Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:56, 26 February 2008

Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/header

Improper RfC

This discussion has been moved to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Mantanmoreland.

The conversation died on 15 February, I guess we can archive this now? -- lucasbfr 13:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Technically, it might not have been archtransit

It's like this....you take off the shelf router from Linksys, Netgear, etc and put it on your DSL or cable modem it will keep the WAN IP (the IP that the checkuser uncovers) on the router and the router issues non-routable, non-broadcastable LAN IP addresses to the computers and other devices on the network, but from any computer if you edit wikipedia or anything it appears to the world that it's all coming from a single "real" WAN IP address. It's also certainly possible that there is/was someone on archtransit's network who was wikistalking him and making accounts and edits just to push his buttons. This is a little long winded but it's technically possible and cannot be ruled out. thoughts? ideas? Bstone (talk) 05:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

It's also possible that the real Archtransit was kidnapped and some assumed his identity in order to disrupt Misplaced Pages. John Reaves 05:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Assuming that is true, then why was Archtransit unblocking these wiki-stalkers? And if they somehow gained access to his account, then it was still a compromised admin account. MBisanz 05:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not weighing in on if he was behind the socks or not, but just providing a theoretical technical alternative. Bstone (talk) 06:06, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

The simplest answer is always the best. Which is easier to believe: A grand conspiracy by another person who just HAPPENS to be on the same WAN as Archtransit and is looking to discredit him, or Archtransit is an old, well practiced troll(likely Dereks1x) who did a real good job of maintaining a persona until he became an admin, and when Jehochman started to request checkusers on his socks (not knowing they were Archtransit's socks) he got panicky and sloppy and finally got busted. I'm going with the second story until a simpler one comes along... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

No, your right that is a theoretical alternative. But you'd think that if his account was compromised or being harassed, he'd of contacted Ryan or Riana via email or registered another account from another location and posted a "ZOMG my account is compromised" message. MBisanz 06:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Just briefly, looking over my e-mail correspondence with AT, there is no doubt in my mind (and indeed, there wasn't at the time either, but I never thought it was this bad) that he was up to something cagey. His responses to my questions ranged from secretive and minimal to utterly bizarre. Occam applies. ~ Riana ⁂ 06:35, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

To remind of points raised earlier, it wasn't just the technical evidence that was at play. Examples of non technical evidence cited include removing or disabling autoblock (which is a significant anti-sock measure) on some user blocks, but not others... where the users this was done to are precisely those who edit from the same area, with the same technical "fingerprints", and who are evidenced as socks already. It includes having wiki-logs that show one specific IP used to edit by by Archtransit, then by Lethte, then by Archtransit again, an extremely unlikely event to be genuine in the circumstances. And so on. FT2  02:34, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The excuses are quite silly. See this Uncyclopedia article for an example of how this argument is going. bibliomaniac15 02:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Speculation by non-checkusers on what the checkuser evidence was is not at all helpful and likely to lead you down the garden path. Regarding this particular attempt to explain away the findings, the pattern of IP usage by these editors can not be explained by having multiple users on a single router or firewall. Thatcher 06:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

If you are going to edit on Misplaced Pages, turning on WPA2 or (WPA if the hardware cannot support AES) on your home Wi-Fi router should be mandatory. Otherwise, the router is basically a localized open proxy and should be blocked until the owner emails the blocking admin that he has locked down the router. If any admins like to wardrive, they should try to log the IPs of open Wi-Fi routers and WEP-"protected" routers (this protection is only good for a minute before it is cracked) and have them blocked as open proxies. If they are leaving it open to accomodate a Nintendo DS, then they need to choose between that or Misplaced Pages. Jesse Viviano (talk) 18:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

This is kinda no-brainer stuff. All domestic wi-fi networks should be locked down with WPA and not WEP, otherwise wardrivers will just abuse your network. I'd kind draw the line at admins going around, sniffing wifi networks and hardblocking every café they encounter, though - Alison 18:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Road trip! Can I borrow the checkuser RV? Jehochman 18:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

There are several orders of magnitude different risk between an open proxy that can be used by anybody on the Internet versus a Wi-Fi router that can be used by anybody within a few hundred meters. A billion versus a hundred, perhaps. Wardriving requires determination and isn't particularly comfortable. Open proxies are available from one's own desktop, while sitting in one's most comfortable chair. Jehochman 18:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

One exception should be made to APs that do not assign any private IP addresses, but assign public IPs. Since no NAT is involved, we can just block the specific offending IP address. Jesse Viviano (talk) 19:07, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Slightly disruptive editing of Momento (talk · contribs)

1. Forum shopping
   • The suitability of using http://www.prem-rawat-maharaji.info/ (and other links) as "external link" in the Prem Rawat article was discussed here: Talk:Prem Rawat#By website
   • Momento brought it to WP:BLPN, see WP:BLPN#Prem Rawat links. OK, I'm fine with that one (it is an appropriate forum): nonetheless the advise given there included "The matter is being discussed on the article talk page. It has not been determined that the sites in question are derogatory, and that linking to them violates policy. Let's find a consensus on the article talk page." (Will Beback's comment of 01:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC))
   • Nonetheless, the issue was brought to yet another forum, WP:ANI, by Momento - see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive370#Francis Schonken. That's forum shopping. Complaining about me I can live with. Finding another forum to raise, again, the same issue for which he gained no general approval elsewhere (branding the use of certain sources as "external link" in the Prem Rawat article as being a BLP infringement) is another.
   • Momento warned by me about the forum shopping: User talk:Momento#Forum shopping (note, Momento asked as a concequence of that warning not to post on his talk page any more - that is why I move this to this noticeboard)
2. Disruptive editing on a Misplaced Pages:Lead section#Bold title issue (which somehow Momento seems to make into a BLP issue for reasons unfathomable by me).
   • Issue explained at Talk:Prem Rawat#Balyogeshwar: in short Balyogeshwar is an incoming redirect to the Prem Rawat article. It was not explained in the Prem Rawat article that Balyogeshwar is an alternative name for the same person, yet one of the footnotes uses this name .
   • As a result of the discussion at Talk:Prem Rawat#Balyogeshwar I had put this alternate name of the same person in the lead section *WITH A REFERENCE*
   • Momento removes, stating it is unreferenced (BTW leaving the reference that in fact is not a reference for the part of the sentence he has left)

I'd like an uninvolved admin to look into this. There are more instances of "slightly disruptive editing" by Momento, which if requested, I'd flesh out. Don't know whether I should mention this, but Momento has received two 24H blocks for 3RR on the Prem Rawat article not too long ago (block log). The last of these was a result of my reporting at WP:AN3, after a warning given by me on Momento's talk page: User talk:Momento#Prem Rawat (II). --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid Francis Schonken is being untruthful. What I removed as unsourced was his OR addition that Rawat was known "less frequently" as Balyogeshwar. "Less frequently" doesn't appear anywhere in the source and Biographies of Living People policy is very specific "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Misplaced Pages articles". It isn't an optionaI rule that editor's can apply if they like, it is mandatory and I have tried a dozen times to get Francis to comply to this important policy but he never listens. Preferring to make complaints about me in what ever forum is available. The blocks refer to my 3RR removal of Francis's frequent insertion of an external link to an anon, self published web site containing libelous material despite this very clear BLP policy = Material about living persons available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should not be used, either as a source or as an external link. Self-published books, websites and blogs should never be used as a source for controversial, derogatory, or otherwise unverifiable material about a living person. And independent editor described the site a "vendetta-ish". BLP policy also clearly states that the 3RR does not apply to such deletions.Momento (talk) 00:27, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Here are the diffs of these edits. Momento deleted the same reference to the name Balyogeshwar 3 times in 3 days: Feb 17 20:17, Feb 18 22:08 (with no edit summary) and Feb 19 10:19. Only the third time did Momento justify the edit by objecting to the phrase "less frequently", and then only on the Talk page after receiving heavy criticism. Of course s/he could have just deleted that phrase if it was really the problem, not the name as well. This is typical of Momento's approach: s/he wants an edit made, and keeps repeating it despite lack of support and changing reasons. Also typical is the extreme interpretation of WP:BLP Momento just made on this AN; arguing that WP:BLP not only allows, but in fact requires Momento to make these disruptive edits and gives him/her immunity from 3RR. This is an argument Momento uses to justify a wide variety of edits, including ones like this one where the connection is very hard to see. To my eye, it looks like WP:GAME. Msalt (talk) 05:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I expect people who play the game know the rules. Adding "less frequently" to "Balyogeshwar" is unsourced OR in a BLP. No, no and no.Momento (talk) 09:43, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

This is the second time you bring Momento's editing behavior to ANI, without making any comments about the general disruption that has taken place in that article, including edit-waring, SPs, anon disruption, dormant accounts, and more. Mediation has been proposed, but so far there are no takers. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This isn't WP:ANI, this is WP:AN

Before this one, I didn't bring anything to WP:AN for as long as I can recall.

The last time I brought a new topic to WP:ANI it regarded anonymous editing on the Prem Rawat article, so, yes anon disruption as listed by Jossi.

And yes, I replied to the WP:ANI thread Momento started on me. I gave the link above: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive370#Francis Schonken.

I hope the notion of "uninvolved admin" is not unknown to Jossi.

Do I have to elaborate on other & similar disruption by Momento, as I suggested above?

Or on the uninvolved admin's opinion on Jossi's actions following my listing of Momento on WP:AN3? --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Jossi has chosen to formulate a counter-proposal below (which is his good right), #Article probation - proposal. I can't help noticing though that, again, he's protecting the editor who is experienced as most disruptive (not only by me!) w.r.t. the Prem Rawat article. --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Francis Schonken's most recent arrival to the Pem Rawat article was heralded by his undiscussed addition of 25,000 bites of material to the article. Many editors have no understanding of BLP policy and Francis gets annoyed because so many of his edits are contrary to this important policy and I am obliged to point it out to him.Momento (talk) 22:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I have been editing this page for a couple of weeks, having no other connection to the people or article subject. Momento's editing is more than slightly disruptive. MOST of the 47 items on Momento's talk page are warnings and arguments about this one page, and he/she has had two blocks for 3RR and for disruption/edit warring in the last 2 weeks. Stopping Momento's disruption would be far away the best thing we could do to calm things down, in my opinion. A lot of other edits are responses to Momento's, and these unilateral actions are creating resentment that sets other people off.

These problems have certainly continued during my short time at the page, though to be fair Momento has cooled down in just the last 24 hours. One issue, as I just mentioned on Prem Rawat Talk, is that Momento appears to be constantly hovering over the page, reacting to everything, which I think distorts his or her time frame, creating a sense of urgency to act. (And I know I'm somewhat guilty of this too.)

There is another user, PatW, who is very emotional on the talk page and slips into personal attacks every couple of days. However, PatW has recused himself from editing (he is a former Prem Rawat devotee, as Momento is apparently a current devotee), so the overall effect, while certainly aggravating, is much less.

As soon as I get some more time, I will assemble some lists of Momento's diffs as examples. Msalt (talk) 22:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I can help. In the last week I have made nearly 100 edits. Almost all have been to the Prem Rawat talk page and 15 have been to the article itself, that is 2 a day. During this period there have been over 100 article edits by all editors. Of my 15 edits, 3 involved removal of an inappropriate link according to WP:BLP and WP:EL and it remains deleted, 5 involved removal of unsourced material and they remain deleted, 3 involved removal of a NPOV tag (one inserted by a banned sock puppet IP ]) and 1 involved removing an image that has been deemed a breach of Wiki policy. The 3RR blocks should not have been made as they are covered by BLP policy - Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Misplaced Pages:Verifiability. The three-revert rule does not apply to such removals. As Jimbo Wales says " It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced". Unfortunately the blocking admins do not seem to understand BLP policy, all they note is three reverts. The short story with this dispute is that Msalt, Francis Schonken and Will Beback feel it their duty to add criticism to the Prem Rawat article and in their haste they constantly violate WP:OR, WP:V and WP:BLP. The problem is that I'm insisting that their edits should follow BLP policy as any proper investigation will prove.Momento (talk) 04:19, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I see here a major lack of appreciation for the requirements of Biographies of Living Persons. Msalt, you candidly announced when you first showed up at Prem Rawat that you didn't know as much as some about WP:BLP, but you don't seem to have made enough effort since then to remedy this serious deficiency. Now efforts to enlighten you are met by your patronisingly referring to BLP as "seeming so important to Momento, Jossi and Rumiton" or words to that effect. According to Jim Wales, this is the most important guideline of Misplaced Pages. The language he uses to express its requirements is unprecedented. References to self-published sources, especially if derogatory, are to REMOVED IMMEDIATELY AND AGGRESSIVELY, not discussed on the Talk Page, not tagged with a . The more we say this, the more it gets ignored. Momento was acting entirely in accordance with WP rules in the deletions and reversions he made in this respect. He should never have been blocked for it. Rumiton (talk) 12:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Right here, unfortunately, are good examples of the POV pushing, combative attitude and violations of WP:AGF by Momento and Rumiton, who often tag-teams with Momento. I will let Will Beback and Francis Shonken defend themselves. I have made 22 edits in two weeks by my count. Not a single one added anything, criticism or praise, except a minor edit adding the words "that year" to clarify a sentence. Jossi, for one, has complimented my constructive attitude (on my Talk page .) To Momento though, I am part of a conspiracy to criticize Prem Rawat, and the Admins who blocked Momento for disruptive editing are all wrong too. Msalt (talk) 00:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Since you mentioned my name, you are absolutely correct, you have made an infinitesimal impression at Prem Rawat. But your lack of action on the Hunt quote ] will last for months.Momento (talk) 10:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I still request someone uninvolved to look into the information I provided. None of those commenting thus far in this thread (Jossi, Msalt, Momento, Rumiton and myself) are uninvolved. Of course they may comment too (I don't want to imply the contrary), it's still that I think that for getting this thing going anywhere some uninvolved eyes would be more than welcome.

Re. "I see here a major lack of appreciation for the requirements of Biographies of Living Persons":

• WP:BLPN#Prem Rawat might be an alternative to discuss that.
• The interpretation given by some to WP:BLP, and related guidance on sources, had degenerated into a travesty. The Prem Rawat article suffered as a consequence of that. It eventually led to Misplaced Pages getting bad press . Many objections as I have to that press article, that doesn't blind my sight that a part of the external criticism was justified. Part of the problem is indeed a shamelessly negligent interpretation of WP:BLP. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

shamelessly negligent interpretation of WP:BLP? Not from what I am reading from uninvolved editors that have commented on the subject on the different boards in which the subject was raised. You should not let a Misplaced Pages-bashing tabloid, that has many times in the past published misleading, and ridiculous material on Misplaced Pages, its editors, and its founder, to set the tone and substance of this debate. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:15, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

So, you still endorse the forum shopping in defense of Momento? Note that WP:ANI criticisms have been brought to Talk:Prem Rawat#By website and further discussed. Only one negative commentator at WP:ANI appeared uninvolved. The positive commentary by an uninvolved editor at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive370#Francis Schonken ("That's not a clearcut BLP violation" - "saying that we can't link to something because it contains OR is to radically misunderstand Misplaced Pages policy") has been carelessly neglected too. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

You call Forum shopping, what can be assessed as an honest attempt to seek input from uninvolved editors. Many editors have commented on the fact that these links are not acceptable. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:20, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

As forum shopping it was a classic. Discussion is ongoing, one of the participants in the discussion can't get the result s/he's aspiring in a "I posess The Truth" way... and runs of to another forum. The only mitigating factor w.r.t. Momento is that he might not have been aware of policies like WP:PARENT (but then, how come Momento was never told about it?)

I just said that the negative comments had found their way (back) to the Prem Rawat talk page, so the fragmentation of the discussion was halted. The topic of this WP:AN section is Momento's behaviour. I'm still asking independent assessment of that behaviour. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:48, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not indepdendent at all, but the disruptive behavior n the past years by Momento and to a lesser extent Rumiton and esp. the talk page support (or at best silence) of admin Jossi (who should know better) has made me so angry that I will not edit the article for time being. Andries (talk) 00:36, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

You forget to mention, Andries, how you botched a request for mediation between you and Momento, by basically torpedoing and sabotaging it (a request that, BTW, I encouraged you and Momento to undertake). If you cannot or are unwilling to pursue the avenues available to you to via WP:DR, your complaining here is futile. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 14:23, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

No, Jossi, it was you who sabotaged my attempts at Dispute resolution with Momento. Andries (talk) 14:29, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The evidence says otherwise:

• You withdrew from the first request: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_mediation/Prem_Rawat

• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_mediation/Prem_Rawat_2, closed because I am hereby closing this case because I do not believe it is viable due to how some of the parties are treating the mediation process.. You continued edit-warring during the process, and made this comment: I can see no possible compromise. I think that this mediation is merely a further step to arbitration., an obvious demonstration of lack of good faith in entering mediation. Details here. You need to read Misplaced Pages:Mediation#What_is_mediation?, which present conditions for mediation such as: A genuine desire on the part of the parties to find a positive solution to the dispute and to accept a discussion about respective interests and objectives. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:21, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

No, Jossi, you are completely misinterpreting the evidence, as I already told you many times. I entered mediation in a good faith attempt to solve a dispute and I made edits unrelated to the dispute which is not the same as continuing to edit war. However then Momento reverted all my edits. And then I came for a quick moment to the conclusion that finding a compromise with Momento was impossible. This does not mean to say that I did a bad faith attempt at dispute resolution. However you mistakenly saw it like that and tried to show it to everyone how much my attempt at dispute resolution was made in bad faith. So you are responsible for the failed mediation. Andries (talk) 22:42, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Anyone looking the evidence I provided will be able to make their own assessment of your behavior. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

One more quick example of Momento's editing -- removing an NPOV tag put on the article (by 3 different editors) 3 times in 4 days : Feb 20 00:59, Feb 21 00:34, and Feb 23 03:31 (with no edit summary). Msalt (talk) 22:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Momento has not edited the article for three days already. Msalt, please note than in Misplaced Pages, blocks are not punitive, but preventative. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

It may be true that Momento hasn't edited in days, but he has been disruptive in the very recent past. Edit warring over the addition of an NPOV tag is a classic example that we've seen in many disruptive editors previously. While a future block or ban would not undo past actions, they would prevent future disruption. I hope that we'll all view Momento's actions without bringing in our own prejudices (for or against). In that light, it looks to me like a topic ban may be called for if he reverts to his previous editing pattern. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

If that happens, a user conduct RfC or a proposal for community-enforced topic ban could be proposed. At this time is unnecessary. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

In case you were not aware...

