia, which is free in more than one sense. Let us destroy all spam forever. Yuser31415 21:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Endorse community ban - whoops, should have done this up above with my other statement. This is part of our problem. —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 21:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Endorse. It is a shame, as the chap is clearly quite bright and knows his way around Wikipedia.  Proto ::  ►  22:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Endorse -- Wikipedia-spamming is actively discussed in the closed spamdexing forums -- the handling of this case will be noted and discussed among other spamdexers -- they're watching. To the extent that spamming Wikipedia becomes "too hard", they will put their energies elsewhere. Here are Google searches of the topic in just the open forums; note the number of hits and check out a few samples: . Firm handling of high-profile, hard-core types (such as this one (see WT:WPSPAM) has a multiplier effect within the spamdexer community. --A. B. (talk) 06:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: more help needed at WikiProject Spam! We have nowhere near the quantity of editors we need to handle the volume. It's interesting work, especially for people that like to track down stuff -- we deal mostly with complex spam -- see the WikiProject Spam talk page for a sense of what we do. It can be like solving a puzzle and the pay is great, too. --A. B. (talk) 06:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's all sorts of James bond over there! And you can't imagine the satisfying THWACK when you block a long-time spammer like this. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm psychic! Watch me report WP:SPAM and WP:COI issues before they happen!
I have a feeling that Wikipedia is about to get another dose of grade-A spam and WP:COI from. I bet you even more that it will be about the company Fundamo, it will use this picture and it'll contain this text:

"Fundamo is a mobile commerce and banking company founded in 2000 in Cape Town, South Africa. The company was originally founded by Hannes van Rensburg and funded by Venfin and Sanlam."

How do I know this? I'm psychic. Things come to me, but only when I'm out in the backyard, staring at the sandbox.

Seriously though, is it okay to report this before it happens? -- Y&#124; yukichigai (<b style="color:blue;">ramble</b> <b style="color:red; font-size:smaller;">argue</b> <b style="color:green;">check</b>) 09:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's kind of pointless to report something that hasn't happened yet. We can't act on such a thing. - Mgm|(talk) 10:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Not time to report an issue, its too early. Report it when it happens. Its pointless to report now, since nobody can do anything about it. Terence Ong 11:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually we can watchlist Fundamo and see what happens. I doubt preemptively blocking someone would be such a good idea, though :) (Minority Report, anyone?)  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  13:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * There's one other, even better thing to do - engage the user! I saw that he/she had a redlinked talkpage, so I left the {{subst:welcome}} message.  If someone feels so inclined, sharing WP:CORP or WP:CSD with the user wouldn't be a bad thing.  If someone creates an article which qualifies for speedy deletion (or, in this case, the pre-cogs tell us that they are going to), telling the user why we are deleting the article and giving them some kind of reading material is better than just confusing them. --BigDT 14:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I must be psychic, too. Take a look at Talk:Www.getjar.com. I predict that any article created from that source information will be pure spam. Fan-1967 14:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I tagged the page for speedy as an orphan talk page. --Spartaz 14:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Take a look at that user's contributions ... Special:Contributions/Mathiastck ... there's a little subtle advertising going on there. "Created page with 'Glad to see this, was looking for info on getjar.com" --BigDT 14:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Doesn't look that subtle to me. I'll keep the title on my watchlist; somehow I have a feeling it's going to show up. Which raises the question: if orphan Talk pages should be speedied (and I've tagged hundreds), what is the point of Template:Future article talk page, which was requested by that editor? There is a note on it that says articles with that template shouldn't be speedied, but I know of no exception to WP:CSD to support that, and it didn't save this one. This somehow seems like an end run around Requested articles. Fan-1967 14:25, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * --> TFD anyone.... Spartaz 14:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. It seems the template is being used on at least one talk page to promote a website (blatant advertising). It could well be used to create talk pages, almost legitimately, that just advertise a website, company, product or service. <font face="Arial Black">--Kind Regards - Heligo  land  15:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Just fried Talk:Revolutionary Marxist Group (Canada) and Talk:Red Circle, which just consisted of spammy links to a company named Red Circle. Blah :/ -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 15:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * If you think there's about to be a whole heap of spam where there's going to be external links being added to articles, please drop by irc://irc.freenode.net/wikipedia-spam and we can help by having User:Shadowbot take care of some of the workload. <font face="Arial Black">--Kind Regards - Heligo  land  14:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've burninated just about all pages containing that "future talk page" template per CSD#G8 and the fact that many of them were linkspam.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  15:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I did tag the one I mentioned in the TfD as speedy G11 but thought it might be useful to have an example of how the template is and could be abused. Not complaining the page has gone though. <font face="Arial Black">--Kind Regards - Heligo  land  15:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, yes, the sandbox -- makes interesting reading and I've played in it, too. I'm leary of warning new users ahead of time unless it's really friendly -- perhaps a modified welcomespam with a nice note mentioning the domains of concern. Here's a suggestion -- set up a user subpage with the domains and user IDs, then check them the next day. If you are handy with a text editor and creative use of find and replace, you can set up a page like this subpage of accounts I've encountered that are major spammers (as opposed to spam0 and spam1 types) or this subpage with domains to watch for (I use the linksearch template. Alternately, watch the link addition feed on IRC channel #wikipedia-spam. There is a bot on there that reports all newly added links and keeps track of serial spammers. You can check the stuff that the bot's not already pre-programmed for (such as our sandbox friends).


