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Current issues

Block

Hello administrators. Please be aware, before getting involved here, that you will need to take at least an hour to understand the issue at hand. I am completely desperate and request your attention. This is my only hope.
I am User:Daniel575, I am User:Chussid, I am User:Bear and Dragon, I am User:GivatShaul, I am User:Motz5768, I am User:D. Breslauer.
I was blocked a long time ago because I had said that if permitted, I would love to kill Messianic 'Jews'. Since then, I have requested to be forgiven multiple times. However, I regularly see plain false information on Misplaced Pages, and then I correct it. For a year now, User:Yossiea has been hunting me on a personal witchhunt. The reason for this witchhunt is the fact that I am a member of a strongly anti-Zionist Hasidic group, while Yossiea is a right-wing Zionist who identifies with Kach. Yossiea intends to silence my voice here and remove any and all mentioning of Jewish anti-Zionism from Misplaced Pages. See the recent history of Yom Ha'Atzmaut. I am a civilized, recently married 22-year old Hasidic Jew from Jerusalem. For some background on the reasons for Yossiea's attacks on me, please see what I wrote on User talk:Tiamut#Arabic.
I request from you, administrators, to take a clear, unbiased view on what is going on here. I agree that I deserved a block for the things I said as Daniel575, that was very uncivilized. But it should not have been an indefinite block. Please take into accounts the fact that none of my subsequent 'sockpuppet' accounts were used for vandalism, in any way. I created new articles, performed maintenance work, reverted vandalism, improved existing articles, participated in discussions - not the things you expect from the average 'sockpuppet'. I reiterate what one participant in the blocking discussion about my remarks about Messianic Jews said: 'Propably he doesn't mean it literally, but he is speaking figuratively, as Haredi/Hasidic Jews often do.' That is indeed true. Judaism does no longer have a death penalty. There are no Jewish courts that have that power, and there will not be any such courts until our Messiah has arrived. Thank you for your attention, --D. Breslauer (talk) 12:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The most appropriate place to bring this up might be ArbCom. Emailing them would be most proper. Continuing to make accounts while being indef blocked does not help your case. B'hazlacha. Bstone (talk) 16:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not a rightwing Zionist who identifies with Kach. I am someone who is disgusted that this is your 9th sockpuppet case. I am also disgusted that after 9 times you still come crawling back and demand to have rules not apply to you. Your POV is not the reason for your bannings. Misplaced Pages has users from all POV's. The main reason why you were banned, besides your threat, was because you are unable to debate in a civilized manner. Anytime a user disagrees with you, you go off. That is unacceptable. You are a confirmed sockpuppet account, and I don't think we need to debate this further. Yossiea 18:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Advice to Daniel Breslauer

Dear Daniel. Mazel Tov upon your recent marriage! May you and your wife have a happy life together forever! BUT, Why are you bringing in all this information about your personal life into this discussion? It is not right, and it shows poor judgment that you are exposing your young wife to attention from people online that I am sure she would not want. You are very young still (some of us here are far older than you and have been through life a lot!) You have a life ahead of you, why are you wasting time online? Go to your heilige yeshiva and learn more Toirah! In your spare time review the shiurim or learn with some Baalei teshuva and spend time with your wife, but why are you coming back here where people will have no patience or understanding of what you are trying to do? Stop it! Try to calm down. You are too hotheaded and disruptive. Maybe you need something to calm you down, but you are clearly coming here to cause trouble (you forget that Misplaced Pages is NOT a Yeshiva), you can't even help yourself that's how bad it is, just look at your editing and behavior, you are back a few days and already at loggerheads with other editors! Right now, you are violating:

1. Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks
2. Misplaced Pages:Civility
3. Misplaced Pages:Do not disrupt Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point
4. Misplaced Pages:Disruptive editing
5. Misplaced Pages is not a battleground
6. Misplaced Pages is not for propaganda
7. Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view
8. Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry
9. Misplaced Pages:Libel, and even
10. Misplaced Pages:No climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man.

So PLEASE, take my advice, do yourself and your new young wife a huge favor, and leave Misplaced Pages alone. You have contributed plenty! In fact leave the Internet alone. Follow the advice of the Rabbonim and Chachomim that you yourself follow who forbid use of the Internet. Why do you want to put your future kids at risk, like with this?: Parents are warned by rabbis that their children will be kicked out of yeshivas if they allow them any Internet access. See Of ostriches and cavemen; Can Israeli rabbis enforce their ban against the Internet? and Bezeq to launch ‘Kosher’ internet. If G-d forbid someone is setting you up and asking you to be online tell them that you have married now and you want to start a fresh life free of the Internet! Daniel, I beg of you, leave Misplaced Pages alone and learn more Toirah! Otherwise there are more than enough reasons for you to be blocked forever even as in your new incarnation, because it is irrevocably tied to the past with all its baggage. On the day of your chasuna H-shem forgives everything, but that rule does not apply with Misplaced Pages admins! Be well, IZAK (talk) 19:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I am in awe of this response, and would like to nominate it for Best-Researched, Politest, and Most-Germane Smackdown of a Conflicting Editor's Position Ever, In the History of Life. Seriously. Awesome reply...if I were of the hat-wearing gender, sir, I would tip mine in your direction. Gladys J Cortez 02:49, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

What the hell is this crap? One does not need to appeal to arbcom to be unblocked in this situation. This user has clearly asked for a review of his situation, proven himself to be a valuable contributor, and is blocked on sight? What the hell is wrong with you people? -- Ned Scott 08:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Article probation for Homeopathy

At the suggestion of Jehochman and arbitrator Sam Blacketer, I propose that Homeopathy be placed on Misplaced Pages:Article probation due to the long-running edit warring and other violations of policy which have afflicted that article. MilesAgain (talk) 16:31, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems like this might help. Let's try it. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Wording of the restriction that would be added to Misplaced Pages:General sanctions:

Editors making disruptive edits may be banned by an administrator from homeopathy and related articles or project pages. Editors of such articles should be especially mindful of content policies, such as WP:NPOV, and interaction policies, such as WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:3RR, and WP:POINT. Editors must be individually notified of this article probation before being banned. All blocks and bans placed under this remedy shall be logged at Talk:Homeopathy/Article probation#Log of blocks and bans. Actions taken under this probation may be appealed to the Administrators' noticeboard.

Wording of the notice, {{Talk:Homeopathy/Warning}}, that would be placed on the talk pages of affected articles:

The Misplaced Pages Community has placed all Homeopathy-related articles on probation (see relevant discussion). Editors making disruptive edits may be placed on revert limitation or banned by any uninvolved administrator from this and related articles, or other reasonably related pages. Editors must be individually notified of this article probation before being banned. All blocks and bans placed under this remedy shall be logged at Talk:Homeopathy/Article probation#Log of blocks and bans. Actions taken under this probation may be appealed to the Administrators' noticeboard.

I think editors must be notified about the article probation and warned individually before they are subject to a topic ban. Jehochman 17:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support This will help reduce disruptive, tendentious editing. Jehochman 17:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support Lara❤Love 18:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Conditional support, but only if it is abundantly clear that enforcement of AGF, NPA and CIVIL will apply equally to established and new editors, registered and IP editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• PS, I should add that I'm not an admin, lest anyone is misled, but we can't expect new editors to behave well if established editors don't. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support per other opinions already voiced, however, SG brings good points to light. I don't have any personal history relevant to this topic, but it appears to be contentious. Rudget. 19:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Conditional Support - Per SandyGeorgia. Gromlakh (talk) 19:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Yep. If any article richly needed this, it's homeopathy. I don't see anything wrong with 24-hour blocks without extra warnings, and topic bans after one warning. The level of nastiness – from new and established contributors – is toxic. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Please do. — Scientizzle 19:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Added revert limitation, logging requirement and appeal process, since there is no RFAR page to record these bans. Thatcher 19:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  Perhaps a subpage of the article's talk page would be a better place to keep track of user-specific blocks and bans? I can see stuff getting lost in the AN/I archives. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

If you are going to put all homeopathy-related articles on probation, then do a centralized record of blocks and bans at a subpage of the main article talk page, and link to it in the warning banner. Thatcher 19:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Also added uninvolved. Thatcher 19:39, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I have made the requested changes. Jehochman 19:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Absolutely. Guy (Help!) 19:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support - I also guess this is related. D.M.N. (talk) 19:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Yep Tiptoety 19:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Just do it per WP:SNOW consensus. Keeper | 76 19:39, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support - This is probably the easiest and least oppressive way to try and end this apparently endless conflict. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment - I have installed all the necessary files and code (within comments) to implement this, because it seems very likely to pass. As soon as an uninvolved administrator determines that a consensus exists, they, I or anybody else can uncomment the code. Jehochman 20:53, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

/me applies Misplaced Pages:Make it so... Guy (Help!) 21:46, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support, although someone might question why the community is doing this when ArbCom refused to take the case in a content dispute. This action is probably the best way of preventing further out-of-control disruption with Homeopathy and seemingly unrelated articles, such as Thuja occidentalis. If we do this, then we can dilute some of the toxicity of these arguments. Sorry, I couldn't resist. --Elkman 21:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support per duh. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 21:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support DrEightyEight (talk) 22:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC) per SG. All "related pages" should be marked as such too, before action is taken - unless the editor can be shown to have been fully aware and acting in bad faith --DrEightyEight (talk) 22:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• There's no question in my mind that this is necessary. It should broadly apply, esp. to botany articles as well. --Haemo (talk) 22:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Apply {{Talk:Homeopathy/Warning}} to the talk page of the disrupted articles. Jehochman 22:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• OK, here's a serious question: "Editors making disruptive edits may be placed on revert limitation or banned by any uninvolved administrator from this and related articles, or other reasonably related pages... Actions taken may be appealed to the Administrators' noticeboard." That's probation? I thought that was always the case, anywhere on Misplaced Pages. That ought to be standard operating procedure, not a special case, right? Or maybe I'm just taking rouge pills... MastCell 22:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Err, roughly, it's just "expect less warnings and more kicking ass and taking names".