WMF has started receiving death threats in respect of the Muhammad images. As ever, this issue calls for weapons-grade tact: if, like me, you can't do tact, don't go near it, and we should be willing to consider rapid topic bans and blocking for any editor who inflames the situation. Guy (Help!) 11:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Tact, what the fuck is that, some sort of tang? Let those of us who are anonymous handle it, maybe? El_C 11:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

How's that for tang? El_C 12:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Why don't we put Muhammad, Depictions of Muhammad, etc on article probation? MER-C 12:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that is an excellent idea. Guy (Help!) 12:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

We all think its an excellent idea because we have no idea what article probation means! El_C 12:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

It means it's somebody else's problem! Mackensen (talk) 12:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I'm someone else! El_C 12:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Have a cigar. Raymond Arritt (talk) 13:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I've always found this remedy very entertaining, so I appreciate its being used again as I need a laugh today. It means that all admins are empowered to do exactly what they were always empowered to do, and everyone is warned off doing everything they were always warned off doing. It is used by the arbitration committee when it cannot think of an actual remedy, but they are certain that one must surely be applied. The fun bit is that people then go on to think that this will make some actual difference, particularly to new editors to the page who will no doubt go and read the committee's promulgations prior to hitting the edit button for the first time. Splash - tk 13:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, exactly that. It means that everybody does what they should do anyway and - the important bit - if they insist on doing something else, we stop them there and then rather than gazing at our collective navels for a month first. Guy (Help!) 13:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with probation in this case- it does encourage admins to step in earlier over the articles concerned perhaps, also I would say it discourages editors on the articles from acting daft to an extent, where things could get heated such as the Scientology articles it has encouraged people not to slag each other off I believe, to an extent. Merkinsmum 15:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

So what you're saying is, we should be watching articles? I'm amazed. I thought my job was to argue with people from Eastern Europe! Luigi30 (Taλk) 15:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Heh, yes! El_C 16:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

It's true that it might in theory cut out the shall we/shan't we in favour of "we shall", but although that's a nice theory, I'm not sure it's really ever made a dramatic difference when specified as a remedy. But I suppose it cannot hurt to try, as long as we don't accidentally think that mentally applying probation to it takes all the inflammation away just like that. Splash - tk 16:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

It is really important to keep from inflaming the situation where you can. Please consider protections, kind warnings and blanking of trolling, baiting and inflammatory posts rather than being quick on the block button. WilyD 15:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that content-focused action (i.e. protection) is probably better for both PR and drama coefficient here. But we also need to make sure that the "not censored" evangelists don't make matters worse; it is important to display sensitivity towards the concerns expressed, as several people have done very well during this dispute. Guy (Help!) 16:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd recommend everyone have a quick look at the mailing list, where Jimbo is laying down the law about how we think about the matter quite effectively, along the lines Guy suggests above. He correctly says that we have to find some moderation here. An interesting suggestion has been proposed that involves clickable drop-down images. Relata refero (talk) 17:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I haven't been around much nor have I been following the debate but has anyone suggested putting them in one of those windowshade (hide/show) boxes we love (it seems they are at the bottom of every other article)? Keeps the images there but shows sensitivity towards 1/6th of the Earth's population. spryde | talk 20:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

What about spinning them off into a separate article, Images of Mohammed, with a warning link on the main page? Corvus cornix_talk 21:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not censored and does not do disclaimers. We need to stay strong to maintain free speech. Stifle (talk) 21:28, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The article Depictions of Muhammad already exists, to discuss - depictions of Muhammad. But the sort of thought around is that removing them from Muhammad where they're of clear (although somewhat debated) encyclopaedic value is still problematic under the goals of uncensored & unbiased encyclopaedia. WilyD 21:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, it was jut a suggestion, I didn't even notice that the Depictions article was already discussed above.  :) Corvus cornix_talk 22:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I've favored hiding controversial images in some manner like that for years. I've never really understood why some of us feel we should insist on automatic presentation of the images. They should be available but hidden in such a manner that a person can choose whether or not to view them. Everyking (talk) 22:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

1/6 the world's population is not seriously offended by these images. Many Muslims don't even have a prohibition against images of Muhammad, and of the ones who do, most are not so extremist so as to demand censorship for their benefit. We're dealing with a much smaller number of people than 1 billion. Don't be so quick to assume that all Muslims are crazy radicals. --Cyde Weys 04:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Does anyone really believe that after we hide the images on Muhammad, they won't demand the same of "Depictions of Muhammad" and any other page which has an image of Muhammad (at first count some twenty articles, perhaps more)? We should not support censorship in any way, and hiding the images by default is a (weak) form of censorship; a preferring of the demands of one religious group over the neutral, open, free speech basics of Misplaced Pages. Fram (talk) 08:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I personally have not seen much at the Commons about the images, but I did notice we are getting messages on unrelated boards about these images. I and another user dealt with it on the image copyright help board today. User:Zscout370 09:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The demands will never stop. So what's so hard about putting a warning in at the top as discussed and used in the Bahá'u'lláh article? (If that link fails, the Bahai founder dude). Then just make a shadow article called Muhammed (no images) or the like, and don't transclude the offending images. Then Misplaced Pages is neither censored nor offending for those faithful who wish to view the information sans-images. Bob's yer uncle. Franamax (talk) 09:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I was about to suggest that Franamax. I know in MSIE there is a feature to turn off images, if thats a universal feature that can be enabled via hyperlink (or emmulated), that could work. MBisanz 09:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

But turn-off-images is a bad solution. There's two factors here: one is that WP is not censored and the articles draw on all available sources; the other is that people of the Muslim faith also use Misplaced Pages to seek out information about Muhammed and some subset of them will be offended by images portraying Muhammed. What I am suggesting is a shadow page where those two images just don't show up, and that's the only difference. We get our thing, the believers get a page to view that has images on it, just not images offensive to the viewers. It can't be that hard to construct. Franamax (talk) 09:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It's actually not hard at all: here's the Fmax-Muhammed, which points to the Fmax-Muhammed (no images). Did I miss something (other than being sloppy)? Of course, if someone wants to contribute to en:wiki, they have to buy in to the whole scene. And this doesn't open a big door, perhaps Howard Hughes would want the same treatment. Franamax (talk) 10:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Are edits to one page automatically made to the other page as well? Fram (talk) 10:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It's a transclusion so I imagine so, try in my test pages, or wait for five and check live, I'm being WP:BOLD :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Franamax (talk • contribs) 10:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC) Damn that SineBot :) Franamax (talk) 10:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposed changes made to the live database. Revert at will! Franamax (talk) 10:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Nice! Personally, I would prefer not to change anything under pressure of petitions or other religious demands, but if consensus is that some compromise is better than no change at all, then this is so far the best solution IMO. (you did miss one image though, Image:Mohammed kaaba 1315.jpg). Fram (talk) 10:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, we haven't changed anything at all, have we? All that's changed is that I've created my first mainspace article and made some minor edits to another. I'm firmly on the in-your-face side except when it's easy to make an accomodation. Oh hey, thanks for leaving me to noinclude the additional image you spotted! Let me handle the neo-nazis gathering in the street! :) Franamax (talk) 11:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Hehe, and there was me playing around with the Image blacklist when <noinclude> tags would work just as well!! Happy‑melon 10:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Considering the intense edit/revert activity on the main article since I made the changes, lets just put the whole thing down to "noble gesture". It was worth a try, and it may all be gone when I wake up tomorrow :) Franamax (talk) 11:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort at dealing with this, and no offense, but this is a god-awful idea. WP:CENSOR is not a guideline or a suggestion; it is policy. This is an end-around of official policy to stem what is largely a movement of vandals and off-wiki petitioning, and would set a terrible precedent if allowed to remain. Tarc (talk) 14:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Fork with no images, and AFD

Muhammad (no images); Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Muhammad (no images). Lawrence § t/e 14:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I was about to come here and add the link - I can understand that the article was created with good intentions but it's a terrible idea and will not provide any solution - the problem has never been where the images are placed, it's that they exist on this site at all. In addition, where do we stop? a G-D article? Penis article with no pictures? Maybe a F**k article? --Fredrick day (talk) 15:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Deleted with Franamax's assent. We'll find a workable solution yet. Resolute 15:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC) Nevermind. I've been asked to let it run its course. Resolute 16:13, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Given the circumstances, a strong mandate coming out of the AfD is invaluable - let it run its course. WilyD 16:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It is just a hornet's nest, so I deleted it again. User:Zscout370 23:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It was an OBVIOUS Snow close. Jmlk17 23:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Aye. Nothing good was going to come out of that. The AfD doesn't need to extend the drama for five days. Black Kite 23:55, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Technical solution?

Misplaced Pages does have numerous images that some may find offensive, naturally, and there will always be people that will want them removed for whatever reason. Either because it offends their religious sensibilities, or becuase they don't want to see pictures of genetalia, etc. Personally, I very strongly oppose any kind of opt-in solution that forces such images hidden unless the reader chooses to view them. However, what about the other way around? Could a preferences option be created that would allow a user, at their own discretion, auto-hide images that are flagged as potentially offensive? Something along the lines of MediaWiki:Bad image list. I don't want my encyclopedia censored, but if other individuals do, then give them the option. Resolute 15:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Ummm, that was actually the kind of opt-out solution I had in mind, from the Muhammed article, you had the choice to click to an alternate which was a tranclusion which specifically excluded things. As a transclusion, it was amenable to full page-protection, thus fully controlled from the master page. I'm not sure everyone who !voted there looked at the page source, but I certainly wasn't trying to create a fork. The same thing applies to Bahá'u'lláh, it's great that there's a warning that there are images of the person there, but that really just amounts to a warning to stay away (for the faithful). We need to come up with a way to make our NPOV and complete information available to all people. There's no need to fork anything. Slippery slope be damned, what's wrong with some selective creativity? And come to that, if we can have a redirect from Pneis to Penis, why not have a transclude to Penis (no images)? What are we taking away from those who want to see images of prophets or penises? They can always choose to not click on the alternate link. Franamax (talk) 16:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Problem being that content forking is greatly opposed, as we've seen in that AfD. What I was hoping for was a preferences option that would allow individual users to decide if they want to hide images that fall into an objectionable category without forking the article. Unfortunately, as WilyD notes below, this does not seem to be possible yet, though it is mentioned specifically on Misplaced Pages:Options to not see an image as something that could be written by someone who understands MediaWiki. Resolute 16:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

See, I don't understand where the "fork" part comes in, when actually it was a "mask". It's already there <includeonly>, <onlyinclude>, nothing was being split, nothing would diverge in future. It's just a selective view, kind of like those show/hide boxes. What is so awful about that? Franamax (talk) 16:37, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Known technical solutions are discussed at Misplaced Pages:Options to not see an image, but they only work on a page by page basis or more coarsely, nobody seems to know how to do specific images. WilyD 16:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

As someone who has seen a lot of innocent sounding censorship I am deeply opposed to this. LGBT people have seen vast swaths of their culture and history vanish under the concept of think of the children. If a website had the world "gay" anywhere on it - gone! Once we start sledding down this slippery slope what other images and articles will be rated XXX? I'm a bit offended by seeing opposite sex couples being affectionate shouldn't all those images be hidden until I click? I appreciate the concerns but I caution against any quick tech fixes for culture wars. Benjiboi 17:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Exactly what would be considered "potentially offensive" is a really important thing to figure out before we enable something like this in preferences. But, and I could be misunderstanding this, it sounds like one would have to change their preferences to not see the images. That is, anyone who did not perform this specific action would see all images in all articles. Natalie (talk) 23:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• If Misplaced Pages caves in to these ridiculous threats then I'm off. Standing up for free speech means just that, you can't say 'wikipedia is not censored' and then start censoring it at the first challenge. What do you do when they want all depictions of people removed? There is not a technical solution to this. The images must stay on a point of principle. This is not a muslim encyclopedia. It is not bound by sharia law. You can put the images on my user page if you like. It's under my real name. They're offended? So what. This is not Dhimmipedia. Nick mallory (talk) 12:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I developed a new technical solution. Please read Talk:Muhammad/images#new_compromise if you want to find out how it works.--Raphael1 12:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

And as stated, I'll nominate it for del (using TFD) as soon as it's moved to mainspace - under no circumstances can such a template be used. --Fredrick day (talk) 12:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

JdeJ

I was given a warning by this editor that I feel was unwarranted.

I referred to one of his edits as being racially motivated.

I would like a non-western editor to review the edits I made and give an opinion as to whether his automatic reversion of my contribution, without discussion, could or could not be explained as racially motivated.

I am aware that using such a word can be inflammatory, but I feel that in this instance it was accurate.

I would also like to point out that he has labeled me as abusive and disruptive. I take offense to that. Zaq1qaz (talk) 00:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

You called this edit was removing "racially biased POV". I think it speaks for itself. Making bold changes is fine; however, when you are reverted and asked to discuss it on the talk page you should probably do so instead of claiming other editors are biased. Name-calling isn't nice. --Haemo (talk) 02:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

No, I call this edit biased.

I also object to big .jpg's placed on my talk page without discussion, warning, or any recourse. The Warning was placed with the comment that it was my last warning. Can anyone put a picture of a stop sign on any page and say "you've been warned, the next time I'll block you" or words to that effect? There's no recourse, no notification or board postings about that?

I think this editor's refusal to discuss the reversion he made speaks volumes about him. He never discussed his reversion, his reasons for his reversion on any talk page. I tried to discuss the matter with him on HIS talk page and he ignored it while making snide posts on MY talk page.Zaq1qaz (talk) 03:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Object all you want. This is the way things work. He doesn't have to respond to you. You can remove the warning if you want. Everyone is allowed to post warning templates. His next step would be to post to WP:AIV and if an admin decided that it was appropriate, you would be blocked. If you want to complain that his edit was biased, give him a warning as well. Then you can move to WP:AIV. An admin will decide what to do. From your talk page, you seem to be having a discussion about it now. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

As an admin, I vehemently disagree with Ricky's proposed solution. Instead of escalating the dispute in this way, the better course of action is to DE-escalate by using the article talk page and working out your differences there. If that doesn't work, there are almost a dozen options availible to find outside help to resolve the dispute, all can be found at Dispute resolution. Don't be eager to take revenge or escalate to the point of sanctions. Instead, de-escalate by attempting to work civily, even with those you disagree with, and attempt to reach common ground on the article talk page. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It is true that I have warned Zaq1qaz, based on this edit summary that I feel is very unsuitable and violates both WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. It wasn't the first time the user attacked other users in his edit summaries. As for his accusation that my edit was "racially motivated", I invite everyone to have a look at the edit I reverted . I doubt anyone can find anything even remotely "racially motivated" in reverting it, all I found was a lot of WP:OR, WP:WEASEL and WP:POV. JdeJ (talk) 07:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

User JdeJ continues to refuse to discuss the contributions I have made to the article. Is there some Misplaced Pages (WP:WEASEL?) policy that addresses an editor who deletes without discussion something that at least two other editors feel is on point?

Also, isn't the deletion of statements contrary to ANYONE's viewpoint, against WP:POV? Why is HIS POV the correct one?Zaq1qaz (talk) 13:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, no point of view is preferred to a contested one. If an addition to an article is contested, standard practice is to leave it out of the article until consensus is reached to re-add it to the article via productive talk-page discussion. The conservative approach is that any contested additions remain OUT of the article until and unless consensus exists to put them back in. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I haven't refused to discuss anything. On the contrary, I've pointed out many times already that you should source your claims. It's true that I'm not very interested in a long discussion without any sources, for the simple reason that neither you nor I can claim any authority, but I'll gladly discuss any source provided. The problem with your edits have been that you have introduced very controversial views, in direct conflict with many other Misplaced Pages articles and with the established view. In itself, that is no problem. It becomes a problem once you're neither able to provide any reason for them nor can back them up with any sources. You have been asked to do so by other contributors as well, but to date your record is to introduce very controversial changes without sourcing them, attacking me when I revert them and then start a long discussion about why it's wrong to revert you but still without any sources to show that you're right. As you're new to Misplaced Pages, I guess it's just because you're not familiar with the procedures. This isn't any typical discussion forum, we put some value on sources and verifiable facts, not discussions about each other. Cheers JdeJ (talk) 08:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Do I get in trouble for calling you a liar?

