Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive109

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Can open, worms everywhere 2 Couillaud 3 Important! 4 What is the current policy on 'Secret Pages'? 5 Blocks and Unblocks 6 Can someone please lock my userpage and talk page. 7 Michelle Merkin POTD 8 Instruction creep issue 9 Dealing with persistent copyright abusers 10 Request review of WP:U block on User:Sexybeast6989 11 User block 12 AWB requests to check 13 Burntsauce impending ban (and effects at AFD) 14 Indefinite block of User:Gene Nygaard 15 Complicated cut and paste move needs fixing 16 みんなはこの”神との対話”を読む。いや、読まなくても良い。 17 WP:SSP backlog 18 Should today's Featured article be protected? 19 Did You Know? 20 Janitorial tasks from multiple accounts 21 Procedure for dealing with banned vandal 22 Misc 23 help! 24 Article bullying 25 Canterberry (talk · contribs) 26 I'm back! 27 Needing some Help 28 Insignificant Ban 29 How to deal with a repost of a deleted article that's been hidden in another article? 30 Imaginationland 31 User:CSDWarnBot malfunctioning 32 pending requests at AWB 33 Targeted sanctions for Gene Nygaard? 34 New user closing AfD Discussion after 2 hours 35 NNDB voting 36 Range blocks on schools 37 Checkuser case needs review of sockpuppets 38 WP:UAA 39 PalestineRemembered‎ (talk · contribs) 39.1 Mentorship may no longer be viable 40 Proposal closure 41 We need more admins urgently 42 Not biting n00bs to become actual necessity 43 Jokela School shooting 44 Portal:Current events/Calendar 45 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Commodore Sloat-Biophys closed 46 User:67.168.146.142 47 Quote/fundraiser mess at the top 48 Funny edit of the day 49 Sockpuppet. User:Pazan.ua 50 Donation Banner

[edit] Can open, worms everywhere

It's worth noting to all administrators (in fact, all editors period) that the recent kerfuffle about no longer tolerating trolls on the 'pedia doesn't mean that any and all annoying editors/editors we disagree with/SPAs/similar are trolls.

Just like how the terms "vandal", "vandalism", "incivility" and "NPA" are now vastly overused by all and sundry when they mean "doesn't agree with me" or "is enforcing policy" etc, we should all avoid debasing the words "troll" and "disruption"/"disruptive" just because they are fashionable.

New editors pick these overused terms up quickly (in the case of "vandalism-only account", helped by Twinkle offering them a helpful checkbox to tick for AIV reports to accuse clueless newbies on their first edit or regulars on their 25,000th) and start misapplying them. We don't help this as regulars here by seizing on the term "troll" and applying it liberally - something we've started to do in the last 24 hours and are already getting thrown back at us on ANI and here.

There are trolls, there are disruptive users, there are pointless idiots we would be well shot of... but labelling thus anybody and everybody who we would have blocked anyway dilutes the power of the words and plays into the hands of the trolls themselves.

A little cautious language again, perhaps? <sideshow type="bob">And I'm aware of the irony of being the one to mention "cautious language" so there's no need to point it out</sideshow> ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 21:52, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I almost uniformly use the term "disruptive" because words like "troll" and "vandal" are little more than pejoratives. I think disruptive is a good, general term for anti-social behavior in this community. It's also good because it has no bad-faith assumption attached to it; you can be disruptive while acting in the best of faith. --Haemo 01:44, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Yet oftentimes, "troll" and "vandal" are the only apt and succinct descriptions of editors who act as such, and serves as an eye-catcher to the problem(s) at hand. Of course, no one disputes that the words must be used with care. —Kurykh 03:09, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. We should refrain from commenting on editors. Describe the actions (disruptive, unencyclopedic, spam, conflict of interest, pov warring, etc). --Rocksanddirt 18:28, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

So we can't call people trolls, but we can say they are trolling? ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:35, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I think we should have a special place where people can go and troll, just to blow off steam. Oh wait, it already exists. It's called /. - Jehochman ^Talk 19:05, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Or call the comment what it is. Personal attack? baiting another user into incivility? be clear in descriptions of behavior that violates policy. IMO "troll" and "trolling" are meaningless. --Rocksanddirt 21:45, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

There's a difference between people who occasionally make personal attacks or bait other users versus those who constantly do so. Neither of those behaviors are tolerable, but people who are always attacking, baiting, disrupting, and vandalizing should be shown the door. The people who occasionally attack or get overheated in the middle of an argument, but whose editing is otherwise productive, don't need to be driven off the project. That may have been what Jimbo was referring to in his block reasoning -- that Miltopia had a consistent track record of being disruptive and that he was no longer positively contributing. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 22:13, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Good essay, Redvers. That is why my preferred term is "troublemaker". Keep in mind that Socratic questioning could be understood as trolling. (AFAICR, I've used "troll" only once -- & that was a special case.) -- llywrch 22:32, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Couillaud

Couillaud (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) Couillaud has already warned for a 3rr violation earlier today [1]
Personal attacks, racially insensitive language and inflamatory language with: " he still can't spell either my name or the country "Namibia". " [2]
Saying that "YoSoyGuapo is bad at spelling and grammar is like saying that Elvis is a dead rock'n'roller" [3]
Mocked my hispanic heritage with "If it turns out that Wikipedia doesn't have the cojones to deal forcefully with this kind of trolling, I don't think I'll stick around" [4]
Calling me "googleman" because I research articles. [5]
stating that I learned English last week [6]
commenting on my spelling and stating that he was a grammar nazi [7]
YoSoyGuapo 00:56, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

There is a larger thread about these users here. IrishGuy ^talk 01:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that's why it's been largely ignored there ---- it's toolarge. Many individual comments made by the participants is a monitor screen-full or more! (See my talk page for more examples). YoSoyGuapo (talk · contribs) above has been indefblocked for edit warring and was unblocked (by Tony the Marine) with the stipulation that edit wars - like this one - would end. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• User:Wknight94, Thank you for alerting me to the situation. You are right, I did give User:YoSoyGuapo on the condition that he acted in civil manner. I have looked into this outrageous situation as you have recommended in my talk page. I will therefore proceed to comment.

1. User:Couillaud is a valued editor whose knowledge and contributions are well appreciated in Wikipedia. I can understand your frustration in the Josh Gibson issue and I can also understand that User:YoSoyGuapo, wanted to post that Gibson possibly had 800+ homers. The problem here was that you, YoSoyGuapo pushed your observations resulting in revert war which should have been settled instead in the articles talk page. You both should have agreed to simple consensus and I'm sure that you both would have found an agreeable solution. That should have been the end of it. Instead this was the beginning of a war between both of you.

2. User:YoSoyGuapo, I told you when we made the agreement that you should no longer edit under the IP: User:64.131.205.111. However, I see that you have done so in various occasions, especially to the article King's Daughters. This not only can be considered trolling, but not only are you in violation of our agreement but, you maybe be accused of sockpuppteering which is against our policy. I can understand that at times a person may forget to sign in. It has happened to me, but if you use this IP address you will be blocked.

3. User:YoSoyGuapo, User:Couillaud was right in the fact that you should not have inserted the "Namibia" section into the "King's Daughters" since it had nothing to do with the main subject of the article. It could have gone into a "See also" section. However, User:Couillaud I can understand YoSoyGuapo's anger at you taunting his "English" which was out of place.

4. YoSoyGuapo, you cannot warn anyone about clearing thier "talk page". Users are allowed to clear their user pages and your "warning" without authority seems to me a hostile act on your part.

5. YoSoyGuapo, what did I ask you in our agreement? I asked you that you should avoid wars and whenever a situation came up that you should ask for a mediator for a solution. Neither of you did this which has resulted in this senseless war.

I'm going to suggest that both of you put an end to this nonsense. End it right now. YoSoyGuapo lay off the "King's Daughters" article because it seems as if you are stalking Couillaud as a result of the "Josh Gibson" incident and go about editing in other areas where your knowledge is well appreciated. Do not indulge in reverting wars and look for mediation whenever a situation comes up instead of this back and forth arguing which ends up in a hostile situation.

The same goes for you Couillaud, plus refrain yourself from making comments which may offend other users, even if it is done in a third party's talk page. This said, I want you to know that I appreciate your baseball contributions in Wikipedia and that you should not leave. I have been tempted myself many times, but I have overcome worst situations. Tony the Marine 06:01, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Important!

Hesperian (a well-known administrator) has been blocked for no particular reason. He is a user in good standing and has done nothing to deserve the block (it was possibly directed at a vandal school IP). Please unblock if possible. Thanks, Auroranorth (sign) 05:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

He's unblocked now, Aurora. I think it was just an error. Thanks, Sarah 05:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I was just about to strike the request. Auroranorth (sign) 05:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What is the current policy on 'Secret Pages'?

I suspect this has come up before, and I don't normally care about such things, but looking at the autograph page above made me link to a couple of the signees, and I found many of them had text on their user page that say, 'Find my secret page!'. So I went to google, and got this result. While I realize a lot of these links are to user talk pages, congratulating them for finding it and things like people creating barnstars to congratulate each other, 10 and 20 pages down the search I'm still finding so-called secret pages. I *believe* that this has, in the past, been treated as silly but ignorable, but we're nearing 70,000 ghits on secret pages limited just to en-wiki. Is this something that can/should be dealt with, or is it just disk space use that we need (as in 'can't stop') to let slide? --Thespian 21:02, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOT#MYSPACE balanced against WP:COMMUNITY. If these are proactive editors who want to enjoy the community then why not. Bandwidth et. al. is not our concern. I personally think secret pages, signature pages etc. are a waste of effort, but if the editors who create them for themselves also create meaningful content / revert vandalism / identify CSD stuff / generally contribute then on balance I'd prefer to keep the secret pages if we can keep the editors. Pedro :  Chat  21:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

These editors often don't make useful edits, though. I'm fine with allowing useful contributors to have autograph pages or whatever, but if someone is using Wikipedia as a webhost or a game, then I'd say nuke 'em. Natalie 21:35, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

At least one of the edits signing one of the pages is an administrator (@pple)! @pple does make useful edits.Miesbu 16:26, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

(To clarify, I don't think the users should necessarily be blocked, but the time-wasting pages should be deleted and the user warned. Natalie 21:36, 31 October 2007 (UTC))

If they don't make useful edits, WP:MFD is what you are looking for. I would advise against a mass nomination of multiple users' pages - someone tried that with signature books I believe, it was a disaster. Mr.Z-man 21:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. I'm not commenting on individual issues. Autograph pages (as an example) may be contrary to WP:ENC but if the editor has made (arbitary figure) 200 good edits then let them keep it. If they've turned up and done nothing but work in their user space then that's an MFD issue. Per Mr.Z-Man wholesale deletion with or without warning will just irritate potentialy valuable future editors. Pedro :  Chat  21:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm usually seen arguming for t olerance for editors expressing their individuality, but I think such pages and autograph books are expressions of jvenile lack of seriousness, and should be removed. expressing one's affiliation is fine; cultivating friendship related to WP is fine; obtrusive activities that have no conceivable relationship to the encyclopedia are quite another matter. Let's start as Z-man suggests, and go slowly, beginning with the worst of them. DGG (talk) 22:03, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Unless the secret pages are the only thing an editor has worked on, I don't see a problem with it. I've certainly got a plethora of private pages in my userspace (though they're generally only private because I'm the only one that would find use for them). EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:11, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, the correct figure is about 300 pages not 70,000. Addhoc 22:15, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

You are correct, though it gives 350+, not 300. It's not as bad as I thought, but I still think that's excessive (and won't count variant names and the ones I saw labelled 'Page of Secrets!' and such). The user pages that I peeked at that had these links were....messy, and it might also be my RL (I do user interface design engineering for software and web sites) that's adding to my reaction, since my first reaction to several pages was 'Dude, I can't find *anything* on your pages, let alone a secret link!' ;-) --Thespian 22:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Results 1 - 10 of about 71,000 from en.wikipedia.org for secret page. (0.13 seconds)⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 22:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

May be, but a lot of those pages are just pages which contain the words "secret pages" – only about 350+ are actual secret pages. ~ Sebi 10:07, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

There are entire clusters of users who spend time doing their own secret pages and finding other users' secret pages and autograph books. I agree that the disk space and resource usage isn't a big concern, but it definitely seems like users come together in clusters. And there's a difference between private pages used for article development versus private pages being advertised with, "Find my secret page and sign it!" I've never asked anyone to sign User:Elkman/Cook County NRHP, for example. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 22:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Its also really easy to find such pages if you know a user has one. Mr.Z-man 22:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that if users want to have them, let them have them. If it keeps them in a good mood and excited to get on Wikipedia every so often, that's great. Even if they only make a few edits while they're on, they're making a difference. нмŵוτнτ 23:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

"Secret" pages? What the eff is the point? They must not know about Special:Prefixindex. Delete the stupid nonsense as a violation of WP:USER. We should've done this awhile ago with the signature books: now the cancer is metastasizing. --Cyde Weys 23:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't really care that much, but just an FYI: the good ones I've seen hide them well enough so that they don't show up using the prefix index. нмŵוτнτ 02:04, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Erm, that's not possible...unless it's in someone else's userspace. — H₂O —  09:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, a page of relating to secret pages that isn't a secret page, strictly speaking. ~ Sebi 10:07, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind people having secret pages, as long as they can be coaxed to contribute to the encyclopedia and not just each other's talk pages, etc. Perhaps there are some people who will join Wikipedia because of the opportunity to make a secret or autograph page, and then become productive editors. I do object to people treating Wikipedia as if it is nothing more than a game, and I think the secret pages of such users should be deleted. I don't know what the cutoff point for productive vs. nonproductive editor should be, though. People have different standards. --Kyoko 03:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Can someone provide an example of these "secret spaces"? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 04:02, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't provide you with an example of a secret page because it wouldn't be a secret any more. (Ha ha.) Actually, though, here are a couple example: User:Uchiha23/Secret Page, User:Penubag/Secret page, User:Efansay/Secret Page, User:Zenlax/Sandbox2, and anyone who's credited at User:Vic93/HiddenLinkAwards. Or, better yet, anything that links to Image:Missing barnstarPn.png. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 04:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

In principle, I agree with Pedro. The problem is, no one is going to police this (I mean, check to make sure that people who create or spend their time finding secret pages are also making quality edits). I agree that the activity as such is harmless .... but nevertheless i think it ought to be discouraged if not outright banned because it sends the wrong message. I think Wikipedia needs to tlerate if not cultivate a freedom of expression, but I think that that stops on the user-page itself. I think all other pages should have some relevance to the objective of Wikipedia, which is to build an encyclopedia. This includes sandbox pages and talk pages which yes, build community, but community organized around the common goal of building an encyclopedia by working on articles. Secret pages are just a game and one that trivializes Wikipedia. Surely Wikipedians who happen to like these sorts of things can join facebook or some other internet forum to support their pleasures. Let Wikipedia be Wikipedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 04:16, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

How do you define Wikipedia community? Just for curiosity. @pple complain 08:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Many talk pages, including those of adminstrators, are similarly guilty of idle talk, thanks, hellos, etc. The main difference is that they are not called "secret pages". Lighten up! Even one of the signers of a secret page is an administrator who has made useful edits. Miesbu 16:26, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Since I saw my name brought up in this discussion, I want to have a few words. Miesbu, I think you misunderstand what people are talking about. Secret pages are acceptable, as long as their owners make useful edits to the encyclopedia other than just strolling around and advertising "Finding my pages, plz". As I recalled, Deskana used to make massive nominations of autographbook for deletion but he still signed his adoptee's. I personally favor these kinds of subpages, since they bring excitement and promote friendliness among editors, but there should be a limit. @pple complain 08:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Secret page is a valid use of userspace, helps strengthen the community spirit and encourage mutual acquaintance. PeaceNT 12:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blocks and Unblocks

I'd like to propose two ideas that might need to be communicated to the admin community:

• When placing a potentially controversial block, announce it and invite discussion. State in advance the conditions on which you would approve unblocking. This can save a lot of drama in case you are unavailable to discuss your block.

• Before undoing another administrator's actions, except for blatant mistakes or bad faith actions, try to contact the other admin, and if that fails, let the discussion at WP:AN or WP:ANI run long enough that you get a WP:SNOW consensus before doing what you want to do.

Does this make sense? This advice may seem obvious, but a lot of administrators seem to have missed these two points. - Jehochman ^Talk 10:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• I'd certainly support that. CBD's unblock of Privatemusings, for example, was absolutely not supported by anythign like consensus, and most of those opposing the block don't actually know the identity of the aother account. Everyone I've spoken to who does, appears to support the block. Guy (Help!) 12:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Why should a block made without such discussion stand if consensus is split and policy does not support the stated reasons for the block? I'm all for discussion. Rather than an involved party placing a controversial block a discussion can allow comment from others and then any needed action can be taken by a neutral admin. However, if a block is placed without discussion, the stated reason for the block is not supported by policy, and extensive subsequent discussion shows the existence of strong opposition to the block then no... I do not believe that consensus for unblocking need be found before that action can be taken. Someone acting without consensus or any clear policy support, without discussion, and without even any prior warning does not get their controversial action 'certified' as the default case. --CBD 13:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
    • I am with CBDunkerson; in cases of immediate disruption, then blocks should be placed without delay. But where there is an underlying and longrunning problem, there is no harm from suggesting a course of action and waiting until consensus has emerged. Indeed it is far more disruptive to have a controversial block placed, and then to have a long debate over whether it should be overturned, and whether an overturning was premature, and a meta-debate about whether policies were followed. A considered and debated block is far more likely to stick even if there is discontent with it. Sam Blacketer 14:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

We shouldn't look for a snowstorm to undo a block. If the block is not well supported, it possibly should be undone (or just allowed to expire if it's short.) Blocks are a blunt tool; we should sometimes try less drastic measures first. Friday (talk) 14:50, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• I was just about to post something like this. This seems OK for long-term blocks, but for short blocks like 3RR, it seems that something different is needed. Discussions can sometimes take longer than 24 hours (though they shouldn't really be so protracted), so the length of discussion should be somehow proportional to the block length. I strongly support the idea of making clear under what conditions the blocking admin would agree to an unblock, though in some cases this might be obvious. An important point is to mention (and if possible, link to) any such discussion in the blocking/unblocking log. Being around to discuss things is important. If you are not around, there should be no complaint if a discussion overturns an action in your absence. Admins don't own their actions. User talk:NoSeptember/admin policy seems relevant here. Carcharoth 14:58, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• • I agree with the above; as I often take up 3RR reports I am always willing to unblock if it seems likely that they will not be disruptive, and there can be no objection to another admin undoing a block for the same reason. The blocks are for the benefit of the project and not for my ego. Sam Blacketer 15:13, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• "potentially controversial" is the stumbling block here; what can be obviously "in the right" to one person can easily be seen as dickish by another. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:45, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
  • When undoing another admin's block (except for obvious mistakes or ABF) then you should ALWAYS contact that administrator prior to removing the block. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 15:47, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
    • No argument here. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Not sure what ABF means, but what if the blocking admin is unavailable? How long do you wait? I still maintain that discussion among other admins can overturn another admin's actions. WP:WHEEL uses the term "unilaterally" (I thought I did...) for a reason. Always requiring discussion gives the impression of ownership of admin actions. I'm not advocating overturning for no reason, but discussion and a good reason can lead to a good faith overturn in the absence of the blocking admin. Maybe the blocking admin will return and explain further, but unless the blocking admin had left notes behind, the unblocking admins would not have been aware of these further reasons. This all depends on the timescale of course. Blocking someone for a week before you go on holiday for a week is not a good idea. Blocking someone just before you go to sleep for 9 hours might be unavoidable, but things don't stop until you wake up/get back. It also depends on the urgency of course, and this should be weighed against the urgency of the original block. If the block prevented ongoing disruption, undoing it may restart that disruption. Other considerations can come into play as well. It is a complex judgment sometimes, with many aspects needing to be weighed against each other. You should still notify the blocking admin, and discuss if they are around, but no need to wait until they get back. But, as always, have a good reason for blocking and unblocking - and except people to object if you don't provide a good reason. Carcharoth 16:27, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Getting advice when you are in doubt is essential, but I would draw the line at "doubt", not "controversial". As for unblocking, it is current policy that you should not undo another admins block without first getting their agreement or a greater consensus from the community to do so. 1 != 2 16:18, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Some of the "don't revert an admin action" sentiment comes from inappropriate feelings of ownership. Admins, we should not own our admin actions. It's sometimes reasonable to undo one, even without "permission" from the person you're reverting. It shouldn't be common, and we should tread carefully, but undoing an admin action without persmission is not automatically unreasonable. Friday (talk) 16:28, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, it's generally something we should be careful about, but admin actions are hardly sacred -- I figure it's mainly the sudden actions, or the repeated reversals of administrative actions back and forth, that can set a bad example and potentially reflect poorly on the community, in the few cases where such arguments are prominent enough to garner some media attention. We do need some stability to keep good people around. Sanity checks and group discussion are useful, and if it's better off for a blunt action to be done or undone to allow a discussion to continue, or a situation to calm down, then timely response may be of particular importance. "Ignore all rules" shouldn't be taken as a "license to kill," but as a "license to think." Take a few moments to consider any administrative action, whether deleting, protecting, blocking, or reversing any such action, not only in terms of how it may affect the people involved, but also the project as a whole. Mistakes will be made, from time to time, let's all just try and improve situations when and where we can. – Luna Santin (talk) 23:20, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I have always seen it more as "Don't revert an admin action without discussion and/or consensus". It is not about OWN, it is about not edit warring with admin actions. It is about setting a good example for the editors that instead of reverting back and forth a consensus can be formed. 1 != 2 16:37, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's try again. Read the following:

"I trust that my fellow admins' actions are done for the good of Wikipedia. So if any of my admin actions are overturned I will not consider such an action to be a "Wheel War", but rather an attempt to improve Wikipedia. If I disagree with your action, I will try to discuss it with you or with the admin community, but I absolve you in advance of any presumption of acting improperly. We should all extend the same benefit of the doubt to our fellow admins, until they repeatedly prove that they are unworthy of such a presumption."

