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Contents

[edit] Revealing deleted content to non-administrators

I'm not quite sure what I should do here. I recently speedily deleted a page for nn-bio; the page was written by someone other than the subject of the article, and the subject of the article wants to see what was there before it was deleted. Quoting from my talk page:

... another reason as to why i would like to see the material is to determine if malice was intended. i have been getting quite a bit of flak from people who have seen the article and seeing the content would hopefully enable me to identify the person who posted the article and hence, pursue the appropriate courses of action.

So far, I've been politely refusing to do dig out the deleted material. However, what's the relevant policy on this? Thanks. enochlau (talk) 06:10, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

My view is, what would it hurt? fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 06:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Would it be a mis-use of admin powers though? I mean, we don't have the ability to view deleted content for the pleasure of non-admins. enochlau (talk) 06:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Not according to these admins who have put Template:User recovery on their user page. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:24, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Back to your question, you might want to read WP:DRV#Content review. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Cool, thanks for the links! enochlau (talk) 06:31, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Not every user who can be trusted to view deleted content is an administrator. Whether or not to reveal deleted content is a choice you've gotta make — ably guided by Zzyzx11's links, of course — but I don't think it's a good idea to hide everything from non-admins just because they're not admins. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 06:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Unless there is a good reason not to release deleted content (copyvio attack page) I've never seen a reason not to. The content is under the GFDL after all.Geni 12:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Of course the good reasons would be things like copyright violation and libel, etc. So if the information could be considered as libel, then revealing it after deletion could be contributory in that. - Taxman Talk 15:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
A similar incident occured before. What I did (at someone else's suggestion) was undelete the page, move it to my userpage, delete the redirect, protect the page in my userspace, and give the url to the interested party. This lets them view the whole history and all the information we have, but also prevents it from looking like a real article. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 03:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Some, but not all, deleted content is sensitive. For instance, if a copyvio or attack page is deleted, recovering that content for a non-administrator might in effect constitute copyright violation or defamation. However, if a nonsense or fancruft page is deleted, recovering that content wouldn't cause any problems. Use common sense. — Phil Welch Are you a fan of the band Rush? 03:49, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Users can ask for undeletions at WP:DRV, including having the info moved to their User space. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:35, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

There is also Category: User undeletion comprising administrators who will undelete stuff of send its contents in email (provided it's not objectionable or illegal). --Tony Sidaway 19:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Special:Listusers

I was just looking through the List of User accounts and was wondering if there was a way to de-list indefinantly blocked accounts so we go straight to a list of user accounts without going through the vandals. SWD316 talk to me 01:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

first page isn't vandles. The first page is accounts created to keep page 2 accounts off the first page.Geni 03:46, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Could you better clarify your statement above? I didn't understand a word of it. SWD316 talk to me 04:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • What he means is that some admin (Curps, IIRC) intentionally created a bunch of nonsensical usernames to fill up the first page of Listusers, to prevent e.g. "!!! (foo) is an idiot" from showing on the first page. Yes, that's a hack, and yes listusers could stand from improvement because at present it's pointless. Radiant_>|< 12:03, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
No, it wasn't me that created all those "!!!" users. -- Curps 15:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
In any case can I suggest that the Listusers be broken-up into users and indefinantly blocked users. It would help identify users from vandals better. SWD316 talk to me 15:46, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I use listusers to find if someone is an admin, bureaucrat, etc. If there's some other convenient way of going this, I don't know it. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:32, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I use the bureaucrat log at Special:Log but either way works. Superm401 - Talk 07:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
log wont cover our older admins.Geni 03:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Congressional Staffer Edits / 143.231.249.141

In order to centralize this section has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/United States Congress

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of state-named Avenues in Washington, D.C. (second nomination)

This deletion nomination was made because a first nomination, which resulted in no consensus, is being appealed on Wikipedia:Deletion review (DRV). Because DRV is not a consensus-based forum, I obviously decided that it would get a fairer discussion with a second run on Articles for deletion. I made the second nomination and so far there are six votes in addition to my nomination, in which I gave a recommendation to keep. I made the nomination in good faith, and all six votes so far favor keeping the article.

However, R. Fiend has delisted this. He states that a second nomination cannot proceed while the first is under review. I find this unconvincing. It would be extraordinary if two discussions on AfD gave strong indications of absence of consensus to delete an article, but the article was deleted by deletion review as a result of refusal to permit the second deletion discussion to proceed and a decision to ignore the non-consensus to delete in the first.

I invite discussion on how to resolve this problem. I'm sure R. Fiend is sincere in his belief that the second AfD would be wrong, but I do not think it can be right to use deletion review to overturn a no consensus keep result while refusing a simple rerun to determine whether a consensus can be raised. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Deletion review and AfD measure two very different things. Deletion review is an evaluation of the decision made by the closer, while AfD is an evaluation of the article itself. I see no reason why the two cannot be conducted at once. That the results of the first AfD may have been misinterpreted in no way affects the quality of the article. - SimonP 05:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for restorng it. R. Fiend has removed it again and closed the nomination for a second or third time, I've lost count), claiming that it was a bad faith nomination. Oh well, I'm not going to get into an edit war. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Failing to place a notice on DRV that it's been re-opened, plus the incredible nomination itself, it strains credulity to ask us to consider this nomination as having taken place in good faith. Can a week go by without a tempest in a teacup being raised by Mr. Sidaway? The discussion at DRV had failed to date to get the super-majority required for deletion, and would almost certainly have resulted in relisting regardless. Yet again, the path of maximum disruption has been chosen. - brenneman(t)(c) 05:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I closed the AFD because it was obviously bad faith, in the same way it would be bad faith for me to nominate George W. Bush for President saying "Here's why you should vote for him: 1. he's a liar, 2. he's an idiot, and 3. he's a war-monger." What's this? No one is supporting him? How odd. DRV is discussing whether the first AFD was closed correctly, Tony trying to undermine this by engineering a keep consensus at an unrelated vote is not good faith. But Simon's right, DRV and AFD measure 2 different things, and there shouldn't be votes going on at the same time in both places. Which takes precedence? If DRV decides that the first closure was incorrect, then I guess it would be deleted, and the AFD would be closed, because the article would already be deleted, and if recreated could be a speedy G4. If having more discussions at more places inevitably gives us better results should I open a concurrent 3rd and 4th AFD for the article? As long as I get one consensus I could then claim a valid delete, right? In any case, I'm curious to see whether AFD is a vote or not. Everyone says it isn't, but I suspect it really is. -R. fiend 05:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm here to tell you that it wasn't in bad faith. I'm not going to re-open it since you've speedy kept. Of course AfD will always take precedence, because it's the consensus-based forum. There is enough rancor on Wikipedia lately without you and Aaron spilling this extraordinary bile aroumd. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

DRV is also a consensus-based forum. And you really shouldn't be accusing other people of spreading rancor. Pot, meet kettle. Radiant_>|< 07:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Remind me again why AFD/DRV as they now operate should be spared from being nuked from orbit? - David Gerard 07:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Likely because of the fallout, earthquakes and tidal waves resulting from such a nuke. However, do note that there will be an alternative available soon, as I've said on your talk page. Radiant_>|< 08:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Who told you that DRV is a consensus-based forum? 50% to endorse, 75% to overturn doesn't sound like consensus to me; it's just vote-counting. No, AfD works by consensus, doesn't have quite so paranoid an atmosphere, and could easily have handled a rerun of this debate, and there was no reason why that debate could not run in tandem with the DRV discussion, over which it would of course (being consensus-based) take precedence. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

  • What I mean is that DRV was created by, and is supported by, consensus. The individual discussions there are technically vote counting, but people do make more sensible comments than on AFD, and take each other's opinion into account more than they appear to do on AFD. Radiant_>|< 18:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Predicted result of this kerfluffle: creation of a faith-based deletion page. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 19:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I think you may be trying to have your cake and eat it here. When you want something kept, you (not for the first time) bypass DRV, and appeal to xFD (where it is easier to get a 'keep'). But when it came to userbox templates, you ignored TfD and speedied them, and then listed on DRV (where it is easier to get a deletion endorsement). XfD is derided when you don't like its results, and upheld as essential when you do. I'm not accusing you of bad faith, but this gives the impression of gaming the system. And, yes, the system stinks, but the only other thing on offer seems not to be so much a 'faith-based' deletion system as a 'Tony-based' one--Doc ask? 20:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm getting a headache here. David Gerard might have a point. I'll see if Burt Rutan has any spaceship kits out yet. Who's bringing the nukes? ;-) Kim Bruning 21:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Doc, you're right that I took a pragmatic approach on userboxes. I would not trust DRV to make a good call on article content, because there is a tendency there to ignore or downplay the importance of content. As userboxes are pure vanity and have no encyclopedic content I will trust the judgement of DRV more than I trust a TfD, because it's in the nature of userboxes to be placed in prominent positions on people's userpages, resulting in an unconscious and unavoidable skewing of TfD votes where userboxes are involved. Those who tend to their userpages spot the tfd notice and click the link--I can't blame them for doing that but it does create an artificial keep vote which is not representative of consensus. According to my survey of--to date--more than 200 userpage contacts from my watchlist, only 10% of active Wikipedia editors have political or religious userboxes (which is not to day that the other 90% are opposed to them, but I expect they might be include a lot of people who are less in favor of them). --Tony Sidaway 19:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The welcome template

There are some disagreements about what would be appropirate to have on {{welcome}}. I started a poll about this, at template talk:welcome. Opinions would be most welcome. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Singapore proxy vandalism; did I call this one right?

I just removed the following entry from WP:AIV:

165.21.154.115 (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log) Vandalizing after fourth level warning. Has been blocked thrice before. Royboycrashfan 05:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The last vandalism from this IP was over three hours ago, and it has made one minor non-vandal edit since then. The IP resolves to "bbcache-115.singnet.com.sg" and appears to be part of an AOL-like shared proxy setup. The block log shows four blocks and one unblock with the comment "singapore proxy? shorten block".

Since I've been doing this admin thing for less than a day, I'd like to confirm whether my decision not to block was correct. Also, from this edit, it appears that there is indeed a persistent vandal using these IPs. Since individual blocks seem ineffective and a range block would likely cause massive collateral damage, what should be done? Contacting the ISP? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 08:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Singapore ISPs are irritating like AOL, so I'd rangeblock 15 minutes increasing double upwards, they do stop when you hit, say, the 1 or 2 hour block. Don't block too long, though, it hampers innocent users like how AOL does. NSLE (T+C) 恭喜发财! 08:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. Since, judging from the talk pages, many of the users behind these IPs also seem to be confused by this, I went and forked {{AOL}} to {{Singnet}} and tagged all the existing user talk pages in the 165.21.154.0/24 range with it. We'll see if that helps at all. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 10:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I myself am on Singnet (203.124.2.0/24), so it sucks when I get caught in the autoblocker (has only happen thrice so far, thankfully), what you did may have no effect; I myself honestly don't see what the tag will do :P NSLE (T+C) 恭喜发财! 10:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Continuing the series of efforts that may or may not accomplish anything, I just submitted the following report to Singnet:

The English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) has recently experienced petty but persistent vandalism from someone accessing the site through the Singnet proxiesat 165.21.154.0/24. The vandal has boasted of their ability to evade Wikipedia's IP address -based blocking system, since their requests come from multiple shared proxies. I have included below a list of recent vandalism events; I hope that this information may allow you to identify this user by your proxy logs. I believe the activities of this user are in violation of your AUP, and would like to ask for your help in ensuring that this vandalism will not continue.
Vandalism via 165.21.154.115:
Vandalism via 165.21.154.113:
Vandalism via 165.21.154.112:
There are more, but these should be ought to do for a start. We have, of course, no way of being sure that these really are all the same user, but there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that at least most of the vandalism is made by a single user. Unfortunately, attempts to stop this user's vandalism by IP-based blocking are not only ineffective, but are harming all Singnet users who contribute to Wikipedia. I therefore sincerely hope that you are able to resolve this issue at your end.
Thank you,
--
Ilmari Karonen, administrator on the English Wikipedia

(Yes, the e-mail address given above is valid.)

I suppose it's a bit of a long shot, but I felt it was worth a try at least. Who knows, maybe something will come of it. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Repair my botched move please (apologies!)

