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Removing vandal logs from hacked account

A while back, User:Eternal Pink had his account hacked by a friend from college, User:Darkhero17. Pink has been around for a while and I know him pretty well as a very helpful contributor to WP:SM. Darkhero has also been in and out, and I'm confident that they really are different people; they behave differently, spell different words wrong, have different skill-levels with regard to using WP, etc.

Apparently what happened was that Darkhero watched Pink log in and memorized his password. After his own account was blocked, he used Pink's to create new accounts with which to vandalize, as seen here. All of those accounts followed Darkhero's behavioral patterns, not Pink's. He was imitating the "Dust King" vandal that caused us WP:SM so much trouble, as well as trying to frame Pink for misbehavior.

Darkhero has confessed his involvement (), and Pink has changed his password, so I'm satisfied that most of the problem is dealt with. However, Pink is unhappy about the vandal account creation that still shows up in his permanent logs.

Since Pink's account was compromised, is there any way to remove those records and give him a clean slate? Who do we talk to about that? --Masamage ♫ 19:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

It is really difficult to go about expunging block logs. It is a developer's job, and also his prerogative.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 19:31, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

In this case it's not block logs but user creations logs. I suppose those are probably equally difficult. How would Masamage or Eternal Pink go about putting this request to a developer? ··coelacan 21:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

That is the question, yeah. --Masamage ♫ 03:04, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

It can only be done by someone with direct access to the database, in this case, developers. Developers have been quite unwilling in the past to modify or remove logs, because they form a historical record, but you can try contacting one at #wikimedia-tech. Titoxd 04:04, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, given that he was stupid enough to let someone else find out his password, I'm not sure he should have those logs removed from his account. Neil (►) 13:40, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. If your account is compromised, that's your problem. I wouldn't expect much sympathy from the devs. --Tango 13:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Logs are there to show what an account did, that account did those things. People are responsible for their account. 14:06, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

he was looking over my shoulder and I didnt see him until its to late so it wasnt stupidity ♥Fighting for charming Love♥ 14:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

"I didn't see him" is an excuse that doesn't usually work. By all means you can ask the devs, but given that you got your account back fine, and no real harm was done, I would suggest they will agree with me - just leave it be and find something better to do. Neil (►) 15:26, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Good point or not, going around calling people stupid is bizarre and totally out of line. --Masamage ♫ 15:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Describing an act as stupid doesn't necessarily equate to calling someone stupid. Neil (►) 17:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

True, but that's not what happened here. Saying that "he was stupid enough to let someone else find out his password" isn't describing the act as stupid. --OnoremDil 17:17, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

"Frankly, given that HE was stupid enough to let someone else find out his password, I'm not sure he should have those logs removed from his account." the fact you said he referring to me means you where calling me stupid ♥Fighting for charming Love♥ 17:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagry that "no real harm was done" If people who dont know what happened see the logs they will think im a evil sock puppeteer ♥Fighting for charming Love♥ 22:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

No, they will see that you failed to properly secure your account, which they should. My user creation log looks wacko, but its just because I volunteer on the unblock-en-l list signing up accounts for people behind school and isp blocks. Just tell people who wonder whats up and no one will care. -M 02:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

From my side, I can add a note in every created account stating they were created while your account was compromised. Not much, but at least if someone thinks you were abusing sockpuppets, it would prevent them from doing so. -- ReyBrujo 03:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey, that sounds like a great idea to me. --Masamage ♫ 03:56, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Me two that would automatically people who read it straight thanks ♥Fighting for charming Love♥ 10:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Do I have to do somthing to add thoes notes?? to the accounts? ♥Fighting for charming Love♥ 19:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

BJAODN Deleted

I have deleted most of the sub-pages from Misplaced Pages:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense as a violation of the GFDL. In nearly every case, the content in the subpages had been copy-and-pasted from elsewhere. In the case of existing articles, content was copied without crediting the author(s) of the revisions. In the case of deleted articles, without fail in the pages I deleted, the content was not properly moved to preserve the history. In every single case, there was no non-infringing content worth saving.

For those interested, the specific GFDL section relevant to the above is Section 4.B of the GNU Free Documentation License. The speedy deletion criteria is CSD G-12. See also Copyrights - Contributor's rights and obligations.

As can be seen, I have not deleted all of the BJAODN subpages - in the case of much of the April Fools pages, content was properly moved by conscientious editors over the years. Now I know that this will upset some folks, but that is not my intent. Nor were these deletions a liberal interpretation of the speedy deletion criteria - in every single case, the deletions were to keep Misplaced Pages in compliance with the GFDL, the license by which every single page in every single article in every single language in this great Project is based. If we cannot abide by our own license, how on Earth can we ensure that those who wish to use our content do the same?

These actions should not be interpreted as a fiat against the existence of BJAODN (although one must wonder if our collective creative energies could be used more effectively and whether or not such content is more appropriate for Uncyclopedia - but that is neither here nor there). As long as content is properly moved to preserve the history of "deleted" content, or proper linking to diffs and authors for specific edits on surviving pages, then it would be in compliance.

Again, this is not a rouge interpretation of policy, this is enforcement of the GFDL, period. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 02:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Not a comment on the appropriateness of the deletions, but did you honestly think that people would not view this as a rouge interpretation of policy to do whatever you want if you explained it? -Amarkov moo! 02:48, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, to the admins reading this, PLEASE do NOT undelete all of these without discussing. Let's not get into a wheel war. No comment on the merits of this deletion. Sean William @ 02:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems like something doesn't add up here: A unilateral deletion is acceptable, but a unilateral undeletion is not? It's bad enough that bold, revert, discuss isn't an option for editors when faced with administrator actions, but I never imagined that admins were similarly hamstrung. This is strictly an observation about the power imbalance between a deleting admin and practically anyone else. It should not be construed as an argument on either side of the bad jokes vs GFDL discussion. --Ssbohio 04:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Has this been discussed at all? It doesn't seem like something that should be or needs to be done hastily, given the length of time it's existed (and the lack of possibility the GFDL will ever be enforced against us in this manner). Also, as has just been discussed here, it's not clear the GFDL should be interpreted this way. The way, the truth, and the light 02:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

We can't follow only parts of the GFDL. We have to follow all of it. Sean William @ 02:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The GFDL is fairly clear on attribution, as linked above, and in each case there has been an abject failure to attribute. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 02:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

See the last MFD, and it was discussed on ANI at the time too. Also, every time you subst a template without following the conditions of the GFDL (there is even a whole section on this, 5) God kills a kitten. Kotepho 02:53, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• By the way, I'm pretty sure this shot the job queue to hell. It's currently fluctuating between a 30 and 60 second delay. -Amarkov moo! 02:53, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I've slowed it down a bit. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 02:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

IMO, you might as well nuke the whole thing. It's unfortunate; some of it was quite funny and the Upper Penninsula war deserved to be archived somewhere (WP:DENY be damned), but if we are killing a good portion of the content it is probably worth just delete it outright... otherwise it will just get filled again.--Isotope23 03:00, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

(moved my comment over from ANI)

Escanaba vs Marquette? Did Manistique seize the opportunity to occupy the Garden Peninsula? Did Wisconsin push its border up to the timezone boundary? Hell of a fight regardless....Mackensen (talk) 03:05, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah well, I'm glad I got to see it one more time before it got deleted... it still makes me chuckle.--Isotope23 03:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Comment. The history of that article, at least the good part of it, seems to reside here. In any case, the main contributor was apparently User:Tjproechel. Can we salvage this? Duja► 10:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

AHEM... I just looked at the article and it's a complete riff on Toledo War, an article I contributed a substantial amount to in order to get it to featured status. The Toledo War, involving Michigan's 22-year-old governor at the time, is quite amusing. It also has the benefit of being true. 67.149.103.119 22:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Restore what? Just put a link at BJAODN to User:Hanger65/Upper Peninsula War. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 10:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and endorse zapping a gigantic GFDL violation and timesink besides. Mackensen (talk) 03:05, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Theres long been talk of doing this, off and on. Theres no record of authors, breaking GFDL requirements, it's unfunny, fails WP:DENY and in general is just all around stupid. -M 02:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The deed is done. The list of pages I have deleted is here: Misplaced Pages:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense/Deleted. Everything else at WP:BJAODN is compliant. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 03:03, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Jeff, for not deleting the talk pages and making me go through the list to delete them. —Kurykh 03:05, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm working on that now. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 03:09, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

>.< why did you change your username? I've been worried that you died or something. -Amarkov moo! 03:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking to me? If so, a 17-year-old admin doesn't die easily. And I changed my username because my earlier one sounded stupid (at least to me...now). —Kurykh 03:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This had to be done. Its a good idea in theory, but there's some pretty nasty stuff about living people there. And Misplaced Pages is based on the GFDL - edits have to be attributable to the accounts that made them. Signed posts are alright to just be moved, but where chunks of text have had many editors we need to preserve the history. That just isn't possible with a lot of BJAODN. WjBscribe 03:13, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

If there's nasty stuff about living people in there, change the names or change the characters to some fictional characters. No prob. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

When pages that have existed as long as this, and have been viewed (and presumably enjoyed) by so many people, get deleted suddenly and it supposedly is required by policy, then either policy (i.e. the GFDL itself) is broken or interpretation of it is. The way, the truth, and the light 03:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Or maybe because no one interpreted the license like this before. —Kurykh 03:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages can't be fun. Got it. In that spirit, I suggest we now delete other non-encyclopedic essays, like BEANS, HORSE, FISH, KETTLE, REICHSTAG, and any other essays which all clearly violate AGF? Thanks. ThuranX 03:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

You're confusing humor within policy and licensing and humor that violates it. —Kurykh 03:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Once again, these actions do not mean that future BJAODN, properly done, cannot exist. Quite the contrary, there is still a fair amount of material at BJAODN. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 03:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I cannot imagine that in most of these cases a solution couldn't have been found that would have satisfied the GFDL and preserved this page. But if not, fair enough. Phil Sandifer 03:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

while true in many cases it would have involved an awful lot of work.Geni 01:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

No comment for now on the deletions—I've exceeded my quota for controversial deletion activity for one week—but I'll take a link to the Upper Peninsular War, please. Newyorkbrad 03:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

- Merzbow 06:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I do hope we're going to follow this through by deleting all the articles that have been created by merging and/or splitting other articles, with consequent loss of history. And we'd better get onto the other language Wikipedias about their unattributed translations. We might start with the German Misplaced Pages's featured article de:Yagan, a translation of our Yagan article without any author attribution whatsoever.

Yes I know it sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but I really do think this issue needs to be tackled. I just hope that Jeffrey et al realise that this problem is really really big. It isn't going to be solved just by deleting BJAODN.

Hesperian 03:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• Translated articles should have a link saying that they were translated and linking to the revision of the source article they were translated from (either on the article page or talkpage). Where merging happens, the source article must be redirected to the target article to ensure GFDL compliance. WjBscribe 03:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Tell Jimbo that; he thinks translated articles on Misplaced Pages are exempt from the GFDL. Hesperian 03:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
    • He opines that the location of the link to the original is not required to be in the article itself, and can be on the talk page or in the edit summary. He does state that there is no GFDL reason to include such links. As an editor who has been through the GFDL requirements for copying things between wikis in meticulous detail, and has been transwikifying articles and fixing other people's transwikifications to be in accordance with the GFDL for several years now, I can tell you that he is wrong about that. The GFDL does require that. The relevant clause is 4(j). Uncle G 10:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Indeed. As much as this may shock some people, Jimbo can be wrong, and sometimes the community can be wrong, too. I knew there would be an emotional "oh noes" reaction, but the GFDL is the GFDL, period. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 10:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• A thought as a random user and BJAODN fan -- it seems to me that there's more at stake here than just GFDL enforcement. Misplaced Pages has a wide perception of being a humorless and rule-obsessed place, despite policies such as WP:IAR and WP:OWN (the simple fact that one much of the time cannot type "articles for deletion" into the search box and be taken to WP:AFD because of restrictions on cross-namespace links is telling, since a usability issue has been sacrificed to protocol). Inasmuch as Jeffrey O. Gustafson's actions embody the letter of WP:IAR and the like, they also seem to trample over the spirit of it completely. It seems to me that the elimination of much of such a long-standing Misplaced Pages tradition as the BJAODN archives is a rather hamhanded way of dealing with the attribution problem, as well as contributing to the project's increasingly negative reputation. I propose that the deleted pages be put on ice somewhere pending a community discussion on the issue. Haikupoet 03:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

A lot of content is still at WP:BJAODN, so there's still plenty of humour. Its just the elements that are not attributable to the contributors who made them that have been deleted. WjBscribe 03:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

How many of these could have been quickly attributed by checking the article histories and doing some digging? Phil Sandifer 03:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

And if they're properly attributed, we'll chip them out of the ice, if I may continue your analogy. We can restore what we deleted. —Kurykh 03:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