After reading that, can you explain what is wrong with a good-faith revert of an admin action? Continuous reversion, when discussion has shown the matter is not clear, would be wheel-warring, but a single, reasoned overturn is not. It is balance between not letting the first admin to act to be the one to set the status quo, and avoiding admin warring. Carcharoth 17:01, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think 1=2 agrees with me - sorry! Carcharoth 17:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Misuse of AGF can result in "Good faith" edit wars where one user reverts in good faith and another reverts in good faith, ad infinitum. AGF doesn't exist in a vacuum as a policy, You also need to discuss changes that might be controversial before making them. Undoing another admins actions when they aren't clearly a mistake almost always causes controversy and dispute and thus shouldn't be done. Talk about it first and if a agreement can't be met between the two parties then take it somewhere for further discussions and consensus. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 17:28, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

That fails to recognise that sometimes urgent action is needed before discussion can take place (eg. reblocking for a new reason after the unblock - which wouldn't be a wheel-war anyway), or that sometimes discussions can take longer than the block length. It also opens the door for wikilawyering over blocks while the blocked person's sense of injustice increases. In all cases, some common sense should help, recognising that while there are exceptions, you need a good reason for the exception, and that continual action back and forth is harmful. Again, it is a balance and there aren't really bright-line rules that help. If someone thought one of my actions was wrong, I would prefer they undid it rather than wait for me to get back. The caveat is that if I disagree, I will discuss it with them! :-) Carcharoth 17:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

If you block a trouble maker another admin unblocks them and the person continues to cause problems then you can simply re-block per the problems caused since the unblock. No big deal there and no need to discuss. If someone is blocked and you want them unblocked and want to discuss it and the discussions occur longer then the block, so what? The person is unblocked anyway and maybe a note can be left in their block log notifying of the decision from the discussion. Wikilawyering doesn't work and it never should, ever. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 17:52, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree that we need a SNOW consensus situation to overturn a controversial block. A block (or any admin action) should only be upheld with consensus. A lack of consensus should be enough to reverse. Often, I feel like Wikipedia favors inertia a little too much. Sometimes a lack of consensus is enough to merit some sort of action. In fact, I was inspired enough to write my first essay. -Chunky Rice 18:35, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• If there is a consensus to overturn one of my blocks, please, go right ahead. Bearian 19:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
• OK, so leave the discussion open for a few days, or until it snows, whichever comes first. Given the traffic on this board, that's like 30 minutes - 48 hours depending on how interesting and important a case it is. Avoid unblocking without agreement of the blocking admin, or else a reasonable amount of discussion and a consensus. We all need to respect each other more. Wikipedia is not an anarchy. We look like a madhouse when admins run around unblocking each other without any discussion whatsoever, and the chaos encourages trolling. - Jehochman ^Talk 21:57, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
• Per the original proposal; am I right in presuming that a "potentially controversial" block is one where there isn't a series of escalating warnings, or discussion, regarding some behaviour or other, on the talkpage, and isn't otherwise obvious vandalism and disruption? If so, I would believe that an invitation to review such an action would be most wise. If then consensus appears split, or against the block, then another admin might unblock, but should always give a clear reason to the original blocker. The block/unblock might then be discussed until a final consenus is concluded. Thems my thoughts on the matter. LessHeard vanU 22:06, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Note that the second point is already covered in the blocking policy, in the part about unblocking. --bainer (talk) 00:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, nice timing, Jehochman. El_C 08:23, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can someone please lock my userpage and talk page.

User page and talk page protected. Hut 8.5 10:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I've grown tired of this fighting. Maybe i'll be back in 2008. If ever. thanks for everything. muchas gracias. YoSoyGuapo 00:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Michelle Merkin POTD

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day/Michelle Merkin POTD over concern over proper forum for discussion. Please move to a better location if there is one. - Wikidemo 01:32, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Further move - have moved to WP:POTD, as this is something relating to POTD. This is not an admin concern. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:37, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

All this fuss over a rather scrappily Photoshopped composite! What joy. Guy (Help!) 12:39, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Note that Guy's response to this discovery has been to go around deleting the image from all relevant (and admittedly irrelevant) articles. See my note on Guy's talk page.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 12:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Um, no, actually my response has been to review the articles in which it's used and see if it's appropriate. We don't just include an image because the caption says (without benefit of a source) that this person embodies the ideals of physical beauty, that's POV. Guy (Help!) 14:11, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

We have ideals of physical beauty? looks appropriately shocked at such news I wish people would tell me about these new fangled inventions sooner.--Alf ^melmac 14:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I had set up User talk:Howcheng/MerkinPOTD for discussion exactly for this purpose... howcheng {chat} 17:38, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Instruction creep issue

I invite all administrators and editors to examine Wikipedia:Translation, an area I used to frequent all of the time but can no longer understand (or do not have the attention span to go through all of it) for example, here is a (once) deleted revision of when the translation process was much simpler: User:RyanGerbil10/GermanOverhaul. If you can figure out our current system, kudos; I wish it would go back. RyanGerbil10(C-Town) 15:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I used the system a year or so ago, I think. It was bad, but I got an article out of it at the end. Carcharoth 16:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dealing with persistent copyright abusers

Friends, I direct your attention to the upload log and talk page of someone I think we can all agree is a problem user. As you can see, he continued uploading copyrighted images long after his talk page was riddled with copyright notices, and long after the images started to be deleted en masse. Now that Shell Kinney, who pointed him out at PUI, and I (and you) have our eye on him, obviously he'll be monitored if he continues to upload images, and blocked if need be. But I think we need to have a conversation about how we deal with such users in general. Is there an easy way to track the people who Orphanbot and the others are hitting most frequently? Should they be blocked on sight? It's pretty obvious they're not paying much attention to their talk pages, so it becomes hard to reason with them. Thoughts? Chick Bowen 02:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I would say use one of the 'Uploading inappropriate images' templates, probably, for this excess, at level three, and then follow up on it the next upload. The copyright notices only work, as you know, when someone actually pays attention, so warn him, block him (or have him blocked) despite the fact he's ignoring the page , and then force him to have nowhere to talk except his page. None of his current (excessive) warnings mention being blocked, so he has no reason to pay the slightest attention to them. The tools are there, but they're not clear, and perhaps we need some more (severe) image warnings for users like this (the image warnings are sparse at WP:UTM) --Thespian 02:39, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

IMO, it would be more effective to talk to the editor without using templates... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.244.249 (talk) 02:47, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It usually is, and I prefer it, but if the editor has persistantly ignored posts to his talk page, and it is unsure that they are even *looking* at it, it does lend itself to becoming time to get his attention more forcibly. There are 53 warnings on his page, almost all of them about this issue, and almost all of them about images that were deleted because the user didn't respond to them (to save them or otherwise). If the user doesn't respond to talk pages (and in this case, they haven't ever posted to a talk page for any of the articles they write for, either), it does call for a stronger way of getting their attention. I am unsure, in this case, if the user will pay attention and work with the project (which would be nice, as they're obviously very enthusiastic, though they don't grasp/pay attention to copyright law) or simply create a new account. --Thespian 03:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

ETA: I wonder if it might be worth looking into adding 'blocked from uploading' to Help:Block_and_unblock#Blocking_options the blocking options, as this user doesn't seem to have any real problems with content, just images. I'm also going to post a note letting them know of this discussion, on the off chance they'll see it and respond. --Thespian 03:15, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

And yet, the only way that we can effectively stop the uploads is by blocking the user from doing anything on Wikipedia. I knew it was mentioned before that we can block for this, but we just need to dig it out saying where it can be done. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:26, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

right. I know that we currently can't, I was just wondering if it could be made into an option. I didn't mean just adding it to the page, I meant to the blocking options as a whole; this is a tech musing, and it will certainly not happen in time to deal with this user! --Thespian 03:32, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I have thought about it several times; that would make things a lot easier if we could just turn off uploads for users without having to block them. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:37, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, perhaps, but in this case the problem is simpler than that: the user does not seem to be reading or heeding the messages. This is a good reason to block him, in my view - he will then have to engage in dialogue, at which point we can find out if he is one of those who rejects the whole idea of copyright, or whether he simply doesn't get why it's important. Guy (Help!) 09:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah; that's why I made the suggestion as above (and indeed, why I notified him, to see if he was just ignoring warnings or the whole page), so his attention could be grabbed. But I suspect him not having upload privs, since that seems to be most of his work, would do the same. --Thespian 09:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

And what Guy said before worked in one case; I blocked a user over the images and I got an email from him months later. I agree a block should be done now. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 18:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I've indefinitely blocked the user. In cases like these, all of those messages serve as warnings. In a recent case, the user agreed not to work at all in the Image space as a condition of his unblocking.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

And I have put Template:Indefblockeduser on his user page. Greg Jones II 00:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request review of WP:U block on User:Sexybeast6989

This username was reported at WP:UAA. I regarded it as borderline, but ultimately judged it to nominally violate #3, bullet 5 at Wp:u#Detailed_examples. User:I, who created the account as a legitimate sock and has since created User:Sbfw for the same purpose, asked that I have some other admins review the block. I don't have strong feelings about it, so if someone would like to unblock it, please go right ahead and let I know. Thanks! Dppowell 04:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I did not create the Sexybeast account, actually. I created the sbfw one, and was trying to figure something out with the html tags using this account's preferences, and forgot to restore this signature. Just to clear that up. i (talk) 04:56, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

My apologies; I was drawing an inference from your objections on my talk page and from your new account name, which appeared to be an abbreviation/variation on the blocked account. Dppowell 05:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't unblock it. The username is marginally in violation of the username policy but it's one deleted contribution was a nonsense article [8] so I don't hold out too much hope for useful edits.--Sandahl 05:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Concur with Sandahl. If it were just the "Sexybeast" I could probably see it as okay, but with that edit and "69" in the name, it's a violation in my view. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:06, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Also 89 is synonymous with titty fuck, (pardon the expression). Combined with 69 and sexybeast is an obvious reference to sexual slang. Jackaranga 12:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow! It's ... ummm ... amazing what you can learn on Wikipedia - Alison ^❤ 21:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, folks. Dppowell 13:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It may be that 89 is the user's birth year? Lemon martini 14:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User block

[edit] AWB requests to check

I'm supposed to nicely point out that there are requests at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage that are over 24 hours old. Thank you :) TheHYPO 22:12, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Y Done --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 01:50, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Burntsauce impending ban (and effects at AFD)

I am watching the Alkivar ArbCom case unfold and it appears that Burntsauce (talk · contribs) will soon be banned as a meatpuppet of JB196 (talk · contribs) (see ...#Burntsauce banned). I mention this because I see quite a few !votes by Burntsauce in open AFDs which I figure need to be disregarded as banned user edits. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Disregard away. Picaroon (t) 03:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

:Copied with attribution to the Bureaucrat's noticeboard. Keegan^talk 05:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

My mistake, I thought he'd participated in RfA recently but I am wrong. Whoopsie. Keegan^talk 05:25, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Indefinite block of User:Gene Nygaard

I am extending the block of Gene Nygaard (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) to indefinite duration, given his long track record of WP:POINT violations and disruptive incivility. My feeling is that the project can survive perfectly well without his contributions, and that he has been sufficiently warned to have enabled him to change his manner should he have so desired. To clarify matters before any accusations of wheel-warring, my decision is revesible by any administrator. Physchim62 (talk) 14:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• Fair enough. I considered that myself at the time. Nothing personal, I think Gene's personality is simply too combative to be conducive to consensus-based editing. Guy (Help!) 14:47, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I object to the indefinite block. I don't see evidence of consensus for a community ban. Gene is frequently uncivil and overly-stubborn, and I have been on the receiving end of his sarcasm, but he has (and is, up until his block) been doing some fine work on the encyclopedia. Firsfron of Ronchester 14:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't object to the block, but I believe that the admins involved need to look very closely at the various IP's and users (I specifically refer to User:Greg L) who have been baiting Gene. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• The man has 50k mainspace contributions, the great majority of which are just fine. Until this week he had a total of three unreversed blocks, the longest of which was 48 hours. I feel that going straight to an indefinite block at this point is not called for. The weeklong block, straight on the heels of a 72 hour block was already a very substantial action. Haukur 14:55, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Consensus for a community ban is not needed before an indef block. I have noted the above comments, I'm now going out for a coffee :) As I mentioned above, if an administrator feels that I have been too bold, especially following the discussion above and any further discussion here, then they should replace the original 7-day ban. Otherwise, I stand by my action, at the same time opening it for calm discussion. Physchim62 (talk) 14:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• Can you prove a small selection of diffs to illustrate the WP:POINT behavior? There is nothing wrong with an indefinite block because it can be refactored if the user admits mistakes and expresses a sincere desire to improve. - Jehochman ^Talk 15:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

FOR BACKGROUND ON THIS: See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruption_of_Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts_by_Rlevse — Rlevse • Talk • 15:08, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• My contribution to the calm discussion is that there is no need for an indefinite block at this stage. Apart from the incivility, the contributions are good. And to be frank, some of the incivility is stuff that could be shrugged off if people looked past the incivilty and saw the point being raised. If someone says something relevant to me, while being incivil, I try to look past the incivility and learn from the advice that is being given. I try not to ignore the advice and, hackles raised, get all upset about the incivility. Also, the escalating lengths of the blocks has only been 24 hours, 48 hours, 74 hours, 1 week (not yet served) and then suddenly a move to indefinite. I would suggest reblocking at the one week level, and then escalating further to a month and so on, if the incivility continues. Carcharoth 15:11, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• How hard would it be for the user to apologize and promise not to repeat the same mistake? I think that's a very easy condition for an unblock or reduction. - Jehochman ^Talk 15:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Many users react to a long block with an outburst of outrage. So far, as far as I know, Gene has been silent. We can't really hold that against him. Not to mention that for all we know he went camping after his last edit yesterday and doesn't know about the block bidding-war since then. Haukur 15:32, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Noting that I'm the person who issued the 72-hr block, I think the block should be reduced back to the 1 week block, per Carcharoth. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:15, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• "How hard would it be for the user to apologize and promise not to repeat the same mistake?" - by that argument, all blocks should be indefinite until the person who is blocked apologises for whatever behaviour allegedly caused the block. That sort of system would soon collapse as it would actually promote wheel-warring ("because he hasn't apologised!") or would promote bad-faith apologies. It also presumes that all blocks are correct, and makes blocking a more humiliating experience than it is at the moment, and brings up the disturbing image of some admins dangling a carrot of "apologise before I unblock you". Apologising should be natural, not forced. Carcharoth 15:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect to Physchim, I feel an indefinite block at this point is counterproductive to building encyclopedic content, and have restored the seven-day block. It is very clear that Gene has been uncivil and has made personal attacks, per this. However, comments on the administrator's noticeboard indicate that several users feel that the method of prevention of disturbance to the encyclopedia in this case (an indefinite block) is excessive. As Phychim has indicated he does not object to undoing the indefinite block, I have done so. It is my hope that Gene can reform his habits and return to building the encyclopedia when his block expires. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Firsfron (talk • contribs) 15:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• When a pattern of behavior has been long term, I think it makes sense that the block should last until the user expresses a desire to change. The apology thing, Carcharoth, wouldn't be necessary on the first or maybe second incident. This user was given several short blocks, so he was clearly on notice that the behavior needed to change, yet he continued. We're sending a message, but he's not getting it. Thus, there is a logic in blocking him until we have evidence that the message is received and understood. It's no big deal that the block was refactor to 7 days, either, because P62 invited that. - Jehochman ^Talk 16:12, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
• Carcharoth, actually that would be a good idea. If we never unblocked anyone until we were sure that they appreciated what they'd done wrong and were determined not to do it again, life might be a lot quieter. Guy (Help!) 17:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• That depends on how you define "we" and "sure". I don't think it would be workable. The real trolls would always show enough contrition to get someone to unblock them, and there would be arguments over the detail of apologies that would be too lame for words. Carcharoth 18:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think making unblocks conditional on contrition is a good idea. We're encyclopedists here, not confessors. Their moral state of mind should be none of our business. It's not hard to issue escalating blocks over behavior without once considering motivations. That way lies... complications. It's a simple cause-and-effect thing: "Act this way, and you'll be blocked; if you wish not to be blocked, don't act that way." -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:44, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

As a long time editor Gene is serious, rational, competent and hard working. He has always shown the best intentions for this project. The problems with his manor are small compared to all that, in my opinion.