A botched paste has meant I've just moved Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye to Ierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye rather than Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye (so that the article's title matches name given in opening sentence). Unfortunately the article's history prevents my correcting it, so I'd be grateful if someone could do it for me. Apologies and thanks in advance, David Kernow 15:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

PS Yes, once renamed I will return to the article to check for and remove double redirects to it. Thanks again, David Kernow 15:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Done though I didn't see any discussion about what the correct way to name the article is. Some justification for the new name would be good. And go ahead and fix all the links to the article to bypass the redirects. - Taxman Talk 16:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Taxman. I've just finished updating the redirects. I didn't propose a Requested Move as I think the name change is uncontroversial, in view of (a) the article's opening sentence; (b) my recalling how this name was expressed in a couple of history sources I've referenced, (c) backed up by (non-Wikipedia-based) results from an internet search. Best wishes and thanks again, David Kernow 16:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fix of a Botched Page move

I have just tried to fix a botched page move/archive on Talk:Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. Please see User talk:FWBOarticle#Misplaced archive for an account of what I did. I think there may still be discussion lost. I would appreciate a more expereinced admin looking at this page to dewtermine if there is any way to retrive this missing content. DES (talk) 17:48, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming conventions

How does a naming convention get from proposed to accepted? I posted Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Ohio school districts) in April 2005. Nobody has objected to it and I've been using it to rename articles covered by it. Though I'd feel more confident it were official policy. So how do I make that happen? PedanticallySpeaking 17:48, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

  • It seems that you originally did not follow the steps listed on Wikipedia:How to create policy back in April. Thus nobody was notified, nobody really commented on it, and therefore it was eventually marked as inactive. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Yep, just like that. To advertise such, put a link on RFC, the village pump, WT:Naming conventions, and the talk pages of relevant high-activity pages or wikiprojects. Get consensus. I marked this as historical because (1) there was no active debate, and (2) there was no real feedback whatsoever, thus no way to tell if it's consensual. Radiant_>|< 22:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another set of eyes, please

There is a bit of a war going on over at Louisiana Baptist University (edit|talk|history|links|logs) (when isn't there?), but what I want is a second lok at this:

I am being urged to block, and I am inclined to block all the suspected socks indefinitely. There is an open RfC at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jason Gastrich, pretty solid consensus behind dealing robustly with the guy, but I am new at the mop-and-bucket game so I'd value a second (or more) set of eyes. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 23:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blackworm

Hi, can the folks here please keep an eye on Blackworm (a computer worm) and the various pages which I've redirected to it [1]. I'm concerned that external links to download a removal tool should only go to extremely reputable sites. Kappa 23:55, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Checkuser lite

Since it involves admins in gereral, admin opinion on this is more than welcome. :) --Cool CatTalk|@ 12:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Samscone

The only edits this account makes is to vandalise the Sam Sloan page and to remove references to Sam Sloan in other articles. Isn't this the kind of impersonating account which gets blocked from Wikipedia? Surely, it's just been made to rhyme with Sam Sloan's name? - Hahnchen 17:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think a block is justified yet. I left another warning on his talk page. Tom Harrison Talk 17:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
No, I don't mean blocking for general vandalism or anything, he isn't that prolific. I thought that this was a candidate for one of those "username blocks", like Jimbo Whales, or when people replace an l for a capital I to impersonate people. - Hahnchen 18:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I just blocked him for twenty-four hours. I'll look into permanently blocking. Tom Harrison Talk 14:24, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Spamscone (note the additional "p") is the Screen Name for Neil Brennen on the Usenet group rec.games.chess.politics . The name "Spamscone" is a spoof on my name and Brennen has attacked me hundreds of times there. I do not know if the Spamscone there is the same person as the Samscone here, but he is probably the same person as he follows the same pattern. Sam Sloan 11:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC) Mr. Sloan is a paranoid idiot. I am not "samscone". That Wikipedia continues to allow the Sam Sloans of the world to post their drivel is but another reason to ignore this site. Neil Brennen.

[edit] Soapboxing and user pages

User:KJVTRUTH is using his page to soapbox about an issue he hasn't been able to get consensus on. A one of the editors on the consensus side has taken it upon himself to remove this information from his userpage, and another has MfD'd it outright, citing [2]. Is this appropriate use of WP policies? Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan 18:34, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Do I understand correctly that someone has listed this guy's user page for deletion because of a content dispute? Tom Harrison Talk 19:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
No, it's been listed on MfD as a breach of Wikipedia:User page, namely for being used as a soapbox for matters unrelated to an online encyclopedia. Physchim62 (talk) 19:08, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Not exactly -- he put content on that page that in part violates WP:V, since it got reverted every time he tried to put it in List of Freemasons, and WP:NPA, for the same reason. See this diff for the version prior to the MfD.--SarekOfVulcan 19:11, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
This is a content dispute - listing on MfD looks petty. Secretlondon 23:17, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I would have said "stupid and obnoxious", myself. Stupid and obnoxious in the best of good faith, of course. And people wonder why *FD gets a bad reputation ... - David Gerard 13:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Closed by Tony already. Not like it would have been deleted anyways. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 22:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Protection of Turkish related pages

I thought I might want to bring this up. Several articles related to Turkey/Turkish peoples have been vandalized/POV written. Can I suggest the following pages be protected:

Only for a while. There has been a strain of vandals/POV pushers lately that have been in reverting wars with other users. As many as 8-12 IP addresses/User accounts are involoved and a few have been blocked and I think everyone could benefit if they are protected. The article Turkish people already got protected because of this dispute. SWD316 talk to me 22:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

We should semi-protect rather than full-protect. --Cool CatTalk|@ 15:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate image on the Qur'an page

Greetings. On vacation, I took a lot of pictures of exhibits at the Smithsonian gallery and uploaded them to Wikipedia, releasing them under both the GFDL and a cc-sa license. One picture in particular was Image:Big Quran page.jpg, showing a folio from a very large Qur'an, with my wife in the photo to show scale. I added the photograph to Timur, the commissioner of this historic Qur'an.

Someone added the image to the Qur'an article, and controversy quickly ensued (see Talk:Qur'an/Picture Controversy). The photo shows my wife in clothing that would be considered normal in Washington D.C. in the summer, but which is scandalously immodest in most of the Muslim World. Qur'an desecration is an extremely high offense is Islam, of course, as can be seen in recent history. Now there's nothing wrong with having such a picture on Wikipedia -- we have much more racy pictures -- but to have the picture in the Qur'an article was offensive to many Muslims, and several complained. A vote was held. Many supporters of the image's removal wanted to avoid being offensive unless it was necessary, or simply felt the photograph was not of sufficient quality to warrant its inclusion. Many opponents of removal wanted to take a stand against what they saw as religious censorship, or noted that no similar replacement is available. Feelings were strong, and bad faith was assumed by many on both sides.

When I found out about the incident, quite by accident, my wife and I sat down and talked about it. She is very saddened that her likeness is being used in such an insensetive way, and we both agreed that it was unacceptable for this image to be used. I noted this on the the controversy page, but by then many people's feelings had solidified, and no votes were changed as a result. After two weeks, the vote was closed, but consensus had not been acheived: there were 20 keep votes and 16 remove votes. As could be expected, both sides feel that the lack of consensus validates their own position.

As I stated on that page, "The fact is, I'm just not comfortable having an image of my wife misused in this way. Yes I uploaded the photo, but I never intended for it to be used in an article on the Noble Qur'an, so I'm going to remove it. I know that many of you will disagree with me, and I respect that, but I'd ask that you use a photo of your own wife, and leave mine out of it. It pains me to be so stubborn about this, but I take this very personally."

Now there is something of a mild revert-war going on. This is an extremely important issue to me, since I feel that my family has been brought into a very unfortunate situation here, and my wife is understandably insistent that her image not be used to cause religious offense in this way. I'm not sure how to handle this. I'm obviously far too involved to use any of my admin abilities to deal with the situation. Any advice or assistance by other admins would be appreciated. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 19:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Unless someone else has it archived, delete the image. I believe WP:CSD G7 criteria applies (author requests deletion). Since images are un-undeletable, the image is "gone" forever. People can rail back and forth about whether you commited some grave injustice, but in the end you hold the original copyright. My $0.02. --Syrthiss 19:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Since I'm so involved, I'd feel better if someone else did this for me. (Deletion is an admin tool.) – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 19:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Image deletion is governed by Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Images.2FMedia, not WP:CSD. In future, don't GFDL your images unless you're happy with them being used by the Klan, etc. ;) Mark1 19:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
That had been done, but many objected (understandably) that without the person in the image, you don't get a sense of the scale of the folio. So the image was reverted back and forth a bit under several different names. :( – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 19:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Ah, took a look at the image history and you are not the only editor...so the CSD doesn't apply in this case anyways. :/ --Syrthiss 19:43, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm quite tempted to boldly delete. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 19:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps list on Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion or Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images, because the photographer didn't get the subject's permission to release the image? Mark1 19:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, thats kind of the problem. Since others have uploaded their revisions to the photo, and because of the way you licensed it, not only do other copies certainly exist but you aren't the creator of the revised images. If you do delete it, the revisers could re-upload the image still under gfdl and use it in the article. You could of course ask them not to...but they are under no obligation to do so I don't think.
I'm hoping that one of the more senior admins wander by and have a good solution. I'm not going to say that you shouldn't delete the image / ask that it be deleted...because frankly I would consider doing that myself (as I stated above naievely, and now knowing more about the situation) if it were my picture...but know that there could be penalties to pay. :( --Syrthiss 20:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC) (after edit conflict)
You could possibly try appealing directly to Jimbo. He's a busy man but it's a non-trivial issue and it touches on issues of privacy or personal information, which he has shown sensitivity to in previous cases. -- Curps 20:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I was bold. I hope this ends it. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 21:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Quadell, that was really inappropriate. I understand that you and your wife are upset about this, but you have an ethical obligation not to use your administrative powers to decide cases in which you are so personally involved. As far as I can see you have no legal grounds to control the photo and while you might have a reasonable case for convincing others to remove it, you certainly shouldn't just delete it yourself. Dragons flight 22:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it's more complex than that. Generally, it has been considered kosher for users to remove most kinds of content they added (except en-masse deletions). Note that if it were re-uploaded by someone else, it would be inappropriate for Quadell to remove it again, but this particular case is at least murky ground -- I don't think it's clear cut that he was acting wrongly, and I think it is a far cry from abuse. If you want the content, re-uploading it should be ok and simplify things. --Improv 23:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm do you think we could find a photo of someone reading the bible in a bikini?Geni 23:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Forgive me for citing it, but that really would be disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. Apart from that, Christianity actually doesn't necessarily ban such garb, so the point isn't quite the same. Sam Korn (smoddy) 23:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
(Islam doesn't necessarily ban sleeveless tops either). Mark1 23:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Are you seriously argueing that wikipedia doesn't need more pictures of women in bikinis (the bible/bikini thing was used in the photo debate)?Geni 23:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't see how this could be considered abuse. Quadell made an unwitting mistake. He publicly requested that the community correct the mistake. There may have been a split consensus, but that means that a substantial portion of the community acknowledged the mistake. The community sat in paralysis for almost three weeks debating the mistake. Quadell finally fixed the mistake himself. Fine. We should help people correct bona fide mistakes. The controversy was turning into a real life version of Bleak House. DrWitty 21:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Note: the above situation has resulted in an RFC filed against me. Feel free to stop by and leave comments, whether critical or supportive. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 13:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Note: Apparently the RfC has been withdrawn as of earlier on Feb 1, 2006. --Syrthiss 21:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Med-stub

Please use for the image. Thanks. Also consider semi protecting rather than complete protection. --Cool CatTalk|@ 15:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

  • That image looks awful at the size rendered (terrible scaling artifacts). Maybe I'll try to do a SVG version tonight. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 21:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
    • It is better than the alternative currently --Cool CatTalk|@ 12:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggest informal WikiDefcon 4 for US Congress Articles

As more news stories are being published about the Congressional IP kerfuffle, I'm seeing occasional messages on various message boards discussing their own new edits of various articles about Congressmen and Senators. Some are legit, some aren't. In any case, I suggest admins pay special attention to any edits to such pages for the next day or two, as vandalism and POV edits are going to be somewhat more likely for a little while. --Aaron 17:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Please don't say "WikiDefcon". It makes my eyeballs itch. Thanks, fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 13:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MonkeyCMonkeyDo

I'm not sure where to report this, so if there is a more appropriate place please let me know. The Green Day article has been vandalized several times, and it has been protected on and off. Earlier today user MonkeyCMonkeyDo (talk) vandalized it again. What troubled me is the message he left on my talk page. He said "you ya know. I have this strange problem where i can't control my urge to vandalize the green day page, as well as its subordinates. so if you dont put the block back on the page i might lose myself and vandalize it a whole bunch." I think this can be solved by having an admin talk to him and decide if the problem is with the page or the user. Jtrost 02:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I will keep an eye on this user's contributions over the next couple of days. --Madchester 05:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] systemic attack on castro related pages

Just bringing attention to User: 205.240.227.15 aka "El Jigüe" aka "at the Bay of Pigs I was jailed by Castro"

Under an anon account El Jigue has been inserting counter-revolutionary propaganda several times a day since 15 September last year. All his edits have been related to Cuba, and most use Miami dissident websites as a source. Unlike most with a pov campaign, he has avoided edit wars, and has gone relatively unoticed. I don't know how you folks deal with this, may I suggest an exploding cigar?--Colle 03:23, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Update: The sooner an admin gets on this the better! Take a look at the recent edits (still not reverted as of now) [3]. Random older example: [4]. Here is a recent example of the systemic bias taken in his edits. [[5]] An elementry knowledge of Cuban history is all that is needed to see how this statement is plain wrong. The editor has made thousands of edits, I have only spent a few minutes scratching the surface. I picked these examples out of the blue in order to show what is going on here, these are not the worst cases. Good luck.--Colle 09:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Some weeks and months ago this anon was misbehaving... re-creating AfD'd articles under new names (not just once but multiple times, and with unencyclopedic titles), vandalizing Sweden to make some point about Cuba [6], adding an out-of-place link to espionage in Castro's Cuba to American Civil War spies [7], editing the James Bond and Ian Fleming articles based on some apparent conspiracy theory of his [8] [9] [10]. The latter egregious stuff was a few months ago, I guess he doesn't do that anymore, but apparently the POV editing has continued.

