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Revision as of 16:08, 18 February 2009

Dirk is busy in real life and may not respond swiftly to queries.

Welcome to my talk page. Please leave me a note by starting a new subject here and please don't forget to sign your post You may want to have a look at the subjects in the header of this talkpage before starting a new subject. The question you may have may already have been answered there Dirk Beetstra

Misplaced Pages ads file info – show another – #118

I am the main operator of User:COIBot. If you feel that your name is wrongly on the COI reports list because of an unfortunate overlap between your username and a certain link or text, please ask for whitelisting by starting a new subject on my talkpage. For a better answer please include some specific 'diffs' of your edits (you can copy the link from the report page). If you want a quicker response, make your case at WT:WPSPAM or WP:COIN. COIBot - Talk to COIBot - listings - Link reports - User reports - Page reports

Responding I will respond to talk messages where they started, trying to keep discussions in one place (you may want to watch this page for some time after adding a question). Otherwise I will clearly state where the discussion will be moved/copied to. Though, with the large number of pages I am watching, it may be wise to contact me here as well if you need a swift response. If I forget to answer, poke me. I preserve the right not to answer to non-civil remarks, or subjects which are covered in this talk-header. ON EXTERNAL LINK REMOVAL There are several discussions about my link removal here, and in my archives. If you want to contact me about my view of this policy, please read and understand WP:NOT, WP:EL, WP:SPAM and WP:A, and read the discussions on my talkpage or in my archives first. My view in a nutshell: External links are not meant to tunnel people away from the wikipedia. Hence, I will remove external links on pages where I think they do not add to the page (per WP:NOT#REPOSITORY and WP:EL), or when they are added in a way that wikipedia defines as spam (understand that wikipedia defines spam as: '... wide-scale external link spamming ...', even if the link is appropriate; also read this). This may mean that I remove links, while similar links are already there or which are there already for a long time. Still, the question is not whether your link should be there, the question may be whether those other links should be there (again, see the wording of the policies and guidelines). Please consider the alternatives before re-adding the link: If the link contains information, use the information to add content to the article, and use the link as a reference (content is not 'see here for more information'). Add an appropriate linkfarm (you can consider to remove other links covered there). Incorporate the information into one of the sister projects. Add the link to other mediawiki projects aimed at advertiseing (see e.g. this) If the linkspam of a certain link perseveres, I will not hesitate to report it to the wikiproject spam for blacklisting (even if the link would be appropriate for wikipedia). It may be wise to consider the alternatives before things get to that point. The answer in a nutshell Please consider if the link you want to add complies with the policies and guidelines. If you have other questions, or still have questions on my view of the external link policy, disagree with me, or think I made a mistake in removing a link you added, please poke me by starting a new subject on my talk-page. If you absolutely want an answer, you can try to poke the people at WT:EL or WT:WPSPAM on your specific case. Also, regarding link, I can be contacted on IRC, channel . Reliable sources I convert inline URL's into references and convert referencing styles to a consistent format. My preferred style is the style provided by cite.php (<ref> and <references/>). When other mechanisms are mainly (but not consistently) used (e.g. {{ref}}/{{note}}/{{cite}}-templates) I will assess whether referencing would benefit from the cite.php-style. Feel free to revert these edits when I am wrong. Converting inline URLs in references may result in data being retrieved from unreliable sources. In these cases, the link may have been removed, and replaced by a {{cn}}. If you feel that the page should be used as a reference (complying with wp:rs!!), please discuss that on the talkpage of the page, or poke me by starting a new subject on my talk-page Note: I am working with some other developers on mediawiki to expand the possibilities of cite.php, our attempts can be followed here and here. If you like these features and want them enabled, please vote for these bugs. Stub/Importance/Notability/Expand/Expert I am in general against deletion, except when the page really gives misinformation, is clear spam or copyvio. Otherwise, these pages may need to be expanded or rewritten. For very short articles there are the different {{stub}} marks, which clearly state that the article is to be expanded. For articles that do not state why they are notable, I will add either {{importance}} or {{notability}}. In my view there is a distinct difference between these two templates, while articles carrying one of these templates may not be notable, the first template does say the article is probably notable enough, but the contents does not state that (yet). The latter provides a clear concern that the article is not notable, and should probably be {{prod}}ed or {{AfD}}ed. Removing importance-tags does not take away the backlog, it only hides from attention, deleting pages does not make the database smaller. If you contest the notability/importance of an article, please consider adding an {{expert-subject}} tag, or raise the subject on an appropriate wikiproject. Remember, there are many, many pages on the wikipedia, many need attention, so maybe we have to live with a backlog. Having said this, I generally delete the {{expand}}-template on sight. The template is in most cases superfluous, expansion is intrinsic to the wikipedia (for stubs, expansion is already mentioned in that template).

Warning to Vandals: This user is armed with VandalProof. Warning to Spammers: This user is armed with Spamda This user knows where IRC hides the cookies, and knows how to feed them to AntiSpamBot. Archives This talk page is automatically archived by MiszaBot III. Timestamped threads older than 7 days are automatically archived to the current archive Talk started 20/3/2006 1 - 7/9/2006 2 - 29/11/2006 3 - 05/02/2007 4 - 05/03/2007 5 - 15/03/2007 6 - 29/07/2007 7 - 06/11/2007 8 - 31/03/2008 9 - 22/09/2008 10 - 03/02/2009 11 - 17/05/2009 12 - 13/11/2009 13 - 27/5/2010 14 - 13/12/2010 15 - 5/7/2011 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - current 23 - 24 - 25 -

Dance lessons?

Our child seems to have forgotten how to dance.  ;-) --Versageek 06:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Now that is funny. --Dirk Beetstra 10:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

User Internetguide

re User_talk:Internetguide

First edits out of the gate after unblocking is to start re adding his links and Request delisting of his links. which he has attempted before MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/February_2009#filmtaka.com. --Hu12 (talk) 18:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Reblocked. There goes my good faith. --Dirk Beetstra 19:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

One can only AGF, then its up to that user to act in GF....Thanks ..--Hu12 (talk) 19:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Dirk Beestra

Dirk, Your behavior as an editor or administrator is counterproductive to the Misplaced Pages project. You have done a lot of damage by erasing the hard work of many people, who have no conflict of interest other than working for or being a student at the university where the linked content resides. Your definition of "spam" seems unique and it is certainly applied arbitrarily. You should consider another hobby, one where you can inflict less harm. Most of the Wired for Books' interviews had been on Misplaced Pages for several years before you began your campaign of destruction. Tens of thousands of people listened to the interviews. Now, you have taken away these resources away from Misplaced Pages users. And to top it off, you have never indicated that you have listened to a single interview, instead you delete valuable content and block hard-working contributors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.235.71.150 (talk) 21:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

First of all, please make sure you address people correctly, and sign your posts. I'll answer to these sentences one at a time:

Dirk, Your behavior as an editor or administrator is counterproductive to the Misplaced Pages project.