What do we do with this template? I sent it to TfD, unless one of you wants to delete this without going through that pretty-much unneeded process. —Kurykh 03:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I dunno. There's such a thing a leaving room in life for some freaken common sense. Taking away one of the little inside jokes rips at the heart of an organization, and we are not doing this for the money. Jeffery I sure wish I had your self-confidence, to be so sure I'm right as to undertake such a task without first consulting my colleagues. Herostratus 03:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Again, this is something that has been discussed on and off amongst admins for a fairly long time. And my "self confidence" in this only comes from supporting and upholding not just policy, but the basis of this whole Project. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 03:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages community isn't just the Admins, Mr. Shazaam. There are the editors and the anons, too. We have a say, too, and we help with policymaking, too. Just remember that. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If the page contained copyvio, it should not be here. A pity, I am sure we lost some good stuff, but hey, we were doing things right lately, and needed to do something controversial from an outsider's point of view to give them something to talk ;-) -- ReyBrujo 03:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

(Note: not an admin) I grieve over this loss, and I would gladly help to look for diffs for mine and others' contributions to the pages if given a chance. I'm certain other editors would too with BJAODN at stake. --LuigiManiac 03:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This strikes me as an interpretation/application of policy that should require discussion before action. Among many other examples that come to mind, mirror sites often lose granularity of attribution. They often permit an end-user to view only a complete version of an article, not the whole history with all authorship properties, just like BJAODN. Should we shut down/cut off mirror sites that fail to implement this interpretation of the license perfectly? Should we do it instantaneously, because "policy says so", regardless of consequences, agreements, or other policies? Best, --Shirahadasha 04:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

GFDL-compliant mirrors should contain a link (or other reference) back to the Misplaced Pages article, from which the full edit history can be retrieved. This is rather different from cutting-and-pasting content from deleted pages into BJAODN. -- Visviva 04:05, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

(ec) We contact them to suggest changing their methods, many indeed break the GFDL by not linking back to provide a full history attribution. However, we must first and foremost care about Misplaced Pages "health". If we are deleting decorative fair use images from templates, why not decorative texts copied from another source? -- ReyBrujo 04:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• perhaps with the bar of keeping GFDL people will, in future, only bother with the genuinely funny ones. Guy (Help!) 06:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• I'm a bit confused.. many people probably didn't know this was even an issue, and would have been glad to help correct the situation had they known. Why not do that now? It sounds like a painfully easy fix. -- Ned Scott 06:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't have said "Rouge interpretation" anyway, but I would call the deletion a rouge action. WP:BOLD is meant to motivate editors to do things that have not yet been done and/or tried, but it is not meant to flout community consensus. If BJAODN had not been deleted yet, it seems obvious to me that no consensus has been reached. Why not start a process meant to determine consensus instead? -- Renesis (talk) 07:05, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Because the prior MfDs all failed. --tjstrf talk 07:12, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough... but that only reinforces my feeling that this was not the correct action to take, no matter the interpretation. -- Renesis (talk) 07:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It reinforces my feeling that MFD's hinge on personal tastes rather than application of policy. — CharlotteWebb 08:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Please forgive me for suggesting this, as I'm sure this manpower and resources needed to do this could probably used in a more productive manner, but: maybe we could start a task force of volunteers to go through each BJAODN item one-by-one, find the original diffs, and merge it into the edit history? Krimpet (talk) 07:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It would appear that the minimum level of compliance is to list the names of the contributors and the year in which they contributed. A text dump of the history tab would be quite satisfactory, and that is what is usually used for pages transwikied to meta or wiktionary or wikibooks or whatever. In the most common case, a funny article that is quickly deleted, you're probably at about 5 edits by 1-3 distinct users, which really is trivial to document. Also common is a humorous paragraph or sentence or "funny vandalism" if you will, entirely created by one user, and added to an article that still exists (but quickly reverted). For this it is probably adequate to link to the diff of the edit and list the user name and timestamp (like this: Pigsonthewing 20:25, 28 June 2004) directly above the text excerpt. — CharlotteWebb 08:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• The GFDL argument is pretty weak, many entries contained at least a link to the vandalized article. These actions seem like they were based on a selective enforcement of a legalistic interpretation of Misplaced Pages licensing to further the goal of getting rid of questionably humorous content. Not that these deletions were a horrible injustice, but I doubt that they will prevent editors from nominating a future, properly attributed and GFDL-compliant version of BJAODN for deletion. Oh how I wonder what excuses will appear then... >:) ˉˉ╦╩ 07:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you should assume good faith rather than accusing a long-standing editor of malfeasance - If I wanted to make up some reason to delete BJAODN then there would be nothing there. I have no problem being rouge, but in this case my actions are very clearly spelled out not just in policy, but, again, in the license that forms the foundation of our Project. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:26, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

While I generally do assume good faith, this was a rash action on the part of an admin, and thus I put the pages up on deletion review - because this deletion shouldn't have occurred. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Whatever accusation implied was not serious, I have no problem with you or your standing as an editor. As this deletion dealt with BJAODN, it seems only appropriate to bust your chops a little. ˉˉ╦╩ 07:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC) (To clarify: I don't necessarily agree with your interpretation of how GFDL applies to Misplaced Pages, but I don't suspect any malfeasance and I don't think the deletions counted as a significant loss to Misplaced Pages. ˉˉ╦╩ 07:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC))

Again if we lost anything that was actually funny, just do some research, figure out who actually wrote it, and include that information when adding it back it in the next volume. — CharlotteWebb 08:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• Bringing the license problem to light was a good idea. But this was just the sort of response Misplaced Pages:Don't panic warns against - a drastic and inflammatory action without discussion to gain consensus. There were alternative solutions here that many of us would have been glad to support, such as tracking down sources and citing them properly, that were not given consideration. This isn't impractical; each segment noted the article it was copied from and the history revealed the rough time. I say, undelete these and give supporters a few weeks to find sources. Then kill whatever's left. Dcoetzee 07:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I support the idea of undeletion to make it so they are attributed, it only seems fair, although of course it's only sysops who will be able to use Special:Undelete to view deleted pages (which many of them are). --WikiSlasher 10:01, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
    • How many more years do we have to wait before the people who say that they support making the pages GFDL-compliant actually do that? This is not the first time that people have offered to do this. And nothing happened afterwards. Uncle G 10:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Not true. There has been quite a lot of discussion, and the "few weeks" that have already been given are nearly reaching double figures. The issue of non-compliance with the GFDL was raised in March 2004 at Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/BJODN, raised again in December 2006 at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006/Candidate statements/Questions for Sam Blanning, and discussed at length in March 2007 at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Close Encounters of the Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense Kind and then again at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive79#BJAODN. The explanation that one cannot merge content from an article and then delete the original, because it violates the GFDL, was a whole section of the Misplaced Pages:Guide to deletion at one point (one that I think requires restoring at this point, because editors are making this mistake increasingly). Uncle G 10:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I would be happy to help out with the BJAODN attribution now and again. Give Wikipedians a certain period of time to get the job done, then delete anything not yet attributed. Then institute a rule in WP:BJAODN requiring attribution with each and every thing. --WikiSlasher 10:13, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Better yet, institute a rule in BJAODN requiring the content to be actually funny. Randomness isn't funny.

>Radiant< 10:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• • • • • Says who? Whether something is funny or not depends soley on the user, just because one person doesn't find a joke funny doesn't mean the next person in line won't. --IvanKnight69 15:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's a thought--how about we focus on the content that we actually want to keep in the encyclopedia? (laughter ensues). Mackensen (talk) 11:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages:Good Articles and other Kept Sense? Or perhaps "Widely Informative Knowledge Implicitly Perusable Everywhere Downloable In Articleform"? >Radiant< 11:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Let me just say it is a shame it was deleted. BJAODN was an important part of wikipedian culture and history. And there was actually some funny stuff there. :(. It should be brought back, or at least undeleted, copied to a mirror site / user page / or somewhere else so it can preserved for those who DID enjoy it, and then re-deleted. --IvanKnight69 12:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Category:Misplaced Pages humor

For those that worry that Misplaced Pages has become devoid of mirth, I should point out that the above category is quite well populated, and unlike the rather aptly named bad jokes and nonsense, most of this category consists of "good jokes and kept witticisms". See also this policy. >Radiant< 09:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Attribution can be found

Forgive me if this has been mention previously. It would be relatively easy to get the attribution information. All you have to do is find when the content was added and from where (in most cases this is given on the BJAODN page) and then look in the history of the article around the time the content was added to BJAODN. It would be extremely easy for an admin to find the stuff from deleted pages. I could do it myself, but I am busy with other things both Misplaced Pages and non-Misplaced Pages related and do not have enough interest in BJAODN to give it priority. To transfer the attribution, I suppose that you could put the usernames in edit summaries, like we have done before in unusual situations. However, since these are BJAODN pages and not articles, it might be better to put them on the page itself, next to the content that each contributed. -- Kjkolb 12:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

There's more useful work to be done than trying to find histories for the random junk on BJAODN. If we're going to keep using BJAODN, and I've no reason to believe we shouldn't, histories need to be preserved and BLP crap needs to be kept out. Nick 12:48, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It's part of Misplaced Pages's history. Yeah a good chunk of it is crap but not all of Misplaced Pages has to be serious :) --WikiSlasher 12:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I do not think it would be too much harder to provide attribution for the deleted content than it would be for new content, especially in the case of joke articles and bad articles that were deleted immediately. -- Kjkolb 13:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Issue is that for old stuff we don't have deleted histories.Geni 01:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, don't people have anything better to do? Like an encyclopedia to write? Misplaced Pages is not a joke shop, nor Myspace. It's an encyclopedia. Our job is to actually write the damn thing. Not to spend hours playing around with 60-odd hours of idiotic subpages of BJAODN. Moreschi 13:01, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

"60-odd hours of idiotic subpages of BJAODN"? Also, as I previously mentioned, I do have better things to do. -- Kjkolb 13:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

If there is a case where the addition of humour sections are harming the encyclopedia and sidelining people from improving the article, nay violating Misplaced Pages policy and the GFDL, then the involvement of humour within Misplaced Pages needs to be discussed within the community, and if necessary, deleted. If the humour sections are harmful to Misplaced Pages in terms of contributions or legally, they will sadly need to go. --tgheretford (talk) 21:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realize people were taking jobs here. Where can I put in my application? I now regret all the time I spent for free just because I thought this was fun. What a rube I am! William Pietri 04:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Moreschi just ran head-on onto my Third law of Misplaced Pages... Titoxd 04:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

G12?

How did you reckon G12 applied? Steve block Talk 15:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The contributions of users were being attributed only to whoever copy and pasted the material instead of the actual author in violation of the license under which the original author released the material, thus, Copyright violation twice over. But that is really ancillary to the true reason, which, as noted, is the utter GFDL violations (section 4.B of the license). --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 15:59, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I get all that, but my reading of G12 doesn't allow that as a reason for speedy deletion under G12. Does the material have to meet all the parameters or just one of them? And I think this is important, because if it doesn't meet G12 then you're claiming WP:IAR. Steve block Talk 17:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

So if you do not agree with the G12 interpretation (which I stand by), then just go by the GFDL. No matter what, the material cannot stay. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 18:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I understand how it violated the GFDL, I just can't see violating the GFDL as being a parameter listed under G12. It wasn't copied from a website with an incompatible license, therefore G12 cannot apply. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Steve block Talk 19:26, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Somebody has got to revert this idiocy. Copyright paranoia can only go so far, before it becomes an utter and complete farce. WP:IAR, undelete, and ban Jeffrey for being WP:LAME.  Grue  16:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Jeffrey, and the failure of MFD to discard this walled garden nuisance does not speak well to our community. Even keeping the current page is questionable, but the archives were without value. -- nae'blis 17:05, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• It's really too bad... but Jeffery is 100% right. It's form violated our own ethics. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 17:11, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
• I will resist the temptation to start a deletion review because I know that will only cause more trouble. However, my strong opinion is that Mr. Gustafson should not have deleted anything unilaterally. I really don't see how this is any different from when User:YankSox deleted Daniel Brandt by implicitly invoking WP:BLP, and started a deletion war with catastrophic results. In both cases, the pages were nearly perennial subjects of discussion, but nobody could muster community consensus to get them deleted. Then some admin goes ahead and deletes them unilaterally. Our community dynamics depend on trust, and it's hard to trust administrators who don't reciprocate that trust for those of us who have contributed to BJAODN.

I support the idea of trying to rescue citations to page history so that some of BJAODN can be recovered. This presents technical problems for non-admins like me because I don't have access to deleted articles. I'm referring to the sources for BJAODN items, not to BJAODN itself.

Going forward, I suggest the following:

1. Restore the titles of the BJAODN pages. I find them amusing, and they do not violate GFDL.
2. Recreate BJAODN as a category instead of a list. The category would have three subcategories:
   1. Deleted pages.
   2. Reverted diffs from existing articles.
   3. Special items such as April Fools jokes.

In appropriate situations, a newpage patroller could bypass CSD G1 by adding a template that says "This article is deleted and is viewable only for humorous purposes" and would automatically be categorized by the template. I'm not sure how it would work for diffs. I suppose special items could already go in Category:Misplaced Pages humor, but then, the entirety of BJAODN belongs there.