Back in December he took exception when I speedy deleted his fourth or fifth re-creation of an AfD'd article, and some discussions ensued, see Talk:Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity revised. At the time it was clear he didn't believe in WP:NPOV, believed he owned the articles he created, and most significantly, did not believe his contributions were covered under the GFDL. He appeared to be quite suspicious of the motives of others and not easily won over to Wikipedia philosophies and principles.

After that I moved on, it was mostly the stuff I considered egregious that I was concerned with (re-creation of deleted articles and adding Cuba stuff to non-Cuba articles), and I didn't really care to get involved in content disputes over Cuban-related topics. For those who would wish to do so, there's Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. -- Curps 23:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sea of Japan, East Sea, &c.

Tonight, we got a new user (User:Mjump) who's pushing POV on those pages -- but as I was trying to get him/her to understand more about discussing changes, &c., I effectively entangled myself into a dispute as to whether there is a consensus as to whether East Sea should redirect to East Sea (disambiguation) or Sea of Japan. Since I am stuck in the middle of the dispute, I'd like some people to examine the situation to see if you think any of the related pages should be protected pending dispute; I am now myself uncomfortable doing it since I may be accused of doing it to preserve my own POV. --Nlu (talk) 06:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I was waiting all this time for an admin to see what User:Appleby did, and I'm surprised it took so long. I hereby request any admin to check carefully the edits done by Appleby on Dec. 18, 2005, the timing, and whether he had any concensus at all in the first place. Sea of Japan, East Sea, etc. are very controversial topics, and concensus is vital before doing such controversial page moves. Perhaps he didn't know that such multiple page moves can be very harmful. But please warn Appleby of any such unilateral edits again in the future, explain how to discuss with others, take votes, etc.--Endroit 01:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Vandalism is in progress by Appleby now. See East sea (small letters) and East Sea (capital letters) pages. Appleby was warned of Wikipedia:3RR in the East Sea (capital letters) page.--Endroit 17:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Since then, Appleby has continued to unilaterally impose changes on East Sea and East Sea (disambiguation) as well, making edits that are calculated to evade 3RR. I'd very much like to request, again, that someone other than myself look into this. --Nlu (talk) 03:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

FYI, Appleby just broke the Wikipedia:3RR rule in the East Sea (disambiguation) page. Plus he has been involved in at least 2 other Wikipedia:Edit wars (other than Sea of Japan/East Sea) in the last 24 hours.--Endroit 03:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I just reported it in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. As a general comment, it is very difficult to edit pages when there are people like that reverting others at will.--Endroit 04:35, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Copperchair

This arbitration case has closed. User:Copperchair is banned indefinitely from editing Star Wars and War on Terrorism. He is on indefinite Wikipedia:Probation. These provisions are to be enforced, should he break them, by blocks. The full details are in the decision (linked above).

For the arbitration committee. --Tony Sidaway 04:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Silly NPOV addendum

Some people, including infamous vexlit Zen-master, have put together Wikipedia:Information suppression, which in their own words is a proposed policy in addition to NPOV. However, of special interest is the phrase near the bottom, "Note that science ... when used to emasculate other views ... is also POV suppression." In other words, this is really a stealth proposal against using scientific facts to discount an article on pseudoscience. This was pointed out on the talk page, but of course it's not being listened to. Can I get some additional input there on why this is a bad idea? >Radiant< 11:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

"It is important that the various views and the subject as a whole are presented in a balanced manner and that each is summarized as if by its proponents to its best ability." (emphasis theirs) Proponents are by definition not neutral and this is saying that the article should read as if a proponent wrote it. Proponents contributing is fine, but the article should not look like it was written by a proponent. It should be written as if by a neutral observer instead. Arguments in favor and against a position should be presented. Every article should be neutral in itself, not by the inclusion of other non-neutral articles in the encyclopedia. -- Kjkolb 11:55, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay, reading it again, I think I misunderstood their position. So each side will get a chance to state its case, or something? Still, I think an article should be completely neutral and not switch back and forth between POVs. Each side's case should be presented, but it should be presented neutrally. -- Kjkolb 12:10, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] George W. Bush's Sixth State of the Union Address

Bigtimeoperator continues to vandalize George W. Bush's Sixth State of the Union Address by moving it to incorrect titles and insisting that it's actually the fifth. He insists that Wikisource is somehow making up Bush's 1st state of the union speech, or implies that it was not technically his s. of the u. speech. He also keeps on changing the content to say that this is the fifth, even though there is already a separate page for the fifth - George W. Bush's Fifth State of the Union Address. Please block him. KI 17:39, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a content dispute, not vandalism. If he commits a 3RR violation, I'll block him, but otherwise work it out on the talk page. Personally, I agree that using the year makes much more sense than the ordinal number. howcheng {chat} 17:54, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
This is not a content dispute. He's lying about plain facts. Whether or not 2006 is used in the title is irrelevant. Neither one of us cares. He's just trying to use the wrong number, 5 instead of 6, in the title. KI 20:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
The only reason I bothered to intervene in what was at first a mistake and now a silly, petty debate is that I didn't remember any inaugural SOTU. Upon investigation, I found that it is a fairly common idea that officially there was no SOTU that year. Now, there was an address in 2001 that played the same role as a SOTU and for all intents and purposes was a SOTU. Except it wasn't, officially speaking. It was in fact called by another name. To call it a SOTU without explanation is a statement of error.
Beyond the fact that last night's address was officially Bush's fifth State of the Union, I agree with every other editor that it just makes more sense to categorize them by year.
But I'm curious... can you provide any documentation that the "official title" of last night State of the Union address was "Sixth State of the Union Address" as you claim in your revert? Any authoratative source at all?
Seeing as I'm the only one who has bothered so far to provide any citations whatsoever to bolster my claim, I'm guessing that you can't support your position. But hey, calling me a liar and a vandal works too, I guess. Bigtimeoperator 20:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
The Washington Times, USA Today (caption), and the Atlanta Journal Constitution disagree with you. This took 5 minutes of Google searching. The other side is no longer completely wrong, the question is do you chose to acknowledge it and leave the debate to discussion or not? DrWitty 21:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sockfest

Following the deletion of male bikini wearing for the eighth (or is it ninth?) time, and the sockfest at DRV, I have gone through the contribs of those users with edits in the deleted history; Here they are:

Having reviewed the edit histories and failed to find a single good-faith edit from any of them, and some already indef-blocked because of p[revious incarnations of this article, I have indef-blocked the rest. Potential for collateral damage seems low: as I say, not one of them has any evidence fo good-faith edits, and a couple of them have a lot of vandalism. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 23:37, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Concur --Doc ask? 23:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Final decision

The arbitration committee has reached a final decision in the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Neuro-linguistic programming case. Raul654 01:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bush-Blair memo

I moved to this title from Bush wanted to lure Saddam to shoot down UN plane because that title seemed to be pushing a conclusion and not an encyclopedic topic. I don't know what to do and I don't want it to be forgotten in the sands of time. Can someone find the correct name for this? gren グレン ? 02:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that the memo should be merged into something. Perhaps with Downing Street memo? — Ilyanep (Talk) 03:33, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, it's a Downing Street memo... but that article seems to refer to a specific one. That's not a bad idea though. gren グレン ? 04:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Super Bowl XL

Due to recent vandalism, can someone protect the pages Super Bowl XL, Seattle Seahawks and Pittsburgh Steelers. SWD316 talk to me 04:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

They're all linked from the front page. Wasn't there some discussion recently where it was decided that such articles shouldn't be protected for more than a few minutes at a time, if at all? --Carnildo 07:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
That's what it says on WP:PP.--Alhutch 07:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Most vandals have been removed promptly, as per WP's front page policy (sry, no link at the moment) it should remain unprotected. Many anon users have been posting useful content, no point in blocking all to catch a few bad apples Tawker 08:19, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mesh Computers

Mesh Computers was recently deleted after an afd listing and subsequently listed at Wikipedia:Deletion review. The closure of the debate was out of process, it had been relisted on the 4th of February, although the previous relisting was not removed and thus it was inadvertantly closed as delete the same day as the relisting. On that basis, per Wikipedia:Undeletion policy I have undeleted and closed the deletion review listing. Given the strength of the opinion during the deletion review that a relisting at afd is unnecessary, I am uncertain whether to relist or not. I am minded not to relist, since the article is about a notable company, but am aware that is my point of view. Is a relisting of worth to the project, or would an expansion of the article be of more worth? Steve block talk 10:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

As the closing admin...WP:SNOW. Johnleemk | Talk 11:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Do not relist. What came out in the DRV was sufficient to indicate that this article will easily survive any AfD. A re-listing would just be process for process's sake: a waste of everyone's time. Of course, if anyone, having read the evidence presented in the DRV, still thinks it should be deleted, they are free to knock themselves out at AfD. --Doc ask? 11:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I wish to apologise to John; I am not criticising his closure, I appreciate how it came to be closed so early, and I should have made that fact more widely known in edit summaries and my posting here. I was merely trying to prevent the situation becoming even more unnecessarily bogged down in process. Steve block talk 11:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
    • The article itself still looks like an deletion candidate, but god forbid we should use AfD as speedy clean-up... *looks innocent, whistles* - brenneman(t)(c) 11:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
      • No it doesn't, Aaron; With the line MESH won over 90 industry and technical accolades in 2005. They won the Personal Computer Worlds best PC manafacturer in 2001. it passes WP:CORP. The award by a major computer magazine denotes press coverage. Steve block talk 11:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
        • Not to put to fine a point on it, but it does say "multiple nontrivial". But this is really talk for the AfD. *wink*
          brenneman(t)(c) 14:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Now that we're talking about this. This whole incident was because I didn't take out Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mesh Computers from the January 29 AFD log, and I did that because I had seen other admins leave them after using {{relist}}. I then got yelled at for not taking it out, but if others are not doing it, can we make sure everyone starts doing it now? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 22:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] duration of adminship

Why are admins appointed for life and not for, say, one or two years like the ArbCom? —Ruud 15:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed before, and generally dismissed because admins regularly take actions that would make other editors none-too-happy, even if such actions are good and in line with policy. As such, if admins are required to regularly re-apply for adminship, there aren't too many that would pass. --Deathphoenix 15:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Makes sort of sense, though I doubt all the 3RR violating trolls would have that big of an impact on the votes? —Ruud 15:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
You'd be surprised. Another issue is that, with so many admins nowadays (I understand the number's nearly at 800 now?), we'd spend all our time reconfirming admins: RfA would be swamped with people who already have privileges. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 15:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, assuming exponential growth of the number of admins, this would only increase the number of active RfAs by a constant factor. —Ruud 15:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
\lim_{x\to\infty} \left( \frac{z^x+\sum_{y=0}^{x-1} z^y }{z^x} \right) = \frac{z}{z-1} when z > 1. —Ruud 16:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Unless you have a similar increase in the number of RfA voters and bureaucrats, it will leave RfA seriously understaffed, and in any case, RfA will still be swamped. --Deathphoenix 16:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, a lot of other projects have that policy; Meta, for instance, requires confirmation every year. We don't because we haven't adopted it, but the community could at any time (but is unlikely to do so anytime soon). Essjay Talk • Contact 15:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

True, I believe the Dutch Wikipedia does this as well. —Ruud 15:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Inactive (=no edits in one year iirc) admins at commons are desysopped and have to request it again if/when they return. Thryduulf 15:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that the problem with admins-for-life is more theoretical than practical. I don't know of any admins who are generally considered to be misusing their powers (as opposed to having pissed off a particular group of users). Those who might be considered clueless tend to be the newer, less-experienced ones, so term limits wouldn't help there. And anything we do can be undone by other admins. The recent hysteria over some ill-considered blocks could have been avoided if people had just taken 24 hours to wait for bad blocks to be undone rather than getting overexcited at someone having dared to block them. Markyour words 17:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Template CSD

The following has been added to Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion:

:+ 1 Templates that are divisive and inflammatory.