I have posts on my Talk page, on your Talk page, and on the Europe Talk page, all attempting to discuss this matter. The only person NOT talking about the subject, is you. You disseminate and deflect the attempts to WEASEL posts. Discuss the subject, look at my references. Let's resolve your problems with the material and this issue.Zaq1qaz (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Do I get in trouble for calling you a liar? I don't see why you would. You've been attacking other users for no reason before so one more time is hardly going to make any difference. The truth is that you've posted an enormous mass of completely irrelevant thoughts of your own. You've been asked to source your theories about continents. Instead, you've written why you think they are correct. Sorry to say so, but your personal opinions are of very little relevance here ,just like mine. You should provide links to articles by authorities supporting your view, and you haven’t done that. What you’ve done is to write long texts complaining about Western culture, how western culture is moribund, why the “blue-eyed European” is a genetic accident and other weird ideas with absolutely no relevance to the question of how continents are defined. I’m being honest with you know, no matter how much I try to assume good faith can I find any connection between the things you write and the things you want to prove. You still seem to threat this like a discussion forum where name-calling and long and irrelevant essays about what you think is what matters. My suggestion to you is to focus on the topic, write much shorter texts and start sourcing them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JdeJ (talk • contribs) 23:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I HAVE sourced my contributions. I do not want to re-submit my changes only to see you arbitrarily delete them just because you don't like them. DAYS ago, I provided a reference that was acceptable to at least one other editor who took the time to actually READ and DISCUSS the issue---NOT you.

"Thus the concept of remote peoples possibly more advanced than themselves has always been present to Europeans, and Europe (like the individual countries within Europe) has always been classified as one in a list of sibling regions, at best by its own efforts temporarily primus inter pares. Inseparable from the Europeans' comparative viewpoint has been the sense that their own achievements were without final validity, being always subject to overshadowing by known or unknown civilisations outside Europe. This constant relativisation, especially vis-á-vis the East where through most of history the real rivalry lay, produced a social space loaded with competitive instability, in strong contrast to the paternally centred Chinese world space."

It was within this geographic-conceptual schema, under the major headings of 'Asia' and 'Orient, East', that the European idea of China took shape. Long before there was more than one or two sentences' worth of knowledge (even fabulous) about China itself, the genus into which new information would be fitted was ready prepared in the European mind."

From

Andrew L. March:

The Myth of Asia

(New York: Preager, 1974), 23-43, 61-67

http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/mythofasia.html

Any time you want to stop being snide and assuming bad faith, I am willing to discuss this. So far, it's been all closed-mindedness on your part. The other editors I have discussed this with do not agree with you. So I have to wonder, who exactly is the problem here?Zaq1qaz (talk) 03:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

If that quote in any way proves that Europe isn't a continenet, I'm afraid I fail to see it. Would you care to highlight where it says, or even implies, that Europe isn't a continent? And who are these other editors who agree with you that Europe isn't a continent? I haven't seen the, contribute to the disussion at Europe.JdeJ (talk) 07:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikileaks in totally trivial WP:ITN appearance

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Why is Wikileaks still on the front page? It's a totally trivial news story which shouldn't have got there at all. Given its total lack of importance and significance (compare it with the other candidates). Take a look at the discussions on the candidate page - Misplaced Pages:ITN/C#Wikileaks. Apparently, it was added due to "consensus" on the WP:ITN/C page - Template talk:In_the_news#Wikilinks, but that page shows that no, this is not a worthy candidate. Please can an admin right this. - hahnchen 19:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Please bring this up on the appropriate page, which this is not. Misplaced Pages:ITN/C#Wikileaks. Lawrence § t/e 20:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It was obvious that this was the correct venue. Given that the story had been opposed on the correct venue and nothing had been done about it. It was poor form to archive this so early, although the story has now been removed. - hahnchen 14:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

If you feel the fundamental issues of the discussion are still unresolved (an issue I will make no comment on), and that the archiving was, in your opinion, inappropriate, then you should probably go ahead, be bold and remove {{archive top}} and {{archive bottom}}.

On the other hand, you may wish to open a new thread, either on this Noticeboard, or through an alternative medium of discussion. Either way, if there is benefit to be had from further discussion, then an archive banner should, by no means, stand in said discussions' way. Regards, AGK (talk) 18:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Note that the wikileaks article was hit pretty badly by a banned editor (about as banned as they get). Anyone who's editing, please consider carefully before reverting my edits. Banned editors do not have a right to edit WP, especially not that one - Alison 21:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Multipole (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) looks a bit odd as well, if you're checking. Guy (Help!) 21:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

 Unrelated - Alison 00:09, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Mass-spamming by User:John Carter and User:Betacommandbot

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

No administrator action is required or forthcoming in this content dispute. Avruch 21:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Religion/Interfaith work group, with three signed-up active members, have taken it up themselves to use Betacommandbot to spam thousands of articles (3096, beta says ) with their large banner on the talk page, where it is always placed above all other project tags, including GA & FA ones (eg Talk:Paul the Apostle). A good percentage of these articles have nothing to do with religion in any sense (eg Regeneration (Doctor Who), and for those that do this banner will be a useless and unwelcome addition to the vast majority, which are mostly already tagged by more specific projects. In the hour since the spree began, I am far from the only person to object at both the Project and at Beta's talk page (where protesters are referred to John Carter, in the usual 5 minutes before beta delets them): , (multiple comments each diff). Is there any way this spam can be reversed? Johnbod (talk) 19:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

• I watched it go by on my watchlist (Otto von Bismarck and Benjamin Disraeli). I don't see how either article would fall within their mandate, and I'd love to know what criteria were used. Mackensen (talk) 19:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

That's easy - Disraeli is in Category:Converts from Judaism to Anglicanism and Bismark in Category:Anti-Catholicism! Johnbod (talk) 19:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I too noticed this. Celestial spheres? This is entirely too indiscriminate. Deor (talk) 19:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Talk:Aliens Act 1905 was where I noticed it, the link is very loose in my opinion. (Oh and your edit is fine Johnbod). Woody (talk) 20:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

• I've tried to contact Betacommand on IRC. Some of the articles tagged are really irrelevant, unless I've missed something - Steve McQueen?! I haven't blocked the bot, because it's stopped, but this doesn't look completely helpful. Black Kite 20:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Steve is in Category:Converts to Christianity. Johnbod (talk) 20:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Illustrates the point, then. The templates should really only be on articles where the subject is the main, or a major, focus. Black Kite 20:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

• (third ec) Considering the effort several of us put into cleaning up talk pages of FAs when {{articlehistory}} was added, it would be nice if people tagging talk pages would look for {{WikiProjectBanners}} or {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} and add their tags within the banner shell. Not doing so is just rude. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

• Isn't convention that they go under articlehistory as well. Woody (talk) 20:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

• That's where I put them, but that may fall under preference of regular article editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Betacommandbot does thousands of useful edit...blah..blah..important function...blah..blah.....sanction...blah..blah.....can't sanction..need a sub-page to discuss this......blah..blah..no action needed...drastic action again. Well I think that covers all of the conversation - anyone else for a ride on the merry-go-around ? Sure it plays the same old tunes but we love them. (Note: I wouldn't want people to think I'm making light of the problem highlighted here - just a general sense of frustration at constantly seeing those issues come around and around and around). --Fredrick day (talk) 20:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

If Betacommand would revert the false edits, there wouldn't be much of a problem, but he/she hasn't in this case and didn't either in the past.--Carabinieri (talk) 20:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

This isn't really a BetaCommandBot issue. Black Kite 20:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

A quick look here and here will show why this was being done. I have tried to discuss this with John Carter here . There is a definite problem here that needs to be addressed and a consensus reached as soon as possible. MarnetteD | Talk 20:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I very much question the almost judgemental failure to AGF of the originator of this thread. I believe that the two articles mentioned above included in the category Category:Interfaith topics or one of its subcategories. Specifically, Bismark was involved in Anti-Catholicism, and is actually categorized on that basis. Disraeli was a religious convert. The categories for converts and religious discrimination are basically the reason the group was initially created. It is unfortunate that the banner hadn't been adjusted earlier to include parameters for the group, but I take some time for me to learn things. The initial reason for the formation of the group was a rather heated discussion regarding Bob Dylan's conversion to Christianity, and one since banned editor's efforts to even delete articles on the basis of mention of the matter, because the conversion didn't meet certain regular guidelines. Unfortunately, the group he converted to doesn't keep records of baptisms, so the definite proof being sought was absent. Unfortunately, as we all know, there are often heated discussions regarding conversions and persecutions, and it is often the case that articles dealing with these matters provoke high emotion. The purpose of this group, even more than the other religion groups, is to gather together individuals so that the content regarding these matters can be rationally discussed. Granted, it isn't necessarily the case that each and every article will ever rise to the level of heat regarding Dylan, but such unfortunate misrepresentations or overrepresentations are far from uncommon in such subjects, often even, perhaps unknowingly, making inaccurate judgemental statements regarding one or the other "sides". I also note that the originator of this thread first contacted me regarding the Doctor Who article, seemingly one of the few he is directly involved in, which was placed by someone else in the Category:Reincarnation, as was already explained to him, and that category falls as a subcat of Category:Interfaith topics. And, as stated, that was already explained to him. I am in the process of going through the articles to see which if any do not belong either within the scope of the group, or in the categories in which they were placed, again, as was already explained to the originator of this thread. If the categories and banners are irrelevant, then I will try to ensure that they are placed in more appropriate categories or have the faulty categories, and banner, removed outright. John Carter (talk) 20:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I imagine any concerns about my good faith will have been dispelled by this reply. What exactly are the three of you in the group hoping to do with the thousands of articles you have now taken under your wing, which go way beyond the parameters you mention. How on earth are even going to be able to assess "if the categories and banners are irrelevant", and did you actually look at what was in Category:Interfaith topics and the other 100-odd categories at Misplaced Pages:BOTREQ#Bot tagging request before ordering the spamming? You have tagged the whole of Category:Crusades, Category:Ancient Roman Christianity and dozens of other specialised categories you will be able to do nothing about. Plus it has been done in a very overbearing way. With a very few exception, the whole lot should be reverted. Btw, you are confusing me with someone else, if you look at your talk page, and just below. Johnbod (talk) 20:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

If you can point out to me a specific policy or guideline which agrees with you, I will be more than willing to do so. However, the only policy or guideline which I know of which might be relevant is WP:OWN, which would say that the banner could be placed there. Can you point out a contrary one? John Carter (talk) 20:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, there seems to be a clear Misplaced Pages:Consensus here and elsewhere that, a) your edits were done inappropriately by forcing themselves above GA & FA banners as well as those of more involved projects and b) the scope of the categories marked for tagging goes well beyond what is reasonable for such an excercise. Johnbod (talk) 21:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

As can easily be seen I did not start this thread and it looks as though everyone here has come here independently. The inclusion of the page Louis Auguste Blanqui in this bots work shows the pitfall of the mass inclusion of categories in the request to the bot noted above. I have suggested that this projects banners need to be done by a human and not a bot. Even then some pages inclusion in the project will need to have a consensus of editors to verify the inclusion. MarnetteD | Talk 20:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with the idea, just that the categories could've been a little more carefully selected. Some of the more borderline ones probably needed to be done by hand. Black Kite 20:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Why are we blaming the bot as per usual? Betacommand was asked to do a seemingly reasonable request through the proper channels. Admittedly some of them should not have been tagged, but John Carter is reviewing the edits so what is the problem now? Woody (talk) 20:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, Betacommand could have declined that request, couldn't he? I agree that the bot isn't the main issue here, tho. --Conti|✉ 20:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I looked over the cats and they looked ok, John carter is a trusted user, I am not that familiar with WP:RELIGION. But every thing looked ok, so I went ahead and tagged them. the same thing that I have done countless times before. β 20:37, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

(multi ec) The bot request that lead to this situation may be found at: Misplaced Pages:BOTREQ#Bot tagging request. The request includes several categories that are not appropriate for the tag, as they are not within the scope of religious studies. (For example, Category:Anti-Defamation League and Category:Anti-Jewish pogroms.) The inclusion of apostate and convert categories also seems seriously questionable. Religious affiliation does not indicate that that an article is within the scope of religious studies. I often defend BetacommandBot and its operator regarding fair-use tagging. However, Betacommand's assertion that it's essentially not his problem in this instance is very disturbing. He undertook the actions and he is responsible for the actions he takes. Responding to a request is not an excuse to disclaim responsibility. For example, if an admin makes a bad block for edit warring based on an incorrect 3RR report, the reporting user isn't blamed for the bad block, the block admin is blamed for the bad block. Regardless of John Carter's request, Betacommand is responsible for the edits he made and should be responsible for cleaning up any mess made by those edits. Vassyana (talk) 20:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

My apologies to JohnBod regarding the mistake. Actually, I specifically made sure that the most borderline ones weren't included at all. I should also note that I am separately trying to combine the extant religion banners into no more than, hopefully, five or six separate banners, one for Christianity and all related projects, one for Judaism, one for religious texts, and as many others as possible in the main Religion banner. Unfortunately, it is often the case that articles are relevant to several religions. Martin Luther is currently tagged for 6 religion projects, Bible 9. However, even there, it would be useful knowing which subprojects want assessments on the articles, and placing the banners in advance, so that it becomes easier to know which terms to add, I think makes a bit of sense. And, as stated, I am going through these articles by hand to place the banner in the shell templates, if such is required, and assess them. It might take a week or so to go through them all. John Carter (talk) 20:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

One, Two, Three, Four, Boone (by that I mean, don't sweat, it's an honest mistake that happened because of the instructions it was given - when I asked for UK road articles to me mass tagged, I had to be careful not to get Edinburgh Castle tagged, but some wayward tags happened anyway) Will 20:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

(usual BCB-thread ecs)Perhaps people could see this through the lens of WP:AGF - if someone, in good faith, asks BC to run his bot to add something to talk pages of articles in good faith, then BC has no reason in good faith to not do so. That there is a problem that others have with this is fine, but please point me to anyone here who was not acting in good faith. Central tenet of the 'pedia: AGF until proven otherwise; and remember the miles of rope we extend to the various POV-pushing, nasty-minded sockpuppeting trolls and compare that to the mere millimetres we give to BC and BCB. ➔ REDVEЯS knows how Joan of Arc felt 20:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Completely agree. It was a good faith request made to the Bot request page, Betacommand acted in good faith here. If I knew the first thing about bots I would have done the same and I am sure that can be said about most people commenting here. Woody (talk) 20:37, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I perfectly believe both users acted in good faith. However, good faith does not preclude poor or contentious decisions. Vassyana (talk) 20:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it was a poor decision. He probably compiled a list in AWB and gave it to BCB, and guessing the magnitude of WP:RELIGION, I don't think he checked too closely. Will 20:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

As Vassyana, above. Everyone acted in good faith, yes, right up until the point where βcommand responded to requests to stop with an imperious, "Go talk to the guy who asked me to do it." The run should have been stopped immediately, and β should have investigated the accusations of improper tagging. The ability to make hundreds of thousands of edits to the Encyclopedia in a machine-assisted way is granted with the assumption that the controller of the bot will exercise due restraint with it, especially given the difficulties and overhead inherent in mass-reversion. β may have exercised due restraint here in accepting the request, but the poor decision, in this case, lies in continuing to perform the edits even after multiple people raised concerns about their applicability. As such, he has fallen short of the standard I'd expect for bot operators. Jouster  (whisper) 20:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The bot made a total of four edits after the issue was brought up. I re-directed questions to the person who is best to answer them, I am not part of WP:RELIGION and john is a better person to ask. β 21:10, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Please accept my apologies, then. I still take issue with the tone of your dismissal of complaints about the bot's actions, but I humbly withdraw—again, with my apologies—my statements as they relate to your actions, not merely your words. Jouster  (whisper) 00:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Again, don't beat Beta up about it. He trusted John to think he'd checked the list thoroughly. WP:UKRD is a small project and it has 1429 articles. RELIGION, like BIOG and LGBT, is bound to be very big. People don't have time to check through a list of 20,000 articles in great detail. Just fix the mistakes, and let's all move on, shall we? Will 20:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I note that no one seems to question what is probably the primary problem here, which is the unfortunately huge problem of miscategorization or failure to adjust categorization over time. One of the few ways we have available to indicate that articles might be miscategorized is this means. I have just noted the rather inclusive(?) nature of the extant Category:Antisemitism, which doesn't seem to allow for differences between communist antisemitism and Christian or other antisemitism, and have requested the creation of a new, more defined, subcategory by the Judaism WikiProject. Unfortunately, as stated before, and in this case by Kirll Lokshin regarding the various subcats of military history, one of the only ways to find out when articles are miscategorized or poorly categorized is to see what they logically link to. As it stands, Category:Jerusalem is still a distant subcat of Category:Religious texts, which strikes me as seemingly nonsensical. The lack of attention that categorization has received is probably one of the biggest problems we have, and, even if by making errors such as some of those here, this may be the only way to get people to address those existing errors, or failures to adjust categorization as new categorization is developed. John Carter (talk) 20:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Why on earth should Category:Antisemitism have to "allow for differences between communist antisemitism and Christian or other antisemitism" just for your benefit! Categorization is more important, and usually given far more thought, than project banner tagging. You should look at the category trees before you ask them to be tagged. Johnbod (talk) 21:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see that as the primary problem. There had been a discussion about the role of WP:RELIGION shortly after it was first created, and there was a general sense that it was a useful forum for cooperative efforts and discussing particular issues but that focused expertise was needed in each individual religion to evaluate articles and the individual religion WikiProjects could supply that. Obviously any WikiProject, even one with a small number of members, is welcome to tag and evaluate articles. However, strongly suggest seeking consensus before asking a bot operator to place ones own project's tag at the top. --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

In the past year, after a rocky start where the WikiProject presented itself as a hierarchical umbrella project over all religion WikiProjects to general disagreement, the project regrouped and had been quietly making contributions to the encyclopedia and gaining in use, trust, and members. I've used it myself for a number of issues of potential interest to members of multiple religions. Efforts that tend to convey an impression to the rest of the community that one is in charge and bypass seeking the community's processes for approval do not lead to trust, and this latest incident is very much a setback for the WikiProject's efforts to be a useful and valued forum and collaboration platform. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Loathe though I am to keep flogging the horse, the majority of Beta's ill-deserved flak for this would have been avoided if he were to move tasks such as this to User:BetacommandBot II or similar. Surely it can't be that difficult... Happy‑melon 21:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