I beg to differ, and I did not become an administrator here because I am counterproductive.

You have done a lot of damage by erasing the hard work of many people, who have no conflict of interest other than working for or being a student at the university where the linked content resides.

Having a conflict of interest is not the only problem, and that was told the editors over and over. These links are in violation of our external links guideline, and the way of adding is certainly not the way forward.

Your definition of "spam" seems unique and it is certainly applied arbitrarily.

My definition of spam is quite close as that defined in our spam guideline. Moreover, I have, repeatedly, told the involved accounts, and on the noticeboards, that I do not regard the links as spam, but the additions (the way and where) inappropriate.

Most of the Wired for Books' interviews had been on Misplaced Pages for several years before you began your campaign of destruction.

My first encounter with editors who have as a single purpose adding these links is indeed something like 1.5 years ago. I have only 'targetted' additions by these editors. Other additions have NOT been touched by me.

Tens of thousands of people listened to the interviews.

I have never questioned that, and I do see the use of these links to the project .. but NOT in this way.

Now, you have taken away these resources away from Misplaced Pages users.

No, only the ones that you have pushed, and I (and others) have given the involved accounts on quite some occasions hints on how we could go forward.

And to top it off, you have never indicated that you have listened to a single interview, instead you delete valuable content and block hard-working contributors.

I don't have to listen, again, this way of 'contributing' is and never has been the way forward. The involved accounts were over and over asked to discuss. But that is not done, editors INSIST.

These edits have been discussed on several of our noticeboards, and on talkpages of involved accounts. Others than me have suggested to blacklist these links, so that they can't be used as a resource anymore. I have opposed such an action, as I a) believe the links can be of use (though not in the way several accounts are adding them), and b) don't think that we are exhausted in the ways to handle this.

I will mail this response also to you. Please stick, as I suggested, to ONE account, I am watching them. Don't evade blocks again, you are very likely to be blocked. --Dirk Beetstra 10:11, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Missa Mercuria

Tahnk you for deleting my second version of Missa Mercurias Desciption. If you would have looked at it,the Second version had no Cpoyright Violation,while the Text was all written by myself. By the Was,I'm having the CD right in front of me,where i got the credits I had in the first and in the second version of my text. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stargazer1980 (talk • contribs) 14:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I answered on your talkpage, and undeleted the last revision. --Dirk Beetstra 16:22, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Plumber - Twinkle edit conflict

Hi

We had a Twinkle edit conflict earlier, I think you type faster than me lol, and I reverted the same page as you did which meant that as I did it after you, it started to revert your reversion and report you for vandalism which I cancelled straight away before saving it...I think I fixed it with an undo, but don't know if there is anything else I need to undo in case it reports you for vandalism instead of the IP we were both trying to revert.

That was complicated to explain ! Anyway, sorry about that --Chaosdruid (talk) 16:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll be waiting for the block ;-), and start to wonder if I can unblock myself then ;-). I think all will be fine, thanks! --Dirk Beetstra 16:24, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Readylinks

Dirk, it appears that the blacklisting of ready-links.com was accidental. The blacklist report did not show ready-links.com, nor did it show links.com. Links.com, on the face, is a beta-test site hosting pages of links. The blacklist report showed spamming of links.links.com, not links.com and certainly not ready-links.com. So the regex expression was probably, as far as I can tell, an error from the beginning, blacklisting what was effectively a host, in toto, based on one account there creating a links page at links.links.com. That page is gone, my guess is that ready-links.com saw it and deleted it.

Now, what's the issue with Hu12? Well, an SPA registered and asked for whitelisting. We know and understand why this request would be denied. However, I saw the request and out of curiosity, looked up ready-links.com. Looks like a real company selling hardware. Found one source fairly easily that seemed like RS. Okay, so why was Readylinks deleted? I can't see the deleted file unless I ask for a copy, but I asked about it on the whitelist page. Hu12 stated that a user had requested it. Now, in the case of another deletion done by Hu12, yes, a user had requested the deletion. An *IP* user with a history that ultimately showed, quite possibly, conflicting COI. So I asked about the user. The user volunteered.

Okay, so far so good. *However,* one issue remains. The SPA requested whitelisting and the deletion took place a few minutes later. Beetstra, that looks like retaliation or punishment for making a request. I'm not claiming that it was that, but only that it looks like that, and how things look can damage the project. Some may think that by raising these issues, I'm being disruptive. I don't think so, but, of course, anyone is free to warn me, seek mediation with me, RfC me, or take an issue to ArbComm. I'm not attacking anybody, but I am questioning certain procedures and process shortcomings. And if I don't do that, who will? There aren't too many users looking at this stuff.

Anyway, as to processes I'm starting, you are, as you should know, quite welcome and even invited to participate to the extent that you can find time. I'll be preparing reports, and the more that those represent consensus, the better. User:Lustiger seth is aware of what's going on, and supportive, as are some other administrators. So, please, help, don't hinder, and don't encourage hostility from administrators whose actions might come into question. I'm not asserting -- and I've been objecting to -- any incivility or assumption of bad faith or other improprieties. We are all, as far as I'm concerned, working for the welfare of the project, and if we disagree, we need to find consensus or else the project will be harmed. Disagreement, sustained, demolishes efficiency, everything becomes more difficult. Let's not go there. --Abd (talk) 17:49, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

All that I am asking is, that you first assume good faith, not first cry wolf. Critisism is fine, and you know that I am evaluating and reevaluating these things as well, and I have also whitelisted or removed things. But I do want to ask you, that if we blacklist, that there are things fishy. That does not have to mean that the links are bad, it can mean that we have to choose sometimes. In all the cases there is abuse, and when the request is 'people who are knowledgeable in this field think this link is useful here', then whitelisting or delisting is an option. Starting with 'this is not spam', or 'this is not abused' is not the beginning. For all links you have been investigating (as far as I see on-wiki), there have been edits which the editors should not have done, which are at least very questionable, or which have sisterlinks which have been abused. I felt on Hu12's talkpage that you were too reactive, and I think that a bit of warning was in place. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra 18:05, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I've not encountered any blacklisting where something "fishy" didn't happen. However, I've seen blacklistings where what was "fishy" didn't justify blacklisting except under a construction that didn't stand up to even quick scrutiny, or that (one case) involved abuse of tools by an involved admin. The guidelines suggest blacklisting as a last resort, when lesser measures fail. I've seen the lesser measures implemented, then blacklisting the next day though the alleged offenses stopped. I've seen edit counts alone used to justify blacklisting; that's excusable, for an initial action, but not when a blacklisting is challenged as not required, for a large pile of good edits isn't linkspam, it might merely resemble it. Yet when an inappropriate blacklisting is challenged, i.e., one not necessary to protect the project, I've seen edit counts that happened a year ago, that stopped, with the user voluntarily removing the links that were missed by the blacklist volunteers, still used to justify continued blacklisting in the face of requests from regular editors. (And those reports, looking so "bad," included and did not discriminate between possibly rogue edits and edits permitted by whitelisting.)