• Support - can we get a second poll to apply it to everything else in the namespace? WilyD 22:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Edit wars, multiple reports to multiple noticeboards, RFARs, and general mayhem. If this will help stop the insanity, then heartily Support. Tony Fox (arf!) 22:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Lawrence § t/e 23:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Bryan Hopping 23:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Should include the endless botany articles that are filled with fringe alternative medicine nonsense. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 00:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comments -- traffic tix for blowing red lights are supposed to cut down on the number of people blowing red lights. They don't. •Jim62sch• 00:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comments -This is ridiculous. What's going to happen is that admins, many of whom are clueless about things like SPOV=NPOV in science and medicine, will think the loudest whiner is the one in the right. Thus, we'll have uninvolved administrators blocking and banning and protecting without a full understanding of the NPOV. The edit warriors who promote Homeopathy as if it descended from Mt. Olympus will push aside the science to win their point. This isn't going to work, and it is a reflex move that will have terrible unintended consequences--the demise of Misplaced Pages into the same unsourced crap that we see in Conservapedia. Sad. OrangeMarlin 00:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• What is the problem with having an involved admin(s), who actually know the background, rather than relying on admins who don't have the interest (or capability) to review? Shot info (talk) 00:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

There will be a suspicion that involved administrators are trying to gain an advantage in a content dispute by getting rid of an opposing editor. Same reason why admins aren't supposed to use their buttons in any dispute they're involved in. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, "suspicion" and WP:AGF. Nevertheless, as OM and others articulate, uninvolved admins will need to be involved at some point or be woefully ignorant - much like what admins have(n't) done to allow the article to degenerate to the point where it is at the moment. Shot info (talk) 05:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The quality of new admins is so low, I do not trust them to actually understand this stuff. Do you know how many admins actually think NPOV is that all fringe theories get equal weight in an article? Moreover, with or without experienced admins, it's still untenable. The reason there is an ongoing edit war is that Homeopathy promoters have installed their POV in dozens of articles. Moreover, the main article, homeopathy itself, wouldn't be a mess if certain new POV-editors wouldn't show up every week or so to start arguments that were settled months ago, wouldn't toss in their own POV (getting rid of all of the criticism), and would allow the truly balanced editors (Peter Morrell for example, is a Homeopathy expert that USUALLY sticks with NPOV) complete their task. There are several tendentious editors, usually with a strong homeopathy POV, that jump in and start what appears to be an edit-war, but in fact, it's the truly NPOV editors reverting bad edits, arguing on the talk page, etc. It is wearisome, but not requiring this ridiculous edict from a few admins who don't dig very far. Yeah, I'm pissed at some of the admins for taking this route. OrangeMarlin 20:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. I suggest that two involved admins and one uninvolved admin be assigned as a committee who agree on sanctions. Let them consult each other and if they agree, let them rain fire down from heaven. -- Fyslee / talk 02:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • In practice what will happen is one uninvolved admin will place a ban, and then a discussion will ensue on this board. If the ban is improper, it will be removed. Otherwise, it will remain. This gives everybody a chance to comment. Note that users who are topic banned are not going to be blocked unless they violate the ban. Therefore, banned users can come to WP:AN to make an appeal. Jehochman 02:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
    • But the problem quickly arises that the admin is not familiar enough with the topic to even make the call for the ban. I have to echo OM's statements from above. Baegis (talk) 04:01, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
      • We are not ruling on knowledge. Admins will observe behavior and remove those who are acting badly. Jehochman 13:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Experience shows otherwise. I've seen an admin chastise an editor for saying that homeopathic preparations amount to a drop in the ocean, calling this hyperbole and an indication of bad faith, when in fact common homeopathic preparations are weaker than this. Given the nature of homeopathy it can be hard for someone with no knowledge to tell what's in good faith and what isn't. Raymond Arritt (talk) 13:25, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
          • • I've seen this happen over and over. If you guys want one of the really awful admins that we've elected to do this, go for it. OrangeMarlin 20:37, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Point of clarification What are "disruptive edits"? Unsourced edits? Badly-sourced edits? Edits that misrepresent a source? Or something else? Raymond Arritt (talk) 06:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Misrepresentation, POV pushing, repeated violation of consensus, edit warring, name-calling, flaming, baiting. Ignorance is not disruption. Jehochman 13:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Clearly a source of drama. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 09:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Someone needs to take a breather --BETA 20:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

What is a homeopathy article

There are homeopathy tags being placed on non-homeopathy pages and on pages with no history of edit wars. What gives? Who decides what pages are related to homeopathy? Anthon01 (talk) 23:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Relevant talk here. The template talk should be the place to contest a specific article being on probation as a central place. Lawrence § t/e 23:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's keep the discussions at AN where everybody can see them. Jehochman 00:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If somebody uninvolved in homeopathy disputes wants to remove a tag, that should be allowed; however, if a homeopathy edit warrior removes a tag, I and probably others, would view that as disruption. Jehochman 00:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Not a good idea. That will automatically suck you into dispute involvement. Rather, we should just change the wording to include points where homeopathy disruption could happen or is likely to happen. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

No. Only on these articles in which there is disruption. No disruption, no tag. And yes, adding that tag indiscriminately it will be assumed disruption. We had enough/. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Fine with me. ScienceApologist (talk) 02:45, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

In the beginning I didn't understand why the template should be placed on articles that obviously were not homeopathic articles, but later I read a comment that made more sense. It appears that the template and article probation are designed to make it easier to reign in homeopathic POV advocates (advocacy is forbidden here), and anyone who is disruptive in any manner related to homeopathy edits and discussions, IOW anywhere it happens at Misplaced Pages. In short it makes it easier for admins to stop fires and keep them from spreading. Here is a list of where the template is currently being used.

Therefore the template follows the numerous attempts by these POV pushers and advocates to insert homeopathy into all kinds of (often unrelated) articles, especially when those attempts are often used as an excuse by the author (an editor) to suggest (on talk pages) that the author's own book about homeopathy and his website be used as a source. Such attempts have resulted in many edit wars and fires getting started on articles that aren't normally associated with homeopathy. Although homeopathic drugs have no calories or active ingredients, the subject certainly provides plenty of fuel for these fires! Therefore the template follows the slightest mention of the subject of homeopathy, no matter where it comes up. It is a sort of "whack a mole" thing that is designed to curb edit wars wherever these attempted inclusions occur. It applies to editors of all persuasions. -- Fyslee / talk 07:37, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

What is a homeopathy article?

Seriously. Without a comprehensive def, this entire idea is asinine; hell it reminds me of the famous quote re pornography, ""I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . ut I know it when I see it " •Jim62sch• 00:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

A homeopathy article is any article that the homeopathy editors are edit-warring over. --Carnildo (talk) 06:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You might consider changing the template name from homeopathy to Alleged Psueodscience-related topics. That would cover all the pages that the editwar is being carried out on. Anthon01 (talk) 17:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I have changed the template to match the exact wording of the remedy. That wording was copied from prior ArbCom decisions, so it has been tested and found to be serviceable. Jehochman 17:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

We need to be clear that it is articles that homeopathy disruption is relevant. Otherwise, some person could go through and declare the entire encyclopedia related to homeopathy and put everything on probation. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If it were our policy to assume bad faith, that would be a valid argument; but since our policy is to assume good faith, let's assume that no one will go through and declare the entire encyclopedia related to homeopathy and put everything on probation. Dlabtot (talk) 17:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

(ri) No offense, Carnildo, but that reply is mind-boggling in the depth of its inanity. What, praytell, is a homeopathy editor? Someone who edited the article once, ten times, weekly, daily? What if two of these homeopathy editors are arguing over Differential calculus, does that make that article a homeopathy article? Please.

Dlabtot, SA's argument is perfectly cogent: however, the dismissive answer is unworthy of a wiki-sentient being. Were wiki a Utopia of perfection, your answer might have a chance at attaining value, but it isn't and it doesn't.

It's quite obvious that a number of points of logic or either being missed or willfully dismissed here, likely in the belief that wiki-tough-love and strict adherence to rules will simply end the debate. Sad. •Jim62sch• 21:30, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

A homeopathy editor is someone who edit-wars on homeopathy articles. Now, this may seem like a circular definition, but if you can identify even one homeopathy article (say, homeopathy) using other means, you can use the two definitions to identify all homeopathy editors and all homeopathy articles. --Carnildo (talk) 03:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Again: What if two of these homeopathy editors are arguing over Differential calculus, does that make that article a homeopathy article? See Charles Darwin.

I really don't have the energy to spend bucking the winds of mass hysteria, nor am I apt to plunge into an abyss of illogic trying to rescue wikipedia from itself, so y'all have fun.

BTW, better tag 10 April and 2 July: Samuel Hahnemann's birth and death days. Oh, and the Samuel Hahnemann article itself, of course. •Jim62sch• 11:59, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Hidden text

When the article is unprotected (or even before) should some noninclude text saying this article is on probation and referring the person to the talk page be added? MBisanz 00:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this mic on?

Apparently removing tags supported by both sides of the dispute and calling another party a "stubborn editor" is not prohibited. Are the pro-science editors fears that this "article prohbation" is actually a "A-SPOV" (anti-scientific point of view) proposal founded, contrary to all of my hopes? PouponOnToast (talk) 19:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Quick question: Why are you harping on this point in three places? spryde | talk 20:41, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If you feel I am disrupting wikipedia to prove a point (also known as "state your point, don't demonstrate it"), feel free to block me. I posted a notice about an incident on the incident board, commented on the disruption to the article and a proposal to stop it on the article and came here to see if anyone was interested in enforcing this probation, or if just saying "probation" was the extent of action. PouponOnToast (talk) 20:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I encourage editors to review Talk:Homeopathy/Article probation. Please notify anyone you think needs to be aware of this page. Administrators are welcome to add their names to the list of uninvolved admins who can provide enforcement. There is no rush. Soon most editors will be familiar with the expected standards of conduct, and those who refuse to cooperate will be limited or banned from the locus of dispute. Jehochman 21:34, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Shortly thereafter there will peace in the Mideast, a cure for the common cold, and an end to poverty. Raymond Arritt (talk) 00:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

So saith the book of the Prophet Wikien, yes? I hope you're right about the common cold: I have a nasty one at the moment. •Jim62sch• 12:12, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Attn:Admins - cpvios galore

Well... long story, but here's the gist. Category:Images from Bollywood Blog contains images from a certain blog called - bollywoodblog.com. Couple of months ago, I sensed that something was wrong with the way the images were being licensed and I brought it up. A long discussion ensued on various pages before I consolidated all(well, almost) of it on the concerned admin's sub-page. During the course of the discussion, I proved that the less than honourable blog was only hawking stolen stuff and many(dozens) of the images that they'd so graciously released on a CC-2 (not CC-3, as the licensing info proclaims) license didnt infact, belong to them at all! As a result of the discussion, dozens of images got deleted.

Even as more and more were getting deleted, editor(s) who had uploaded those images and were using them in their articles, bargained for more time saying they would come up with evidence that the images werent bootlegged. Soon after that, I went on a wikibreak for about 2 months only to return recently.