An indefinite ban of this type of editor is rare. I'd like to ask that any off-wiki conversations on this topic be noted here now. --Duk 16:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I am against an indefinite block but would support the case to be taken to arbitration. Some kind of parole could be an option. I have had clashes with him in the past over trivial issues that he stubbornly blew out of proportion. His campaign against anything with diacritics on has made him no friends in many occassions. Nonetheless, I agree that he is a hardworking contributor and it would be particularly cruel to impose a community ban. Regards, Asterion^talk 17:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Block reduction noted. In the light of the above comments, the restoration of the original block has my support. Physchim62 (talk) 18:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, I think this thread can be wrapped up. Any philosophical discussions can be continued elsewhere. - Jehochman ^Talk 20:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
  • See new section below: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive109#Targeted sanctions for Gene Nygaard?. Carcharoth 11:32, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Complicated cut and paste move needs fixing

Bronx-Whitestone Bridge (old history) has the old history of Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, which does not appear in the current article. Bronx Whitestone Bridge has the history of what's now in Bronx-Whitestone Bridge. The two histories overlap in time. Can somebody fix this, and let me know if I could have handled it better? Thank you. --NE2 10:08, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll also need Queens-Midtown Tunnel deleted (no real history here, fortunately) so Queens Midtown Tunnel can be moved. --NE2 10:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Dang! That was indeed complicated. It's been fixed, anyway. :) PeaceNT 10:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] みんなはこの”神との対話”を読む。いや、読まなくても良い。

Could an admin who reads the above language take a look at the deleted edits on User:Akanemoto. This user has requested the deletion of his/her user page nearly 50 times. Curious, I submitted some of the text to a translator, and Akanemoto appears to be using the page as a way to communicate with somebody. Interesting stuff (phrases such as "everyone is healthy", "I want to be free"), but this page may need to be protected from recreation or the user blocked. Comments welcome. - auburnpilot talk 22:55, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

That "somebody" seems to be God (神). --BorgQueen 22:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Babelfish, always useless even between related European languages, suggests Everyone reads "the conversation with this God". Well, you do not read and also the [unknown character] is good. Which makes a certain gnomic sense. Personally, I'd undelete the entire page, then blank it, then protect the blank version. Most work, but least trouble and eliminates the problem in future. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 23:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

(ec)Appears to be Japanese, as it usually makes more sense when spit through the Japanese translator than the Chinese option. Either way, I've protected the page. Akanemoto requested yet another deletion just minutes ago. - auburnpilot talk 23:06, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

The sentence is somewhat non-sensical. It says, "Everyone is reading this sentence to God, or, you shouldn't read it." It is Japanese, using Kanji and Hiragana script. Cla68 00:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so put this down as someone who likes to talk to Kami-sama. — Rickyrab | Talk 04:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:SSP backlog

This is starting to back up again. Can we get more admins involved? Tks. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Fuck SSP, check out the backlog here. It would be greatly appreciated if any admins who are even remotely versed in image policy could help out. east.718 at 05:27, 11/4/2007

that's not very appropriate language, esp for an admin. Pointing out other backlogs is fine, but disparging another admin task is hardly appropriate. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:50, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't disparaging anything; sometimes you can use profanity to humorously make a strong comparison. east.718 at 19:05, 11/4/2007 19:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I really don't appreciate the use of foul vulgarity. Please refrain from it in the future. I am disappointed it came from an admin. Bstone 01:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should today's Featured article be protected?

Since it has been protected and unprotected and protected again once already, i feel this should be decided by consesnus. Todays FA GameFAQshas revieved a bit of vandalisim due to the fact that its a) The FAOTD and b) the last day of the character tournement. Should it be protected or not? I oppose protecting it, but am open to disscusion to cahnge my mind. The Placebo Effect 01:00, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

TFAs are protected when they're subject to insane levels of vandalism... like now. There are currently several thousand teenagers wetting themselves because their home website is on Wikipedia's front page. Unprotect if you feel like reverting all of them. – Steel 01:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I think all FAs on the main page should be protected, they're nothing but vandal magnets and it's ludicrous to proclaim it as wiki's best when they are vandalized so much. We sure want new comers to come see the main page FA as our best when it has profanity, porn, etc on it--NOT. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Almost one a minute. Ouch. I think this is appropriate. --Haemo 01:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Our policy is very clear. FA must not be protected unless there is reason beyond doubt to do so, like adding libel information. -- ReyBrujo 01:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Just to head off the inevitable admin who'll unprotect it with the summary "We never protect the main page FA", they should read Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection first. The old axiom isn't really true. --W.marsh 01:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I think this should be unprotected. We've had much worse hit FAs than this one. Vandalism was being reverted quickly and protection being determined in less that an hour seems very hasty. This is far from insane levels of vandalism - we could cope with this by watchlisting and reverting. WjBscribe 01:52, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Heh, apparently my attempt didn't work because it's now been unprotected with pretty much the edit summary I predicted. --W.marsh 01:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Did you think Wii fare much better when it made it the home page? ;-) -- ReyBrujo 01:55, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

If the article suffered, leaving it unprotected was probably a bad idea. Some people seem to enjoy leaving articles unprotected like they're the guy who stands in front of a cannonball at the state fair... we don't allow IP editing to show we can take a beating, we allow it (in theory at least) only because it usually tends to improve articles. In cases where improvement doesn't seem to be occurring... it's just masochism. --W.marsh 02:01, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, while I understand your position, I am one of those who still think a good anonymous contribution is worth the hassle. What I would change in the policy is that those who deface the page (replacing it with another text) should be warned just once and then blocked, or just blocked, depending on the administrator's judgment. This is because the user is vandalizing a very transited page in order to gain notoriety. -- ReyBrujo 02:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone name the last FAOTD that was semi-protected for more than an hour? The Placebo Effect 03:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Islam? Anyone who thinks "we never semi-protect the main page FA" should look at that one. --W.marsh 03:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, both the articles on Gerbils (I think?) and the article on Intelligent Design were protected a third of the day last month. We shouldn't do this; it is bad for the project long term. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

What's bad for the project, protecting them or leaving them unprotected? Mr.Z-man 03:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Protection is bad. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

W.marsh, let's not compare the vandalism an article like Islam, George W. Bush or similar could get with the one GameFAQs gets. This one is childish vandalism, by young people with a lot of free time to browse internet but little to think. The others border libel and racism. -- ReyBrujo 03:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I just object to people saying "we never semi-protect the FA" when we obviously do sometimes. --W.marsh 03:27, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Featured article is aways hit the hardest because it's the first thing the little bastards charming young souls see. HalfShadow 03:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Again, I understand. And I used to think we should protect them (I even reported once that it should be protected before realizing there is a policy against it). You must excuse my behavior, I believe the perfect article must not be protected, and therefore vouch for the unprotection of featured articles, unless there is something more than childish vandalism. However, that is just my point of view, if vandalism reaches a high peak and cannot be controlled, it could be protected for a few minutes. We cannot know if they have posted a note at the boards pointing to this article (although I am almost sure they did). -- ReyBrujo 03:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Eh, s'alright; I felt the same way for the same reason, once (first thing seen=hardest hit). Of course, it also means closest screened... HalfShadow 03:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for unprotecting during this discussion. I didn't realize this was going on. (I need to pare my watchlist down a bit). I haven't noticed that the vandalism level is particularly higher than usual main page FAs, eh? —Wknight94 (talk) 03:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protected - I'm a regular RFPP patroller and in all my time, I've not seen a mainpage article get so beaten up. As this is an extreme case and because we've had precedent before, I've upgraded protection to semi-prot, sysop move. Anyone can feel free to review and change this at any time but for the moment, give the article a chance. It's being vandalised faster than it can be reverted and the brakes need to go on, even if for just an hour or so - Alison ^❤ 04:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

sic transit gloria mundi. -- Kendrick7^talk 04:22, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

And now here come the sleeper socks. When is the last time we needed full prot on a main page article? At that point, it might need to be taken down IMHO. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:23, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The more sleeper socks we block, the better IMO. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Zero tolerance on the sleepers. I would have prefered to keep the page unprotected longer though :(. Ah well, we can try unprotection again in a few hours... WjBscribe 04:27, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, they are likely creating accounts which become sleepers because they can't use them right now ;) -- ReyBrujo 04:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• Normally, the main page isn't protected. But come on, this amount of vandalism is ridiculous. It should slow down once all the GameFAQs migrators get it out of their system. Leave it sprotected for 2-3 hours I'd say. Wizardman 04:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

well, if it is that bad, fine. But an hour or two is stretching it. -- Kendrick7^talk 05:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Did You Know?

Did you know... that Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, placed on its front page DYK section an article about Dave Teo, a Singaporean conscript whose court case has not yet even started, let alone furnished a conviction? "We will laugh at your calamity: we will mock you when your fear cometh" (Wikiproverbs 1:26) Guy (Help!) 20:39, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, please note, this is not a dig at anyone, updating DYK is dull handle-turning and nobody loves a dull job, I was just thinking that perhaps we should all have a look at some of the DYK noms from time to time and decline some of the more contentious ones. Including election candidates in current elections. Guy (Help!) 20:44, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
  • More screeners are always welcome at T:TDYK, a reasonable objection usually keeps a nom from reaching the main page. Anyone can make comments there, even IPs... screening is a pretty dull process though, as you say, but if no comments there in the 5-day period... it's hard for admins to catch everything, unopposed nominations are added by default unless there's a backlog. In this case, no one objected, although interestingly the original nom didn't mention the conscript's name. It's now off DYK altogether. --W.marsh 21:57, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

(ec)Sadly, DYK has joined WSS as the hive of instruction creep here in the last year. Both processes, when I last used them in 2006, were simple "post a line here, work done by others there, output to be seen here" things. A year later, both require their blocks lined up in a neat row and fuck the rest of the 'pedia, both are effectively being run by a tiny community with nothing better to do, both have huge hurdles to climb to get anywhere, both slap down anyone who complains with the crappy and creepy "well, other people manage okay so there isn't a problem (except with you)" rubric, and both make egregious errors that it is impossible to challenge safely.

The result is a process so in love with the process itself that awful rubbish is given priority without review because someone active in the clique in question has given it the nod without really thinking about it.

Root and branch reform is needed in DYK and WSS, but the clear fallout deters many people, myself included.

And, random surfers, please note the lack of personal attacks here. I'm stating my opinion and naming no names (I don't even remember any names), so save yourselves the threatening emails. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 22:07, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I only became involved with DYK in the last three months or so and I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. As far as I can tell it's the least bureaucratic project on Wikipedia. I have no idea who the ruling community is. Maybe give DYK another chance? Whatever problems you have with it must have changed. --JayHenry 01:23, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

And I don't mean to be dismissive of your concerns, I just don't know what DYK was like a year ago, so it's hard for a newcomer to see what the problem is. The whole reason I like DYK is (what I perceive to be) the complete lack of bureaucracy. There are no votes, although certain lengths of hooks and articles are suggested, anyone can do the updates and ignore the suggestions. I've frequently updated articles that are shorter than suggested, have too long of hooks, were written too long ago, or whatever, and nobody has ever given me any grief for it. --JayHenry 01:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Re: Dave Teo ... article was created by an administrator and there had been a comment/suggestion from a known DYK participant, so it was reasonable to assume it was up-to-snuff. As a side note, I don't do much DYK updating these days, but it had been 17 hours (!!!) since the last update and I'd had enough spare time to get that done. howcheng {chat} 22:53, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I might be considered part of the DYK Cabal. I would have more time for checking items like Dave Teo if I could get any interest in automating some simpler edits I do routinely, most of which aren't even in the instructions but draw complaints if they aren't done. My main contribution to instruction creep is User:Art LaPella/Long hook, but that's good instruction creep - it doesn't pop up unless it's needed, you usually don't have to read beyond the first couple sentences, and it's better than the previous un-system of constant complaining that selecting administrators should edit more for brevity. I'm puzzled by "egregious errors that it is impossible to challenge safely" - I've never worried about anything other than accuracy when challenging an error, so come on in, the water's fine. Art LaPella 01:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure. At the risk of more instruction creep, though, I think we should strongly discourage DYKs about people actively running for office, people with legal cases in process, anything where there is even a faint whiff of WP:BLP issues. My own view is also that allt hose cases where ten possible hooks are suggested by a single editor looking to get his own article on some wrestler or college baseball player on the front page should be speedily rejected, but that's just me :o) Guy (Help!) 12:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

whats wrong with having dave teo on dyk? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.126.19.150 (talk) 03:32, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, I think WP:DYK does a pretty remarkable job at spotting some of the newer gems amongst the dross and keeping the Main Page interesting. The DYK section on the Main Page is completely rewritten at least once, and usually two or three times, every day. It brings 5 to 8 new articles to general attention each time - around 20 per day; most are improved even further by the increased eyeball; and very very few are subsequently deleted (just look for the redlinks in the archive). Compare WP:TFA and WP:POTD, which change once per day and can be set up several days in advance; WP:ITN, which turns over perhaps one, two or three bullet points per day; and WP:SA, which now has complete annual coverage.

I have no idea what the complaint from User:Redvers above is about. DYK is one of the lightest processes on Wikipedia I know: write a new article (or significantly expand an existing stub), add a hook to T:DYKT, and wait. -- !! ?? 11:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Janitorial tasks from multiple accounts

An editor recently requested my assistance when Resurgent insurgent (talk · contribs) reviewed and declined WP:CSD taggings. [10] [11] [12] When asked why he noted "Well, I'm an admin." [13]. The editor noticed Resurgent insurgent was categorised in Category:Wikipedia administrators, but not listed at Special:Listusers/sysop, leading to the editor suspecting Resurgent insurgent was impersonating an admin. Anyway, turns out Resurgent insurgent is one of a number of declared socks of Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights) which does have the tools. Both accounts are currently active and appear to be used interchangeably. While I don't think this set up is used with any intent to mislead, it nevertheless appears to be contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia:Administrators: "Although multiple user accounts are allowed on Wikipedia in certain circumstances, only one account of a given person should have administrative tools." and Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#Administrative sock puppets: "The community has strongly rejected users having more than one username with admin powers... only one account with access greater than that of a normal user account should be operated." I asked Resurgent insurgent if he would consider restricting the janitorial tasks we ask of admins (such as declining CSDs, protection requests etc) to the account with sysop status, if only to stop this type of confusion happening again. He doesn't appear particularly amenable to this, suggesting his account is "policy-compliant". I thought wider opinion may be of value. Rockpocket 21:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the main issue that causes confusion is not appropriately labeling or declaring these sock accounts. For example, I have a secondary account that I use on public computers, but this account is clearly labeled (and even has the same signature), so any confusion should be short-lived if I chose to do admin-like tasks with this account. As long as the user does some kind of step like this to reduce ambiguity, I don't think occasionally using a secondary account for janitorial tasks should cause too many problems. Eric (EWS23) 21:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, he does list all his sock accounts on his Resurgent insurgent user page, and all accounts redirect there. The problem is this account is not the one with sysop status. I don't really have a problem with declared socks doing the odd non-controversial janitorial task, but I would expect the principal account, the puppeteer, to be the one with the tools. That isn't the case in this instance. Rockpocket 21:57, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

any user can remove CSD taggings, not only administrators, per WP:CSD. Thus he was technically not using the tools on the other account. I agree, though, that it is a little confusing. 00:24, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think there is any administrator action needed. The person has the tools at his disposal even if the account does not. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

So, the tools are given to a person then, and not to an account? That surprises me. How do we find out enough about a person to decide about Adminship, then? It would mean that any admin could open up mutliple accounts and use them all as "pretend" admin accounts? That's going to be very confusing to the average editor, I think. RFAs seem to be very much focussed on a single account. Perhaps I am missing something basic here. Bielle 20:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

No, the tools are given to the account that is owned by the person, that's why you can have multiple accounts, but not multiple accounts with sysop rights and why you can't have shared accounts. I have a sock account that I use for testing things that I need a second account or a non-admin account to do. Even if I made thousands of construtive edits on it, I could not get admin tools on it. You can't have pretend admin accounts because only the account with actual admin tools can do the admin actions, the rest can only do administrative tasks that any user, admin or not, can do. Mr.Z-man 20:57, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the simplest way to avoid this sort of confusion is to require admins with sockpuppets to have the account with the tools as their primary/default account and all socks directing towards that. This way anytime a sock claimed "I am an admin", when someone went to query it they would end up on the talkpage of an account that actually was an admin, rather than the page of someone who maintains an admin sock. Rockpocket 21:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Whenever anyone is operating a legitimate sock they realy should make it clear on each sock's page who it belongs to. This common-sense approach shouldn't be limited to admins. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

If any editor claims to be an admin (that is, as in Rockpocket's diffs #4, above, says on the editor's user page "I am an admin") when it is not, to this unsophisticated editor, that is an impersonation. The fact that the editor making the claim is a sock of an editor who is an admin, and claims that makes it all right, borders on wikilawyering. While there may well be degrees of culpability that mean this sort of claim is not as bad as impersonating an admin when neither the puppetmaster nor any of its socks is an admin, is still unnecessarlly confusing. Any solution that makes it clear to any editor who checks just which account is an admin and what that admin has done has to be better than confusion. Rockpocket's solution would achieve this; perhaps there are others that will do the same. Bielle 22:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

No one has done anything wrong, and the goals of the encyclopedia are being met in a good user who happens to use multiple accounts in a way that may sometimes be slightly confusing. I do not recall any limitations in process set up for admins and admins only to fulfill. Though I do not remember where I saw it, or if it has been removed, but something that is inherent or, at least should be, in the spirit of Wikipedia is that any user may act in a way befitting an administrator. Certain tasks in process usually fall only to administrators because they are the only ones with the tools to perform the task - you cannot fully close an AfD as delete without the mop, but anyone is allowed to close a discussion as keep if the consensus is clear (unclear nominations will be squabbled over because the point doesn't appear to have been arbitrated). Any user can and, in an ideal world, should behave in a way befitting an administrator.

That being said, I do think that it is a good idea for administrators who maintain alternate accounts to have the administrator account remain primary - people tend to anthropomorphize accounts as the presence of the person at the keyboard, and using a secondary one as a front to the powers of the primary does seem somewhat questionable if not actually a bad thing. Nihiltres^(t.l) 22:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it may help if I explain how I came to end up using 2 accounts in the first place.

