Revision as of 14:25, 17 September 2007

Purge the cache to refresh this page

• WP:AN
• WP:ANB

• For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.
• If you are new, try the Teahouse instead.
• Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead, follow the instructions on Misplaced Pages:Requests for oversight.
• For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent.
• Do not post requests for page protection, deletion requests, or block requests here.
• Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly.
• If you want to challenge the closure of a request for comment, use {{RfC closure review}}

When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough.

You may use {{subst:AN-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.

Sections inactive for over seven days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search)

Current issues

Article template standardisation is happening

It's probably worth mentioning that the Misplaced Pages:Template standardisation project (part two: article space) after three weeks of discussion -- without a single dissenter (!) -- is now going ahead and editing all the article templates.

They need administrators to help out with protected templates. If you can, please sign up at Misplaced Pages talk:Template standardisation#Admins willing to help. ←Ben 23:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, something has gone wrong, since the ones I've seen so far are showing up funny. --Calton | Talk 03:06, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you please elaborate on what's gone wrong, what templates it's occuring on etc. Harryboyles 03:25, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I would guess (uneducatedly, as ever, and probably wrongly, since there may well be occurring real, non-stylistic problems) that Calton refers to the absence of boxed borders and the left-orientation of Template:Ambox, by which I, for one, having, I admit, been only vaguely aware of the work at TS, was rather surprised; I think the "new" format to be decidedly, well, ugly and generally displeasing, but I imagine that it is fair to say that a good many editors partook of the TS discussion, such that there likely exists a clear consensus of the community for the new format (this is not, I would say, a situation like, for instance, that that some perceived to exist relative to WP:ATT, where there existed unanimous support amongst those at WT:ATT for the elevation of the page to policy but where much of the community was apparently unaware of the existence of the ATT debate—a good bit of heated discussion, one will recall, ensued, but this strikes me as a much less serious/significant/controversial issue, and one in the resolution of which many editors across the project have already been involved). Joe 06:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I've only just discovered this, and so far don't find anything to approve of with these changes. See my posts at Wikipedia_talk:Template_standardisation#Template_background. Tyrenius 07:04, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The new templates are not compatible with the existing classic design and colour scheme of wikipedia. They are less easy to read visually than the old template designs, and are overall inferior. See Wikipedia_talk:Article_templates#This_guideline_is_disputed. Tyrenius 08:31, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

ConfuciusOrnis

ConfuciusOrnis (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been harrassing me for weeks. He has made a false-accusation that I am a sock-puppet, which is now closed. He has also been reverting many of my edits for no legitimate reason. He even went as far as to request deletion speedy of an article on a very notable golf company simply because I was the main contributor (the speedy delete request was closed by an admin).

Furthermore, he has been uncivil to many other users, if you look at his talk page you will see what I'm talking about.

Thank you for your help. --RucasHost 07:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

PS. He has already been blocked twice (this month) of uncivility and once for 3RR. --RucasHost 07:25, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

comment - I feel the 3RR by User:ConfuciusOrnis was a technical failure rather than edit warring against consensus. The IP also reverted numerous times and was also blocked . Later the consensus view made it difficult for the IP to maintain its reverts.

There is actually just 1 incivility claims as one incident seems to been reversed. Personally I wouldn't put too much weight on the 1 remaining incivility claim given how the blocking admin looks to be way too involved with the same sets of discussions ...and onwards in the admin talk. Ttiotsw 10:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Images (especially flags) not displaying properly

Before there's a number of posts on this issue, it's a Commons issue, and the developers are looking at it. ELIMINATORJR 11:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Nick10000 (talk · contribs)

Just to let you guys know, I've removed twinkle from Nick10000's monobook as he obviously can't act responsibly with it, reverting things that quite simply don't need reverting such as users comments on talk pages. I've also told him not to re-add it. Please review and revert if required. Ryan Postlethwaite 16:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I think 2 weeks off twinkle is fine. His edit to Raul's talk was outrageous, and this is just as dubious and really quite BITEy. Moreschi 16:26, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I endorse as well, if a user cannot use a script responsibly, they should not use it. --ST47Talk·Desk 17:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Makes perfect sense. Nihiltres 20:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh the humanity

Why do CAT:PORN and CAT:PR0N exist? 74.224.67.13 19:31, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Because it's shorter to type than Category:Pornography—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Why do we need a shortcut for it? The people who use the category don't know the shortcut exists, and the people who don't see how useless it is. 74.224.67.13 19:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Because redirects are free, and everyone likes cat porn. WilyD 19:36, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps these were created by someone in the pornography WikiProject. Does it matter? Nihiltres 20:03, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason for PRON. It's just a redir for a typo.Rlevse 21:13, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Not even: it uses a zero for an "o." The latter of the two is pretty useless. ~ UBeR 21:26, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Uhm ... this is a very hard question to ask without coming off like a sarcastic asshole, but: seriously? pr0n? Redirects are free anyhow. WilyD 21:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I sometimes forget this is supposed to be an encyclopedia. ~ UBeR 21:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I want to know what the Cat Fanciers Association has to say about Misplaced Pages's condoning of feline pornography.... Resolute 21:43, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Just be glad it isn't kitty porn. — Edokter • Talk • 01:12, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Just be glad it's not File:Wikipi-tan in a catsuit.png - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 02:55, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I've done redirects to accommodate the Oxford (serial) comma before. Redirects for typos are harmless and useful. Moreschi 22:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed. If this is what we're worrying about.... well, CAT:CSD is THAT way..... ----> - Philippe | Talk 01:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Nationalism essay

Some spam for User:Moreschi/The Plague. Thoughts? Please leave any on talk page. Some of the measures proposed are radical, but otherwise I cannot see our national-ethnic problem of POV editing being resolved. More seriously, User:Dbachmann/Wikipedia and nationalism should be required reading for all users, particularly admins. If you have not read this analysis already, please do so! Moreschi 22:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Both essays are particularly relevant with Catalonia, Bharatveer and The Troubles all currently in arbitration, and Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 only just finished. Moreschi 22:23, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't necessarily agree with the solutions proposed but the problems are real and your essay does a good job of characterising them, as does Dbachmann's. This is a very real problem, it may be our Achilles heel if we don't address it. I see admins (including myself, I've been accused of being a tool of the serbians by the croats (or was it the other way round? :) ) recently) get dragged into these things over and over, and they consume mass quantities of time, edit capacity and good will. Thank you for starting this discussion. ++Lar: t/c 15:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Userspace GFDL violations

See . The pages are various copies of the articles at Template:Harrypotter, with no attribution whatsoever. MER-C 02:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, they are a copyright violation, but that can be resolved if the editor just copied a list of contributors to the talk page. Since it's just one editor copying the articles, it can presumably be handled by discussing the situation with that editor. Not everyone is aware that copying GFDL pages without a list of contributors is problematic. Let's find out what's going on here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:01, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

In case my last post was poorly worded: MER-C was perfectly correct this is an issue that needs to be resolved. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

SVG problem

Protection icon broken

The protection icon in the upper-right corner (such as seen on Misplaced Pages:Protection policy) is showing up as a broken image and I'm not sure how to fix it. The link points to http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Padlock-silver-medium.svg/20px-Padlock-silver-medium.svg.png, which clearly doesn't make sense. I can't find 'padlock-silver-medium' at Special:Allmessages and I don't know where else to look. -SCEhardT 05:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

purged, should work now. The "svg.png" notation means that SVG files are rendered as PNG, a more accessible format. ˉˉ╦╩ 05:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting! I had no idea about the .svg.png - thanks for explaining. However, the icon still isn't showing up on Misplaced Pages:Protection policy (even after trying Ctrl+F5) -SCEhardT 05:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Dude, it's not showing up on articles like George W. Bush either. -Theanphibian 05:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Clicking on the purge link does render an image in this case, yet it still isn't showing up. Annoying bug of some sort, it's also listed at WP:VP/T. ˉˉ╦╩ 05:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

SVG Images completely stopped working

Somehow, there have been broad problems over this wikipedia and other langauge wikipedias with SVG files used from the commons. I notice the issue has come up as a variety of templates were reformatted, thought I don't know if this was related. Anyway, I'm sure there are thousands and thousands of articles affected by this, for a brief example, see the "merge arrow" in Template:mergeto. Please tell me someone is working on this. -Theanphibian 05:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

edit conflict note: This might be the same thing as the last post.