I now see that, there is neither any of the promised evidence, nor have the cpvios been deleted. Can any admin here give me a very good reason why? I tried knocking on some doors, but havent gotten any reply yet. And if there is no "very good reason", can somebody do the honours and speedy them now? Sarvagnya 20:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Based on the discussion on Riana's talk page and the lack of confirmation that the images are really owned by Bollywood Blog, I'm deleting all the images as copyvios, and the associated template and category with it. east.718 at 20:59, January 31, 2008

Please restore them. Unless you have had personal contact with the blog and they have informed you that they have been lying to us? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 22:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with restoring the images. While Sarvagnya may have some points, it was confirmed by multiple parties that the images were freely available. As indicated, two other admins reviewed the material and saw no basis for deletion. At the very least, I believe User:Videmus Omnia and User:Riana, who were both involved in the discussion with the organization, which to the best of my knowledge Sarvagnya was not, should have been contacted in advance of deleting the images. I am taking the liberty of contacting them both and requesting their input on this possibly rash and ill-informed mass deletion. John Carter (talk) 22:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

ahh.. so you ".."tend" to agree with restoring the images..".. do you Mr. John 'uninvolved-no-axe-to-grind-third-party-opinion' Carter? How very slick! Stop being dishonest about it and trying to mislead people! Who are these "atleast two other admins" you're talking about? And what have they seen that proves that the two-bit blog actually owns the images they're hawking? If there is any such evidence, your two admins, yourself, blofeld and your friends had three months to bring it to the table. And you didnt. Worse, you guys had the gall the take me to ANI over the matter and more recently, to snigger. Short of incontrovertible-not-open-to-interpretation evidence being produced that the deleted images genuinely belonged to that "multi-million pound" blog, I strongly protest any calls for or attempts to restore the deleted images. And there is no need to 'inform' Riana or anybody else. It was done the last time around and even this time, I informed her (and Yamla and Butseriouslyfolks and on that Riana's subpage) a full day or two before I brought it here. Sarvagnya 22:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well they shouldn't have just been deleted like that without any new discussion. I have the disclosed media company which is the contractor of the images and only myself and one or two other admin know about it. The deleting admin has no idea what agreement was made and certainly shoulnd't have speedied OTRS affirmed images without new consensus ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 22:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

VO doesn't edit anymore, and Riana won't be online now. I'm going to admit a lapse in judgement - I acted with too much haste. I'll step back for now and undelete those images. east.718 at 22:39, January 31, 2008

I did not necessarily see a lapse of judgement, simply responding to a statement from a very vehement editor. In any event, you have my thanks and respect for your quick response. John Carter (talk) 22:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The lapse of judgement was not when you deleted them, but when you undeleted them. I am sure you have some questions to answer now. Sarvagnya 23:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It was a long time ago since I received the emails but I had the disclosed media company which owns all of the images and contracts them to various Bollywood related sites which was kept private for contractual reasons. Once I slipped and even provided the link to Sarvagnya himself and User:But Seriously Folks had to yank it out of the history system immediately because keeping it private is serious, and it was revealed to only a few of us in good faith and trust by private email. The high profile media company was revealed as having ownership of many of the channels on Indian television, film distribution and other related media stuff. I spoke to the director of Caledonian publishing which is a contractor of the media company and it was confirmed almost to the point of frustration that wikipedia is able to use the images without a problem. It is clear the Bollywood blog is free to distribute them therefore we are cleared to use the images -if they were "illegally" "taken" how do you think the website is able to obtain images of events that had taken place only hours previously and in abundance of the latest events if there wasn't some kind of genuine connection and authorisation to distribute them?. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 22:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

"The high profile media company was revealed as having ownership of many of the channels on Indian television, film distribution and other related media stuff."

Absolute bollocks. The ownership of each and every channel on Indian television is public knowledge. The big players include the Zee group (Subhash Chandra when I heard last), Star TV group (Rupert Murdoch when I last heard), the Sun TV group (family owned, Eenadu group (Ramoji Rao) and such others. Film distribution is also a high profile business and there are big and small distributors, all of whom make it to the posters, publicity material, credits, awards ceremonies etc.,. And you're telling me that there is another "hi-profile media company" which owns the Zee group and star tv group and sun tv and eenadu and film distribution and "media stuff"? Pray, which company is this? They must be worth a 100 billion dollars and its amazing they can keep their operations secret! Is it Her Majesty's secret service? And who heads it? James Bond? Sarvagnya 16:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Whatever the case, it is clear that Sarvagnya isn't here to constructively edit the encyclopedia. Aside from the fact that he has barely edited wikipedia since the beginning of December, if it is personal committments elsewhere this is understandable but he has returned and felt rather surprised he hasn't got his own way. It makes me wonder why he is so concerned about Bollywood given the fact he rarely edits the articles. Whatever the case and whether he genuinely intends to improve the encyclopedia in the future and do something contructivie to help the site, it is clear that his true colours are revealed in moments like this, given his long history of disruptive behaviour (forgive my english english) and reports to admin councils. Clearly doesn't have an ounce of respect for admins either whether it is Riana, Videmus in the commons or John on here or anyone who has worked hard to make a legitimate agreement and gone out of their way and beyond to help this project develop. Regards ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 23:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I recall in the last discussion Riana saying that some of the images (no one knows which ones) were not owned by whoever is giving permission and were not properly licenced and should be deleted. Do we have any way of knowing which ones? -- zzuuzz 23:30, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

comment yes but it was revealed that the Bollywood blog is under contract from a major media company which distributes the images to many of the Bollywood related websites and it indeed owns many of the images that were deleted rather than the bollywood blog owning all of them. If the agreement between the disclosed company and bollywood blog is 100% valid which it clearly is otherwise they wouldn't be able to get hold of the images so fast then it is clear the agreement is valid. And as for those promotional images appearing on other sites this is exactly what I am saying -these images are distributed by the media company to sites such as Bollywoodblog and others which would explain why some of them appaear on different sites because they are under contract from the same company. Think about it rationally, why would the owner of Bollywood blog risk disclosing his contractor and telling us we are free to use the images if he was lying all just to help wikipedia? Does anybody really think he would risk the very running of his site just so he can provide wikipedia with a few images? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 11:13, 1 February 2008 (UTC) ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 11:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

That was probably just as we were stepping into the discussion. Read the discussion fully and she admits that the blog had been dishonest with her and pending any new evidence emerging, the whole lot would have to be deleted. Just read. Sarvagnya 23:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Also these were Yamla's, BSF's and Coren's closing comments. Sarvagnya 23:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I am seriously concerned here. I understand that some images were shown not to be owned by the company. The claim (and I'm not trying to put words in people's mouths) is that some images are obviously screenshots and are not part of the deal. However, it is not at all clear to me which images are screenshots and which are owned by Bollywood Blog. Unless we are sure that all of the images are owned by them or that the images which are not owned by them (screenshots, etc.) are clearly marked as such, I feel we should not use any of the images. I'll note that it is not clear to other people which images are owned by them and which are screenshots because people have been uploading the screenshots here. --Yamla (talk) 00:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

it's not just about the ones that are screenshots from movies and television. The blog has provably stolen from other amateur, corny blogs. Read my opening post here. Note that all those red links were blue when I posted. Also, people might be interested in what BSF came up with after careful research. He said, "...Based on all of the above, I would wager that the blog has no photographers or exclusive images, and that all of the images on the blog site belong to other people. So unless somebody has compelling evidence to the contrary, they should all be speedied as copyvios and the site should be blacklisted." Sarvagnya 00:31, 1 February 2008 (UTC) Sarvagnya 00:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Most of the problem images you identify are screenshots. However, the Rakhi--Sawant image is way beyond troubling. --Yamla (talk) 00:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

comment no it isn't Yamla. Please read my above comments tha Bollywood blog is under contract with this media company which distributres promo photos like Rakhi to various sites which accounts for your perceived idea they are copied. As for Sarvagnya basing his judgment on what little he actually knows about the agreement and had and still has nothing to do with what went on behind wikipedia he is ill informed to make such a judgment ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 12:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. And that Rakhi Sawant image was one that I picked almost at whim to research. I am sure if you looked closer and harder, there are more such waiting to be unearthed. Sarvagnya 00:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone verified the OTRS ticket again? If the ticket is right, we can keep them. If they are copyvios and complain, we can direct them to this blog because of the authorization given in the ticket. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 00:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh now. Stop taking the discussion backwards. The OTRS thing is moot and besides the point. OTRS was where the last discussion started and it was soon trashed ... in the face of overwhelming evidence that the blog didnt own the pictures. Also, notice the discomforting fact that afa the blog is concerned, the images are only CC-2.. not CC-3. Care to read before you comment? Sarvagnya 01:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I am just wondering. I thought a third opinion of someone who is not involved in the case would be appreciated, but if it is not, I leave. By the way, it would be good to have someone from the OTRS office contact the one who gave permission stating there are concerns with their images, and whether they continue to confirm the images are copyrighted by them or not. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's a good example Image:Subhash-Ghai.jpg . I was already concerned about these images after reading the previous ANI discussions, but having read the sub-page discussion I endorse revoking the ability to take any image from this blog site, and the speedy deletion of all the images except in cases where there is clearly demonstrable ownership of copyright. -- zzuuzz 01:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Why was it undeleted?

I want a very good explanation before I take this any further. Sarvagnya 23:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Because it strikes me as odd to discuss images that nobody can see. Let's try and be cool here, we can just redelete all the images if the need arises. east.718 at 01:05, February 1, 2008

And it strikes me as even more odd that a full two months after the last discussion the images hadnt still been deleted. Sarvagnya 15:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Gah

Sorry, I've been away for a tad. I keep forgetting about this. I would delete the lot. We've been contacted by the folks at the blog who admit that they don't own copyright to all the images. They've given us contact details for the photography agency who actually do own it. I've contacted them, it's been a few months, and no response. So... I'd get rid of them until we do get word. ~ Riana ⁂ 02:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's as good as it gets. I'm going to redelete the images again in a couple hours if there aren't any significant objections. east.718 at 03:01, February 1, 2008

Yes that would have been best if the agreement was made directly with the photographic agency which do actually own ALL of the images rather than the Bollywood blog. All I can propose is that they are contacted one final time and if there is still no response within a week then I unfortunately think they have to be deleted. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 12:43, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

East, I do not see any 'significant objections' and I think it is high time the images are nuked and the site blacklisted. The two hours you said have long passed and I demand that the images be deleted immediately. I didnt spend hours digging and making a case for those cpvios to be deleted just for it to be brushed under the carpet. Sarvagnya 15:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

It is not being brushed underneath the carpet; we are taking the time to make sure the right course of action is taken. With OTRS, which I used to be a part of, we deal with image permissions all of the time and we have to make sure that everything is right. Plus, it would be fruitless to delete the images, undelete, redelete and undelete because of a posting of a user or two. Now that Riana is giving us the word to remove the images, we will accomplish it as soon as a we can since we don't want to cause collateral damage with unrelated images. User:Zscout370 16:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

• The claim of license is provably wrong in enough cases that it simply can't be trusted. Nuke the lot, and if people can find genuinely free versions or can provide evidence of release then they can be re-uploaded with that sourcing instead. They've had two months to clean up their act, they have not done so, I think it's time to act. Guy (Help!) 18:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

• • Just let me know what to whack and I will see if I can do a few. User:Zscout370 18:06, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Some more remain

Some more remain. Can somebody take care of these? -

Image:PreityZinta.jpg Image:Zinta4.jpg Image:PreityZintawithNess.jpg Image:PreityZinta2.jpg Image:Zintagoair.jpg Image:PreityZintakank.jpg Sarvagnya 20:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

And more - Image:ShahrukhK.jpg

Image:Aishwarya10.jpg Image:Saif_Ali_Khan.jpg Image:Deepika_Padukone.jpg Sarvagnya 21:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Huh? Preitykank.jpg is a FU. It is not licensed under Bollywoodblog's license.