I think I've been pretty careful not to accuse anyone of bad faith, the heaviest thing I've done is to point out involvement in one case, where the admin directly blacklisted, bypassing process. And I've come to conclude, and you've basically acknowledged, that the blacklist is being used to control content, i.e., to force adherence to the reliable source guidelines as interpreted by a handful of blacklist administrators, not by general consensus. What almost all of it boils down to is a need to separate blacklisting from delisting and whitelisting process, to that the same tight group doesn't control both. Blacklisting is intended as a measure of last resort, not as a routine spam-fighting tool, but if it is to be extended, the relevant guidelines should be edited to reflect the reality, and that process would subject it to community scrutiny. If we can find consensus prior to that, with careful and complete discussion, the community is likely to settle on something better than if this just pops out there, raw, with all those uncooked worms still wriggling.

If you feel I was too reactive on Hu12's user page, please be specific. This is the second time you have asserted overreaction (here) or failure to assume good faith (on the Hu12 Talk page). If I wrote something out of place, I'll redact it. Otherwise, please stop making accusations based on reading projected emotions or accusations into what I've written. --Abd (talk) 23:13, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem is, Abd, that in most of the cases really inappropriate edits are involved, which are linkspam. If whitelisting or de-blacklisting is requested on the basis of 'we NEED this site', asked by people knowledgeable in the subject, and it can be made clear that there is no other way of sourcing it, then we are very willing to do that. And there are several editors on the whitelist which are not involved in the blacklisting. However, the people who added the stuff to the blacklist will comment and sometimes strongly suggest not to whitelist/de-blacklist on the reason that it 'is not spam' or 'is not spammed'. Even lyrikline.org was added by the IP in totally inappropriate places, and there was also a second IP involved, how do we know that that IP does not return, or a third pops up? --Dirk Beetstra 11:26, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Beetstra. I disagree on your view of the whitelisting process; your view is correct as a description of what actually happens, but the usage of the blacklist (which includes as a modification, the whitelist), as described in guidelines, does notg contemplate its use in this manner. If whitelisting is difficult, the normal editorial process cannot function, where edits, including external links or citations, are proposed, either on Talk, but more often as actual edits, and only quite sophisticatd editors would even know how to request whitelisting effectively. The blacklist guidelines clearly proposed, and the process instructions appear to require, that blacklisting only be used as a tool of last resort. It is being used far outside that. Now, it's quite possible that this is legitimate, but the community certainly has not decided that.

Okay, Lyrikline.org. I haven't found a clearly inappropriate addition yet. The worst I've seen was a link placed on de:Shona_(Sprache), but that link is debatable, and, in fact, I just proposed it, notified the editor who had removed it, waited a bit, and then made the edit. We'll see if it stands.

The "not-spam" argument is just as irrelevant for the whitelist as is the "spam" argument. It should be irrelevant if there was linkspamming or not. Established editors should be able to whitelist with very little ado, subject only to the continued needs for protection. That would be how the blacklist was conceived, and that conception is better than existing process. Basically, the vary small group of administrators should not be a link-vetting committee; there is a conflict of interest, in effect. You don't consider appropriateness in removing links and blacklisting, and it is very clear that blacklist volunteers ignored appropriateness in removing lyrlikline.org links, even to the point of attracting admin attention on de, so you shouldn't consider it in whitelisting, either. That is, as a blacklist volunteer, it isn't your job to judge appropriateness, and the effort to do that is precisely where the blacklist process has gone astray. I think I know what to do about this, and, as you know, you are welcome and invited to participate in advising me on my report at User:Abd/Blacklist and the attached talk page. I'm not in a rush, I want to do this right.

Please advise Hu12 that he's running a bit outside boundaries, I think he may have gotten attached and may feel threatened, so I think he needs a bit of guidance. I'm not attacking him, do not wish to harm him or his work, but ... he may be making a lot of mistakes, a high percentage of possibly problem blacklistings seem to involve him. When an admin starts making mistakes, the admin needs guidance from the community, and he's most likely to accept it from people who work with him regularly, I suspect he sees me as an unwelcome interloper, which is unfortunate if true. While he was initially reluctant to assist in the restoration of Lyrikline.org, once it was done and the bare URL was there without the triggering prefix, he went ahead and very appropriately whitelisted the needed link as a link to the English home page, without being asked, which was very helpful. I don't see this as a war or as the good guys vs. the bad guys, but simply as incomplete process. Thanks again for replying. --Abd (talk) 16:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The blacklists are used to stop totally inappropriate edits ('spam'), or links which are (likely to be) pushed for promotional purposes. In our experience, people who want to use Misplaced Pages for promotional reasones hardly ever stop after warnings, they switch IP, or create new accounts. They may stop for a short while, but often return (and the edits to, err, UofA, and the state the article was in, did seem promotional to me, though after stubbing down that was resolved).

Lyrikline.org is available in German, English, French, Slovenisch (?), and Arab (?) language. But it was indiscriminately added to a huge list of wikis, including some written in e.g. a Brahmi language ('Bangla'?), Russian, Greek, etc. etc. As you may have noticed, I am from Europe. I am regularly in Sicily, and the people there do not speak one of these languages fluently or sufficiently (I must be lucky if I can order an ice cream in a bar in English, even when the person who serves me is younger than 20 years old!). To the public of such wikis, such links are quite useless (or they should be properly introduced). I can't read the Brahmi language, and I don't know if they have a similar rule in their external links guidelines, neither do I know how fluent these people are in English, but since it is in both en:WP:EL and de:WP:WEB (which both discourage the use of sites not available in the wiki's own language except under some strict rules), I expect that also they will agree that that link there is inappropriate. However, if the local wikiproject here does see the use of the links, I am very inclined to whitelist it here!

If the IP is the same as the German user, then the user was early on warned that there are guidelines ("Bitte lies Dir de:WP:WEB durch und achte darauf, dass die Links in jedem Einzelfall tatsächlich vom Feinsten sind. Weitere Links ohne dazugehörige Begründung oder Kommentar werde ich als Linkspam löschen. Gruß --Sommerkom 17:35, 22. Jan. 2008 (CET)", rough translation: "Please read through WP:WEB and be aware that the links are appropriate/the best in every single case. I will remove any further links without reason or comments as spam. Regards ..."; and the user responded to that), still these indiscriminate additions are after that moment. If the IP is not the same as the German user, then maybe the user was not appropriately warned, but then we get to the point that it is impossible to warn (or engage in discussion with) such users cross-wiki. Also, we conclude that none of the users who used the link are involved in the site (mostly per what they say), and I do believe that Lyriker/Lyrik is not. However, as what we saw above for the links related to uofa.edu, respectable organisations do hire SEOs to improve they search engine results, these editors still may be involved (indirectly) in a promotional way (but that would be assuming bad faith, but on the other side we should not exclude the possibility either). Note that such editors don't seem to have any relation with the link at first.