In August last year I asked to be renamed from "Kimchi.sg" to the more real name-ish "Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh". Very quickly I realised it is a mouthful and problematic for users passing messages. So I asked last November if I could swap the two accounts again, (I had created Kimchi.sg again, to prevent impersonation.) but the 'crats declined. So I've used an alternate account for much of the past year mainly to make my user name more readable. (I know people will just say "You could have signed as...", but how do you sign in the page history or move log?) I've never intended this to confuse other editors, thus I've asked again to usurp the Kimchi.sg account. Resurgent insurgent 08:10, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Reviewing speedy deletions isn't always an admin task in the first place. Personally, I'd say away from grey areas since I'm not an admin (let them take the heat :) ), but I've gone through speedy deletions before and either removed them or listed them for AfD instead when they didn't meet WP:CSD. -- Ned Scott 08:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Procedure for dealing with banned vandal

What's the procedure for dealing with a banned (not just blocked) vandal who is continuing to set up multiple sockpuppet accounts each day and is using these to launch personal attacks and to violate privacy? That is, is there anything more that can be done other than blocking, reverting, and perhaps oversighting? One problem is that he is on one of the Big ISPs so he hops IP addresses. I'm not sure if we can really block account creation from a Big ISP for any significant length of time. That is to say, I think we probably can't unless the vandal is stunningly abusive. --Yamla 15:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

If the situation is that serious, it may be a good idea to block account creation for the ISP - we have the unblock mailing list (as you know) which easily copes with a number of large ISP blocks (my IP's blocked from account creation as I'm on Tiscali for instance). Maybe a two week range block followed by some evaluation? Ryan Postlethwaite 15:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Who is it? User:Daddy Kindsoul or User:Verdict? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 15:55, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't matter who it is really, let's not give them any credit. Ryan Postlethwaite 15:55, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Is notifying the ISP possible? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 15:56, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, notifying the ISP is an option, but unfortunately, they don't tend to do much - it's much more effective to sort things out in house. Ryan Postlethwaite 15:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions (and I welcome any more ideas). If it does become necessary to block the ISP, I'll make sure the unblock mailing list knows ahead of time. I suppose I should probably set up one of those long-term abuse pages as well. --Yamla 16:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Misc

[relocated to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#IP editor and caste articles]

For the archivebot, east.718 at 22:40, 11/5/2007 22:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] help!

Is there anyway to block someone from viewing your Wikipedia userpage, because my parent's saw that a few of my contributions got deleted, and they think Wikipedia is gay, and that I've been an ass hole for helping the cause, please help me block them from viewing my profile, they said that if I help out Wikipedia any more, I will get grounded for a year. SO SHIT HELP ME PLEASE!!! BLOCK THEM FROM MY PAGE!!! I LOVE WIKI!!!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xgmx (talk • contribs) 23:43, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't believe that is possible. FunPika 23:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Create a new account and don't tell your parents what the new username is. Tim Vickers 00:00, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is gay. Ground your parents. --Tony Sidaway 00:03, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Did your parents really say Wikipedia is "gay"? -- John Reaves 00:28, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

You on the drugs, boy? JuJube 01:01, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

And if so, can you give us some?? -- Kendrick7^talk 01:02, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

It likes other Wikipedias? shoy (^words _words) 01:04, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Invoke m:right to vanish. Change your username, delete and salt user and user talk pages. hbdragon88 01:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I hear you can get parental control devices to stop your parents snooping in your browser history. This could help. --Tony Sidaway 02:06, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[needlessly complex solution] If you can buy a good book on the subject, you could always figure out how to set up another partition on your computer, install Linux on it (try Ubuntu (Linux distribution) as a beginner), set the bootloader to automatically boot into Windows unless manually overridden, and you would have yourself a nice, parallel operating system that a Windows user on the same PC would never become aware of. That worked for me for years. (Not responsible for any adverse consequences of following this advice whatsoever.) --Dynaflow babble 02:19, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

If you are serious do the name change as suggested. One thing you can always do is log out, clear your browser (cache) when you are away from your computer. Rationale for that is they can see your username at the top of any page when you are logged in. If someone else gets control of your account that way it's a compromised account and blockable. --Sandahl 02:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article bullying

(Moved to WP:ANI.)

Timestamp for bot: Resurgent insurgent 01:31, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Canterberry (talk · contribs)

Can someone uninvolved take a look at the spaghetti-like discussion at User talk:Canterberry regarding blocking/unblocking? (See this discussion for the original background to the indefblock.) Basically, Canterberry 'fessed up to abusive sockpuppetry and was indefblocked; I offered to unblock a couple of weeks later on strict civility parole (basically, if anyone had any valid complaint of any kind against him he'd be reblocked), which has been turned down. I think this would be workable, given that it was only a limited number of editors he's been in conflict with & he works solely in a specialist field of articles (railway lines of south-east England) & it would be fairly obvious should he return to sockpuppetry, and it does seem a shame to indefblock him when the virtually identical case of Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Lucy-marie resulted only in a three-day block. Anyone not previously involved in this able to take a look? — iridescent 01:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

As the original blocking admin, I've been on record since the original block as not objecting to someone adjusting the block. In my RfA I said I would have limited activity in blocking, and in 10+ months as an admin I've issued only 46 other blocks, so I always wanted review by those with more experience of our typical block durations. GRBerry 02:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I'm back!

Hey everyone, I'm back from a wayyyyy long wikibreak (over a year!). I'm going to get back into the swing of things and hopefully be editing on a somewhat regular basis again as well as doing RfA promotions and name changes and the like.

Could someone be so kind as to inform me of any major changes that have occurred during the year that I was gone? Linuxbeak (AAAA!) 01:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Welcome back. There's always a need for active admin and crats... WjBscribe 01:51, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Um. Do you want to read 52 issues of the Wikipedia:Signpost? :-) I can't actually think of what the major things were that happened. As always, check the CSD wordings and policies, as subtle changes might have happened that could trip someone up. Oh, there was a Community Sanctions Noticeboard that opened and then closed. There was an Essjay controversy. Something called WikiScanner caught loads of people, including the US Congress, editing their bios to make themselves look good. I'm sure others will add some of the more important stuff I've forgotten. Oh, RfA is (still) "broken", but managing to function OK despite perennial calls for reform. There were a few controversial RfAs. Oh, and the first adminbot got approved a few weeks ago. There was a big kerfuffle about something called Wikipedia:Attribution. There were also ArbCom Elections nearly a year ago, and you are back just in time for this year's elections. Jimbo also pulled a few rabbits out of hats every now and again, to keep everyone on their toes. What else happened? Did Esperanza close this year, or was that last year? Ooh. Need to start keeping a diary! :-) Carcharoth 21:01, 3 November 2007 (UTC) Wikipedia Yearbook, anyone?

You guys forgot Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jimbo Wales. Welcome back! Neranei (talk) 21:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh look! Another adminbot RFA! Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TempDeletionBot. And anonymous page creation is about to be turned back on in a few days, so people are gearing up for a big flood that might never arrive. Carcharoth 21:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Welcome back indeed. Your reputation precedes you :) It's hard to know where to start on the news, though. WP:SIGNPOST and its archives? - Alison ^❤ 21:08, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, we need to start hiring historians. bibliomaniac15 A straw poll on straw polls 22:12, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

They are currently busy writing our encyclopedic content on history... Carcharoth 23:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Claps! Keegan^talk 22:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Good luck with that RFA thing, it's kind of a cabalish mess at the moment. Luigi30 (Taλk) 15:18, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needing some Help

I want to request permission from WikiMedia to allow the use of a history written by someone else. A gentleman at the Newtown History Center in Stephens City, Virginia, wrote a very detailed, very well written history about the town of Stephens City and I would like to use it. The permission I sent (by email from NHC's Adminstrative Assistant) was not valid according to the rules. Could someone tell me if this is what I need them to fill out? I don't want to have to ask them a 3rd time for permission if this try doesn't work. I appericate any help I can get. Take Care....NeutralHomer ^T:C 23:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would work. Replace "LICENSE [choose at least one from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_tags ]" with "GNU Free Documentation License (link)" (as the all textual content must be submitted to Wikipedia under this license). --Iamunknown 00:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks! :) - NeutralHomer ^T:C 06:52, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Insignificant Ban

Hi there. I was banned for a reason that I don't think was justified. I clearly had a direct quote to correspond to the verifiability act, yet I was "overidden" by a mere "consensus". I thought that having verifiable sources outweighed the mere possibility of a group of people forming a consensus to edit and place unreliable sources. If I am wrong, then I will clearly adhere to this possible, yet unlogical, principle. Sincerely, InternetHero 03:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Apparently the ban was by RobertG (talk · contribs) due to this edit. --W.marsh 03:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring is never a good way resolve anything, and the block has already expired. I did offer a suggestion to InternetHero about the painting so maybe that'll take some of the heat out of its inclusion in the article. Gnangarra 04:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

You'll have to show me the part where "but I'm right!" is an exemption from WP:3RR. We know you think you're right, that's why you're edit warring -- problem is, everybody else thinks they're right too, and we find ourselves at a bit of an impasse if people just revert back and forth to their own personal versions of rightness. Yes, talking and negotiating is a complete pain in the ass sometimes, but it also happens to be one of the few ways to really accomplish any form of consensus. If your reasoning is really as good as you say it is, convince everybody else of the same thing with your conviction and persuasive ability, instead of edit warring and throwing up silly challenges, and then you won't have as many problems to put up with. It's not a battleground, it's a collaborative project. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't have said it better myself :) my thoughts on edit warring are basically summed up in this template, which I strongly urge InternetHero to have at least a glance at. Anthøny 19:06, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

It is obvious that none of you have read the actual discusion, otherwise, you'd know that the only reason I failed to adhere to the WP:3RR rule was because I screwed up on an edit, and had to revert and correct it. It is also obvious that because of my age you think that I "offered up silly challenges". Yes, it is true that I was 'edit-warring', yet it was the supposedly more mature editors who had no other reasoning faculties at work other than a simple, "I agree with so-and-so".

My arguements were simple enough to understand, yet they completely ignored them. When I did refute some of their arguements, and used it against them, they COMPLETELY ignored their own basis in such respects - such as the concept of Mozart looking sad in the painting done in Bologna. As a testament to such claims of singular 'rightness', the painting in Bologna was completed BEFORE the death of his mother, thereby making the Croce-Mozart more faulty since that particular painting was done AFTER his mother's death. I can never accept such analyzations as having more reasoning at hand than my arguements; so, I have contacted as much teachers and professors as I could to help me in this manner. Indeed, I am grateful to myself that I was a very good student who have gained their respect enough to actually do this for Leopold. Nevertheless, it is my teachers who have instilled such particular notions in me and who have also agreed that such edits aren't corresponding to Leopold's approval of the painting. In addition to that, we believe that the "principles" shown by the other editors have not refuted the fact that Mozart's sister and father aren't painted well in the Croce painting when comparing them with their singular portraits. I will be forming my own "consensus" soon, so I'm not too mad or worried. All I was trying to figure out was why it clearly states that the fundamental principles of Wikipedia includes not a consensus, but, verifiable and reliable sources under the neutral-point-of-view act. However, it is obvious to me now that it is a mere quantative formality that induces the accuracy of Wikipedia. All the same, we will forming our own consensus and put the portrait of Mozart as a child. Just kidding, I will put the 'Bologna Mozart'.

Anyway, thanks to you all for your time, although, I don't think that all of you have given me the proper, polite confidence I think I deserve. Have I not shown the same principle of confidence from the start of the discussion in question? Oh yeah, you guys/girls haven't read it.

P.S. It was the other editors that have made fun of my grammar, punctuation, and other things which do not at all adhere to my tests results from school that have been graded quite well. I guess thats just me being immature even though it was a personal attack adhered to by the more mature editors, and not myself. However, I guess it was actually a personal attack against them for some reason so I guess I should apologize, but I truly didn't know logic worked that way. If my English isn't as good as my teachers have scored me, then please correct the attempt above so that I may contribute to Wikipedia further, and let them know that their textbooks are wrong.

P.S.S. Thank you, Anthony. I have read the template you have given me, and I'm going to read the article it encompasses.

If that was the "only reason" you were revert warring, why didn't you say so, before? Why does the page history show repeated reverts, over time? If you're doing such a good job refuting and crushing everyone's points, why aren't more people noticing? How can I be prejudiced against your age, if I don't have the slightest idea or care how old you are? I certainly could invest a lot of time in sitting down to chat with you, I'd certainly love to do that for a lot of people, but unfortunately very few of us have the time, and most of us have other things to attend to, on- and off-wiki. I can spend a lot of time being polite, but only at the expense of getting across the more important message. Brevity is a must, in these situations; while I can appreciate your apparent offense that I haven't spent more time being polite, I think you're reading something into my tone that I hadn't intended. Now, did you have a specific aim in this thread, one we might be able to address? If particular users have repeatedly been causing problems, names and specifics, such as diffs or other supporting evidence, would be quite helpful. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:28, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I wasn't thinking properly there. I now understand that you can't just listen to everyones complaints. Anyway, I hope I didn't offend you. Here's my arguement: "All I was trying to figure out was why it clearly states that the fundamental principles of Wikipedia includes not a consensus, but, verifiable and reliable sources under the neutral-point-of-view act. However, it is obvious to me now that it is a mere quantative formality that induces the accuracy of Wikipedia."

I think I am a little immature still, so thanks for not banning me again.

P.S. I know you guys are 'making' me add the colons to your replies cuz you dislike me, but I don't care, I have to do it. Sincerely, InternetHero 03:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

InternetHero, the only way you can carry your point is to convince others of your arguments in debate: so far it appears you have failed to do so. This noticeboard is the wrong forum for settling content disputes. The ongoing debate is there, and the dispute resolution process is that-a-way; I hope you are convinced that the other option you have experimented with, edit warring, is not worth pursuing.

Everyone else, thank you very much for your thoughtful, helpful contributions here. Can I suggest that we now end this discussion? I originally thought that InternetHero was disputing the block: that would require administrators to look, for which this is a reasonable place to post. --RobertG ♬ talk 10:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not here to carry out a point. My God, you people don't understand English. Oh well, if everyone was the same, life would be boring. Anyway, here is the point of my posting here - again: "All I was trying to figure out was why it clearly states that the fundamental principles of Wikipedia includes not a consensus, but, verifiable and reliable sources under the neutral-point-of-view act. However, it is obvious to me now that it is a mere quantative formality that induces the accuracy of Wikipedia. Is this true or not? Meaning, does the mere consensus from all walks of life override the fundamental principles of Wikipedia?"

P.S. It's obvious you really don't care what I have to say, and, I also understand that you're just trying to make me angry by ignoring my arguements. I know you're just going to ignore me again, but I figured it was worth a try. Keep working at trying to do your job, Robert - I know you must have good intentions. Sincerely, InternetHero 18:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How to deal with a repost of a deleted article that's been hidden in another article?

I was looking at the huge list at Unseen character which looked familiar. I checked, and it was deleted in April at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of unseen characters. 74.32.96.183 re-added that entire list to Unseen character on 17 July 2007 here in an obvious attempt to bypass the AFD decision. Is there a standard way of dealing with this? Masaruemoto 03:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

That article is way too long, and the content isn't encyclopedic, IMO. I'd say propose on talk to remove the content, and see if there is support. Or you could be bold and remove the content first, citing the AfD as previous consensus and wait to see if that gets reverted. I don't believe there is a specific protocol for this situation, but I could be wrong.-Andrew c ^[talk] 04:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I blanked it, per Andrew's suggestion, and left an explanation on the talk page. Let's see whether this was too bold. --Orange Mike 04:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The entire article's just been speedily deleted by Sandahl. It was only the list that was deleted at AFD, the rest of the content was there before 74.32.96.183 added it to Unseen character, as shown in the edit revision I provided. Masaruemoto 04:42, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, it's been restored. Masaruemoto 04:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Simulposted to the article talk page

I have deleted the page, per criteria G4 (ref: Special:Undelete/List of unseen characters, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_unseen_characters). The article was substantially a copy of the previously deleted article. Take it to deletion review if you'd like. Keegan^talk 05:22, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

And like Sandahl, I have reverted myself. This is complicated, and I think that a new AfD would be the only resolution. Working through the revision histories, it looks like the list that was nominated for deletion was a fork of the original article, though they are substantially the same. So I'm not sure if there's any precedent on what to do with an article that's failed an AfD that's a copy of another article. I would think that they would both qualify for G4 deletion, but deletion review would be the only viable venue I can think of. Keegan^talk 05:30, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I reverted it when I realized it was rather more complicated than a repost. Agree, they both would probably qualify for G4 deletion but WP:DRV might the best solution.--Sandahl 07:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Blankings? New AfDs? Deletion reviews? This doesn't seem that complicated to me, I just removed the list part (and the extraneous examples) leaving just the original descriptive text. --bainer (talk) 07:39, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, bainer. I have a tendency to complicate things. Hell, it took me a year of reading this site to figure out what the "edit" tab did :) Keegan^talk 07:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the simplest solution was to simply remove the long list. This reminds me of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Burger King menu items where a list was spun out of the original article, then that list was deleted by AfD, and then the list was eventually restored to the original article. In that case, we had at least one user who was fighting to keep the content, so it went up for AfD again (and was kept). Hopefully things won't get that complex for the unseen characters, and removing the long list will be sufficient to resolve the situation.-Andrew c ^[talk] 14:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Imaginationland

There is a situation over at South Park's Imaginationland episode page. There is a huge debate whether to merge the three episode pages into one page, or to keep them as separate articles. The debate took place here. A wide majority of people say to keep the episodes separate, but the people who support the merge argue to the fact that the discussion was taken as a poll, and not a step towards making a consensus toward reaching a decision. This has indeed been the case. Since, an edit war has gone off between keeping the pages separate and having all three pages redirect to the main Imaginationland page. I think it is appropriate for admin intervention in this situation. As for me, I have decided to keep out of the situation (after inserting my opinion). The Chronic 07:32, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Protected the whole trilogy and the season 11 template at the wrong version. Please contact me for unprotection once the dispute is settled. east.718 at 08:06, 11/6/2007

[edit] User:CSDWarnBot malfunctioning

This bot has warned me five times about the same redirect, Grant Street (Pittsburgh). If this is an isolated issue, deleting the redirect should fix it. --NE2 08:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deleted as a redirect to a redlink. DrKiernan 08:39, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. --NE2 09:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] pending requests at AWB

thr are more than 24 hrold requests at Requests_for_registration. thx ~atif ^Talk 17:02, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Targeted sanctions for Gene Nygaard?