As for other images, there are some more on Shahrukh Khan's article and Kareena Kapoor's one. Take care, if you do. Thanks, Shahid • 21:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

And more - Image:MallikaSherawat.jpg Image:SaifAliKhan.jpg. Hey Shahid, great to see you helping in the mopping up operation. Your help is greatly appreciated. Please let us know if you or your friend uploaded any more. Thanks. Sarvagnya —Preceding comment was added at 21:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

What? ha ha LOL! I'm not here to help in anything friend. It was just a BTW comment to the first one. Bye, Shahid • 22:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Attn:admins - cpvios galore - Part II

While we're at it, another one that doesnt pass the smell test. Look here Sarvagnya 19:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

As if that wasn't enough huh? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 21:17, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Just a simple look at the terms of the website shows this is a false license. Also, on the bottom of the website, I see "(c) Copyright Kollywoodtoday.com 2006 - 2009. All rights reserved." Doesn't sound like Creative Commons to me. User:Zscout370 03:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

So this seems to be another OTRS job. Hmm..I noticed on the same terms page I linked above, most of the content is posted to the website or submitted by users. I would not be surprised if those sites do not have the actual permission to give out the photographs. More eyes should be on this. User:Zscout370 03:50, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I checked in both English and Tamil and it seems that, for what I searched for, no copies appear online. However, I do also note that some of the images in that category cannot be found on that Kollywood website. I honestly believe that if we cannot find the same image on Kollywood, we should remove it. User:Zscout370 04:08, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Attn:admins - cpvios galore - Part III

Now that we have the bollywoodblog fiasco out of the way, I request people to turn their attention to this group of images from another seedy, corny blog. Let's get started with the problems -

1. This is an example of an image from the category and like all others in the category it has been released on a CC-3 license. The license info says -

1a. The first problem is that there is no direct link to the source for any of these images. The source info only points to the blog's home page which is not very helpful at all.

1b. Since the images have been released on CC-3, does the 'permission letter' deposited with the OTRS expressly give permission for such a license? Or did somebody put the words in their mouth? Bear in mind that CC-3 provides for free use and reproduction even for commercial purposes. So once again, did the copyright holders give explicit permission for 'copy/distribute/modify' for commercial purposes also?

2. As with the bblog images, there are some images in this category also that are patently not the property of the blog. I am referring to some that are screenshots(cpright owned obviously by the producers of the movie), photo shoots(arguably owned by professional photo studios and modeling agencies) and what seem like crops of publicity material(the copyrights of which, once again belong to the producers of the film).

3. A little digging, I am sure will turn up more images from the category that fall in the Rakhi Sawant-Subhash Ghai(from bblog) category.

Can somebody please take a look at exactly what the letter with the OTRS say and confirm that permission has indeed been granted for a CC-3 license? And when we have that out of the way, can somebody confirm that the images are, in the first place, the property of the kollywoodtoday site to license. Sarvagnya 19:12, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

There's a kollywood now? El_C 09:21, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I removed a few that didn't belong on the site last night, might do more tonight (Pacific US time). I spoke to Riana last night and she suggests to remove the images from here that came from that website. We can always restore later. User:Zscout370 19:23, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Durzatwink and Styrofoam1994

These two seem to be taking light-hearted friendship a little too far, with fake warnings left on talk pages and this sockpuppetry report. I know it's only good faith humour, so obviously I'm not asking for the hammer of Thor on this one, but perhaps someone could step in, delete the report and tell each user to use their time more productively? (Lovebirds...) haz (talk) 22:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I have been watching the situation for some time since coming across User:Styrofoam1994 via my contribution of new editors sweep. I think he just wants to play. Deleted the SSP as test page. A couple of more eyes with some slight steering in the right direction might help. Agathoclea (talk) 00:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm the one that closed the first SSP case and did the blocks therein. Note I made User:Rws_killer the master as it's the oldest account. The newer (deleted) SSP case is really interesting. Durzatwink's edits are similar to the other socks and he appear just a couple of days after the blocks I did. Based on that alone, it looks like a new sock. But the odd parts are Durzatwink calling Styrofoam1994 his "adoptee" (when Durzatwink's claiming he's a new user) and Styrofoam1994 making attacks (like "perv") on his page and also impersonating an admin--I'm warning Styrofoam on both these points. In summation, I think we should RFCU the whole bunch and sort this out. Agathaclea is right to be suspicious, but I think we need to dig deeper. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Their friendship seems to have cooled extremely suddenly. I'm really having a hard time assuming good faith. (see User:Sanjay517) Nousernamesleft 01:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what's going on here at all, but you should see User talk:MasterofMinds also. --omtay38 01:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Should Styrofoam1994's Rollback privileges be revoked? Malinaccier (talk) 02:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think that unless my sockpuppet suspicions are confirmed in some way, Styrofoam should probably keep his privileges. After all, rollback is no more of a big deal than using Twinkle, as the page itself states. Nousernamesleft 03:09, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I have evidence to believe that MasterofMinds is the sockpuppet master of user:Sanjay517 Here Here Here}}. The sockpuppet also admit that he has controll of the account which is stated . There seems to be two ip adresses involved which are 76.98.1.12 and . As you can see, they both participated in User:Styrofoam1994/Offbeat‎. Altough most of the time these accounts did not cause any harm to Misplaced Pages, there was 1 incident in activated me to post this and that is Here. Although it does not seem too bad, I consider it as vandalism. If any of you want to, you cant make a case here WP:SSP. Happy editing ^_^--DurzaTwink 00:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the teachers of that particular school could be alerted to put a lesson on on-line privacy protection onto the curriculum. This might solve most of the problems. Anyway the real crux of the matter is whether $NAMEOFPUPPETMASTER is banned in the wiki sense of the word.

trouble was further brewing at WP:ANI.

What troubles me is the fact that DurzaTwink gets frequently referred to by his real or imagined real-life name by the other parties of this conflict - which appears to be a reallife schoolyard conflict which has spilled over into wikipedia. One way of stopping that would be to delete the "Game".

AS far as rollback privileges are concerned this is clearly a case of rollback used in a conflict. Agathoclea (talk) 14:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Mfd now at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Styrofoam1994/Offbeat. -- Agathoclea (talk) 14:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Is there a limit as to how many cases of sockpuppetry a user can make against another? Styrofoam1994 is planning to make a 3rd case stated here and to be quite honest, it is getting very tiresome to constantly defened against these accusations every time since I have other work that must be done. Thanks--DurzaTwink 18:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

All of these accusations in which he is attacking me with, has consumed my time for making good and constructive edit. Is there some way that the admins can set up something that would seperate us for the time being untill we cool down and come to terms? Thank you --DurzaTwink 18:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Article probation?

I'm confused. WP:Article probation redirects to WP:General sanctions. That page lists all active sanctions by the Arbitration Committee, including some articles that are under "article probation" (somewhat circular here...). The page also has a brief paragraph that, I think, says that any administrator can ban any user for "disruptive editing".

That's as clear as mud. Can someone clarify that? What exactly does "Article probation" entail? -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 06:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

In my experience, Article probation comes from three places in descending order: ArbCom, RfC, or consensus agreement on one of the various noticeboards. Probation usually means that the user must discuss significant changes on the talk page before editing (removing "Be bold"), reduction to 1RR to prevent edit warring, or other such remedies that work out discussion before restricting article or user access. Thus maintaining the free spirit to edit any article or to be an editor on on any article. Long story short: the editor needs to keep in mind of maintaining neutrality in editing an article that they may be passionate about. Others may have a different view, of course. Keegan 07:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

That's what I'd say the common interpretation is, and it's codified well on the associated page:

Article probation : Editors making disruptive edits may be banned by an administrator from articles on probation and related articles or project pages. Editors of such articles should be especially mindful of content policies, such as WP:NPOV, and interaction policies, such as WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:3RR, and WP:POINT. See Category:Articles on probation.

General sanctions apply to individual editors, and discretionary sanctions give administrators a remarkable berth to do whatever is necessary to effectively combat disruption. east.718 at 08:17, February 1, 2008

It's not very clear to me. In the case in question, the particular user has been banned for a year, so the sanctions don't specifically apply to him. Instead the 'article' is on "article probation". From what I'm reading, that seems to mean that any administrator may ban any editor for "disruptive edits". Is that true!?!? -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 15:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Considering your main editorial interests and the timing of this query, I'm assuming you're talking about RFAR/Bluemarine? Matt Sanchez has been banned for a year, and any administrator may ban any disruptive user from his associated page and any others related to it. So yes, your fears are founded. east.718 at 19:54, February 1, 2008

While I do have fears, I'm concerned because a) the horrible mess that has been that page... and b) that needs to be spelled out much more clearly. WP:General sanctions is currently a mix of sanctions against editors and sanctions placed on articles, which are two entirely different things. I'm starting a discussion on that talk page and hope that WP:ARBCOM will participate? -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 02:34, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

See Talk:Homeopathy/Article probation and Talk:Homeopathy/Article probation/Incidents. Jehochman 02:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

IP address - privacy implications?