This seems to have the support of Jimbo, see [11], although he cautions:

At least for a little bit, I advise everyone to chill about this. Let's take some time to reflect on this issue as a community. That means: don't make any crazy userboxes designed to try to trip this rule, and don't go on any sprees deleting ones that already exist. A thoughtful process of change is important. And whatever you do, do NOT wheel war about this.--Jimbo Wales 07:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC) [12].

--Doc ask? 17:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Benjamin Gatti

A final decision has been published in this case.

Benjamin Gatti is placed on probation for one year and on general probation indefinitely. Enforcement is by blocking. See the final decision for details.

For the arbitration committee. --Tony Sidaway 18:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Deeceevoice

This request for arbitration is closed. The Arbitration Committe has imposed the following remedies:

For the Arbitration Committee, --Ryan Delaney talk 04:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there a reason why I'm seeing {{User|Friday}} instead of the rendered template? enochlau (talk) 23:34, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What was that?

Good job, Mark: for a moment I thought we were under some kind of bot attack. What precisely happened? The page got duplicated 5-6 times (!) ENCEPHALON 23:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

In attempting to post my notice about the Deeceevoice arbcom case, I accidentally copy/pasted the entire administrator's noticeboard, when I had only meant to copy/pasty my notice. Oops! --Ryan Delaney talk 00:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
LoL. OK, no problem :). MY CPU protested wildly, but she needed the exercise, I guess. ENCEPHALON 00:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Indefinite blocks

I have blocked User:Carbonite, User:El C, and User:Giano indefinitely for hate speech and inciting attacks on other users in regards to their statements on Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Blocking_self-identified_pedophiles --Carnildo 22:45, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

What the hell? I looked at Giano's contribs already: [13] and [14]. Both advocate banning self-professed pedophiles from Wikipedia. That's the hate speech you're talking about? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:51, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Look here--Sean Black (talk) 22:52, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
This is a special, advanced form of satire, involving actual indefinite blocks. 9.2 degree of difficulty, if that's satire. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:56, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Er, yes, that's too much. I had assumed that he wouldn'thave done something quite so ridiculous.--Sean Black (talk) 23:31, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Replace "pedophile" with "homosexual", and would you still say it's not hate speech? Banning someone on the grounds of their beliefs or inclinations is not acceptable. Banning someone for their actions is. --Carnildo 22:56, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I can't find hate speach on the list of things admins can block for. The block button is not a toy. Useing is without good reason is not acceptable.Geni 23:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Unblocked. No call whatsoever for a community-imposed ban, particularly not without prior discussion. The Land 22:54, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, obviously. Carnildo gets a slap on the wrist for violating WP:POINT.--Sean Black (talk) 22:56, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Aww that's it? — Ilyanep (Talk) 22:59, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

No. User:El C blocked Carnildo. I undid that one as well. Really, wheel warring is bad form. The Land

User:The Land, please sign your comment using four tildes. In response to your comment, I have never wheel warred. My block of Carnildo (who I never met prior to a few minutes ago) was designed to give him a timeout and to prevent other users from being blocked indefinitely. El_C 23:11, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, blocking someone does not switch off their admin powers, including rollback and unblocking. That's why admins aren't supposed to unblock themselves - because they can unblock themselves - David Gerard 23:45, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
IIRC a recent change in the code makes it so people who are blocked can't rollback, etc. The only thing I believe they still have access to is blocking/unblocking. You might want to ask Rob Church about it. (This was one of the changes that was necessary before we could go to polling on WP:RFR (requests for rollback privileges). —Locke Cole • t • c 23:51, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

So, remember when I said we should be doing things that are less stupid, like, say, working on the encyclopedia? Yeah.--Sean Black (talk) 23:04, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Noo...that's definately not what members of Wikipedia(R) would be doing! — Ilyanep (Talk) 23:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Carnildo also blocked several other editors along with El C, for publishing so called "hate speech". Hamster Sandwich 23:08, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Carnildo: minus several thousand for kneejerk reaction and, sorry to say it, stupid call. El_C: minus several thousand for wheel warring. Community: minus several million for letting it become this way. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 23:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Linuxbeak: minus <insert favored figure or a crapload of here> points for useless finger-waggling and undiscriminating hosing-down of the entire community. We need to get more specific here. For El C to block Carnildo to stop other good contributors from getting blocked indefinitely (sheesh!) for hate speech seems reasonable enough damage control to me. An RfC on Carnildo for misuse of admin tools would be better, but the amount of time people have to spend on that kind of thing when they could have been editing the encyclopedia is a bit ridiculous. Bishonen | talk 23:39, 5 February 2006 (UTC).
Slap on the wrist for both users. RfA should ask questions like this-- "9. Would you violate WP:POINT if it were a really, really good point?" "10. Would you ignore all rules if you felt really strongly about something, even if other people disagreed?" Ashibaka tock 23:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
(In fact, my own opinions aside, the latter is a really good question to ask RfA candidates and I will go add it to some of the open requests. Ashibaka tock 23:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC))
  • Carnildo is not fit to be an administrator he is clearly misguided or plain stupid. Its about time people woke up here and either trained these incompetents or got rid of them. Giano | talk 23:28, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Hey hey woah woah calm down. — Ilyanep (Talk) 23:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
  • What... the... hell...! >Radiant< 23:37, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I think I am going to go and unplug the servers now. — Ilyanep (Talk) 23:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Conclusion: Don't block users for identifying as pedophiles. Don't block users for saying that they support the blocking of users identifying as pedophiles. If this was trolling, it was artful trolling, but let's get back to editing that encyclopedia thing, eh? — Matt Crypto 23:45, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
  • This is absurd. The handing out of indefinite blocks has gone way too far. The only way someone should ever be blocked indefinitely without going through Arbcom is if their only "contributions" consist of blatant vandalism. We're in danger of changing the de facto standard to anything that pisses off an administrator, unless you can get other administrators to defend you. Shame on Carnildo for pulling this nonsense, and shame on the others who have set the precedent for it. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 23:53, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

It would help if people took a pretty damn blatantly overboard admin a fraction more seriously. Go snigger up your sleeves somewhere else, Linuxbeak, in particular. It is plainly entirely unreasonable for Carnildo to have effected a single one of those blocks, and for someone, nay some people, to talk about it here is entirely reasonable. It's what the page is for. -Splashtalk 23:56, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I think everyone here needs to take two big, deep breaths and remain calm. Everyone, please mind WP:NPA. SWD316 talk to me 23:59, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh don't start with the patronising bluelinks already. -Splashtalk 00:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Knock it off, Splash. SWD316 has said the only thing here worth mentioning, so come off it. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 00:03, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not at all endorsing this action, but how were these blocks more unreasonable than the block that spawned this whole incident? —bbatsell ¿? 00:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

So... we have blocks of two people (El C and Carbonite) who are admins and one person (Giano) who (IMHO) should be an admin, all for something that should have - at the very most - resulted in a minor ticking off and reversion. Carnildo's action - at best - can be seen as WP:POINT of a fairly extreme form requiring equal (if not greater) ticking off. Personally, it sounds like RFAr material. I don't agree with the initial blocking that led to this situation - people are entitled to their beliefs and inclinations, no matter how objectionable they may seem to us (actually carrying them out is, of course, another matter) - but the response from Carnildo was equally, if not more, inappropriate. Grutness...wha? 00:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

In Carnildo's defense, I agree that attacking pedophiles is as objectionable as attacking homosexuals, women, etc. Don't suggest they weren't using hate speech, because from several points of view, that is exactly what they were doing. -- Ec5618 00:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
There is a difference though. Engaging in pedophilia is almost universally criminal in the modern world, whereas most sensible nations are tolerant of homosexuals and women. A better analogy would be attacking murders or rapists. Now, maybe pedophilia desires are not something they can control, and maybe we should be tolerant towards them, but someone that acts on those desires is often destructive and criminal in a way that your examples are not. Dragons flight 00:46, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Criminal, yes, objectionable, certainly. But under no circumstances is attacking an editor for his or her personal beliefs appropriate. I'm not saying Carnildo was right in blocking these people without propor discussion, but I cannot believe that it is in the best interests of Wikipedia to discriminate against anyone. -- Ec5618 00:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
wiktionary:pedophilia <-- Read this. It is impossible to "engage in pedophilia" because that doesn't mean anything. Equating pedophilia to child molestation is scaring people away from discussing a legitimate mental illness. Ashibaka tock 00:54, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Ec5618 on this one. Blocking those 3 users without proper discussion is objectionable. But attacks are not permitable by any means. At the most those 3 should have got was a warning to not make personal attacks, not indefinitly blocked. Discrimination against anyone is not acceptable. SWD316 talk to me 01:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Indefinite blocks for 3 admins for some sort of hazy "hate speech"? This is completely unreasonable! Jayjg (talk) 02:45, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, Giano isn't an admin, at least in the technical sense. But otherwise, yeah.--Sean Black (talk) 02:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

To me it seems clear that Carnildo is concerned about a very real risk which we have seen played out in many human societies: Moral panic driven hysteria. It is unacceptable to block users who make quality edits and whos behavior is without question simply because of their beliefs or conditions. We already can, and must cope with POV content, so there is no risk in allowing well behaved deviants to edit, and no resulting need for us to pass a moral judgment on their condition be it homosexuality or whatnot, even if such a judgment would be easy to make and easy to justify. It is utterly unacceptable for anyone to abuse our fear of amoral and harmful people and our desire to protect our children to silence people they disagree with. At first I thought Carnildo's response was less than optimum, and that reasoned discussion would be better... But after seeing responses like this, I have to agree with Carnildo's act. McCarthy style attacks are a poison we can not tolerate, and must be stopped in any way necessary. So go ahead, El_C, call me a pedophile just because I don't support a paranoid witch hunt against pedophiles, it will only serve to justify Carnildo's action more. --Gmaxwell 02:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

RE: So go ahead, El_C, call me a pedophile — A less personalized tone would greatly benefit, GMaxwell's approach to civil discourse, I think. At any rate, my response has already been submitted here, and that is all I will say on the subject at this time. El_C 04:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Is there some special rule that says you must have the last word? If so, I missed it. :) --Gmaxwell 04:45, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
That rhetorical device is not "special" (& otherwise extraordinary to me) and remains at one's discretion as per right to leave. El_C 04:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Carnildo showed very poor judgement and lack of self-disipline, without so much as a Mea Culpa. Such actions cannot, nor should not, be tolerated in an admin. However disagreeable someone may be, they should never be indefinately blocked or banned for merely expressing their opinions.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 04:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