Header added and new section split off by Carcharoth 11:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I have a long history of conflicts with Gene Nygaard, although none is currently active (phew). Most of Gene's contributions to the project have been positive, but when it comes to diacritics things get ugly. I think that a probation against incivility and diacritics-warring would be the best way to deal with Gene's bad temper. A permanent ban should be issued by the arbcom, which I find unlikely. Húsönd 01:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

"A permanent ban should be issued by the arbcom"? I think you've got it backwards. The ArbCom issues one year bans and various probations and paroles, but rarely indefinite bans. The community is largely the other way around. Picaroon (t) 01:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't a community-imposed ban on page moves be the obvious solution? From what I can see (looking at his logs), he moves pages from spellings with diacritics to those without. He is right to ask people to find references to support the spellings with diacritics. What I can see is mainly a tendency to assume he is right and move things without sufficient (or any) discussion, and (to varying extents) to be incivil about it at the same time. He is quite right to insist on lack of diacritics in category and DEFAULTSORT keys, as diacritics (and lower case letters) do mess up the sorting. That is in the category sorting guidelines. So, again, a targeted community sanction based on page moves and incivility is probably what arbcom would come up with, so why don't we just do that now? He should still be part of the discussions on the topic, if he can be civil in those discussions. This is also complicated by the fact that he does lots of perfectly good page moves as well. It seems that the diacritics is really the bone of contention here. All this would only work, though, if he agreed to it, so maybe this discussion should reconvene when the block expires? If the community can't agree on a targeted solution like this, then take it to arbcom. Carcharoth 11:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to pile on but I've also had a couple run-ins with Gene Nygaard where civility has gone out the window from his first edit - and those run-ins go back years! Blocks of escalating lengths should have begun a long time ago IMHO. I can think of a few editors - Tecmobowl (talk · contribs) comes to mind - who were permabanned for similar levels of incivility over far smaller ranges of time (months instead of years). And Tecmobowl/Jmfangio was creating GA and FA-level articles during his tumultuous time here. —Wknight94 (talk) 13:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

The Tecmobowl decision is here. It seems that was more for the sockpuppeting (not a consideration here, obviously). Before the sockpuppeting, it seems that a topic ban was being considered, though I haven't read the whole debate. Talking of escalating blocks, it would help if people clarified where the jump-off point to indefinite is. Tecmobowl seems to have been another case of various 24 and 48 hour blocks, followed by a one week block that turned into an indefinite one, in his case when he carried on his edits using sockpuppets during the CSN discussion (I think). Carcharoth 15:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Gene took a five month break. Since returning in September, he's made about 5,000 edits. Of those, 59 are page moves, and of those 26 involve diacritics or oriental characters - this includes talk pages - usually with good edit summaries. So in 5,000 edits, he's moved about 14 pages with diacritics (approximate counting). The dispute that spawned this section had nothing to do with diacritics (I think it was the kilogram page and Wikiquette). Husond comes here and asks for a community imposed diacritic-related sanction - and offers not a shred of evidence why it is needed. There is no need for any diacritic-related page move sanction. --Duk 00:37, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Gene Nygaard ALREADY HAS A MOVE BAN: Wikipedia:Community_sanction/Log#Gene_Nygaard_is_banned_from_non_consensual_article_moves_until_further_notice. For additional info, see: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive141#Is_this_disruption.3F, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive141#Implementation_of_Gene_Nygaard_article_move_ban, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive130#User:Gene_Nygaard_pages_moves, Wikipedia:Community_sanction/Log#Gene_Nygaard_is_banned_from_non_consensual_article_moves_until_further_notice, User_talk:Gene_Nygaard/2006Aug-2006Oct#You_are_banned_from_non_consensual_article_moves_until_further_notice, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive210#User:Gene_Nygaard, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive227#Blocking_User:Gene_Nygaard. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Right, I see that now. All I was working from was his block log, which has no mention of being blocked per such a sanction. Is there a place to check for such community sanctions (I see there is a Log subpage - is that easy to search?), or did they all go out of the window when the noticeboard was closed down? I also see that the previous discussions didn't mention the CSN discussions. Did you only just find them? And why, oh why, did no one actual enforce those previous sanctions?? I still think that escalating enforcement is a good idea, but that jumping from one week to indefinite is too soon. Is there a scale somewhere that people use? Can you block for a month, two months, a year? I know Arbcom use (or have used) such lengths, so why does the community seem to jump from 48 hours to a week, and then straight to indefinite? Carcharoth 15:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

All one has to do is check "What links here" (what linked to Gene's userpage), and filtering to show only Wikipedia pages. Why no one has enforced this, I don't know. The community sanctions are still there and they are still in force. I only came across Gene recently. — Rlevse • Talk • 17:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe Lar, who wrote up the CSN topic ban, can enlighten us? It is possible it was only a 6-month topic ban and has since expired, but the note doesn't mention that. Thanks for the tip about using what links here restricted to WP namespace - that will owrk well in some cases. We should still have a better record of these things - that is what block logs are meant to be used for! Carcharoth 18:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

What was the question? (this is in response to a request to turn up here) It was a while ago but I think I was trying to capture the consensus that I think had formed, see wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive141#Is_this_disruption.3F particularly toward the bottom. The ban was "from non consensual article moves until further notice". That seems to suggest that it's indefinite, not any particular time (in particular there was not support for a 6 month period) but that if a new consensus forms, it could be changed. It also seems to suggest that it is limited in scope, if there are other issues (civility or edit warring or whatever) those are to be addressed separately The enforcement mechanism was short blocks, escalating if they didn't work. So what's the question? Is it "whether that move ban is still in force?" I'd say it is, until consensus forms that it shouldn't be. Is such a consensus forming? I see Duk making some good and valid points about how this is an important issue and how we need editors who can work these technical matters, but not a consensus yet. Anything else I can't really speak to. Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 19:08, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe why it took us so long to find the previous topic ban? :-) Do people really use that log page of the defunct noticeboard? I saw a mention in that thread you linked to where you said

"There has to be an exit strategy... does this ban last forever? That's why I suggested clear consensus. If he is absolutely banned we will never know if he has changed his ways. That said I'm not driving here, just supporting what I see consensus forming to be and I am, as we all are, open to discussion, I would think. Community bans or article bans are an area we are still feeling our way about, so I'm not sure where this would be recorded even... seems impolite to hang it on his userpage forever, but it will get lost here quickly. No idea what to suggest (maybe there already is a page and i forgot)" - Lar 18:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

That was followed immediately by a suggestion of a 6 month probation. I find it ironic that you emphasised not having an open-ended ban, and then that was what resulted (though as you said, you were not driving the discussion), but the bit about not being sure where to record it, and it "getting lost here quickly" is ironic. The page it is on is now marked "This Wikipedia page is currently inactive and is retained primarily for historical interest." It was found again, but it seems people did forget about it! Carcharoth 19:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

(partly outdent) I supported the CSN and in particular the log subpage, when it was first created, as a way to not lose things. AN/I runs so fast it is very easy to lose track of long term probations, community topic bans and the like. What CSN mutated into is a different topic but to have a ban get lost as it seems this one did, just seems a bad outcome, so I do not support the marking of that page as historic. It logs bans that are still in force, in some cases, and the tag ought to be removed. I'm not sure what else you're asking though, if anything. If the community wants to change the terms of this particular move/topic ban around, they should feel free to do so, and this seems the place to discuss it and reach a consensus. I haven't thought deeply enough about this recently to have a strong opinion about what the right thing to do is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lar (talk • contribs) 19:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, things seem to have slowed down again with this discussion. Did the CSN discussions have a set time to run, or did they just reach a natural conclusion? The old CSN Log page should probably be moved, or the current logs copied, to a Log subpage at AN, or wherever AN keeps its records... There definitely needs to be somewhere for community bans to be logged. You mentioned not putting them on user talk pages - well, there is some logic in putting a notice there, like for warning templates, but then you will get people saying that users have the right to remove them, just like they can for warning templates. An argument could be made that community sanctions are more serious, and so the notice should stay for the duration of the topic ban. It could be controversial though. What do others think? Carcharoth 21:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't recall how long things ran for before consensus was called on the CSN. But I think that irrelevant in this case, as this particular move restriction was arrived at, as I recall, at AN/I and only documented on the CSN. This is water over the dam at this point but I favoured the CSN for documenting things. Not necessarily for the later elaboration of being a place to arrive at things to document. There needs to be somewhere for bans to be logged that is independent of the user's own talk page, I think that is a better approach than saying "we have this rule about talk page removals which applies here and here but not there warnings are OK but ban notices aren't, except as applied under paragraph 3C but not in subsection 41g " :) ... ++Lar: t/c 01:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been looking into this a bit more deeply, and Gene does have a point. Not many people are aware that redirects are needed from non-diacritic titles, and that category sorting keys need to use non-diacritic characters (please be honest and say whether you knew the latter point about sort keys before reading these threads). Gene's method of using page moves to draw more attention to this sort of thing is not good, but rather than block him and brush this under the carpet, we need to consider how to make more people aware of the need for non-diacritic redirects and non-diacritic sort keys. I know a bit about this, because I recently suggested a bot to fix the use of non-diacritic sort keys (the bot would also need to make lower case letters at the start of words, into upper case letters, an eliminate punctuation like apostrophes). I also read Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive141#Is this disruption?, and one point Gene raised there was not addressed. Does anyone know whether search engines ignore diacritics or not? Gene's point was: "Redirects don't solve all the problems; articles can still be hidden from many search engine searches as a result of these moves accompanied by spelling changes within the article itself." Could someone try and address that, please? I did a test search for Ramūnas Šiškauskas, by searching for "Ramunas Siskauskas", and the Wikipedia article still appeared at the top of the search results (Google). I think that if we get a bot correcting the sort keys, and make an effort to encourage creation of redirects (a thankless task, but one that is needed), then we might be able to get somewhere. A similar case is for redirects involving middle initials, or forename initials. These too are desperately needed to turn redlinks blue, and this should be separated out from the disputes over where exactly among a plethora of alternatives the article should reside. Carcharoth 16:17, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Again, Husond, you are mixing the civility dispute with the diacritics dispute. Separate the two, and focus on Gene's recent edits to make your case. Otherwise your request for a targeted sanction isn't credible. more comments to come... --Duk 17:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Carcharoth, you're right that the diacritic indexing is little-known. But the correct way to educate people is not by calling them simplistic or calling them fools (that last talk page is a nice example of Gene Nygaard's diplomacy skills). —Wknight94 (talk) 17:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey I didn't start all this! :-) But be it, Gene's incivility comes from his views on diacritics so these issues can hardly be dissociated. I don't even think that there's much point in focusing much on recent events, as Gene's misbehavior has remained unchanged for years. Block after block, here we are. I think it's time for an effective remedy to be found. Húsönd 18:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. It strikes me as odd that he mixes the two. How diacritics are sorted in a category hardly seems worth warring over and yet he has done so for years. I once suggested that he request a bot to take care of those but was met with yet another snippy response. If a bot could do something, it can't be worth getting uncivil for. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:12, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me, Husond, that your remedy is to silence an editor with views different than your own. You are using argument B (incivility) to win argument A (the content dispute). Have you no shame? --Duk 18:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me, Duk, that your comments will henceforth be largely ignored by me. Húsönd 18:47, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey, can we concentrate on Gene, and not you two, please? :-) Carcharoth 18:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Some comments:

1. Gene's incivility - This is highly subjective. It has never bothered me in the least - even when directed at me. For others, it is highly upsetting, and I respect their feelings. Others probably don't really don't care. And still others play up the incivility because they didn't do well in a content debate with Gene, even if these people can't recognize or admit it. Since this is highly subjective, there needs to be many views heard. This is a case where it is not acceptable for off-wiki collusion among buddies to make these judgments. There seems to be a growing consensus here for simple blocks of varying duration every time Gene pisses off enough people.
2. Content disputes - In the past, I've seen people in content disputes with Gene who don't do to well debating him, so they switch to his incivility - trying to use argument B to win argument A. I hope we are all smart enough here not to accept this. Many of Gene's battles revolve around his familiar refrain "why the hell isn't the English Wikipedia written in English". Husond gets close to mixing these two in the first paragraph of this section. They need to be separate, and Gene has done well lately, I believe, in not revert warring over page name moves. Therefore, I don't agree with a diacritics-related ban. If Husond wants to make a case for this, he needs to separate the content dispute from the civility dispute, and to look at recent editing. It seems to me that Husond just wants to silence an editor who he has a content dispute with.
3. Making a place for technical editors - I've seen many editors that are detail orientated. They tend to work hard and specialize in a focused area, becoming highly skilled in that particular area. They shoot for project-wide consistency, which inevitably brings conflict. These editors are generally non-social. They don't hang out in irc or come to the project to make a lot of friends, which puts them at a natural disadvantage when disputes arise. These types of editors also tend to be stubborn as hell, but valuable to the project. They are immune to social pressure and only listen to logic. There is a lot to gain by finding ways to include these types of editors, but many people don't understand how to interact with them. In a few cases, I've seen editors like this become embroiled in ever growing conflicts over amazingly trivial stuff - and eventually leaving. The important thing to realize here that both sides of the dispute were being stubborn. The inability to get along wasn't one-sided.
4. All that being said - I support Guy's latest block of Gene and hope he comes back with better behavior. --Duk 18:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Duk's points here. I too see people (not specifically in this case, but it might apply), getting upset when they are shown that they have been doing something wrong. Wounded pride and that, but so unnecessary. It doesn't help if the person pointing out that you have done something wrong is being rude or uncivil, but words like "fool" and "simple" can be shrugged off if you take a philosophical view - though I can understand some people getting upset with that. The best response is to swallow your pride and thank the editor for pointing out the mistake. The next point is crucial (though it doesn't work well if no-one is watching): let someone else call the offending editor out on incivility (ironically, I think wikiquette alerts are meant to allow this, which is what started all this). As the person who has just been hurt, you won't be the best person to deal with the situation. If anyone then "uses argument B to win argument A", well, I agree with Duk, that is indefensible (note that I'm not saying anyone has specifically done this). Finally, Duk's point about technical editors is an excellent one. Good contributors are sometimes naturally cranky people, and not good at social interaction, preferring to call a spade a spade. If that spills over into incivility, it does need to be restrained, but, like Duk, I think technical editors are invaluable to the project. Strong warnings when they are incivil, rather than immediate blocks, might be best. A strong warning probably helps more than a block in some cases. Anyway, if anyone is interested in the bot proposal, it is linked from User talk:Gene Nygaard. Carcharoth 19:06, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I understand that some people are cranky by nature, but that doesn't mean that others have to put up with their crankiness. Strong warnings have proved useless with Gene, as he never apologizes or makes the slightest effort to change his behavior. On Wikipedia, all users have the right to communicate with Gene Nygaard (or any other user) without being spit on. Húsönd 01:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Husond, I partially agree with you here. I've never shortened or unblocked Gene, nor have I condoned his incivility. He doesn't get passes, unlike some of our more high profile admins. As for his being able to change: in his last 5,000 edits he's moved 14 pages with diacritics - all apparently straight forward, with proper edit summaries and no warring involved (as far as I could tell). That's a change, wouldn't you admit? Yet you come here asking for diacritic-related community sanctions. Things like this makes it very difficult to take anything you say seriously when it concerns Gene. Mayby Gene isn't the only one who needs to change a little.

Now, back to that high profile admin I mentioned - not going to mention his name because he's a great guy and I've no desire to run him down. There was an ANI discussion a while back about when to block for "persistent personal attacks". I noted that it was never a part of the blocking policy until recently. I went and found out who added it, then looked at his recent edits. In a period of three days I see him making the following comments:calling someone's opinion "ass clownery", "delete nominator", "Shut up and quit being a disgrace", "Ah, I see you're a different attention-seeking pissant entirely. My mistake." Suffice it to say that he is a well connected and popular member of the administrator community with a spotless block record. Again, I'm not trying to legitimize this behavior, but rather to put it into perspective.

I think we should drop these outdated diacritic-page-move charges, they are currently being used as a bludgeon with no facts to back them up. His category/page sorting is fine too. Hunsond should stay away from Gene and stop filing complaints. An impartial admin should hand Gene blocks with a minimum of fuss and drama when merited - call it a community sanctioned civility parol if you like, but I don't think the pomp is necessary. --Duk 03:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the incivility and the content/formatting issues should be separated as much as possible - there is enough of a problem with the former, and that's what we are dealing with here. I made this post to WP:AN/I with just a selection of Gene's interactions - just from the last month. I don't think you should underestimate quite how many editors have had problems with his incivility, and something really needs to change here.

• Incivility may be "subjective", but how many editors' "subjective" annoyance are we going to ignore?
• The problems may surface in content disputes, but there are always going to be such disputes - which is exactly why WP:CIVIL exists. He has every right to hold strong views, but he only has the privilege to edit and express them civilly.
• I don't see why "technical editors" should be awarded privilege over other content-producing editors. Here we have Gene telling a new (and now valuable) editor to stop contributing new articles in an area Wikipedia was weak on, just because he didn't know about sort keys. The motto of Wikipedia is certainly not "The free encyclopedia anyone who knows our MOS and formatting rules can edit". How many new editors stopped contributing because their first interaction was with Gene? Is it worth losing all their possible contributions because they haven't read about DEFAULTSORT, or format a unit incorrectly? Is it worth losing them because we can't tackle one user's incivility?
• If you want technical editors who tend to be "stubborn as hell" and who we "don't understand how to interact with them" to be better integrated, might it not be an idea as a first step to tell them not to pick numerous fights by placing rude comments on people's talk pages out of the blue? If they have already been asked not to, but still proceed to do so as in this case, how else are you going to persuade the rest of the community to get on with them?
• "just let other people call him on his incivility" - isn't that exactly what we're doing now, anyway?
• This guy has been here a very long time. Over this time he has had bans, blocks, warnings and complaints from more people than I have had any interaction with. And he hasn't changed a bit, he's still doing it. So, what is the plan? Mondegreen 13:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Mondegreen - some of your post is correct relevant and I agree with it. Other parts are just fantasy. Nowhere did anyone say "technical editors" should be awarded privilege over other content-producing editors. Not even close. Or this: you want technical editors who tend to be "stubborn as hell". Where did you get these ideas? I'm quite sure no one is suggesting anything of the sort. I see where you picked and chose some of the words, but you present them with a completely different meaning than they were offered. Mis-representing what people say might be valuable as propaganda, but it won't help to reach a rational consensus. Please, lets try to be accurate here.