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

Hi; I'm in a bit of a dispute with Dr who1975 over here, but it's not that that I wish to discuss. He is insisting on posting my IP address onto the page. I removed it politely, and he replaced it most unpleasantly. Who's in the right, here, I genuinely don't know? I'd personally rather I didn't have my IP listed. Anyway, I'm no longer touching the case with a barge-pole, and not bickering with Dw1975 on any page at all, I'm leaving it well alone from now on because it's giving me a headache, but I would like this issue of my IP resolved if poss. Cheers!--Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 16:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I attempted to leave an anonymous message with my IP that Porcupine felt was vandalism. Unfortnately... this has blown up into a sockpuppetry case that I have already successfully defended against once. I have left a further response on the checkuserpage. Once the dust has settled I have no problem with Porcupine's IP being removed. P.S. has anyone ever done a checkuser between Porcupine and France A's most recently active Accounts? I don't think he's france a but considering he's made good on threats that France A made to me I think it's worth a check.--Dr who1975 (talk) 16:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Could you possibly provide some diffs and such that show some sort of connection between Porcupine or France A ? If not, I'm really not at all sure why you insist on adding Porcupine's IP address to the page in question. Nick (talk) 17:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I never remotely suggested that your anonymous message was vandalism, I suggested that the IP had been used for vandalism and specifically, vandalism that was characteristic of France a.
• How is my IP address relevant to this? I think you just put it there for the sake of it. Does it have any bearing on the case?
• I'm not France a. I think that everyone who knows me here will agree that I'm not France a. I've even been suggested as a potential (very hypothetical, admittedly) admin. It's utterly absurd to suggest that I'm a juvenile vandal who can't spell.--Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 17:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Honestly... I think you probably aren't France A. Like me, your IP was accused of Vandalism long ago too. All the "vandalims" you're talking about was to France A's user discussion pages...I called him a wanker. We also once had a disputeover the Sonic Screwdriver which wasresolved peacefully. Can we just bury the hatchet here...seriously... it's costing both you an me a lot of time? I have no problem with removing your IP once our dispute has been resolved. Please re-read the recent edit and ask your self "is it really vandalism" It wouldalso be nice if you stood up for me and told Dreadstar I'm not France A... but I've alreadyproved that so I don't need you to.--Dr who1975 (talk) 17:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Sorry, you've missed both my points, I'm afraid. 1: I'm not just talking about one edit. There have been at least five edits, from your account or IP, all vandalism, to the various userpages of France a. Five. That shows something unusual. 2: Why are you insisting on having my IP there? It's not relevant. If you think it is, please explain how. I'm not being sarcastic here, I'm utterly bemused.--Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 17:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Posting of another users registered IP address is bad form, and should not be done. If there are potential problems that need to be investigated, enlist the help of a checkuser, but please respect the rights of logged in users to keep their IP addresses private. It is one of the express benefits of having a username. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:13, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Since we're all broadly of the same mind, could someone remove my IP, please? I promise not to try to get it oversighted, I just don't want it showing. It'll still be in the history; I obviously can't remove it myself a second time! Thanks.--Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 17:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I'lldo it right now. Please actually read what I'm saying here.--Dr who1975 (talk) 17:19, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Porcupine closed discussion prematurely. Can somebody please unblock my IP per the discussion above?--Dr who1975 (talk) 17:26, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec)The discussion was closed because it was about my IP being posted, and only that, so I didn't do anything prematurely. I think the sock-case is still open and you stay blocked until it's concluded, but as I say, I'm through with this, I won't contest anything any further.--Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 17:29, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Is this the right place? I need help

Would someone help me out? I have been accused of sock and/or meatpuppetry as the debate can be seen here. Here is the story: I created Bowie State University, Department of Public Safety a month or so ago. Another user placed an AfD tag on it. The article went into debate. As I am typing my case on my MDT (computer), my partner (in the Police Department that I work for) asked what I was typing so intently. I told him the whole story. He wanted to comment on it. Now, a few weeks ago, I helped him create a user account so maybe he would take interest in Misplaced Pages. His interest was marginal at best and didn't do anything with the account since then. When I told him about my AfD he seemed to get interested. I knew at the time that his input wouldn't really help my AfD, but I thought that if it got him excited about wikipedia, it was worth losing a minor article that I had written. Sock (or meat) puppetry didn't even cross my mind at the time. I can understand how it would seem as though it is a sockpuppet, but if you look at my record and my contributions, I don't think I even fit the puppeteer "profile." And if you look at the alleged "sockpuppet," if I did create it as such, I didn't even try to hide the fact that it was a sockpuppet. Maybe I am just guilty of being too naïve, I would just appreciate a little administrative guidance. I have asked for assistance from other admins, but basically got a guilty "stare" (if you will) and no assistance. Thanks. Sallicio (talk) 18:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Sallicio

May I second Sallicio's request for help and/or comment? Barring some relevant point of fact that I have missed, this seems to me like a case of biting newcomers. --Iamunknown 22:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Lord Pistachio has discussed this with User:Sallicio on the latter's talk page, and has done so well: to paraphrase, Sallicio was naive in getting their partner to weigh in; a lesson has been learnt; ultimately the "vote" of the partner will be given the weight or not that it deserves; and we'll all move on. I'll start that process by closing the various bureaucracies that have sprung up and we can all have cocoa before bed. But no, it isn't really WP:BITE - socking is a tedious problem here, and most socks are transparently obvious. But in this case, a dusting of WP:AGF can't harm. ➔ REDVEЯS has changed his plea to guilty 22:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that WP:BITE applies - or should apply - equally to newbies who don't "sock" as to newbies who "sock" or, in this case, help their friends register an account. --Iamunknown 22:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Your mileage may differ from mine. That's cool. But I don't think much would be achieved by arguing about it or making life miserable for those involved on either side. I've closed the SSP, refactored the AfD and left both Sallicio and his/her partner messages to say they can delete or archive posts on this subject on their talk pages as they see fit. All done, and with minimum drama. If we're lucky! ➔ REDVEЯS has changed his plea to guilty 22:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to all for the help! Sallicio (talk) 02:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Sallicio

For transparency: I've now closed the AfD after Sallicio merged the content into the parent article, which rendered the discussion moot; this was against the majority of the !votes but seems most equitable. Review welcomed on my talk page if people think I've overshot the mark. ➔ REDVEЯS has changed his plea to guilty 14:04, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Please help me bring more roboticists to WP

I continue to run into a frustrating but interesting problem. I'm posting this here because the toughest problem I'm facing is that I keep on talking to people on one side or the other of a cultural divide, when what I really need to find is Wikipedians who span the divide, understand the problem, and might be willing to help a bit...maybe I can get help here, maybe you can point me in the right direction. In a nutshell, the problem is that people with important experience in robotics...people whose help we could really use...are mostly staying in their own little communities and not contributing to Misplaced Pages/Wikia/Wikiversity. I have put a lot of time into chatting with communities of hobbyist and student roboticists (who, btw, tend to have fantastic wiki-values and are just the kind of people we want editing here), and trying to get them to understand the benefits of being brave and tackling the WP-and-sister-sites culture, and a lot of time chatting in WP-related irc channels and robotics-related WP talk pages. Technologists in general, and roboticists in particular, are used to feeling rejection on a number of levels when they talk with people who don't have the same interests...and I'm convinced that's why we don't have more participation from them in Misplaced Pages.

Here's the problem: try posting a comment to a general audience somewhere saying that you've had some success with getting a robotic vacuum cleaner or a robotic toy to work better, and asking people to try it out and see if they like it, and most of the responses you get will be dismissive in some way. This is not at all surprising...everyone has issues with everyday technology, everyone knows that all this stuff gets particularly scary if you look 20 years into the future (and these anxieties are reinforced every day by TV and films), and people who are perceived as technophilic are sometimes suspected of being semi-autistic, not willing to play by the usual social rules. All this discomfort tends to get dumped, without apology, on the heads of robotics-enthusiasts, and this has tended to make them clump together for their own protection and comfort. To translate to another context that you might understand better: imagine that you're the only black, or gay, or disabled person in a small town, and suppose every time you try to talk about what's interesting to you, people respond based on all their own stereotypes rather than listening to what you have to say. Get the problem?

Of course, WP isn't here to make the world better, we're just trying to build an encyclopedia...and this is exactly the problem. Misplaced Pages has coverage of most subjects in excruciating detail, but even the most basic questions about everyday robots aren't covered well in Misplaced Pages...and worse, you'll have to read 600 pages of stuff before you find out that what you want to know isn't here. (This is not a criticism of all the incredibly fine work that has been done so far on robotics articles, just an acknowledgement that the simplest questions...."Can I buy a robot to do this?"...are also the toughest questions with very complicated answers, and the people who know the answers are in general not participating in Misplaced Pages.) This is a tough problem to fix, the subject matter is hard and changes every day, but I am convinced that both Misplaced Pages-and-sister-projects and the hobbyist groups themselves would benefit from sharing, and I'm convinced that people who are neither technophiles nor roboticists could make a difference, simply by not allowing people to stereotype and beat up roboticists...that is, show them the same support you would show any minority, hell, any human. (I keep saying "them" because I'm representing as a "cross-cultural" member here, but I'm a proud roboticist, too.) - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Cube your problems and then help me bring more Scientologists to Misplaced Pages, too. Speaking as a cross-cultural member myself. Cheers. --JustaHulk (talk) 21:06, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Hahaha. The only real solution to these scope problems is to do what you can, and let the others do what they can. If people are interested, then they will edit what they want. We can't force, or even attract, people who like a certain thing. As for the scientologists, we can do with out them. :) Prodego 21:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Dank55, you are one of the most well-spoken and thoughtful (philosophical?) roboticists I've ever come across. :-). Don't lose faith in this project. Misplaced Pages, although rife with cruft, is, a good place. Be encouraged, fine editor! In a weird way, you are not only a pioneer in your field, but a pioneer in the field of wikifying your field. That alone makes you stand above the rest. If your robot colleagues (I apologize, that was mean) don't like Misplaced Pages or see it's massive potential, then meh? to them. Keep up your fine work. Someone will come around to help. I would personally, but my experience in the field of robotics is limited to the Roomba. Cheers, mate. Keeper | 76 21:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

AAAAA!. That's overwhelming, thank you, but it makes it sound like I was trying to sound brilliant, and no one likes that. I think what might be going on is that I've found from long practice that every second I talk about robotics, people's eyelids get heavier, so I have to super-compress what I have to say...maybe that just made it sound clever, I don't know. Anyway, thank you for your support. If you like, you can give us a vote of moral support at WP:WikiProject_Robotics#Moral support, or maybe even display our banner from that page on your talk page. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 23:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like the guy I used to share a lab with, Peter Kyberd. Guy (Help!) 00:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't have to wait long for an example. Someone deleted a broken link today to an article that didn't exist yet, Lawnbott (that's a robotic lawnmower), so I replaced the link and wrote the Lawnbott article. I had already written an article on the subject on robots.wikia.com last month. It was immediately tagged...rightly so...as not listing sufficient sources to establish notability. But how do we establish notability for a commercial robot? Offhand, I can only think of one time a CEO of a home robotics company has admitted to sales figures (a year ago, 2.5 million Roombas shipped, see robots.wikia.com for the cite). Roboticists (at least, the ones I listen to) will tell you that most academic and journalistic reviews of new commercial robots are completely unreliable, it's much better to get a report from an individual or group that you know to be reliable who has tested the product. But "Joe over at Engadget says..." is not the kind of cite that WP likes to rely on. This problem has similarities to the problems lawyers face when using "precedent" to argue a case about satellites or intellectual property law...it's well-known that you get some very silly results. Likewise, if we tag robotics articles because they don't cite the same kinds of sources that would be appropriate for history articles, we're going to get some silly results.