But do you think it is correct for admins to block nondisruptive users purely due to their moral outrage? What about stiring up fear in Wikipedia users in attempt to accomplish the same? In my view that too is not to be tolerated. So what we're left with is mistakes made all around. But the worst of which, wheel warring and false accusations were made not by Carnildo but by those who oppose him. --Gmaxwell 04:45, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Here's a hypothetical to consider-What If, instead of pedophiles, the users in question advocated banning, Software pirates or Copyright violators, would you still consider Carnildo's actions justified? Fear of one witch hunt does not justify carrying out another.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 05:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I'd support banning people who user their userpages to advocate software piracy or anything else that would hurt the project, if they refuse to quit. But we must be sure that our actions are based on objectivity and not moral outrage. If someone values their ability to use wikipedia as a platform to advocate something over the goals of our project, then they are not our friends. --Gmaxwell 06:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
"I'd support banning people who user their userpages to advocate software piracy or anything else that would hurt the project" So would I. And that's what these pedophile userboxes are basically doing. The only difference-it is a moral hotbutton to most, not all. But irregadless, it is an ILLEGAL activity and could hurt the project. Moral issues aside, this should be the primary consideration.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 11:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
If someone is using Wikipedia to violate copyright, or to pirate software, then I'm all in favor of blocking. Likewise, I'm all in favor of banning a pedophile for using Wikipedia to troll for children. These are all actions. But banning someone for being something, whether it is a being a pedophile, or being a Muslim, or being a software pirate is not acceptable: these are things that someone is, and have no direct effect on their contributions to Wikipedia. --Carnildo 07:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the only reason to perminately ban ANYONE is for their ACTIONS, not their opinions or their advocacy (which is what the pedophile user boxes amount to). I personally think pedophila is more of a choice than a sexual orientation. And advocating it, even if not acted upon it here, is not good for the project or the community. We can always find others willing to contribute who don't pose the same legal risks. Irregardless, your actions were clearly WRONG and show extreamly POOR JUDGEMENT. Do you acknowledge this?--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 11:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I was wrong in blocking Giano. He did not present an immediate threat to the Wikipedia project or to other users. --Carnildo 18:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
No, you were wrong in all three cases. NONE of them did. The proper course of action now would be for you to offer an apology and your resignation.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 11:51, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
None of these actions were acceptable. The whole sequence of events surrounding this ridiculous box are a disgrace. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 04:46, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
The blocks where so Horrendously out of policy, that such admins should be blocked or desysoped, this is just ridiculous.Voice of AllT|@|ESP 04:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo, you're still a loser. But look, haha, all the people follow you like lemmings off a cliff. Boy, is this debate sure headed downhill. Joeyramoney2 08:06, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Blocked indefinitely for being a block-evading sock. Shall we increase the block length to Joeyramoney? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 08:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Joeyramoney2 could be any old troll trying to stir up trouble, not necessarily the same person as Joeyramoney the first. FreplySpang (talk) 08:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Hey trolls...don't feed em (now where is that cute lil sign..:) I'm not part of the "Cult of Jimbo" here. I don't think his every word is some holy pronouncement. But in this case he did the right thing. Most of the time he does. As for the rest, well, I'm willing to cut the man some slack.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 11:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Zen-master banned for 1 year

By ruling of the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee, Zen-master (talk • contribs) is banned from the English Wikipedia for a period of one year, ending on February 06, 2007.

For the Arbitration Committee, --Ryan Delaney talk 00:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Can you provide a link to the ruling? I'm not disputing it, but I don't see any specific rational for a full ban on either the user's talk page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Admin enforcement requested, or Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zen-master. - Taxman Talk 13:44, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
There is arbitration discussion, including the passed motion to ban, at this previous version of Requests for Arbitration. Demi T/C 15:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok - one of you needs to update the actual case page so it's not left in the edit history of that fast moving page. Secretlondon 16:01, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I can't see any recent changes on the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zen-master page. Last edit to that page is 29 January 2006. Was blocked for one year by User:Ryan Delaney on 23:45 UTC, 6 February 2006. Was previously blocked by User:Carbonite for 48 hours on 12:03 UTC, 29 January 2006. Secretlondon 15:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I have made a note re the ban. Sam Korn (smoddy) 16:04, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Potential hacking of my (User:Blackcap's) account

Whoa! Hope I didn't scare anyone there, but here's the deal: I logged in, checked my watchlist, and went into the "edit your watchlist" page. There I found a number of pages, all redlinked, with highly suspect titles, which I certainly hadn't added. The list of the added pages is as follows:

  1. EGADS!!!! what are all the block bots on vaccation or something?
  2. Hey Kitten Boy!!! Forget about something!?
  3. Just one of your bumbling admin buddies
  4. Penis!
  5. SOMEoneis going to lose their admin rights over this
  6. User:De Syops the block bots! They're a menace I tell you! A MENACE!
  7. User:LOOOOL, this is confusing
  8. User:Not you off course
  9. User:Special Penis
  10. User:Sponsered by voters for the desyopsing of curps and his damned block bots
  11. User:T I can't beliebvethey actually unblocked me, LOL
  12. User:WoohooI love stupid admins, who unblock when they're not supposed to
  13. User:Woohookitty/Hey Kitten Boy!!! Forget about something!?

Although I'm not entirely sure why someone would break into my account to add bizarre titles to my watchlist, I don't really know what else could've happened. As far as I checked, all of the edits made under my account were done by me, so as far as editing goes I appear to be clear.

Given the names of some of the titles, I have to ask: if one of you lads did this, kindly fess up. It's O.K., it's funny enough, no worries, I won't prosecute. If this is the case, then I don't really care.

If that unlikely scenario doesn't bear fruit, then I'd appreciate someone CheckUsering me to see what that reveals. When you do so, e-mail me and I'll give you a list of the locations of the IP addresses you should be seeing (sadly, I don't know the exact addresses, and I know that at least my home IP is static). I'll ask an ArbCom member if I need to, but if one of you is reading this, then please feel free and welcome to do so now.

Sadly, I don't have the internet access I'd like to have in order to deal with this, but I'll make a strong and concerted effort to find some tomorrow to see what's been written and to respond. Oh, and if anyone's had a similar experience or has any ideas about what happened, please leave a post. Sorry to everyone, and thanks much, Blackcap (talk) 00:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Pages on your watchlist may have been moved to those page titles by a page-move vandal. Jkelly 00:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Change your password to something unrelated immediately, and make sure you log-off at home and wherever else you contribute. That would be the advice I suggest. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I get these kinds of things also, but I've noticed that it often is a result of page-move vandalism (both entries remain in your watchlist). However, Flcelloguy's advice is good, so follow it. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 00:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Yep... see the deletion log for the first entry above. --LV (Dark Mark) 00:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, there never was a page called Penis! though. Another possibility might be that someone managed to mess with the MediaWiki namespace, but that's extremely unlikely. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 00:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, but you can add page names that never existed to your watchlist which if the account was breached was probably what happened, must have been some idiot who breached his account though because they let him blatantly know that his account was breached. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 00:59, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Or a page move vandal. — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
But that would leave a redirect that even if deleted would show up on deleted revisions as well as the fact page move vandals normally set off all the bells and whistles for people monitoring the move log, just doesn't seem like the standard page move vandal style... but that's just my take on it. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 01:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Those really were the result of page move vandalism. When you add a talk page to your watchlist, only the main page itself shows up on the actual list. I took a look at the rest of them, and it appears that they were moved and later deleted talk pages. — TheKMantalk 01:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

If I were a mischievous vandal-type person and I had somehow accessed someone's account, I can think of far more amusing things to do with it than to add non-existent pages to his watchlist and wait for him to edit it to see the non-existent entries. Can't explain why there's no deleted redirect, though. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:30, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Here ya go! :-) --LV (Dark Mark) 01:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


  • In your user space, create [[User:{YOU}/Testing]]
  • Add it to your watchlist.
  • Move [[User:{YOU}/Testing]] → [[User:{YOU}/Really silly title]]
  • Move it back.
  • [[User:{YOU}/Really silly title]] is now a redirect.
  • Delete it.
  • View your watchlist, then click to edit it.
  • You'll see the redlink [[User:{YOU}/Really silly title]]. It doesn't exist anymore but its ghost lives on in your watchlist.

Of course, the same thing results if somebody else did the page moves instead of you, or if the pages aren't in your user space but in the main article space. That's what happened above. Many of the above names seem to be the result of the pagemove vandal User:WoohooDoggy. -- Curps 04:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I hadn't thought of the possibility of a pagemove vandal, which makes total sense. Thanks to everyone for giving a hand with that, I can now rest easy. Blackcap (talk) 09:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Troll_Penis (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log)

Huge huge problem, major denial of service attack going on--152.163.100.200 02:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User RFC Reform

I've opened a straw poll on the User RFC process at Wikipedia:User RFC reform. Please feel free to contribute. All comments are welcome. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 04:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Beckjord

A final decision has been reached in this arbitration case. Beckjord and his socks are banned from Wikipedia for one year. When he comes back he may not edit articles related to the paranormal, interpreted broadly to include the likes of crop circles and Bigfoot. He is banned from sock puppetry, placed on personal attack parole, and general probation. He can be banned for disruption by any three administrators.

This is a formal request for implementation of the one year ban by a block. His socks are listed on the evidence page.

For the arbitration committee. --Tony Sidaway 06:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Was blocked by User:Dmcdevit at 9.35 UTC, 7 February 2006. Secretlondon 15:18, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Sockpuppets (User:Dr Joe, User:DrJoe and User:Orphanannie have previously been indefinitely blocked by User:Android79. Secretlondon 15:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Darth mhaw moved my user page

User:Darth mhaw moved my user page from User:Tnikkel to User:Tnikkel (dumbass). I have no idea why this user chose to do such an unwelcome act against me, as far as I know the only "contact" I've had with this user is that we have both editted the article John Krasinski, and none of my edits were reverts of User:Darth mhaw's edits. Could an admin please delete the page User:Tnikkel (dumbass) and if possible remove the revisions from the edit history that deal with the move? (User:Darth mhaw's initial move, and my move back) Tnikkel 06:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Deleted and partially restored. Someone else had already deleted the redirect. Have a nice day. --cesarb 11:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/EffK

EffK is banned from Wikipedia for one year (I have enforced this already). When he returns, he is banned from editing Catholicism articles, and may be banned from any articles he disrupts. Should EffK violate these prohibitions, he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one year.

On behalf of the arbitration committee, Johnleemk | Talk 10:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

User:Johnleemk has already blocked User:EffK for 1 year, in addition I have blocked sockpuppet User:Famekeeper for 1 year. Secretlondon 15:41, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Famekeeper was certainly the same user as EffK, but it's not a normal case of sockpuppetry. He registered originally as User:Flamekeeper, but did not want to give Wikipedia his e-mail address. Therefore, when after a few months the computer asked him to re-enter his password, which he had lost, he had to register a new account, User:Fiamekeeper. Then he lost his password again, and when the computer demanded that he log in, he registered again as User:Corecticus. That was abandoned for User:Famekeeper, which was followed by User:PureSoupS, and he finally re-emerged as User:EffK. He has never tried to deny that his new account was a reincarnation of an old one, and has on various occasions denied that he used sockpuppets. He recently made a long farewell speech, and signed it as EffK, then logged in again as Flamekeeper, and signed, saying that he had found his password, then signed again as Corecticus and Famekeeper, but said he was unable to sign as Fiamekeeper, and didn't attempt to sign as PureSoupS. Since he has been open about these identities, and never used two accounts simultaneously, until the night of his grand farewell, I don't think they should be blocked as sockpuppets. I do, however, think it's appropriate to block them, but feel a different wording should be used. AnnH (talk) 21:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I've blocked them as identities. Secretlondon 21:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The price of rules-lawyering and bureaucracy

See User:Kosebamse/stuff#Admin.3F_No_thanks and [15]. -- the wub 15:22, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually we're all totally dispensible. I left for 12 months with no ill effects at all.. Secretlondon 15:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
But we were still glad to see you return... -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
And I am not away either (and have in fact never nurtured any illusions about my dispensability or that of any other admin). It's not the encyclopedia from which I wish to disengage, it's a community several of whose prominent members seem to have lost every sense of good will, common sense or basic decency. If this situation helps reorient Wikipedia away from its current bureaucratic madness towards a common-sense-driven meritocracy, there is still hope. Kosebamse 19:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
You've added so much to Wikipedia as a contributor, your continued editing is very much appreciated. Babajobu 19:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:List of lists

Whose idea was it to delete Wikipedia:List of lists? I tried to find it out myself, but there's too many deleted edits (227) so my network connection seems to be taking forever to load the page. JIP | Talk 19:47, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It was deleted on February 1, the closing admin was Titoxd, the discussion is archived. Slambo (Speak) 20:16, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
(EC) It's not because of the edits, but because it's such a huge page. It's easier to look at the deletion log. Anyway, the deletion summary merely links to Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:List of lists. --Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Rats. I spent the connection time opening up the page (and it took a while!), finding the MfD, then come back, only to see it's already answered. --Deathphoenix 20:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Heh, I was amused by the mention of Category:Lists_of_categories, and was inspired to look deeper. I didn't find any more triple-deep lists, but I did create User:Interiot/../List of meta-lists while researching it. --Interiot 21:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Love and Sunshine on a rainy day

I've desysopped Carnildo for tonight, and leave it to the ArbCom to engage in careful thinking and discussion about what should be done in the longer term. In the meantime, no wheel warring please, and everyone please try to relax and let's write the encyclopedia, eh?

