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Rave92

Hi. You recently blocked Rave92 (talk · contribs) for evading the previous block (that I issued) and blocked a few IPs ostensibly as socks of Rave92. I'm curious how you arrived at this conclusion. The IPs appear to be SPAs created to change Serbian language to Montenegrin. However there are a number of other editors including Sideshow Bob (talk · contribs) who make similar edits. Thanks. Toddst1 (talk) 15:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I probably should have used {{checkuserblock}}, one of the IPs matched him, one did not, and one I did not have checked. Prodego 17:15, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I would be grateful if you could take a look at the unblock request at User_talk:SS.Nolimit. The user appears to be another sock, but I could use your input. Toddst1 (talk) 18:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Or comment at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Rave92. This conversation is referenced there. Toddst1 (talk) 17:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

DC Thread on AN

If you are going to unarchive it, you might want to pull it out of the AN archives, I think edition 208 is the most latest archive. I thought a forceful archive would put an end to it, but it seems we have two admins editwarring over this now. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 03:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The bot will archive things, if you must archive a section, use the standard archive templates, and close the discussion. That would allow other's to object, and the uninvolved to view the discussion. You shouldn't need to be manually archiving anything. Prodego 03:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Myself, admin Tedder, and others have tried, time and time again, to archive with the hat/hab templates this re-re-re-re-rehashing of the same things over and over by DC, but Jehochman seems to think keeping the whole thing going and threatening me is going to solve something. I personally don't think threatening anyone is going to solve anything and he is clearly involved. This entire thing has gotten out of control and it seems no one can raine it in. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 03:27, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Your Talk Page Side/Top Bar

Would you have any qualms against my using your bar here on your talk page on my talk page? I really like it. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 03:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Not at all, feel free. Prodego 03:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sweet, thanks :) I think I will work on it tonight. I will link you when I finish. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 04:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident

May I suggest a 1RR restriction on this article, per the climate change sanctions? This would mirror what was done to the IPCC article by the unprotecting admin in that case. Oren0 (talk) 10:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

On the removal of sourced statement without consensus - seeking input

I saw your comment on the removal of a sourced quote at Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident - what do you propose? Not only was it sourced, we had had two long discussions over that paragraph where the consensus was seemingly that it was notable but the source could be improved. I thus found a better WP:RS and brought up a discussion to have it changed. Instead of doing so, ChrisO removed it completely and warned us all that anything we did would be dealt with under the new sanctions. This is as far as I can see exactly what the community was afraid of would happen - but I do not see how it can be handled more correctly. Looking for suggestions. Troed (talk) 10:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This is very simple; Troed has not mentioned the fact that the material that I removed was from a blog (Climate Audit) making claims about third parties who are living persons. That's specifically prohibited by WP:V and WP:BLP, as I have explained here. If an alternative source can be found (and bearing in mind other considerations such as WP:UNDUE), then something similar might be included, but claims from bloggers about third parties are definitely excluded from consideration. As you're aware, WP:BLP states that "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." -- ChrisO (talk) 13:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi ChrisO. The material was neither unsourced nor poorly sourced, and you were well aware of the results from the talk page (an alternative WP:RS did exist). It's also incorrect to refer to the material as contentious, and thus, as far as I can see, all your references to WP:BLP are in error in this context. The paragraph in question also had a bit of history in the edit log, and you didn't exactly help in building consensus by starting to reference sanctions against editors, in your role as administrator. WP:AGF etc. You seem to be the editor with the most number of edits to pages in this area, and in this case there was no consensus for your action. Troed (talk) 13:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

psb777 sanction

Hi! I see you concur with Ryan but have you read my statement which Ryan could not before he adjudicated. There were only 13 minutes before complaint and imposition of sanction. Since then 1 admin has said too quick, one other participant has said inappropriate and another has been more supportive than that.

My complaint is

undue haste: 13 minutes

Lack of due process: The prior notice could not have said to have been given, it's supposed to be given by an admin

Incorrect result (well I would say that, wouldn't I) but the evidence is not how it is described - read the statements

Paul Beardsell (talk) 18:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The way I see it was that you were making multiple reverts of multiple editors in an area where there was not clear consensus. Prodego 19:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought there was a consensus although not complete unanimity. The outcome seemed good and what was done then remains the basis of a dignificant improvement. But let's say you're right and the criticism in the adjudication request was right, what about due process? Paul Beardsell (talk) 20:21, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

What I'd suggest you do is leave a note before you make a change based on consensus in a talk page section. That way everyone has a chance to agree or raise any new objections / alternate interpretations. It appears both Lar and Ryan prefer the 1RR suggestion I made (thanks to Oren0), rather than a specific restriction on you, and will be going about it that way instead, which I would find preferable. Prodego 20:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Not to put words in your mouth Prodego, but you wrote yourself at the talk page in response to Dave souza that you could not find consensus for deleting the paragraph (which Dave started out doing) that Paul later reverted back. Or I'm misunderstanding something which I'm constantly afraid of doing ... Troed (talk) 19:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't (and don't) see consensus for deleting it, or for adding it, which most likely means more discussion is required. I'm certainly happy to have a blanket 1RR restriction but if every editor keeps reverting things they believe is incorrect we haven't gotten anywhere. Prodego 20:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sincere thanks for your clarification. It seems I might need to go and read up on when to revert and when not to myself, I might've misunderstood what it's for and don't want to do the wrong thing. Troed (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

EditFilter Idea

I originally posted this to Triplestop, but he suggested I ask you.

I've been looking at the edit filter documentation and I would like to contribute a possible candidate to look for new editors changing birthdates, a fairly common and sneaky problem. I'm not looking for full edit-filter rights, but I would like to help develop the appropriate filter. If you don't have the time to deal with this right now let me know, and I'll engage someone else.

I am new to the syntax, but here's my general format right now:

(user_editcount < 50) & (article_namespace == 0) & (lcase(added_lines) rlike "dateofbirth *=+|birth ?da(te|y)|\(born |\(b\. ") & (lcase(added_lines) rlike "<REGEX>") & (lcase(removed_lines) rlike "<REGEX>")

Where I have <REGEX> is the birthday searching regex I've been working on. Below is what I've developed so far. I haven't tested it extensively, but I've thrown it against a few BLPs and it works fairly well. It finds the usual ways that birthdays are presented, either in template, or in lead, for example (b. January 1, 2010).

Here's the regex
(date of birth *=+|b\.+(&.dash;|-+)|\( *born |birth ?da(te|y) *=+|\() *((?,?)? *(jan|feb|mar|apr|may|jun|jul|aug|sep|oct|nov|dec)\.?*(?,? *){3})|(\{\{birth+\}\}).*$

I don't know how to check for what specifically was edited, as in if a numerical value was changed. Is Edit Filter able to do this sort of thing? I welcome any other ideas you have. I assume this will require more work. But please let me know how to push this along.

Shadowjams (talk) 21:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It is possible, but not feasibly. I haven't looked specifically at the regex, but I am sure a working one can be made. The problem is added_lines and removed_lines. added_lines shows all of the lines of every paragraph edited. There is no way to extract a date from one section, and compare it with another. So the only way I can think to do it would be via coding in every possible case and counting whether the number of every possible date changed. Fundamentally the problem is you can't run a regex with the abusefilter, only check if something matches one. I'll ask to see if I am incorrect. Prodego 22:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I figured as much. But there has got to be some common work-around because anytime someone retitled a header (like this diff of mine ; i'll call it a "shift-edit" for lack of a better word) it appears that the edit removed a bunch of lines and then added a bunch of lines. If the regex matched any of those it would trigger. Am I correct in understanding that this is how edit filter works? And if that's the case, is the solution only to try and hack some test to make sure it's not just triggering on "shift-edits" like that? Shadowjams (talk) 11:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The solution is to allow regexes to pass not only whether they match, but also what they match. Which would require filing a bug report at bugzilla. Prodego 18:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll work on this a bit more. I have some ideas about ways to exclude edits like the one I described above. It would miss some things, but reduce the false positives (from edit shifts). I see this as a tagging filter, not a block.