I don't really expect to have any great difficulty with this issue, but I am inviting comment. What I've done for the moment is to leave the "primary sources" tag in place on Lawnbott and replace the "notability" tag with the "expert-subject | robotics" tag, per WP:NOTE#Articles not satisfying the notability guidelines. I'm going to intentionally leave tags in place and some things undone on robotics articles for a little while and see if I can get some cooperation from new robotics editors. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:08, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Google news search is a good way to find reliable sources for...those things that can be reliably sourced. In the case of Lawnbott, it works well: articles in the Christian Science Monitor and Sacramento Bee. Incorporate what those articles say, add them to the references, and your article should be safe. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

If you cite the journal articles and publications from which the article is drawn, that normally satisfies the notability requirement in the process. Unless the only sources are press releases and company publications, in which case the article may be doomed anyway. Guy (Help!) 09:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the cites, and I completely agree. Hopefully the combination of newspaper articles sufficient to comply with WP:SOURCE plus informed debate among users (for commonly available robots) or experts (otherwise) will get the job done. Things are going well at the moment. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:51, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Robotics is successfully attracting new and very talented people to Misplaced Pages and generating goodwill...and the foregoing discussion helped a lot, thanks. Interested admins and other prolific editors may want to watch WP:WikiProject_Robotics/Admins'_Edit_Log, which is intended to reflect your ongoing consensus and concerns by the simple expedient of listing what you're doing in robotics articles. If you have friends (including people whose English is not great) who are interested in robotics but don't know a lot about Misplaced Pages, please direct them to WP:WikiProject_Robotics/Outreach. Thanks for all the support. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:12, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Caltrop (talk · contribs)

Why do we have an active admin with a deleted talk page. β 00:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me if this may seem too blunt, but did you try asking him first? Icestorm815 (talk) 00:20, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not too sure, but have you tried asking him? It looks like there's on 28 deleted edits, so I presume most of the are at another location. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:22, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The old archives appears to be deleted as well. Snowolf 00:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The archives are spread over at least 4 pages, all deleted, and split using selective restore. They could easily be recombined though. Prodego 01:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed this happening more frequently lately. See User talk:Bishonen (11,818 edits deleted) and User talk:FCYTravis (709 edits deleted) for other examples. - auburnpilot talk 02:16, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

It would be correct to restore this, even without notifying them, and warn them. Make sure there isn't any PI or BLP concerns (and none of those BLP excuses, I mean a real reason) first though. NOTE TO ANYONE THINKING ABOUT THIS: If you restore Bishonen's page, it can't be redeleted. Prodego 02:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

In other words, it would not be correct to restore the talk pages without notifying them first. If there are BLP (or, more seriously, privacy) issues, we're shooting ourselves in our collective foot if we treat this matter as requiring urgent and rapid intervention.

In the grand scheme of things, no harm whatsoever is done if the talk pages stay deleted for a week or two longer. As Prodego notes, undoing the deletion is impossible for regular admins, and we should shy away from taking irreversible action without due care. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Re-deleting it is impossible, it should still be undeleteable. But I disagree in that, if you know there are no problems with the page, you can restore it. If it was selectively deleted though, you should not because it might be one of those special cases. Prodego 22:09, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Again? I brought this up four months ago. --Carnildo (talk) 04:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Just as a technical question, why would re-deleting be impossible? I've seen pages deleted and undeleted and re-deleted all the time. Newyorkbrad (talk) 05:38, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

There's a limit since a few weeks that only pages with less than 5000 revisions can be deleted by admins, to avoid server problems. henrik•talk 18:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, what is the procedure for deleting pages that exceed the 5000 revision limit? Is it necessary to contact a Developer in order to have such pages deleted? Obviously, this isn't a huge problem, as there aren't many occurrences that one can think of, where a page containing over 5000 revisions would have to be deleted urgently, but it is a issue we should address, considering the scarce availability of Developers with root access. Anthøny 23:13, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

They are not that scarce, Anthony. Snowolf 02:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Homeopathy-banner removed from Talk:Serial dilution

Could an admin take a look? —Whig (talk) 05:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

You need to be more precise with notices here; that means evidence in the form of permanent links. El_C 09:16, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Removed 05:17, 2 February 2008 by Rifleman 82 (talk · contribs) ~Kylu (u|t) 00:09, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Repeated copyright violations

This user's contributions are repeated copyright violations from a manga publisher's web site. Not to mention that this might all just be the publisher using Misplaced Pages as free advertising. Suggestions on how to deal with the copyvio aspect of this? —Noah 08:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

It might be worthwhile trying to nontemplatalking to this person first. El_C 09:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I did here. It might have been lost in the sea of image warnings though. —Noah 09:25, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it did. I'll archive all of them and give it a shot. El_C 09:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I noticed by this response that the editor is connected to the publishing company that is selling these manga titles. So we have a COI situation here. --Farix (Talk) 11:04, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Deleting userpages of indef-blocked users?

There's a discussion about it over at WP:VPP#Deletion of userpages.

Is this something administrators generally do? Is the person there mistaken? And what is the policy on it? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 10:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I generally do delete indefinitely blocked users' pages, with the exception of sock puppet accounts (which are, as a rule of thumb, not deleted for tracking issues) and users who have been banned. This isn't a huge problem, really; it's certainly not worth kicking up a fuss about, anyway. Anthøny 14:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Some double redirects to fix.

• Template:Cat-class → Template:Category-Class
• List of current rulers of dependencies → List of current dependent territory leaders

Both are full protected. Will 15:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. Oldelpaso (talk) 15:59, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Updated (improved?) template

FYI I have been cheeky and updated this: Template:notchat Template:Notchat Hopefully it's better; if anyone disagrees, please let me know. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 16:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I like! Tiptoety 19:33, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd change "here" to the actual place it is pointing. "If you want to ask a question about the subject of the article, the best place to go is here." to "If you want to ask a question about the subject of the article, please visit the Reference Desk" Nakon 21:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. I'll fix it. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 21:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

How to fix

Please will someone look at this. It is vandalism of a sort I'm not sure how to correct - I'm not sure how far back to revert.

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Teams&diff=187920582&oldid=178807913

Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 18:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I went back one, but if the vandalism's strewn about several pages, then it'll be hard to handle. Wizardman 18:17, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

It is. Several have already been reverted, I'll do the rest. John Carter (talk) 18:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Anthon01

Moved to WP:ANI. east718 21:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Open proxies that admins who are not part of WP:OP stumble upon

I recently stumbled upon some idiot's forum spam for a proxy at proxiter.com. I test edited through it and found that it works. (I only used the preview button, so nothing is saved.) However, I am not part of the open proxy WikiProject. Should I block it anyways? Jesse Viviano (talk) 19:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

• I already reported it at WP:OP. Jesse Viviano (talk) 19:54, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Just block it.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 00:42, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Blocked. east.718 at 02:25, February 3, 2008

Thanks. Jesse Viviano (talk) 03:00, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Two month backlog

Category:Replaceable fair use images disputed has images which were marked for deletion over 2 months ago, and are not yet deleted or chosen for keep. I marked this category as a backlog over two weeks ago, and no one has taken a shot at it. The issue is photos which people replace the fair use replaceable tag with the fair use replaceable disputed tag. If someone could look through these images, please... The Evil Spartan (talk) 20:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm going through and doing a few of them. east.718 at 20:40, February 2, 2008

Notification of injunction relating to episodes and characters

The Arbitration Committee, in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2, have voted to implement a temporary injunction. It can be viewed on the case page by following this link. The injunction is as follows:

For the duration of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2, no editor shall redirect or delete any currently existing article regarding a television series episode or character; nor un-redirect or un-delete any currently redirected or deleted article on such a topic, nor apply or remove a tag related to notability to such an article. Administrators are authorized to revert such changes on sight, and to block any editors that persist in making them after being warned of this injunction.

As noted in the text of the injunction, this restriction is in effect until the Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2 case is officially closed by a clerk, following a successful motion to close by the arbitrators. Please note that, for the purposes of enforcement (cf. the final line of the text of the injunction), all parties in this case at the time of this message (link) have been notified of this injunction.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Daniel (talk) 02:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

User 67.163.171.225

I am really mad at this user. This user sent a personal attack to my talk page and I want him/her to be blocked. Here is a link to it:]. Please, someone help me. Footballfan190 (talk) 06:15, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Blocked for 48 hours. GlassCobra 06:21, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Image renaming

• Bugzilla link: 709

While it's not currently possible to move/rename images, Betacommand has a bot that can perform the function for us the hard way.

Requests for image movement should be placed at the bottom of Misplaced Pages talk:Image renaming. Admins are automatically authorized for the use of this tool, and non-admins may be added by having an admin list you at the bottom of Misplaced Pages:Image renaming, which also includes instructions on using the tool.

There is no "Requests for" process involved, you just need to have a reasonably good edit history.

Related pages can be found in Category:Image renaming ~Kylu (u|t) 06:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Can I be protected

I appear to be the victim of a over jealous editor and his friends. If you look at my account you will see that they have gone through all my postings and images for the past year and marked them all for deletion. I am also getting abusive comments and it all started after I critisised an editor. I fully own the copyright to all the images I have posted and have offered them up for free use on Commons and have repeated told the editors this on numerous occasions and with telephone numbers, emails and contact addresses of the people concerned. Austenlennon (talk) 14:09, 3 February 2008 (UTC)austenlennon

From looking at your talk page, it appears that your numerous images have been deleted because they failed to comply with our image use policy in various ways. I advise you to re-read the detailed advice in this regard given to you on your talk page. I also see no abusive comments aimed at you. No administrator action is necessary here. Sandstein (talk) 16:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Please check the DumZiBoT edits

• DumZiBoT (talk · contribs · logs)

Just approved at Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/DumZiBoT. Most edits are beneficial, but in the case it simply substitutes the HTML page title for the bare URL, it's not a change to the better in some 1%-5% of edits, e.g. here. Also this substitution often loses the fact on which website the information resides.