I do not believe that there is bad faith in those edits by Hu12. The article for ReadyLinks was tagged for deletion (that tag may also have been due to the whitelist request...), and Hu12 may very well have encountered the article because of the whitelisting request. However, if I review it, the article was, and always has been, in quite a bad shape. No references whatsoever, and quite promotional in nature (especially after the 'rewrite' halfway). It is for an admin then the question 'do I delete', 'do I stub down', or 'do I delete and write a stub'. As there were no references, it is quite some work to clean it out to a stub (which then still should be tagged for notability, and may end up for deletion anyway), or just delete, and wait until it gets recreated in a proper way. Or delete and write a stub yourself (which also would require finding proper reason to think it is notable). I do find, that as an admin, we do a lot of maintenance and less true writing, and those questions must be asked. As there was in this case not really a salvageable revid, I would have gone for deletion as well (deletion also hides the promotional revids in the past, they do not really need to be seen by anyone). I do think that is the trust that the community has placed in the administrators to make that decision, and short of oversight, deletion review is always a possibility. The page about lyrikline.org may have been a mistake (could have been stubbed down at that point etc.), in the case of ReadlyLinks I do think that a fresh, independent, rewrite would be a better way forward (if that company is really notable enough). Your opening on User talk:Hu12 "Seems a tad quick for an article that had been around for years. Please undelete and PROD or AfD if you so wish." sounds, IMHO, unnecessery criticising in tone, and I do think that we should give Hu12 more credit for their good work. I think that (the links related to) uofa.edu make(s) a very good example of a pure promotional push of very good sites, and I think that we foremost should keep in mind that Misplaced Pages is not an advertising medium. As I said above, spammers don't stop because of warnings or blocks (really, SEOs get paid for this, its their job to 'spam', and any form of self promotion is there very unclear! And I have seen enough situations of pure self promotion where the editors really don't get it, even after discussion), there are too many IPs/Open proxies and accountnames available ... blacklisting is harsh, and gives a lot more work if whitelisting is necessery. Therefore, I argue that we only should whitelist if the documentation is unique, if it is not unique, but it takes more effort, then that is not a reason to whitelist. De-blacklisting can be considered if the threat of spamming is really gone, or if people are really going to keep an eye open on the situation. But (and that goes certainly for Hu12) if we blacklist, it has been researched and it is very probably a 'last resort', even if it seems too fast, and there hardly has been any abuse. --Dirk Beetstra 11:58, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I very much appreciate your comments, Beetstra. Some of what you write, however, shows that you have probably made some assumptions, possibly based on what was asserted, in the case of lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com, by JzG, without the deeper investigation that is necessary to figure out what the hell is going on. But, as I've written, lyrikline.org is a poster boy for problematic blacklisting. As to lenr-canr.org, and briefly, the "promoter" of that site, Jed Rothwell, wasn't editing articles, had not edited them for a long time, and the multiple "links" asserted to be linkspam weren't links at all, and blacklisting didn't prevent them. The removed links were added by editors of various POVs, not just "one side." As to newenergytimes.com, no recent possible linkspamming existed on en, and it was never blacklisted on meta, to my knowledge. The sole allegation with respect to NET was "fringe." NET, in fact, is arguably a reliable source. It's edited. It clearly attempts to report neutrally, etc., but it's not my purpose in the short run to argue this, I'm just pointing out the problem: the use of the blacklist to control content, in ways that don't necessarily reflect consensus, but rather rigid rules, i.e., "Fringe sites can't be used." "Blogs can't be used." "External links aren't necessary." Etc.

Now, to Ready-links.com. Beetstra, you seem to have confused AGF with assuming good decisions with respect to Hu12, but not with me. I wouldn't raise the issue of an appearance of retaliation for a whitelist request if there wasn't some substance there. Contrary to what you imply, this was the sequence:

• 20:02, 11 February 2009 Osgrhino requests whitelisting.
• 20:13, 11 February 2009 MrOllie tags for speedy.
• 20:28, 11 February 2009 Hu12 (Talk | contribs) deleted ReadyLinks

Given that there never was any intention to block ready-links.com in the first place, that it was Hu12's error that caused the block, don't you think this action was a tad precipitate and presents an appearance of retaliation? You declined the whitelisting, though whitelisting ready-links.com would be utterly harmless, suggesting that the regex expression be fixed. Now, that expression was probably a mistake from the get-go, the site that was reported on was links.links.com, not links.com. Given that links.links.com is dead, probably killed by links.com as spam, it would seem that the simplest solution would be to delist links.com, period. Blacklistings that don't have a continuing reason shouldn't continue! And especially not erroneous ones! I asked Hu12 to fix his regex, but he's probably feeling a bit burned right now. I'd be more sympathetic if not for the fact that he's burned others with little apparent sympathy, though I have no desire to cause him pain. I read in de's Lyrik and our User:Lyriker's contributions after he was initially warned and then blocked, a great weight of sadness and personal injury. He was only trying to help, and he got slapped and many hours of work were undone.

So we need to look at lyrikline.org. You wrote: Lyrikline.org is available in German, English, French, Slovenisch (?), and Arab (?) language. But it was indiscriminately added to a huge list of wikis, including some written in e.g. a Brahmi language ('Bangla'?), Russian, Greek, etc. etc. Please do your homework, start with Lyrikline.org. On its pages one can browse through and listen to about 4,700 poems by 470 poets in 49 languages. including Russian and Greek. Someone who reads a Brahmi language would probably read English. Further, if there is an article on a poet in a project, then, surely, some of the readers of the article would be interested to actually hear the poet, even if a translation into the project language is not available. If it were totally alien, why even bother with the article? Lyrik didn't create the articles, he just added a link to the poet's page if it already existed. Above, you seem to be assuming that the links were inappropriate, then you justify this assumption with plausible, but not verified, explanations. Beetstra, please respect this: I'm spending hours following the sometimes obscure tracks of what happened, and sometimes documenting it. I'm preparing to start the process of adding links to lyrikline here. See the list of poets at User:Abd/Lyrikline poets, that's a complete list of poets hosted on lyrikline, and don't imagine that I'm going to feed this to a 'bot! There are probably fewer missing poets from en than the redlinks show, because of spelling issues. I've only proposed an edit to one article so far, Chirikure Chirikure, where I did move the article and amended the spelling on my page. I'd give you the link to his lyrikline.org page, but, you know, I can't. Here it is, without the http://,

www.lyrikline.org/index.php?id=60&L=1&author=cc00&cHash=efa2be756d

The poetry is fantastic, and you tell me, is our article better with or without that link? My favorite so far,

www.lyrikline.org/index.php?id=162&L=1&author=cc00&show=Poems&poemId=3122&cHash=d6d6fd3645

is pretty much on point for some of what happens on Misplaced Pages. Oh, noticed a spelling error. Can't fix it, it's not a wiki, it's an edited site with a review board.