Let us not confuse GFDL issues with personal preferences. Just because BJAODN violates some rule that most of us honestly don't know about, it doesn't justify unilateral action, and it also doesn't mean that we should disparage any and all attempts at humor, as some of the folks above have been doing. YechielMan 20:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• Just because BJAODN violates some rule that most of us honestly don't know about — Any administrator — any administrator — who is not familiar with the requirements of the GFDL has been given access to administrator tools too early, before xe is actually ready to use them. Many of the tasks that we use our tools for from day to day, including history mergers, fixing bogus copy-and-paste moves, and renaming over existing articles, involve the requirements of the GFDL. We are required to delete content that is not licensed under the GFDL, and to preserve edit history and not delete when (GFDL-licensed) content has been merged. Our tools are here in part for us to ensure that the project's copyright policy is adhered to, and to repair the errors made by those who have not followed that policy. Not knowing what the requirements of the project's copyright licence actually are is a fundamental deficiency; it is something that one should have learned before becoming an administrator. Uncle G 23:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Realisticaly you are going to have to accept that most admins have not read the GFDL. Just as you have to accept that most admins have not read our full disclaimers.Geni 01:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, but just because we should be willing to forgive ignorance of our copyright policy doesn't mean that after its consequences have been pointed out people should intentionally disregard them. >Radiant< 08:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Ahem. It is a sad day when BJAODN gets deleted. Amen. - Bagel7*Talk02:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• I've placed the BJAODN page itself for Mfd. Honestly there's nothing much left here now. - Mailer Diablo 13:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I think we can all do without that collection of unattributed libel. We can instead, oh I don't know, write an encyclopedia? 13:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• Just as a sidenote, can an admin please undelete and do a history merge on User:SunStar Net/Persian Panda and merge the history of Persian Panda (now deleted) into it to keep this within the GFDL?? - since the original author's work is not included, because I did a copy-and-paste job on it. The article is tagged with {{humor}} so people know it is a BJAODN article.

Also, I feel BJAODN should be kept, as long as pages are moved into it rather than deleted wholesale - e.g. Nonsense article that is very funny moved to Misplaced Pages:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense/Nonsense article that is very funny - that way it might just keep the GFDL requirement. Same for all the other deleted articles that were cut-and-pasted into the BJAODN archives too. Hope this suggestion helps. --SunStar Net 21:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, say goodbye to my edit count... =( Dark Ermac 21:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm putting this up for WP:Deletion review. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• Crikey. This makes me sad, as Misplaced Pages isn't a job to me, it's a pleasure. And even were this a job, I feel like a shared sense of humor is a vital part of a healthy workplace culture. This sudden action seems roughly as reasonable to me as tearing through the office one day and ripping down all the photocopied cartoons. If I grab the ultra-full dump and write something that rummages for attribution, would people accept the attributable BJAODN fragments back? Or is there some unexpressed issue that's driven this? William Pietri 04:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I would accept it if:
    • It was properly attributed (which may lead to "you did this to make fun of me" wikidrama), and
    • It is actually funny (which is subjective, because one person's funny and hilarious joke is another's stupid and lame one)
  • Otherwise, it's better to keep them deleted. I was about to flush out the archives because most of the content was just plain stupid, and they were funny to the point where I did not laugh at the subject of the joke, but at the joke itself. —Kurykh 04:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I haven't read this thread exhaustively but I've done a quick text search and this doesn't seem to have been raised. Doesn't the exact same interpretation of the GFDL also result in practically every talk archive subpage on Misplaced Pages being a violation in need of immediate deletion? Help:Archiving a talk page gives detailed directions on how to do a copy-and-paste move of material from talk pages to archive subpages, and I know this has been the method I've always used myself. Bryan Derksen 07:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Talk pages and pages like these are actively signed by their participants. That is the attribution.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 07:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but some users don't sign their names, and anon users often don't, and those who are identified by IPs are pretty much worthless, as if their IP is dymanic it means pretty much nothing. --IvanKnight69 14:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah but if they do that the anons don't want attribution, that's why they're anonymous so there's no issue there. --WikiSlasher 02:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm very happy this was done. If we don't take the GFDL seriously, there's no reason anyone on earth will, and the license will become unenforceable. Derksen: talk pages should be fine because the edits can be found on the main talk page. Time stamps make this easy. Cool Hand Luke 20:03, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Other pages in BJAODN need checking for GFDL violations

Just looking through the links from the main BJAODN page, I have a niggling worry that the links for the Other Pages as well as Misplaced Pages:List of really, really, really stupid article ideas that you really, really, really should not create also fail CSD G12 as per the concerns made by Jeffrey O. Gustafson in his original decision to speedy delete the main BJAODN pages. All of the pages have the same problems of material being copied and pasted to the page, without crediting the subsequent authors in the revision(s), again as required by section 4B of the GFDL as per: Misplaced Pages:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License#4. MODIFICATIONS. Rather than cause more trouble by nominating for MfD, I'm bringing this concern to the attention of the community. --tgheretford (talk) 17:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

If I am looking at that page right, it is just a list of article links (instead of the content themselves) or I am missing something completely different. User:Zscout370 20:09, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Undelete the BJAODN Pages and put in an Archive, Please

It is my belief that many BJAODN can be attributed; even in cases where they aren't attributable to pre-BJAODN edits, they should be attributable to those who posted them on BJAODN. So what's the issue? — Rickyrab | Talk 22:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Because the person who posted them on BJAODN is creating a copy of the original author; attributing it to the copier would be like me downloading an MP3 and then saying that I'm the author. Veinor 16:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Editor who originally posted this is blocked right now... you can visit their talkpage for more hilarity regarding complete misunderstanding of the GFDL.--Isotope23 16:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Runcorn and sockpuppets banned

After an investigation involving several CheckUsers, myself included, it has been determined based on new, firmer technical evidence, as well as the editing patterns, including similar article interests, reverting to each other, and double voting, that Newport, Poetlister, R613vlu, Brownlee, Londoneye, and Taxwoman, all previous sockpuppetry suspects from 2005, are all the same user, and, further, that the operator of these accounts is also the operator of the newer accounts new accounts including Simul8, Osidge, Holdenhurst, and the admin account Runcorn. On the recommendation of the Arbitration Committee, Runcorn has been desysopped by a steward, and all of the accounts have been blocked indefinitely. Dmcdevit·t 20:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• Aye. Mackensen (talk) 20:42, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Wow. Nishkid64 (talk) 20:48, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm shocked. Pretty shocking when you think about it. This seems as bad as the Wonderfool/Robdurbar incident some time ago. I do know that Poetlister's still active at Wikiquote as q:User:Poetlister. This is certainly one thing I didn't expect to read on Misplaced Pages today. I assume User:RachelBrown is still active, am I wrong?? But, whatever way you look at it, it is shocking. --SunStar Net 20:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• ...wow. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:56, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
• Bravo! ➥the Epopt 21:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

No Poetlister and I had email communications, and she has provided me important information about the issue and they indeed proved she is not a sock. I now need a trustworthy admin that I can forward the evidence to. Who wants it? Wooyi 21:08, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Send it to the arbcom list or an arbitrator, but I highly doubt this. Dmcdevit·t 21:22, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright, but this needs to be confidential, which arbitrator is the most trustworthy and responsive? Wooyi 21:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

They're all a bunch of faithless losers, when you look at it that way. --jpgordon 21:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I respect the ArbCom, so no intention to insult the institution. Anyways, from past experience you seem to be a good arbitrator, Gordon, so I will send it to you. Wooyi 21:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Email sent to jpgordon. Wooyi 21:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The above-mentioned e-mail has been received by the Committee. However, I'm afraid that it didn't actually cast any further light on the matter (merely a denial). If there is evidence to bring to our attention, we would most certainly like to see it. James F. (talk) 22:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• Just curious: How did this mass sockpuppetry come to light in the first place? Checkuser, yes, but obviously there must have been some suspicion involved to get to that point. What were the sockpuppets doing that set off peoples' alarms? This is one of the most severe cases I've ever seen — and it makes me wonder just how many other admin sockpuppets might be lurking somewhere out there, just waiting to strike... *** Crotalus *** 23:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

  Various people have been tracking them for a while. Finally someone looked at just the right thing - David Gerard 23:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

  This page offers a fair amount of evidence. --Calton | Talk 00:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

  We e-mailed arbcom with 8 pages of evidence after this AFD, but there was obviously much more to it, people had suspected sockpuppetry for ages, but Runcorn's name hadn't come up (as far as I know) until that AFD just kind of made it obvious what was going on, if you could read between the lines. --W.marsh 05:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

  Indeed, I first encountered it there, discovered an administrator behind it, and contacted ArbCom, who were already looking at similar issues. Dmcdevit·t 00:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

It's quite true. This was brought to my attention by someone else (I'll leave it to them whether they want their name mentioned or not), but after looking into it, it was pretty clear that the accounts were socks. Seraphimblade 00:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Aren't these sockpuppets of RachelBrown or is she unrelated? --MichaelLinnear 00:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

There was a user subpage on Zodriac or something about the Poetlister alleged socks. Some admin deleted it a year ago when Zodriac (sp?) got banned. Basically it lined out all the evidence that acquited poetlister. Basically, she and the others are real life friends. I mean they include their pictures. I am sure they can include pictures holding up signs of things to prove they are not socks, just friends. There's a difference between people of similar interests and friends and people who are the same person. Just ask them to provide pictures of themselves holding up signs or something and it'll be proven they are different people. SakotGrimshine 00:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If they are real life friends and they are voting together...how is that not meatpuppetry? IrishGuy 00:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Well the accusation was sock puppetry, not meat puppetry. SakotGrimshine 00:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

That's rather easy to circumvent. Just get a bunch of random friends to hold up signs for you - they don't have to know why. Snap some pics. Job done! - Alison ☺ 00:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Since most of the blocked accounts had uploaded pictures of themselves, you'd have to get all of the same people back together again, maybe not so simple. --MichaelLinnear 01:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If someone actually bothers to take a picture with a sign, to get back an editor account with no powers--not an admin account--instead of just changing your IP and making a new account, then this is likely a legit person. If that's not enough, ask them all not just holding a sign, but doing it in a bikini--which you couldn't easily get a bunch of friends to do. I'm also not sure that everyone who is at their computer a lot has a whole bunch of real life friends. If they are socks, then their photos would be taken from somewhere else and we should find the source... magazines, etc. SakotGrimshine 01:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Um not really. I know just about anybody who could convince a bunch of friends, which these images clearer are, to do that. The facts are though that every one of those accounts used the same "wording" and "phrasing" in their edit summaries and most importantly in their CfD/AfD !votes. On a recent CfD I participated in, I noticed that most of these users IDENTICALLY misunderstood a certain user's reasoning and responded to it in identical confusion. These are not meatpuppets. Bulldog123 06:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Also.... Has this been finished yet, checkuser being able to read USER AGENT? So checkuser can see what people's browser and OS are? I'm doubtful they all match for every account. I'm sure some of them use Mac's, Windowx XP vs. Vista, etc. SakotGrimshine 00:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

That wouldn't prove anything either. I really do have several systems which use different OS's, and it's trivial to spoof useragent headers. Seraphimblade 01:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I suggest immediate unblock and exoneration of Rachel Brown, Poetlister, and Taxwoman, absurd sock accusation that amounts to Witchhunt. Wooyi 01:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If useing a different browser makes you different people me and user:User:Genisock2 are different people. Something that doesn't appear to be the case.Geni 01:51, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Come on, they all have pictures of themselves, socks don't have human faces. Have some common sense. Wooyi 01:57, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

How you know they are pictures of them?Geni 02:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Because I WP:AGF and assume most Wikipedians are honest, plus my email communications with one of the blocked user. Wooyi 02:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Your "important information proving they are not socks" turned out to be nothing more than a rant and unfounded accusations. Dmcdevit·t 02:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Um. No. This was the result of extensive investigation and conferring between several CheckUsers. Obviously, I'm not going to give technical details because there is no pressing need to reveal personal information, and there is certainly no good reason to make it easier for future sockpuppets to evade detection by knowing our methods. However, all of the things that are crossing your minds now crossed ours as well, as ArbCom discussed the matter, and the technical information explains it all well. Dmcdevit·t 02:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

So you're saying those women, many of which are on the list of the top prettiest Wikipedians, are really actually a man? SakotGrimshine 02:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

So it would seem. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 02:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Wooyi, since you bring up WP:AGF, you could assume that the checkusers and ArbCom have acted in good faith and performed a diligent investigation before labeling these accounts sockpuppets. But instead you've described their actions as a "witch-hunt", "absurd", lacking "common sense", etc. I don't bring this up to be hard on you, but it's not the first time you've defended an ArbCom/checkuser-identified abusive sockmaster on flimsy grounds (). How about extending some of that good faith to the checkusers and ArbCom? MastCell 04:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

MastCell, I have only defended a couple users alleged to be sockpuppets. But you only focused on these to comment on me. If you look at my records, you can see I've edited tons of contentious politics-related articles and I've confronted innumerable vandals/trolls, you think I would actually defend bad users? However, I also believe the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and I looked at some of the accused "sockpuppets"' contributions, I could find no compelling evidence, so I think they are not. Frankly, for years I might be one of editors who are especially "law and order" in regarding to disruption. Wooyi 20:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of images, what do we do with the images like Image:Taxwoman1.jpg and so on? Since these are all sockpuppets of an editor who at times identified as a male, can we really assume they have any rights to these pictures that were uploaded? --W.marsh 05:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• • I think we can assume that these were not simply images taken from google but friend's of the sockpuppeteer, maybe old girlfriends. It's crafty sockpuppetry. Bulldog123 06:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
• About the pictures, has anyone noticed how perfectly formated all the userpages were? Each had precisely one picture and one link to contributions. Look:

, , , This reeks of someone's attempt to look like 6 or 7 different people by taking photos of their friends and uploading them. In addition, this "unblock Poetlister" mentality was already carried out by many other banned users, probably friends, such as User:Zordrac. It's a trap and I think User:Wooyi might be falling for it.. Bulldog123 06:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Having absorbed what I could of Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Newport, and noticed the userpage pattern I was about to ask why User:Runcorn was suspected (besides CU) until I saw this, in which it is quite obvious that there is one and only one person behind the relevant keeps. Most or all of the socks are blockable based on public evidence alone.