Please some volunteers check more edits of the bot, whether this collateral damage is acceptable in the otherwise good effect of this bot.

For now I've stopped the bot by its stop request page.

--Pjacobi (talk) 20:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Erm. I've got a talk page, also. NicDumZ ~ 07:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Orangemarlin's nonconstructive comment apart, I don't see much more than some pleased users on my talkpage... As authorized by the BRFA, I've restarted the bot. If you find some major hole, you can still soft-stop it through this page. NicDumZ ~ 08:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

backlog of possibly unfree images

According to the list of admins there are over 1,000 active admins on Misplaced Pages. Could one of you please take care of this? It goes back to the 18th of December. --Rockfang (talk) 15:45, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I think these were purposefully being left undone... but I don't recall for certain now. I'm trying to find out. Lara❤Love 16:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

You might be thinking about #Disputed fair-use image deletion deadlines (update) above. Woody (talk) 16:38, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

So....was someone going to help out Garion96 with this? --Rockfang (talk) 22:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm bringing this up again. Will someone please help out with this?--Rockfang (talk) 18:29, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Could someone please deal with this backlog?--Rockfang (talk) 21:12, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Template:GR

I non-admin kept this protected template. Could an admin remove the notice for TfD? Nousernamesleft 01:19, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Totalitarianism

Hi. An editor, Maglev_Power, seems to be deleting the term "Totalitarianism" from dozens of pages, all in a few minutres. Could someone please look this over? See: here, Thanks. --Cberlet (talk) 01:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like POV, but I do not want to start edit war with him. Maybe leave a message on his talk page as to why he is doing this. Igor Berger (talk) 01:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I've left a request for him to cease and desist the removals, and suggested discussing the tagging at the WikiProject for the tag he's removing. We'll see if it happens.. a look at the editor's history suggests this isn't a first time for this kind of activity. Tony Fox (arf!) 01:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

This editor is Maglev Power (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). He seems to be rapid-fire content dispute with everyone else on Misplaced Pages. He is even removing references to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Totalitarianism, since it contains the word 'Totalitarianism.' He has been going for about 40 minutes and seems to have made about 100 changes so far. He has blocked in late January for 24 hours for 3RR after doing something similar but that block has expired. He just resumed less than an hour ago. EdJohnston (talk) 01:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, he seems to think it's POV to have those articles listed under that WikiProject. I've asked again for him to take it to the WikiProject for discussion. If he keeps up, can I get some thoughts on whether this is disruption? Tony Fox (arf!) 01:48, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I would recommed a 24 hour block unless he stop right now! Igor Berger (talk) 01:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Blocks users because of a disagreement over content is inappropriate. I am willing to discuss the merits of my removal of the tags on a case-by-case basis, on each individual article talk page. Maglev Power (talk) 01:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The term "totalitarianism" is hotly contested by political scientists. It is a serious violation of NPOV and NOR for Misplaced Pages users to be randomly and arbitrarily inserting this tag in pages on specific regimes and individuals. The tag can go in articles that directly relate to the subject, such as totalitarianism and post-totalitarianism, books on the subject, and theorists who contributed to the concept such as Hannah Hannah Arendt. I am only removing the tag from where the classification of the subject as "totalitarianism" is subejct to serious disagreemnt within the realm of schoalrly research. Maglev Power (talk) 01:53, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that there is "serious disagreement" that Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany were at least somewhat related to totalitarianism. And since when do talk pages have to be NPOV anyway? I would add that democracy and human rights are also hotly debated by political scientists, but we don't ignore the existance of those subjects. --ElPeruano (talk) 01:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) To Maglev Power, that's your opinion. Other people have different opinions. Hence we have a process here called WP:CONSENSUS to edit articles and various dispute resolution procedures should consensus fails. We should not even be discussing the merits of your position here. As a single editor you do not have veto power over what gets written on Misplaced Pages and what does not. There is clearly broad or universal opposition to the changes you are making from a number of serious, experienced editors. Please desist from these contentious edits immediately. Let us know whether you intend to stop or continue, and whether you will edit war on this if all of your edits are rolled back. If you do mean to continue, I would suggest an indefinite or long-term block unless and until you promise not to further disrupt the project. I have left a message on your talk page to that effect. Wikidemo (talk) 02:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I looked what you said about Thailand totalitarianism which is not. It is authoritative. But your way of doing it is gaming the system which is against Misplaced Pages policy. So all your edits have to be undone and you can discuss them one at a time as you would like. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Igorberger (talk • contribs) 02:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

My edits are not against consensus. It is a matter of longtime consensus on Misplaced Pages that the term "totalitarianism" is a subjectley applied, pejorative POV-term, even with regards to Nazi Germany and the Stalinist USSR. Hence the deletion of the pages like Category:Totalitarian dictators and "list of totalitarian dictators" a long time ago. Maglev Power (talk) 02:03, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It is a little hard to argue that your edits are part of a broad consensus when you didn't discuss them at all before you started, and once people realized what you were doing the ran here to complain. Obviously, many editors think what you are doing is not helpful. --ElPeruano (talk) 02:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I did not repeat the arguments becuase the Misplaced Pages community already had the discussion a long time ago. See the pages leading to the deletion of "list of dictators" (previously list of totalitarian dictators) and the category "totalitarian dictators" Maglev Power (talk) 02:20, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

• I still recommend a 24 hour block even if he promisses to stop. He literaly desrupted Misplaced Pages for WP:POINT Igor Berger (talk) 02:07, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Blocking is not punitive. Tony Fox (arf!) 02:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

No, but it is preventative. This user has a track record of this unilateral editing, and I'm just considering how long the block should be. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

As you can see here he thinks we are threatening him with a block. So he still thinks he is right to disrupt Igor Berger (talk) 02:15, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It has been said many a time that a user has a right to remove a warning once they have read it. And seeing as he appears to have stopped his behavior, I think we should go ahead and assume good faith and allow the user to see where consensus lies. SorryGuy  Talk  02:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Consensus on totalitarianism as a POV term

For users who are bringing up the matter of "consensus" on the project, I invite them to go the past deletion discussions that bring up the same concerns that I am stating now. See the pages leading to the deletion of "list of dictators" (previously list of totalitarian dictators) and the category "totalitarian dictators" Maglev Power (talk) 02:10, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

You have not discussed THESE edits, however; I'd suggest doing so before continuing. At present, they appear to be bordering on disruption. Tony Fox (arf!) 02:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

If you were removing mentions of totalitarianism from article space, you may have a point. However, your edits are to talk space, which aren't governed by WP:NPOV in the same way: "All Misplaced Pages articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV)..." Additionally, by performing this lengthy series of edits, you are creating a mass disruption of a WikiProject whose presumed purpose is (among other things) to achieve consensus on whether an article's topic is or is not related to totalitarianism, and you apparently began this disruption campaign without bothering to discuss that consensus with the members of said WikiProject. --Dachannien_Contrib 02:24, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Maglev Power's concerns are noted. I suggest that the WikiProject should have some discussion tagging articles appropriately, and discuss this editor's POV concerns on the project's talk page. — ERcheck (talk) 02:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

User not taking matter seriously - suggest rollback and possible block

At this point the user is not seriously responding to concerns over his behavior - he deleted my warning calling it a "threat." He hasn't answered whether he intends to stop but from all indications he is not. I have started reversing his contentious edits beginning with this one on January 23. I likely won't get through them all but I suggest we simply roll them back. If he continues this or resists restoring the articles, I suggest an indefinite block. Wikidemo (talk) 02:11, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree 24 hour block. Igor Berger (talk) 02:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I am stopping for the moment because I am too busy with the discussion here. I am not the issue here. You have yet to reply to the evidence to which I have pointed showing that there is a longtime consensus on Misplaced Pages regarding the recognition of "totalitarian" as a POV-term. Threatening to block me indefinitely because you disagree with me on a content matter is also quite inappropriate and anti-Wiki, and a bit totalitarian, if you were to use that term. Maglev Power (talk) 02:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC) Maglev Power (talk) 02:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict with the following 5 comments). I don't have to reply to anything. Totalitarian is not my term and this is not my issue. I am giving you a behavior warning, not a threat. You're making contentious edits against consensus to make some kind of a WP:POINT that are causing a lot of concern by a lot of people. If you disagree as a policy matter with the content of hundreds of articles at once, you should bring it up and advocate your position in an appropriate forum and try to get some agreement for your changes. You are not entitled to single-handedly change that many articles simply because you feel that they violate some policy. At that point it is a behavior problem, not a content disagreement. I've reverted ten but I will go no farther - once this is settled my guess is that all of your contentious edits will be reversed. By starting to revert my edits (which are entirely appropriate under the BRD cycle) you've made it clear you intend to edit war on the topic. It's ridiculous to claim that Saddam Hussein should be removed from the totalitarianism project. Edit warring over that is misbehavior, not a content issue. I'm not an administrator and I can't block you. I'm simply laying out an argument that you ought to be blocked for this kind of disruption, and that the status quo should be returned rather than allowing a disruptive editor to keep the fruits of their inappropriate editing. I'm likely not going to stick around for the full debate, though. Other fish to fry. Wikidemo (talk) 02:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

• These are you words, "I am stopping for the moment because I am too busy with the discussion here." So if you were not busy here, you would continue you Totalitarian crusade? Igor Berger (talk) 02:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

He actually has started again at Talk:Saddam Hussein, and the block tariff has just cranked up a notch. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

At at Talk:Burma, and I've blocked for 24 hours to prevent further damage. If any admin feels this is inappropriate, please feel free to reverse me. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:26, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with that block. Tony Fox (arf!) 02:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

And I. If he wants to try to get the WikiProject renamed, he should take that to the WikiProject, not remove all their tags. Bencherlite 02:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

• It should not take as so long to block a vandal. The editor may not be a vandal but the actions are. We are told to WP:AGF but there is a limit of it and we have to WP:ABF Igor Berger (talk) 02:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, this is AN & not ANI, so it's a little bit slower paced. But to continue his course of action while this discussion is running, to me shows a level of contempt for his fellow-editors that throws AGF straight out of the window. Reasonably-minded editors, I would hope would stop and think, not pause and then continue. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

All tag-removals have been rolled back. 'Night all. Bencherlite 02:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

This editor's username caught my attention - a leading proponent of Maglev rail is Lyndon LaRouche. Reviewing his contributions, it appears he's been promoting the LaRouche viewpoint in articles, particularly Myanmar (LaRouche think that its proper name is "Myanmar" and that the British are trying to overthrow its government ), and Save Darfur Coalition‎ (LaRouche thinks the claims of atrocities are a fraud ). ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:24, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Adding useless revisions to pages to make them undeletable