Strange, other sizes render fine, e.g. 49px. Purging yields blank file. ˉˉ╦╩ 05:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with SVG, but the Wikimedia Commons

I noticed that none of the images hosted on this wiki itself break, but both SVG and raster images on the Wikimedia Commons do not show up properly. One PNG example (as of this time) is at User:AZPR.

By the way, this bug has been filed in the Wikimedia bugzilla at bugzilla:5463. Since this is a bug, and not something that administrators can correct, the bugzilla is a better place to bring your discussion. We administrators are rather powerless on this problem and need some developers' help to fix this. However, we can help the developers isolate the problem by posting clues we dig up at the bugzilla. Therefore, the administrator's noticeboard is not really the right place to discuss this problem. Please send future discussion to bugzilla:5463. Jesse Viviano 08:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I posted this in like 5 places, I see now the bugzilla is actually the place to get it dealt with. Still, given that this problem is messing up a large fraction of wikipedia articles, I HOPE that someone with the ability to do so is working on it right now. -Theanphibian 14:18, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Jpg not working either

The image of the sun

at the top of solar power is not rendering either, yet other pages that use images from the commons do work. In that case it seems to be just that one image. There are three other similar images that could be used as a replacement. 199.125.109.41 13:18, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

BetacommandBot's notices becoming more difficult to parse

Is it just me, or is this bot leading us to the point where we would need a lawyer to a. formulate a fair use rational for usage on Misplaced Pages; and, b. parse out what the codified objections are based on. See my query on the bot's talk page for detail. El_C 05:31, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:NFCC#10c is a stupid and pointless concern to address, especially since all media files include a "File links" heading that lists all uses. If any specific usage is unsupported by the rationale, simply remove it. Tagging these images as having "bad" fair use rationales is counterproductive. ˉˉ╦╩ 05:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The "file links" answer doesn't work. For example, if the image is removed from its original article usage and placed in a completely unauthorized and unjustified article, the original rationale no longer applies. This is why the rationale needs to specify the article usage per WP:NFCC#10c. Videmus Omnia 06:01, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that many images are deleted every time the rules are changed (i.e. every Thursday); and why couldn't the bot just add that link we both did? El_C 06:06, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that WP:NFCC#10c is a new requirement, it's been around for quite a while so far as I know. Videmus Omnia 06:12, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, Videmus Omnia explained/fixed this. But there has to be a more straight forward way to explain such matters, from the outset. This codified language seems to broaden the gap between image editors/enforcers and everyone else. El_C 05:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I was JUST having a quarrel with this bot myself. Challenging my fair use?!?! You can't do that if you're not human! -Theanphibian 05:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Why can't BetacommandBot just automatically link to it? I'm concerned that a lot of images are going to be deleted because of that. Now, granted, I possess a below-average intelligence (so bear with me), but I've been staring blankly at this so-called WP:NFCC#10c, and I still have no idea what it is. Actually, I'm inclined to draw the conclusion that it contains a Martian invasion plan of some sort, so I'm off to arm my cat! El_C 05:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

It can't automatically link to it because it takes a human to determine whether the usage is valid. If I uploaded a Ford logo and included it in the Chrysler article, should BetacommandBot automatically rewrite the rationale to say it is a good usage? Videmus Omnia 06:12, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have been preparing my squirrel army ever since I first saw that. I have no idea what it means either. Viridae 05:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

There has to be a way to stop fair use trimming through such underhanded, superfluous rule-making. If that is what's happening here. El_C 05:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The bot checks whether a rationale links to an article the image is used on. In Theanphibian's Image:NCSU R1.jpg, the rationale linked to NCSU Reactor Program (a redirect), whereas the actual usage occurs at North Carolina State University reactor program. It then "disputes" the rationale because something doesn't add up in its little automated mind. In a few weeks, when it's time to clear the disputed rationale backlogs, I wonder how many admins will choose to fix the trivial concern rather than just deleting the image. This is a bad, bad idea which is going to clog up the deletion queue with many valid fair use claims. (e/c) ˉˉ╦╩ 05:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I keep hearing what a great job this bot does in clearing backlog, but if it's doing this, is it not adding more backlog than it is clearing? And even worse, behind deleting encyclopedic images (logo for that party, for example) due to trivialities, which are a product of...? El_C 05:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I have ambivalent feelings about the bot and its tasks. Some tasks, like the identification of orphaned fair use images, are extremely useful, others, like the NFCC#10c tagging, are of dubious utility. Betacommand has a very linear and detail-oriented approach to the bot, which is good for a programmer, but has flaws when it comes to the overall impact to the project. The deletion of a fair use image sans proper rationale will not necessarily encourage users to upload an alternative which corrects all foreseeable concerns. Maintenance of fair use images requires informed editorial discretion, leaving such tasks to a bot is like using a streetsweeper instead of a broom. BTW, the redirect bug just earned bcbot another emergency stoppage. (e/c) ˉˉ╦╩ 06:06, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Yet another bad block of BetacommandBot. Those are always quickly reversed. Videmus Omnia 06:12, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

• Wait. BCBot is tagging bad fair use claims? I understand having a bot tag images lacking a rationale, or license tag, or some other component, but bots should not be evaluating the validity of those things. -Amarkov moo! 06:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The bot is making a very simple check - does the rationale include the name of the article in which the image is to be used per WP:NFCC#10c? This is a very easy requirement to understand, I don't get the pretended confusion. If an admin deletes the image rather than fixing the problem (which is what I normally do, if the usage is valid per WP:NFCC), then the problem is with the deleting admin, not the bot. Videmus Omnia 06:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Spreading blame to the deleting admin ignores the bot's role in eliminating valid fair use images. I've ran across whole discographies where the individual entries lack album covers thanks to BCBot's grand no-rationale cleansing earlier this year. ˉˉ╦╩ 06:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but what about images that really do actually pass the muster of NFCC10, like this one: . Of course, Betacommand doesn't have a problem creating hours worth of work for others, but he can't be bothered spending a few minutes making sure a the page is listed via a redirect. The Evil Spartan 06:17, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

That is no pretended confusion. How can anyone who reads that new NFC#10 knows to do what you just did? Be sensible! El_C 06:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't jump into the previous Betacommandbot rows because the bot was doing painful, but necessary, work in clearing out images with grossly incomplete fair-use rationales, images with a real possibility being liabilities. However, this just popped up on my watchlist. It is an image into which actual work was put into setting up a fair-use rationale (valid and perfectly defensible, by the way), but whose rationale was still imperfect per the current fair-use guidelines.

This image will have no problem beating its 7-day execution deadline, because it is on a high-traffic article on many active users' watchlists. What is going to happen, though, to all the images with usable, but not perfect, fair-use rationales, whose placement on obscure articles means many of their deletion-taggings won't be discovered until it's too late?