My hat is off to Dmcdevit and all else who contributed to uprooting this ongoing abuse.Proabivouac 08:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

It was clear on that, and quite a bit more. But I certainly salute Dmcdevit and all of the other checkusers too. Seraphimblade 10:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

My hat is off to Seraphimblade, Bulldog123, Dmcdevit, and all others who contributed to uprooting this ongoing abuse.Proabivouac 20:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Seeing that one other entry in Runcorn's block log was a bit of an "aha!" moment as well. Good work. WarpstarRider 11:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay here is the whole Zodrac evidence page. http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:Log&page=User:Zordrac/Poetlister It got deleted 21:36, 7 January 2007 SlimVirgin (Talk | contribs) deleted "User:Zordrac/Poetlister" (attack page). But admins can view it. I recommend you copy and paste it into show preview for easier viewing. It includes many pictures of Taxwoman dressed as a ... to put it midly... a dancer, although the userpage says she is an accountant. There's a bunch of good evidence there and also more related IPs. SakotGrimshine 12:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity...as a non-admin, how is it that you know the contents of a deleted page? Your first edit was 29 December 2006 and you didn't return again until 17 January 2007. Meanwhile, this page was deleted on 7 January 2007. IrishGuy 18:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I've seen them as well. They have been mirrored elsewhere. hbdragon88 02:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• All of the socks were UK-based and had generic occupation claims (accountant, chemist, mathematician, etc.) For me one of the most compelling argument for calculated sockpuppetry - as opposed to the meat puppet theory - was that none of these accounts ever talked to eachother on-Misplaced Pages, not even one word. They never even voted "per" eachother in discussions, the first one always made an argument then the others voted "per" someone else who made about the same argument. If I found someone who agreed with me 90% of the time in 100+ discussions, I'd be pretty intrigued and probably talk to them, although even 90% is a pretty far-fetched number. If I found someone who agreed with me 100% of the time - I'd think I had multiple personality disorder and check myself in to the clinic down the road. But here are 5+ people who literally always agreed with eachother, and they never said anything to eachother? The more I looked into this the more obvious it became. --W.marsh 13:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I just noticed most of them are named after cities in the UK: Runcorn, Osidge, Newport, Holdenhurst, Londoneye. Its almost as if they looked at a map and chose a sockpuppet based on that. Bulldog123 16:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • This seems to be the extent of their talking to each other SakotGrimshine 15:18, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Basically all those "communications" are attempts to cover up mistakes they made when editing articles that another username started. And the greetings are just dead giveaways. See Misplaced Pages:Suspected_sock_puppets/Archive/May_2007#Connecting_Newport_and_R613vlu. It refers to three of the diffs of them communicating. Bulldog123 16:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Your first diff is not a user talk page edit. Pay closer attention to what the name of the page was at the time. That's two accounts, now determined to be the same person, making the same argument on an article talk page. Uncle G 15:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Interesting... but the last 4 seem to be 2 related incidents, 1 of them just being a "welcome!" / "thanks for the welcome!" exchange. So the exchange between Newport and R613 was the closest thing to them conversing... and I think this was addressed in the SSP? --W.marsh 16:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
      • It was. Link is right above you. Also, there are a few links to pages where they "faked consensus" such as in a Mediation Cabal. After reading that, it just became so very obvious these users are in perfect synchrony with eachother. Bulldog123 16:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
• That page was edited by Taxwoman. It was in part based upon arguments supplied by another editor who turned out to be a mass sockpuppeteer. And Zordrac later turned out to be a sockpuppet account, too. Be aware of this when reading what is written there. Uncle G 15:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there's a significant amount of fallout to this mess. Fortunately, one of the people who dealt with this has already caught what was my most immediate concern when I read Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Newport. However, there are other concerns. Checking Special:Contributions/Taxwoman has led to User:Taxwoman/articles, at least one (so far) of which I believe to be original research (see Snake play (AfD discussion)).

I'm surprised, given what W.marsh wrote above, that Interesdom (talk · contribs) does not appear to have been included in the list of accounts sent to the CheckUsers, given this edit where xe makes the same AFD argument as all of the other now-identified sockpuppet accounts, which would appear to qualify xem at least for investigation on the grounds stated above. Of course, Interesdom could simply be a second real person who has simply adopted the common view of a single external group, given that xe is also User:Interesdom on the same wiki as "Taxwoman", and, like "Taxwoman" and "Balzac" (whose account here is BalzacLFS (talk · contribs)), a sysop and a checkuser on that wiki.

On the other hand, they could be sockpuppet accounts on that wiki, too. Interesdom shows exactly the same pattern of editing Master (BDSM) as Taxwoman does with Snake play. Xe created the article on the other wiki and then copied it to Misplaced Pages citing the other wiki as the source, exactly as "Taxwoman" did, even down to the use of {{Wipipedia}}, with Snake play. So we have two points of editing similarity, and I think enough evidence to at least ask for a yea or nay from the CheckUsers. Uncle G 15:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• Interesdom (talk · contribs) sure fits the profile we've seen. I think wp-en's checkusers should look into this and see if they can't tie him to the sockpuppets. On an odd note, he seems to use a joke lifted from my userpage on his userpage. I'm not sure what this means exactly, but it was added around the time I let it be known publically that the Wipipedia sockpuppets were being investigated. To clear up why he wasn't expected, when Seraphimblade and I started digging into this, the main thing we used to find connections was looking at accounts who voted in both the deletion discussions and RFAs with Runcorn. The only RFA Interestdom seems to have commented in was Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Michaelas10, which was indeed a textbook example of the sockpuppetry. --W.marsh 17:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree that Interesdom matches at least the outlines of the known sock pattern: generic British user page, Wipipedia AfD "keep" contributions, etc. Checkuser attention would be warranted here. Sandstein 05:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Two of the sock-puppets voted in Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Runcorn. More troubling, though, is Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Newport, where Runcorn successfully parried a checkuser case against several of xyr own sock-puppets. And the editor requesting the checkuser, Jujugoe (talk · contribs · checkuser · block user · block log · edit count) who appears to have actually been right on many of the particulars, ended up being blocked. (I don't see how Tyrenius could have known, though.) Uncle G 18:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
    • It seemed a clear-cut case. I've unblocked the account in case the user wants to use his new-found credibility for more detective work. Tyrenius 04:19, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, Jujugoe seems to have been a sockpuppet of someone or other. I'm not familiar with Antidote (talk · contribs). But it's interesting that someone was onto Runcorn's sockpuppetting over 6 months ago, I think that's the earliest I've seen. It's strange that no one really mentioned Runcorn publically, as far as I can tell, until this very AN thread... was it just because they didn't want to name an admin, or if they just didn't notice the connection. --W.marsh 19:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, the "sockpuppet of User:Antidote" thing seems to be a common theme in Runcorn's blocking log (next to all of the open proxy stuff). I wish I was more familiar with that situation; anyone have any info? WarpstarRider 05:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
        • Some time ago, on the Georg Cantor article, User:Newport, User:Brownlee, and User:Runcorn, including the user who is apparently now User:Simul8 were edit warring with a bunch of anons. Myself and User:PMAnderson later joined in. Here's a history log . When I reverted to versions that apparently didn't suit their POV, Runcorn flat out banned me as a sockpuppet of "Antidote" without any explanation. I had to get an unblocking admin to conduct a checkuser to exonerate me. In the middle of an edit war, which I now learn was actually just him and a bunch of sockpuppets, he pulls this stunt. He didn't leave a message of explanation or anything. Nor an apology after the unblocking. It makes all the more sense now. So to answer your question, I think Runcorn uses the "blocked as sockpuppet of Antidote" excuse as a cover to ban people/IPs that edit-war with his sockpuppets. Since nobody knows who that was, he could get away with it at least temporarily. His talk page has comments all over it of complaints of blocks. Crazy this went on as long as it did. --Tellerman()
          • One wonders how many Misplaced Pages editors walked away from the project forever after being arbitrarily blocked by Runcorn over things like this. I fear that people like Tellerman are in the minority, and most editors would have just given up rather than go through all the work required for exoneration. Runcorn has brought shame to us all with his self-serving deceit. --Kralizec! (talk) 07:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
            • There's been other administrators desysoped for sock puppet abuse. I think the real question is, why has no one noticed the banning of editors they're in a content dispute with by runcorn or other administrators until a big scandal breaks out? SakotGrimshine 07:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
            • I notice that all 6 of the editors currently listed as sockpupppets of Antidote were blocked by Runcorn and that 5 of them had edits to a list-of-Jewish-something-or-other not long before they were blocked. For example, ...And_Beyond!'s last edit was to Misplaced Pages:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_September_12#Jewish_mathematicians,as was Boscovic's 4th last edit. Cardamon 13:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Antidote was confirmed to have used sock-puppets at Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Antidote and Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/...And Beyond!. However, several of Runcorn's "sockpuppet of Antidote" blocks are on neither of these lists. See 141.211.217.48 (talk · contribs · checkuser · block user · block log · edit count), for example, who was indefinitely blocked for 1 article reversion and a talk page conversation asking for sources. Uncle G 09:38, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick comment: I assisted in the May sockpuppet investigation. I endorse the conclusion and the bans. Durova 23:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• Another fascinating Runcorn habit was reversing hard-blocks of open proxies, changing them into soft-blocks. When asked about it, he simply ignored the question. --jpgordon 02:00, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I've already given this Personal User Award to Seraphimblade individually, since that was mainly the person I worked with during my phase of involvement, but this particular complex investigation needed good work from many editors. So if you know someone else who went above and beyond the call in this case, or if you put forth the effort yourself, copy and paste the award with my heartfelt thanks. Durova 20:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks like Poetlister has retained her sysop rights so far at Wikiquote. She(?) defended herself from the sockpuppet charges here, and WQ editors seem inclined to let her continue as a sysop. She was blocked briefly on WQ but quickly unblocked. She's also defending herself in more florid terms at Misplaced Pages Review, where she is also a sysop. I don't have any problems with her continuing at WQ, and my opinion is that any attempt to force her off that wiki would bring a strong pushback from other WQ editors. Her record there has apparently been very good. Full disclosure: I once had a mild disagreement with Poetlister over the Rosemary Tonks article. Casey Abell 22:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• I agree that her adminship on WQ should be retained. We don't issue cross-wiki bans unless a person has done disruption on multiple wikis. Wooyi 22:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I just looked at the Misplaced Pages Review thread they made. Poetlister claims there is no evidence against her or something ridiculous like that. Some of the repliers are following with conspiracy theories. Pretty funny. Bulldog123 06:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• Reading Misplaced Pages Review it quickly becomes clear that they see conspiracies everywhere, and usually it's Jewish people behind those conspiracies. Runcorn's big thing was pointing out that people were Jewish. So... I don't really know what the entire mission was here, I'm not sure I want to know, but it's not hard to imagine the general sort of thing that was going on. People still supporting Runcorn/Poetlister might want to realize what they're supporting here. --W.marsh 12:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the only mention I've ever gotten at Misplaced Pages Review was by Poetlister her(?)self. She criticized me over the Rosemary Tonks article. By WR standards the criticism was extremely mild and reasonable. Which sort of disappointed me. Anyway, I've posted at Wikiquote that I think Poetlister can safely continue as a sysop there as long as other editors keep their eyes open. But it's their wiki and they'll cry if they want to, cry if they want to, cry if they want to. You would cry, too, if a sockpuppet happened to you. If this counts as "supporting Runcorn/Poetlister" then I'll just have to realize what I'm supporting here. Casey Abell 13:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Runcorn Votestacking