I apologize for the length of all this, but one of the problems on Misplaced Pages is that snap judgments, some with long-lasting consequences, are made with insufficient evidence and insufficient investigation or discussion. It works, sometimes, but we then need to find ways to deal with what happens when quick and dirty doesn't work. I was trying to avoid process like AN/I, RfC, etc. There has been serious abuse of tools by JzG, and I've done very little so far except when he went to ArbComm and tried to assert a very, very dangerous principle: applying a topic ban beyond its original target, based on some assumption of similar POV. I've been very careful to avoid accusations, but challenging a decision isn't a personal attack. Hu12 may be a bit fried, and is taking routine questioning of actions rather badly, but that questioning is essential for administrators. He's done a tremendous amount of work, but if the quality of what I've seen recently is typical, it isn't as valuable as it would have been without the messes. I wrote that as I started watching the blacklist pages, I found certain possibly problematic blacklistings. Quite simply, it wasn't uncommon that Hu12 was the involved admin. However, he did not blacklist lyrikline, that was Herby on meta, with practically no discussion. The nominator was 124.178.51.181, sole contribution; the request was filed at 03:59, 24 January 2008. Hu12 was the sole commenter there at 04:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC).

The problem isn't that lyrikline.org was blacklisted. The problem is that when requests came from de.wikipedia and others for delisting on meta and/or whitelisting, the original "linkspamming" was cited as a reason not to delink or whitelist. The problem is the block of User:Lyriker contrary to policy and the speedy deletion of Lyrikline.org, and that nobody was watching all this carefully enough. The problem isn't Hu12, Beetstra, it's the process and how it interacts with the community. Whether or not Hu12 makes too many mistakes, or even only a few, wikitheory would suggest that mistakes aren't a problem if it's easy to clean up after them. Is it easy? It might seem easy to a blacklist administrator, but from the point of view of general editors, it most certainly is not. You need help with the blacklisting/delisting/whitelisting process? We can help. But you might have to let go a little. The blacklist guidelines should be followed, or they should be amended to reflect actual practice; probably a little of both needs to happen, and actual practice can be improved. Can we agree on that? --Abd (talk) 17:08, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I am going to back of away from lenr-carn.org and newenergytimes.com. The situation is quite broad (including an arb com decision regarding an editor), I am indeed looking only at users who are pushing, who have a link-preference etc., and I know there were some editors with a conflict of interest on both. For that I would suggest they would have been more careful etc. I don't think that I am knowledgeable enough about that situation to suggest either white or de-blacklisting, all I see is that there are some questionable link additions to mainspace etc.

lyrikline.org. I did do my homework there, because I knew this was going to be a counter argument. I did check, and I presume that was also done by the people who performed the blacklisting. You assume that people who read the specific Brahmi also read English, I don't think that there is any ground for that. Moreover, people who speak English (and use the English wikipedia) often do speak another language as well, still we have that sentence in our external links guideline. A lot of people in Germany do speak English, but also they have the same sentence there. I am not willing to assume that the Brahmi wiki in question has in its external links guideline that they encourage English links, but say that it is true for this Brahmi wiki. The same link was added in quite short succession to quite a number of wikis, probably following the interwikis and having the link in the copy/paste buffer. If I follow the link, I see a page in English with quite some text, and some links to .. Farsi translations. There is no sign of brahmi (or Catalan, Hebrew, Finnish, Ukrainian ... I guess we are talking 50 additions here). On the fa wikipedia the link was also added, and linking to the fa-data would have been fine, but linking to the English page is probably also there not optimal. In fact, there the link is to the English page, with on top a link to 'You can read this page in the following languages: Farsi'. A direct link would have been better there, don't you think? I am sorry, Abd, these additions were done in oblivion of possible local guidelines (and if the IP is belonging to the user who was warned on de, the editor should have known that there were local policies and guidelines which may control this data), even if they were added to the correct page.

So yes, there is sufficient evidence that such a way of editing is inappropriate. And I still keep in the back of my mind the following possibilities with the two IPs (bad faith warning!): a) they are related to lyrikline.org, and want their site to be better know, b) they are from an SEO who has been payed to improve the search engine results, c) they were added by someone from another site who wants to give lyrikline.org a bad name (when I started here we have blacklisted a handful of sites to protect against a Joe job, depriving all other users who could use the link, even while they were good links), d) on or both belong to user Lyrik; but then they should have known better, e) they were added in good faith, but misplaced. I take uofa.org here as a reference, and I can come up with other cases where good, large, rich, organisations with good information have their priorities totally and completely wrong (and similar some who have succesfully adapted their priorities after discussion, I am busy with one of those cases).

De-blacklisting on meta generally needs a wide support if the 'spamming' was wide scale (and for lyrikline.org, we seem to be talking about 50 wikis), or it must be very clear that the additions have stopped, and that all involved editors are in discussion (and as I said, some spammers/vandals are thick .. they will return, look at e.g. Grawp, JB, the latter editor the one of the massive Joe jobs, he was disrupting the system for months). Otherwise local whitelisting is the way to go. We were discussing another case, where Hu12 was involved, there established editors came to the help of delisting (it is below, I think). That is how it is supposed to be. If site owners or unestablished editors ask, they should be pointed towards an appropriate wikiproject, and local editors should help in the decision. Purely on the basis of 'it is my site, and I don't want it blacklisted' is not a good way forward, and we do use a standard decline for that (that could maybe be expanded).

Other options are maybe in the make, having an anti-abuse system in place can also help (bit like what we do with XLinkBot here on en), where new and IP editors are warned to read and check, while established editors don't run in problems. We could actually consider that for lyrikline.org here on en (though the problem of inappropriateness of the external links here is minimal, most pages linked to are in English and the link is appropriate).

I still believe we work in good faith to protect wikipedia from inappropriate link additions. We sometimes hit links in the grey area (lyrikline.org), or even in the white area (uofa.edu), but absolutely not because we did not look at it carefully! I don't think that we need changes in guidelines for putting things on the blacklist (even for grey/white area links; I'll leave lenr-carn.org and newenergytimes.com out of this reasoning, I'll leave that to others who have more knowledge in that area). We might however want to write it down a bit stricter. Having proper procedures for handling de-listing/whitelist requests is indeed something that we might need. Having people work both here and on meta independent of the ones who blacklist is a reasonable plan (though keeping in mind, if we blacklist there are/were reasons for it, there should be a good reason to de-blacklist on meta to ensure that most of the involved wikis will not encounter the problem later on. Local whitelisting on wikis who have decided as such is probably better.

I guess we haven't ended this discussion yet, and we still disagree on parts if we have sufficient reason to put 'good' links on blacklists, etc. See you around! --Dirk Beetstra 12:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

You assume people who read Brahmi also can read English. Well, it's not just an assumption, I didn't just make that up. Brahmi is script, not language. It developed into Devanagiri, the script used for Sanskrit, and, modernly, for Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali. I haven't looked at it, but most likely, the "brahmi" project is Hindi, because that is by far spoken by the largest number of people. But if there is a pure Brahmi project, the readers would be almost certain to know English, because they are reading a dead language, or ancient script for their own language, and are therefore likely to be highly educated. As to Hindi, if they are literate, as they must be to read the 'pedia, their education almost certainly includes very substantial English. They might not write well in English, but can almost certainly read it.

There are other details in your response above which should be addressed, but I don't have more time right now. Thanks again for all your responsive discussion, it's very much appreciated. Generally, though, my objections aren't to the blacklisting process, as such (when it is followed and not bypassed), but to the delisting and whitelisting process, where different questions should be asked, and there should be no rush to judgment in marginal cases. It is not necessary to decide that the blacklisting was "wrong" to delist. Just that it isn't legitimately needed any more, or perhaps it wasn't ever needed except to call a halt to what appeared to be linkspam, to give time and to force discussion. --Abd (talk) 13:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely, if there is fear of massive inappropriate linking on many 'pedias, and I understand the fear with lyrikline.org, global blacklisting can and perhaps should be maintained, though there may be, at leisure, better and deeper responses (like querying the local 'pedias). The problem arises when a whitelist request comes and is denied based on no need. If a legitimate editor requests it, there is a need, at a basic level. Some kind of review is appropriate, but not a stringent or difficult one. If an editor is willing to take responsibility for it, that should really be enough, unless it is blatantly inappropriate. You know and I know that the editor could add what is effectively a link anyway. --Abd (talk) 13:54, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I know, Brahmi is a way of writing, the languages written in that are e.g. the Indian languages. Gujarati language certainly does not sound like English (and is most certainly NOT a dead language, none of them there are!), and maybe for Gujarati people (and all other people in India) it is quite true that they speak English, I am sure that that does not go for Catalan people. The generalisation does not hold. That specific link would be appropriate on the English wikipedia, and maybe on some of the western-european wikis where English is generally spoken by the majority of the people as a second language, but it certainly does not go for Italy, Spain and Farsi wikipedia. For the latter in this specific case a better link would have been to the Farsi translation of the page (which is the only translation available, as I can see from the page that was linked), but the editor did not make the effort to change that. In other words, a rough estimate for me would be that on 45 out of 50 these links are blatantly inappropriate (even if there are better links that could have been added to most of these wikis, that only shows more that these were blatantly inappropriate). Full stop. If the editor in question can show that the links that he added are appropriate (which they will have a very difficult time to proof), then de-listing is an option (and yes, "No page should be linked from a Misplaced Pages article unless its inclusion is justifiable." is in our guideline). Until then, local whitelisting is the best and only option. And I have no problem with that, if knowledgeable editors do think that it is a necessery link.

From that, if the link was added to approx. 50 wikis, where a significant number were inappropriate, then a request from one single editor from one single wiki is NOT enough. Be it the owner, or another volunteer. De-listing globally because on de it is perfectly valid (and it is .. like on en), but (in the way it was added) it is inappropriate on a large number of the remaining 49) could very well result in many additions which we have to be cleaned up as inappropriate, as I don't see a reason to believe that those IPs DID actually stop.

Please stop beating this dead horse. I am sorry, the request has to come from knowledgeable editors (and for meta, from multiple wikis; depending on the scale of the problem), and I would then for a such broad scale addition problem first suggest that some wikis first whitelist it locally. I don't know if you noticed, but here the Poetry WikiProject is not exactly running red hot for this link. It may be useful in their eyes (though I don't see much proof of that yet), apparently even they can also live without the information quite well (hey, and the information linked to is in English). --Dirk Beetstra 14:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC) (added sentence --Dirk Beetstra 14:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC))

Oh, regarding your deleted part here. That form of going around the blacklist to insert information which has no agreement for inclusion, would indeed result in an immediate block on the user who is performing the edits that way. And no, there is no limit to the length of a blacklist. We've been there, we've done that. We have an editor who has tried this over and over, finding new places to host their information, all you win is bad faith, immediate long blocks (or even rangeblocks), and an own section in the blacklist. Please don't even think about it, and please, don't tell people not to stuff beans up their noses. If certain info in a certain way is inappropriate, it will be in any way. --Dirk Beetstra 15:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Photos of the Philippines and Viet Nam

Hey Dirk

In 2005 we were in a Restaurant in St. Petersburg Florida and were talking about the Philippines.. Misplaced Pages was also a Topic..

Hence we took on to make a few photos and add them to Wiki.. However as you probably know people use the photos for commercial purposes and claim them as their own.

In the one trip we made 17,000 photos.. And organized by Municipalities.. Uploaded to http://www.batch2006.com/...

As you may Notice there are "no external links" to anything on the pages.. All are removed from the Messages as they come in..

Anyway... We did not supply the hundreds of other relevant pages for the Philippines.. Nor did we go back and do the Batch2008 as was planned..

It is a shame though as most of the municipalities of the Visayas and Mindanao have no relevant information..

Anyway that was I think what you had requested in early 2008.. We have no intent to continue the project as was extremely expensive..

It is not our intent to spam just let the info be available to the public.. Sorry I am not a writer, nor do I want to be known..

Yours and appreciate your work with Misplaced Pages!! Ateamfog Tampa, Florida USA

P.S. We have read the Guidelines about External links several times and none apply! Ateamfog (talk) 00:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

However, we are not a linkfarm. You could consider uploading the images to wikipedia, and use them to enhance the articles, and write content in them. I suggest you read WP:EL and WP:NOT#REPOSITORY again. I have or will undo your linkadditions. --Dirk Beetstra 10:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

from Aerobaticteams web site

Hi, my site "aerobaticteams DOT net" is blacklisted for a long time since my past webmaster spaming to reach me more trafic. Since that stuped thing my site is blacklisted. Please help if you have time to see my site and insure that Aerobatic teams website is not a spam site.

Regards —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.100.78.9 (talk) 12:48, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

It is maybe not a spam web site, the question is, is it of use to this wikipedia? I would see if you can find a suitable WikiProject (see Misplaced Pages:WikiProject, or via banners on talkpages you are interested in; my guess would be Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Aerobatics or something similar), and post there to see if they are interested in your site (or the information on it). I hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra 13:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

the blacklist log

. The instructions say that when an entry is removed from the blacklist, it should simply be removed from the log. Yes, that's weird, though the purpose of the log is as an index to blacklist entries, so that they can be identified by searching that page, and if an entry is removed, then the listing doesn't need to be in the log. I think what you did was better, but what do I know? I'll say that trying to track what has happened with various entries has been a tad difficult at times. Readwriteweb.com was, for example, added to the March 2008 section by Hu12, but in June or so, I think it was. Took me quite a while to find that diff, because his edit summaries don't give the names of sites, just +1 or the like. (And I'm not singling him out, I've simply had more experience looking into some of his listings. At least he logged it!) --Abd (talk) 04:15, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

We use a different system on meta, which is a bit more complicated. A problem are the old logs, there it is sometimes very difficult to find why and what was added. We did some work on that on meta (in technical terms): parsing the diffs, see who added what, and make a list of that. That is not perfect, but at least we know here and there who added what 5 years ago. My edit summaries are not very informative either, you need to get it from the logs.