This is a rather historic moment. I believe with some degree of certainty that I have never personally desysopped anyone. On a Sunday night, too.

And a pedophile userbox prank? Please. David was right to speedy it as a blatant disruption. If people want to argue that we should have it, they can do so at their leisure. --Jimbo Wales 01:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Sunday night? ... we should be watching the Super Bowl! Ashibaka tock 01:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I think it was half-time at 1:18 (UTC). — TheKMantalk 04:57, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I've just stumble across this whole discussion. Sometimes I'm thinking that this whole project would simply fall apart and/or explode without you Jimbo, so thank you very much for your existance. --Conti|✉ 01:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I'd say something has been happening in the last few days. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I'd say the overall level of civility around here seems to have decreased sharply. I know correlation is not causation, but perhaps the sysops are a bit more stressed than usual due to the current events? --cesarb 01:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I Agree 100% that Carnildo should be desysopped, which for tonight, he has. I also agree that Civility on WP has dropped fast. Admins lately have been leaving, wheel warring, and plain just being uncivil. All this is going to turn into is one big RFC. I HATE to disagree with Jimbo but a "pedophile userbox prank" is very possible. SWD316 talk to me 01:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
See my comments on Jimbo's talk page. I fear that the Great Userbox War of 2006 will either turn Wikipedia into a closed community or destroy it entirely. I, for one, would not want to be a part of a community that found "This user thinks that the SNES was the last great game console" to be an unacceptable statement on my user page, just as I would not want to work for a company that told me I couldn't put pictures on my cubicle walls. (Companies in the tech field that try to do this kind of thing often don't have very good results with it.) Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 02:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I assume Carnildo was desysopped primarily for indefinitely blocking three users without consensus. If so, perhaps Carbonite should also be temporarily desysopped for the indefinite block of a self-identified pedophile that started this incident. Superm401 - Talk 02:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Correct link (I believe): [16] —bbatsell ¿? 02:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
You're correct, of course. I have now corrected the link in my original post. However, you beat me to it with this post. I had been going through all the block logs to clear things up for myself, and I copied the wrong one. Superm401 - Talk 02:30, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, we don't need an RFC about this. Both sides of recent debates about censorship, userboxes, etc. are understandable and don't need to escalate into wheel wars. What we do need is a resolution to the userbox debate specifically, because it is much too stressful. Ashibaka tock 01:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it all dates back to Kelly's mishandling of the userbox issue, along with Neo's behaviour over templates. Whatever about the rights and wrongs of the issues, their mishandling of the incidents created such a breakdown in community trust that everyone seems to mistrust everyone else. It had been unravelling before then but their actions led to a firestorm of anger that is still raging, except that it is now directed elsewhere. So issues that could have been handled (reasonably) calmly are now mired in mistrust and a fear that someone else is going to try to bulldoze something through. As the fiasco over the Mohammad cartoons shows in the Middle East shows, a small issue can ignite an underlying unhappiness, impacting far beyond the original issue. So instead of community trust, we seem to have a lot of "I'll do it to you before you do it to me". But I don't know how we stop it. As WP gets bigger it becomes less manageable, less governable and less of a small community. Organic societies like ours can go one of two ways: they can work or they can implode. WP could go either way. It needs management to avoid implosion, but the problem is that its lack of rules at the start means that some will see that management as controlling and react against it. (Examples: if we had had a policy on userboxes to start off with, we wouldn't have got into the mess that has resulted, leading to Kelly's unilateral mishandling of the situation, in turn producing a negative reaction. If we had from the start a cohesive strategy for photo use we wouldn't have all the bad feeling caused by poorly judged deletions.) It is a complex problem. I expect theses will be written in the future not merely on Wikipedia but with titles such as "WIKIPEDIA: THE ORGANIC EVOLUTION OF A COMMUNITY", "MANAGING DIVERSE COMMUNITIES: THE WIKIPEDIA EXPERIENCE" and "CENTRALISING POWER IN ORGANICALLY EVOLVING ORGANISATIONS: THE WIKIPEDIA EXAMPLE". And the stuff on this page on on for example paedophiles will be analysed in academic papers and books. (Maybe I should write one of my own on WP! lol. But only when I finish the two I am currently writing.) FearÉIREANN\(caint) 02:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Remove polemical things from Template: and Category: space, but let people subst: them first, and otherwise let users state rather inflamatory things on their user pages. That is, make it clear such things aren't officially endorsed, and they're discouraged from spreading, but that it's not censorship because people can say (almost) whatever they want on their user page. --Interiot 02:13, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
This isn't the proper place to discuss that, use Wikipedia_talk:Proposed_policy_on_userboxes (although I have given up on there because there are too many different opinions). I agree with Jtdirl that Wikipedia's community is becoming big enough to merit sociological studies; LambdaMOO was a hundredth of this size when they started getting into debates about democracy and freedom of speech. In case you're interested, in the end deciding policies by vote became just too stressful and the God-Kings took back their powers. Ashibaka tock 02:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Use of userboxes. This isn't exactly ready to announce, but the gist is there. The proposal is essentially "put the userboxes into the user namespace and treat them like any other user page." --bainer (talk) 02:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Why not create a separate namespace (Userboxes:) for them? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 02:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Same problem as the current template space: we'd have to define rules for it, and nobody would be accountable for creating them. Ashibaka tock 03:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't put too much of the blame just on Kelly. There are a number of long-timers who have taken the stance that their personal ideas of what is best for the encyclopedia are so important and urgent that there is no civil way to approach the issues. The rhetoric seems to be, "If I'm right, I don't have to be civil." And I think the community has somewhat unwittingly encouraged this behavior by making it pay off—the most expedient way to get attention for one's pet issue lately seems to be taking rash action that is bound to raise a ruckus. Allowing "ignore all rules" to be misused in this way with impunity has helped this kind of culture take root. --Tabor 02:33, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Yet another reason why it's time to take WP:IAR and flush it down the toilet. And to finally get a working de-sysopping procedure in place. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 02:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Neither ignore all rules nor process is important is an overriding philosophy on Wikipedia, what ever the most extremest editors might wish. There is also, may I add, WP:POINT, among many others. Physchim62 (talk) 02:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay, since we're doing novelty today, I'll put on my ruleslawyer hat. Ha! I bet you didn't know I had one!
So actually Ignore All rules, if taken together with together with don't be a dick and neutral point of view, actually does a pretty good job of handeling the encyclopedia. There's no similar trifecta including process is important, at this point in time. Kim Bruning 07:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Could you give the example derivations for some of the other wikipedia guidelines, based on those three? Kim Bruning 21:03, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Note that people here were ignoring all rules without the requisite common sense or duty to the encyclopedia, so they could in fact be punished for IARvio ;-). But wait for it! They also violated Don't be a dick. And forget NPOV, they weren't even anywhere NEAR the article namespace. In short, they broke all three rules in the trifecta, and thus should probably be blocked if not deadminned, which oh, by the way they were.
Sooooo you folks were saying we should flush those rules through the toilet, and get some new ones that may or may not have a similar outcome? Hmmm, odd logic! Kim Bruning 07:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Say someone comes along and says "I say Carnildo was not being a dick, but who disagree with him are and should be banned" (I don't think that, but regardless). How do we decide who is right? Evil saltine 08:03, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
We can establish that somewhat objectively by checking diffs. Kim Bruning 21:03, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
But who makes the final decision? You talk about "deriving guidelines" from your three rules, but what do we do when two people derive things differently? Aren't rules necessary to codify how these conflicts will be dealt with? Evil saltine 00:52, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Howdy! A quick related note, I've noticed that there has been frequent allusion to moral panic during this discussion. I'd like to propose a wikipedia namespace'd guideline for identifying and avoiding these brushfires in the future. I don't think it's necessarily a silver bullet, but I hope that it might be a useful tool. User:Chairboy/Panic is where I've stored it for now, and I'd like some thoughts on the matter. I'm hoping it'll help, and hope to get some feedback on whether or not it's a dumb idea. Thanks! - CHAIRBOY (☎) 07:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Oi... I leave for a month and wiki-admins descend into madness! I'm never leaving again...Sasquatch t|c 07:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "—This user has left wikipedia" signature

I don't know if this is a problem or not, but it looks like User:Achille's signature has been changed to "—This user has left wikipedia," with no link to a user page, which makes the AfDs he or she voted on a bit confusing. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/S23 Wiki (second nomination) for an example. -- Kjkolb 11:42, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Achille used a signature template for the vote above (actually it is a doppleganger account being transcluded as a signature). At the time of the vote, a signature was there. Since then, the template has been changed and the user has announced leaving wiki. NoSeptember talk 13:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, note that there are two similarly-named users, Achille (talk • contribs) and Αchille (talk • contribs), the latter using Greek letter alpha instead of Latin letter A. As far as I can see, the one is a sockpuppet of the other, but I'm still confused. Either way, I agree using a template inclusion of a user page in a signature is a Bad Thing. — sjorford (talk) 13:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Achille has created multiple dopplegangers and many are properly labelled. This one is not, but has been edited by Achille. And transcluding signatures (not using subst:) is definitely bad idea. NoSeptember talk 13:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I suggest reverting the page used as the signature template, subst:ing it everywhere it's used, and reverting back to his latest version. --cesarb 13:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
That may be easier said than done. He's been using it for a while including on many user talk pages. Maybe we should leave it reverted to the signature, post a notice on the talk page, and subst: where it is important to do so. Unless there is a bot that can do these subst:'s. Is there? NoSeptember talk 14:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Bluebot (run by Bluemoose) does template subst:ing. Thryduulf 14:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I left him a message. NoSeptember talk 14:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Sure, I'll get my bot to do it, but I assume we want to revert the sig back to something meaningful before subst'ing it? Martin 16:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki should be forcing signatures to be substituted as part of the pre-save transform signature check. Rob Church (talk) 14:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Achilles used to have a long commentary on the use of transclusion for his signature (I believe it was on User talk:Αchille) and it seemed to have been okayed. As for MediaWiki, it in fact prevents you from subst:ing signatures. —Quarl (talk) 2006-02-06 17:36Z

If this user has elected to withdraw from Wikipedia, and implicitly nullify contributions he'd previously signed, it's not really anyone else's business whether his contributions are difficult to attribute to him.
The man's gone, for chrissakes, and not because he found Wikipedia pleasant, from his perspective. Let's not add insult to subjective injury. Adrian Lamo ·· 20:14, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, for legal purposes it's rather important to properly attribute contributions. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 00:40, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
If that was true every article would bear the signature of each author. The GFDL does not require signatures. GFDL requirements are satisfied by the edit history. ~ PiXiE —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.22.121.110 (talk • contribs) .
And GFDL is the only law in the world? --Dante Alighieri | Talk 07:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
No, it's not a law at all :) It's a copyright license, and it's the only one under which Wikipedia is licensed. —Quarl (talk) 2006-02-08 07:52Z
Come on, I meant law, not Law. Vernacular. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 18:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Lol, I noticed the same thing and decided to take matters into my own hands, even prior to reading this discussion. user:catapult is handling this as we speak. Note that I would not have reacted this way if he had had the courtesy to retain some form of username identification in his globalized "goodbye" message. — FREAK OF NURxTURE (TALK) 08:11, Feb. 8, 2006

[edit] the vandal account Τroll penis

Things happened pretty quickly, so I'm not sure if my action was appropriate. However, I will do my best to explain what happened:

The account was originally blocked by Curps for having an inappropriate username. However, the block seemed to cause collateral damage, as several IPs (possible AOL proxies) were automatically blocked. I unblocked the account, hoping that the vandal had gone away. Unfortunately, I was wrong. As soon as the account was unblocked, it started vandalizing again.

However, the vandal had posted his password on his talk page, although the edits containing the password have been deleted. I logged onto the account and changed its password so that it cannot be used again.

I hope that I did the right thing. --Ixfd64 02:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

To other administrators: If you want to know the new password, please let me know. --Ixfd64 03:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

(ec)Sounds good to me. I wondered why the talk-page vandalism had suddenly stopped (following up on an admin intervention report). Alai 03:04, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


There's nothing new here: vandals have figured out how to leverage a single username block into a denial of service attack on all of AOL, thanks to the deadly combination of Mediawiki's autoblocking and AOL's round-robin allocation of IP addresses.
By the way, "Troll penis" was not blocked just for the username... this is a known vandal. This user has created socks with various variations of this name (including Greek and Cyrillic letters spoofing Latin... that's actually a capital Tau) and has committed vandalism with them in the past.
There's nothing admins can do about this. Since AOL won't change their IP allocation policies, only a Mediawiki software change will work (maybe build in knowledge of AOL ranges and never autoblock an AOL range; maybe abolish autoblocks altogether; maybe allow admins to specify at block time whether or not a block should be applied on an underlying IP address; maybe create a new class of "confirmed" registered users (any account that's demonstrably not a throwaway account) who are immune to autoblocks).
This has been going on for months. AOL users complain to us, but only the developers can do something about this.
-- Curps 03:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I have suggested a similar idea before. Basically, administrators would be able to "whitelist" users. Unless explicitly blocked, "whitelisted" accounts would be able to edit regardless of whether their underlying IPs are blocked. --Ixfd64 03:12, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Different iterations being used by this "Troll Penis" vandal are being posted to WP:AIV. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 03:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


Regarding other usernames, it's fairly clear that some of them are created simply for the purpose of getting the underlying IP blocked (eg, the "please block me" accounts). The problem is, if you ignore them and don't block, then they vandalize with that account, see for instance [17] -- Curps 03:22, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It appears that Brion won't fix it.

 <TimStarling> [13:50] * Titoxd pokes brion
 <TimStarling> [13:50] <brion> what
 <TimStarling> [13:50] <Titoxd> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
 <TimStarling> [13:50] <brion> why remove them? let it block em.
 <TimStarling> [13:50] <Titoxd> we're blocking all of AOL
 <TimStarling> [13:50] <brion> fine by me
 <TimStarling> [13:50] <Titoxd> ok
 <TimStarling> [13:50] <Titoxd> :)
 <TimStarling> [13:50] <brion> if aol doesn't want to fix their shit, that's their problem
 <TimStarling> [13:51] <brion> bad apples are going to get their other customers blocked

Tell the AOL users to petition AOL or something. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 03:44, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem is, AOL users only see the name of the administrator who applied the block on the original username, and complain bitterly to us. Often they don't read the autoblock notice carefully, they only see the edit summary applicable to the original block, mistakenly believe it applies to them, and then they ask "Why are you accusing me of vandalism? please look at my contribution history, I've never vandalized". Sometimes angry, sometimes anguished.
What exactly are we supposed to tell these folks? Too bad, and it'll happen again soon.
These autoblocks presumably last 24 hours like any other, which is inconsistent with the suggested policy of limiting explicit AOL IP blocks to a much shorter duration.
And of course, admins have no way of knowing that the registered user they just blocked is an AOL user, and even if we knew, it wouldn't matter because there's no way to block just the username without triggering autoblocks. And we can't not block because then the vandal just goes nuts and laughs at us.
Given AOL's round-robin IP allocation, we know that autoblocks on an AOL IP address:
  1. never do any good
  2. always do harm
So, logically, somehow we have to find some way, any way, to avoid doing something that never does any good and always does harm. However, there is literally absolutely nothing that admins can do about this... an answer can only come from the developers, Jimbo, or AOL. -- Curps 04:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
We spent quite a lot of time unblocking these addresses [18] [19]. However, this thing most likely will keep happening, unless soemething changes at AOL's end. :S Titoxd(?!? - help us) 04:47, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

A useful solution would be a checkbox labelled "Do not block other users from this IP". It'd have a dual purpose: if applied to a username block, it would disable the autoblocker; if applied to an IP block, it would allow logged-in users to edit from that IP. Both are features that have been frequently requested. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 06:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem with that, as noted above, is that blocking admins generally won't know that they're blocking someone editing from an AOL account, and therefore won't know when to click the checkbox. --Aquillion 08:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
That's true, it won't solve the AOL issue. It would solve a number of other issues, but for AOL I suppose the only practical solution is a list of IP ranges that are exempt from autoblocking. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Got to agree with Ambush Commander, the AOL users complaining about blocks should also complain to AOL and ask them what AOL are doing to ease the situation. --pgk(talk) 07:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

all things considered, AOL treats it's paying customers like cattle, so it's not terribly realistic to expect them to actually respond to a representative of wikipedia, when they basically ignore their own clients, not to mention, they're not exactly going to go out an change their entire proxy system just because someone asks them to, I mean of the last 8 or so "upgrades" for AOL, none of been anything more than cosmetic, I don't think they've even upgraded their servers since back in the days of the dial-up-modem, I wouldn't be suprised if they don't even have real tech support people on staff, just graphic artists who decide how to make the interface even more ugly than the previous version...
In short, chances of AOL responding to non-customers with anything other than a sales pitch: ~ 0.000%
chances of AOL responding to complaints from existing customers: ~ 0.001%
--64.12.116.200 15:12, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Brion also said:

[14:47] <brion> anyway at some point we'll have to sit down and make a decision on this block crap
[14:47] <brion> too many options on the table
[14:47] <brion> - blocks that don't autoblock
[14:47] <brion> - blocks that sometimes autoblock
[14:48] <brion> - users that can't be autoblocked
[14:48] <brion> - users that can't be ip-blocked
[14:48] <brion> - ip ranges that have different block behavior
[14:48] <brion> etc

If you think the text shown to blocked users should make it clear that AOL is to blame, you can always edit it. And let's be very specific about what we want AOL to do: we want their proxies to forward client IP addresses in an X-Forwarded-For header. The issue is not the use of proxies per se, nor the way they choose a proxy server for any given request. -- Tim Starling 08:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Yes, but they haven't made any changes to their proxy system since roughly the days of the 56k modem--64.12.116.200 15:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, considering we now have more traffic than they do (says Alexa at least), we may have some leverage with them. Has anyone in an official position tried contacting their network admins? There's got to be a way to find their actual contact information rather than abuse@aol.com. But if they don't respond to polite, well placed requests, we could always issue a press release saying we're banning all of AOL because of their brain damaged policies. (More politely worded of course.) My guess is finally the bad press would be enough to get some action out of AOL and we could all live happily ever after. Controversies re Wikipedia get pretty wide airplay. - Taxman Talk 19:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

  • They're pretty oblivious, I honestly doubt they'd respond at all, and if you've ever seen an AOLnews message board, you'd realize why attacks like this don't even register on their abuse-O-meter--152.163.100.200 21:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
  • and a small comment, fighting a denial of service attack by denying service to all AOL users, is kind of counterproductive--152.163.100.200 21:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't say counterproductive, but ironic. — TheKMantalk 21:30, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Also, while we're at it, it would be nice if people would stop putting {{AOL}} templates on the talk pages of non-AOL IPs--64.12.116.200 18:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppet Tags

Hi I tagged 3 accounts last night as sockpuppets (User:Remagine, User:Kenpo and User:Kenpo0110) as they are all responsible for blanking AFDs and are the same person (as the talk page states). Did I do the right thing? I've restored the tags even though he has threatened me for "wikistalking". Mike (T C) 17:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds sensible enough. If they say they're the same person ... - David Gerard 20:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Where does it say they are the same person? Secretlondon 23:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Talk pages. Mike (T C) 23:43, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Which ones and says who? If you want people to defend you please make it slightly easier for us.. Secretlondon 23:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
"No point in a talk page. see User Kenpo" from Kenpo0110's talk page. "See REMAGINE" from Kenpo's talk page. Mike (T C) 00:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
But that also seems to refer to a deleted article REMAGINE - and who put that on the talk pages? You've blocked them all as socks - but one has the be the primary account - you've basically blocked every account this person is alleged to have as a sock of the others. Secretlondon 12:04, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not really sure which is his main account, im thinking Kenpo is now, but before it was just a roundabout, each account seemed to be the main one. Mike (T C) 18:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wonderfool has been LARTed

There has been email communication from Wonderfool's BOFH. Said BOFH is most displeased. Wonderfool has been requested to make good the damage done by him and his assorted sockpuppets, once they let him back on their network. So keep an eye out and see if he can be turned back into a decent contributor - David Gerard 20:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

How exactly (and under what name, I guess) would he be making these good contributions? He's still blocked. Chick Bowen 01:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Under some other name, presumably. But having read the email, I'm personally reasonably sure his contributions will be of much greater quality if he wishes to continue using his present connection - David Gerard 16:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More AfD problems

Someone wanna take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2006 February 2 and see what's wrong? Somehow, a whole bunch of the AfDs are included within a {{at}} that's making them all look closed when they're not. (There are some other problems in there as well, but they're not so obvious because of the problem I'm describing...) Tomertalk 03:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll fix it. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 03:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm.. I see nothing. Can you pint me one afd that looks closed but it's not?-- ( drini's page ☎ ) 03:50, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
It appears to have been fixed...for all I really know, my attempts to flush the cache just weren't working properly... What it looked like was a double {{at}} above either the Michael Tank or Travicola, and the top one was causing all the AfDs below that to show up inside the "closed AfD" box (although there was no matching {{ab}} at the bottom of the day's AfD page). Tomertalk 06:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Awag

Now that Awag was deleted, I finally decided to read it. And I found it that it was complete nonsense, so it was right all along to delete it (possibly it could have been speedied). Did this really deserve a 39-kilobyte AfD discussion? JIP | Talk 05:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd say so. There was a case to be made (in amongst the sock BS) that it was a term with some currency; it was just a bad case. Debatable deletions should go to AFD. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 20:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wheel warring

Now that we have had some of our better admins desysopped for wheel warring, exactly how do we know that we will not be desysopped for reversing another admins decision? I have done this from time to time. I try not to, but sometimes it is unavoidable. How do we a) know that we can reverse an admin action, and b) make sure that wheel warring does not occur? - Ta bu shi da yu 05:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The same way we stop edit wars. Chill out, and stop. It takes two to tango. The encyclopedia won't die if someone accidentally bit a newbie by blocking. It won't die if an article that should've been kept was deleted, or vice-versa. If you're right, the facts will bear you out in the end. Johnleemk | Talk 06:29, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm trying to develop a clear, objective policy at Wikipedia:Proposed wheel warring policy. It's based on the 1RR. — Phil Welch 07:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
If you want to undo an admin's decision, talk as well as acting. If you think they've done something wrong, ask them about it. This is what admins are supposed to be good at doing. Raven4x4x 07:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Hell yes. Anyone can make a bad call, talking first is common courtesy. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 10:31, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
They were desysopped as an emergency temporary measure during a ForestFire (in the wiki sense) and for the duration of the arbitration case, which appears to be moving at fantastic speed and should be resolved shortly - David Gerard 16:05, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Hooba

I blocked Hooba (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log) as a sock in the classic Jason_Gastrich (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log) "Gastroturfing" pattern ([20], word for word re-insertion of content previously removed), he has now emailed me to ask (actually demand) to unblock as he protests he is not Gastrich. Since the email domain is "wiki4christ.com", one of Gastrich's domains, and given Gastrich's known use of sockpuppets per the evidence in his RfC and his recent threat to continue doing so, I am rather suspicious. I am taking the request at face value per WP:AGF but would appreciate an outside view. Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 09:09, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

  • He's a puppet whether of the sock or meat variety. IMHO the block is justified. howcheng {chat} 18:04, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personal attacks and discourtesy by Camridge

Can someone please check out and advise on this Camridge (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log). See arbcom workshop Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Neuro-linguistic_programming/Workshop#Personal_attacks_and_discourtesy_by_Camridge. This user has continued after arbcom decision was passed, and after many WP:NPA and vandalism warnings. The most recent being a removal of my post on the discussion board 2006-02-08 08:35:11 diffs. I am the at the brunt of most of these attacks so I need an external opinion. It was not mentioned in the final arbcom decision so there are no special interventions available at the moment. --Comaze 09:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I for one am not going there. You appear to be pushing a barrow, and Camridge called you on it. Today's edits are forcefully put but not, to my mind, actual attacks. But I will advise Camridge not to personalise the issue. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 10:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
See below, the associated page (NLP) is placed under mentorship so this should be sorted out. I'll check in with mentors/admin to make sure that I'm don't push any POV. Thanks again --Comaze 11:09, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] International Speak Like A German Day

I just speedied it. It was...shall we say...complete nonsense. Anyway. I protected the page from recreation. Today was this supposed "holiday", so expect that users will try to recreate the article under similar names. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 10:20, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


Excuse me, what means this? What for you that page removed? --Tony Sidaway 16:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I vill go and vheel var your page protections. You know such things are allowed not, ya? --Deathphoenix 17:43, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neuro-linguistic programming mentorship

The arbitration has recently ruled, in Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Neuro-linguistic_programming:

The article Neuro-linguistic programming is placed under the mentorship of three to five administrators to be named later. All content reversions on this page must be discussed on the article talk page. The mentors are to have a free hand, do not have veto over each other's actions, will be communicating closely and will generally trust each other's judgement. Any mentor, upon good cause shown, may ban any user from editing Neuro-linguistic programming or a related page. All bans shall be posted on the affected user's talk page and at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Neuro-linguistic_programming#Documentation_of_bans. The mentorship arrangement will be reviewed in three months. If, at that time, the mentors agree that the article has demonstrated the ability to grow without strife, the mentorship may be ended and this remedy declared void.

The selected mentors are Jdavidb, Katefan0, Ral315, and Woohookitty. They will get to know the situation and actively monitor this article. Any questions of enforcement or questionable conduct should be directed to them. While any admin is empowered to enforce the probation, it would be preferable to alert one of the mentors (unless necessity dictates otherwise) as they will serve as admins knowledgeable and aware of the conflict. They may of course come here for other opinions as well. This is just a heads-up. Thank you. Dmcdevit·t 10:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sock puppet block

I've blocked User:Zeo6 as a suspected sock puppet of frequent copyright violator User:Rick lay95, who is currently under his second block for repeatedly violating copyright despite repeated requests and warnings. User:Zeo6 has responded on his talk page to say that he's just a friend of User:Rick lay95 working on his behalf. Am I justified in leaving the block in place, or should this be lifted pending the outcome of a check user? Thanks for any advice... CLW 11:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think CheckUser would tell you very much: if it were my call, I would say give a stern warning against uploading copyrighted material then unblock to see what happens. You might want to wait for some other opinions though, I'm not familiar with the Rick lay95 (talk • contribs) case. Physchim62 (talk) 13:28, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
User:Zeo6 hasn't actually breached copyright, but I suspect that it's the same person attempting to get round a block. But if others also think that the block on User:Zeo6 should be lifted, I'll do it. CLW 13:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
By the way, does getting a friend to carry on your work while you're blocked constitute sock puppetry in itself? CLW 13:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
That's meatpuppetry. I'm not sure what the exact policy is on that. Just follow WP:SNOW and you'll be fine. Johnleemk | Talk 13:43, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
The more User:Zeo6 comments on his user page and uses the same language and mis-spellings as User:Rick lay95, the more confident I am that I did the right thing. I'll leave the block in place unless anyone disagrees. CLW 14:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pedophilia: What do we do?

This is obviously a very sensitive area, as we can see from recent discussion. I think there are questions that we need to formalise answers to, before we are forced to by hostile media interviews.

  • What would we do if someone found evidence that a pedophile was using Wikipedia for indecent purposes? I think this is very unlikely, since Wikipedia is fundamentally public (and the opposite of most chatrooms or messaging services). But we need an answer.
  • Is there a consensus that self-identifying pedophiles are entitled to edit as much as anyone else? Are there limits to the degree to which they can state that identity on Wikipedia?
  • Do any additional steps need to be taken to ensure that pedopilia-related articles are NPOV?

There is already the ludicrous Wikipedophilia.com. As we grow, people are going to look for more dumbass criticisms of Wikipedia and you can bet there will be more on this topic.

What dy'all reckon? The Land 16:35, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

We are an encyclopedia and and as such are as much use to paedophiles as a paper encylopedia or a reference library. I don't think we need to necessarily do anything apart be hard on trolls. Nobody would actually self-identify as a paedophile after all - people playing silly userbox games don't count. Secretlondon 16:43, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
There are at least four self-identified paedophiles here. - Haukur 16:49, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, do nothing works well enough I think. Blogspot is a more likely target. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 16:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, actually, some Wikipedians do seem to identify as pedophiles.Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pedophilia_userbox_wheel_war/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_Freakofnurture. Also, if you look at the history of Pedophile activism, for instance, it's clear that people have been inserting pro-pedophilia comments. In that particular case the Wiki process sorted it out, and the last thing I want is any more moral panic. But I think the best way to prevent problems dowwn the line is by taking the issue seriously, and even if we don't do anything, be sure our inaction is considered rather than by default. The Land 16:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Report illegal behavior such as child grooming to the police. Otherwise, just try to ensure their edits are NPOV, NOR, et cetera...like we do for any other Wikipedian. In other words, Wikipedia does not need a special policy for pedophiles, for heaven's sake. Babajobu 16:56, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I think self-identifying paedophiles are less of a risk to our younger contributers than those who don't identify themselves. Statistically, we probably have an active paedophile or two among our editors and we certainly have active paedophiles among our readers: but then the same goes for blog sites. It is a question of general Internet security: people should not just assume that because someone says they are a 16-year old boy from the Sydney suburbs then they really are. Physchim62 (talk) 17:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

To try to defragment the discussion I copied the following comment by The Land from the MFD on the WikiProject.

Rename at very least, preferably delete. I think these topics need to be kept under close observation given the sensitivity of this area, but don't think an open WikiProject is the way to do it. Frankly I think this whole area is a public-relations timebomb and would like the Cabal to have much more involvement in it. The Land 16:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

What sort of Cabal involvement do you envision? What disadvantages to you see in an open WikiProject? What faults do you see in the one you are voting to delete, in particular? - Haukur 17:10, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't know; the possibility of it going horribly wrong (being infiltrated by bad-faith users of one sort or another); and the likelihood that it will a) be misinterpreted and b) be inactive. However, this is WP:AN and not a deletion debate.The recent storms suggest that the default position of 'do nothing' might not have a consensus, i'm trying to stimulate more discussion to see whether that is the case. However, no one will be happier than me if we are convinced that the existing processes are strong enough. The Land 17:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with SecretLondon's comment above. I really don't think we need to do anything except ensure that our articles are neutral and factual and that our users don't post illegal material on their user pages. Exploding Boy 17:11, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Exploding Boy and SecretLondon, all we need to do is what we should be doing everywhere - be firm on trolls and rigourously (sp?) apply our NPOV, Verifiability and No personal attacks policies. Thryduulf 17:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you lot. Additionally I think a WikiProject would be nice. I'm willing to listen to any proposals, though, and I'm interested in what ideas The Land has. - Haukur 17:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Guidelines at WP:USER are a bit vague, but I think they cover us for this situation: notably
  • Wikipedia is not a general hosting service, so your user page is not a personal homepage. Your page is about you as a Wikipedian.
  • No opinion pieces not related to Wikipedia or other non-encyclopedic material
  • No communications with people uninvolved with the project
Personally I would allow a comment along the lines of "As an advocate of Childlove, I have contributed to the following pedophilia-related articles...". {{User pedophile}} was originally deleted then nominated for TfD as "needlessly provocative": the "needlessly" is important in their as well, as we have some pretty provocative material for which there is general consensus to keep. With hindsight, "needlessly disruptive" would also have been a perfectly good reason for deleting it. Physchim62 (talk) 17:44, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Pedophilia: What do we do? The same as we do about blasphemy as in the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. See Child sexual abuse and [21]. In article space we must be the best encyclopedia we can be. In other space we must lay the foundations for the best articles we can create. (See Wikipedia:Divisiveness.) WAS 4.250 18:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Enforced wikibreak

I need to take some time off. Can someone block me for a week? Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan 17:31, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's allowed. The Wikipedia:Blocking policy explicitly says that admins should not block themselves to enforce a wikibreak. That probably applies to everyone (I may be wrong though). --Latinus (talk (el:)) 17:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, having someone else block you has the same consequences as blocking yourself (collateral damage to underlying IPs and users that share the IP address), hence, it's not generally allowed. Slap on a "I'm off for a week" notice on your user and user_talk pages, then don't make any more edits. :-) --Deathphoenix 17:39, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
If you don't trust your willpower, cut the plug off your computer. That would at least slow you down. Markyour words 17:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
It would slow me down, but not by enough. :-) Thanks anyway!--SarekOfVulcan 17:47, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Just disagree with Jimbo on something, i'm sure the arbcom will be happy to block you. ;-) Karmafist 17:49, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Add a "If you see me making any edits before blah please shout at me mercilessly" notice to your page and talk page. It might help. Thryduulf 17:50, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] another legal threat

from the VIP page

[edit] Threat of Islamic hackers?

The BBC has published an interesting story on Islamic hackers "retaliating" against the publication of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons by attacking and defacing almost 1,000 Danish websites (BBC News). We, of course, have also published the controversial cartoons, albeit in a much reduced format. I'm sure there are plenty of hostile probes against Wikipedia's servers in any case, but the developers might want to be aware that there's now possibly a higher level of threat due to the cartoons controversy. -- ChrisO 19:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

You probably should post this to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) then, since that's the place where the developers have the most chance of noticing. --cesarb 19:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Done - thanks. The article itself obviously has an ongoing vandalism problem, so if anyone hasn't added it to their watchlists it might be a good idea to do so. :-) -- ChrisO
  • um, yeah.. people could come along and hack wikipedia, they could just change the content at a whim, I bet they could even edit content right out of articles with their hax0ring skillz--64.12.116.200 22:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
WOW your 1337. Mike (T C) 23:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A company intent on advertising its product here

A group of anonymous IP editors are intent on a product called Vncscan being advertised here. Previously they were spamming external links to their product all over the place. Now that they have been persuaded not to do that any more, they are starting a page on their product with content copied directly from their website. If I could find a single mention of their product on a site like Slashdot or OSnews I wouldn't object so much, but this product doesn't seem to come close to passing any kind of notability test. A Google search returns thousands of results, but after a long search I couldn't find a single real review. Just tons of listings on software directories. AlistairMcMillan 22:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

So nominate it for deletion then. howcheng {chat} 22:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Self described Cuban counter-revolutionary (systemic attacks)

This was archived without being delt with, so I'm re-posting it. User: 205.240.227.15 was blocked for one week, but it only helped him understand that he is a victim of a Red conspiracy. --His edits continue [23] --Colle 22:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Just bringing attention to User: 205.240.227.15 aka "El Jigüe" aka "at the Bay of Pigs I was jailed by Castro"

Under an anon account El Jigue has been inserting counter-revolutionary propaganda several times a day since 15 September last year. All his edits have been related to Cuba, and most use Miami dissident websites as a source. Unlike most with a pov campaign, he has avoided edit wars, and has gone relatively unoticed. I don't know how you folks deal with this, may I suggest an exploding cigar?--Colle 03:23, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Update: The sooner an admin gets on this the better! Take a look at the recent edits (still not reverted as of now) [24]. Random older example: [25]. Here is a recent example of the systemic bias taken in his edits. [[26]] An elementry knowledge of Cuban history is all that is needed to see how this statement is plain wrong. The editor has made thousands of edits, I have only spent a few minutes scratching the surface. I picked these examples out of the blue in order to show what is going on here, these are not the worst cases. Good luck.--Colle 09:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Some weeks and months ago this anon was misbehaving... re-creating AfD'd articles under new names (not just once but multiple times, and with unencyclopedic titles), vandalizing Sweden to make some point about Cuba [27], adding an out-of-place link to espionage in Castro's Cuba to American Civil War spies [28], editing the James Bond and Ian Fleming articles based on some apparent conspiracy theory of his [29] [30] [31]. The latter egregious stuff was a few months ago, I guess he doesn't do that anymore, but apparently the POV editing has continued.

Back in December he took exception when I speedy deleted his fourth or fifth re-creation of an AfD'd article, and some discussions ensued, see Talk:Cuban espionage and related extraterritorial activity revised. At the time it was clear he didn't believe in WP:NPOV, believed he owned the articles he created, and most significantly, did not believe his contributions were covered under the GFDL. He appeared to be quite suspicious of the motives of others and not easily won over to Wikipedia philosophies and principles.

After that I moved on, it was mostly the stuff I considered egregious that I was concerned with (re-creation of deleted articles and adding Cuba stuff to non-Cuba articles), and I didn't really care to get involved in content disputes over Cuban-related topics. For those who would wish to do so, there's Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. -- Curps 23:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re:User_talk:65.182.172.87

65.182.172.21 (talk • contribs) has vandalized his RfC and is engaging in stalking behaviour at Talk:Hellenic_polytheism by directing AdelaMae to a blog in which he is harassing her there. Anonymous user was blocked by User:Essjay here: User_talk:65.182.172.87 with the admonition that any new IP's in this range that engaged in said behaviour were to be blocked. Cyberdenizen 23:04, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked this IP per User:Essjay's recommendation. ARIN query indicates direct allocation. Jkelly 23:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../a/d/m/Wikipedia%7EAdministrators%27_noticeboard_Archive27_1ad9.html"

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