• Please comment on Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2007 May 31#Sockpuppet_cleanup. Runcorn has done a lot of double-voting on deletion debates, and it may be desirable to overturn these. >Radiant< 15:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
• Also, the socks were often used to stack RfA nominations. While of course it would be unfair to desysop anyone who passed even if they wouldn't have without the socks supporting, I do believe we should ask a crat to reexamine any close ones that failed in which the socks opposed, or invite the candidate to run again immediately if it's possible the sock votes sunk it. (As a point of interest, one that was heavily stacked was Ryulong 3, voting 5 times to oppose. If the sock opposes are discounted from that one, the support on it is actually about 71%.) Seraphimblade 23:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Which is still low. Wait, Sean Black was promoted on that number, so it's not that low. hbdragon88 23:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
• It turns out that at least one, Jreferee's RfA, would have been at 75% if the sock votes were discounted (they voted six times to oppose in that one!) I've posted on the bureaucrats' noticeboard to let them know. Seraphimblade 02:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for Change in "Attacking" Policy

In my own opinion, I feel that our policy regarding offenders of the "attacking" policy is a bit too lenient and is often disregarded following appropriate action taken by Misplaced Pages admins. Please note that you do not exactly know where the attacks originated and how far they could go. Even though incidents like these rarely do take place, it is certainly a likely possibility. I propose a punishment of, for a first offense, a permanent ban from editing Misplaced Pages and that comment be either kept or reported to law enforcement depending on the severity of the threat. Please take this into consideration. This punishment may be harsh but is necessary in our pursuit to rid Misplaced Pages of vandals and misuse! Please comment on my talk page ASAP when you have reached an opinion, have a question, etc. Redsox04 23:13, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

We don't punish. We prevent. ⇒ SWATJester 01:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I should follow this up by stating that a) we already block people who personal attack others, at the administrators discretion up to indefinitely. b) Not to mention there's really no way for anyone to actually track you down and cary through on their personal attacks, and law enforcement really can't do much about it. ⇒ SWATJester 01:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Ditto to this, we never (in a perfect world, I know, but we get close) block to punish someone. We only block to prevent damage. If a good faith belief is held they wont continue to harm the wiki, no block should be imposed. -M 02:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe that a user should never be blocked for a single edit, unless this edit is part of a problematic pattern of edits. In addition, an idef-block for a first-time offence seems to be too long, and that blocks should always be designed to be preventative, not punative. Od Mishehu 07:14, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I have read all of your views on my proposal and still believe that my punishment is fair considering the subject that we are dealing with. As far as turning over any threats to law enforcement, that may have been a bit misconstrued. I am not talking about small threats but threats of committing or conspiring to commit a crime and threats of that nature. Although nothing to this level has ever happened before here at Misplaced Pages, it is always better to be proactive. As far as smaller threats go, it is better to keep such users away from Misplaced Pages so that the "enviornment" will be more comfortable for the other users. Law Enforcement does have the capability to track down an IP address. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to post them on my user talk page. Redsox04 20:19, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

New at this

I'm a new admin and am just starting to deal with disruptive editors. Would somebody please review my actions regarding User:Horhay Sanchez? It's mostly his talk page; he kept doing weird things to the warnings he'd been given, even after I warned him to stop. I've fully-protected the page for 24 hours. Is that right? --Masamage ♫ 03:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

He was a vandal-only account. Ryulong extended it to an indef block which is pretty standard when the account is brand new and has vandalism only edits. Feel free to extend the page protection. He was clearly just trolling. IrishGuy 03:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm~, okay. I guess one learns to be less lenient after a while just by necessity. (I've seen three unblock requests today that blamed a friend for hacking the account to vandalize with. Amazing.) Anyway, thank you for the reply! --Masamage ♫ 04:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

IPs and user accounts are different animals. We tend to be more lenient with IPs just because it could be several users using the same IP and you don't want to punish those who didn't commit the vandalism. User accounts are different since only one person is usually using a single account. And blocking the account only blocks that account. Something to keep in mind. --Woohookitty 09:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a note: personally I don't indef block vandal only accounts first off, I gove them 1 24 hour block - after that if their behaviour doesn't improve they are indef blocked. I'd like to think some people improve though. Viridae 13:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Pretty much agree with Viridae. I block for 12-24 the first time through, and only indef them if they're really blatant/abusive. Other admins who deal with vandalism/blocking probably are less lenient than me. *shrug* It's little harm done if they get that one last chance to shoot themselves in the foot. -- nae'blis 15:28, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

O RLY?

Skrenpp66 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) claims to be Pschemp. From this I strongly doubt it. Guy (Help!) 09:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Lulz. — Nearly Headless Nick 09:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Unblock request declined. Riana ⁂ 09:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

NO WAI! hbdragon88 19:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Deleting top anon edits at the request of the associated user to hide the IP

A user has contacted me to request that an edit that they accidentally made as an anon be deleted, to remove the IP from the history. The user/anon combination is top on the page, so the deletion wouldn't be a GFDL violation. Would this be a reasonable interpretation of WP:CSD#G7 or WP:IAR, or would people object to such a deletion being done? --ais523 11:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems fine to me as long as they learn to log in after one error. CMummert · talk 13:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

This has happened to me. Sometimes the software is having a bad day and will inadvertently log an editor out without his or her realizing it. It once happened to me while I was at work, before I was an admin, while I was editing a contentious page with a lot of trolling, and it was a matter of some urgency to me to get the edit deleted before the trolls could locate my workplace. Requests of this nature should be accommodated instantly. Newyorkbrad 15:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

(after EC)I have not infrequently made anon edits without meaning to. as my basic ID info is public, and I even have a link from my most common IP to my user page, I don't care (except to login and and sign talk comments properly) but if someone does care, I see no reason why such a request shouldn't be accommodated. I hope the edit will be repeated logged in. For many people an IP doesn't actually reveal anything useful, but for many others it will give a clear pointer to identity. DES 15:10, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I made the deletion immediately after CMummert's comment. --ais523 15:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that was a good idea, but i personally don't care about my IP being revealed. I publicly state that most constructive edits form user talk:70.88.111.65 are me at school. And I'll log in to properly sign a talk comment. —Crazytales (public computer) 19:38, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

bot for repairing links?

Does anyone know if there is a bot that can repair links and redirects or does this always have to be done manually? thank you for your help. Gryffindor 16:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

What sort of repair? Bots are good at some things, not at others. CMummert · talk 16:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

There's a bot that does repair for double redirects, but none for broken redirects. Broken are repaired manually. Links like disambiguation links, I don't believe there is a bot for sorting that out, editors have to make sure links are pointing to the right article. Not sure what other kind of link repair there could be. — Moe ε 18:27, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

So if an article was moved to a new name, and there are hundreds of articles where the link needs to be changed, it has to be done manually in each article? Gryffindor 08:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, unfortuantly. If there was a bot that targeted recent page moves and corrected the target the link, that would be great, but I think that bot would need it's own complaints department when it chooses the wrong location. :) — Moe ε 20:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Heads Up

Im in the process of cleaning up our fair use images, After I cleaned out our Orphaned Fair Use images (~25,000). I now moving to Images without fair use rationales. I estimate that at least ~15,000-20,000 more images. I hope you admins have your delete button handy. (there are currently 4523 tagged images.) Betacommand 18:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Keep up the good work. 18:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Update: 5,131 images Betacommand 20:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether to love you or hate you. ^demon 22:42, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Update: 6,328 images Betacommand 01:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

and now 7,219 Betacommand 14:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Anything to clear up the fair use abuse, please...damn rap articles! Moreschi 14:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

rap = retards attempting poetry. And this is an admirable effort by βcmd to GFDLify Misplaced Pages. —Crazytales (public computer) 19:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

List of tallest buildings in the United States

Something in List of tallest buildings in the United States is messing up the templates at the bottom and I am at a loss figuring out what it is. Help please.--JEF 20:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Template limits. YOu are transcluding too much onto the page. Upon investigation, your use of {{convert}} is the problem. Eliminating this template will solve your issues. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thats not the problem. I narrowed the problem down to something wrong in the paragraph that begins with: "Prior to". Something, maybe a new template edit may have had an impact on it. The convert template primarly, but Chris above already figured that out :). — Moe ε 20:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I just removed the first template and hit preview; sure enough, I was able to get one of the {{cite}} tags to show up. The list needs some severe pruning. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The list doesn't need pruning, it just needs to use less templates. Why a 13K template is used to generate 10 characters of text is the mystery. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The map seems problematic as well--it's not displaying properly. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Ugh. {{convert}} may not be the problem, but it is definitely a problem. Templates that use intricate parser functions shouldn't be transcluded onto a page 100 times. Unfortunately, substing the template doesn't fix the problem, because {{convert}} itself uses multiple templates. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:18, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Image fixed, I think. Don't worry, I'll get the other convert templates fixed now. We don't need to subst the cite web or the other template though. — Moe ε 21:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The image is still messed up for me (OS X Firefox 2.0.0.4, if it matters), but your substing of the convert template worked--I wonder why it didn't work when I substed it? --Akhilleus (talk) 21:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

*Shurgs shoulders* Unknown answer :) But as long as the template isn't used 100 times is all that matters. Could you tell me the problem with the Image? I don't have FireFox, so I can't see whats wrong. But I can start fixing it when I know whats up.. — Moe ε 21:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Basically, the text is in the wrong place: New York City buildings are listed over eastern Wyoming, Chicago appears over San Francisco, and the west coast buildings are way off to the left. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I think I know what the problem was, could you tell me if I fixed it? — Moe ε 22:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's working now. Thanks! However, I have to say I am dubious about its value. It's difficult to read the text against the state borders, and anyone who needs to know where Atlanta, Houston, etc. are can simply consult the appropriate articles... --Akhilleus (talk) 22:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing when I was trying to place the template in a more appropriate place in the article. Then I looked at the "Whatlinkshere" page for the template and saw that it only links to one article. I'm thinking of putting it up on TFD. BTW, thanks for telling me NYC was in Eastern Wyoming, it gave me a chuckle for some reason :) — Moe ε 22:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Would it be worth having a bot go around and subst: {{convert}} everywhere, to avoid issues like this? ^demonBot2 can make use of Special:Expandtemplates, so it can fully subst it without leaving residue. ^demon 22:42, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

This isn't your straight kind of subst. This template uses some intricate features and substing them causes an overload of unwanted syntax in the article. I think this kind of thing has to be done manually. It also doesn't have to be subst'ed on every page. Only on the ones that have it repeated a hundred times. — Moe ε 22:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I understand what you mean, which is why I mentioned that I can use ExpandTemplates. It bypasses all that mucky syntax and gives you your full output from the template. ^demon 01:24, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Really?? Hmm.. I would be content if your bot did that work. Still, I wouldn't use it on articles that only have in transcluded once or twice, more along the lines of 20 or more times. If you could get your bot to do that, that would be great :) — Moe ε 02:00, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, definitely, this would be an excellent task for a bot to complete. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:06, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I realize that {{convert}} makes things convenient, but couldn't someone just go and use a freakin' calculator and just write out the values?? That would pretty much solve all the problems for this page. howcheng {chat} 01:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

So true, thats what I thought the template was to be used for at first, to figure out the conversions, but I guess it's so that users don't even have to strain :) — Moe ε 02:00, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think the conversion value between feet and meters is going to change any time soon, so it's probably best just to calculate them once and be done with it rather than every single time the page is rendered. --Cyde Weys 20:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Usernameblacklist

I have some regex's I think would be nice for the username blacklist. Could anyone interested take a look over at MediaWiki_talk:Usernameblacklist and offer your comments? Thanks. ^demon 22:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Request re: BJAODN deletion

I am requesting the edit histories of the deleted subpages of BJAODN, as well as the deleted subpages themselves. — Rickyrab | Talk 00:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

How many times will you be told no before you stop? As you were not the sole editor, you have no right to the content. Period. It cannot be recreated because it violates the GFDL. Period. You are really bordering on trolling at this point. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 01:38, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree. If it was possible to release them to you under the terms of the GFDL, then they wouldn't have been deleted in the first place. Hesperian 01:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, someone already blocked him for it. Kinda mean to block someone for requesting something. --jpgordon 02:02, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Not when they have been trolling to get the information. He only started actually giving a polite request when I told him to be civil. Beforehand he was asking rather rudely. I think he knew the consequences of what he was doing. — Moe ε 02:05, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Not until after I got blocked for doing it, Moe. — Rickyrab | Talk 02:15, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

About the block. ^demon 02:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Runcorn, sockpuppets and vote stacking

The revelation about Runcorn is quite shocking, but perhaps our best response would be to become less reliant on counting "votes". The object of all discussions are to arrive at the best decisions. If several people take part in a discussion and they do not add a convincing argument for their position, it should not matter if the argument was made five times by one person or one time each by five people. It is still an unconvincing argument. However it is possible to sway opinion by piling on comments to make it look like an overwhelming show of community support. Certainly, in this respect Runcorn's behavior is appalling and cannot be justified. But exposing sock-puppets is just a partial solution. I call on closers of all discussions to focus on the arguments of the debate, weighing all points, examining policy and current practice and using judgment to come to the best possible decision. If you arrive at the best decision, and can explain how and why you reached it, the decision will be accepted. This is the best defense against sock-puppets. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 06:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

You've made a very good point, but this is an issue for the community at large, not just admins, so I guess it would be better being discussed at Misplaced Pages:Village pump. Neil (►) 08:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Am I losing the plot?

Just need someone else to look at this because I think I'm losing it. User:Angelbo reported User:24.192.99.116 to AP:AIV. I removed the report as a final warning hadn't been issued. Now looking at history of the supposed vandalised article, I can see any contribs from the IP, and when I look at his/her contributions there are no edits. It's early I need more coffee but what am I missing? Ta 07:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I would suppose that their edits were deleted, as they contained personal information. WarpstarRider 07:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)At least one of the editors who left warnings certainly thought they were reverting edits made by this IP. Perhaps the edits in question were deleted ... ? (and I will ditto the coffee order) --Kralizec! (talk) 07:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That's what I noticed. Though for someone to remove the pinfo in the history, and then not dish out a stern warning seemed a bit odd that's all. 11:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, there was a block given to the anon. WarpstarRider 11:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

OK that would make sense with him being on WP:OVERSIGHT. Cheers anyway 11:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Bertie Ahern

Hi all! I'm wondering if some of you vandalism reverters might be so kind as to place the Bertie Ahern article on your watchlist. The article is consistently barraged with silly edits and it's becoming hard to discern what edits are good and what edits are bad (it's a heavily edited article). I just semi-protected the article for three days, so no immediate worries, but I'm sure it'll pick back up as soon as the protection expires. Thanks in advance fellows! Cheers gaillimh 14:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• Added. That's a singularly unflattering picture of Our Man Bertie, isn't it? yeek! - Alison ☺ 17:59, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
• He's on today's front page, making him an easy target. Corvus cornix 23:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Deletable signatures proposal

Since I'm canvasing for opinions, and trying to avoid the bad kind of canvasing, I'm mentioning Misplaced Pages:Deletable signatures proposal here. Anybody care to comment? _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 14:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

How can you present this proposal in good faith when you are in violation of it yourself? --Chris (talk) 15:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

This seems a tad ridiculous, given that you are not in compliance. alphachimp 15:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I suppose he's only in violation of one of those conditions, whereas the proposal says sigs should be deleted when they use two or three or more. Still, jeez. Mangojuice 15:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• Two principles of online life: (a) Don't be too annoying. (b) Don't be too easily annoyed. This proposal manages to simultaneously violate both. --jpgordon 15:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:BertieAhern crop.jpg

It's on the main page, but it isn't protected.--70.129.201.181 17:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Its protection is cascaded from 12 different sources. It's not explicitly protected itself, but it still can't be edited anyway because it's on the main page and inherits protection from it. So there's nothing to worry about. --ais523 17:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

You have to click on "edit this page" and then you'll see that you can't edit it. I reported that eariler too (way back when some comet was being seen) because I saw the "edit this page" and thought it was still unprotected. hbdragon88 02:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Blocked without a final warning

I am seeing that some users are being blocked without even receiving a final warning. Users SHOULD get at least one final warning before having an administrator block the user. NHRHS2010 20:02, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Examples, please? I am of the opinion that there are some cases where a final warning isn't necessary. (Repeated creation of attack pages, for example.) -- Merope 20:05, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

What, the final warnings are necessary so they can get in a little bit more vandalism before being blocked, is that it? --Cyde Weys 20:24, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

But of course, Cyde. We've already had Misplaced Pages:Right to Edit, why not Misplaced Pages:Right to Vandalize? I'll do that after I've written up Misplaced Pages:Don't block Giano. Seriously, if a user's first edit is userpage vandalism, or a nasty personal attack on user's talk, they should be blocked straight away. Obviously not here to build an encyclopedia. Moreschi 20:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

No, they shouldn't. Sometimes it is painfully obvious when an account is going to be used for vandalism-only. I've got several accounts in my block history that only got a few edits (some that only had one). Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy; we don't need to warn a user a specific number of times before blocking them. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Right... IMO it is pretty easy to tell if someone is here just to troll or vandalize and a block is preventative. They can always request an unblock if they want to.--Isotope23 20:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

To be entirely honest, anyone who would come around after a final warning is much better off without those first edits in his account history, so the problems caused by this are not too severe. And there are plenty of vandals accounts that make patently clear from edit #1 that they are here in bad faith. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I've even blocked without any warning. The block (one week) has been entended to indef by the first reviewing admin, and that indef block has been supported by a second reviewing admin. Vandalism, user harassment (= one week) and sockpuppeting (= indef). It all depends on what happened, what the user has done. Normally, I give three warnings and then a 24 hour block, but it just depends. I don't see a reason to give a vandal-only account with a bad username like User:Imessedupyourpage any warning before blocking. Fram 20:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Zeq-Zero0000

This arbitration case has closed and the decision published at the link above. Zer0000 is advised not to take any further administrator actions against or in relation to Zeq, including but not limited to enforcement actions under their prior arbitration case, and admonished that so long as an editor, including one on probation, is not restricted in their editing of a page or area they are entitled to be accorded good faith and be treated with respect and courtesy when they edit in those areas. For the arbitration committee, David Mestel 20:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Images posted with typos in the name

How can I do image page moves when I post an image with typos in the name. The following images have been posted incorrectly:

Image:2070530 333 North Michigan, 360 North Michigan and 35 East Wacker.JPG -> Image:20070530 333 North Michigan, 360 North Michigan and 35 East Wacker.JPG

Image:20070530 Dubeffet - Monument with Standing Beast.JPG -> Image:20070530 Dubuffet - Monument with Standing Beast.JPG

Image:20070530 Dubeffet - Monument with Standing Beast (1).JPG -> Image:20070530 Dubuffet - Monument with Standing Beast (1).JPG

Each only has a page or two that links to it. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 20:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

images can't be moved so only option would be reuploading and listing for deleteion.Geni 20:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Ways of handling BLP issues

Seems that some of us think that bad biographies should be gone, even if we are happy to talk about the subject afterwards. Others think that if a subject is notable at any level we should not even think about removing it until every possible process has been exhausted. Of course, the best solution probably lies somewhere in between (though on the conservatiove side, this being something with real potential to harm and all).

I would like to suggest that we start to try to defuse the shitstorms.

One way of doing this would be a parallel to {{delrev}} during deletion debates; leave the history but don't show the content during the debate. Another way would be to move content out of mainspace during deletion debates. Or we could nuke them and have a debate with the article gone, focusing on the subject in isolation from previous versions of the article. Whatever, I woudl suggest that the editor or admin identifying the issue or deleting the article be requested to take it straight to DRV, with a rationale for deletion, and a clear expectation that we don't go batshit simply because someone raised the problem, because anyone who has fielded OTRS emails knows that what is on Misplaced Pages is a seriously big deal for the subject, and we have to take it seriously.

Where there is a deletion or other radical removal of content, it woudl be good to have a series of options for progress rather than simply hysterical cries of "notable! undelete!" or "crap! delete!", since these binary choices, while they will satisfy a greater or lesser proportion of the community, do not represent a properly nuanced approach.

What we need is an approach which reconciles the not-irreconcilable: concern for the potential to harm, and the aim to document that which is genuinely significant according to our goals of verifiability, neutrality and not being arseholes. That demands that fans of the subject respect concerns over harm, and that those who are vehemently opposed to harm respect the desire to document that which people believe to be culturally significant. Guy (Help!) 22:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a sensible proposal. At the moment we seem to have two camps, one intent on deleting forever any article which could conceivably have a BLP/ethics issue and the other intent on fighting those deletions with whatever argument falls to hand. What we need is sensible deletions of irretrievably poor/harmful articles accompanied by a proper, at least half-detailed rationale and the door left open to reasonable debate by experienced editors and where possible, just a removal of offending content without deleting the article itself.

I quite like the idea of moving the article from mainspace during deletion debates; to take that one step further, might it be possible to make such pages not-publicly-viewable except by registered accounts (analogous to semi-protection, but preventing viewing as well as editing)? In cases that aren't clear cut, it's pretty difficult to have a reasonable discussion when only administrators can actually see the article/history. At least, that's my viewpoint as a mopless but nonetheless reasonably experienced editor.

Kudos to Guy for pointing out the need for a half-way (or one-third-way, or something) house on this, and a step back from the drama. On the Night Gyr AN/I thread, someone mentioned "a 500 word op-ed on what's wrong with Misplaced Pages". If we want to avoid negative press commentary, we would do well to keep our BLP debates (which seem to be a point of fundamental disagreement about Misplaced Pages's responsibilities, not limited to just one or two editors) calm and mature, avoiding knee-jerk responses on both sides. Any takers? --YFB ¿ 23:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what's being proposed here. We've never before had a special mechanism for possible BLP violations, and I don't think it's a good idea now. The root of the current problem is that one side is adamantly sure that certain articles are, or ought to be considered, BLP violations, and the other side doesn't. How would that go away with your proposal? I think rather you would just be adding another process without changing the fundamental issue. The way, the truth, and the light 23:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem does need a solution, though. BLP is an important consideration, and is something we should take very seriously. However, while we certainly should delete unsourced or poorly-sourced attack articles on sight, well-sourced articles that happen to cover something bad in a person's life aren't nearly so clear-cut. While I certainly agree that we shouldn't generally have biographies of marginally-notable people (whether it covers something negative or not), well-sourced articles which one wishes to be deleted should be taken through the standard deletion processes, or editorial judgment should be exercised to merge or move the content into an article about an event rather than a pseudo-biography which really only covers a small fraction of a person's life, and a redirect left in place. Unilaterally hittng admin buttons in contentious circumstances tends to be a pretty bad idea. Seraphimblade 23:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how this contradicts anything I said. Adding another process is unnecessary, will be contentious, and will not resolve anything. Indeed, the unilateral use of admin tools is the problem (from our perspective), and it's doubtful this would change things given who's proposing it. The way, the truth, and the light 23:47, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

We do have a special mechanism for WP:BLP violations. It's called WP:BLP. The entire policy makes it abundantly clear that biographies of living individuals are different and Keeping crap hanging around while we talk about it is a terrible idea. Obdurate refusal to recognise that is probably the single largest part of the current problem. Guy (Help!) 07:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to avoid binary choices take the article to afd.Geni 23:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to diffuse the shitstorms, let people get involved without just doing things you know aren't supported by policy. This isn't a hard concept. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Neither of which fixes the problem of leaving defamatory shit on the site while we gaze at our navels for a week, but thank you for putting yourself firmly in one camp and rejecting event he possibility of a nuanced solution, now we will know to ignore you in favour of people who are going to think rather than pretend the problem lies with someone else. Perhaps now we can have some input form people who have seen emails from subjects, and who remember the Siegenthaler incident? Rather than ostriches? Guy (Help!) 06:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Seen emails on the subject (remeber I was on helpdesk-I at one point). You stub them and move on or stub and list at afd unless they qualify for something at WP:CSD.Geni 22:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Does not work in the class of article whihc is causing most trouble right now, which is WP:COATRACK articles, or tabloid articles masquerading as biographies, per Jimbo's change to WP:NOT. As Mencken said, to every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong. I'm looking for something more nuanced and flexible. Guy (Help!) 22:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• OK, here's another idea: Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Biographical.

• Article name
• Issue identified
• Interim solution (stub, delete, blank, move to projectt space out of Google range etc.)
• Proposed solutions (delete, merge, rewrite, refocus on event not individual)

Same aim: nuanced discussion rather than "keep on principle For Great Justice" / "delete on principle Do No Harm". Guy (Help!) 07:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• I don't understand why this is hard. Stub them, remove anything unreferenced or remotely controversial, and send it to AFD. What is so complicated about that? It only fails when one of the "I know best so shut up" admins decides the absolutely best and most sensisble thing to do is to delete it using whatever rationale they feel like and then swear at people on DRV for wanting to dioscuss it rationally. Neil (►) 12:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Basically this is a symptom of the larger issue (which is that our original deletion system is broken, and/or at least does not scale). Since currently organizational friction levels are getting out of hand, I think we need to start thinking about a redesign of key systems on en.wikipedia. And we do this with small teams per system (design by committee doesn't work). --Kim Bruning 13:34, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

A committee is an animal with four back legs. Moreschi 19:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

A good number of articles (I think the one about the lady who sued wendy's over the finger is a good example) would do well to simply be retitled and refocused, rather than deleted, but I've never seen the people who want deletion want to allow it to stick around long enough to be improved. Could we try to stick to AfDing these articles unless they contain blatant libel, so that there's time to improve the content instead of vicious fights over already deleted material? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Help with a possible problem on an film article

Hello I am new to wikipedia and need help. I have added a new film title Abby Singer (film) and I am working on the title and article. In the past we have had problems on other sites with a few of the crew and filmmakers trying to remove credits and use vandalism against the film. I want to make sure that does not happen. The film has been through a lot of legal problems and we have now fix and dealt with all of the problems. But I feel that this film article is not safe from vandalism. What can I do and can some one help. Wembly Hall Theatre Company 00:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the article, as it was a violation of WP:COI. I have also blocked this user as it appears to be a role account.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 00:39, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages articles are, with few exceptions, available for everyone to edit. Other users will, I am certain, create and maintain an article for this film as they have for many others. The deletion today does not preclude the article being recreated by editors who do not have a conflict of interest in the subject. CMummert · talk 01:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Issue with 204.38.103.10

An admin should take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/204.38.103.10. There's a bunch of vandalism - most is reverted, but the changes at 'Girl Power' are at least still alive.

Post a notice at WP:AIV ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

{{Misplaced Pages-screenshot}}

So, what is the current status of images tagged with this template? Is it considered a free image, fair use, or what? Titoxd 01:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Must be free within the caveats of the GFDL. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Except for the Misplaced Pages logo, everything is under one free license or another. As I understand it the logo can be used more or less freely within Misplaced Pages, but reuse and derivative works of it are limited. Images that don't contain the logo are free. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's exactly the reason why I was asking. The text is GFDL'd and Monobook (and all other MediaWiki skins) are GPL'd, so the only non-free element is the logo. So, what do we do with all the pages in Category:Screenshots of Misplaced Pages? There are literally hundreds of images with the Misplaced Pages globe, and the licensing template makes it appear that it is a valid free content licensing tag. Titoxd 04:44, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Images that have the globe should probably also be tagged with {{{Copyright by Wikimedia}}. (It might be simpler just to put the {{Copyright by Wikimedia}} inside {{Misplaced Pages-screenshot}}.) Whatever it is, the template used for Misplaced Pages screenshots should make clearer that the logo, if it appears, cannot be used freely; for now I have tried to do that simply by bolding the relevant text. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Aside from the text and the logo these screenshots also frequently contain the user's browser and a variaty of embedded images that are not nessesarily GFDL licensed. Even if only free licensed elements are shown you would have to actualy include proper attribution for the authors of all of them in order to fully comply with the licese for most of them. So IMHO most of these are anything but straight forward... --Sherool (talk) 02:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Exloring levels creation bk.jpg

The book in question is discussed in the Sylvia Browne#Books, business, and church article, so using the image there serves two purposes.

1. It illustrates the book being discussed in part of the article
2. It also illustrates the author and subject of the article, Sylvia Browne

The fair use rationale is outlined on the talk page of the image: Image talk:Exloring levels creation bk.jpg

Jossi disagrees that fair use applies here. Would an uninvolved admin please take a look at this situation, and if I'm wrong please explain why. (I can accept being wrong I just need to know why I'm wrong to prevent repeating the same mistake). Anynobody 01:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Go to the talk page or discuss it directly with Jossi.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 01:54, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Or better, add a {{fairusereview}} to the image page so that Wikipedians in the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Fair_use can comment on your rationale for inclusion. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Why didn't you add the fair use review template instead of tagging for deletion if you are interested in what the community thinks Jossi? Anynobody 04:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

It is not Jossi's job if he/she does not want to retain it. {{fairusereview}} if for those that want to retain it.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info Ryulong, Anynobody 05:55, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Permission to create

I would like permission to create a page called "WikiClan", it is a group of people who help make pages better, but the hedquarters are currently residing in an user page. I would like to create its own page. Would you please create it so I can set it up to the correct standards? Badgerstripe 02:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

What purpose does it serve, exactly?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 03:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Your "Wikiclan" sounds a lot like a Wikiproject. Coincidentally, why should you be editing if you don't want to improve the encyclopedia. That would seem a tad silly. alphachimp 03:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Just looking at the "WikiClan" on User:Fred Fredburger: Lord of Horror, it will probably never survive. This group is a fan club for Warriors or something, I dunno, but it's not Misplaced Pages appropriate. Metros 03:28, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You require someone to display 35 userboxes on their userpage to join? Eeek, yeah, lets nip this in the bud right now. -M 05:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Fred Fredburger: Lord of Horror alphachimp 05:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:DIGNITY deletions

I was about to close the Shawn Hornbeck DRV, but I got edit conflicted by Skreit. The ultimate conclusions would have been the same, in case anyone was wondering. However, I wanted to add this to my closure, and now that a closure has already happened, I still wanted to say it, and I think this is the best place to do it.

A significant portion of the community continues to feel excluded by the current method of arriving at BLP-related deletions, which I can summarize as (1) delete, (2) someone DRVs it, (3) a full-length debate there takes place, in which many people comment on whether or not the deletion is right, and many other people comment only on whether or not this was properly following deletion process, et cetera. Which, by the way, is what people are normally supposed to do at DRV. The issues with this are (1) a lot of unhappiness over not following a sensible process, (2) a debate which is only halfway on topic, and (3) a debate that is harder to find than an AfD.

I don't think we should let the bitching about process screw up the end result, but process is important. These debates should be happening at AfD, and they should be brought there by those making the deletions.

My personal opinion is that admins should follow the following process in WP:BLP/WP:DIGNITY cases that are otherwise neutrally written with sources:

1. Replace the article with an AfD tag and protect it.
2. In the AfD debate, include enough summary about the topic that debate can happen; consider including references from the article as well.
3. Add a note to alert readers that the article has been removed during the debate, and to let admins know not to speedy G7 or A3. Maybe we can make a template for this.

This differs from the current way of doing things in two ways: (1) you are proactively assuming or understanding you will be challenged and show that you are open to community input by starting a debate. (2) The debate will focus on the topic, not on your decision, like it should. The three rules above are sensible: Rule 1 makes people aware of the existence of the debate. Rule 2 is necessary so that the debate can effectively be open to the whole community, not just admins. Since in these cases it's always a debate on the topic, we don't always need the Misplaced Pages article to learn what we need to about the topic to have a debate. Rule 3 is necessary to make it clear that this is a process. Mangojuice 05:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The DRV closure did not reflect policy, consensus, or strength of argument. Shame on the person who closed it, shame on you for saying the conclusion would be the same. --badlydrawnjeff talk 05:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

This is off-topic. I didn't close the debate. Bitch to Skreit if you want. Mangojuice 05:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

No, it's entirely on-topic - we're talking about BLP deletions, one was endorsed that absolutely shouldn't have been per the policy, and I'm bringing it here. Hearing that you'd actually endorse this monstrosity only makes the situation that much worse. So now i'll go to bed, read the pile-on and a bunch more inane comments about my ability to read and understand, probably three suggestions to fork, and probably a couple more nasty e-mails, and nothing will come of it. As usual. Because once again, disruption wins. And shame on you for standing for it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 05:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a very good idea, certainly a lot better than what's happening now. Seraphimblade 05:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

To respond to this, it's irrelevant if the closing adminsitrators don't understand the polciy. You can throw a bunch of new processes at it as much as we want - if the administrators don't understand what the hell they're doing, it doesn't matter what the process is if they still read "sourced, neutral" as "unsourced, negative." It's not the process's problem anymore, it's the people. Want to fix the problem? Deal with them. --badlydrawnjeff talk 05:17, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You don't get that "sourced, neutral" is no longer good enough, specifically in cases where all sources are negative or focus on titillating trivialities. In these cases, we do not have the ability to write an actual biography, so what we get is an out-of-context snapshot of a random point in someone's life which happened to intersect with $RANDOM_MEDIA_OUTLET for 15 minutes or so. FCYTravis 07:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

No, you don't get t Travis. You haven't, and continue not to. Read the policies. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:22, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll say again that no new process can fix the conflict. It is necessary to have the whole article available to have a proper debate on AfD - not just knowing the topic. It is established procedure on Misplaced Pages that controversial deletions belong there. There is no reason for changing that except to try to fool us into believing that you're actually giving our views a hearing. The way, the truth, and the light 05:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

My response – . — Nearly Headless Nick 06:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

If there is a Biographies of living persons problem with an article, the last thing you want to do is pop a protection on the current version. Stub it down first. If the result is nothing, delete the article. --Tony Sidaway 13:06, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Application of BLP of late has been an absolute farce, and cries of censorship are not unfounded. I recently removed the incredibly vague assertation from WP:NOT that BLP was all about doing no harm. It's not, it's about unsourced controversies and libel, it's about the events of the Seigenthaler embarrassment. It's not a vague "Oh! Think of the Children" shouts that some of the users above have been giving. We are here as an encyclopedia first, for our readers first. An editor actually thought that removing the victims names from the Michael_J._Devlin article was actually a good thing for the encyclopedia, I absolutely disagree, it was a joke. Do no harm? We are harming our readership and stature as an encyclopedia when we arbitrarily remove pertinent names and facts because of hypothetical "But what about the children? Think about the children!" posturing. The amount of information we have on Shawn Hornbeck on Misplaced Pages can easily be expanded in a encyclopedia fashion, and would improve Misplaced Pages. The article does not have to reside at either Shawn Hornbeck or Michael J. Devlin, but that we should remove information for the possible privacy benefit of a very public victim over the goal of an encyclopedia is an utterly risible.

Oh, and we need to stop this spate of WP:SHITESSAYSINTHEPROJECTSPACE such as WP:COATRACK and WP:DIGNITY. This do no harm crap is patronising and naive, information can always be used for harm. - hahnchen 13:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• This is not a terrible proposal. I don't know about all the details - but BLP is creating a poisonous atmosphere, and I suspect unnecessarily. While some hyperbole gets flung around, this is mostly because it's unclear what's going on, and the impression many people are getting is that things are rapidly changing, and in ways that would go against consensus and common sense, and for the most part people are being forced to guess at what's going on. I'll say that I do perceive that BLP is being expanded, whether deliberately or not. What is, or isn't, appropriate under BLP needs to be clear, and there needs to be some "standard procedure" for contesting BLP deletions that is sensitive to the problems with debating problematic BLPs, but also doesn't create the hostile atmosphere we've been seeing around these deletions. I don't know that every BLP speedy needs to listed or talked about, but there does need to be a way of discussing some articles, and what solutions are appropriate. While some editors may feel the fears of editors who worry that articles like this guy's (I wouldn't read it, FYI) will be speedied and salted soon are simply rediculous and don't need to be addressed, they're definitely wrong on the second point. These kind of fears aren't restricted solely to Jeff, they are widespread and they do need to be addressed. To leave them unaddressed will only continue to damage the trust, respect and goodwill between editors, and poison the working environment. WilyD 15:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Hornbeck/Ownby were my deletions and a week later I am not at all sure whether I would handle them the same way again (a matter I have to consider, as there are other similar articles that need to be looked at for the same reasons I was concerned about there) or how I feel about redirects as the outcome. I urge that editors interested in these topics read my comments (yes, they are much too long, but deal with it) in the DRV (see log for May 28, at the top but particular under the heading "Further comments and introspection by the deleting administrator"), where I discuss some these issues and discuss and try to respond to all of the arguments that had been presented to that point in opposition to deletion (and by proxy to deletion to a great many other articles).

I agree that a lot of the opposition to these deletions was based on good-faith contributors to these articles waking up and the articles weren't there any more without having had an opportunity to advocate for their retention in some form. I certainly would have consider it appropriate to handle these in a more nuanced way if there were a procedure for doing so (other than a full-fledged AfD which may draw little or no attention at any given time and tends to require that the most problematic material remain in the article for another 5 days so it can be evaluated in context).

Those who believe we need to retain every one of this type of article (sex crime victims, mocking attack memes, etc.) just because they meet some threshold of Google hits are clearly on the short end of consensus by this point and ought to accept that. On the other hand, some of these editors have made some legitimate points, some about substance, some about process, and I am concerned that the two camps are still not always engaging the full range of each other's arguments. Newyorkbrad 18:39, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

So I decided based on the feedback I've gotten so far that this idea is worth trying out. See Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Tanya Kach. Unfortunately, Tony Sidaway chose to close it, but I reverted that. I hope he doesn't choose to do that again, because I'm going off-wiki for a while. Mangojuice 20:24, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Is this vandalism??????

I submitted a request for third opinion after reading the "Resolving Disputes" page. This issue is really involving me and another editor if you look at the volume of talk page entries. Somebody else blanked out the entire request! They say it involves more than 2 editors even though it really doesn't.

Isn't this vandalism? I don't want to get this person into trouble but this is bad behavior.

So what I'm doing now is submitting a request for mediation.Pipermantolisopa 05:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Nah it's not vandalism - see there's you, Tvoz and Jersyko discussing - that's 3 people. --WikiSlasher 07:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The request for mediation was submitted a long time before I removed the third opinion request and before Pipermantolisopa submitted this note here. I think there's probably a 1/10,000 chance of this actually being mediated, as this is an issue squarely covered by existing policies and guidelines. · jersyko talk 13:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Why Misplaced Pages's environment is poison

There are a lot of mean people on Misplaced Pages. I had a disagreement about not deleting a citation in a politician's article and the other person started getting nasty. Then I put a request for third opinion, but that got blanked out. I put a request for mediation but my tag on that other person's talk page got blanked out. I may stay but I am beginning to think that Misplaced Pages has a poisonous sub-culture so I think I will probably leave for good. Of course, that means that people with political agendas win and make Misplaced Pages a biased source for political articles, just people who want to fight stay here.

It's not only political articles. Another article I was fixing had all kinds of nasty language like testicles and name calling.Pipermantolisopa 06:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Please don't leave for good. Misplaced Pages can be a frustrating place to navigate especially when you are new. I will try to help you out through your problems. Lets take things step by step. Please provide information about what kind of problem you are experiencing and who or what is causing it. Second, nasty language often finds its way on to articles because anybody can edit them. If an article has nasty stuff its just vandalism from immature anonymous users and should not be taken to mean that Misplaced Pages is poisonous. -- _Hdt83 07:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what any of us can do about it. If we start blocking these editors that you say make the environment poisonous, then we're making it more poisonous. --Deskana (talk) 07:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Exactly the opposite. It is all of our responsibilities to help maintain civility. Without civility this project is doomed. Anyone creating a poisonous environment with incivil comments should be blocked on the spot. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You've most certainly missed the point of what I was implying, Sam. Look over the user's contributions and you may see what I meant. --Deskana (talk) 08:27, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, It is 1:30 in the morning here and I'm too sleepy to see what you are implying. Perhaps you could just say it? I'll take a look tomorrow and perhaps it will be clear. It did seem to me to be a general comment and not about specific incidents. Goodnight. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 08:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Deal Or No Deal UK

Hi, the page above, is a page viewed by thousands of people daily, right? So if a froum was to pop up you would be suspicous? I checked out WP:EL and found lots of breeches in the above forum. So i reverted it. It has been reverted several times, by different users after a discussion on the talk page. Only two or three people linked with thesecretcastle keep putting it back. What can we do to stop this? Cheeers Thenthornthing 07:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You could make a request to add it to the m:spam blacklist. --WikiSlasher 07:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

How do you do that?Thenthornthing 07:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You go to that page I linked above (on meta, so need to sign in or otherwise it'll show your IP address), go to the talk page and add in the request in the proposed additions section. It probably won't be necessary though, just discuss it with the person, if they keep putting it back in report them for spamming. Cheers, --WikiSlasher 07:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I did leave a message on one of the culprits, user page, so ill see if i get a reply from them though. Thanks Thenthornthing 07:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I've added the site to Shadowbot's blacklist. Shadow1 (talk) 12:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

User:Matthew banned from all WMF IRC

A brief note/heads-up that, after recent events, I've decided that User:Matthew's conduct with relation to IRC is inappropriate and falls outside of the bounds long set by the communities there, and common sense, too. I have thus taken the decision to permanently exclude Matthew from all of my domain (see m:IRC Group Contacts) until such time as I am convinced that he will no longer seek actively to undermine the Foundation and our projects.

Obviously, it is a matter for this community, and not the IRC ones, to say if these events should have an impact here, and so I hereby absent myself from any and all such discussion, to avoid damaging accusations of a conflict of interest or lack of an open mind.

Yours,

James F. (talk) (Wikimedia IRC Group Contact) 11:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but in all fairness, "recent events" does not cover it for me. A more detailed rationale would be highly appreciated. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:19, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I expect it's because I have "access" to #wikipedia-en-admins. Matthew 12:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Not that the decision to ban Matthew from all WMF IRC channels is up for discussion or debate (it is James' decision, not that of the community), but I believe James is about to post a clarification here. Daniel 12:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Do we have to have a detailed rationale or a clarification? Why? IRC is not Misplaced Pages is not IRC. James F doesn't have to explain a thing here (or there, frankly). It's just going to clutter this board up, for no relevant purpose. Neil (►) 12:24, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

No you don't HAVE to. i said "higly appreciated". --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:28, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I meant that it's irrelevant to this board. The heads up was a courtesy, but this is not the venue for a big detailed dissection of just whatever it was Matthew did or did not do. There's nothing here that requires administrator intervention. Neil (►) 12:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Matthew can do something on IRC we don't know about and get banned from the channels. Four administrators can coordinate a block on IRC and there's a debate as to whether they get access to one channel. How patently absurd. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

What's absurd about terminating access for someone who has violated the terms of service? Perfectly normal. Guy (Help!) 13:03, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Jeff, you were blocked by one person, not an IRC channel. 13:38, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Keep it up. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd love to see the evidence someday, but that won't happen. Gotta protect the disruptive elements at all costs. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I knew there was a reason they unblocked you again - it was to protect the disruptive elements! Thanks, Jeff :o) Guy (Help!) 14:22, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• yawn* --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, stop the ridiculous griping already, Jeff. It's getting really old. --Cyde Weys 15:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

An explanation of the reason for this action is not required here in order for the action to be effective on IRC. It would be nice if there were some means for appeal or reconsideration if an IRC user disagreed with the decision of one chan-op, but I assume that there is some informal means by which these things are discussed and reevaluated from time to time if necessary.

I think one reason that James F. was asked for a more detailed explanation of what happened was his comment that "it is a matter for this community ... to say if these events should have an impact here." Obviously if anyone wants the community to evaluate whether the behavior on IRC should affect his status on-wiki, then we would need to know at least in general terms what happened. However, unless there is a strong feeling that there is a problem requiring an on-wiki discussion and solution, it would probably be best to drop the matter. Newyorkbrad 16:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Rbj unblocked to file an appeal

Rbj (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · sockssuspected) has been unblocked to file an appeal. His editing, by agreement, is limited to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration, case pages should the appeal be accepted, and his user and talk pages. Fred Bauder 12:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Teke is now Keegan

To follow up from last week's post, I have successfully usurped my own name to become me. Courtesy heads up, have a nice day. Keegan 16:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

BJAODN (2)

On this page awhile ago a bad-faith troll nominated these pages for BJAODN restoration. Though I think he was justly blocked, but this proposal is not that bad, so I think as a non-troll editor myself, I would like to again nominate these pages for BJADON. Regards.

• Adolf Hitler and the Briefs Controversy
• Briefsism
• The Cult of Briefsism
• The Church of Briefsism
• Misplaced Pages:Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels
• Template:WoW

---Wooyi 16:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Restoring WoW's Long Term Abuse page is a bad idea. For one, it's not funny, and two, it's the vandal's HALL OF FAME. I am strongly opposed to undeleting the others as well, as they're vandalism. Plain and simple. We don't glorify vandalism. Sean William @ 16:55, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

We also don't allow these ridiculous pages from existing as articles in the first place.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 16:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I once heard that Willy on Wheels expressed remorse to Jimbo, correct me if I'm wrong. Wooyi 17:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

And therefore deserves a hall of fame? Read WP:DENY; perhaps that will explain why such requests are distasteful. --jpgordon 17:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:DENY is not a policy, instead it is an essay. Also, many admins I interacted expressed their distaste of DENY, since it hampers their ability to catch vandal socks. Wooyi 17:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Admins can always reference the deleted pages -- and do. If I were a vandal, I'd love to see my list of abusive sockpuppets growing and growing; if you can't show off what an asshole you're being, why bother being an asshole? And perhaps more to the point -- it works; see Misplaced Pages talk:Deny recognition#Results.--jpgordon 17:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

What is there to know about WoW? Serial vandalous page moves -> block. The LTA pages can be useful for more subtle long term vandalism, but not this. Removing the fame pages has reduced the copycat vandalism considerably. -- zzuuzz 17:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind, this undeletion request is coming from the same guy who thought that the "This user is suicidal" userbox was a good idea, so take his suggestions with a grain of salt. --Cyde Weys 17:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Please refrain from ad hominem attacks. I've been an editor here who have confronted hundreds of vandal/trolls, because I often edit contentious politics-related articles, and it is impossible for me to be soft on disruption, keep that in mind. Wooyi 18:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Ad hominem attack? Hardly. All I did was bring up something that you previously lobbied for that shed light on your overall views. --Cyde Weys 18:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You try to use only one instance to portray me as a irrational inclusionist, but you forget about my longtime vandal-fighting efforts and the fact that myself nominated many pages for deletion. Wooyi 18:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Then you would know full well that these pages need to stay deleted. Sean William @ 18:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, inclusionist doesn't have anything to do with it. I tend to apply that term to article space only. No, if anything, I was just shooting for "irrational". Still relevant though. --Cyde Weys 18:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

We can do without the ad hominem arguments, Guy, thank you very much. Those who are seasoned here will take the necessary measures. But I agree with Guy above: there is no compelling reason to undelete those pages. —Kurykh 17:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

It was Cyde, not Guy (who is JzG). Wooyi 18:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Oops, sorry to Guy and thanks to Wooyi for pointing it out. Fixed. —Kurykh 18:24, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

We evaluate a suggestion or proposition on its content, not on the identity of he who contributes it. We ought surely not to discount an argument simply because he who advances the argument has in the past demonstrated poor judgment in advancing a separate argument (to be clear, I don't think Wooyi's position on the suicide userbox to have been in any way problematic), and unless you mean to suggest that Wooyi's contributions have been so disruptive/inane/arbitrary as to render anything he says worthy of cursory disregard (which would suggest a ban to be in order; I can't imagine that even one editor would think that appropriate), you really don't serve anyone well to comment on contributor rather than contribution (you might make an argument that where an editor advances several arguments that you think to be fatuous, you might do well to devote less time to reviewing his submissions and to pass over them in the absence of anything plainly compelling, but that would be a decision for you as an individual to take and not one to suggest that the community make). Joe 18:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't really think it's controversial to suggest that an editor's contributions shouldn't be examined in a vacuum. --Cyde Weys 20:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, unless one is admonishing or commenting on that editor (if, for instance, you were to say, Wooyi, stop trolling—which would, IMHO, be wrong to say if not incivil but which would nevertheless be constructive in intent, I guess (see JzG infra)—it is, at least to my mind, controversial and inconsistent with the collaborative nature of the project. There are plenty of editors whom one might regard as problematic who have made sound contributions (and not just in mainspace), and we should stick to evaluating contributions (again, even if you're inclined to consider a user's history when determining whether to read his comments/consider his thinking, you really shouldn't make that inclination clear to the community, for various reasons). Joe 22:39, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• Any request for the content or undeletion of any of the briefsism articles may be regarded as trolling. Guy (Help!) 22:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den seems... borked

Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den - take a look at the other languages. It's not in the source that I can see. Uh... Luigi30 (Taλk) 18:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Likely the other language links have been vandalized. Wooyi 18:42, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Or the "br" html code was mistakenly recognized as Brazilian language link by MediaWiki. Wooyi 18:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

It's something to do with the br: interwiki link on {{sup}}. Oldelpaso 18:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

br: is the Breton language which is spoken in the northwestern tip of France. Brazilians generally speak Portuguese. — CharlotteWebb 18:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Should be sorted now. Oldelpaso 19:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I've added a <includeonly> section. Anything outside that does not affect articles, so this shouldn't happen again if more links are added by a human or bot. Some pages using this template might still have the erroneous links until a null edit or real edit is made to the pages themselves. — CharlotteWebb 19:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Template:GFDL-presumed violations

There are close to 1600 images tagged with this template. This template was to be used only for legacy images and definitely not for images uploaded after 1 January 2006. But there are 730 images with that template which were uploaded after 1 January and are hence in violation of wikipedia's image policies. These images must be properly tagged or deleted. So I boldly came up with a solution that would make things easy for the uploaders as well as administrators. I will use Aksibot to tag all these images with Template:GFDL-presumed-vio. The template will add images to Category:GFDL-presumed images uploaded after 1 January 2006. I will also warn the uploaders with Template:GFDL presumed warning. The images in the cat which still do not comply with our image tagging policy will be deleted by me 1 week after tagging the images. 1 week is ample time for uploaders to find a source and tag the image properly. I have left similar messages at WP:IFD and WP:FU. Regards, - Aksi_great (talk) 19:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Good work. 20:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Why was the cutoff date set to 1/1/06 only on 1/30/07? Isn't this a bit ex post facto? Image:Metroliner-interior.jpg was tagged on 7 April 2006 as gfdl-presumed, and now suddenly it is no longer valid because the cutoff date was set to 1 January 2006 on 30 January 2007? hbdragon88 21:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The true cutoff should be 17:06, 17 October 2005 but when I put the notice on I just wanted to knock out the obvious cases.Geni 22:17, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

False license declaration

J.puckett (talk · contribs · count) uploaded Image:HabboUKGuestRoom.PNG and tagged with {{PD-self}}, but I have seen that image elsewhere and I know that he did not create it. It's almost exactly identical to Image:HabboAUGuestRoom.png. –Sebi ~ 22:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC) My apologies if this is not in the correct place.

I would be suspicious. The user blanked his/her userpage () but in this diff, one of the images that a bot left it was Image:SoraSafe.jpg, and now Image:SoraSafe.PNG exists. There's also this bizarre edit that tried to put an unrelated image (at least I think it is unrelated - it is an entirely different name!) - and the image was uploaded by this user as well. The only thing I can think of is possible vanity, because this user appears to have added their own Habbo (or at least added their own creation to Image:HabboUKGuestRoom.PNG - see Image:SoraSafe.PNG. I can't seem to find any of this user's uploads on Google, so they could well be public domain - but some are possibly unencyclopedic. x42bn6 Talk Mess 23:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the image. It is obviously not in the public domain.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 02:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: GNU Free Documentation License

See my user talk page, towards the bottom. — Rickyrab | Talk 02:28, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

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