Is our new standard for image deletion that fair-use rationales must be perfect by the standards of our current fair-use doctrine or else face quick deletion, regardless of how "fixable" and otherwise-valid those rationales may be? I know this has been discussed to death, but Betacommand's bot is starting to paint with such wide, nitpicking brushstrokes that we could soon lose a large chunk of our legitimate fair-use content. We're talking about images uploaded in good faith by editors who added good -- but not lawyer-perfect -- fair-use rationales, the imperfections of which have nothing to do with the prima facie legitimacy of the images' use on Misplaced Pages. --Dynaflow babble 06:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC) {EDIT:] What is our purpose here? Are we most concerned with whether images are actually usable in Misplaced Pages, or are we more concerned with precise compliance with our own self-made rules, with trying to make it maddeningly difficult to get any bit of non-Creative Commons media included in the encyclopedia, or what? --Dynaflow babble 06:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, the nitpicking is going out of hand BcB has been tagging at a ridiculous rate, at least five pages on my watchlist received image deletion notice in less than ten minutes, I understand the bot tagging images with no rationale but I don't think the bot has the required reasoning to know what can be considered a "Bad rationale", I can see this situation being particulary troubling with the new users that aren't well informed about the "copyright paranoia" in Misplaced Pages. - Caribbean~H.Q. 07:07, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's an example of that: diff. A user wished to add his own work to the encyclopedia and release it into the public domain. In an attempt to comply with policy, he added an extra template, stating that te image was fair-use because it was his own work. Betacommandbot zapped the image anyway, because it expects that template only on non-free images.

Misplaced Pages is supposed to be the encyclopedia anyone can edit, but this zero-tolerance policy undermines that promise -- only those well-versed in Misplaced Pages's internal culture and policies can upload an image without there being a serious chance of someone's automated script just coming along one day and summarily sending it down the memory hole. Either every step of the upload process needs to be carefully structured so that a user can't help but add tags a machine would interpret as perfect, or we need to take a second look at the apparent policy to shoot first and ask questions later when it comes to images and fair use. --Dynaflow babble 07:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Bad block of User:BetacommandBot

User:RockMFR has blocked the bot, although it is doing it's function as designed. If a non-free image rationale is written for a redirect page, this is not a correct rationale - it needs to be fixed per WP:NFCC#10c. The bot is performing its function as approved. Videmus Omnia 06:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

But the bot has the capacity to simply fix this on-the-fly, does it not? At least provide a better explanation (see my question to you). El_C 06:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

How is this confusing - WP:NFCC#10c - "The image or media description page contains the following:...The name of each article in which fair use is claimed for the item, and a separate fair use rationale for each use of the item." All I did was add the name of the article for which fair use was claimed, pretty easy stuff. The bot cannot make the changes itself because it cannot determine whether the usage is valid, as explained in my Ford/Chrysler example above. Videmus Omnia 06:27, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

If we follow common sense it's easy, but this is the weekly-image-policy! The name of the party was noted, in the description field. El_C 06:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The name of the party, but not the name of the article. And, per the Foundation's licensing resolution, the data needs to be put into a machine-readable format. Videmus Omnia 06:40, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I explained my block on the bot's talk page. I'm well aware that the bot is correctly following WP:NFCC#10 as it is written. However, adding support for redirect detection is a relatively simple technical fix, and from what I can gather above, there is some support for allowing redirect titles to act as substitutes for the article name provision at WP:NFCC#10. --- RockMFR 06:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

This could have been addressed without blocking the bot, which is doing necessary work. And WP:NFCC#10 doesn't currently contain any exception for redirect pages. Videmus Omnia 06:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Common sense does. A bot's inability to use common sense is the most common reason for admins having to push the big red button. ˉˉ╦╩ 06:33, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you specify exactly how the bot was deviating from its approved function? Videmus Omnia 06:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Was the bot really approved to tag images that contain incorrect references to the article in which they are used? I'm not saying anything but....It seems like a relative cost/benefit question to me. Which is worse in terms of time spent, errors, disruption, annoyance, etc? For the uploaders and deleting administrators to deal with this and fix images if necessary, or to reprogram the bot to follow redirects (and perhaps fix on the fly)? Ideally the image should be fixed because that's better for record-keeping. The best approach, if anyone wants to do that, is to write a new helper bot that will go in and fix use rationales by replacing article names that are redirects, with the name of the redirect target. And another to do this whenever a page containing non-free images is moved. Even better for saving time, how about a bot that grabs the article name from the "what links here" and slaps it onto the use rationale whenever the rationale is missing the article name or has the wrong one....perhaps with a question mark indicating that it still needs a human to check it over to make sure that's right. Anyway, I'll propose something more detailed along these lines over at NFCC within a few days regarding the legacy images. For the new images, the uploader just hast to be careful. Is that so much to ask? Wikidemo 06:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

How is the bot supposed to tell if the usage is valid or not? Compliance with WP:NFCC is the responsibility of the uploader (or anyone else with an interest in retaining non-free content), not the bot. Regardless, the block was bad. Videmus Omnia 06:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

By your logic the bot has absolutely no interest in retaining non-free content. Such an antagonistic approach is a bad thing. I think there's merit to eliminating all fair use claims on Misplaced Pages, but not by a bleedin' campaign of attrition! ˉˉ╦╩ 06:47, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Lets say that a bot is programmed to methodically blank every third sentence in an article. While it may be performing the requested function, that doesn't mean the function itself is well-defined or sensible. C'mon V.O., you can't seriously believe that using a redirect runs counter to fulfilling the intent of NFCC#10c. ˉˉ╦╩ 06:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that the idea did not justify a block of the bot. Of all the images it is tagging, what percentage were to redirects? 1%? 5%? Wikidemo's idea has merits, but it requires a process to be developed for human interaction. (And humans are already being notified to check the images via copious warnings, and only a human can actually delete the tagged images.) In the meantime, the bot has been approved to label images with noncompliant rationales, and should be unblocked to continue. Have you looked at the bot's block log? The blocks are virtually always overturned as bad. Videmus Omnia 06:49, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not like blocking a person. It's just stopping a machine until we figure out if what it's doing is right. If what it's doing isn't right, then the longer we let it run, the more damage it'll do. Since Misplaced Pages has no deadlines (unlesss you've uploaded a picture with an imperfect fair-use rationale), no harm is done in pausing the bot's work. --Dynaflow babble 06:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there is a deadline - March 23, 2008, per the Foundation. And we have hundreds of thousands of images, with thousands more uploaded every day. Videmus Omnia 07:17, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Right. That's why it's to the community's detriment for the bot to waste our time by forcing us to check and correct image pages that it shouldn't be tagging in the first place. The bot should simply check the links contained within the rationale. (I'm not even suggesting that it check for non-linked redirect titles.) If one of them is a redirect to the article containing the image, it should then update it accordingly. —David Levy 07:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Any instances of improper tagging due to the presence of redirects formed sufficient basis for forcefully pausing the bot, as all tagging prior to the block will have to be reviewed. The presence of a substantial block log indicates an unreliable track record, no bot gets a free ride because of good intentions. ˉˉ╦╩ 06:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