So, what is the plan? several people have made suggestions, including myself (see the end of my previous post). What's yours? --Duk 14:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• The "stubborn as hell" is a pure misunderstanding due to my unclear wording - it would have been less ambiguous if I had written "you would like us to integrate better with even those technical editors, who are "stubborn as hell" and "who we don't understand..". Hopefully that makes it clearer, and easier to understand what I intended.
• As for the technical editors' "privilege" - I just couldn't see why in the section "making a place for technical editors" we were making a distinction, perceived or otherwise, between "technical editors" and the rest whoever they may be. I think it's an untrue generalisation that people who specialise in detail, formatting and technical issues are different to interact with than other users. If someone places a rude comment on a talk page, we shouldn't feel less aggrieved because their contributions indicate a knowledge of the intricacies of punctuation/diacritics/formatting/units/etc.
• I wish I had a foolproof plan - if I had one, I would present it. However, I don't feel what was presented will work for the reasons I gave above. Still, there is a lot of possibilities offered by the structure here - hopefully someone can find a creative solution somewhere between the unhappy extremes of "chastise, cross fingers and hope he'll learn" (tried, failed, the encyclopaedia risks losing contributors) and an indefinite block (the encyclopaedia loses Gene's skills). Mondegreen 15:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not about whether he likes or dislikes diacritics —being the first person to have mentioned them by name a few paragraphs up I wanted to clarify this—, but the fact that he can get incredibly uncivil, accussed other editors of bad faith and upset many good editors non the way. He may think he has a point but there are many ways to do things. Regards, Asterion^talk 21:37, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Duk has left a note for Gene on his talk page which I believe sums up the situation and what the community wants from Gene almost perfectly - correct me if I am wrong, and many thanks to Duk for that. (I personally just disagree with the statement "a lot of people want to see (Gene) banned permanently" - I think the vast majority want his continued contribution, just without the rudeness). The response to this should dictate what happens next. Mondegreen 17:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Husond has left a message for Rlverse in which he credits Gene's break for a refreshing lack of diacritics conflicts. This is an outright bald-face lie. I earlier pointed out (here) that since Gene's return he's made over 5,000 edits with vastly improved behavior on the diacritics front. But this isn't enough for Hunsond: After losing his diacritics-ban request on merit, he then goes and tries to win it by unfairly maligning Gene behind his back. I'd like to ask that Hunsond stay away from Gene, cease filing frivolous complaints against him and stop misrepresenting his behavior behind his back. --Duk 17:28, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the problems with diacritic page-moves were solved by User:Lar and the discussions at AN/I and the then CSN. Hopefully the current and more pressing civility problem can be sorted just as effectively here. Mondegreen 17:41, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Duk's talk page message for Gene is a good one. I too share concerns about Husond's over-emphasis on the diacritics problem. I have taken another look at Gene's move log, and checked Duk's statement "in his last 5,000 edits he's moved 14 pages with diacritics". Going back around 14 diacritics-related moves, I get to 11 April 2007 (when 5000 edits takes us back to October 2007), so in my view Gene has been more restrained even than Duk is saying. Duk is right that most of the moves have informative edit summaries (eg. "revert undiscussed, unreferenced change of spelling of this Canadian's name which is contrary to that in all cited sources"). There are several moves I agree with. I think Husond will have to make a better case than he has made so far. Carcharoth 18:14, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that Gene tends towards incivility and that the incivility is made all the less necessary by the triviality of the subject (at least that's how I view the diacritics issue in general and the category sorting even more so), I don't think those add up to a topic ban. I think the civility issues are unrelated to the topic and that he would have civility difficulties no matter what room you locked him in. Block him outright or don't block him - but a topic ban is not appropriate in this case. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The community ban is still in place afaik. It's merely a sympton of the larger problem of disruption and incivility. He's had plenty of chances and warnings. If after the 1 week block is over, he continues in this pattern, he should be indef blocked. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Rlevse, I've been reading through the previous discussions you linked to further up the page, and I think what we have here is a case of the people who have dealt with Gene in the past not wanting to rehash the same old arguments, and calling for a block because they are unwilling to work with Gene any further, and pointing to his past behaviour as a reason for the block. In all the discussions I've read so far, Gene has argued his side well (even if he might not always be right), and sometimes (in my opinion) others have been wrong when he is right. Also, I'm not finding the massive incivility some are claiming here. More diffs on that would be appreciated. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have an interest in sortkeys and naming conventions, and I appreciate the type of work Gene does, so I would be prepared to work with Gene on these issues, and to try and calm down any future disputes that may arise. If Gene accepts this (I'll leave a note on his talk page), would that be acceptable to those with an interest in this matter? Carcharoth 00:06, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Duk, please stop it. You should be well aware that users wishing to take part in a constructive discussion must assume good faith, so I ask you to please cease your accusations. It disturbs me that you decided to pick a comment I left on another user's talk page to fabricate a series of far-fetched judgments regarding my conduct or my intents. I'm not setting out to create a backstabbing complot against Gene Nygaard. Nor have I lost any diacritics-ban request, I just proposed something of that kind as a possible remedy for discussion. Again, assume good faith and refrain from accusing me for no good reason. And since I'm being pushed into this discussion again, here are my views on this matter very clearly detailed so that there's no further misinterpretation of my acts or position:

• Gene Nygaard is an uncivil user who'll treat any users disagreeing with him with snideness at best, gross incivility at worst.
• Gene Nygaard does not assume good faith.
• Gene Nygaard is impervious to arguments but his own.
• Gene Nygaard will exhaust other users with endless discussions around his very same point.
• Gene Nygaard does a good job on Wikipedia when he's not butting heads with other users for his views on diacritics.
• Gene Nygaard's conflicts are always related to diacritics usage.
• Gene Nygaard is clearly not worth discussing with after this.
• Gene Nygaard has wasted countless hours of users' precious time in discussions about his behavior, most of which were fruitless.
• Gene Nygaard should be indef blocked from Wikipedia for the benefit of the project and its participants, unless he stops mistreating other users (unrealistic option) or is banned from dealing with diacritics (an option meant to hypothetically eliminate the root of all problems).

These are my views, which were already well known by users who were involved in previous discussions where I participated about Gene Nygaard's conduct. I would now appreciate if the subject of this thread keeps focusing on Gene instead of shifting to me. Thank you. Húsönd 23:53, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh. I'd just finished writing this, and then I see what you wrote after saving that edit. You obviously have a long history with Gene. Would you be happy to let things go for a while and try something different and see if it works? Carcharoth 00:13, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Although skeptical, I'm open to all kinds of alternatives. :-) Húsönd 00:27, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New user closing AfD Discussion after 2 hours

I was just looking at the AfD list for today, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lee Jones (author) has been closed as a Speedy Keep, after less than 2 hours, by User:Icestorm815, a user who had only been editing actively for about 2 months. I have no opinion on outcome of the AfD itself, but this nomination was made by an admin in good faith. Even if another admin had closed it so quickly it would have been suspect. Two of the four keep !voters have edited the article, so not exactly unbiased consensus either way.

The point is, a relatively new user should not be closing good faith AfDs after less than 2 hours. Could an admin deal with this and possibly let User:Icestorm815 how things work there? If this continues we'll be getting users closing any AfD they disagree after a couple of hours just because someone said "speedy keep". Crazysuit 05:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

• It's a valid speedy keep, but as usual (frustratingly) the assertions of notability and the claim of many sources have not translated into edits to the article. This often happens with AfD, and means that it might all happen again. So if you'd like to encourage the keep advocates to improve the article, you'd be doing the project a service. Guy (Help!) 08:52, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Please also note comments being made at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poker#Lee Jones.--Alf ^melmac 09:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no major problems with non-admins and even new users closing discussions as long as they follow policy. The main concern is the possibility of abuse, by closing discussions prematurely or closing with a COI. But we have Wikipedia:Deletion review for that, and users are warned or even blocked if they abuse the process. Apparently, this particular case warranted a Speedy Keep, so no harm was done. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 11:06, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but how exactly did this qualify as a speedy keep? It comes nowhere close, as far as I can see. There was nowhere near enough time for discussion whether the (admittedly many) web sources do indeed constitute non-trivial coverage in reliable sources. Most web hits seem to be from either booksellers, or private blogs or commercial sites. Do any of these qualify as reliable sources? I'll have no problem if it should in fact be determined that they do, but it's not something about which a SNOW-like consensus can simply be assumed. Recommend overturning this invalid non-admin closure and waiting out the discussion period. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:59, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Yep, it's one of those where if you know who the subject is, the nomination appears ridiculous, but if you don't... ELIMINATORJR 12:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

...then knowledgeable folks should add information to provide context to the article. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. ELIMINATORJR 14:02, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

That's why I said apparently. (:-) - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 14:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment on the main topic here: has anyone determined whether or not this new user is actually an old user wearing a new coat? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

A litle AGF is needed here. The bottom line is to determine whether the speedy closure in question was valid, which I think it is. If anything, we should be pleased that there are experienced non-administrators who are willing to help out with the AfD backlog. PeaceNT 12:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

interjected comment I was not failing to assume good faith; I was pointing out that one reason why a person might do a complex or knowledgeable task "right out of the gate" is that this might be an established user with a new name; not accusing of sock-puppetry as there are good reasons why people abandon one name in favor of another. Sorry it I came off as failing to assume good faith; that was not my intention. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:56, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

end interjected comment

I've overturned the closure. There's no harm in having this go through the full process. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I support your action. If the Speedy Close rationale is contested by good-faith users, it should be overturned and relisted, but not just because of the user who closed it. However, I imagine further discussion on this issue is needed, maybe at a later period. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 21:24, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I agree, it was closed prematurely and incorrectly. But I do believe that this is a case that WILL snowball. Right now the !vote is at 8-1, and the 1 is a "conditional delete" asking for reliable sources---not realizing that Cardplayer Magazine is the magazine authority in Poker. Before closing this AIV, I would ask other admins to revisit the AFD to see if should be snowballed afterall. I believe that while it was closed early, that this is still a candidate for snowball.Balloonman 23:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

It looked like the added sources put it well into WP:SNOW territory, so I did another non-admin close. Hope that's ok...--uɐɔlnʌɟoʞǝɹɐs 19:11, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NNDB voting

I believe that users with a conflict of interest (and possibly multiple sockpuppets) are stacking the votes in the following tfd: Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2007_October_29#Template:Nndb_name. I would appreciate wider input as we should not be linking to this website which is uncorrectable, unverifiable and with extremely dubious origins/purposes, let alone be having a template for it. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 12:01, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The conflict of interest on this tfd is likely continuing so I would appreciate further input. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 17:55, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the Nndb issue, but at a quick glance, I see no evidence of canvassing or socking. Can you please provide some additional detail here? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 18:28, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

There's certainly someone canvassing here, but it's Gustav: [14] [15]. Xihr 21:14, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why there would be evidence of canvassing or socking as people can organize it all away from this website. I have asked other people to comment because I believe this is exactly what they are doing. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 21:50, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

What? I cannot divine any sense out of that reply. The two links above demonstrate without a doubt that you have canvassed for replies. That is all. Xihr 22:06, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence to suggest sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry here? I have no opinion whatsoever on this template as I'd never heard of it or NNDB prior to reading this post & the TFD, but all the votes there seem to be from established legitimate editors. There also seem to be some COI allegations flying around on that TFD with no foundation whatsoever (which seem to boil down to "You've previously edited a page on a topic related to this"). — iridescent 22:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Range blocks on schools

Would it be appropriate to range block a school district for a long period of time? The range in question is 167.135.0.0/16. I have not been able to find any non-vandal edits so far by this range (using WikiScanner). --- RockMFR 17:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead if they are not productive This is a Secret ^account 18:19, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

You may find putting the {{schoolblock}} template in the block reason field helpful. Natalie 19:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Checkuser case needs review of sockpuppets

This case needs an administrator to block any abusive sockpuppets that were turned up. EoL talk 00:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Y Done - Alison ^❤ 01:02, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:UAA

WP:UAA needs some attention. If an administrator could check it out, it would be appreciated. EoL talk 00:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I've just cleared the board. Username violations aren't generally urgent requests, that's why sometimes there's a small backlog. Ryan Postlethwaite 01:11, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PalestineRemembered‎ (talk · contribs)

I was under the impression that PalestineRemembered (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) had been placed under community mentorship. He was assigned Zscout370 (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights) as his mentor, but Zscout370 has since resigned from this role, leaving PalestineRemembered with no mentor. I'm a little concerned that he now seems to have chosen his own mentor (Kendrick7 (talk · contribs)) to replace Zscout370. If my memory serves me correct, I've seen Kendrick7 come out in support of Palestine remembered on a number of occasions, most notably his request for arbitration. I think it's best if a neutral mentor is assigned, and one chosen by the community - thoughts? Ryan Postlethwaite 02:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm willing to do it as long as someone will familiarize me with the history of the dispute. east.718 at 02:06, 11/5/2007

Mm, I wonder where a nice, neutral mentor could be found **looks at Ryan** :] I Like To^Talk 02:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, I volunteered. As far as support, I may have assumed good faith beyond what others were willing to assume at certain points. But having worked in the past in the same series of articles as PR, which are a uniquely troublesome area of the wikipedia to work in (involving an ongoing civil war), I had hoped I'd be uniquely qualified for the job. But, whatever is clever. -- Kendrick7^talk 02:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Kendrick7 volunteered when nobody else did; he wasn't selected from among multiple volunteers. See User talk:PalestineRemembered#Can I be your new mentor?. A dual mentorship might be best; Kendrick has more recent editing experience in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict areas than Ryan does, so he definitely brings an experience of what the mud in the trenches is like that Ryan doesn't have. Ryan is an admin, which Kendrick7 isn't. The combination could be good. We have one other dual mentorship in this dispute area; Isarig is being mentored by FayssalF and Avi. GRBerry 02:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

1. I could not agree more with Ryan and I note that PR's suggestion that he's already got a mentor^[16] confuses me.
2. I have no qualms with Ryan's suggestion that he'd mentor PR or with East718 for that matter, however i fail to see how Kendrik7 is a qualified well established admin of the caliber of Avi and/or FayssalF. His initial statement that, he's "always taken a shine to (e.g. PR)"^[17] and that he does not understand the last block (intentional repetition of WP:NPA despite warnings from mentors and non-involved editors) was enough to illustrate a would be problem.
3. I still believe PR should be topic banned until some mentorship rules be established. as of now, he continues to soapbox and shows a strong disregard to context despite explanations [18][19].

-- Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 02:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I actually and literally did not understand the last block; I hadn't been paying attention for a while, and was oblivious to the exact circumstances even after reviewing PR's talk page. I am paying attention now however and was meaning to mention to PR to be kinder in his edit summaries. Topic banning PR does little good, as he is a permitted WP:SPA which only edits in this area. (If I had such wisdom long ago, I'd be an probably be an admin by now.) -- Kendrick7^talk 03:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind that idea, GRBerry. Between myself and Ryan we could be the old carrot and stick. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the specifics, here, but I generally trust Ryan to be neutral, experienced, and even-handed. No disrespect intended to East, I'm just not as familiar with you, personally (yet!). Kendrick sounds willing and familiar with the matters at hand; it may not hurt to have a sympathetic mentor, provided there's also some balance to the mentoring. If everybody's open to trying a new way to solve problems, I'd say I could think of much worse arrangements. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• Mentee speaks - I have a concern that each of my mentors has been bombarded with volleys of baseless allegations, both against me and against the mentors. As each of these people has shown their commitment to the process and project, each has suffered increasing degrees of personal harassment. In each case, this harassment has escalated to such a degree as to adversely affect their own participation in the project. One of these mentors was forced to resign, one was de-syssoped and one has been blocked permanently (only the last of these for reasons generally understandable to the community).
• Needless to say, the harassment of mentors has largely been carried out away from the public eye - but see here for two public examples of this nastiness. And see User:Jaakobou/GeniVolunteering for a page that was created (but then deleted by administrative action) as an "Attack Page".
• Furthermore, this pattern of harassment is not new to me and my "mentorship" - it's engulfed everyone who has sought to defend my generally solid editing. Every one of the (very largely) evidence-free and inconclusive "disciplinaries" brought against me have led to many other editors themselves suffering immediate personal attack. When these editors are not silenced immediately by this treatment, then in many (all?) cases, further "disciplinaries" have been opened - this time against them. These payback attacks have often been on grounds so trivial as to amount to malice.
• I'm nervous of documenting behavior so unpleasant and inimicable to honest editing because doing so is bound to make these other editors feel still more uncomfortable. However, there is one individual who has been so patient with his attackers, whose scholarship is so obvious and his value to the project so great that I'll link to the attack on him. I fail to understand why the individual who made that complaint hasn't been summararily ejected from the project.
• Back to my own case - it's not even as if this harassment is confined to editors expressing their opinion that I've done little or nothing wrong. An early attempt to get rid of me permanently was a transparently false accusation I'd used the Holocaust Deniers for information. I was effectively blocked for weeks - a complete stranger came forwards to act as my "advocate" during this time. Amongst other time-wasting unpleasantnesses, this person was aggressively grilled by an administrator in good standing for coming forwards. My advocate answered the questions in detail and then quit, not surprisingly.
• The time must soon be coming when people who set out to make accept good faith impossible in these ways suffer the consequences. Any real or potential problems with my participation couldn't possibly be doing as much damage as this harassment of me and others. Some readers of this might even think my only crime is putting good information into articles and the accusations against me come entirely from editors who have content disputes with me.
• Finally, I put it to the community that my mentorship (which could only have been of limited use in the first place) has been rendered impossible by the reckless behavior we're seeing. A mentor has come forward and I'm grateful to him - but a wave of poison will make his best efforts (and his very participation) impossible unless and until real problematical editors are dealt with. PR^talk 12:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I would support a dual mentorship. Ryan is an experienced admin while Kendrick is an experienced editor of Israeli-Arab subjects. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 10:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

As Kendrick7 seems to have edited many of the same areas as PalestineRemembered, and has been involved in disputes with some of the same editors, I don't think it would be a very good idea for him to mentor. A mentor with not even the appearance of any possible involvement would be the best move here. One that has had community trust confirmed with the mop or beyond, like Ryan, may be even better. Tewfik^Talk 11:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tewfik that Ryan and an uninvolved editor would be a better choice. ~ Riana ⁂ 12:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Assuming Ryan wants to, he'd be a good choice. I think the other also needs to be an admin, and not an "ally". I think the "Isarig model" was a good one and it should include a topic ban like Isarig's did. I'm interested to see how it works out in both cases. Hopefully, it will be to the projects's benefit -but if not, we need broadly respected mentors who will have creditability if they need to say that the experiment has failed. <<-armon->> 12:35, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Please remind me what PR ever did that would merit a topic ban? (I believe, by contrast, Isarig was caught sockpuppetting?) I do get concerned that, because of the steady drum beat for sanctions like topic bans just being casually tossed off towards PR, that some flyover admin might hear those drums from 20,000 feet and believe they portend more than they do, and not give PR a fair shake. I've at least gone native long enough to know that editors in this topic area simply enjoy banging on drums, even though this may have resulted a handful of editorial disagreements (none of which I would call a "dispute") I've had there. -- Kendrick7^talk 13:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

That bad, huh? I guess since I haven't put in work like Ryan like or FayssalF, I'll defer to them, especially since FayssalF has a much stronger history of mediating disputes than me. east.718 at 15:21, 11/5/2007

Yup, really that bad. The situation is that three editors have now attempted mentoring of me and none saw any reason to vote me off the island. Two of them effectively had no complaints. The last of my mentors declared I should be temporarily blocked for a genuine (and only slightly tongue-in-cheek) attempt at dispute resolution here: "Tell me your problem". Why that should be blockable is quite difficult to understand, it's the fifth (and mildest) consecutive complaint on that editors TalkPage about his conduct. See Warning, Junk mail, Stop harassing me and Stop, so 4 other editors had simultaneous problems with his conduct, perhaps even more severe than the problems I was having.

But two of those three mentors were sanctioned severely within a few days of coming forwards, and the third lasted 3 weeks under increasing unpleasant harassment before being bypassed completely with another worthless "disciplinary" on me. I was going to say it's become effectively impossible for anyone to come forward and offer to honestly mentor me. However, Kendrick has done so, and (although I know almost nothing about him) I believe him to be genuine, as I'm quite sure you were.

Fortunately, the conditions of my mentoring are that I get to choose who does it. FayssalF has only blocked me once and did not harass my "advocate", so I might choose him if you and Kendrick have really been bullied into withdrawing before you've started. But if you ask me, it's farcical to expect anything worthwhile to come out of a system so entirely dominated by harassment. PR^talk 16:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I haven't been bullied into anything, I'm pretty much flameproof. It's just that I agree with Luna Santin and Tewfik's sentiments. east.718 at 16:27, 11/5/2007

I'm all good here, though I get the sneaking suspicion that Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict has officially entered project phase six.... -- Kendrick7^talk 18:27, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm with FayssalF (talk · contribs) on this one. Kendrick hasn't actually demonstrated any negative actions here, and we really are dealing hypothetically. However, the concerns raised by Ryan are something we'd best nip in the bud, just to be on the safe side, so I definitely think a joint-Mentorship between an experienced Administrator (best-case scenario, Ryan, if he's up for it), and Kendrick. The combination of trust and article experience here would be the best course of action. Anthøny 19:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd really like to see someone who is neutral involved in this, even if it is a joint-mentorship. -- John Reaves 00:12, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm obviously happy to act as PR's mentor - consensus here seems to suggest that there should be a dual mentorship put in place with someone familiar with the articles in question - I'll take a look to see if I can find someone neutral (I'll take a close look at Kendrick7 as he may or may not be suitable for the role). Ryan Postlethwaite 18:01, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mentorship may no longer be viable

Recently, PR approached me on my talk page to contibute here. However, the method by which he did so, which is, unfortunately in line with many of his edits since the discussion regarding his potential ban, leads me to believe that mentorship may no longer be capable of serving its intended function.