 * The feed is all but useless unless we can get some admins into the channel and watch for problems unfolding in real-time, otherwise we have one admin and about a half dozen editors removing links upto 30 hours after they are added, when Eagle 101 and the rest of us go through the logs. thumb|250px|left should give admins and editors some idea of when they are most needed. <font face="Arial">--Kind Regards - Heligo  land  20:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Esperanza
Esperanza - the tag at the top says (paraphrasing) 'This page is protected from editing until disputes are resolved, please visit the talk page to discuss any changes'. That's fine. But the talk page is also protected from editing (and displays the very same protected tag, despite the tag stating 'to discuss changes to the page, please see the talk page') - I'm at the talk page, you foppish template. Some kind of bespoke template would be better suited, perhaps? Not really knowing much about the whole issue, there's probably someone who could craft a better one than I could. Proto :: ►  16:28, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Obviously you need to use the meta talk page then, which is located at Talk:Wikipedia talk:Esperanza. -- Cyde Weys 16:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed now.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  16:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * My solution is better :-/ -- Cyde Weys  16:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Now, see, I would have suggested Wikipedia talk talk:Esperanza. But your solution would have technically worked.  Ral315 (talk) 17:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Both would have been in the main namespace however. How about Wikipedia talk:Talk Esperanza ? --pgk 18:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * When I protected it I left a direction to a subpage of my user space, but... I love the fact that people edit protected pages. Really reinforces that good faith feeling... Steve block Talk 19:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh for the love of.... sheesh, I was going to revert myself but it turns out it was already unprotected. I had no idea you had become such a hair-splitting wonk, Steve. I will try to refrain from helping new users in the future.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  23:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * So we should have left it saying 'Visit the talk page to discuss changes'? On the (protected) talk page?  Really?  Proto ::  ►  00:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Steve was referring to this edit: .  For the record, I agree with Mets501's reasoning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ral315 (talk • contribs)

Promotional images and the Creative Commons.
I've been working with Janina Gavankar to make sure her article and related ones are up to policy. But she really wants me to put a promo pic on the Papi (The L Word Character) article, and has uploaded this particular photo to Flickr under the CC-BY-SA. Even though the image is of Gavankar, it still has an &copy;Naomi Kaltman/Showtime watermark on the bottom of the image. Unlike the image for her own article, where it is permissable since Gavankar has permission to distribute under the CC, the one of Papi is released by Showtime to promote the show. I'm not sure what to do with this. --<font color="#cc0000">w <font color="#00cc00">L &lt;speak&middot;check&middot;chill&gt; 19:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Ask her to send an email to permissions AT wikimedia DOT org asserting that she is the copyright holder of the promotional image and that she agrees to so license it. I would imagine that you're correct in assuming that she's not the copyright holder of the promotional image, and we won't be able to use it, but it is possible that some copyright arrangement can or has been made.  Jkelly 19:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed. You can also suggest her to talk with the photographer to release the image with a free image. I am betting that would be the best course. -- ReyBrujo 19:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * (Edit conflict). Under Fair_use, copyrighted promotional images can't be used if there are reasonable free image alternatives.  Although Ms. Gavankar is the subject of the photo, she doesn't necessarily own the copyright, and in this case, it looks lik Ms. Kaltman and/or Showtime does.  If Ms. Gavankar can get them to release copyright under a GDFL-compatible license, then Wikipedia can use the picture, but that may be difficult.  TheronJ 20:00, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The issue here is that she has asserted that it is licensed CC-BY-SA. Fair use doesn't come into this at all.  Jkelly 20:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * If she can establish that license, then you are completely right, and I shouldn't have jumped to the conclusion that the license was unobtainable. The absolute best outcome would be to establish the license clearly, but given that the image is marked copyright by Showtime and Ms. Kaltman, I suspect any proof of the license would have to address those assertions fairly conclusively.  TheronJ 20:30, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

IP Address 24.147.72.135
At 16:11 on January 15th, 2007 I posted a notice on here regarding IP address 24.147.72.135. If you recall, this person would post rumors and their own speculated theories to several SeaWorld pages. You blocked this person from editing any pages to Wikipedia. After the block was lifted, this person once more started to post rumors on the same SeaWorld articles. A Wikipedia bot, reverted this person's information, "21:30, 19 January 2007 Shadowbot (Talk | contribs) (RV -- Reverting edits by 24.147.72.135 due to detected spam.)" However, this person edited the article by adding more un-referenced speculations. Can you please post another block against this person or do something? Thanks! SWF Senior Trainer 22:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC) Once more, IP address 24.147.72.135 has vandazlied a few more SeaWorld pages by adding speculation. They ignore my pled and other people's warnings to stop editing pages, unless there is cited references. Me and severla other people have listed our pleas and warning on the history pages, discussion pages, and on this usuer's talk page. Please stop this person from destroying Wikipedia! SWF Senior Trainer

Cplot or Starbucks
Today two admins overturned checkuser-applied hard blocks on IP addresses used by Cplot and replaced them with softblocks. Since Cplot has other places he can go to create accounts, this essentially lets him back in. The IPs were and, which apparently are part of a small number of IP addresses assigned to thousands of T-mobile WiFi hotspots, many in Starbucks locations. They undoubtedly affect some good users. However, they also act as free anonymous open proxies. And, as far as I know, registered users can be advised to use the secure server, like AOL addresses. So, I bring it here to the community to choose: Cplot or Starbucks. Thatcher131 23:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * While we're on the subject, appears to be a longstanding Cplot sock of the strawman style. His edits are actually anti-conspiracy, but he uses laughably weak arguments and his username, userpage, and topics edited all match Cplot to a T. Could someone please confirm my observations and block him if they agree? I don't think it's obvious enough for AIV. --tjstrf talk 23:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The only way to know for sure (maybe not even then) would be to request a Checkuser at WP:RfCU, providing more details and diffs providing the basis for your suspicions. Of course the editors with Checkuser access may be reading here anyway.... Newyorkbrad 23:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The username format also fits. LotsOfWordsStrungTogetherWithoutSpacesAllStartingWithCapitals. --Deskana (request backup)  01:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The IPs show this is banned user Rootology, actually. But as for Cplot, block on behavior: we already know he has the ability to hop IPs. Dmcdevit·t 02:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * In that case, I've probably been tagging a lot of Rootology socks as Cplot socks. --tjstrf talk 14:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've fixed the parameters, and have reset them back to what Dmcdevit had, per his approval. Although this was changed with approval from a different checkuser (at least that's what I'm being told), checkuser blocks should never be touched without approval. In any case, this block will stay to what Dmcdevit had earlier, and until I hear different from him or anyone else (I am still trying to get to the bottom of this). I would encouage all registered users in the meantime to please edit from our https, or from another location in the meantime. — P ilotguy (ptt) 23:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Administrators should not undo any block that is specifically called a "Checkuser" block. Period. The Checkuser knows something that you don't. If the unblock template goes up you need to ask the Checkuser why the block is there. He might not tell you, but he will review the situation and decide whether the block can be lifted. It may not be obvious why that block is in place, but there is a reason. Mackensen (talk) 00:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As a note, now has that exact quote :) Daniel.Bryant 00:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I would like to reiterate what Mackensen has said. Frequently, I've taken potential collateral into account when placing blocks, and as someone that can check the actual edits on an IP I can do that better than most, and taken into account things like how dynamic the IP is also, and still someone overturns it without consultation as soon as an unblock pops up. Please ask the blocking checkuser, or another one if they're not online, first. Dmcdevit·t 02:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, but can you explain why it makes sense to block several good users to not keep out a single bad one? That is, if doing this prevented Cplot from getting in and doing his dance of disruption we could weigh that benefit against the harm of blocking innocent people. But... it doesn't stop him. He comes in from other IPs and messes things up anyway. So where's the 'good' here? --CBD 15:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe the idea is that he will eventually run out of IPs to create accounts from, at which point anon+account creation blocks will be able to hold him at bay indefinitely. (A pity he doesn't live in Qatar...) --tjstrf talk 15:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Deleted a comment from, sockpuppet of Cplot. -- ReyBrujo 05:59, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Please fix this image
This image has been oversized Nikolaas Tinbergen, by User:Bunzil, and now, since his or her edit, I can't figure out how to down-size it? Also, someone has been going around and resizing other bio images to 300px, larger than the original image? I have found and fixed about 5-7 of these so far. There's probably dozens more. --Sadi Carnot 02:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The image is fine. The problem seems to be that the infobox template, Infobox Scientist, will automatically upsize small images. I'd bring this up at Template talk:Infobox Scientist, where there has been some discussion already. Sandstein 10:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 11:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)