My 2 cents is that tagging bad fair use rational templates by bot is counterproductive to the wiki community at large. I can agree that it makes some sense to tag images completly lacking fair use rationale templates (although I fail to see why not an enhance version of the boilerplates could just do that), but he current order, where editors have to watch the images they've upload constantly against arbitrary deletions is just creating a feeling of repulsion towards the very idea of a community wikipedia. The task of improving fair use rationales has to be done through manual editing, by motivating why there are faults in the rational on the image talk page. --Soman 07:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec)Reviewed how? If a rationale points to a redirect, the rationale needs to be fixed per WP:NFCC. I think you're overlooking the fact that the bot does not delete anything, it simply identifies problems that need to be fixed. Is it better if we just pretend the problems don't exist? Videmus Omnia 07:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to disagree here. No, this is not a problem that needs to be fixed. In common Misplaced Pages practice, citing a redirect title generally works just fine as an unambiguous reference to a page. There is no practical problem I can think of, except in vanishingly rare cases. If I move a page, that does not mean all references elsewhere on the wiki to the old title become invalid. If it works without a problem in articles and talk pages, why shouldn't it work in image description pages? I'm normally the first to press for the strictest possible application of NFCC, but I think we ought to concentrate on the content of what kinds of non-free content we want to have, not on formality hair-splitting. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I can buy into this, as I stated above, but I don't think this justified shutting down the bot. No reasonable admin is going to delete an image just because the rationale points to a redirect. The rationale should be fixed to get the rationale into a machine-readable format per the resolution, but nobody will delete because of that. I just don't understand the aversion to using the bot to identify the problem. Videmus Omnia 07:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Unless the admin is deleting images with a script (which has happened before). The point I see here is that the images were indeed in machine-readable format, and were brought out of it by a move by a third party. In that case, the uploader of the image did not do anything wrong, yet still may see his image deleted. Titoxd 07:25, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not the rationale that needs to be fixed, it's the bot. Once the bot is taught to recognise references through redirects, all is fine. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

That is a mistaken inference. If the letter of NFCC does not adequately address redirects, then it must be changed, not the other way around. Redirects are going to occur, they are a necessary byproduct of constructing a wiki-based encyclopedia and therefore trump minute incongruities presented by hyper-prescriptive rationale formatting. BCBot, in effect, created a problem where one did not exist. (e/c) ˉˉ╦╩ 07:18, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Let me make sure I'm understanding here, if an editor decides to disambiguate a page which has a FU image and then moves the original page to the dismabiguated title without also editing the image page to include the new 'target', no matter how properly rationaled the image page was, it'll get tagged as not correct?--Alf 07:06, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Yup, this was the reason behind blocking beta's bot. ˉˉ╦╩ 07:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the bot doesn't recognize redirects and has been tagging images as having a bad rationale because of this, wich means that at the rate that the bot works hundreds if not thousands of images with good rationales are going to be tagged as having bad rationales probably resulting in the project losing a big piece of the "good" fair use content. - Caribbean~H.Q. 07:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The bot does not delete anything. Videmus Omnia 07:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

That's obvious, that's the reason I said "Probably", why? because not all admins assess the situation before deleting a good number of them just deletes when they encounter a tag telling them to do so. - Caribbean~H.Q. 07:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

To expand on the above, while it's true the bot doesn't actually do the deletion, it still initiates the process of deletion and creates the kind of administrative backlog that encourages the quick deletion of images by whatever admins end up having to tackle it, to the detriment of the slow and careful process of putting the quasi-legal verbiage of the image page into a robot-acceptable format. --Dynaflow babble 07:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I think many people are missing the point that, per the Foundation, all non-free media that doesn't meet the criteria will be deleted after March 23, 2008. That leaves less than 200 days for the "slow and careful" process of getting the data into the right format, a process that is constantly slowed by constant bickering over simple things like including the name of an article in a rationale. And countless new noncompliant images are uploaded daily. Videmus Omnia 07:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Said criteria are determined and implemented by the community under an "Exemption Doctrine Policy" (NFCC). Out of all present criteria I would ascribe the lowest priority to NFCC#10c, and I can't think of a worse method for addressing that concern than the indiscriminate automated tagging of useful images for deletion. ˉˉ╦╩ 07:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

It's painfully obvious by now that we're missing a stable, clear, easy to use machine readable EDP. The idea of letting a bot, in the absence of such a stable, clear, easy to use machine readable EDP, tag things for not having one... is insane. If we need to have one it is absolutely the wrong thing to do to start trying to get one by blasting images. Halt the bot until there's one defined, communicate the definition to everyone, then give everyone time to tag as required. Georgewilliamherbert 08:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Adding a proper FUR should be a option when uploading an image, maybe something simmilar to how the copyright licence is presented, the user uploading is presented with a blank FUR that they fill up in accordance to the image they are uploading (this should only be available if the uploader selects one of the FU licenses of course) I know this might take some time to format but it would be a great addition to the uploading formula and would reduce the ammount of images with "Bad rationales", thus giving the bots less work and eliminating images missing FUR. - Caribbean~H.Q. 09:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's what we should do: Since the license tags must be comprehensible to our robot overlords (sorry; Slashdot moment), in the future the tags' creation should be mediated by machine, in a way that won't let an uploader proceed until all required information fields for the type of file being uploaded have been filled in to the machine's satisfaction. I'm sure it is within the Developers' capabilities to redo the upload dialogue that way.

As for the current slew of problematic images, we do seem to have a deadline. However, the deadline is in two hundred days, not seven. Betacommandbot could tag each image with a big, red threat as it does now, but set the date for deletion to, say, four months from the date tagged. That would allow the bot to index all the problematic images now, and leave sporadic contributors, people on wikibreaks, etc., time to come back, discover their images have been tagged, and fix them.

Also, it would be good of the bot to leave some sort of marker on the images themselves when they are displayed on their pages, similar to what the {{tfd-inline}} template does. Wikignomes casually reading through articles could then spot images in peril and take a crack at fixing them. If the original uploader is no longer active, the only places anyone is likely to stumble across Betacommandbot's warnings now are on Talk pages and on the pages for the images themselves, places most Wikipedians won't go unless they happen to be actively working on that particular page. Realistically, for images appearing o i articles with little or no Talk page traffic, no one is ever even likely to see that something needs to be fixed. --Dynaflow babble 10:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

BCbot has been out of control and should be permanently shut down. It should not be evaluating validity. Rlevse 11:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The situation in a nutshell: Betacommand makes a bot to do something. It often enforces policy, and is very hastily written, without worrying about people's concerns. Then people get mad when the bot either a) does something it should, b) does something it's supposed to by the letter of the law if not the spirit (would someone read freakin' WP:IAR?), or c) it does something that it shouldn't. The problem is that people often get mad at it (rightfully) for doing b or c, but it's always assumed by everyone else that people are mad for a. Capiche? And thus the bot is always unblocked, and the many calls for "knock it off Betacommand, and write a bot that works" are completely unheeded. Bad system. The Evil Spartan 11:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Uhh... c)? Can I have the evil, laconic version, please? El_C 11:58, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm tempted to add on behalf of TES "molon labe", but that would not help towards reaching an amiable compromise on this issue. -- llywrch 19:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Bad block - we don't block Bots because they lack a feature we think they should have. As ever the Bot was doing what its approved to do. If people have a problem with the Bot, they should discuss it with Betacommand or have its approval withdrawn. Being an admin is not a license to shut down Bots one doesn't like. WjBscribe 12:06, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

It is a license to do so when it does damage, such as placing hundreds of images on the deletion cue when it fails to recognize redirects. El_C 12:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I've only seen a couple of examples above - not hundreds of images. And in some of the cases the Bot's input will have been helpful. If the name of the article has changed signficantly during a move, I for one would have appreciated the Bot letting me know my rationale needs to be updated... WjBscribe 12:17, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