I had a quick look at readwriteweb.com, and I don't see any reason why it should be on the blacklist (or my logs are not old enough, or they are now giving misformed info, I see mainly established users using it). It may be that quite some time ago the site had different policies and working environment, including e.g. that people could write an item in the blog, and link to that from external. If then people follow the link, the writer of the blog entry gets money for it (I think associatedcontent.com has that in their working policy). That is an immense incentive to 'spam' the site, even if it contains good data. But I don't know, I guess you have to ask Hu12 if they still remembers what reason they used to blacklist this. I'll answer to your other post later, bit caught up in another situation which is more urgent to resolve. --Dirk Beetstra 11:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not clear that this was ever the policy of ReadWriteWeb; it could be researched, but it looks like ReadWriteWeb was blacklisted because it's a blog, period. But it's moot. I don't know if you've been following my work on this -- I write a bloody lot -- but, basically, my preliminary conclusion is that, absent malevolence or rank incompetence, which blacklisters should police among themselves -- blacklisting should be relatively free of interference and relatively simple. However, the blacklist message, what you see when you try to put up a blacklisted link, should very clearly direct any concerned editor to a process for delisting, even if they are a site owner editing by IP The delisting and whitelisting process should be abstracted from the blacklisting process, and blacklisting admins should mostly be hands-off except if asked to testify. (Like RL police when it comes to the court system; police can arrest (blacklist) on probable cause, but when it comes to an imposition of a sentence (continuation of blacklist, delisting, or parole, i.e., whitelisting) it is out of their hands. They have a conflict of interest. The police, if asked, will testify as to what they found. Why they decided to arrest only comes up if police are charged with harassment, as long as there was some reason to fear that there had been or would be a crime committed, they've stayed within their allowed discretion.

In other words, let the "cabal" reign, but in a confined jurisdiction. Let blacklist admins be cooperative, mutually supportive, defend each other, etc., but then prevent damage to the project as a whole by setting up an independent delisting and whitelisting process.

It's been said that meta isn't under the jurisdiction of ArbComm. That's an error. Nobody is under the jurisdiction of ArbComm. ArbComm is a body that makes recommendations, it is not the executive branch, it's judicial, and its findings aren't binding on anyone, but individuals -- and the WMF -- can choose to be advised. And given that Jimbo and most admins consider themselves obligated to enforce ArbComm decisions, they are effectively binding. ArbComm, if it found that meta blacklisting was harming the project(s), could advise the WMF just as it does with anything else. However, there is a different process that would be better. The en.wikipedia whitelist is definitely in the bailiwick of ArbComm, and if there is a problem listing at meta, it can be whitelisted in toto, as did de.wikipedia with lyrikline.org. This then becomes a stronger basis for delisting at meta; but perhaps, on the side of keeping a listing, linkspam is a problem on other wikis, not on en. Perhaps there is neglect of many local considerations. Etc.

Separating the processes should take away the circle-the-wagons response when a delisting or whitelisting is requested. In the delisting or whitelisting process, the only question asked is if the listing should continue, be removed, or exceptions made with the whitelist. Whitelist exceptions should be very easy. Delisting can be done, as it was at meta, even if there is some fear of the return of linkspam, by editors volunteering to watch for the return of listings.

I.e., bring some of the distributed intelligence of the users to bear, instead of relying on only a handful of admins and bots and an automated list. Use the automated list as it was designed: to efficiently control linkspam, to require intelligent process when many links are being added. Blacklisters can focus on efficiently detecting linkspam.

Then, from the collection of delistings and whitelistings, performance can be measured. If some blacklist admin is having a high percentage of his or her listings delisted, that can be documented. Note that this isn't a high percentage of complaints, a user-controlled process could process complaints so much more efficiently, with arguments over the propriety of listing out of the way, that site owners could be allowed to request just like any other editor, except that probably the delisting/whitelisting pages themselves would be semiprotected for efficiency, with a clear procedure given for other editors to get help from an autoconfirmed editor.

One of the points is to get the accusation of "spammer" out of the system. All blacklisting work should still AGF. "We apologize for this blacklisting, but your addition of links causes fear of linkspamming, we require some kind of consensus to be shown before large numbers of links to be added. If you are a site owner, we apologize for any inconvenience, and you can request delisting or whitelisting of specific links at .... Regrettably, the volume of inappropriate links being added to Misplaced Pages projects required that we establish these controls. Thanks for your understanding.

Blacklisters naturally develop a jaundiced eye, and that is why their testimony in delisting and whitelisting should be considered similar to COI. Police are trained to look for crooks, or possible crooks. But a police arrest simply starts an independent process.

That several blacklist administrators took my questions and challenges seriously, and responded helpfully and considerately, has allowed me to see this, perhaps, from both sides, and thus to come up with possible solutions that might express and maintain wider consensus and avoid the black eye we got with ReadWriteWeb.com. "Blogs aren't usable" was a content issue, and, while there are certainly exceptions, content issues should not be the argument for blacklisting, if there are reasonable arguments for delisting, even if those arguments are wrong. It's like any editing. Administrators, with their tools, should abstain from making content decisions except where policy is very clear -- and an administrator who regularly interprets policy in favor of factional opinion (inclusionist/exclusionist) probably should be warned or desysopped. But that should only happen after ample opportunity to reform the behavior, not as punishment for errors, only to prevent continued abuse.

Thanks again, and if you are watching User:Abd/Blacklist, you'll see any specific proposals I come up with. Your help and participation is very much appreciated. We may disagree, even strongly, on specific delisting proposals, but that, I'm sure, we can work out with patience and time and adequate discussion, including the participation of others, if necessary.

As to the log. Yes, it's difficult to find listings, often, and there is one present blacklisting I know of where there is no log entry on en.wikipedia: newenergytimes.com. lenr-canr.org was also not logged with the addition, but only with the removal (by you). That was only one of several "irregularities" with that process. The delisting process for lenr-canr.com was under way at en, with JzG notified (having refused to reverse the unilateral listing as requested on his Talk), and participating with tendentious argument, when JzG went to meta and requested global listing. There was no linkspam (this will be discussed or reported at User:Abd/Blacklist/lenr-canr.org and the case page for NET. There is no sign in the meta discussion that resulted in listing that the editors were aware of the en.wiki process. JzG didn't notify us about meta, and he didn't notify meta about us. And, as you know, once a site is listed, the presumption becomes, very easily, that it was justified and there should then be proof that links are necessary, which requires resolving, sometimes, tough questions where the appropriateness of links is debatable, as they are, practically intrinsically, with lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com. That debate should be among editors in general, not administrators alone as prosecutors, judges, juries, and executioners. It spills out. JzG, at the same time as he removed links from the Cold fusion and Martin Fleischmann articles, as he had done for quite some time, blacklisted unilaterally, without logging and without discussion, and blocked the site owner, Jed Rothwell, for linkspamming. He had previously been accusing lenr-canr.org of copyright violation, which is actually libelous if done without evidence, and no cogent evidence has yet been presented on this, it doesn't stand up under discussion, and it has been discussed, but JzG continues to assert it as if it were simply a fact. (The same argument, equally preposterous, was advanced with lyrikline.org) He topic-banned Jed Rothwell as well. Jed Rothwell is an opinionated and perhaps arrogant individual, and has that reputation, I've been told, in the cold fusion field. But he's also an expert on the topic, he has read everything in the field, he's known, and lenr-canr.org is respected as a library of documents, which is its clear primary function. The bibliography there is apparently complete and very useful, and was at one time linked from the article at the same time as Pcarbonn took out many individual paper links. That's a classic solution to the problem of linkfarms, and it was appropriate, but you can imagine what happened. "Fringe!" "Copyright violation!" "POV pushers!" The needs of a reader who wants to know what's going on, what's the latest research (not just what was official opinion twenty years ago)? What's being claimed? And, of course the reader also needs to know that these claims haven't been generally accepted. But the needs of the reader? Who cares about that? We must enforce policies! As you know, the suggestion that it would be useful to readers if they can conveniently read a paper, instead of trying to get a copy of something published in China that is available at one university library in the United States. That is claimed to be sufficient for verification, which it technically is, but verification is not the only reason, not even the major reason why I, as a reader, hop to the references. I want to know more than I will find on Misplaced Pages. It is part of the encyclopedic project to create a gateway into the literature on a subject, traditional encyclopedias have always done this with references to available publications as recommendations for further reading. The baby, serving the readers, got lost in the linkspam bathwater.--Abd (talk) 13:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

For me it is also unclear regarding readwriteweb. We may never know, some parts are quite some time ago, and there may have been abuse/inappropriate use of some kind, a move of domain, change in the policies of the external website. I guess the most important part is, knowledgeable editors in the field have commented, and it has been removed. Lets move on on that one.

I deeply disagree with that blacklisting admins should not be involved in the de-blacklisting and/or whitelisting requests. They know why something is blacklisted. If a link is widely misused, but has some potential here and there, then total whitelisting or de-blacklisting will just result in continued abuse. That part of the information is a necessery part of making a good decision. If a good site gets blatantly spammed, and we would not be able to provide that proof, then whitelisting would enable proper use, but also the blatant spam. Going on with your police analogy, the arresting/investigating police officers do get invited in court to provide their evidence and to express how they came to their conclusions.

No, for me the solution is, for the grey and white area of links, go to a wikiproject who is knowledgeable on the subject pertaining the links, and get their opinion. File the whitelist request, some regulars there will include information on why it was blacklisted, and then there is still time for the project members to interact and give their point of view. In that case a good decision can be developed. Note, that if we decline, as we expect more abuse and do not see the use does not have to mean that the discussion is closed. If after 2 weeks there are still no useful reasons brought why we are wrong, then that shows that apparently no-one is interested. Most discussions are there for weeks, there is ample time to contact knowledgeable editors.

I know there are mistakes in logging, sometimes we forget, sometimes the logs are not as complete as they should be, etc. In principle, if there is not a proper log, and we can't quickly find any proper evidence then de-listing is often the immediate cause. I don't want to say much about lenr-carn.org and newenergytimes.com, but what I see from logs is that there is an unhealthy preference by some users in the past, there was point where there was a document which was not the same as the original, and a lot, if not most, of the information can be sourced to the original source, not to the online copy on lenr-carn or newenergytimes, making these sites unnecessery. Moreover, I whitelisted a conference proceeding paper. Those are not peer-reviewed, they can be used for statements 'someone announced that they did this', but not for 'someone did this' .. one has to take extreme care with these. If there is any doubt, discuss on the talkpage and get to an agreement, don't push the information. Even if you disagree with the person who removed, and why he removed, the talkpage is the place to be.

IMHO, we have a good procedure for delisting/whitelisting. We ask for established users to show the significance. A. B. has shown that for uofa.edu, the editor who requested the whitelisting was playing the system. I went with the remark that it was a notable organisation, but that is still questioned. Still insisting that if an owner is asking for de-listing, that we should grant that without discussion? If a site-owner says 'it reflects bad on me that the site is on the blacklist', is he then genuinely honest? Do you, after the evidence that A. B. presented, still believe that uofa.edu was not part of a SEO's worklist? So you want to take the blacklisting administrators out of the de-listing/whitelisting process, and give these SEO's what they want? You know, I actually feel guilty that I de-listed that site, as I was, clearly, not informed properly by the delister, and have been used by them to get what they want. I should have redirected this user to an appropriate wikiproject. How do you feel about your help in this blatant attempt to promote?

I am, next to blacklisting, trying to work with wikiprojects to improve this situation (I mean the text printed in x-large). I really think that if there are better sources than some sites which are questionable, that we should give them preference. Maybe it is better that we focus on that more than on sites which are questionable, or which were inappropriately added and for which there is hardly any local support that claims their use. Please move on. --Dirk Beetstra 16:08, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

My remark on IRC yesterday

Sorry I couldn't do it (bring this list below 200-ish), I just had yet another hell of an afternoon/evening, got back home at 22PM, and couldn't manage to do any complex task whatsoever

Today was kinda busy too, but I think I'll be able to finish (or at least go on with) three tasks I gotta do (including the one we're talking about here) tonight.

See ya anyway

Alphos 18:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Heh, Don't worry, Alphos. No need to apologise. I seem to be programming more and more things so it just keeps high (though I have also programmed some things to close the ones which do not seem to be an acute problem anyway). Guess we'd should try to do some effort to get it below 100 in the end (I see yesterday quite some work was done to bring it down, actually). See you around! --Dirk Beetstra 11:00, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

iharem.com author asks forgiveness

I am the author of iharem.com. Iharem.com began as a visual adjunct for an erectile dysfunction support group, attended mostly by prostate cancer survivors, here in New York City. During the last 7 or 8 months, the iharem.com blog evolved into a art and culture blog, where I post contemporary and historical imagery related to the Western concepts of "harem" and "odalisque." I am particularly interested in exploring the conceptual intersection between fine art and social exploitation of the female construct. I am entirely responsible for placing links on what I thought would be appropriate Wiki pages. I did not take the time to read and understand that placing several links in a short period of time violated Wiki policy. I apologize for my ignorance. Please allow the restoration of these links, as, I feel, that the iharem.com blog, which now holds nearly two hundred images, would be a welcome link for those interested in this topic. Thank you. Darryl Mitteldorf <personal data removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.107.91.92 (talk) 03:51, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Blogs are generally not suitable external links, as shown in the external links guideline. I would suggest that you consider expanding the articles by helping us with nice images (I mean, upload them to commons, and use them in suitable articles). Otherwise, can you contact a suitable wikiproject (see banners on talkpages, or via Misplaced Pages:WikiProject), and see if they are interested in the link. I hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra 11:02, 18 February 2009 (UTC)