And, of course, who could resist to blame something else on Betacommand. Global warming? Also Betacommand. *sigh* Whether the tagging would have been done by another bot account or not the accident would still have occured, and Betacommand would still have been blamed. Lay off of him, for crying out loud. — Coren  21:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Ahem. Global warming is CLEARLY the fault of the massive anti piracy campaigns of recent years. everyone knows that. ++Lar: t/c 22:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh don't get me wrong, Beta deserves none of it; he was just unfortunate enough to be the first bot operator to see the request with enough time to act on it. I'm just saying that it might be in his own interest to split the accounts, since he must be quite legitimately sick and tired of everything BetacommandBot does being automatically slated just because of its work on non-free images. Full marks to him for putting up with it - I just wonder why he doesn't make it easier for himself. Happy‑melon 21:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know that the above statements by Shirahadasha are necessarily accurate about how the project first "presented" itself, I wasn't here at the time. However, I should note that the responsibility for the tagging was entirely my own. It should also be noted, again, that the tagging wasn't for the religion project per se, but rather the interfaith work group. And, regarding individual editors questions, there are and always will be questions regarding any group's even existence. Actually, I do not see at all how placement of a banner is and I quote an attempt to "bypass seeking the community's processes for approval". It is by definition impossible to know what the "community" specifically relevant to any article is. I have just since I started assessing the articles recently tagged, and I have been assessing them for all the projects which have already tagged them as well, found a few articles which really weren't relevant to the interfaith group, but were clearly relevant to other projects, including Hinduism and other religions, which hadn't yet tagged them. In fact, in several cases, no project had tagged these articles, religious or otherwise, even when they clearly dealt with religious subjects. Was I similarly bypassing processes for approval by tagging those articles for the appropriate projects? John Carter (talk) 21:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't tagging the articles, it was placing the tag on top (even on top of FA tags). But I also realize that you may not have had any input into where the tag was placed on a talk page, and this may have been a programming issue. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

• As I recall, when Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Religion was formed, it was not going to tag articles already tagged by more specific "daughter" projects. Its scope was to be general religious topics and more specific religious issues that lacked a dedicated wikiproject. Did this change? Gimmetrow 01:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Where does the bot approval process come into play. I continue to take exception with the fact that BetacommandBot is permited to work outside of the standard approval process. Am I totally in left field? Is this not a new function for the bot? A user makes a request for a bot to make thousdands of edits without any clear indication that there is any concensus for the edits and a bot operator decides that it sounds like a good idea and goes ahead and does it while totally ignoring WP:BAG It would appear that the functional policy regarding BetacommandBot is that it is permitted to do anything its owner decides to do and that it is not accountable to anyone. To quote one of the requirements from Misplaced Pages:Bot policy performs only tasks for which there is consensus Where was the consensus for this request? But since Betacommand is always right, and since he has alrealy labeled me as a troll, feel free to disregard what I have written. Dbiel 01:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Dbiel, wikiproject tagging is a very standard procedure, Ive been doing it for a long time, see Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot#WikiProject for my "recent" WP approval (April 2007), and my original approval

βis right that bot operators approved for wikiproject tagging do not need approval for each individual tagging run. Although, above, I question whether this particular tagging was appropriate, β may not have known the history. Gimmetrow 05:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

And that approved policy is to place additional new banners at the top of the page above any existing banner? And silly me, I thought that new entries were to be placed as the bottom of the section they pertain to, or in the case of the more complex pages like Talk:Paul the Apostle would be nested in the appropriate subsection, but of course that would require extensive bot programming. So lets just do it fast and wrong and make someone else clean it up. But the fact is the bot was approved to DO the task, but how it was to be done was never discussed. Well so be it. Dbiel 21:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm so sick of the talk page template spamming. Who is this really helping, besides the members of the ineffectual WikiProjects who want to feel important? If you can use extant categories to find articles that "fall within the scope of" your project, there's no need to spam up the talk pages with more trash. --Cyde Weys 04:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Block User:John Carter

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

not going to happen. Will  17:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

It is incomprehensible how after such an uproar and with so much across-the-board rejection of his position and his bot, that User John Carter (talk · contribs) does not back down, dump his bot and his strategy, and apologize for all the aggravation he is causing, in clear violation/s of WP:SPAM, WP:CONSENSUS, WP:DISRUPT, WP:POINT, WP:NOR, WP:NEO, WP:SOAP, WP:IINFO, WP:BATTLE, WP:ANARCHY and WP:REICHSTAG. If he does not cease and desist immediately he should be blocked for all these multiple violations. IZAK (talk) 09:01, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

This call for blocking John Carter is also incomprehensible:

• John Carter does not operate the bot, Betacommand does.
• The bot has been approved to do this task by BAG, and there are other bots doing exactly the same task. These bots work by tagging all articles in the list of categories selected by people, who are working in the relevant WikiProjects.
• If there were incorrect categories among those given to Betacommand, then John is responsible for that. He has already stated that he will check and assess the articles manually. Considering that he has assessed literary tens of thousands of articles, I don't see any problems there.

I can't help wondering if somebody other than BC had tagged these articles, would we be here discussing this episode? A little WP:AGF goes a long way of solving problems between editors, who are doing their best to improve the project. – Sadalmelik (talk) 11:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

How about some AGF yourself? I don't agree with IZAK's blocking suggestion, but your reply strikes me as remarkably complacent and out of tune with the discussion above. JC has shown absolutely no acceptance that more than a few stray articles should not have been tagged. Instead, ridiculously, he blames everything on the category structure and a lack of AGF from his critics. He has effectively admitted he did not look at what the categories he requested contained, but offers not the ghost of an apology for this or anything else. He has indeed started the process of going through these articles, if you look at his contributions, and is so far de-tagging very few. How many of the examples people mention above is he going to de-tag? Precious few. Since the interfaith work-group seems to have no other active members apart from himseldf, this whole tagging excercise serves no purpose, and he and betacommand should be made to reverse it, since there is no question of this happening voluntarily. Johnbod (talk) 11:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, he seems to be removing the interfaith group in half or more of his recent talk page edits... the edit summaries are a bit missleading here for this purpose, you have to look at the actual diffs. Not really how I would like to spend my afternoon(s), though. – Sadalmelik (talk) 12:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK I have never come across John Carter before he induced all this chaotic discussion and mass hysteria in others and in response to that one needs to either get him to stop, or bottle up him and the unruly bot that works in his favor and to the chagrin og others. IZAK (talk) 12:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

This is stupid. Strongly oppose. Will 12:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Ridiculous. Strongly oppose as well. Black Kite 13:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Cream cheese. A nonsensical request deserves a nonsensical reply! Luigi30 (Taλk) 14:26, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. Policy entitles a recognized WikiProject to tag articles and permits a bot to implement the tagging. One may think this tagging unwise and poorly executed, but that does not make it a policy violation. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 14:34, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - What I find incomprehensible is that the editor who started this thread never even bothered to let me know he had done so. I find IZAK's conduct in this matter to be completely unsupportable. And, actually, if Johnbod had noticed my own recent actions, he would have seen that so far I have in fact removed the tag from several articles that I have already gone through, and in many cases replaced them with more accurate banners which weren't yet in place. What I personally see in those two individuals if a total failure to assume good faith, an unwarranted rush to judgement, and very presumptuous asertions about another party, both of whom they say they don't know. John Carter (talk) 14:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Once again your personal attack on me is based on inaccuracy and confusing me with others! When did I say I don't know you? In fact, since our editing areas have considerable overlap, I have quite often seen your pugnacious and arrogant attitude at work. This, together with the contacts with you already attempted on this issue by others before I came along, is why I did not judge it worthwhile raising the matter with you initially. Your total lack of apology to anyone, and ludicrous attempt to blame everyone else but yourself, show my judgement was entirely correct. As others have said, good faith is not the issue here; good judgement and WP:CONCENSUS are. Where did you discuss with anyone your idea of launching this tagging spree? What exactly do you regard as the correct scope of your effectively singlehanded workgroup? Does it concern you at all that among all the very varied views expressed above, no one has actually said anything that suggests they see these tags as beneficial to the project? Johnbod (talk) 14:57, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose - John has worked very hard to reduce banner clutter and to eliminate or merge inactive and tiny projects. Large scale bot tagging based on cats was discussed at the Council and I don't recall anyone suggesting it was a problem, however, there was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea. Even when tagging is done manually there are often disagreements over the tags, so what? If the tag is wholly inappropriate remove it. Starting a WP:AN thread like this without notifying the subject editor is ipso facto WP:Bad faith.--Doug. 16:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

To be clear, both JC and beta were notified by me immediately the thread was started. When Izak started this section it no doubt showed up on their watchlists like everyone else's. Johnbod (talk) 17:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• Everyone shut up strong oppose - Personally, I like the whole "I don't appreciate your personal attack on me, so here's a personal attack which talks about your assumption of bad faith as I fail to assume good faith myself." It's a good read that makes me want to pound my face into a wall. And that's not directed to any particular post, rather mostly all of them. This isn't about BetacommandBot, so let's just drop that. As far as John's actions, he's correcting it. If your article has a banner on it that doesn't belong, remove it. If it's fine but placed above your FA or GA banner, move it down. Don't think the work group should exist? Go talk about it there. Problem solved, I'm a genius. Lara❤Love 16:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Uh, calmly discuss problem in this section

Really, whether it was a poorly thought out decision or not - there is no reason to attack the editors and call them arrogant, pugnacious, or whatever else. I don't think there is a need for administrator intervention in this case, its essentially a content dispute about categorization (mostly focused on the position of the category on the talkpage...Hah!). Here's a thought: Assume that everyone involved has the same general goal of improving the encyclopedia, and work from there. Avruch 16:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

As it's a content dispute not needing admin intervention, why not have calm discussion take place on the project talk page? Lara❤Love 16:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Tea and Biscuits in the lobby. UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 16:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Works for me. Avruch 17:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

IP abuse

It would be useful if one could search the history of all IPs in a given subnet. Is there a tool that does this? Guy (Help!) 21:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiScanner can do that. (http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/). Jon513 (talk) 21:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Ta. Guy (Help!) 22:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I tried that and it was grossly out of date or something. I tried searching 74.138.145.0/24 but none of the 74.138.145.133 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) edits showed up. Those are from December! Did I do something wrong? —Wknight94 (talk) 12:16, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

No, you didn't do anything wrong - look at the bottom of the page, it says it's only searching edits "from February 7th, 2002 to August 4th, 2007". They obviously need a new database dump. Black Kite 12:26, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Guy, checkuser can do that if you have a good reason. Thatcher 14:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I think he just wants anonymous edits - that's not privileged information at all, just tedious to go through from anywhere from 254 to millions of contribution pages. —Random832 16:26, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Mr.Z-man/rangecheck can do it using User:VasilievVV's toolserver tool. It works well for /24 ranges, but /16 range checks can be s...l...o...w. Mr.Z-man 17:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Occasionally I've wanted to know what the collateral damage would be if I made a particular anon-only rangeblock (to deal with a pernicious vandal or sockpuppeteer on a floating IP). I've blocked ranges as large as /14 (using multiple /16 blocks) for short periods. A tool to find out just how much trouble such blocks would cause – in advance – would be quite handy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Yup. Handy tool, though it takes a while to grab even a /24. Guy (Help!) 18:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

If all you wanted was a check for collateral damage, I'd do it if you catch me active when you need the info. I wouldn't have to disclose the names to say whether or not it was a safe block. Thatcher 11:36, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Appreciate it, thanks. This was for a much more mundane matter - some IP vandalism, and wondering if a short rangeblock was justified. Turns out it was spread over only five or six IPs, and all on one or two articles, so if need be I will semiprotect them. Thanks, Guy (Help!) 19:00, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Merge

Would someone please place merge tags to merge template:details with template:further, and direct them to the talk page of details? Richard001 (talk) 22:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

 Done -- lucasbfr 13:05, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Year long backlog at WP:AFC cleared!

Hurray, after a little over a year of backlogged requests, articles for creation is now clear of {{backlog}}! Thanks to the efforts of many. This just proves that when we get organized (organized? what does that mean?) that we can really accomplish a ton. ;) Tiptoety 00:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Admin, plz delete this thread and ban this user - I don't understand any of the language he's using - "accomplish", "organized", "efforts" - this sort of stuff clearly isn't suitable for AN. ( 8-) great job team!) --Fredrick day (talk) 00:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

;) Tiptoety 00:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey, there are only 12651 pages needing Wikification. Any plans for the weekend, Tiptoety? --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 01:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

There's still a backlog at WP:AR1 to get started on. =] shoy 01:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Im ready to tackle any challenge, as long as i have some help :) Tiptoety 02:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Great job! Woops, that reminds me I'm supposed to read a certain page for you... -- lucasbfr 09:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

• One small problem: consider the case of company X, which is a PR firm acting for company Y. Now, put yourself in their position, go through the article wizard and see which choices you make, and whether we would consider them the right choices. I'd like to guide such people to a place where they submit a request with sources and someone else reviews it, but I don't see this will happen here. Not that the article creation wizard is bad, quite the opposite. It should be the default for all new articles. Guy (Help!) 15:57, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Long-term abuse at Graham Spanier

Graham Spanier (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I'd like to request a few more sets of eyes to help watch the Graham Spanier page. The page has a long history of anonymous vandalism adding libelous material (dating back to at least November) from IPs coming out of Penn State, so I tried protecting for a half month. As soon as the protection expired the vandalism resumed, so I have sprotected the page until May 1st. Now sockpuppets have started popping up and have resorted to vandalising the pictures on his article, one of which I have now semiprotected. I wouldn't be surprised to see the rest of the pictures follow suit, but I'm not sure I like the idea of pre-emptive protection. I also wouldn't be surprised to see additional sockpuppet accounts pop up to continue the quest to vandalise the article, considering the persistence of this editor so far. A range block to the Penn State IP range might be in order, but it seems to be a bit extreme to block an entire college because of one malicious editor. Another possibly is for someone to contact the school and alert them of the situation. In either case, some more people to keep an eye on the page can't hurt. VegaDark (talk) 05:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe a quick mail to Penn State technical services would be a good idea. I'm sure they (or the administration at large) wouldn't too pleased with this. Circeus (talk) 05:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

and it continues. I'm e-mailing their help desk to see what they have to say about it. VegaDark (talk) 15:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Another archtransit/Dereks1x sock?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Someone check this out: . Notice the frequent connections to VK35, the "bridge" sock between Archtransit and Dereks1x, and the 6-month gap in editing. Editing times are a pretty good match too. Or am I barking up a wrong tree here? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:27, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

IDK, there is only 1 unrelated talk-page overlap between those accounts, but then again there are only 2 pages of overlap between Dereks1x and Archtransit. I will grant though a significant 15/102 edits of Hareburg/VK35 overlap. MBisanz 06:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Harebag, coincidentally. ~ Riana ⁂ 06:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

VK35 adopted Harebag??? Looks even more suspicious... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not blocking anyone, probably wouldn't be right for me, but I won't lose sleep if someone else does. ~ Riana ⁂ 06:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

The checkuser magic eight-ball says the IPs are  Unrelated. Thatcher 11:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for checking that out. The duck test still says they may be related. We'ren't other Artransit/Dereks1x socks still blocked as passing the duck test even AFTER failing checkuser, or is the failed checkuser test definitive proof that this person is NOT another Archtransit/Dereks1x sock. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 15:09, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

All the Archtransit/Dereks1x accounts that I know of (from the recent episode) share at least two (and often more) critical technical features. Harebag's recent edits lacks both features, and appear to originate from a different time zone. Some form of meat puppetry can't be ruled out, or maybe Dereks1x went to visit his cousin or something, but it is not the same situation as the other recent accounts. Thatcher 15:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Kewl. Looks like an innocent user caught in the middle then. Thanks for looking into this. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Range blocks on hosting ranges - be contactable!

Hosting ranges are often blocked entirely when a likely open proxy or 0wnz0r3d box is found in them, on the presumption that edits from hosted machines are vanishingly unlikely. There are, however, more false positives than you might think ...

I just had to unblock and then reblock around 87.117.229.0/24 - which is in the middle of a hosting range, but happens to be the /24 for last.fm and includes their office proxy, 87.117.229.252 (on which user and user talk page I've put a note with their admin contact details in case of idiocy from their range). Apparently they had asked before about unblocking and been told "no" ... I don't have the details.

But false positives - either from a subrange inside a hosting range, or some old-skool type who insists on editing from his very own hosted box rather than the PC on his desk - are far from unknown with hosting range blocks. And even though hosting range blocks are generally a good idea when needed, please keep in mind the need to be approachable and to be ready to unblock as needed.