You would have appreciated the Bot letting you know your rationale needs to be updated? I don't know how to respond to that. El_C 12:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree the Bot has at time been heavy handed but it has also shown that users are showing a considerable lack of care when uploading non-free content. In a free content encyclopedia, uploading copyright works should be done with the utmost care - in a lot of (even recent cases) it has not been. I understand people may not be able to write a valid FUR the first time round - I have assisted numerous users with writing rationales, but I don't understand the hostility to the Bot. If I have erred in uploading content, I appreciate that being brought to my attention whether by another editor or a Bot. If a rationale is deficient, I will correct it. I also think that users should take an ongoing responsibility for fair use uploads - is the image still being used? If not, should it be deleted or restored to an article? If the former, please tag it. Has your unfree image started being used on a page other than the appropriate one? If so, please remove it. Has the page its on been moved to a new title? If so, please update your rationale. We have a vast amount of unfree images that are to all intents and purposes "unattended" such that we now can only regulate the matter with a Bot. That is not a failing of the Bot, but the fact that non-free images were allowed to multiply out of human control. WjBscribe 12:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that fair use rationales need to be carefully constructed from the get go, and should be kept accurate. I agree putting an image into a new article not mentioned in the rationale is cause for concern/investigation. But I do not agree that a redirect is not a valid reference to an article. A redirect is eminently valid, just as valid as the real title. We in fact have been admonished by developers to NOT bother fixing them at one point in the past, as being more of a load on the server than leaving them. The bot needs to be fixed, and should not run, should remain blocked, until it is fixed to either honor, or itself fix, redirects in rationales. I have deep respect for Betacommand, his efforts on behalf of the project, and for his bot, but I do think blocking this bot over this was appropriate in this case.

On the matter of helping uploaders get fair use rationales right in the first place, it is very doable to give assistance in the upload screen itself with this. Consider the Commons upload page: commons:Commons:Upload it has a menu, which by (a perversion of :) ) language codes, steers you to various upload pages. At one point, some of those pages even had javascript that would help you fill out various things, IIRC. That technical approach could be used here if desired, and it would not require developer intercession to make it happen, just carefully planned creation of sub pages and changes to the main upload page. ++Lar: t/c 15:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

We have something like that at Misplaced Pages:Upload, though I wish there was a section for Flickr images. User:Zscout370 19:01, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, everyone seems to think that things are black and white, either a bot doesn't tag images at all, or a bot has to tag images for deletion. How about a "this particular image needs some further human review" tag (with associated category) instead? This would probably already cut down on the amount of work humans need to do, since they only need to check the needs-review tags. At the same time, there's no danger of admins sweeping by and deleting things. If we make the wording of the tag really friendly, we could even draw people into the community instead.

Something similar can be done for the User talk message: —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kim Bruning (talk • contribs) 19:01, 16 September 2007 (UTC) "Hello! this is your friendly local Betacommandbot, I'm checking images to see if they are all legally shipshape and in order. There may or may not be some small amount of work to still be done on Image:Yourimage . It's probably nothing, if anyone does shows up to take a look, please be kind and give them a hand! Thank you!"

Even bots can be friendly. :-) --Kim Bruning 19:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

My 2 cents - failing to recognize redirects is a massive bug and something easily fixed. Consider that for merged lists, I've often used redirects to anchors in the FU rationale - that way, if the article is ever spun off on its own again, it points in the right place, and if the article stays merged, the link goes directly to the usage. Tagging such images with a *better* link is clearly ridiculous, as is tagging images for whom the article has moved. I'd also like to note that this policy is likely to hit obscure foreign topics with images uploaded by people with shaky commands of English harder than well-visited English topic, making the Systematic Bias group's job even harder. If Betacommand wants to actually *fix* this problem rather than simply willy-nilly nominate for deletion, may I recommend having his bot add these images to a maintenance category with a name along the lines of "Images whose article rationales may be invalid?" Then, humans can examine each image over the course of a month or whatever and decide whether it can simply be fixed, or if there's actually a problem with the image. SnowFire 22:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. See below. ++Lar: t/c 14:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Every tag that BCBOT puts on an image categorizes the image into a maintenance category. See Category:Images_with_no_fair_use_rationale for an example. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

My 2¢ about User:BetacommandBot--it should be stopped immediately.

I posted the following at Misplaced Pages talk:Non-free content and was directed to this page by Kim Bruning, who also informed me that this bot had (much to my disappointment) evidently been approved or endorsed by some sort of administrative committee. Anyway, my 2¢, plus a few questions: I happened to log in today to find a note from "Betacommand bot" ordering me to write a little essay, lest a photo I posted months ago (and fully in compliance with the policies at the time, as far as I know) be deleted. The language of the message was pompous and insulting (announcing that "there is a concern that the rationale you have provided ... may be invalid"). The larger point is that such a notice was entirely uncalled for. Leaving aside the ex-post-facto nature of the demand, the fact is that the image in question, is not problematic. It is the front cover of one issue of Aspen magazine, a defunct magazine, used as the sole illustration in the article about that magazine, and in no other articles. As it happens, there is a longstanding and well-known web site (ubu.web) that reproduces in detail the entire contents of every issue of Aspen magazine. "There is a concern..." Who is concerned? Does anybody really think this image presents a copyright problem? Does anybody think the article will be improved by removing the image? It appears to me that this user is a wildly aggressive rogue, a self-appointed sheriff indiscriminantly shooting up the town in the name of the law. In other words, this bot is damaging the quality of wikipedia and probably driving contributors away. It is unlikely I'll ever upload an image to Misplaced Pages again: good job, Betacommand. Shouldn't this user be stopped, perhaps suspended from Misplaced Pages until that bot is reconfigured to send out letters of apology? Am I missing something here? Do people actually think this automated vigilantism is a good thing? BTfromLA 19:04, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Re "Does anybody really think this image presents a copyright problem?": Yes. The image you posted is copyrighted; it needs either an appropriate license or fair use justification to be part of Misplaced Pages. The existence of other sites reproducing the copyrighted content with or without permission does not change this. However, if Betacommandbot's wording prompts this sort of outraged reaction rather than getting you to just write the necessary fair use justification, perhaps there is room to tone down its language. —David Eppstein 19:11, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment. In this particular case, the user uploaded an image, added the magazine cover template but failed to include the required rationale which, I believe, was required by the template he added. There is no foul here. We are glad to have you as an editor but we really must insist that you follow the rules and policies of Misplaced Pages even if they are sometimes uncomfortable. --JodyB _{yak, yak, yak} 11:25, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. A license template saying, in part, "It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of magazine covers to illustrate the publication of the issue of the magazine in question with the publication name either visible on the image itself or written in the image description above, on the English-language Misplaced Pages, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law" was posted as part of the original upload. I still fail to see where the problem is. If one image of the cover of one issue of a magazine being used to illustrate an article about the magazine doesn't count as fair use, what does? I'm not an attorney, but this seems like an absolutely unambiguous example of fair use, and the fair use rationale (with a warning against other uses) was already clearly posted. BTfromLA 19:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Did you look at it? The justification for this magazine cover's use is already provided, in detail, in the tag BTfromLA added to the image page. That's why the tag is called "Magazine Cover." Badagnani 19:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The question of whether to allow copyright tags as use rationales, either standing alone or with a very brief template, is something we have yet to discuss seriously but we will probably do soon. For the moment the rule is and has been for more than a year that this requires a separate use rationale. It's not a copyright problem but it is a deficiency via-a-vis the image data requirements on the subject.Wikidemo 19:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