There is something that needs to be seriously considered. If a number of different people have tried to be mentors, and it hasn't worked out, perhaps the problem is not with the others? As a very recent example:

Your "mentorship" proposal might have been a subterfuge to get others to muzzle me…

– PalestineRemembered , User talk:Avraham—09:50, November 6, 2007

This is a classic example of assuming bad faith. PR were one step removed from being banned from Palestine/Israel related topics, if not indef blocked. I come along, someone whose politics and point-of-view can be easily determined to be rather different from his, and argue, successfully, for one last shot for him. If I wanted to muzzle him, all I had to to was remain quiet. Nevertheless, he found himself incapable of discussing this issue with me without applying some form of personal attack, whether implied or overt.

This is but one example of any number of incidents where he found it necessary to contribute or respond using sarcasm, implied or overt personal attacks, and otherwise demonstrate a lack of respect for his fellow editors, whether they agreed with him or not.

This is also why I begin to despair that mentorship will serve its purpose, as like the old joke goes, "How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? One, but only if it wants to." Mentorship is used to help editors, whose editing style has been deemed disruptive enough to wikipedia that they are the topic of discussion regarding a block or a ban, to change their habits and attempt to follow the rules. In the face of evidence that the editor has no intention of abiding by the policies and guidelines, mentorship is useless. I fear that mentorship is fast becoming a non-viable option for PR. -- Avi 15:17, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

BTW, for the record, the full quote was "Your 'mentorship' proposal might have been a subterfuge to get others to muzzle me - but I don't believe that was your intention." But hey, let's go ahead and take quotes completely out of context while complaining about WP:AGF. All's fair in love and civil wars and all.... -- Kendrick7^talk 03:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry to see you misread a reasonable question posted to your TalkPage so badly. I thought you'd appreciate the heads-up. I specifically cleared you of any possibility that you'd proposed mentoring as a means to muzzle me. I thought you'd be interested to know (in case you'd not noticed) that the mentoring (which I've treated with accept good faith and even enthusiasm) has clearly gone badly wrong. But it's not me that has embarked on a reign of terror on each of the brave people who've offered their services - and I contacted you hoping for comment on what was torpedoing the process. PR^talk 15:42, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

2) Further to the above, and to any reader who is extremely puzzled, please visit the CSN "disciplinary" that sentenced me to "mentoring". You'll find I was dragged over the coals for the only comment I've passed (in over a year and several thousand edits) that was generally agreed to be offensive (it's actually a question concerning conflict of interest, brushed off 3 times before I press it harder). Not particularily offensive by all accounts, because the important question comes down to "has PR made a legal threat"? I declare that I did not intend to make any threat, had no reason to do so and couldn't have benefited from doing so. (Others point out that it would be impossible for me to carry out any threat that might be implied). Pressed to plead guilty or not guilty, I declare that I don't believe I have made a "legal threat" - this is taken as proof that I'm incorrigible.

Look more closely - the "CSN" which convicted and sanctioned me above is/was the "Community Sanction Noticeboard". This system was cancelled shortly after my appearance there. I've not looked up the discussion on abandoning CSN, but I think the words "witch-hunt" and "kangaroo court" probably appear a lot. People might question whether any "decision" this CSN came to has any further validity - particularly when I was specifically permitted to choose my own mentor, and had done so without any problem. Look again at the allegations made at the beginning of this section. My concern (and the only reason I contacted Avi on his TalkPage) is that User:Kendrick7 will immediately suffer such severe personal harassment as to spoil (or quite likely end) his participation in the project.

Uninvolved observers might also be forgiven for thinking that a single purpose account such as this one, specifically permitted by policy, will suffer grave harassment - as will everyone defending my participation, and (most bizarre of all) the good-faith editors who volunteer to mentor me and examine my edits for the alleged but never identified "disruptive behavior" I might be carrying on in secret. What problem is it that people could possibly have with a user calling himself "PalestineRemembered"? PR^talk 16:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about me PR. You really need to learn that if people are going to climb all over themselves to twist your words (e.g. when a suggestion that an editor may have fought in the battle which article he is WP:TE editing suddenly, though a series of non sequitors, becomes a "legal threat") to give them as little ammo as possible. In other words, when you are in a hole stop digging. -- Kendrick7^talk 17:39, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm very worried about you. Three mentors have suffered really serious harassment, amply sufficient to stop them doing the job honestly - or indeed atall. That's why you're here, remember? Two of these mentors were clearly good-faith people, but equally clearly, they buckled under the pressure. One of them blocked me for something that's never been seen as "a problem" of mine by the community (and couldn't be, referencing previous enforcement decisions is part of the dispute process). Until that last incident, all the mentorings had run smoothly and well (quite limited amount of lip-biting on my part, nothing gory). I'm clearly not the smallest bit responsible for the spectacular failure of all those mentorships - but something is, and it's not going away.

In any case, I'm trapped now, I've accepted you. The very fore-shortened (and now discredited) CSN process required me to find a mentor. If (as is almost bound to happen) you're forced out by interference, I'll probably be saddled with someone skilled in POV-driven abusive processes. You and I should now be sitting down and sorting out what you/we're looking to achieve - but then I made at least some effort to do this with SpecialJane (blocked, likely correctly), Geni (badly harassed and bypassed) and Zscout370 (de-syssoped and resigned). My efforts to make their mentorships work was time-consuming - and entirely concerned content disputes (I think, perhaps I should check my memory doesn't fail me). Content disputes are pretty much the only thing that's ever been going on here, little (if anything?) to do with "problematic behavior" of mine. Unless you tell me differently of course - clearly, defending myself (and even attempting collegiate communication with others) comes across as something of a no-no! PR^talk 20:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Your personality comes off as a tad bombastic at times, and that has been your biggest problem. Of course if you weren't editing where you are editing, or even if you were editing from a pro-Israeli POV, I doubt anyone would be bringing your every offhand comment or mistaken citation up to critical review by the community at large. Admittedly, I'd be yipping and hollering bombastically too at this point if I were you, but hopefully this whole mess up to now has been sufficiently seared into the collective memory and there won't be any more problems going forward; this will require both you biting you tongue a bit more often, and the community being more committed towards assuming good faith towards you, despite your occasional bombastic remark or two. As I've said before, you're first few blocks ran fairly askew of WP:BITE, and then you were blocked for being blocked too much, and then nearly indef banned for being blocked too much twice now, and the mentorship requirement again followed from much of this same mess, and then even editors willing to mentor you got hounded off. It all seems a little absurd, but I'm confident every thing will work better going forward. If you continue to have issues with people deleting sourced content from articles, you should report them. If they believe the material is POV, it's their responsibility to bring forth sources with the opposing POV to balance the article. "The elimination of article content cannot be justified under" WP:NPOV "by simply labeling it 'POV'." -- Kendrick7^talk 21:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll happily get back to editing, and I'm convinced things will work out too. Shall I open this User:PalestineRemembered/Kendrick7 new page? PR^talk 21:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a more generic User:PalestineRemembered/Mentorship would be better. You might still want to find an experienced admin as a secondary mentor. -- Kendrick7^talk 22:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm your admin mentor, I'm currently trying to find someone neutral who edits similar pages as you do. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:47, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

PR seems to be under the impression he can choose his own mentor(s), though I admit the terms at the discussion were never clearly spelled out, so it's unclear how WP:MENTOR should be applied. If you think I'm not neutral because I thought he should go thru with the ArbCom to clear his name, the opening entry at the CSN entry there suggests I was advising him of the correct course, as it blithely brought up all the past false allegations all over again. As you repeatedly asked him to drop the opportunity to clear his name, I might question your neutrality on the same grounds. -- Kendrick7^talk 01:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

PR has been placed under community mentorship, so the community decide who mentors him. My concern with you being a joint mentor is that you will not listen to valid concerns that are being brought up. In many ways, this is a last chance for PR, if this mentorship fails again, then there is a real possibility of greater sanctions being brought against him such as a topic ban or going back to arbitration. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:33, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I presume that you're responding to my "Mentee speaks, #2" statement below. I'm not sure I need to comment further on "valid concerns" or "mentorship fails" or "topic ban", each of which I and others seem to have covered in some detail already. If you have any other concerns (preferably ones that have not already been exhaustively dealt with), I trust you or others will put them to me directly.

But it might be useful to re-state that I pleaded for the ArbCom case that bears my name to be taken to completion (even while others applied heavy pressure on me to drop it). It's been suggested before that "my" ArbCom case be re-opened, and I've concurred at least twice now. If harassment of educated, good-faith editors by the other sort is to be the way the project works, then it would save an enormous amount of aggravation and time-wasting for respected administrators such as yourself give it the green light. Alternatively, if there are red-lines (eg that "Jews Against Zionism.com" are an extreme minority directly equivalent to Kahane, and that we cannot speak of a 2002 incident as the "Jenin Massacre") then it would only be proper to spell them out. PR^talk 13:21, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

• Mentee speaks, $2
• If people need more evidence of process being abused to silence editors, outside the I-P conflict, please see the ArbCom Workshop currently going on here. (It's not I-P conflict, but still an area "unpopular" to some strands of Western opinion). I cannot guarantee that my contributions are 100% fair/accurate (I changed one of them slightly yesterday), but I think it reasonable to state that the time and effort of a good-faith and generally scholarly editor is being wasted by another editor for content dispute reasons. My impression (as documented by me and others at the ArbCom-Workshop) is that the accuser is worse than the accused, both on research and conduct of contribution. The case looks to me as if it's been pushed along in a partisan fashion, against the evidence.
• I can bring that particular case to your attention because the editor faced with sanctions is someone with whom I've never communicated, and who has never (that I'm aware of) edited any of the I-P conflict pages that my single purpose account concentrates on. (I've carried out a few edits on pages the accused is interested in, but not followed through on them very carefully). His almost total isolation from me makes it "safe" to mention his case.
• And I can safely reference that ArbCom case without serious risk of distorting it, since it would appear that ArbCom will throw it out. However, it's still clearly taking up a good portion of arbitrators time - when they're seemingly log-jammed with other cases, often many times more important. It's the kind of case liable to have a chilling effect on editors making "good but unpopular" edits, just as the constant aggressive cases on me are presumably doing.
• What I cannot do is bring to your attention the many more bad-faith cases brought by my main accuser, User:Jaakobou against a range of (overwhelmingly) knowledgeable and patient editors in the I-P conflict area. (All of whom have much better English than Jaakobou, though admittedly that's not difficult). I don't feel I should reference them individually due to the abuse and harassment they've already suffered from him. Their discomfort may be evidenced by the fact that not one of them has dared to show their face here - this time to be seen to disagree with an admin known to specialise in process and "disciplinary" cases.
• In the same vein, it's clear that the community is pretty sick of Jaakobou. I'll not offer you any evidence - a little bit of it is here. Scan up the page - my contribution is actually the 5th consecutive complaint about Jaakobou's conduct on his TalkPage, and the least angry of them. Don't imagine I'm on my own, or carrying out some kind of personal crusade on him! There's actually much, much more where that came from - are you interested?
• Back to my own case - I do not believe the mood of the community explains this attempt to force on me a fourth (and perhaps very unsympathetic) mentor.
• Furthermore, this attempt to bull-doze me into a new arrangement is a dramatic departure from what went before. Let me remind everyone that the "voluntary mentoring" I'm under (decided by the now discredited and abolished CSN procedure) come about without any serious discussion. One might even think the decision to have "mentorship" was proposed and accepted in a "throw-away" fashion purely in an effort to filter Jaakobou's constant direct harassment of me and save further waste of the communities time and effort. (That was certainly my impression, which is why I accepted with such alacrity). Even though this arrangement started in such an inauspicious fashion, it seemed to be worked well until User:Jaakobou got angry and set on my second mentor, User:Geni, see here.
• At the danger of repeating myself, let me also remind everyone that my three mentorships have "failed" - but not because of anything I've done. I've been relatively happy and entirely cooperative throughout. This occasion now is the nearest I've ever come to digging my heels in. Someone has to protest the mass, McCarthyite, harassment that is going on, against me and many others. The source of it (at least in my case, over several months now) can be laid at the door of just one person who has most likely never made a single good edit in the project, ever. I'll leave it to others to decide how much other mal-practice is going on and how to deal with it. Thankyou for listening - I believe what I'm saying urgently needs wider currency than what it's getting. PR^talk 12:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal closure

You may recall that last month I posted a note calling for admins to consider closing Wikipedia:Today's_featured_list/First_proposal. I was reminded that to change the main page overwhelming support must be achieved. User:Jeffrey O. Gustafson has revised the proposal at WP:LOTDP. I have asked him to have it closed and he has told me I could do so myself. Could an admin come to a decision on the proposal in the next couple of days because I would like to make one last attempt to get something passed by the beginning of the new year if the current proposal does not pass.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 23:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Presuming even 75-80% approval is insufficient to change the main page, I am going to move WP:LOTDP and replace it with another idea. I have informed the proponent that I will be doing so.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 15:07, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] We need more admins urgently

Since IP page creation looks like it will be re-enabled (see Link) we are probably going to need a lot more admins doing Special:Newpages. Could I ask everybody to ask at least one editor you think could make a good amin if they would be interested in a RfA? Tim Vickers 16:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I've asked a number of people during the week with only one person accepting. Nothing to do with this though--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 17:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Is this really going to happen? Oh dear. The thing about wikien-l is, they are often somewhat nostalgic for the good old days. I fear they may have failed to take into account just how important it is to get your Great New [ Idea / Theory / Band on Wikipedia ] these days. The best argument against anonymous page creation as far as I can see is CAT:CSD. Guy (Help!) 18:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

This will be fun. –– Lid^(Talk) 18:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

All I can seen from this is CSD being constantly backlogged. *sigh* oh well. If it can be turned off once it can be turn off again when they see the folly of the "experiment". ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Any editor can patrol new pages, if the csd backlog does get out of hand then I think a posting asking more existing admins to help will be effective. We always need more admins, but no more than normal I think. 1 != 2 18:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I think "urgently" is over blown. Unless someone is planning to write a press announcement, I suspect that most anons won't even notice the change for weeks or months. In other words, whatever the ultimate effect of such changes, I suspect they will ramp up gradually over a substantial period of time. Dragons flight 18:12, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Dragons flight is probably correct. Given that this decision seems to have happened in such a way that even fairly active editors are just now becoming aware of it (I myself just found out in the last couple of hours), I don't suspect that this will result in a big flood the first day it is enabled. I can see this being a real headache in < a couple of months, but I don't see the urgency right this moment.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:16, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I doubt it, all it takes is one blog post or one newspaper reporter for this story to be on the evening news. I can bet to you one of them is reading this. The Placebo Effect 18:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

We can deal with it - no problem. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The urgency comes from the lag in getting admins through the RfA process matching the probable lag in IP's learning they can now create pages. We can't create new admins overnight, so if we need more admins in 1-2 week's time we have to start working now. If we all invite a few people, this will hopefully make a big dent in the problem. Tim Vickers 18:23, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

CSD is an exceedingly easy task using tools out there. I don't think we need a single new admin to deal with the new issue. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Or we just can abandon what is undoubtedly a silly idea of going back to IP newpage creation.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:27, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Too late now to abandon this idea; the flood is coming. It is not too late to nominate new admins. I suspect the flood of stupid new articles will not come for a few days or so - my prediction is Wednesday, November 14. Bearian 18:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The sanguine view that we will be able to cope with our present set of admins is one I hope is true. However, although this best-case scenario is certainly possible, if we are wrong and we can't cope then things could get pretty unpleasant and generate a great deal of negative publicity for the project. Consequently, I think it is most sensible to plan for the worst-case scenario. Tim Vickers 18:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, and would probably disqualify myself on the basis of having an occasionally hot temper. However, I do note that Wikipedia:Admin coaching exists for individuals who might consider becoming admins a bit of an idea what being an admin is like. Maybe we could try to get some current admins to ask prospective admins whether they would consider becoming such, or alternately, if they think they might not be particularly qualified, maybe offering to coach them until they either qualify or decide that the role isn't for them? John Carter 18:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

(e.c.) I agree that we need more Administrators, but that problem clearly doesn't stem from a lack of trying. Rather, we might want to look at a re-focusing of the atmosphere of RfA, in an attempt to ensure that the percentage of candidates enlisted here who are likely to pass increases. There seems to be a general trend of nominations here increasing, yet the success rate is decreasing, indicating a rise in the number of, shall we say, mistaken (often self-) nominations. Having said that, I support the re-enabling of IP article creation. This move sends out a clear signal to both our Community and the Wide World that we really do invite everybody to edit here, and that those who don't choose to create an account aren't restricted to the interests and imagination of others. Anthøny 18:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

And for a hearty example of the RfA atmospshere, see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/LaraLove; the "bad mother" card was played. No one needs those kinds of low blows in life. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Meh. I'm not saying we shouldn't have more admins... I'm just saying that we have a stupid number of inactive admins sitting around. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind being an admin, but my two previous attempts went heavily against me, along with a block I had several months ago. It's not like I would abuse the tools, but some editors might not trust me. :( Davnel03 19:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe its time for Jimbo to give some users Sysop tools. He's done it in the past [20]. SashaCall ^(Sign!)/_(Talk!) 19:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering when someone would quote that...-- John Reaves 19:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Got two up already. If you guys want I'll go into my backlog and put out 3-4 more :) Wizardman 19:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, you might as well. Davnel03 19:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought that one of the reasons for disabling immediate, anonymous IP page creation was due to BLP concerns...? Aside from the general 'firehose of crap' problem, are we setting ourselves up for another Seigenthaler controversy? And if not, what measures are in place now that weren't available to us before? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC

Do you have some magic list of trustworthy users interested in doing administrative scut work that also are unwilling or unable to pass RFA? Dragons flight 19:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

(e/c)There is a software change coming that will enable patrolled edits for Special:Newpages. Gmaxwell has it set up on his personal wiki (you need to get an account to patrol) if you want to test it before it gets here. To mark a page as patrolled, scroll to the bottom of the article and click the little [Mark this article as patrolled] link. Pages in the list highlighted in yellow need to be patrolled. Here, this would be used for marking good newpages or pages already tagged for deletion. I'm not sure when this is coming (soon), you'd have to go on IRC #wikimedia-tech and bug Brion. Mr.Z-man 19:37, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

If we need more administrators urgently, then we probably should stop turning down fully qualified candidates on specious grounds such as those discussed in this thread. Newyorkbrad 20:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC

I agree, We don't need more administrators, we just need more good and active administrators. We don't need people who will sit back and do nothing. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 20:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

If anybody can think of a simple way of improving the quality and activity of the admins we have at the moment, then they should go ahead and do it. However, the only thing guaranteed to increase the number of active admins is to increase the total number of admins. Encouraging other editors to apply is pretty simple, its no big deal! Tim Vickers 21:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I could send every administrator a message to start being more active on admin backlogs...Or else! Opinions? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 21:08, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm almost tempted to advise you to do that ;) Tim Vickers

Maybe you could ask a bot to go round and send a message to every single admin telling them to get more active? Just an idea. Davnel03 21:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it was a fully serious proposal. Alerting admins on this noticeboard is satisfactory. Afterall, they're volunteers in the first place just like everyone else, they can't be forced to be more active. Leebo ^T/C 21:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I have a feeling that such a move would be met with hostility. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 21:22, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

IM(extremely uninformed)O article creation numbers will continue to go up even if we don't have this experiment - we'd just be delaying the inevitable. Resurgent insurgent 21:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

It's always possible that this will simply result in a slowdown of the pace at which the registered user pool is growing, since one of the key attractions of registering will be removed. Leebo ^T/C 21:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

If that's the case, that would also probably serve to decrease the number of new potential admins, possibly make the situation that much worse. John Carter 21:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, that would hold true if the typical new page creator became a legitimate candidate for adminship, which is not the case. Users who are inclined to take the steps toward adminship would likely create an account for one of the many other purposes. Users who would avoid creating an account just to get their quick article up probably wouldn't become admin material. Leebo ^T/C 21:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I have my doubts that we could get a lot more admins who mainly desire to use the tools in NP Patrol (mainly thanks to the RFA process from what I have seen in the past). And there is a snowball's chance in heck of starting to give people just the deletion part. FunPika 21:59, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

We don't necessarily need to increase the sysopping rate, as has been pointed out above - we need more admins doing new-page patrol. Therein lies the problem; I have encountered few or no tasks on Wikipedia more unrewarding and downright unpleasant than new-page patrol. It's no big deal to deal with clear bad-faith spammers, or to educate newcomers on the notability criteria, though it is a bit time-consuming. The problem with new-page patrol is that you get pushback from established users as well. For me the turning point (i.e. when I stopped bothering with new page patrol) was when an admin and sitting Arbitrator aggressively questioned my competence because I speedied a clearly A7 article. Who wants to volunteer their time for that sort of thing? We need to make new-page patrol a little more appealing, and support the folks who do it - otherwise, no matter how many new admins we create, they'll burn out as well under the inevitable barrage of second-guessing. Just my 2 cents. MastCell ^Talk 22:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Part of a bigger picture of failure and systemic bias: see my mail Pakistani politicians and systemic bias to wikien. A7 gives the wrong result? It's the admin's responsibility. Charles Matthews 07:39, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Not just New page patrol, I do tons of new page patrol daily. I tag articles for CSD and wait for an admin to come along and delete them. When tagged they go into a category (CAT:SPEEDY) where administrators review them and delete them. What would be needed is new administrators both patrolling the new page log AND working on the build up of the CSD backlog. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 22:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

What about actually going and do some work? I usually sneak in some deletions from C:CSD, and many, many more with image categories. When November 9th rolls, around I'll try; however, I've been informed recently about an approaching backlog in an image category, and I'll probably be forced to divert my attention there. So my advice is basically, you shouldn't moan about having to do 20 speedy deletions; I've been keeping the image categories relatively neat without many complaints in relation to the amount of deletions, and I do way more work. Oh, and I did I mention that I have some time left to get an article fixed (I've requested some help, but I do work on it as well) for a FAC? Maxim_{(talk) (contributions)} 22:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

And the admins shouldn't moan when they are never thanked for their work but instead yelled at by established users when they think the admin messed up (and sometimes did not)? FunPika 22:17, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I should be clearer. I'm not soliciting pity. I'm saying that the atmosphere surrounding new page patrol results in burnout and deters recruitment of new admins, so if we're concerned about the number of new page patrollers then we might want to address that. I do plenty of admin work, particularly given that I'm a relatively new admin, but that's not the point. MastCell ^Talk 22:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Doing newpage patrol is quite easy if you have the proper tools to do it with. Check out User:Wikidudeman/Hodgepodge and User:Martinp23/NPWatcher. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 14:22, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, maybe if these tools were made available to everyone then more people would do it. I've never understood the practice of requiring "checkpages" - if people are misusing these programs they can be blocked. People aren't required to get prior approval before using TW. It's just gratuitous bureaucracy to require it just because the program is written in VB or C# rather than javascript. —Random832 18:17, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm staying up 24 hours straight just to delete ;). Maybe I could break the deleting record for a day in the process :). Unless there is a big sign that says ANONS CAN EDIT, or excessive news exposure which both doesn't seem to be the case, most of the anons won't even notice until weeks after it been implanted. This is a Secret ^account 18:22, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

But who says they notice now? I would have thought that the first time an anon realises they have to register to create pages is when they try to create one, and get the big block of explanatory text. If that's true, then as soon as anonymous creation is reenabled the floodgates are open. Confusing Manifestation 23:02, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

skimming the page where this is being discussed, this is being enabled because a developer thinks it would be a neat experiment - that's it. Surely something like this should be discussed by the community? this is the tail wagging the dog! madness! --Fredrick day 23:15, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I can only predict a negative outcome of this, but I guess we'll have to wait a little longer and see... нмŵוτнτ 23:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

So far I've persuaded four people to put themselves forward for RfAs, hopefully if we all have a look through the people we interact with we can find a few more trustworthy editors. Tim Vickers 20:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

At least, for now, this doesn't look so bad. Let's keep it up. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 22:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not biting n00bs to become actual necessity

m:Edit Wikipedia Week is happening.

A perennial press story is "I was bitten as a n00b on Wikipedia" - every random interaction with a random en:wp editor is taken as representative and officially sanctioned.

So we need people to be on extra special good behaviour.

(For those about to point out to Mr Pot that he is of similar blackness to Messrs Kettle, Jimbo emailed me directly asking me to please be much nicer on wikien-l in particular. And I can't say it wasn't deserved. *cough*)

Main sticking point I can see is notoriously prickly individuals who are also notoriously good encyclopedia writers. I won't go so far as to name any of those who spring to my mind, but I'm sure you have your own list. If they can be convinced this is a good idea then they should provide a suitably shocking example of niceness.

Also, have to hit the village pump, the admin boards etc. Those who do lots of janitorial work cleaning out the sewers of en:wp (vandal-chasing, newpages patrolling, RC patrolling, etc) and basically see the bad side of people all the time need to be brought on board as well. This is somewhere n00bs can really be bitten.

Ideas please? Not doing this is not likely to be an option. n00bs will be actively recruited, and it's absolutely vital everyone understands why it's bad to react in the obvious way to the blithering depths of human stupidity. - David Gerard 15:02, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Or we could write bots to do the biting for us! Luigi30 (Taλk) 15:24, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

As a non-admin (and determined to stay that way) I'd like to support what David Gerard has written. We see a lot of newbies on the refdesks (it's an encyclopaedia - people come here to find stuff out!)- but not enough admins popping by and leaving welcome messages for them. We also see too much biting, and the occasional "mind how you go" from admins to some of the more prickly members (and I know I can be prickly at times - but I do try only to bite experienced editors!) might be helpful. The refdesks, help pages, village pumps are all places where new editors are likely to end up. They are also great places to rediscover what it is that brought you to Wikipaedia in the first place. DuncanHill 15:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that any new user or anon should be "welcomed" with one of the many standard messages. Even if they didn't do anything wrong, surprising an unsuspecting user with a nice welcome sign always brightens their day, and are more forthcoming for discussions and it helps them learn quickly what Wikipedia is and what it's not. We shouldn't wait for them to make a mistake to start discussion and interaction. The only exception are banned users or sockpuppets posing as noobs, or new users with a specific agenda in mind without any regard for the community. Those may require special care (;-). - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 16:22, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I often welcome people I come across while vandal fighting, but perhaps people should also consider starting vandalism warnings at the first level, which includes a welcome and a very heavy dose of AGF. Same with article creation messages. Natalie 19:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps people should consider starting with a personalized warning -- it gives the impression that there's a human talking to them. The templated warnings are so vague that it feels like there's a machine talking. Most people don't see anything wrong with ignoring messages from a machine. --Carnildo 04:30, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been welcoming every anon on 2007 Writers Guild of America strike in the off chance they could be someone who knows how to write and might have some time on their hands in the coming months.... -- Kendrick7^talk 19:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

You might all want to install WP:FRIENDLY, which automates the adding of welcome templates, as well as adding standard "newbie mistake" templates ({{wikify}}, {{unreferenced}} etc). Whichever bright spark thought of having "Edit Wikipedia Week" at the same time as anon page creation's enabled deserves a WP:TROUT for it, too. There is a reason admins are too busy to spend much time welcoming! — iridescent 22:21, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. Can't get it to work though. It's not an admin-only thing is it? But whatevs, I can cut a paste like a champ. -- Kendrick7^talk 02:24, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Definitely not an admin-only thing, but I think it might be a Firefox only thing as it runs on the Twinkle code. — iridescent 20:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

It started with this and ended up being this. That's my story for the week. Yes, it was fine! El_C 22:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea. I am pretty nasty to anons quite often, but if we can bend over backwards, maybe some of them will stay and become productive. I know when I was starting it was quite intimidating and I had no idea what I was doing. I was terrified of screwing up and it seemed impossible to find instructions or navigate through these pages at first. What an intimidating mess ! --Filll 23:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jokela School shooting

Hi, there has been a shooting in a Finnish school. The perpetrator warned people beforehand about this on Youtube, but they have censored it all, and deleted all his videos. I have the stuff saved on my PC though. Is it OK for me to paste it onto the talk page ? It's like madman stuff, with a 3 page manifesto, and detailed info about the shootings, as well as a video of him shooting an apple and some pics not unlike those that Korean shooter in the US took. (Youtube profile deleted, but here is the page in the Google cache) I ask if this (text, video and images) can be posted on wikipedia in regards to 2 points:

• copyright considerations, the images can be used under fair-use I guess.
• legality: is it legal to post this ? I am asking because the Youtube people must have deleted it for a reason, however since American TV showed the film by that Korean I'm guessing it is not illegal in the USA. Jackaranga 14:40, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Youtube and dailymotion shoot on sight when they have the slightest doubt on something that is reported, so the removal shouldn't be taken as proof the content is illegal. That being said, I think the rest is an editorial decision. -- lucasbfr ^talk 14:49, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, how about the copyright situation ? Is reproducing the 3 page manifesto copyright infringement ? Or is it considered to be released into the public domain, as a public statement ? Jackaranga 14:52, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Unless the shooter released the manifesto under the GFDL, which I doubt, it is still copyright to him. Now, I really doubt that anyone would ever come after the project over copyright issues over it, and likely he *wants* it distributed, but if we don't have a GFDL declaration, we likely cannot post it directly. All IMHO though. - TexasAndroid 17:49, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

To the extent it's covered in reliable sources, we can still write about it and include short quotes from it. The video is a similar thing. A few screenshots are OK, though they need fair use rationales, etc. and should be discussed in the article. They're be a lot of people working on this, so if you don't do it, it's likely someone else will.--chaser - t 20:10, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I got edit-conflicted, but Chaser just said everything that I was going to add, anyway. Use it sparingly, source it well, and provide fair use rationales for screencaps. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 20:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with Tex; I'm fairly sure manifestoes are inherently in the public domain. Look at s:Author:Theodore_Kaczynski, for example. --Kendrick7^talk 03:37, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Something isn't automatically public domain because someone calls it a manifesto. Kaczynski released his manifesto into the public domain [21]. The copyright status of the others is unclear, and I wouldn't take WikiSource's word for it.--chaser - t 03:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think I'm right; see s:Template:PD-manifesto -- Kendrick7^talk 03:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Current events/Calendar

Portal:Current events is a semi-protected page, but it includes the unprotected template Portal:Current events/Calendar, which is frequently attacked by vandals. I'd suggest that the template is also semi-protected. --Camptown 20:00, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Can cascading semi protection be done? I know cascading full protection can but if the semi one is possible just do it to Portal:Current events (By the way, this should be on WP:RPP, for future reference--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 20:39, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Cascading semi-protection isn't possible. I went ahead and semi-protected the the page. In the future, use WP:RFPP. -- John Reaves 20:48, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Commodore Sloat-Biophys closed

The above arbitration case has been closed. Commodore Sloat and Biophys are instructed to refrain from interacting with or commenting about each other in any way. Failure to do so voluntarily may result in the imposition of a formal restriction on their editing. For the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (t) 02:32, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:67.168.146.142

... has added the phrases "to poop on his eyeball!" "similar to viagra" and " to apply poop juice in Hulks eye" all clear vandalism to the World War Hulk and Sentry (Robert Reynolds) pages. - 66.109.248.114 03:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

... about 20 hours ago, and has been warned for each occasion. If he becomes active again, report to WP:AIV. Mr.Z-man 03:22, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quote/fundraiser mess at the top

So what are we putting in our monobook.css to block that "Wikipedia itself is an outstanding achievement of humanity." — Anon [Hide this message] mess at the top now? If you click the "Hide this message", all it does it change it to the fundraising bar... -- ALLSTAR ECHO 05:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

One of the sections on WP:VPT has the new code. --NE2 05:55, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The code is:

#siteNoticeBig { display: none; }

#siteNoticeSmall { display: none; }

Just put that in Special:Mypage/monobook.css. Neil ☎ 10:22, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't seem to recall IPs having a monobook.css. Why do the sysops do this? First the ugly red thing then this? ♥ Fredil 12:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fredil Yupigo (talk • contribs)

Excellent. That did it. Thanks. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 14:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

So why does the design keeps changing every two days? is there any ongoing discussion? because the current one doesn't look particulary interesting (stick figures?) wich means it probably won't attract the attention of some potential donors. - Caribbean~H.Q. 14:56, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fundraising redesign is where the ongoing discussion is at the moment. --ais523 14:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks :-) - Caribbean~H.Q. 15:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

But seriously Mr ALLSTAR ECHO, is there anything I can put in my monobook to hide the "mess" that is your rather irritating signature?--Doc^g 15:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Concur. --Ali'i 15:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, there is: a[title="User:Allstarecho"] span, a[title="User talk:Allstarecho"] span { border:none!important; background:transparent!important; color:inherit!important } —Random832 17:59, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Or here's a more novel work around.. turn off your computer. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 07:38, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's not get off track... did anyone notice that fundraising was just a touch faster last year without the annoying banners? ♥ Fredil 20:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• Basic economics - fundraisers raise more funds when the economy is doing better. The current economic slowdown and risk of financial sector meltdown in the US will clearly mean that people have less money to spend/more reason to hold on to it. Who'd've thought it - economic meltdown when the Republicans are in power - just like every other time! The size of the donations is much more likely to be linked to macroeconomic conditions than it is to the size of the advertising banner soliciting them. Agree, BTW, that Allstarecho's sig needs to be toned down. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 21:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Funny edit of the day

For your amusement, I present this edit. - Jehochman ^Talk 15:00, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

And to think...in a few days that can be its very own newly created article! Agne^Cheese/^Wine 17:45, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, the title worked :-D I thought mine from yesterday had a bit of irony to it. spryde | talk 16:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I've started a collection at User:Jehochman/Diff of the day. - Jehochman ^Talk 14:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow, it's like an even crappier version of Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense. :-/ --Ali'i 15:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's right! - Jehochman ^Talk 18:27, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppet. User:Pazan.ua

• Pazan.ua (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Mona23653 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (added by - Jehochman ^Talk 16:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC))

Take a look at the newest member of the Ukrainian wikiproject. User:Pazan.ua. this is his first edit on wikipedia. Why did user:Mona23653 make a user page for a someone without a single edit? Secondly, User:Pazan.ua‎ has yet to make a single content edit, but he has joined 3 wikiprojects, what?!? A more than obvious sock puppet of Mona23653. Could someone please deal with this. Regards, Bogdan 23:00, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't look like the sock is being used abusively, and, by your usage of "deal with this," I assume you want the sockpuppet blocked, correct? --EoL talk 00:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, maybe the person with double accounts simply doesn't know that it's an offense. A warning from an administrator should be good enough for now. Bogdan 00:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

It most likely is a sock. Has this person done anything to violate WP:SOCK? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rlevse (talk • contribs) 01:10, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't think so. The only edits that account has is joining several wikiprojects and adding some userboxes. I'm 100% sure it's a sock as the user page was made before the account had any edits, plus they have the same intrests. Bogdan 01:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind. Just now he joined the first guy User:Mona23653, in deleting comments from another user on the Holocaust talk page. Bogdan 01:20, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

He's also being rather obnoxious. JuJube 01:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• I've advised User:Mona23653 of the questionable appearance of this behavior. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• It looks like Mona23653 is engaged in POV pushing and edit warring: [22] [23] [24] (adding) More POV pushing: [25] [26] [27] - Jehochman ^Talk 16:28, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Donation Banner

Does it say "0 have donated" for anyone else or is it just me? The Placebo Effect 19:11, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I get 15,643 - have you purged your cache? Ryan Postlethwaite 19:13, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Just you (or rather, potentially everyone except me and Ryan). EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:14, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I, too, get 0. JFTR. Arkon 19:15, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I get 15,691 at the moment--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 19:28, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Zero here, too. No cache purge. Dppowell 19:29, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Ditto zero and ditto purge not helping. If we can't fix this soon, someone should redesign the banner.--Pharos 19:32, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

http://donate.wikimedia.org/, the donation tracking server, is offline. I have no idea why or how long it will take to fix. Dragons flight 19:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I get "Over 15,000" now. Did someone change it? The Placebo Effect 19:35, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, everyone is getting that static message now. Dragons flight 19:40, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I have conflicting numbers. When the entire message appears, it reads 15,706. But when I hide it, it says 15,691. Does anyone else have these inconsistencies? - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 21:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Uh, is it just me, or was there briefly one that said, "Give us your F***ING MONEY"? Seriously. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 06:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that's an old one, actually. GlassCobra 06:21, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

This?: Image:Giveit.jpg. --Dynaflow babble 06:22, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

That's the one. Glad I didn't imagine it! I didn't know it was kosher to put "Fuck" on every page of WP. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 06:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

What page were you viewing that it appeared on? User:Jeffpw, User talk:Jeffpw, and User talk:Dynaflow appear to have the image absolutely positioned there as a joke. krimpet⟲ 07:12, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, so far as I can tell, this message was never displayed globally on Wikipedia -- nothing was added to any of our local system messages, nothing to the global messages on meta, and I don't see any tomfoolery with any userscripts you're using. If this really was in the global messages, I would very much so like to find out who did it, but at present, I'm inclined to think this was just a misunderstanding of a joke. Or maybe Brion was having a bad day and decided to sneak her in there :) AmiDaniel (talk) 07:27, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I can see it now, 2 seconds every hour of "Brion time".  ;-) Dragons flight 07:47, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

That "Give us your fucking money." banner was my little joke. I don't think it's being used anywhere other than a few people's talk pages. Neil ☎ 09:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I love your alternative banner, actually. Since my walk to work every morning takes me straight through the heart of San Francisco's lovely Tenderloin District, that is the kind of language I've come to expect to hear when being solicited for "donations." --Dynaflow babble 03:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah. I came here to ask about it. It's somewhat amusing, but not something that should be used other than on a few 'inside humor' page, indeed.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 18:10, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Assuming 3000+ people didn't change their minds in the last few hours, something's wrong again. Pinball22 00:45, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

(Undent) I saw the "Give It" banner on... my watchlist, IIRC. Only that one time, though. I thought it was pretty funny. But I would have to concur it's not really appropriate for wiki-wide regular rotation. (The tally I'm seeing right now is 18,668) - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 02:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)