I also used the following blocking summary: "hosting range blocked due to open proxies or compromised machines - please contact in case of false positives, subranges with a contact, etc." Which hopefully should make it come across as less impersonal and tell people what they actually need to do next - David Gerard (talk) 14:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I would like to propose a new feature "IP Range header pages" - i.e. if a page User talk:87.117.229.0/24 exists, it appears at the top of every IP talk page within that range. Because, the information posted on User talk:87.117.229.252 is not going to be visible at all to someone responding to vandalism from, say, 87.117.229.55. —Random832 15:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Couldn't a bot do this? That is, couldn't a bot parse the block log, interpet the range blocks, and append notice tags (like the sharedIPEDU tag) to each of the effected individual IPs? This seems like a reasonable task, but likely to be so repetitive that a bot would do it well... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 15:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

On a /16 block that would be 130,000 edits, which for a short block is a lot of work. Currently anyone editing from a blocked range gets to see which range is blocked in their block notice. A single talk page could be linked from there for additional info. But the block reason is visible to anyone blocked within the range, and that is the best place for information. -- zzuuzz 15:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Technical question If a large range is blocked, it is possible to unblock individual IPs within that range? Or does the whole range block have to be lifted? Thatcher 15:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like not, which is why this is a pain in the backside - blocking a hosting range then unblocking IPs or subranges one at a time is the obvious solution, but I had to do this unblock-reblock using an online CIDR calculator, and I got at least one wrong in the process - David Gerard (talk) 16:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

No, it is not possible to unblock single IP addresses within a CIDR range. It is possible to unblock the range, and, reblock, leaving a "hole" for a smaller range, however, in most cases. SQL 16:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Yuck. Thatcher 16:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the blocking hierachy can help, so you can block an individual IP anon only within the range and that will allow signed in users to use that address. --81.104.39.63 (talk) 19:18, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Technical suggestion

What about some bit of javascript that would edit any anon IP talk page header to transclude, if they exist, subpages of the form {{User talk:10.10.10.0/24}} above the page? This would allow us to place templates onto whole netblocks without needing to actually create every IP talk page. I could whip something like that up in a bit— it would slow down loading of IP talk pages, but I think that would be a reasonable price to pay? — Coren  01:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

(Implicitely, the code would try, for instance, /16, /18, /20, /22, /24, /28 and /29 which are all common net lengths). — Coren  01:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Tudor Chirilă‎

Article has become a soapbox for personal opinions and grudges, dominated by Pinkish1 and TheRealPitbull , the latter removing NPOV templates. (Also submitted to Biographies Notice Board) JNW (talk) 15:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

This has been addressed by Seicer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JNW (talk • contribs) 15:26, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 3

The following motion modifying the terms of the original Arbitration case has been adopted.

1. Remedy 2 of EK3 (prohibition against posting on AN/I) is terminated.
2. Remedy 3 of EK3 (commenting on admin's actions) is terminated.
3. Everyking's music article "parole" is terminated.
4. Remedy 5 of EK3 is continued (and indeed, is a common sense requirement for all editors.)
5. Remedy X of EK3 (non-interaction and non-commenting on Snowspinner/Phil Sandifer) is continued.
6. The harassment ban and terms of enforcement in the July 2006 amendment to EK3 is continued.
7. Upon request by Everyking, these terms will be reviewed, but no more often than once per year, starting the date this motion passes.

For the Arbitration committee, Thatcher 16:06, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

In other words, it's the same thing as before. Remedies 2 & 3 were terminated three months ago; the parole was also suspended three months ago. The only changes in this entire list are in point 3—the status of the parole is changed from "suspended" to "terminated" (no practical difference, of course)—and in point 7, in which the ArbCom is restricting my ability to appeal, which was previously unlimited like everyone else's, to once per year. So, ultimately, I gained one minor concession that has no practical meaning, and lost a pretty significant right in the process. Hurray. Everyking (talk) 20:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps because they felt that requiring people to know what they are talking about before commenting on it is good policy and not something that should be overturned. Raul654 (talk) 20:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Remedy 5 is the least objectionable of the remaining restrictions. It would be better to explain why the ArbCom felt it should continue labelling me as a harasser and keeping a restraining order on me. Everyking (talk) 20:51, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this a fair result. Everyking pleaded his case and a majority of Arbitrators supported lifting the sanctions. The fact that more Arbitrators supported lifting fewer sanctions shouldn't be a bar to that. Reviewing the outcome of his appeal , I would interpret it as (given 8 Arbs were a majority) that the only sanction that should remain in force is remedy X as 8 Arbs supported the lifting of each of the other sanctions. It should be noted that the motion which passed actually does only 2 things (as remedies 2 & 3 appear to have expired in November):

1. Lifts the music article "parole"
2. Imposes a limitation of Everyking's future right of appeal

I find it hard to accept that someone can gain a majority of Arbs who support lifting sanctions and still be subject to those sanctions - they should surely only be applied in case of great necessity. If a majority of Arbitrators were willing to accept their being lifted, they surely cannot be necessary. WjBscribe 21:10, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

This doesn't seem like a reasonable outcome to me, either. Its strange because the two proposed motions were quite different, but got very similar levels of support. I think limiting the appeal is wrong, as Everyking is right - it creates a second class participation in the Arbitration process that other previous parties have not been subjected to. If the Committee is concerned that Everyking is likely to harass administrators - to the point that a remedy is necessary - then this should (1) be supported by evidence of harassing activity in the time since the last amendment and (2) not be addressed in the context of lifting all other remaining remedies. It appears as though the Committee intends to leave Everyking on permanent remedy of some sort - if thats the case, be straightforward about it and say why. Avruch 22:05, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I should note that, barring clarification here, and despite the fact that I have no previous involvement with this case or Everyking, I intend to file a request for clarification based on what Will and I have written above. Avruch 22:12, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Without making any comment as to the Committee's decision here, which I have not researched to such a degree that I would feel comfortable making an evaluative comment on, I will say that it would be worthwhile either: (a) notifying the Committee as to this thread, and requesting input from them, either on the WT:AC or WT:RFAR page, or by direct contact to their mailing list; or, (b) asking the Committee directly to reconsider the matter.

Personally, I would be included to support the former option—an out-and-out direct request for immediate reconsideration would, I feel, appear to be rather hurried: although speaking from my somewhat limited knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the case, I do not think it is an enormous miscarriage of justice, and hence an action on par with that which would be classified as "emergency" would most likely be unwarranted. AGK (contact) 23:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I also find this decision hard to comprehend. In general, I think the Arbcom restricts itself to remedies lasting no longer than a year. The remedies in the Everyking 3 case, as amended in July 2006, were anomalously set to run until November 2007, but when Everyking asked on which day of November they expired, he was told to wait until the Arbcom reconsidered the case, which is three months later. Although a majority of Arbcom members supported lifting all but one restriction, this did not pass, and instead Everyking is under an additional restriction of not being allowed to appeal for a year.

This sounds like the Arbcom is saying "You're a hopeless case; stop wasting our time", but Everyking is one of our most productive editors, and he certainly seems to have kept his nose clean for a long time. Blatant vandals, sock-puppeteers and POV-pushers get much better treatment than this.

I think Arbcom has clearly come to the wrong result here, and since it has done so despite a majority voting for a more just result, it appears the process is broken. I do have respect for some individuals on the committee, but no longer for the Arbcom as a whole. We need a better judicial system on Misplaced Pages.-gadfium 00:15, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

My views on the proposals are contained in the now-archived discussion of the two motions. The anomoly with the voting result has been brought to the committee's attention and I have urged that we discuss it. A request for clarification, if desired, could provide a vehicle for such discussion. With regard to Gadfium's suggestion of a better judicial system, I am listening carefully. :) Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't be willing to make a request for clarification myself, lest I use up my annual appeal almost immediately. I'd be happy if someone made one on my behalf, provided that wasn't counted as an appeal by me. Everyking (talk) 00:54, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Based on the above suggestion and my concern in this case, I've sent an e-mail to ArbCom-l asking for reconsideration. I am willing to request an additional formal appeal on WP:RFAR on Everyking's behalf if the Committee does not address the problem on its own initiative. I have a great deal of respect for the Committee and its members, but I think this decision is in error and should be altered or clarified. Avruch 01:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if you saw this thread: User_talk:Thatcher#Closure_of_appeal. FT2  04:30, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Filed

Here. Avruch 01:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

A more useful link here. Note that the case which Avruch filed has been moved from "Current requests" - relating to new cases - to "Clarifications and other requests". Jay*Jay (talk) 05:21, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Free Republic amended

In light of continued disputes, remedy 4 adopted in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Free Republic is amended by adding:

"Additionally, any uninvolved administrator may impose a reasonable editing restriction (for example, 1RR) or page ban upon any editor who repeatedly engages in disruptive or uncivil editing of Free Republic or any closely related page. Prior to imposing such a ban or restriction, a warning should be given on the affected user's talkpage. All bans and restrictions shall be logged at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Free Republic#Log of blocks and bans."

All editors, particularly including single purpose accounts and editors who have or may reasonably be perceived as having a conflict of interest, are strongly urged to edit Free Republic and related articles only in conformity with all Misplaced Pages policies and with this committee's prior decision. If the enhanced administrator authority provided in this ruling does not improve the situation on this article after 30 days, a request for a more formal Arbitration Committee review may be submitted.

For the Arbitration committee, Thatcher 16:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

• Free Republic is an extremely useful article. Any account whose first edit is there, you know to watch. Guy (Help!) 14:13, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Deletion discussion needing attention

Could an uninvolved sysop take a look over Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Toledano Tradition and Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for deletion/Toledano Tradition, and refactor/clean it up as appropriate? Thanks! Vassyana (talk) 17:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

This just looks like basic formatting, so I'm sure this won't be a problem. However, is an aesthetic improvement absolutely necessary here? The issue simply seems to be an editor making his argument using his rather patchy knowledge of WikiFormatting, but it doesn't actively disrupt the page... Are you sure it is essential that we refactor the pages in question? AGK (contact) 23:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Strange userpage

I found the page User:Bobbinson while on recent changes patrol and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. The actual user has only three edits and it appears that another user and an IP user are editing the page to their liking. I'm not sure if this is vandalism or what course of action is necessary so I'm posting it here. Thingg 17:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd say they're the same person. Rudget. 18:10, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Florentino floro

This user sort of bugs me. He seems to go around finding news articles online and adding wildly imbalanced chunks of information to articles. He once insisted on adding a chunk of info about a rhino names Kofi Annan to the Kofi Annan article. See also his long incoherent rants on this AFD discussion. You see, this user is Florentino Floro (yeah, he has an article of his own)-- a Filipino judge suspended from the judiciary due to mental illness (he was taking legal advice from a trio of invisible dwarves). It seems a real pain that we would have our encyclopedia written by someone who's been widely acknowledged in the media (and by the Philippine legal system, no less) to be, well, crazy. TheCoffee (talk) 20:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I think this could be put a little more diplomatically. I've seen Floro's editing here and there and he's definitely good about adding current events content. Sometimes things need to be structured a bit better or moved around, but the content is good. Maybe the bit about the rhino doesn't need to go in Annan's article, but perhaps a place could be found for it elsewhere, particularly since it ties into conservation efforts (depending on the degree of coverage, it might warrant its own article). Everyking (talk) 21:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

TheCoffee, what are your specific complaints regarding this user, and can you provide evidence which backs up your accusations? Burden of proof lies on a person making an accusation against an editor, and it is essential that that proof is provided. You may wish to provide diffs, links or quotations; however, any evidence needs to back up your statements. Regards, AGK (contact) 23:00, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Floro adds content but at a price of a huge amount of time spent re-organizing, sourcing, removing hyperbole and wikifying. Compare these versions, comments here, these diffs (this particular page was created twice, under different names but identical content). Floro does not improve with advice, criticism, warnings or other comments I've banged my head against this wall many times and never found it rewarding. WLU (talk) 00:21, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I remember advising him to reduce overwikification and redundancy, and he seemed to improve about that. Also, I'm not sure your trimming of the Suarez article was a good thing; we certainly can't blame Floro for writing a lot of content, can we? As for other criticisms, Misplaced Pages is full of stuff that needs to be cleaned up. Floro is actually pretty good, and in my experience he does use references. Everyking (talk) 00:34, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm...you'd have to look in detail at what I trimmed and why, and the discussion of the talk page. If you read through the original page drafted by Floro, there's lots of hyperbole, it's very POV, there's a massive chunk of text duplicating needless information in other pages (see the original version, 'healing in catholicism'), the tone is off, far too many links external and see also, and not in the least, the credulous belief that Suarez raised the dead. His contributions seem to go in waves. See this compared with the deleted versions of Philippine Virgin Coconut and Heat-Pressed Healing Oils, as well as the history of coconut charcoal. I'm not advocating a block, but I have run into floro several times and it's far more aggravating than rewarding. If a mentor agrees to help, they have my best wishes and my sympathy. WLU (talk) 12:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

If I'm reading some of his comments right, his argument is that many of his POV comments etc should be included because he can see the future. Clearly lots of issues there, I suggest plenty of eyes on this one... --Fredrick day (talk) 17:30, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I dispute Everyking's assertion that the current events content is good. Floro's content is added without the slightest attempt at establishing context, as on cholesterol, and often with a complete misunderstanding of what the source is actually saying. When asked to discuss a new development on the talkpage first (as I have asked him to do on health articles), the response is either persistence or an incoherent rant. I have yet to see one useful "current event" edit from him in articles that I am monitoring. JFW | T@lk 20:37, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

More admins needed at Misplaced Pages:User categories for discussion

There are only about 3 regular admins who close discussions there, and often all three of us participate in discussions due to the relatively low participation there. As it stands right now, there are discussions dating back to February 9th that need closing. This is disrupting the archive process and making the page a lot longer than it needs to be, making navigation harder. Recently we have even had to close unambiguous debates that we participated in due to the lack of admins, which we would like to be able to avoid if at all possible. The adminbacklog tag isn't helping, and my requests on the IRC channel haven't been working lately. Those of you that don't want to go to the effort of removing categories from a bunch of pages, you don't even have to- You can simply list the page at Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Working/User after closure (however, that too is starting to develop a small backlog). If this section of Misplaced Pages is going to continue to be neglected then perhaps it should be merged back to regular CfD, otherwise we definitely need some more people to close discussions on that page. VegaDark (talk) 21:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Your {{adminbacklog}} tag led me there once but I'm not ashamed to admit that I have no clue what it is. (Okay, maybe I'm a little ashamed). Quick summary perhaps? —Wknight94 (talk) 21:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Essentially WP:CFD, except for user categories (as opposed to article categories). VegaDark (talk) 22:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll take a look. Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion was also backlogged but I've brought it up to date. I'll add it to my list of tasks in future. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

What is the justification for this being separate from WP:RFD? The only explanation I have came up with, is the segregation of (arguably) mainspace-related issues from project-related issues. If that is the explanation, might it be combined in WP:MFD? AGK (contact) 22:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I would say there's enough categories out there to swell MFD. And RFD can't cover these, they aren't redirects. bibliomaniac15 23:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I wasn't involved in setting up RFD, but it makes good sense to keep particular types of deletion discussion all in one place. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I've tried my hand at one, and I'll be happy to help out more once I'm sure I've done it right (or figured out how to correct what I've done wrong). :) I'm not one of those people who immediately and comfortably embraces new procedures. Not so very bold, me. --Moonriddengirl 15:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Your closure looks good. VegaDark (talk) 16:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

User:75.47.146.88

I need some advice on how to deal with 75.47.146.88 (talk · contribs), who has used many other similar IPs such as 75.47.139.3 (talk · contribs). He has taken to reverting many of my edits and removing freeway names contrary to WP:ELG, and does not respond to talk page messages or edit summaries telling him to look at the article talk page. Most if not all of what he does is not vandalism, but it does worsen the articles. --NE2 23:57, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I had a similar problem with an IP that was editing Missouri articles and messing up the exit lists. I would suggest using HTML comments to embed a pointer to the ELG page on the user's favorite pages. If they continue editing after that, you know that they're willfully violating the guideline as opposed to merely being ignorant about it. Just an idea.—Scott5114↗ 00:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not that simple - the IP is using one Caltrans source that disagrees with every other source, and refuses to discuss it. And I just found out now that that's what he's been using, because he bothered to name his source in the edit summary. It's basically a content dispute, and I don't know what to do. --NE2 00:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

--NE2 01:37, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Now I'm stuck, because if I reverted again I'd break 3RR. What should I do? --NE2 02:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Ask someone else to revert for you if they don't mind. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 02:52, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

That's kind of poor form. --NE2 02:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Well you asked people for advice. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 03:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but not help with gaming 3RR... --NE2 03:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Well revert again after 24 hours. The rules said that you can't do it within a 24-hour period. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 03:12, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and then it's 24 hours later and I'm back at square one. I'd like a more long-term solution, preferably one that involves getting the IP to communicate. --NE2 03:34, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't game the system. 3RR is not an entitlement. The spirit of the rule is to preent edit wars. If you constantly war just outside the 3RR an admin can still block for it. hbdragon88 (talk) 04:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a good question, actually. How do you deal with users, especially anonymous, that refuse to communicate? —Scott5114↗ 03:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

If you can't BRD, RBI. Will 11:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not vandalism though. --NE2 13:56, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It's going against consensus, which is considered contentious and disruptive. — Edokter • Talk • 18:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

From WP:FAIL:

If I see is publishing shit, maybe by swearing or not making sense, I warn him ...the second time he turns on, I block him.

— Jimmy Wales, May 2006

--Rschen7754 (T C) 00:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, he edits User:Rschen7754 to add a template. After Rschen makes an unrelated edit, I fix the capitalization. He reverts and warns me that I shouldn't edit others' user pages. Yeah...I think that's pretty clear bad faith. --NE2 03:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

"Undid revision 193620895 by NE2 (talk) (Sorry, you are denied to submit your text; please avoid nonsense and lies from this moment". Yeah, you're being trolled. — CharlotteWebb 22:27, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

So what should be done? His latest IP - Special:Contributions/75.47.196.10 - is doing the standard mix of valid and invalid edits. --NE2 23:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Can one block for not AGFing? --Rschen7754 (T C) 04:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

In a word -- no. In two words -- hell no. Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppet parade on Waterboarding, Islamic studies, and Same-sex marriage

User:Starshipcaptain

• diff1
• diff2
• diff3

Please compare with contribution history for User:Wikortreak and User:Weallneedlove. Justin Eiler (talk) 03:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

• Another one, User:Freepsux, also on Waterboarding. User also placed a comment on Talk:Global warming almost identical to one by User:Gimmeablojob. I've reported Freepsux for the username. --Snigbrook 03:59, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

• the username User:Wikortreak (which does not exist) should be User:Wikortreat. --Snigbrook 04:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

• Oops. Thanks, Snigbrook. Justin Eiler (talk) 04:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

• Also the IP 70.18.12.7. --Snigbrook 04:16, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, please see this edit for further clarification of this user's stated motive. Can we get a block? Justin Eiler (talk) 04:42, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

• These wingnuts are hysterical. They consider that torture is fine, but sex between consenting adults of the same sex is something that absolutely must not be tolerated. I have not the words. OK, I ave the words, but I land in hot water whenever I use them around here. Luckily they are all blocked, so no temptation to use some of my colourful block summaries. See you next Tuesday, sockpuppets. Guy (Help!) 14:12, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Effective trolls elicit the sort of reaction above. I know the type--they figure "liberals" are easy to bait, and they would love nothing more than for you attack them in the manner you described.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 14:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

By the way, this fellow "Wikzilla" gets around. He will be attending the NYC meetup, along with his dog, Dufus; if you'd like me to say something to him on your behalf when I meet him, I can.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 14:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Backlog volunteers?

WP:SSP has a hefty backlog. Any volunteers? I could clear it up in a day or two, but I'm not an admin. - Neparis (talk) 04:47, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Non-admins should feel free to make comments on the cases; it can be very helpful to the administrator that reviews the case. In addition, if there's a case where all of the accounts have already been blocked or otherwise dealt with, the case can be closed by an ordinary user--at least, I used to do that before I became an admin. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:56, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:General disclaimer

Any administrators, could you please add lo:ວິກິພີເດຍ:ຂໍ້ປະຕິເສດຄວາມຮັບຜິດຊອບ to Misplaced Pages:General disclaimer. Only the administrators can edit it. Thank you ! --125.24.38.7 (talk) 11:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

 Done Happy‑melon 11:16, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for deletion/Toledano Tradition

There is an AfD, at my request: Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for deletion/Toledano Tradition. The other party to the discussion, Abafied, has in my view engaged in soapboxing, and also engaged in incivility a number of times. I would appreciate it if you would review the page for possible violations of civility and/or soapboxing. Thank you. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 12:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

BQ

The BQ page is being used as a platform to push a derogatory term. I believe the intent on constantly readding the item is to inflame an ongoing problem between editors seen elsewhere for the last month or 2.207.195.244.106 (talk) 14:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

IMHO, this is harassment by a banned user using a throwaway IP account. RFCU filed accordingly. — BQZip01 —  19:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Unjustly banned from editing homeopathy related articles for 7 days

I am respectfully requesting that the 7 day ban on editing homeopathy related articles be immediately lifted. Jehochman imposed this on me, and called my edit summary at Deadly nightshade a "Deceptive edit summary" because I wrote "See talk" (which is used everywhere on Misplaced Pages in edit summaries). I wrote "See talk" because that's exactly what I meant. There was nothing "deceptive" about it. There are several extremely long and extensive discussions about why there should be the simple mention (with no claims) that belladonna is used in manufacturing homeopathic products. We have been admonished: "Avoid making repeated comments about the subject of the article" ]. For me to have again repeated this same point that was made repeatedly by other editors on this very point did not seem right. Please consider lifting this ban. I had refrained from making any comments on that talk page for the very reason that it would seem tenditiously repetitive - which I thought was one of the things we were trying to avoid with the homeopathy probation. There did not appear to be any reasonable reason for me to repeat what had been discussed so extensively and repeatedly. ] I also did not revert, but made changes in accord with what appeared to be the consensus (after very long and extensive discusssion) at the article discussion page: I removed the inappropriate therapeutic claims for homeopathy, and simply added 1 sentence (with reference) stating that the plant was used in the manufacture of homeopathic products. Arion 3x3 (talk) 14:52, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I have advised Jehochman of this thread. LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The user has dragged a red herring across our path. The ban was placed for reverting without attempting any sort of discussion. The use of an edit summary which suggested an attempt at discussion, "See talk", when none was attempted only magnified the problem. We have a problem with tendentious pro- and anti- homeopathy editors who instantly revert any change they don't like. Misplaced Pages is not a battleground. Those who battle at homeopathy will be temporarily banned from editing those articles as allowed by Talk:Homeopathy/Article probation. Arion 3x3 has persistently contributed to the problems surrounding that article, was warned previously, and banned once previously. If we lift the ban, I would suggest placing a 1RR (one revert per day) limitation on this editor for Homeopathy related pages with a requirement that all reverts be discussed on the talk page. Jehochman 20:13, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

1RR limitation is a sensible way to address this issue. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:16, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Agree. 1RR would seem to benefit the encyclopedia (which is our focus, as opposed to "justice"). Cool Hand Luke 21:12, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The actual facts are:

• (1) I have not "persistently contributed to the problems surrounding that article". I have consistently contributed extensively and constructively to the talk page discussions, with changes made only after I discussed them.
• (2) To say that I was "banned once previously" leads to the erroneous assumption that I had done something wrong with regard to edting, when I had actually objected to a personal attack upon my comments (which were called "meaningless drivel and spam").
• (3) As for "Cool Hand"'s comment: yes "justice" - as well as kindness and fairness - should be a factor in Misplaced Pages as well as everywhere else.
• (4) Anyone who cares to can examine the Archives of the Homeopathy talk page since December 7, 2007 (when I first commented) to see the record of the actual comments that I have consistently written. I have repeatedly tried to get everyone focused on improving the article and reaching harmonious consensus. Arion 3x3 (talk) 21:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
• (5) I have not been one of those "editors who instantly revert any change they don't like" so it is baffling why "Jehochman" would bring up the problem we have with other editors when discussing me. Arion 3x3 (talk) 22:52, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a problem with homeopathy-related articles. The probation is an attempt to fix that problem and make these articles editable again. Seven days away from the article is not the worst thing in the world, and I'm inclined to go with Jehochman's judgement on this one for the simple reason that if we expect probation to be a useful tool, then we need to extend a reasonable degree of deference to the judgement of the admins enforcing the probation. If every enforcement is subject to a lengthy I-said-this-no-you-said-that on WP:AN, then the probation is worse than useless, because it will actually add a dimension to the endless bickering surrounding this article. Except in cases where a clear injustice or administrative error has taken place, I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the judgement of the enforcing admin (Jehochman in this case). 1RR would be a reasonable substitute, though again I don't think 7 days away from homeopathy is cruel and unusual punishment here. The mandate from the community appears to be to err on the side of stricter enforcement of policy given the disaster area that this set of articles has become. MastCell  00:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that there is inexcusable and ridiculous bickering at the homeopathy related articles. But that does not mean that I should be the one singled out - when I am not the cause or enabler of the bickering. If anyone objectively wants to evaluate who are the problem editors, just read the archives of the Homeopathy article for the last 3 months. It is very clear to any fair minded person that those who want an anti-homeopathy oriented article are the problem, not those who want a neutral tone article as mandated by Misplaced Pages NPOV guidelines. Arion 3x3 (talk) 02:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I can't help but note that your framing of the situation is one of "anti-homeopathy" vs. "neutral". There are many who wouldn't characterize it that way, including me. Some, I'm sure, would actually consider it more of a "pro-homeopathy" vs. "neutral" (also incorrect). Your statement is a microcosm of the overall issue: please help be part of the solution and better measure your own contributions and biases. — Scientizzle 02:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the ban and replaced it with 1RR limitation (one revert per day per homeopathy-related page) and a requirement to discuss reverts on the talk page. I live by 1RR myself, so this is hardly a cruel or onerous condition. Anybody who reverts you twice without discussion should receive the same remedy, so just let me know if it happens. Additionally, if you know who the problem editors are, please do tell and provide diffs of three to five egregious examples for each editor. Given that information, I will gladly do whatever I can to make your editing more pleasant. Jehochman 02:28, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Arion 3x3's edit history shows that he has never had a problem with multiple reverts on any homeopathy-related article (or any other article as far as I can tell). So what is the point of 1RR in this instance? Why not apply a sanction that is appropriate to the issue at hand? Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

What do you suggest? Jehochman 18:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I thought the original 7-day recess was appropriate. Raymond Arritt (talk) 18:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

They can execute a small, finite number of POV pushes before somebody implements a stronger restriction. Patience. Jehochman 18:11, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll believe that when it happens. You've been preaching "patience" for weeks now, and the situation with those articles is worse than it ever was. Teaching people that they can get their sanctions lifted if they complain loudly enough doesn't help solve the problem. Raymond Arritt (talk) 18:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Editprotected

Having spent a happy afternoon clearing Category:Misplaced Pages protected edit requests, I would like to propose a redesign of {{editprotected}}. See the proposal and discussion on the template talk page. Happy‑melon 17:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Terrence Wrist

The concept that someone as their very first recorded edit on WP would correctly use the template for, and add the edit text "Listing for AFD" using the abbreviation, is completely unbelievable, and noting that the account was created on 19 November - now literally only just outside the three-month window for certain checks to be made - is beyond belief and makes them clearly a sockpuppet. As I've no idea who of I can't list them on the sockpuppet page but this, along with the earlier edit from 195.189.142.180 which is clearly unlike the previous edits from that IP (and suggest that IP may be compromised (OP/TOR?) in some way) give a strong indication of a personal attack account / activity. Others may care to investigate further as, obviously, I am somewhat curtailed in my actions regarding that article! (I have, however, added Talk:Alison_Wheeler#Disclaimer) --AlisonW (talk) 22:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Please note that WP:AGF is a required policy that applies to all users, including this Terrence one. Users are entitled to use alternate accounts so long as they violate no policies. Under what policy basis would further investigation be warranted, let alone the Checkuser you are implying here? What problems are there with 195.189.142.180 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)'s contributions? It should be noted that AlisonW is the subject/same person as Alison Wheeler which was nominated for AFD by the user she is reporting here: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Alison Wheeler (2nd nomination). Lawrence § t/e 22:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

For information: you'll see that this is not "AlisonW's bio of Alison Wheeler", because AlisonW quite clearly sets out her relationship to the article on her user page. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 22:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

User:AlisonW = Alison Wheeler which is not a secret and common knowledge. That's what I mean by it being her "bio". Clarified the language. It just seemed a bit questionable for the BLP subject to be reporting the user that nominated their own article for deletion with implications of foul play. Lawrence § t/e 22:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

What has Terrence Wrist done wrong? How is this an attack account -- other than nominating the Alison Wheeler article for deletion (after an month-long discussion of notability problems by other editors)? As for the AfD, so far 4 other editors have recommended deleting the article.--A. B. 23:56, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

While still assuming good faith (and humour), I'd say the user name is borderline acceptable as well (hint: Terrence is usually shortened to "Terry"). Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 13:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The Chaser did a stunt at an airport with that name. Like User:Michael Hunt, I doubt it's legitimate and considering the knowledge I would not object to a block as an abusive sockpuppet. 13:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by James086 (talk • contribs)

Sometimes people just have unfortunate names. Internet people finder results, just for the US: Mo Lester (4), Mike Hunt (408), Hugh Jass (5), Robin Banks (43), Mary Christmas (16), etc. Some of those might just be people with too much time on their hands, but some pretty clearly aren't (like football player Mike Hunt, baseball player Dick Pole, and NASCAR driver Dick Trickle). -Hit bull, win steak 16:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

User:LakeOswego

This user seems upset that the result of a recent AfD has gone against him, and has now recreated the page -- complete with multi-coloured warning signs telling people not to delete the page, and how unfair it all is -- in mainspace and on his user page. I've deleted the recreation in mainspace; what's the policy on deleting material on a userpage? If it's the recreation of an AfD-deleted article, does anything special need to happen? Policy guidance would be appreciated. Accounting4Taste:talk 23:15, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Dont you think it is not fair to delete an article while most of the people voted to KEED the Article,

I am talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/G._Edward_Griffin_%282nd_nomination%29

Please check it, Thank you

I don't appriciate the spamming from User:LakeOswego using my e-mail function. — Save_Us † 23:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Given the number of WP:SPAs on that AfD, a checkuser for abusive sockpuppetry may be in order... — Scientizzle 23:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

• LakeOswego (talk · contribs)
• Ourmangwynn (talk · contribs)
• 74.128.181.67 (talk · contribs)
• Epictatus (talk · contribs)
• 65.89.98.17 (talk · contribs)
• 216.126.104.68 (talk · contribs)
• Cvsvideo (talk · contribs)
• 189.164.156.182 (talk · contribs)
• Dicktater (talk · contribs)
• Mcws (talk · contribs)
• Duanecwilson (talk · contribs)
• Jamesclark830 (talk · contribs)
• Rosco999 (talk · contribs)
• Jimveda (talk · contribs)
• FeelFreeToBe (talk · contribs)

I'll eat my hat if there's not a significant IP address overlap here... — Scientizzle 00:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed there's a related and resolved ANI thread about this. The pages in question have been salted. — Scientizzle 00:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/LakeOswego — Scientizzle 02:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

...and now Misplaced Pages:DRV#G._Edward_Griffin, with more apparent socks. — Scientizzle 07:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Meatpuppetry. See , and a Google search, lots of weird stuff pops up here, but most obvious is this (scroll down a bit). " My listing in Misplaced Pages is being considered for deletion because some readers have labeled me a conspiracy theorist and a promoter of quack cancer cures. These people undoubtedly are well intentioned but suffering from a severe case of knowledge deficiency. If you are inclined, please go to the Misplaced Pages web site and enter a statement of support. Hopefully, there will be enough of these to offset the voices of ignorance. Here's how: (1) go to http://en.wikipedia.org/G._Edward_Griffin; (2) click on Discussion; (3) set up a user name and password; (4) log in and submit your statement. Thank you." LegitimateSock (talk) 19:36, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Please cancel an edit violating The 3RR

1. Some days ago, an editor made this edit.
2. On 23 February, at 5:15, the same editor has made his first revert.
3. On the same day, at 22:23, the same editor made his second revert.
4. On that very day, at 22:57, the same editor made his third revert.
5. On the same day, at 23:26, the same editor made his fourth revert.

Please cancel his fourth revert - which violates 3RR. No need to warn him, because I'm sure it was not done on purpose! He's an honest person who is absolutely aware to the 3RR and has always obeyed the 3RR. Eliko (talk) 00:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

At this point, the article is fully protected for edit warring. The protection policy indicates that administrators should not edit such pages except to remove content which clearly violates content policies, such as obvious vandalism or copyright violations, to make changes unrelated to the dispute, or to make changes for which there is clear consensus on the discussion page. I don't see such clear consensus; violations of the 3RR are explicitly excluded from the definition of vandalism, and there's evidently no copyright violation, so I don't see how an administrator can comply with your request. --Moonriddengirl 13:26, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Requesting review of indef block executed without warning

• Abuse truth (talk · contribs)
• User talk:Abuse truth#Blocked

I'm posting this here to request review by uninvolved administrators of an indef block executed without warning to the user that such an extreme action might suddenly occur.

I'm not directly involved with the current incident, though I've edited the pages and have seen the involved editors interacting over time. I'm not surprised that something flared up, but when I saw that it went directly to indef block, that was a big surprise, and I don't believe it's a fair result.

The indef block was executed during this thread on AN/I. When I saw the incident report and the indef block, I posted a request for review of the block, but so far, the only response to my request for review has been from users previously involved with the content dispute.

Considering that this is an indef block, not just a day or a week, and that it was done without hearing or process, I request that the situation be reviewed.

I request the block be lifted because it's an unfair excessive punishment; it was executed without formal warning or evidence process of any kind; and, the editor has clearly promised to learn and change in his/her unblock request (exactly the right response to this challenge for the editor).

Discussion may be ongoing at the AN/I thread, though I've not seen any responses there for a while, which is why I'm adding this notice here.

I've no vested interest in this, other than a strong interest in fair transparent process for the community. Dispute resolution process was not followed, and an editor who has done a lot of work is now indef blocked without a fair hearing.

Thank you for your consideration. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 02:08, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to point out that blocks are not "punishment," they are measures meant to protect the 'pedia from farther harm. Also, blocks can be instituted without formal warning (although there was a warning on the talk page to the AN/I thread). Just wanted to point those two things out. – Gonzo fan2007 02:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware that blocks are not "punishment". I used that word in this case because to a person who is blocked suddenly without warning, that's how it appears, and, a short initial block would have gotten the user's attention, whereas an indef block is out of proportion and indeed does seem punitive in this case. The user has promised to learn and change, and has entered comments indicating understanding of the problem. That means that the block is no longer needed to prevent disruption.

Regarding the warning link to the AN/I thread, that was posted only moments before the indef block was executed, not allowing any time for the user to respond. While process may not be "required" for an indef block, my comment is about fairness, not about rules. An indef block is the most severe action possible against a user. This user is a good-faith editor who was a bit off-track; there was no extreme disruption to warrant extreme action. S/he has promised to learn and improve, therefore the block has served its purpose can now be lifted. If the promise is not kept, that can be addressed at that time as needed. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 05:02, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

• This is already being discussed on ANI. Why do we need a second thread? Abuse Truth was blocked to prevent disruption, and still at this time shows absolutely no sign of understanding why, which is a great reason not ot unblock yet. Guy (Help!) 08:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

• I posted this note only because the thread on AN/I was not receiving any comments by uninvolved editors, and that page is archived quickly. This post was simply to request attention for the AN/I thread.

If you'd be willing to shorten the block to a day or two instead of indef blocking, then the whole thread would no longer be needed. The user has promised to learn and take a new approach. Why not give him/her a chance to make good on that promise? This is not like other major disruptions recently that have needed that kind of action. This user is a sincere editor who has done a lot of work for the project and maybe made some mistakes, but s/he is not a trouble-maker and does not deserve to be tossed off the boat without a second thought. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 09:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I think your definition of uninvolved might be agreeing with you. Actually I am uninvolved, I blocked the account because Moreschi couldn't. I've told Moreschi that he's free to set an expiry as soon as he thinks the potential for disruption is removed. What we don't need is yet more crusaders for WP:TRUTH wasting the community's time. It's also disingenuous to say there was no warning: numerous attempts were made to get the editor to alter his behaviour. Guy (Help!) 11:51, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

No, I understand "uninvolved". When you imposed the block, you were uninvolved at that time. But now, with regard to a review of the block, you have become involved as the blocking administrator. That's what I meant by asking for uninvolved editors to review the situation. This is not meant as a complaint about you.

Your statement that what I wrote was "disingenuous", is an implication that I was lying ("lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity") and is inappropriate. You're welcome to disagree with me, but that doesn't mean I wasn't sincere about what I wrote, based on what I had observed.

I appreciate that you indicated you don't mind if Moreschi shortens the duration. Since the user has shown willingness to cooperate, there is no need for the extended block and I hope that you or some other administrator gives the user a chance to show improved collaboration methods. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 19:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It looks to me at this point that the world divides into people who agree with you and people who are wrong. Pardon me for not wanting to go down that route yet again. The thread on ANI is sufficient, there was no need to open another one just because you weren't getting the answer you wanted, and editors in that other thread have expressed concerns (which I share) that the user seems completely unable to even comprehend what the problem is, let alone work to fix it. Guy (Help!) 10:19, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Troubled editor

This is a pretty humdrum edit; nothing to get excited over. But could I suggest that one or two people take a look at its author's contributions history and/or talk page, and also user page? (The user page will perhaps explain my somewhat indirect approach here.) Perhaps the author would benefit from some friendly guidance (not something I'm particularly good at). -- Hoary (talk) 03:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any major problem, certainly not one requiring admin intervention; she may well have problems focussing on one article for an extended time, but have you considered mentioning this to her adopter? I'd advocate some understanding here. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 03:53, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I assume that the "adopter" already knows this and also am not overly eager to leave any message on the "adopter"'s talk page. And yes of course I am AGF. I am also taking seriously what the person has written. -- Hoary (talk) 06:27, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Trivia POV pusher

I bring to your attention User:WillOakland, who has, in my opinion, a single-minded and unconstructive approach to trivia sections. OK, they're not ideal, but they are not unsalvageable. He started by deleting, without consensus, large amounts of admittedly irrelevant information, as , and having been challenged on this, deleted, without reply or negotiation, an argument . I have plenty of other stuff to do without dealing with a POV-pusher who is not in the business of negotiating except in the Bruce Willis sense. He has been warned also for breach of WP:3RR, and he is currently arguing the toss with user:Ward3001 about this, and I suggest at best he could do with advice, and at worst, we can do without him. Meanwhile, it's become the morning, yet again, and sleep beckons, although I doubt it will be easy. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 04:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I was warned previously, and since then I've mainly been going around tagging trivia sections. But apparently there is no limit to some people's determination to keep cruft around. BTW, I didn't violate 3RR. WillOakland (talk) 05:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, there's cruft, and there's potentially encyclopedic material. Takes time to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Baby/bathwater, bathwater/baby. Let's not lose the value under pressure, and particularly not label modern literature as trivia. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 05:20, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

If you want you can read the exchange Rod and I had that led to this report over nothing more than tagging a trivia section. When I pointed out the absurdity of his position and where it would lead, he came back with an even more preposterous claim that by emphasizing its absurdity I was defending it. And then he insulted me, so I removed his comments. WillOakland (talk) 05:25, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I can see little or nothing of obvious value in what WillOakland removed. Some of it may have potential value; if so, it's for those who think it's valuable to reinforce it by showing its significance. WillOakland's removal of the whole lot looks like a good thing to me.

However, a good thing to do when removing a wodge of trivia is to plonk it in the talk page. See for example my own dump of Omega-cruft here. Notice how it led to strong disagreement but how that in turn led to milder disagreement.

While I don't see material of value in what WillOakland removed, I also don't see any insult in what Rodhullandemu wrote. And even if he'd written an insult this would have been no reason for his adversary to remove a whole chunk of discussion. -- Hoary (talk) 06:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

That's one of the big problems in situations like this: "adversary". We are supposed to be a cooperative group of editors, achieving consensus before deleting (or, by the same token, adding) large amounts of material. My recent experiences with Progressive rock are another example of unilateralism & lack of communication, and frankly it's getting tiring trying to explain to these people that there are no one-man bands on Misplaced Pages. I don't want to do it particularly but I'll just have to rack up the {{subst:uw-delete}} warnings & then shove it all on WP:AIV. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 13:48, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, especially if the trivia is unsourced and out of context-(Cunt plays a pivotal role in the Ian McEwan novel Atonement???) While I echo Hoary's view that it is bit more productive to move the info to the talk page and encourage discussion and work to incorporate/source the truly worthwhile info, I don't think there should be a hindrance to editors BOLDLY working to improve the encyclopedia. If the information in question fell under any other topic other than "Trivia" (such as someone adding unsourced material about what notable Victoria Cross winners did to display their awards or an unsource listing of notable restaurants in Canberra), I don't think there would have been any controversy if an editor removed the unsourced and out of place of material from those articles. Why is it suddenly an issue because it is labeled as "trivia" or "pop culture"? Any content in those section should follow the same WP:V, WP:CITE, WP:NOT and WP:NOR policies as everything else. Agne/ 14:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

WillOakland was also removing sourced and relevant content, repeatedly. And frankly, a lot of items on wikipedia are unsourced and the bar has changed since some editors correctly thought they should use a trivia section. Nowadays I certainly wouldn't start one knowing that deletionists will target it. Clean-up is good and can improve articles but hacking away valid and constructive content seems to fly in the face of consensus building. Benjiboi 19:41, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Page Semi-protected

Since we're apparently starring in a very special episode of "Vandalize ANI", I've semi-protected the page until the IP's get tired and go home. SirFozzie (talk) 04:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't hold yer breath; this has been going on all week. HalfShadow (talk) 05:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Should we create an unprotected sub-page (like Articles for Creation) for IPs with genuine concerns, during this semi-protection? MBisanz 06:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

That's probably a very good idea. Tony Fox (arf!) 06:43, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Done at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Non-autoconfirmed posts, feel free to pretty up the formatting at that page. MBisanz 06:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Admin coaching project

User:Fang Aili has been the coordinator of the Misplaced Pages:Admin coaching program for some time. Given that her recent editing has been at an intermittment pace, and that one of our most active coaches (who maintained lists, etc) has moved on, I asked her if I could help out on maintaining the program . But she hasn't responded. Would anyone object to me becoming a co-coordinator with her to merge the Misplaced Pages:Admin_coaching/Volunteers & Misplaced Pages:Admin_coaching/Status pages and do a reconfirmation of participant interest drive? MBisanz 06:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:BOLD. Viridae 07:51, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

BOLDness in progress. MBisanz 09:02, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Good move. I've noticed that too. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:14, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Agreed - that's a good project that could use some coordination. UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 15:11, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't object. Rudget. 15:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Pure Testing

After the user's original account has been blocked due to an inappropriate username and for using Misplaced Pages to promote his company, I advised him to register a new account and re-create the article as a draft in user space. He did so; it can be found here: User:Xevolutionwiki/draft. Personally, I don't believe the company is notable enough to have an article on Misplaced Pages, but I am looking for others' opinions. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 12:21, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Some claims are certainly presented, I'm not sure how notable they are. It's alright as long as it stays in userspace, for certain - if you still don't think it's suitable if/when he moves it to mainspace, then PROD or AfD it. Happy‑melon 12:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

• Vanispamcruftisement, I'm afraid. Guy (Help!) 12:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

If it's WP:SPAM (and I haven't read closely enough to say it is), it can be speedied even in user-space. Just fyi. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 14:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Specialisation

I just bought a second-hand copy of Britannica. Volume 19 is titled Excretion Geometry. Now that's what I call specialisation! Guy (Help!) 12:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

No idea how is this relevant, but it's certainly brightened up my day! :D Happy‑melon 12:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Presumably you'll take the time to properly digest it - if not you may have trouble later working it out. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Geometry's funny that way. The more you work on it, the more it comes out right in the end. UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 15:08, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

takes a deep breath Can't you work that stuff out with a pencil and paper?--Alf 15:17, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the paper would have to come AFTER, according to how I was taught. Gladys J Cortez 21:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Shit a brick!? --Stephen 22:38, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Big delete and WP:AN

I was just browsing the log for this page, and noticed that this page has been deleted several times before to purge revisions. With the advent of the BigDelete limit (and given that this page has way over 5,000 revisions) it will not be possible for admins to remove personal information in this manner again. Are we assuming that personal information will in future just be oversighted? If not, it would make sense for us to move the history of this page to something like Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/History Archive1 and start a new page with fresh history. Happy‑melon 12:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as a fairly large percentage of the viewers of this page have sysop rights and can see deleted material, if someone really needs information to vanish then, yes, oversight is the route to go. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

As long as it's within the oversight policy. There's been some discussion on foundation-l about the impact of not being able to do a poor-man's oversight will affect the usage of oversight. As far as I can tell, consensus says oversight hasn't changed, so minor things will have to just stay in page histories, it seems. ^demon 15:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

In my experience, blanking the offending content (using an innocuous – dare I say misleading? – edit summary to avoid attracting attention) followed by a quick request for oversight has worked delightfully quickly. (Be sure to include links to the first and last revisions containing the offensive material, or a diff between them.) If something is bad enough to require deletion from AN/I, it almost certainly ought to be oversighted anyway. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

user:The Devil's Advocate

The Devil's Advocate (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is currently making waves about the deletion of G. Edward Griffin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), see also Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2008 February 23#G. Edward Griffin. I looked at his talk page; seems that this user has attracted a quite remarkable degree of controversy despite fewer than 500 edits in the 7 months he's been with us. How long before we need to consider LARTing this one? Guy (Help!) 17:07, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/LakeOswego and consider adding them to the case. Jehochman 17:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo

This article is experiencing lots of edit warring recently. It has been put on probation before but since I've edited it a couple of times recently, I will not take any actions myself. And I am tired of dealing with the topic for some time. Please someone have a look. Thanks. --Tone 17:26, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Editprotected request to ArbCom evidence page

I know very little about the procedures and byelaws surrounding the Arbitration Committee and its Projectspace, so I have no idea whether this request should go ahead or not. Can someone who knows more about the ArbCom than I do work out what's supposed to happen? Happy‑melon 17:34, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Only clerks or arbitrators should edit the page until the dispute is resolved—whatever that means. See Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland/Evidence#STOP. Cool Hand Luke 17:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Generaly best to stay away from that area for now the further the better.Geni 01:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Archiving Archtransit

Do you think we can be rid of the Archtransit thread yet? It's taking up a quarter of the ToC, a third of the page, and over 100kB of space, and it seems fairly static. I'd have posted this there but that would have reset the 48-hour counter for MiszaBot. Happy‑melon 18:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like the fat lady has sung, so I've no objection. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 18:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

No objection. Anyone who comes up with any genuinely new information about the situation can start a new thread with a link to the old one. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:43, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. And by damn if it doesn't halve the page loading time :D Happy‑melon 19:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

User:LessHeard vanU Admin recall

The following discussion is an archived report. Please do not modify it. Subsequent reports should be made in a new section.

Complainant has been directed to dispute resolution, particularly user conduct RFCs. Nothing subject to administrative action is alleged. GRBerry 05:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

LessHeard responded to this notice, http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Malamockq.2C_User:Asams10.2C_and_Deletion_of_comments_on_discussion_board.

which resulted in me being unfairly banned for 31 hours. Administrator User:William M. Connolley also felt that I was unfairly banned. Another administrator, User talk:Stephan Schulz was aware of the incident, although he has been unable to comment regarding my ban, he is aware of the circumstances of the incident itself, and would be able to provide opinions regarding whether my banning was fair or not.

Regardless, LessHeard did not properly investigate the matter, and quickly jumped to conclusions before identifying all factors in this incident. Furthermore, he ignored statements made by William which indicated that I was unfairly banned, http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:LessHeard_vanU#User:Malamockq and here http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3AMalamockq&diff=193523840&oldid=193493989 To which, LessHeard ignored.

I have looked over other comments on his talk page, and found other complaints against him, http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:LessHeard_vanU#Warning http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:LessHeard_vanU#Your_block_and_more

I do not feel that jumping to conclusions before properly investigating the matter is an appropriate trait an administrator should have. I am opening discussion that would hopefully lead to his recall as an admin. Malamockq (talk) 19:48, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

This admin is not open to recall, you'll have to go through WP:RFC and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration instead. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 19:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) User:LessHeard vanU is not in the "administrators open to recall" category, which is voluntary. If you believe there is a pattern of misuse of administrator tools here, you may file an admin-conduct request for comment, but you would need to show that at least one other user in addition to yourself has tried to resolve the issue. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I see, thank you. I was directed to come here and the pages you linked to. I just didn't know which to do first. Malamockq (talk) 20:17, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, normally this page (or WP:ANI, which is closely related) would be a fine place to discuss a disputed block. But generally, for better or worse, it is hard to get too many people interested once the block has already expired by time. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It's kinda hard to talk about a disputed block when you're.... you know. Blocked. I couldn't edit anywhere other than my talk page. In any case, I was indeed blocked unfairly for 31 hours, and I don't feel LeeHeard is appropriate as an administrator. Malamockq (talk) 20:29, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

For future reference (though I hope you won't need it): Misplaced Pages:Appealing a block. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

• I suggested that the editor make a complaint here, since I am not in the recall category, to see if there was grounds for opening a RfC. As such I am willing for this to be regarded as a complaint in both my handling of this matter and as my general competence in using the sysop bits.This is the original complaint, and responses. It then carries over to my and the editors talkpages. Thanks. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:34, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
• Nothing to appeal, the block's already expired. Nothing to do, the block was discussed and had expired before the discussion reached an end. Any evidence that this is a pattern of behaviour? Guy (Help!) 21:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Please allow me torespectfully disagree. I have added a talk thread here below and out of sheer curiosity decided to look into this thread as well. I looked into block log of LessHeard vanU (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) and my first impression is that indeed this admin uses his rights somewhat more liberally than expected. For example,
    • 22:39, 11 February 2008 LessHeard vanU (Talk | contribs) blocked "Oratorymoderator (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 3 hours ‎ (Disruption)

  This user is doinng absolutely nothing bad (at least for a newcomer). He adds an ext link into a list of absolutely similar ext links. Rather then being welcomely talked to, he was pounded with 10-pound hammer by two experienced wikipedians. Please someone more reputable than me explain to LessHeard that this is an improper attitude. Mukadderat (talk) 21:26, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

  • That's not the issue I'm bringing actually. I want LessHeard_van to step down or be removed from adminship for his handling of the incident I linked above, which led to me being unfairly banned for 31 hours. Malamockq (talk) 21:17, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

One misplaced 31-hour block will not get an admin defrocked. AC wouldn't even think of considering a single block unless it was indefinite, based on purely personal reasons. Will 21:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Possibly. But I want to call attention to this admin. Mukadderat has already stated that he has noticed more mishandling of admin powers by this admin. Malamockq (talk) 21:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Then you want WP:RFC. No admin action is required, I think, and the general view is that you have not brought us anything actionable at this point. Guy (Help!) 22:04, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It is not "one" misplaced block. I have shown two misplaced blocks in short period of time. Here is a third example:

22:07, 10 February 2008 LessHeard vanU (Talk | contribs) blocked "Twicemost (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Threat of violence toward other editor)

This is a relatively new and unfrequent but positive contributor. I see no previous warnings in their talk page that warants and immediate indefinite block. While it is a matter of ArbCom to decide whether the admin mst be "defrocked" or not, but instead of defending him I would find that the admin must be urged to reconsider his attitude to legthearted blocking. Mukadderat (talk) 02:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

A small comment on the merits: this edit most certainly deserved an immediate block! What, exactly, makes this a "misplaced" block? — Coren  05:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

On the side note, I find it bad practice by many admins I se in the block log to make harsh blcoks without leaving detailed explanations an the offender's talk pages and conditions of unblocking. In the third example of user Twicemost I see an overall positive contributr unnecessarily humiliated and greatly discouraged. Admiins must rememer that wikipedia is the only safe haven in the rage sweeping internet and newcomers don't always know that they have to watch their tongue here or else. I find immediate hard punishment without previous warnings totally inacceptable. Mukadderat (talk) 02:43, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

It's usual to leave a template explaining the length of, and reasons for blocking, as well as avenues of appeal. Putting the "unblock" template underneath normally elicits a fairly quick response. Conditions of unblocking are normally left to the admin who considers such appeals. If you think here is a "safe haven", could I ask that you take a look around a little? And in some cases, "immediate hard punishment without warning" is allowed by policy, and that blocking is meant to protect the encyclopedia, not to punish. There is nothing more than can be achieved here, and it's already been pointed out above that the next step should be a request for comment on the actions of the admin in question. Unless any other admin feels there's more to be said here, I suggest this forum is no longer relevant to any issues there may be. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, you are not reading carefully what I wrote. Regardless what is "usual", I reported my observations. Second, yes it is safe haven, because yes there are policies which enforce this. Please stop finding excuses for inexcusable behavior. "immediate hard punishment without warning" is OK as long as it is not so immediate so to look as "jumping to conclusions" and does not leave a person as hit by truck. People make mistakes. Admins make mistakes. As a secondary worrying sign I see the admin in quetion neither apologizes nor explains themselves. Mukadderat (talk) 03:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree the first comment. Less blocked me immediately without even telling me what I was blocked for. I had to guess what I was being blocked for, and check his edit history on my own to even find the place where I was reported to. He never inquired to my role in the matter, and jumped to conclusions by making bad faith assumptions on me. Mukadderat has cited 2 or 3 examples where Less has acted inappropriately as an admin. With my incident that makes 4. But if it is indeed true that nothing can be done here, I will try take this case to RFC. Malamockq (talk) 02:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archived report. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

User NuclearVacuum

While NuclearVacuum (talk · contribs) does not create any disturbance, it seems he turned wikipedia space into his personal playground / personal webpage creating various funny stuff, such as United People's Darughas of Antarctica. I had a lots of laugh reading all this, but this is not what wikipedia for, May someone respectable advise Nuke to move their stuff to uncyclopedia or somewhere else? Mukadderat (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any harm in this; if he can create pages with this level of skill, he's an asset to the project and I don't think he's breaking any policies. What might be more of an issue is that these pages might be mirrored elsewhere, as User pages sometimes are, and the impression is gained that these are genuine WP articles. An appropriate disclaimer at the top of each such page might be useful, and I'll suggest this to him/er. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 23:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not breaking any rules, I'm making some fun for myself. It is all in reason with Misplaced Pages. For example: I didn't make a true article for my Antarctica idea (United Darughas: it does not exist), typing information and claiming them to be 100% true. I simply made subdivisions off my userpage and relink it to my userpage. All the information I write ether is made up or real. I write the made up stuff (like my stories and ideas) on my userpage (not tampering with real articles), while the other real stuff (like the fact that I am a vorarephile), I only write the facts (all with website agreement. And if I were to write something wrong, I would fix it as soon as I could. Please don't tell me that I am doing something wrong. — NuclearVacuum (talk) 00:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Does this extensive userspace benefit Misplaced Pages's goals in some way? I'm not going to go out and say it's all bad, but are you sure you're here for the right reasons if most of your work is going into creating a personal garden? Yes, some people have extensive userspaces, but those people tend to be very active on the project (as WP:USER mentions, such things are more likely to be accepted or overlooked if people dedicate a lot of time and effort to more productive endeavors on the project). MfD may be the way to go, here, if reasonable discussion can't afford some sort of compromise. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I am active on Misplaced Pages. I'm just going at a slow style, for I'm not used to writing on Wikipeda. These articles help me learn the code and to also find facts better. So in a way, it is beneficial. — NuclearVacuum 00:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

• and I for one, will consult User:NuclearVacuum if I ever get stuck with a complicated formatting problem; he's already made some good contributions to article space, and I hope now his test pages are up and running, his expertise will be welcomed throughout the project. If there was a Category:Lousily formatted tables, he'd walk through it. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

It is undeniable Nuclear is very smart person and can find answer to every question. Still, this does not change the fact that these pages are personal fun and constitute 80-98% of Nucear's contribution to wikipedia, both by number of edits and by amount of text contributed. This is an unnecessary burden on wikipedia server an cannot be encouraged. One my learn formatting while improving existing articles. Mukadderat (talk) 02:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, he's certainly fully aware of the issues now. Personally, I would WP:AGF and see if the balance of his contributions changes in the short to mid-term. If not, then, MFD them. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the page has a serious BLP problem when it shows images of real living politicians with incorrect parties (and made up names). For example an image of Egypt's current president Hosni Mubarak with a false claim of being in Workers' Party and having the title "Führer". I know he's listed with a false name, it's in user space, and it's not meant to be taken seriously, but I still think it's a real problem. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:BLP applies to any page on Misplaced Pages, and therefore, that one, at least, has to go, and it's probably not the only one. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 03:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I have left a note - either the images need to be swapped or the word "Fuhrer" needs to be changed. As it's his own work (WP:OWN not applying to userspace of course), I haven't just changed it - I'll leave NuclearVacuum to change it to whatever he sees fit. Neıl ☎ 14:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Teamvikaza

This user seems to be advertising for a social networking site Vikaza (this article might be deleted per CSD G11). His user page shows instructions on how to install the client for Vikaza, and we can clearly see that his user name advertises Vikaza. I read that user names that advertise things will not be tolerated. Would this count, and if so what should we do with him? _contribsSTYROFOAM☭1994 01:32, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Update: The article Vikaza was deleted per CSD A7. _contribsSTYROFOAM☭1994 01:33, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

User reapeared as Vikaza (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and hasbeen blocked accordingly--Hu12 (talk) 07:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Grant.alpaugh

diff

This user is keep clearing User:Godgiven Love's userpage and is insisting that he actions are justifyed because he claims that Godgiven is making too many userpace edits. While I would like GodGiven to make more mainspace edits, it does not justify Grant's clearing of his userpage. I am just requesting 3rd party comment on the matter. -- penubag  (talk) 02:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed for more than a week, with ample help from myself and others in assisting Godgiven in being a more productive editor. Unfortunately, by their own admission at the top of their user talk page (as well as even a cursory review of their edits), this user is unable to effectively communicate in any language, which makes their productive involvement in editing this encyclopedia doubtful at best. I have no problem with a user trying to ease their way into this community, but before you go making thousands of edits to user pages and user talk pages, I don't think it's too much to ask that one edit be made to the actual encyclopedia that isn't immediately reverted because of its unproductive nature. I don't want to keep them from using Misplaced Pages as a resource, or anything like that, but isn't the whole purpose behind user pages and user talk pages to facilitate collaborations on the encyclopedia? No productive collaboration seems to eliminate the need for userspace. Grant.alpaugh (talk) 02:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Again, I'd just like to emphasize that there have been zero productive edits from Godgiven. They made a gibberish edit to the Talk:Cloverfield (creature) page and I wanted to see if they would maybe be better served by moving to another language's Misplaced Pages. After looking at their contributions, however, it became clear that there was no effort of their part to become a productive editor and 99%+ of their efforts were dedicated to userspace edits. After trying to help for a week, I got nowhere with Godgiven, and decided to take action as per WP:NOT and WP:UP. I'm really not trying to "bite the newbies" or anything, I just would prefer that this website's resources be put to more productive use. Grant.alpaugh (talk) 02:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

So bring the issue to WP:ANI; bring the user page to WP:MFD. Blanking user pages is not the correct course of action. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

There is more discussion about this topic on User talk:Grant.alpaugh. _contribsSTYROFOAM☭1994 02:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Betacommand proposing changes to deletion processes

Please see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Betacommand#Random Proposal. Betacommand has proposed a change to the image deletion process. Neither that subpage, nor AN, nor ANI are appropriate venues for this. Contributing to Misplaced Pages:Non-free content criteria compliance (which I created) could be a more suitable alternative, but although Betacommand is aware of this proposal I have created, he has not commented on it, and has proposed this instead (with language similar to that I used in an earlier thread that he didn't contribute to). Could we have more feedback please? Carcharoth (talk) 11:05, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Protecting the signpost

Is there any good way to automatically protect the current signpost, so that the protection gets transfered to the new one when it comes out? That page is highly visible. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:31, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Cascading protection from a page like Misplaced Pages:Signpost/Protection would work, but you'd have to be careful to substitute any templates you don't want protected. Of course, most of the templates the signpost uses ({{tlx}} etc) are protected anyway. Happy‑melon 15:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is a good idea, the articles are often tweaked by the readers (typos and all), and if I recall, cascading protection does not work on semi protected articles. Anyway you should probably ask directly the flkos at WP:SIGNPOST what they think :) -- lucasbfr 17:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:JzG/Troll-B-Gon

A contentious and heated MFD (alert: opinion) with some very weak keep reasons (/opinion) was just closed as keep with no explanation by a recently unblocked () non-admin (User:Zenwhat) . As I participated and could do without the drama, I won't undo the non-admin close, but it may warrant someone else taking a look at whether this close should be undone, and save a trip to DRV. Neıl ☎ 15:02, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

One could make a strong argument that bringing the "contentious and heated MFD" itself was an unnecessary source of drama, but whatever. Raymond Arritt (talk) 15:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted the close. Another admin can come in and close it properly. Jehochman 15:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Apologies, missed your reversion, and reverted it again. No harm done. Black Kite 15:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you both. Neıl ☎ 15:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I have closed it as NO CONSENSUS, because there were good arguments on both sides. Those who have disputes with Guy are encouraged to resolve them. At some point people on all sides need to bury the hatchet. Jehochman 15:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

And some have made it clear where they want that hatchet to be buried. Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:00, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

OMG using the dispute resolution process! Mike R (talk) 16:05, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The challenge with another RFC on Guy is that it's been tried before and hasn't resulted in anything good. It might be better to attempt informal mediation. We really need to respect each other and understand that people have different styles. Jehochman 16:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Your last sentence is spot on. Guy's approach can seem harsh, but on the other hand if all admins were like some that I could but won't name (no, not you Jonathan) we'd soon be overrun with sockpuppets and agenda-driven SPAs. Misplaced Pages benefits from a diverse ecosystem of admins. Raymond Arritt (talk) 21:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree with your closure. There were too many people with strong opinions on each side to have closed it either way. нмŵוτнτ 16:02, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

No consensus is reasonable. I don't like it personally (as I want that page gone), but I can't argue with it. Marked as resolved. Neıl ☎ 16:19, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Try talking to Guy nicely, or find somebody he respects and talk to them. Jehochman 16:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

• As an aside, I don't care either way and deliberately didn't watchlist it. I think the MfD is an example of sarchasm, being the gulf between the person making a wise-ass remark and the person receiving it. Honestly, if anyone I know and respect had asked me nicely, privately, I would probably have simply deleted it myself, it was only ever a joke anyway. Like User:JzG/Uninformed wingnut drivel, which I'm sure will one day be nuked as offensive to drivelling wingnuts. Aside: stop putting the bloody humour tag on it, people! Anyway, I am in Cannes and now off to find a nice restaurant. Salut, mes braves! Guy (Help!) 16:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

• How about you delete the page as a gesture towards those who disagree with you? Jehochman 16:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

• I always end up in trouble when I make gestures at people who disagree with me. Guy (Help!) 23:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Requesting review of block on Zsero

Hi all, I am requesting that an uninvolved admin review the block of User:Zsero (block log). To quickly summerize: Zsero was blocked 31 hours for edit warring: on User talk:Ashleylmack by Slakr following a 3rr report by Hu12. This decision was reviewed previously by Auburnpilot, but since then, user Ashleylmack has blanked their own talk page, rendering the issue moot. So at the time of this posting, the block has certainly become punitive rather than preventative. For more background, see the archived ANI thread where this issue was initially brought up (archived discussion link). Thanks, R. Baley (talk) 18:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I would like to add that Zsero has been editing wikipedia with this account since 2004 and this has been their only block in that time. I think this, along with the good faith nature motivating their actions, would count as mitigating factors. Thanks, R. Baley (talk) 20:00, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

What about the other pages he's been edit warring on? E.g., this one, this one, and this one? --slakr 20:27, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

3RR blocks are to prevent edit warring and I don't think the user has quite got the point about 3RR. Whilst I accept that it is pretty much punitive at this point, I think he should "serve his sentence" and should read up on why edit warring is a bad thing. Woody (talk) 20:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

"Serve his sentence", "pretty much punitive". . .don't have a response for that. R. Baley (talk) 20:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I put them in "quotation marks" for a reason. I don't think any editor should be serving sentences at wikipedia under our current blocking policy. We block to prevent disruption. I just think that this editor hasn't learned his lesson, and that yes this block has turned punitive. I think he will edit war in the future, but if you want to unblock him, I understand that. Woody (talk) 20:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

(rp to Slakr)What can I say? Vandals certainly get better treatment than this user Zsero is protecting under WP:Bite. If you think that adding a link to an educational institution's digital library is bad for wikipedia, by all means, reinstate the final warning ("You will be blocked, final warning", complete with the stop sign hand) to this user's page(s). . .I won't stop you (indeed I can't stop you). Those were links made in good faith as far as I could tell, and while I understand the initial reaction to what appeared to be spamming, once the nature of the links (here's one, for example) were investigated, this reaction amounted to using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito. Let's use some common sense here, the rules exist to help us function to build an encyclopedia, not to be blindly followed no matter where they lead. Thanks, R. Baley (talk) 20:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

(OD)If I may, the whole issue seems to go back to the original problem of whether or not admin User:Hu12 was overextendiing his powers by labeling the accounts as spammers, as seen here archived discussion link. Zsero's 3RR violations were all on pages where he was removing Hu12's spam warnings, because Zsero didn't feel they were justified and wanted (in his eyes) to avoid biting the newbies. I warned him, then eventually posted him to WP:3RR, where an admin (User:Stifle) reviewed the case and did not block him. At that point, I figured it was a matter for WP:ANI.

I'd say we're treating the symptoms, and not the cause here. Whether Zsero finishes up his suspension or not, it seems that unless some admins take a look at the original case and decide whether the spam warnings were justified, we're just putting trouble on layaway. If the admin was correct, then Zsero is wrong and should be blocked anytime he reverts a warning. If the admin was not correct, then Zsero was right and that should be dealt with as well.

Either way, I think just temporarily blocking an editor with a history of good contributions isn't addressing the situation that led to the actions. Snowfire51 (talk) 21:19, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

• (general post) Zsero has responded at his talk page (diff). R. Baley (talk) 21:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC) (add: S/he has stated that s/he does not intend to edit war. 21:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC))

In reguards to Zsero's removal of warnings on other users' talk pages, I think the block should remain, because as stated by his comment on his talk page, he still feels that he is in the right to remove said warnings. It does not matter if they were overkill or not, as he would have still removed the warnings because of his opinion on the matter. Until he understands that he cannot remove warnings from other users' talk pages just because he is against them, I cannot see him getting unblocked until the block has expired. Daedalus (talk) 21:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't even know where to begin. . . I'm going to go get a snack now. I'll be back in about an hour. R. Baley (talk) 22:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Hu12's actions weren't resoundingly endorsed in the previous discussion, so I've removed the messages. I'd like Zsero to be unblocked, but one way or another this should be the end of things. Two ANI threads is more than enough drama I think. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree about ending the thread, but only once an admin can be bothered to do the right thing. I've examined the Ashleylmack page a little more closely. Apparently Daedalus was allowed to re-start the edit war. . . and then reverted again after Zsero was blocked for 3RR. If someone makes the first and last revert between 2 editors in an edit war, they should certainly be blocked as well, for any 3RR violations handed out. Understand, I'm not advocating any new blocks here, but Zsero does not need to stay blocked for this. R. Baley (talk) 23:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

It would seem Daedalus969, was attempting to revert talk page simple and obvious vandalism (not subject to 3RR). see exceptions to the three revert rule

Even if Zsero was doing the right thing, I'm not sure why there was Any need for him to vandalise the noticeboard/Incidents topic header, or blank project reports.

I Personaly don't care if those warnings are there or not (if they're readded I'll remove them myself so the drama ends) but even that does not make for exemption of Misplaced Pages policy and is never a reason to engage in Disruptive editing and edit warring. I'd be inclined to reduce/unblock him myself, he's a good editor, however the warring was done on such a extremely wide combative scale, the nature of which I'm uncomfortable with. I have no issue with any decision made, there has been enough drama.--Hu12 (talk) 01:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Cuchullain advice requested

Hi, I'm not sure if this is where I'm supposed to ask, but there have been some recent allegations of fringe theory, and general abuse by User:Cuchullain. User:Esimal has requested some help as Cuchullain is refusing to listen on the rather public Religion in the United States article, and its respective Talk Page. Any advice, and help would be appreciated. Zidel333 (talk) 22:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

User:ScienceApologist

I have two issues with this user's conduct. I want to point out, he's accusing me of being a sock (see WP:Suspected sock puppets/Davkal (3rd), I'm not filing anything in revenge, as I don't think there's any merit to the sock accusation. I believe these are valid concerns.

First problem: He's reffering to a portion of his user page as a wikipedia policy. See the edit summaries of these:

and these article-talk statements:

• If you read the current version of that page, he later defends it, so you can see his line of argument

and one user talk:

Second problem: He's been in some content disputes on paranormal articles. He made a statement that I think warrants blocking him from editing these articles. This is the talk page I've interacted with him on. He says in this edit:

In fairness, he struck out the worst part of that later, however, he did not make this statement in the middle of a heated debate (notice the date of the statement he's replying to, 22 January, versus 22 February when his edit was made), so I believe this to be a true sentiment, and his striking, a knee-jerk reaction when he realized the implications of what he had said. Therefore, I don't believe he can be trusted to make edits to these articles in any fashion other than strongly POV. Thanks, 130.101.20.159 (talk) 00:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll add that, if SA has a reason that he was on edge (a dispute on another page) I'll certainly accept what happened with #2 above, I just don't see any evidence in regard to that talk page. 130.101.20.159 (talk) 00:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

He has already been blocked for the second. As for the first, I don't think he is claiming that his user page is policy, rather, it saves him the trouble of retyping it. I disagree with what he says about one-way linking ... for example, 2007 Virginia Tech Hokies football team links to college football, but the latter does not link to the former. Both are for obvious reasons. In any event, I don't see anything here. --B (talk) 00:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I figured that was the case with the talk pages. I'm mostly concerned with him using it in edit summaries as a reason for a revert.

Sorry about posting the second with him already being blocked; didn't catch that until I was putting notification of this discussion on his talk. 130.101.20.159 (talk) 00:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

IRC is down

All the wikipedia channels seem to be down on freenode. I cant get hold of chanserv. NE ideas? Seddon69 (talk) 00:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not for me. Perhaps you're on the wrong server? Cbrown1023 talk 00:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Somene just said there was a sever split, i found if you close your client then reopen it should connect to the main server again. Seddon69 (talk) 00:27, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

1. Jimmy Wales, 2005 (2005-09-20). "Life, the universe and Wiki". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2008-01-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)