We're all about practicality, and though I understand your concern it does sound a little vindictive to punish a user. Having been away from the debate, there are some ins and outs to image use policy and deletion you may have missed. Nevertheless, I do think this points to the need for better oversight of any bot that's going to automate image use and deletion. I'm pretty sure that the bot's original approval (which didn't follow process to begin with) was limited to tagging images without any use rationale. It was not approved for tagging images with use rationales that were determined by machine to be defective. This isn't a simple innocent mistake. Betacommand knew about the redirect issue and apparently chose to ignore it. The messages given in the latest round are hardly adequate to inform users that the reason their images are tagged is that the statement of where the image is used is missing or (the machine has decided) incorrect. I don't see how anyone planning to tag a bunch of images for a reason could miss the fact that the tag doesn't tell people the reason. So...blame the message, not the messenger. No reason to lash out against Betacommand, but specific actions of this and other bots should be reviewed and approved in advance, and our image deletion policy overall ought to be supervised in an orderly way rather than left solely to individual users to program bots as they see fit. Wikidemo 19:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

In this case the bot acted well, though the language it uses is indeed irritant. About Betacommand he was de-sysoped I don't think he deserves further punishment. - Caribbean~H.Q. 19:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Punishment? For running a bot which is doing what it is supposed to do? Corvus cornix 21:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Huh? was that directed at me? I wasn't the one that suggested suspending him from Misplaced Pages. - Caribbean~H.Q. 21:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not proposing punishment either. The bot is well intentioned. It has obviously acted up, but not in this case. Wikidemo 21:40, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks like the bot did what it should do. People keep complaining about the bot, but I don't see any proposals to change the policies the bot is based on, so it seems more like people are complaining about having to follow our own rules. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 21:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Some parts of some policies should not be handled by a bot. Can you imagine a bot for evaluating article neutrality? There are obviously flaws in image policies which should be addressed and enforcing a hyper-detailed version of a fluid policy is unwise. Out of the dozens of thousands of fair use images with rationales there are obviously many different rationale templates/phrasing, it makes no sense to place some in a deletion queue because a bot was not able to decipher them. ˉˉ╦╩ 22:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

BCBot does not try and decypher the rationale, Instead it checks for a few items, A.) is {{non-free rationale}} used on the page, B.) if that is not there is the page at least 20 characters long excluding templates. (that checks is there any rationale). it then checks for the name of any use of the image. If a image is used on 20 pages but only one is mentioned on the image page it doesnt get tagged. As long as there is any article name that it is used on its not tagged. those few key parts are needed in ANY rationale. As for redirects I am trying to detect them. I thought I had that fixed, Im trying to add that in, its not as simple as most people would think. As for images meeting NFCC#10c that is an absolute necessity. If we dont enforce that we will have images used on 20 pages before we know whats happing, see User talk:Betacommand/20070901#Potential_crisis... for a perfect example of a NFC image that was used on about 30 pages. </end rant> β 00:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

A.) and B.) are fine if they exclude CD covers / logos / any other copyright tag where the rationale is the same in 99% instances of use. The NFCC#10c issue, IMHO, should be addressed either through a novel tag which doesn't place images in a deletion queue, or not trusted to the bot at all. By your own admission the recent round of bot-tagging will not fix instances where images are used at 20/30 pages (which is certainly a problem) because it only checks for one linked instance. ˉˉ╦╩ 01:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I do have plans for identifying the abused non-free images. And No it does not ignore albums and others, Just because its an album cover does not by default give us the ability to use it. NFCC 10c is a key part of the rules and there are no exemptions from that. (PS Im only currently targeting images uploaded after January 1, 2007 per agreement with Wikidemo and plans on attempting to clean up the disaster that we call our current image usage, and organizational system. β 01:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC))

NFCC 10c compliance is a low priority issue. Lets continue this at WT:NFC. ˉˉ╦╩ 01:34, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I've made a proposal at Misplaced Pages talk:Non-free content to change NFCC#10c. --- RockMFR 01:06, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Aside from the discussion on fair use itself, is Betacommandbot even authorized to be doing what it's doing? The closest thing I could find to approval for the task in question was this, giving the bot permission to tag images for deletion if they have been uploaded without any fair-use rationale at all. It says nothing about allowing the bot to assess fair-use rationales and add images to the deletion queue based on its assessment. Is there some sort of parallel process to expand a bot's mandate that I'm not aware of? --Dynaflow babble 07:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• I searched and came to the same conclusion. The only relevant page on the list of approved taks is the one Dynaflow noted, here. BetacommandBot is not authorized to tag images for having unsatisfactory fair use rationales. One could possibly interpret Betacommand's description as such, but the strong implication was that the bot would only deal with nonexistent rationales (since that was stated clearly multiple times). I strongly suggest that the block be reapplied. — xDanielx /_C 09:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Oftentimes, where a task has been approved, very similar tasks do not require an additional approval request: In this case, that's what happened. Betacommand asked me, and possibly others, whether it would require additional approval, and since it still followed policy and was now enforcing policy, I said that this approval was more like an update than a new task. It is performing as intended, and more importantly, it is following policy, and improving Misplaced Pages as a project. Imagine the nightmare if even 1/10 of these images were complained about to OTRS. --ST47Talk·Desk 10:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

No, BetacommandBot should not be disabled. It's that simple. If you don't like having to abide by our policies and are blaming the bot, then you should question exactly why you're here. --Deskana (talky) 11:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I would ask that people not provoke each other by suggesting they don't belong on Misplaced Pages. Many people who are unhappy about the Bot are old time, productive Wikipedians. Personally, I like abiding by well thought out policies. I do not blame the bot for people's noncompliance. I am here to participate. However, it is fair to question what the bot is doing. It has been blocked perhaps a dozen times, usually for producing unexpected results. More discussion and upset has revolved around this than almost anything else in the past several months. It's clearly doing something it was not approved to do, and the original approval wasn't clean to begin with. Note from the approval log the lack of discussion, waiting period, and detailed notice about what it was going to do. That doesn't mean I favor disabling it, if we can all agree on some ground rules. We can discuss how it should be operating, not just lash out. But a discussion is always appropriate.Wikidemo 11:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

You misunderstand, I am not saying that people do not belong here. But if you've got some sort of fundamental problem with the NFCC, then I think the problem is deeper than just a problem with fair use. --Deskana (talky) 12:13, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think saying "there is a problem with how Betacommandbot (BCB) does things, and it's serious, and likely to bite newbies badly, but simple to fix, and therefore BCB should be disabled until it is fixed" (which is what I and I think others are saying) is not at all the same as saying that "there is a problem with NFCC". I have absolutely no fundamental problem with NFCC. But I nevertheless think BCB is broken, and should be disabled until it is fixed. Not honoring redirects is a fundamental, but ultimately simple to fix, flaw. Redirects are the lifeblood of the encyclopedia. Longer term, I think the suggestions being made that BCB not run outside its charter suggest that the charter be reviewed and perhaps clarified, and I think the suggestions that BCB place things in categories that mean things need fixing, categories which any interested volunteer can work on, instead of just leaving notices, might be a better approach. Those are 3 different points being made (short term breakage, out of charter, long term approach change) and none of them in any way are about not fully supporting NFCC. Suggesting that they are may not be the most useful debate tactic. Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 14:17, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

de-indent BCBot does now see redirects and follows them. two tagging and saying that that we will get to it, just doesnt work. they will just sit there tagged and rot until the end of time. We have tried generating lists, those go nowhere. only when you put some teeth into the tagging does anything happen. β 14:25, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The bot does put things in categories; that's what the deletion tags do. For example, anyone can look through the images listed as having no fair use rationale and add rationales. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Redirects acceptable or not

Is there or is there not a consensus that redirects are or are not equivalent to a link to the article by its "real name", for the purpose of NFCC tagging? (I know polling is evil, but people seem to be talking past each other on this issue, and those who are defending the bot seem to imagine that those opposed to its behavior are somehow against the NFCC policy itself, rather than to what is, at best, a surprising interpretation of that policy implemented without prior discussion) --Random832 14:21, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Straw poll

A redirect link is equivalent to a non-redirect link to that redirect's target, and should be considered identical by any bot doing any sort of image tagging.