Just FYI: . And I'm sure Tim's not the only one. --bainer (talk) 03:14, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Fully support Tim's comment. The history of the Main Page is a joke. - auburnpilot talk 03:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

While I'm sure this was done with good intentions... boy, this strikes me as spectacularly bad judgement. It also highlights a function that could be used in ways less benevolent. This ignores the fact that the Main page appears to have been deleted once *(Per CSD G6!) in the process, albiet briefly. I'm a new admin, so maybe there's conversation on this topic I've missed... But, I have to agree with Tim's comments. UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 03:24, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Tim has already blocked BetacommandBot for one week, due to "abuse of system resources". - auburnpilot talk 03:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so how did BCB, a non-admin bot, edit a protected page. I'm seeing some odd things going on in the page history with restoring deleted edits, etc. And shouldn't something like this get approved somewhere before its done? Isn't this the purpose of WP:BAG? I know there is a technical switch that would make the main page undeletable by anyone including the devs, which isn't flicked since we don't want to do anything that can never be undone. So this is basically doing that (aking it undeletable) the way I see it, which is somewhat against consensus IMHO MBisanz 03:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The edits were made in userspace and the page was moved by an administrator into the mainspace. Nakon 03:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Was this discussed anywhere beforehand? --Rory096 03:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Nope, no approval and no consensus that this was need - a well deserved week long block. The main page history is destroyed now. Ryan Postlethwaite 03:54, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there some way to selectivly delete prior revisions like oversight but not as extreme). If it cant be automated, maybe hand-deleting (oy!) will be required. Worst case, there might be a consensus to oversight the interjected edits (yea I know its against policy, but I'm not seeing the harm). MBisanz 04:03, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Oversight works on a single revision at a time; good luck finding an oversighter that's willing to go through 5,000 revisions by hand. ;-) Kirill 04:09, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

According to BCBs history, it made about 1100 of the edits to that page, still it would be an unfair burden on an uninvolved oversighter to have to do that. MBisanz 04:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe the whole point is that nobody other than the devs can delete pages with over 5000 edits. They'd have to be the ones to remove all of the bot edits, if I'm remembering correctly. - auburnpilot talk 04:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how Betacommandbot's block is any more "well deserved" than a block of the administrators who collaborated on this venture would be. All the bot did was make a bunch of null edits to a user subpage. Mike R (talk) 04:06, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I'd have blocked the users involved as well; the administrators, in particular, are expected to consider the consequences before they do something of this sort. Kirill 04:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The admins involved obviously screwed up, but remember blocks are preventive, not punitive. --Rory096 05:09, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It was obviously discussed somewhere beforehand. My guess is IRC. Mike R (talk) 04:09, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the reason the bot was blocked and the admins weren't is that 1. Tim was afraid of the bot doing this to many other pages and had to act quickly. 2. Bots go through a special process to get the BOT flag and that process allows harsher action when they mess up, Admins, generally have the grace of an RfC/AN/Arbcom discussion. MBisanz 04:15, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I do think blocking Betacommandbot is justified, since as far as I know, it isn't approved for this (though maybe I'm wrong, given the massive list. At any rate, it seems like it should definitely have been discussed first (on wiki), and was probably a bad idea. Apparently, East718 was the one to do the move, and it was done in his userspace. It might also make sense to block him and Betacommand. Superm401 - Talk 04:20, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

{unindent) Tim Starling has proposed here that East 718 be de-sysoped for his behavior in this matter. What forum should this request be discussed in? MBisanz 04:47, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what the proper venue would be, but I'd assume ArbCom. Thankfully one of the devs has removed the bot's junk edits from the Main Page history. - auburnpilot talk 04:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

This is kind of silly anyway. Why do we restrict administrator tools like delete and protect to administrators? Because we trust them to know what they're doing. We restricted deletions to pages with less than 5000 revisions because it's not obvious that it's going to break the site. This is something completely different — an administrator clicked a button that said "Delete the main page". An administrator should not click such a button unless they actually wish to delete the main page. Testing is for test-wikis — this is not the sort of thing you mess about with on the main page of the 8th most used website in the world! Applying restrictions like this is not needed if we have an appropriate mechanism for distinguishing prospective administrators who know what they are doing with those who don't — or a culture of caution with regards to administrative functions. As for the use of the bot, we have a bot approvals group for a reason. I am aware that Betacommand is on it, and should know better than this. — Werdna talk 05:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

What need has there ever been to delete the main page? Or move it? Why are the tabs even there? The delete tab is currently hidden, but why not just remove the options altogether? Lara❤Love 05:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

bugzilla:9625 seems to indicate it won't ever happen. MBisanz 05:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the main concern here is not with the end result (making the main page undeletable) but rather the means to get there (the apparent unilateral and unsupported move by two editors to dump 1200 junk edits into the main page) which represented an unintended exploit of a recently hacked-in safety feature and is rather an object lesson in how to use said safety feature to be disruptive. The two editors in question were NOT trying to be disruptive per se, but now it is plainly clear that one could use their means to be disruptive. I am not sure that the recommended blockings and/or desysoppings are justified or not, but this does seem like the wrong way to go about doing things. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it is actually good that there is something highly visible for compromised admin accounts to delete or vandalize. A bit of good old delete-the-main-page-for-lulz will send people searching for stewards pretty fast. The latest case was desysopped in three minutes... – Sadalmelik (talk) 06:22, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Bugzilla doesn't appear to have reached any sort of consensus. In fact, the page reads like more people agree that there's no need to have the option to delete the main page. Certain pages just don't need the option. Considering the delete and move tabs serve no useful purpose on these pages, and having them leaves the risk of abuse and server lockdown, why not just remove the option? Having the main page to the (currently) 9th most viewed website in the world be down for a few minutes is bad times when it's pointless and avoidable. Lara❤Love 06:49, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Vital tasks

I seem to remember that BCB does some tasks like RFC bot's job, CfD (I don't know what that is), Spamreports, Image moving, and image renaming. What is our contingency plan for it being unable to do those tasks for a week? Yes, I know it does non-free image and orphan image work, but I'm not considering that vital given the existing huge backlogs at those areas. MBisanz 04:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know that we have a contingency plan for such things. The bot system is like the wild west. Everyone runs their own code and there is very little redundancy. I have supported for a long time the division of Betacommandbot's tasks into separate usernames instead of a single username - BetacommandBot 1, BetacommandBot 2, etc. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea how complex these tasks are, but the RFC one in particular seems pressing as part of the WP:DR process. How hard would it be for an uninvolved bot operator to code up a quick and dirty substitute? Or is there a by-hand process that explains how to replace the bot with actual editors. MBisanz 04:27, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The RFC bot has somewhat complex behavior. I estimate that someone with a lot of experience with bot programming should be able to code a replacement in a day of dedicated work with no interruptions. But it would be better if the code was publicly available (I don't know whether it is). Even then, it might take a few hours for a new operator to get the code running on their machine. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Nope, BCB is (as of a discussion in 2007 ) proprietary code. MBisanz 04:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, RFC bot is/was operated by Messedrocker. BCbot seems to handle this task now, though. – Sadalmelik (talk) 04:52, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Hell, just unblock the bot. That script isn't running anymore and Betacommand presumably knows not to run it again, so there's no reason to keep it blocked. --Rory096 05:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Well Tim is a developer and I think is an employee of the foundation under Misplaced Pages:OFFICE#Who_does_office_actions so that might be a consideration in unblocking. MBisanz 05:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, this is not an "office action". Do as you see fit. Rory096 says "Betacommand presumably knows not to run it again, so there's no reason to keep it blocked". I don't believe Betacommand has learnt any lessons for this, he's a stubborn kind of guy. He certainly didn't make any apologies when I was talking to him about it on IRC. If he does it again, I'll block him again. I've written the script to clean up his mess now, so it won't be so much trouble for me the second time. -- Tim Starling (talk) 05:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's some back story behind RFC bot. I came up with the idea; Betacommand wrote it for me. It exists under the MIT license at this location. It is supposed to run on my toolserver account, but it takes up too much memory as the result of being somewhat broken. Therefore, it goes down once it reaches the toolserver's threshold of 1GB of RAM, and it is killed off by memory management software. While Betacommand is fixing it, he is using his account (that or the bot's) to continue operations; this is not unheard of, as Betacommand's account and his bot are used as testing vectors for new versions of the software.

The issue behind the bot is that objects in memory are forming too quickly without being given enough time to die off. I am going to slow the refresh rate from 5 minutes to 60 minutes to see if that will allow it to be ran on the toolserver without complication. MessedRocker (talk) (write these articles) 05:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

While I know BCB doesn't like to spread his code around, but honestly, I feel like more bots should take up some of his tasks either in case he doesn't wish to run it or a situation like this happens again. User:Zscout370 06:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Note from developer

Tim Starling has sent an email to the wikitech-l list in which he strongly criticizes the practice of adding meaningless revisions to a page. At the very least, everyone should take away the message "don't do that". — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:15, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

911

User:Hellno2 moved 911 to 911 (year), redirected 911 (disambiguation) to 911, then edited 911 despite a clear consensus that this should not be done (see talk page). I've reverted the redirect (and made a note on his talk page), but cannot undo the move and would like admin assistance in that. My apologies if I was supposed to ask for this somewhere else. Matchups (talk) 03:52, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Continued OWNership and reverts against consensus

On the article Boerboel, Frikkers (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has continually defied consensus, violated the 3RR, and been uncivil. Blocked three times for violation of 3RR, admin Samir worked hard to personally facilitate a discussion, which Frikkers refused to participate in. In December Frikkers was blocked for one month as a result of attempting to change Boerboel back to his preferred version against the consensus of the discussion. As soon as his block was up on January 31st, Frikkers again reverted. As the last user (not me) to revert his latest actions put it in their edit summary, "rv WP:OWN of article against consensus, removing interwiki links and removal of sections by user repeatedly against consensus". Considering that Frikkers continues to not only makes reversions against consensus, but almost totally ignores attempts to engage him in discussion, I don't know what the best solution is. Please advise. VanTucky 04:07, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it belongs at AN/I? Might get more attention there. Bstone (talk) 04:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the user set up the account just to edit this article. Special:Contributions/Frikkers. If not ownership there must be WP:COI. Igor Berger (talk) 06:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

• Moving to WP:ANI Igor Berger (talk) 07:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Threatening messages

User:Tinucherian has threatened me in my talk page. Despite all warnings by different admins, he keeps using different socks and anonym users to comment side with him on the AfD debate. Earlier, his family history article nominated to AfD by me. Admins, please look into the matter. Thanks. --Avinesh Jose  T  07:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

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