If you can define your own variables (like $1 for paragraph matching), then those could be compared, but I gather this isn't possible. I don't fully understand the distinction you're making between running and matching a regex, but don't worry about that--I've taken up a bit of your time already. I appreciate your help. I may reignite this on the project talk page if I can make some improvements. Shadowjams (talk) 20:58, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

That is exactly the distinction I was trying to make, the ability to get what was matched as $1 or \1. You can define your own variables but not in this way. I can't think of a way to make this work without a million different rcount checks. (or an improvement to the abusefilter) Prodego 21:00, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Move protection removed?

Did you mean to remove move protection on Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident when you took off edit protection? Because that's a really, really, bad idea given all the controversy over what to call the article. It's already just been moved without consensus to a new title. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't think that it would be a problem, but now it will just have to be dealt with since it already happened. The move doesn't seem to unreasonable, if the section mentioned in the summary is correct. Prodego 19:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your trust

Hi Prodego. I just noticed that my permissions have been changed, and I wanted to briefly thank you for your trust in me. I have a quick question if you don't mind. I noticed that there are a significant number of outstanding requests on WP:EF/R. Are these not receiving attention because it's been determined they're not particularly useful, or is it that they haven't been attended to yet? Additionally, what about the filled and denied requests (as marked) on that page? I noticed they haven't been pulled to the appropriate sections. Do you think there would be any backlash if I were to "clean up" by moving filled and denied requests to the appropriate section, or is there a reason for them to remain where they are? Thanks again. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 01:48, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The page is yours, so to speak, if you want it. But mind that there are limited capabilities and limited resources available with the abusefilter. The majority of ideas people have to use it do not end up being practical, for one reason or another. In that sense you may want to get a second opinion before implementing anything, just to get the idea of what is reasonable. Let me know if you have any questions, Prodego 02:02, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course. In fact, the only two that I've responded to so far have been responded to with the advice that it not be implemented because it cannot be justified, performance-wise. Thanks for the information. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 02:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Meatery

Do you happen to know if anything ever came from that WP:MEAT-related issue? -- Scjessey (talk) 18:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I am waiting for a response at the moment, I don't know if arbcom has taken any action yet, I imagine not. I'm still working on it though. Prodego 18:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Okey dokey. It does not seem to be causing any problems on the article in question, but I was curious. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

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Massacres of Albanians in the Kosovo War

Please, Prodego, advice me, that article is now such a POV pushing, that that is impossible. Whatever i tell him, his only argument is that he must do that. He write to me on my talk page in Serbian language that "we must write about atrocities that our country committed to others, so we can be redeemed to God". ? Ok, that's good, but this is not church, this is encyclopedia. That POV is pointless. What can we do? --Tadija (talk) 11:17, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Well yes, the only thing to do is write about history, which would include "atrocities", but that certainly isn't terribly good reasoning. Could you elaborate on who "he" is? Prodego 20:34, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Mladifilozof. We talked with him here. (Talk:Massacres_in_Kosovo) --Tadija (talk) 16:41, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

This issue is being discussed at WP:WQA#personal attack. Your input would be welcome and appreciated. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:28, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

WTF?

This is retarded. The bot came along and broke everything, and then Nsaa made it worse. I fix all the bot havoc (it took me an hour, painstakingly working my way through it manually) and then you came along and reverted it again. Please self-revert and then let Nsaa fix the TINY ERROR he created. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:46, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Forget it. It has now been fixed. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:47, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Whitespace doesn't do anything, so nothing was broken. The only error was the one introduced by Nsaa that you repeatedly readded. Prodego 22:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

That is not correct. The whitespace was added by the bot in error, as a discussion at the bot's talk page demonstrates. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

It shouldn't have added them because it didn't fix the problem, but the whitespace also did not break anything. Prodego 22:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree! Where was the whitespace located? Can't see them in the diffs. What do they broke? Hopefully the last edit made by Guettarda fixed the whitespace-problem. Nsaa (talk) 22:57, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Opportunity to retract false statement on my talk page

It would be wise to retract this. -- Proofreader77 20:57, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Your behavior and your comments have indicated that not only are you acting disruptively, but that you are deliberately doing so. You need to stop causing disruption on that page, and others. If you wish to bring up a proposal to change the assume good faith policy, use WT:AGF, which is the correct place to do so. Do not create a thread on Jimbo's talk page, then repeatedly comment on it to prevent its archiving. Prodego 20:59, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

• Noting no retraction — reiteration of false allegations/aspersions (or profoundly uncomprehending response — which means they should step back and discuss before acting in an administrative capacity).

  Also note: irony (See topic) -- Proofreader77 21:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Questions for Prodego

1. Are you on wikibreak (as your pages say you are)? -- Proofreader77 21:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

   No, I'm not, I was, and I will be again, however. How is this relevant? Prodego 21:15, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

   "Prodego is currently on Wikibreak" - Given the history of your user page, may we assume it is your standard operating procedure to assert you are on wikibreak whether you are or not? Relevance: Administrator acting in administrator role while asserting "on wikibreak" is an issue with respect to administrator interaction with other editors. -- Proofreader77 21:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

   If you look at the history of my userpage, you will see that not be the case. Even if it were the case, it still would not be a problem. If you have a problem with my administrative actions you can bring that up here: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' Noticeboard/Incidents. Prodego 21:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

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New ANI created.

I believe I should give you a heads-up on this ANI regarding Proofreader77 http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Proofreader77_Established_record_of_continuous_unrelenting_Disruptive_Editing

--Tombaker321 (talk) 09:05, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Meat reminder

I dunno if you ever got in touch with him, but he is back editing the CRU hacking incident talk page. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:40, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ 03:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Koman90, A+ (talk) 06:36, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

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Your edit to the arbitration request

I've removed it as that section is only for Arbitrators, you'll have to start your own section I'm afraid. I just moved MZMcbride's comments to his section. Dougweller (talk) 20:08, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

So you are going to require me to start an entire section for a tangentially related manner because this section is only for the arbiters? It is a pity I am not worthy of commenting there. Prodego 20:12, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

• Curious: who is the "et al." referenced in your header? –xeno 20:36, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Since I asked that replies be left in that section, anyone who does so. Prodego 20:36, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I understand now. –xeno 20:37, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Point of order

Prodego, you demanding too much attention (and space) on the WP:RFAR page. Could you please move the threaded discussion some place else so that others have a fair chance to state their opinions. Thank you. Jehochman 21:59, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Its not really anything different than some of the massive rants that are sometimes made as comments, but it is far more productive. Certainly others can state their opinions regardless of the size or number of other comments on the case? I didn't want to create a comment section, but as you can see in the section above, I was informed I had to. Prodego 22:02, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride 2

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride 2/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride 2/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Ryan Postlethwaite 23:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Dave Strasser

I was just thumbing through my log of deleted edits, and when I noticed that you deleted this article as an A7 last May, I wondered what your reasons for the deletion were. This was the status of the page at the time of its deletion, and it clearly indicates that Strasser had fought in the UFC on several occasions, thereby satisfying WP:ATHLETE (to say nothing of the A7 standard of a mere assertion of notability). Can you explain? -Hit bull, win steak 03:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I honestly do not know. I may have mistakenly deleted the wrong page, typically I do not delete pages as A7 unless they are tagged (instead I tag them). The deletion was definitely wrong, I don't know why I would have done that. Prodego 04:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Human Rights Believer

Topic ban violation, with edit summaries like:

• Fascist Serb nationalist
• Fascist serbo-nationalist
• rv serbo-nationalist fascist

Topic ban here ()

Revert warnings with Are you the law????? Get off my back then fascists

Be good. --Tadija (talk) 11:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

He is 24 h blocked. Thanks anyway! --Tadija (talk) 12:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Now indef. (User_talk:Human_Rights_Believer#Indefinite_block) --Tadija (talk) 14:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow, what a roller-coaster! 12 h again! :) -Tadija (talk) 14:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Looking... Prodego 16:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks like that outcome will work for now, we shall see what he does in 12 hours. Prodego 16:47, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Filter review

Hi Prodego. If you get a chance could you do an independent review of filter 285? It's been running for a few days now without changes and hasn't hit a false positive yet, and it's catching quite a few things that other filters haven't been. I'm planning to set this to disallow, but first just wanted an independent review just for a double-check. Thanks. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 20:53, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Well you don't need the ?: and newlines are just \n, not \r\n, which is never going to match. I'd see if perhaps its method could be made an improvement on existing filters, if not, if just checking for any word repeated would work. I'd definitely check that out as a possibility, as that would be easier to maintain and more effective, but if it gets too many false positives, so be it. This filter does seem to be both a good idea, and effective. So it looks good to me. Prodego 21:25, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't sure of whether Misplaced Pages uses a CR-LF pair (which would depend on what OS they're using), so I included both \r and \n. Note that it's in a character class (in brackets) so it would still match, just as you say the \r would never be matched itself. Note, though, that this doesn't necessarily require that the same word be repeated - if each one of the words in the list were used right after each other, but each one only once, then that would match as well. (I'm not sure if I explained this well, sorry if it's confusing.) Changing to "any word" would rely on the entire block being the same word. Take for example this hit which would have been missed that way. Anyway, thanks for taking a look at it. I'll try to see if I can merge this filter into others or the other way around to help consolidate. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 23:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe they run Ubuntu servers, but in any case "\r" will never be matched, - the filter still works on \n and " " of course. That's a good point about the use of mixed words, that wouldn't be caught otherwise, although I imagine hits like that are much rarely than hits where the same word is repeated? This filter looks to be worth keeping for sure, its just a question of if other filters could be improved with it as well. Prodego 00:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Pakaštica

Prodego, why did you remove kosovo note? We have consensus about that? --Tadija (talk) 22:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

At the time I edited, the notes and references section was empty. I removed an empty section. Prodego 00:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, yes, sorry! Please, advice me. You know that we use kosovo note in all kosovo related articles. It was agreed here Kosovo note consensus. But one user think that this agreement is not enough. User_talk:Tadija#Re:_Kosovo_Police Can you advice me? I am really tired of this. But it looks like there is no questions about it! --Tadija (talk) 11:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Ha ha ha 'no'  :) Piratejosh85 (talk) 05:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The no relates to the fact that that editor added a lot of such links, in a way that pretty obviously constitutes spamming, I'm still working on cleaning that up. Prodego 05:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Ok, now that I know the reason it seems fair. However, I do think that particular article can be cited in the "Support and Criticism" section.BillyJack193 (talk) 06:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Reply

Civility

Apparently you're big on civility. Excellent, we need more of it. Where I come from, addressing strangers by their unadorned surname isn't civil. It is all written down at User:William_M._Connolley/For_me/The_naming_of_cats if you're in doubt; you error is not uncommon William M. Connolley (talk) 20:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Well since "William M. Connolley" is rather long I thought I would shorten it, and I thought that "Connolley" would be preferable to "William" or "WMC". If you prefer, I will use "William M. Connolley". Prodego 20:09, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't be ungracious: you can call me by my username if you like. But you might find it quite long, and many people find it quite hard to spell, so you are welcome to use WMC instead. is not hard to parse. But thank you for correcting your error William M. Connolley (talk) 20:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Not a problem. Prodego 20:55, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

name calling

As Connolley repeatedly uses the derogatory expression of septic to refer to people with opposing views to his would it be OK to refer to him as a climate whiner ? Off2riorob (talk) 23:28, 24 January 2010 (UTC)