1. Or, indeed, any task apart from fixing double redirects. --Random832 14:21, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

A redirect link is unacceptable, and an image which does not contain a 'real' link to each article it is contained in, but does contain links to redirects to those articles, should be tagged for deletion.

Other/No opinion

Why exactly did we start a straw poll on this? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Deletion_review#History_only_undeletion

Whould another admin or two comment at Misplaced Pages:Deletion_review#History_only_undeletion regarding the Talk:Crystal Gail Mangum request so that the matter may be closed. Thanks. -- Jreferee 05:49, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Better understanding and discussion for sweeping changes

I would like to open discussion on introducing more discussion for sweeping changes. Primarily this relates to the Misplaced Pages:Article templates and the Succession Box Standardization project (WP:SBS). The issue is that these projects, well intended, are created by small groups but then are implemented across the whole Misplaced Pages without a large concensus (or even a preview). The templates were less intrusive than the SBS, I personally believe. My issue with that can be found here: complaint of WP:SBS in a nutshell.

Are there steps that can be made to allow previews and discussions of major changes to happen before they happen? Alternatively, should these free-for-all discussions happen when a dedicated group does a lot of work before sharing that work and ends up getting henpecked -- can "too many cooks spoil the broth" ?

Any thoughts? -- Guroadrunner 12:04, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Query: Handling of indef blocks of people with very short edit history?

This is a question about current practice, not about a specific incident...

I had an email the other day from one guy who had been indef-blocked after 4 edits. One of them was in bad taste (inflammatory).

To me, indef-blocking of a new user by a single admin, without any traceable process, seems a lot like biting the newcomers.

I have also seen quite fast indef-length blocking of disruptive editors without any previous discussion, and lengthening of ArbComm-imposed long blocks to "indefinite" based on a single admin's opinion.

I understand the desire of admins to deal speedily and permanently with problems, but still, I wonder - when I become aware of these events, and don't think the case is clear-cut: what's the reasonable thing for me to do?

• to reset the block to something I consider reasonable?
• to bring the case to some noticeboard (which?) for others' opinion?
• to do something else?

Of course, no matter which option I choose, if I take action, I should notify the admin who imposed the original block. But since I'm still feeling like a newcomer to the admin-bit, I thought I'd better ask for opinions first, and this seems like a not-unreasonable place to do so. --Alvestrand 12:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Ordinarily I would consult with the original admin first, explaining why you are considering unblocking or shortening the block. If he or she agrees with your proposed action, then go ahead with it and the issue is resolved. If he or she disagrees, or there is a repeated issue that is coming up, then post to ANI. Regards, Newyorkbrad 12:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that consulting with the blocking admin is crucial. Note also that "indefinite" does not equal "infinite". AFAIK, one standard practice is to indef block accounts that appear to have been created only to vandalize, and then unblock if and when the account requests an unblock (alsoo usually involving a promise to contribute constructively). The other most common SOP I have seen is to give a block of 24 hours, but I'm not sure how often those people end up contributing constructively after that block and how many just end up vandalizing until they are blocked again. Natalie 15:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

If an account's first five or so edits are all vandalism, I always block indefinitely. The rehabilitation rate for these is, in my experience, vanishingly small, and I've had to block a lot of such accounts again when the first blocking admin only blocked for 24 hours. If one edit out of four is bad, little bit different story. But I'd have to see who you're talking about for myself. Grandmasterka 21:17, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Any user whose first edit is to jump straight into the middle of a revert war with a revert I will block, indefinitely and instantaneously. Moreschi 21:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked editors after a single edit. Of course this is limited to people who upload shock images and then add them to articles. There are exceptions to the guideline on blocking, we just have to apply common sense. Tim Vickers 02:03, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes a new account is an obvious sockpuppet of a banned editor. Durova 03:24, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Khadr family

Please help monitor the article Khadr family. Much of the information is unreferenced, and may violate BLP. The article has been edited by several editors who claim to be people mentioned in the article, such as Zaynab Khadr (talk · contribs) and Kask0007 (talk · contribs). For the latter, see the (now deleted) article Abdulkareem Khadr (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Aecis 15:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

captcha received; I'm blind

Hi. I was trying to add links to two Internet standards I had written to my user page, but received a captcha. I'm blind and there's no way I can respond. Am I going to have to ask for help every time I add an external link to an article? --SamHartman 16:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I am reposting this to the Village Pump, since this is a technical issue (administrators cannot turn off those captchas, nor implement spoken captchas). I hope we can solve this issue. Please post Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical)#Captchas and blind people, thanks. -- ReyBrujo 17:07, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

If admins cannot help, then the captcha help page needs to modified not to tell people to come here. SamHartman 20:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The only consolation I can offer is that the captcha goes away after a few days. A spoken captcha or a problem-solving alternative would be ideal. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean goes away after a few days? Do you mean that if my account has been around for a while I should not expect captchas when I edit an article and add an external link? If so, annoying but acceptable. SamHartman 20:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes. After about 4 days you should see the check go away. Navou 20:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Sam, am I understanding correctly that the captcha directs you to bring any issues to this noticeboard? If so, that should probably change, since administrators have no control over captchas. As to where the page should direct people, I don't know, but perhaps the village pump would be a good idea. Natalie 02:01, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it is at Special:Captcha/help. -- ReyBrujo 02:12, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The only reason I can see for contacting an administrator in this case is to get another user's help in actually entering the article text; I don't know of any special powers admins have to help with this situation. It's possible that the helptext writer was thinking "experienced user -> administrator". Discussion of the helptext seems to be at MediaWiki talk:Captchahelp-text - since it took me several minutes to find it, I'm making a note of it here. --Alvestrand 06:02, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Sam, you can send the links to be added to me by e-mail, and I will edit your userpage. Conscious 06:17, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Todd Wider

This AfD needs serious attention. There is evidence to indicate that this is a bad faith nomination from a "rival" physician. The subject has also, apparently, recruited several SPAs to side with him. Would an uninvolved party look and see if this needs speedy closing? Also, is there a proper period of time before an article can be renominated? I would like to do so as I have no confidence in the subject's notability at this stage. Thanks.--Sethacus 17:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

That was a disaster. I speedy closed it. As long as you don't have some sort of COI problem as well, you may renominate it at any time. Mr.Z-man 18:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't and I will.--Sethacus 18:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Images not displaying

Lots of images aren't showing up right now. Don't know why. See here and Boy Scout.Rlevse 18:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Commons still has problems. See Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical). — Edokter • Talk • 18:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Sitenotice change

Should the sitenotice be modified? See the discussion here; other admin opinions are sought. --MZMcBride 18:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I did it. Feel free to revert, change, reformat, or anything. There was a quick agreement on the talk page, so I went WP:BOLD. RyanGerbil10(C-Town) 19:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

AfD at 7 days needs to be closed

This debate has been going on for seven days, and it is not listed in the current AfD logs any more:

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Tension myositis syndrome

It is listed in the "Old discussions" for Spetember 9.

The debate has so much content it has several subsections, and a new "start over" subsection, resulting from the article being completely rewritten during the debate. In the earlier part of the debate there were a lot of meat/sockpuppets; those have settled down now, but if the AfD isn't closed soon, I wonder if the disruptions might start up again and confuse the situation further.

Regarding the content of the article itself; it was pretty bad before, but has been completely revamped to NPOV, with reliable references, so please consider that many of the earlier comments are about a version that no longer exists. That's also discussed in the debate of course.

I know there are lots of backlogs in admin work, but I thought I should point this one out because it doesn't seem to be on the current list on the main AfD page any more. I was concerned it could be missed since it's not listed in the obvious place at this time. --Parsifal _Hello 20:07, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Update. The editor who listed the article for AfD has now changed his !vote to "keep", as have several others, based on the full rewrite of the article and the addition of solid references. So even though the initial discussion was complicated, the later discussion is much more clear - it appears this may be an easy AfD to close. --Parsifal _Hello 01:02, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I've closed it without a clear consensus but a default keep, due to general confusion, but I sincerely doubt that anyone will renominate it. --Haemo 01:04, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

That seems like a good solution. Thanks for your help, much appreciated. --Parsifal _Hello 01:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Lahs08 and continual uploading of copyrighted images

I'd like some advice on how deal with Lahs08 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who continually uploads the same copyrighted images (Image:Nfl on fox 2006 logo.jpg) without proper licensing (now calling it user-created public domain to avoid the issue completely). As seen the user talk page , there have been a number of images uploaded without sources, improper licensing, etc. This user simply continually uploads the same images in part so that the article NFL on FOX has images about the banner used. Admins should look at deleted edits to see the large number of images that have been deleted as well. There's been no responses to any discussion, just simply reuploading of images and now using different licenses to avoid the issue. I'd recommend at least a few weeks block but I'm open to suggestions. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

You can deal with it the hard headed way: leave him uw-copyright, and report him at WP:AIV if he does it again, he will just keep getting blocked longer and longer. The odds are though, that he pays no attention to his talk page, because he always gets loads of messages about images being deleted, and he can't be bothered to take the time to understand why. Jackaranga 22:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Look at this example. The user repeatedly re-uploads deleted content without making any effort to comply with the non-free content policies. Videmus Omnia 00:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

"noinclude" does not work with MediaWiki pages

A little reminder.

MediaWiki does not parse <noinclude> declarations when rendering system messages (i.e. pages in the MediaWiki namespace).

As a result, anything you add to a system message will be rendered when the system message is displayed, regardless of whether it is enclosed by a <noinclude> declaration.

This includes anything inside a <noinclude> on any page transcluded by a system message. Such transclusion is necessary in some circumstances to work around bugs in MediaWiki, which prevent the contents of a parameter passed to a system message being used with parser functions directly.

Faliure to bear this in mind will lead to problems such as the one experienced today, where for several hours, any user trying to view the source of a protected or semi-protected page receieved the contents of the "protected template" tag in addition to the message itself. Of course, because no administrator ever sees this page, the only people knowledgeable enough to fix the problem were completely unaware that it was occuring.

This has been a public service announcement on behalf of the Campaign for Non-Screwing Up of MediaWiki System Messages. Thank you – 81.153.158.137 20:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

You are quite welcome. Which message was broken in this case? --ST47Talk·Desk 21:06, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

ST47, it was the one that provides the "this page is protected" text when a user tries to edit a protected page. (diff)GDonato (talk) 21:47, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

If anyone does need to do "noinclude" type stuff on templates used by pages in the MediaWiki space, try using the trick used at Template:Exif-make-value. --- RockMFR 00:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation deadline for non-free images

I've raised this elsewhere, but nothing seems to ever get done. Many people (including several above) quote a deadline of March 23, 2008, per the Wikimedia Foundation Licensing Policy, for dealing with non-free images. The exact quote is "By March 23, 2008, all existing files under an unacceptable license as per the above must either be accepted under an EDP, or shall be deleted." The problem is that this is currently (and has been for ages) the third bullet point of section 6 (applying only to projects without an EDP as opposed to projects, like en-wikipedia, that have an EDP - see section 5). It seems that the deadline should have been put in a new section 7, or added to section 5 as well as section 6. User:Durin said here that discussions with board members indicated the deadline does apply to everything, but I'm concerned that the layout of the Resolution is so sloppy as to leave this unclear. Can anyone here actually get anything done about that? And what does it say about the visibility of the policy that this hasn't been corrected for many months after it was published? Carcharoth 12:08, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I never noticed that before. If we don't have the March 23, 2008 deadline, why are we waiting so long to get rid of nonconforming images? We could finish by Jan 1, 2008 if we put our mind to it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

why are we waiting so long to get rid of nonconforming images? Do you have the slightest evidence for this rather odd claim that anyone is "waiting"? This page and WP:AN/I have almost-daily reminders of the fallout over the (IMO) overly hasty and ludicrously bureaucratic rush to "get rid of nonconforming images". --Calton | Talk 13:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I think it was a typo in the layout. The current layout means that there is no deadline at all for projects with an EDP, which was surely not the intention. I don't think going for an earlier deadline internal to en-wikipedia is the answer. I'm tempted to say that the WMF typo has invalidated everything and the clock needs to be reset from the moment the correct layout is used. ie. 1 year from whenever the WMF board confirm that this was a typo. That would be embarassing for the WMF, but it would ease the pressure a bit here. Spending most of the year (on en-wikipedia) discussing how to deal with the images, and then rushing things in the last few months, is not really the right way to do things. Learning from the past few months of discussions, and starting the clock again, would be a graceful way to proceed, in my opinion. Carcharoth 13:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

We do have a nonfree image policy, and have had it for some time. We don't need a deadline from the WMF in order to enforce it. My understanding was that we were planning to handle a certain number of images per month (out of the easily obtainable counts of images, for example ones with no use rationale). Within the limits of the amount of labor available, we can do any number of images per month that we desire. I don't see any reason to stop enforcing the nonfree image policy just because of doubts about the WMF deadline. And since we were already planning to be finished by the deadline, we might as well continue. The cleanup has to happen sometime... — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

GFDL question

User:Jooler has been recreating deleted pages in his userspace. Not a problem per se, assuming that he intends to work on them, but from their edit histories (his being the only listed editor), it's obvious he cut-and-pasted from an off-Wiki copy. Doesn't this badly break GFDL?

• User:Jooler/List of films about possessed or sentient inanimate objects (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) - AFD
• User:Jooler/List of films by gory death scene (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) - AFD
• User:Jooler/List of films featuring independent body parts (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) - AFD

--Calton | Talk 13:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

If anyone other than the user in question edited the version the page was copied from, yes, it violates the copyright of the other editors of the old version of the page. --ais523 13:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

When they are ready to go back in, a history merge will fix this by restoring the deleted revisions and merging them with the version Jooler is working on. Nothing too much to worry about. Ideally, when editors want to work on articles deleted at AfD, a full copy is restored to their userspace. I have a couple hanging around in my userspace, including one I have just received the book I needed to improve it. Carcharoth 13:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Arguments to avoid in feature discussions

Just like we have Arguments to Avoid in Deletion Discussions, I suspect that writing a similar page for FAC will help address the apparent problems with feature discussions (FAC, FLC, FPC, etc). It seems that several pages have been featured while failing to address important problems, or not featured for spurious reasons, such as whether their en-dashes were "properly spaced". Please contribute to the above page, and give comments on its talk page. >Radiant< 13:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Oppose, period is outside the quotation. Luigi30 (Taλk) 14:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards