Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive91

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Contents 1 Speedy speedy deletion 2 Bad image list 3 "Self-block" 4 AfD in limbo 5 Plagerism, what to do? 6 Tanya Kach 7 User:JoJ 8 Request unblock for Anupamsr 9 Redirects to a protected page protected? 10 EverybodyHatesChris (talk · contribs) possible trolling? 11 Opinions needed on CSN 12 Flameviper 13 Deletion of Bad Faith Account 13.1 Glaring abuse of Admin Powers by User:Ryulong and unjustified blocking activity 14 Procedure for multiple recreation of spam page? 15 Kite 16 User:Harry was a white dog with black spots & User:Quakerman 17 Backlog at Wikipedia:Copyright problems 18 Image undeletion 19 Valid criticisms 20 Dishonorable behavior 21 User:CyclePat 22 El_C appears to be unwilling to discuss indef block 22.1 The block of El C 22.2 What a change in policy 23 Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection 24 Dicholorophenoxyacedtic acid 25 Dealing with legal threats 26 Deletion log links 27 Edwardjmokrzycki (talk · contribs) 28 Date articles 29 Omegatron 30 New! IMPROVED! 31 Accusations of French genocide against Algerians 32 BetacommandBot and Fair use 33 Deletion of images with fair-use rationales 34 So like... 35 Requested indef block of an IP 36 Using Talk pages to Communicate with the media. 37 Buffalo Sabres and Lindy Ruff 38 Numb3rs fair-use images 39 CAT:CSD Nag 40 Dialup ip addresses and 3R 41 Feature request, feedback wanted 42 Question - as an admin, what would you do? 43 HeivenDuarm (talk · contribs) unblock request 44 Fair Use of Images on Led Zeppelin 45 WP:UAA and WP:AIV

[edit] Speedy speedy deletion

It came to my attention that more and more newbie admins delete "speedy" or "prod" tagged pages without waiting the necessary time. PLEASE DON'T. `'юзырь:mikka 16:35, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Pages marked for speedy deletion can, with very few exceptions, be deleted at any time. Where's the problem there? Anything else, and you'll need to provide some diffs before I'd see it as a potential problem. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:38, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[Edit conflict] There is no time limit for speedy deletion, something can have been tagged for very little time or no time at all, the point is that the articles are not valid, full stop. As for the prod situation, can you be more specific? Give some examples? J Milburn 16:39, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed; speedies are no problem, but carrying out a PROD too early is a bad idea. --Masamage ♫ 18:55, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Unless the prodded article also fails a speedy criterion, in which case it can be speedied as normal. That might be what's happening here, but without specifics, there's really nothing anyone can do. Mikkalai, can you point us to any specific instances where you believe a deletion was done improperly? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Some of our speedy deletion criteria do require a given amount of time however i.e. those for images. It is important that the required time after the uploader is notified of the tagging has actually elapsed before these images are deleted. WjBscribe 20:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Some articles are tagged within minutes or seconds of their creation, even when the author is clearly intending to improve it and is just engaging in progressive saves. However, this is not an issue for admins — or even newbie admins — but a failing on the part of RC patrollers. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 05:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad image list

Can someone sort out the images on genital wart for the MediaWiki:Bad image list please? (originally raised on the help desk). --h2g2bob (talk) 16:45, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Y Done - ewwww! - Alison ☺ 18:42, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Self-block"

I have accidentally added this to my monobook.css page, and now cannot view Wikipedia any more. I disabled the autologin feature of my browser and created this emergency account. My question is: how can I remove this line from my monobook.css page? The page only seems to be editable by the user it belongs to. Could any admin assist me in this. Cheers, Emergencyaccount 19:16, 10 June 2007 (UTC) (Salaskan)
Oh, by the way, once it's fixed, this account can be indefblocked. Emergencyaccount 19:16, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Fixed your monobook. I'm afraid user requested self-blocks are not typically done. --Deskana (talk) 19:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Huh? No, that's not what I meant, I meant that I practically blocked myself when I accidentally put that line in my monobook. Emergencyaccount 19:22, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• What Deskana was trying to say is that the indef block of the "emergency account" will not be done due to a risk of collateral damage amongst other things. GDonato (talk) 19:23, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD in limbo

This is a bit of a weird situation. There might be a better place for discussing this, but if there is, I couldn't find it and appreciate any references.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Estonian Age of Awakening is now in limbo. The original nominator, Ghirlandajo, has expressed intent to withdraw the nomination, but subsequently crossed this expression out and finally "left in disgust", apparently abandoning the whole affair. The current consensus is an overwhelming 'keep'; the only 'delete' recommendation is by the original nominator.

Can an administrator look into the situation and decide if a speedy close is appropriate? Digwuren 20:22, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I closed it as speedy keep as the nominator has withdrawn the nom, then seemingly abandoned both the nom and the withdrawal of the nom(!?). Nobody else supports the deletion. ^(H) 20:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

IFDs in limbo 

Can someone please look at (at least) Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2007 May 21 through Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2007 May 25? There are only a few images left, but those that are left were commented on by the IFD regulars (i.e. Howcheng). I'd say delete for all of them, but I'm not an admin.

There are many others (the 27th on), but if we could at least get those five done, it would be much less backlogged. --Iamunknown 21:16, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plagerism, what to do?

A few weeks ago, I read that wikipedia articles plagerize copyrighted articles much more often than any reasonable editor would like.

I just found an instance where several paragraph are plagerized. See the article for internationally acclaimed architect, I. M. Pei.

This is our (wikipedia article):
before moving to the United States to study architecture at the age of 18. He started at the University of Pennsylvania before going on to receive his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940. That same year, he was awarded the Alpha Rho Chi Medal, the MIT Traveling Fellowship, and the AIA Gold Medal. He enrolled at the Harvard Graduate School of Design two years later; shortly thereafter, he served at the National Defense Research Committee in Princeton, New Jersey.

In 1944 he returned to Harvard, received his master degree in Architecture in 1946 and stayed at Harvard as an assistant professor. He received the Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship in 1951 and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1954.

This is http://www.netglimse.com/celebs/pages/i_m_pei/index.shtml which says this at the bottom: Copyright © 2001-2004 NetGlimse.com. Privacy PolicyAll Rights Reserved.

before moving to the United States to study architecture at the age of 18. He started at the University of Pennsylvania before going on to receive his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940. That same year, he was awarded the Alpha Rho Chi Medal, the MIT Travelling Fellowship, and the AIA Gold Medal. He enrolled at the Harvard Graduate School of Design two years later; shortly thereafter, he served at the National Defense Research Committee in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1944 he returned to Harvard, received his master degree in Architecture in 1946 and stayed at Harvard as an assistant professor. He received the Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship in 1951 and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1954.

Aside from the list of his projects, this plagerized part is over half of the article.

It is interesting to note that the above source has wrong information which was copied to the wikipedia article. I have corrected it. The original name of I. M. Pei's firm was I. M. Pei and Associates and was changed to ....and Partners several years later.

The question posed is what should editors do about plagerized materials? I believe the correct action is deletion, even though it may seem painful. I will rewrite it. VK35 21:18, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Its only deleted if the whole thing is plagiarized from the beginning. Otherwise, remove the copied parts, revert to the last non-plagiarized version, or (best solution) rewrite it. Also, for established articles, there is the chance that the other website copied our article and tried to pass it off as their own. There are hundreds of sites that mirror Wikipedia and use Wikipedia's content, with varying levels of GFDL compliance. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 21:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

In this particular case, I suspect the plagiarism went the other way. See this version and the previous versions which clearly show the development of the version now at http://www.netglimse.com/celebs/pages/i_m_pei/index.shtml. As far as what to do, in this case I think the GFDL non-compliance process at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks is the appropriate action. What to do about problems going the other way is listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:38, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem with the theory that the other site may have plagerized it from wikipedia is that wikipedia's policy is not to have original research. The content in question had only 1 citation and that citation did not provide quite a few details that was in the wikipedia article. So the wikipedia content was either uncited or original research. Another possibility is that the editor had contact with the Pei family. But then, that would be original research.

Regarding Rick Block's comments, he may be correct. On the other hand, there was some discussion about Mr. Pei's birthplace which was then corrected.

Even if the other site copied it from us, this serves as a warning that we as wikipedia editors should uphold the highest ethical and professional standards.VK35 21:48, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The article's edit history clearly shows that NetGlimse has plagiarised Wikipedia. So while it would be nice of User:VK35 to rewrite the article in order to improve it, there is no legal need to do so. It makes no difference whether the article is incorrect, uncited or whatever. NetGlimse still shouldn't have copied it without following the GFDL rules. -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tanya Kach

Why is Tanya Kach a fully-protected redirect to Kidnapping? Where in the Kidnapping is there a mention of this person, and how does the redirect serve the community? Corvus cornix 21:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried asking JzG, who protected the page? - auburnpilot talk 21:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Second the asking the person responsible as opposed to asking us, who can only guess. As my guess, however, I consider this version before redirect and protection a major BLP-related concern, especially considering that it was not well-referenced. Also, seeing as how she seems only notable for one event (the kidnapping), I don't think it is appropriate. But that is my opinion. --Iamunknown 22:00, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Then shouldn't it be salted, instead of being a nonsense redirect? You're right, I should have talked to Guy first, I'll do that now. Corvus cornix 22:18, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• It was redirected in response to well-founded concerns, and WP:NOT a newspaper, and this [1] atrocious version was posted instead, so I protected it as a redirect. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tanya Kach (second nomination). Guy (Help!) 22:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Why not just salt and protect? Corvus cornix 22:23, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• Ask Doc, I guess. Guy (Help!) 22:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I seem to recall inserting a reference to this kidnap victim, appropriate to context and weighting, into Kidnapping. It is possible that it was removed, again on grounds of undue weight. I think it would probably be better as a salted deletion, really. --Tony Sidaway 22:55, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah no, here it still is:

Kidnapping frequently excites keen press coverage.

I wanted to say "lurid", but thought that would be too weaselly. --Tony Sidaway 22:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The DRV happened here which resulted in overturn, with a strong suggestion of changing from a biography to an account of the events. The AFD (as linked above) was speedily closed and deleted, given the absolute enforcement of the DRV closure over the Allison Stokke article, I'm surprised that the DRV outcome in this case was not respected. It was then restored after some rightful prodding. The page was then redirected to Kidnapping without discussion which I thought was rather poor (I would not mention Tanya Kach in the Kidnapping article). It would have been a lot more beneficial to have just overturned the deletion, restored the original content and then chop out the shit like "Hose also gained some unexpected celebrity due to his uncanny resemblance to Saturday Night Live actor Kevin Nealon.", moving the article if needs be. It certainly beats the "atrocious" version that JzG links to. - hahnchen 23:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:JoJ

This user keeps posting ridiculously long edit summaries which annoys me because it shows up on the recent changes pages as long lines. What is the user trying to do? Trying to get our attention or just having fun? --_Hdt83 ^Chat 23:18, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean JoJ (talk · contribs)? If so, he only has one edit, and that was to post an unblock request...has someone deleted his edits? hbdragon88 23:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

That was fast. An admin deleted the user talk page and then redirected it to the user page, where it shows that it's a WoW sockpuppet. hbdragon88 23:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request unblock for Anupamsr

Could an admin unblock Anupamsr (talk · contribs) - this is was a legal secondary account of Scheibenzahl (talk · contribs) blocked in a mis-interpretation of WP:SOCK by User:Rama's Arrow. Since then Rama's Arrow has apologized to him and unblocked his other account, but this block is still in place for some reason. As the user is not banned, and as there have never been any arbitration nor community enforced restrictions on his accounts, this block should not be in place. People would argue that he's left Wikipedia, but I know plenty of people (myself included) who leave Wikipedia after something like this only to come back later - and when he does it is best that there is no confusion on his banned/not-banned status (as there was with me). I would ask Rama's Arrow myself but he is in a rather tight spot in his arbitration and it's best for me to not talk to him.--Konstable 02:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to second this, there is no reason for this block to remain in place. --MichaelLinnear 02:52, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. (aeropagitica) 04:35, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirects to a protected page protected?

Michael Mullen has been semi-protected after he was nominated as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Do redirect pages like Mike Mullen typically get protected, or is it even necessary? DarkAudit 18:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Although I'm not an admin, I do know the answer to this one: no, they're usually not protected unless they're being vandalized as much as the article. See WP:BEANS --Captain Wikify ^Argh! 18:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree. The motives behind vandalism of redirect pages are different than for those of their targets (hey, I should know). YechielMan 23:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Michael Mullen is not semi-protected and never has been. Should it be? If so, list it at WP:RFPP. Chick Bowen 02:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Curious. It was tagged with semi-protection at the time I created the redirect page (~18:30 UTC yesterday). Does that mean a page can be tagged as protected without actually being protected? DarkAudit 14:52, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The actual protection is independent of the templates. The tags are just used to inform people that the pages are currently protected (since as far as I know, people without the admin flag wouldn't be able to tell whether a page is semi-protected or not without them). Anyone could add the templates on a page, but it's usually disruptive if the page isn't actually protected. - Bobet 15:02, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Non admins can tell, it just requires a certain level of knowledge about Wikipedia. If you click "edit this page" on a protected page, some red text appears above the edit window informing you that the page is semi-protected. Also, it shows up in the page history and logs. But one usually has to know what they're looking for to notice those things. Natalie 06:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] EverybodyHatesChris (talk · contribs) possible trolling?

The above editor, who earlier raised a complaint against me at WP:AN/I#User:LessHeard vanU has assumed bad faith and lied that I have trolled, continues to use another editors, User:Migospia, talkpage to conduct an argument with a third party, User:Danielfolsom, (first example and second example) and I commented, in passing that EverybodyHatesChris (EHC) was causing trouble. This earned me this rebuke, later modified, before EHC returned to his comments about Danielfolsom here and here. In the meantime EHC also had contacted me to note he was complaining about my comments.

I would comment that EHC had previously come into dispute with both Migospia, Danielfolsom and myself a few days ago on the Coral Smith talkpage which resulted in my blocking him for three hours. My involvement ended with the block, but I note he continued to engage with Danielfolsom over another article where their relationship veered between friendliness and rank incivility. It also appears that Migospia was interacting with Danielfolsom at that time.

Could another admin look into this and confirm that EHC is, if not trolling, acting outside the norms of civility and good faith by using a dispute between two other editors to cause further ill-feeling against the absent party? With the history I have difficulty assuming good faith on behalf of this editor, especially considering that EHC's Contribution history shows that there has only been interaction recently with the aforementioned editors and User:Rockpocket, Danielfolsom's mentor and also the subject of an EHC complaint. Since I am already involved in this I would like an opinion on my actions so far, and suggestions on a course to proceed upon.

Whoever takes a peek, I would caution a careful tread and a thick skin! Thanks. LessHeard vanU 22:31, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add my support to the suggestion that someone take a look at EHC's editing techniques. I was the subject of a similar complaint a few days back (Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive256#Issues w/ Administrator Rockpocket). There appears to be a pattern forming, that would be best nipped in the bud. Rockpocket 01:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I see 200 or so edits that don't build an encyclopedia in the past few days. His last article edit was 5 days ago. He's not here to help us, anymore. I've blocked him indef for now. His choices have been ridiculous.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 03:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Indef seemse harsh. Perhaps a week to see if this gets him to behave? Neil ╦ 08:16, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Another editor advised him on how to get unblocked and he has indicated he is retiring from the project [2]. Rockpocket 08:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I would reduce the block anyway, and allow him to choose to return if he wants to. Neil ╦ 09:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I would support a shorter block, and try to get him/her back to editing articles. When editing article space he is an okay editor. LessHeard vanU 12:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opinions needed on CSN

Could a few folks please take a look at this thread on the community sanction noticeboard and weigh in with some comments? I've tried to provide some neutral comments and encourage everyone to go forth, edit, and sin no more, but get the feeling the thread's going to spiral shortly and could use some other outside opinions. Thanks. Tony Fox (arf!) review? 18:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flameviper

Just thought I'd get some opinions on this. As outlined on my talk page, I have recently recieved a forwarded message from one of my adoptees, originally from Flameviper.

Quote from Flameviper's message: "Now, even though I'm banned, I'm not going to make an ass of myself. I hope that you can do better than I did when I was here. Perhaps you could even carry on my edits where I left off. But I'm sure you have better things to do that concern yourself with some crusty old vandal. I won't badger you if you don't want me around, but I would like to ask you one thing. Could you please ask someone to delete my user and talk pages? I really don't want those ominous, ill-concieved words to follow me everywhere I go. Ask Netsnipe, he'll understand." (This was to Two-Sixteen.)

I don't see any problem with acting on this request, but I'd like to get the views from more experienced admins before acting on anything, as the whole situation involved many users. Is there any reason why the pages still need to exist? Cheers- CattleGirl ^{talk | sign!} 08:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you get a message back ask him to log in and email me, to confirm it's from him (or to log in and drop a message and a {{db-user}} tag on his talk page)? Neil ╦ 10:13, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't generally care very much about block notices on userpages, so delete the main page and blank the talk page if you like. I don't see a real reason to delete the talk page, but protecting blank should be good enough. Kusma (talk) 11:05, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

True, generally we're not supposed to delete talk pages. I've requested the email address that he used to contact 2-16 so I can email him. If he replies to that- his talk page is protected- I'll unprotect the talk page to allow him to request his userpage deletion, confirm that it is him. If he replies, I'll blank the talk page. (I'll also direct him here in the message). Cheers- CattleGirl ^{talk | sign!} 11:36, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

He does have the Right to Vanish, which involves deleting one's talk page. This seems to be what he wants. Just ask him to log in and request deletion of his own talk page. Grandmasterka 19:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

He can request his talk page be deleted himself. No reason for us to do anything. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:51, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer the talk page not be deleted, but if the consensus is that it is appropriate in this case, then so be it. --Iamunknown 20:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, his talkpage is protected and has been for months, so he can't request deletion there. Upon receiving confirmation that this is Flameviper's request, I would delete both pages, with the caveat that if he is found engaging in future misconduct they would have to be restored. Newyorkbrad 00:53, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

• This is going to get me shot, but would anyone support his unblocking? I'd like to work with him, be his mentor on the strict understanding that any future disruption results in re-blocking. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, the original post at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive74#User:Flameviper_needs_a_coach suggested just as much, but somehow it turned into an impromptu votes for banning thing, which is utterly ridiculous. So yeah, I would endorse an unblock. --Iamunknown 00:58, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I see no problem with that. CattleGirl ^{talk | sign!} 07:36, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for one final chance here, I always felt bad that a banning discussion would be headed under "needs a coach." However Ryan as his mentor you need to be absolutely clear that this is his final opportunity to come back with some maturity, Flameviper seems to have an expectation of an infinite amount of chances to redeem himself, as someone with six infinite bans in his block log, and now serving a 3 year ban at Uncyclopedia, he needs to realize that all patience has been exhausted. --MichaelLinnear 22:36, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

And the comment on his talk indicates some degree of self-awareness, so... why not, I guess. Guy (Help!) 22:40, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I trust your judgement, Ryan; if you think you can talk some sense into him, by all means unblock, as long as you're equally willing to reblock in the (I'm sad to say, but entirely likely) event that he doesn't pick up the clue phone. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:59, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Unbanning is a bad idea. I remember dealing with this guy; he wasn't here to write the encyclopedia, just join an online community, participate in some web memes, etc. I don't see anything to be gained by unbanning him. He was very immature the last time he tried editing and not much time has passed in the intervening period, so it's very unlikely he's gotten any better. If you unblock, I predict more disruption and a not-so-distant re-banning. --Cyde Weys 15:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, a timescale would help here. You seem to suggest he might mature at some point, so you could suggest a time after which he would be allowed to show this new maturity. Or you could just say that when he gets a clue, create a new account. Carcharoth 15:57, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll have to be with Cyde on this one, I really can't see any good coming out of unblocking Flameviper. As pointed out above, a reblock is almost entirely going to happen. If he is unblocked there will have to be very strict restrictions set upon his editing and behaviour, with even a little deviation outside those restrictions resulting in a new block. – Chacor 01:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Do we actually have a way of controlling or influencing Flameviper? His previous history shows him rejecting well-intended attempts to get him back on the right path. Anyone who hopes to work with him again should read through the set of comments about him in Archive74 and see if they still have the same hopeful opinion. Unblocking is not just an administrative action, all the rest of us would have to put up with whatever he unleashes on us, and clean up the mess. If this were an an Arbcom ban, he could apply to be unblocked after one year, which would be February, 2008. I think we can afford to wait until then. EdJohnston 01:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with those opposing an unblock. I was one of the editors who dealt with him very frequently in his last months on Wikipedia (I was the one who imposed the 1 month block that was later extended to the indefinite block by Yanksox) and don't think this is a wise move. It's been four months since he was blocked. That is hardly enough time for him to mature out of that mindset he displayed on Wikipedia for a very long time (remember this wasn't his first issue, see User:Flameviper/socks). He never brought anything productive to this encyclopedia. It's not like he was a prolific editor who snapped occasionally. Metros 01:50, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Please see the new discussion posted on WP:CN. Ryan Postlethwaite 19:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of Bad Faith Account

Could an administrator please delete the account User:CamelCommodore. I posted a message on the user page a few days ago explaining the situation. An investigation revealed that this was an account created for the sole purpose of causing trouble in an arbitration case and casting a shadow of suspicion on another user. Maintaining this account on Wikipedia serves no useful purpose as it is a reminder of a very heated and sensitive situation which all parties have since tried to move past. -195.229.236.213 05:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Uh, at most, it can be indefinitely blocked, rather than be deleted. However, if you'd like it to be blocked, you'd better pony up some diffs. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that it has already been blocked. Would like to see it removed from the site if that is possible for a variety of reasons, most of them off-wiki ones. -195.229.236.213 05:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not generally possible, for attribution reasons -- but see the Oversight noticeboard at the top if you have serious libel concerns. --Haemo 05:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, it's not at the top; it's here Wikipedia:Oversight --Haemo 05:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. That is very helpful. -195.229.236.213 05:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I don't think the account should be deleted - unless the user himself is willing to log in and request this under m:Right to vanish. Neil ╦ 15:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Accounts can not be deleted. The contributions might be removed by requests for oversight, but it is unlikely. The account could be renamed to something obscure, like user:Former user x0121. The account holder will have to log in and request a name change at WP:CHU. Thatcher131 15:34, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you everyone above for the good information. I doubt the person who created that account could ever be talked into logging in like you suggest nor is the existence of that account serious enough to actually cause harm to the person it was meant to discredit. I suppose its fine the way it is with the statement on there about the suspected bad faith creation. Thank you again for the polite responses, even from those who thought they might have been dealing with someone that they once had problems with. Matter resolved. -38.119.112.187 04:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Glaring abuse of Admin Powers by User:Ryulong and unjustified blocking activity

I had to walk across town to use another computer in order to post this message, which I feel needs to be posted. The original inquiry was a legitimate concern and I approached the Admin Noticeboard in good faith and got what I thought was a good answer. However, within hours of my post, my ip address was blocked for an invalid reason and, quite frankly, what seems like someone with a grudge. Requests to get unblocked have gone unanswered and I am hoping that I am not breaking a rule by using another computer to post, but it seems to be the only way I can get on Wikipedia now. My formal complaint is as follows:

I was shocked that within a few hours of this exchange, User:Ryulong proceeded to block the ip address as a “banned account” in accordance with Husnock’s arbitration case. This was a completely invalid reason to block the ip address for the glaring fact that Husnock’s account, or any account associated with him, was never banned. I reviewed Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Husnock and there was absolutely no mention about a ban on this user. I then used a VPN (under a different ip address) to approach the blocking user in order to politely explain the situation and state that a mistake had been made [3]. Ryulong then blocked the VPN even after being told that Husnock was never banned and that the block was unfair and reverted the original inquiry from his talkpage without discussion (as if it were vandlism) [4]. So, I have to ask, why were these accounts blocked? As for any of these accounts actually being Husnock, bear in mind that the point of an anonymous account is that it is anonymous. There is no Wikipedia regulation which states that an anon ip account must identify itself and I will not confirm or deny that I am Husnock or any other user. And regardless of who is “behind the keyboard” in this case, the original concern was very valid which is why I came here in the first place. A member of an IT staff showed extensive knowledge about the Husnock Arbitration case and then admitted to creating the CamelCommodore account. He had knowledge of the account’s password and its edits and was, at one point, a subordinate of Husnock in the military unit which had used the computer facilities from where these accounts originated. I thank the users above for providing the information about the oversight, but ask the other users who launched into this “let’s get Husnock” campaign to step back and think about what you’re doing. I truly feel this was for personal feelings rather than any violation of Wikipedia policy. Finally, I ask that certain people get off this horse that Husnock is some evil user who should be blocked on sight. The arbitration case is over and Husnock hasn’t edited disruptively since last year. In fact, over the last year he has served his country's military in the Middle East. Yet, whenever any account appears which is perhaps in any way associated with him, it is attacked, harassed, and now apparently blocked without cause. This even being the case when ip addresses are spread throughout the world, from different countries, editing within minutes of each other. If Husnock were to return to this site tomorrow, and started editing again under his old account, would he be welcomed back and assisted to rejoin the community? A question to ask oneself, I feel.

Thank you for letting me vent this, it was just very disturbing. I again hope that I not breaking any rule or regulation by posting this. It simply seemed like an admin blocked these ip addresses without any cause, justification, or reason other than a personal dislike for Husnock. This is something that should be brought to other's attention. -213.42.2.22 15:19, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The IP addresss should not have been blocked. I will raise it with Ryulong. Neil ╦ 15:24, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

No response, so unblocked. Neil ╦ 19:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Seems like the right course of action, to me. I'm assuming Ryulong has a good explanation for his actions; he's generally pretty reasonable. --Masamage ♫ 19:35, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Procedure for multiple recreation of spam page?

Stumbled across The New Release today. Apparently the page has been speedy-deleted twice as spam, but is now recreated with the same content, by the same user. What's standard procedure here? --Alvestrand 06:37, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Tag it again. If it's recreated a lot in a short span of time, an admin may salt the earth. Natalie 07:37, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kite

FYI, interesting piece of html inserted on kite that made clicking anywhere on the page go to the spam site. I've taken out the angle brackets to disable it: p style="font-size: 50000px; left: -50px; width: 100%; position: absolute; top: -50px; height: 100%; font-color: transparent" [5]. Cheers Clappingsimon talk 14:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

We already seem to have a name for it at WikiProject Spam: "invisible inkspam". Femto 15:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Sneaky IP responsible has been softblocked for six months. Neil ╦ 15:16, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Doesnt do anything on Firefox 2.0.0.4, nor on IE6. —Crazytales ^{(talk) (alt)} 23:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Harry was a white dog with black spots & User:Quakerman

Hi everyone. I am concerned about the edits of the above user, for example, those here [6]. As I would like to be appropriate in response to issues such as giving "final notice" to an editor with no edit history, and I would like to avoid approaching 3rr with this editor, I am turning this case over to the collective for perusal. I think I may have become a tad frustrated with the user blanking communication on her/his user talk page as soon as it was posted combined with relative attacking behaviors such as that above, regarding a post in an AfD by an IP editor (User:81.14.178.73). For this reason, I will back away and leave it, if any communication is appropriate, to other admins to oversee. Thanks, --Kukini ^{hablame aqui} 20:30, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I on the other hand consider User:kukini's behaviour to be harassment, and ask that it be dealt with as such. This started with him reverting my edits on Richard Clayderman and the related talk page. I posted a polite note on his talk page stating that I was doing this based on Biographies_of_living_persons. He questioned what I considered defamatory and I cited three examples on the talk page, and the fact that opinions on the article page had no source and should be deleted immediately as above. I of course removed the warning from my talk page as it was totally inappropriate.

This prompted User:kukini to troll my contributions for perceived errors. He found one, where I had mistakenly put the warning he refers to on the user page instead of the talk page. I felt justified in placing the warning because the user had shown him/herself to be an anonymous user that had vandalised a page during an edit war. This was shown because he/she subsequently signed a comment on an AfD page (Delete the article! HAJ 21:11, 7 June 2007 —The preceding comment is by 81.14.178.73) User 81.14.178.73 had made exactly the same edits as several other anon users who had already also been warned. If a user makes an anonymous comment, and then subsequently signs it, it is clear who the user is. The page was protected, so the anon user had no choice but to get a user name. Unfortunately, he/she must not have realised that it would not allow immediate edits.

There have been a couple of other issues which have been solved through dialogue with the other affected users to everyone's satisfaction.

I think it ill-behooves an administrator to wade in to past issues without ascertaining the facts. A simple note on my talk page asking why I did what I did would have resulted in dialogue and hopefully consensus. User:kukini chose not to do this, and I certainly got the feeling he was "out to get me", and therefore have asked him to cease this harassment. Everything I have done has been in good faith, and I am happy to use the dispute resolution procedure on this matter. Harry was a white dog with black spots 20:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Backlog at Wikipedia:Copyright problems

Help is needed here if anyone is willing. It has been just me and two other admins working on this page, and it is getting quite backlogged. So, all you suckers who claimed in your RfA that you would help with whatever backlogs exist, get to work! --Spike Wilbury 17:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

And while you're at it, there also is a backlog at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images. Garion96 (talk) 20:19, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

And Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion.  :-P --Iamunknown 01:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Aye aye, sir! (but working very slowly) --Alvestrand 07:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image undeletion

OK, this is my first question as a newbie admin so go easy on me :) The lead image of Chagas disease, Image:Trypanosoma cruzi crithidia.jpeg, was deleted locally on April 4 under CSD I5 (on Commons). The thing is, the file is now gone from Commons—the file only: the image description page is still there, and there is no record of it whatsoever in the Commons deletion log. My question is: (1) can I undelete the file locally and re-upload it to Commons or (2) should I take it up at Commons, asking for admin assistance there to find out what's going on with the file? WP:DELETE seems woefully insufficient to explain this, so I thought I'd ask here. Thanks in advance. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The Commons picture has been restored - looks like a glitch. There was deleted copy of the image, but no one had deleted it. Might be an example of this problem. WjBscribe 02:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed—thank you. Should have thought of that... Fvasconcellos (t·c) 09:20, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Valid criticisms

I have just been catching up on wiki-news, and through the Signpost I read about Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Gracenotes, and have read the resulting pages of discussion. What I was wondering was whether the point about valid criticism and useful material (ie. not attack material) on dedicated Wikipedia criticism sites could be secondarily linked to? ie. Could a Wikipedia user post a statement elsewhere on the internet (eg. a personal blog site like those run by, among others, David Gerard and Kelly Martin) discussing and linking to the valid criticism at the controversial site, and then link to that blog post from a Wikipedia talk page? Would this 'distancing' of the controversial link, making it a click-read-click step away, help at all? This wouldn't of course help in the case of reliable parts of a site (well-written, sourced articles) that also has controverial parts (eg. an online forum) being used as a reliable source for a Wikipedia article, but that is a different issue, so I will leave that aside for now. The main question here is, would indirect linking help resolve the problem of not shutting out valid criticism? Carcharoth 12:00, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Generally, linking to a site that has attacks (even if it's via a chain) is a violation of WP:NPA. If my userpage has a link to my normal blog, which itself links to my "Carcharoth is a complete Douchebag" blog, and I say "Hey - check out my [normal blog] - and click the link at the top" - that's a personal attack. If the New York Times runs a letter to the editor complaining that Jimbo has a terrible haircut ---- we're not going to delink all the references to the New York Times (well, most of us won't). It's a common sense application, of course. The end result is that you shouldn't link to anything that'd be inappropriate to just post. WilyD 15:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Um. I said secondary linking to valid criticism, not to an attack post. What is it about this subject that causes people to misinterpret anything that is written about it? That is exactly what Gracenotes said, and some people plainly just misunderstood him. Is there a simple way to say that you don't ever want to link to attack material, but want to be able to point out, very carefully, that there is a diamond sitting on top of that pile of stinking faeces? Carcharoth 20:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I forgot the classic rebuttal. By this logic of a chain, Wikipedia mustn't link to Wikipedia articles, because they link to websites that link to websites that link to... with an attack site at the end of the chain. I think that makes the point clear. Case-by-case judgements trusting the person doing the judgement, and examining content, wins over blanket rules every time. Carcharoth 00:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dishonorable behavior

Last week I was blocked 48 hours for 3RR violation. I already discussed at length on my talk page the mitigating circumstances in that case, which prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I should not have been blocked at all. Of course, I should not have needed to bother with such lengthy statements, as my note on the 3RR report itself was certainly enough, and in any case the record itself speaks the same ideas. Nonetheless, as a result of the contemptible behavior of the admins reviewing my block (with one exception whom I will not name for his protection), I am compelled to come here to seek satisfaction.

The lies and dishonesty used against me must in justice be called lies and dishonesty. Implying that 3RR is always enforced strictly with no discretion, as did Yamla in particular; use of the pejorative term 'wikilawyering' and falsely claiming that I was warned before violation, as did JzG; implying that I was not engaged in a civil discussion, as did the blocking admin; the block summary, calling my actions 'a repeated pattern', as well as falsely calling them 'edit warring' as did several parties; and lastly, ignoring my arguments - as did the blocking admin, all the reviewing admins, and arguably Viridae - could itself be termed dishonest, as there could be no conclusion reached by an examination of them other than that the block was unjust.

In addition to properly vindicating my personal honor, it is necessary to expose this to the entire community in order save my reputation from being ruined by this block. I am not a problem editor in any way and my edit history certainly bears that out - although I do use reverting perhaps more than normal, I am not regularly tendentious, uncivil, ignorant, or biased on any topic. In addition I have a rule, which I have mentioned before, of never reverting more than once without some kind of explanation except in cases of vandalism. The way, the truth, and the light 08:37, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring is not acceptable behaviour. Continuing to edit war whilst engaging in discussion is still edit warring. In future, please do not continue to revert other editors - instead, wait until consensus is reached via discussion before making further changes to the article. In order to give other editors a chance to contribute, it's prudent to wait at least 24 hours and sometimes up to a week before taking any action. Therefore there is no excuse for making 3 or more reverts within 24 hours. Waggers 09:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The evidence is there for anyone to see - if you dispute my characterizations, look at the record for yourself rather than repeating the lies. There is no doubt that the words 'edit warring', as well as 'continued reverting', simply do not apply. Also, the history of that article, List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts, shows that no one was more diligent (perhaps equally, but not more) than I was at the time. The way, the truth, and the light 02:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That you're reverting to different versions is not a mitigating circumstance. That you believe FeloniousMonk to misunderstand something is not a mitigating circumstance either. That you believe to be in dispute with Jayjg is grounds for WP:RFM or WP:RFC dispute resolution, but is not a mitigating circumstance with respect to edit warring. Et cetera. >Radiant< 09:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The reason for them being mitigating circumstances is that they show me to have been editing in good faith, and thus not 'edit warring', if that pejorative term means anything at all. I should not need to point out that mitigating circumstances of that sort are in some cases taken into account - including my previous violation on that article - making your claim dishonest for that reason also. The way, the truth, and the light 16:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

If you really were editing in good faith you would not be immediately accusing people who disagree with you of dishonesty. >Radiant< 19:21, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Immediately? No, only after trying and failing to get a reasonable explanation. In addition, I explained exactly what I believe is dishonest. The way, the truth, and the light 05:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The best way to avoid being blocked, in the future, is to not edit war. Hope that helps. Nandesuka 22:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

3RR is a technical rule, you break it you get blocked. All exceptions to this rule are listed at WP:3RR#Exceptions, I don't see one that applies to your situation. The block looks valid. ^(H) 22:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course, that simplistic assertion doesn't explain why some violations - such as my previous one on that article - do not result in blocks. Nor does it explain why my block was longer than the standard 24 hours despite all other factors being in my favor. The way, the truth, and the light 05:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:CyclePat

CyclePat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) has emailed me again requesting unblock, but he makes it perfectly clear that he will continue to campaign for the reactivation of WP:AMA, which campaign is what got him blocked in the first place, so I am disinclined to unblock. He is being asked by at least one former AMA advocate to drop it, with similar lack of success. This fills me with sadness. I like Pat, for all that he is irritatingly persistent. I am not sure who can persuade him to drop it, Kim Bruning tried and failed. Good ideas welcome. Guy (Help!) 09:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Blocks are intended to prevent further violations, such as trolling[7] in this particular case. After reviewing Pat's talk page, it seems to me that he is 200% sure that everything he does is perfectly right. I see no point in unblocking him unless he promises to stop his crusade against the communty's consensus. MaxSem 10:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe someone can talk him through the consensus? He really really does not accept that it exists. Guy (Help!) 11:57, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The only other thing I can think of is banning him from the Wikipedia namespace altogether, just let him contribute to articles. This may not be practical, but it's all I can think of. Every edit he makes to Wikispace is either trolling or useless, often a concoction of both. Other than kickbanning outright forever, this might be an option? Moreschi ^Talk 13:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been keeping an eye on his talk page; Pat certainly seems set on resuming disruptive editing should he be unblocked. The wikilawyering and word games on his talk page (his attempt to characterize this block as 'extortion' based on his interpretation of dictionary definitions comes to mind as a recent example) exemplify the reasons AMA failed in the first place. He's done some good and useful things, but until he's prepared to stop beating this dead horse, I'm not prepared to unblock. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:52, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

CyclePat did previously honor a ban regarding the editor assistance project that was placed after discussion at the community sanction noticeboard. Perhaps placing a stronger ban (a ban on any editing related to the AMA) could be similarly effective? If he would be willing to honor such a restriction, it would be much better than blocking him altogether. I don't think hes a bad guy, he just gets a bit overzealous, but really we're probably all guilty of that at one time or another. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

If it's made clear to Pat that AMA is dead and that no call to bring it back is wanted, desired, or allowed, and he's willing to go along with it, I have no problem with that. I have a feeling that Pat will not accept it, however... SirFozzie 19:54, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd go along with that, provided he agrees. It's probably more realistic than a ban from the Wikipedia namespace. If he violates it, ascending blocks ending in indefinite. Thoughts? Can someone put this before him? We might as well get his views on such an arrangement before a full discussion of how it would work. Moreschi ^Talk 19:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I informed Pat of this discussion and invited him to respond at his talkpage.--Isotope23 20:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Sent him an email along the same lines, though less nicely phrased. If he replies to me in the affirmative, that should be OK for an unblock, as far as I'm concerned. Moreschi ^Talk 20:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I am allowed to post here or not, but I wanted to tell that I have had a confilct with this user, recently. His alternative account (or maybe sockpuppet, not sure) User:CyclePat2, erased most of the Saturn Corporation article, because it was unsourced, Me, as well as a couple of other editors, continued to revert, when it teetered on the edge of being an edit war. He later trolled the talk page of it. He finally stopped, but not without a fight. (He got blocked because he attacked an admin by dropping a couple of f-bombs) I just thought that I would let you know that. I don't really think that he should be unblocked after my unfortunate run in with him. Since I am a non-admin, if me posting here is not allowed, then you can remove this comment. I just thought that I would inform you of this conflict. Karrmann 20:14, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Posting here is completely allowed, for everyone. Hmm...we are supposed to be forgiving. Clemency is the virtue of the great, etc. I'd say it's worth giving this chap one more chance. He is capable of making productive contributions. Moreschi ^Talk 20:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I protected his talkpage, just as a heads up. I set expiry of two weeks and told him that I hope by the end of those two weeks, he'll be ready to rejoin us and get over the AMA. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 20:16, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be unprotected so he can respond to the offer. I don't know Pat very well, but from what I gather, if he is committed to pursuing a discussion on AMA now, he will be committed to pursuing it in 2 weeks as well.--Isotope23 20:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Unprotected. We need to him to make one more comment on this offer, yea or nay. Just one. Moreschi ^Talk 20:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

(EC) Non-admins are absolutely allowed to post here. "Administrators' noticeboard" means that the board is for issues which may require the attention of admins, not that only admins are allowed to post or comment. As to your specific complaint, could you please provide some diffs of the conduct you object to? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

An example of him trolling the Saturn Corporation talk page is here. What got him blocked is here. While I understand the idea of forgive and forget, it does get annoying to have an editor start a flame war whenever his edits are reverted. If an editor is just going to troll and attack other editors, then I find no use for them here. Wiarthurhu would make many useful contributions, but would always attack other editors if we changed up his edits or reverted any edits from him, so he eventually got blocked because everybody got tired of him attacking everybody. I say that an editor that is always attacking other editors is of no use here. That is just my opinion, though. Karrmann 20:50, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to talk sense into Pat on his talk page but for me (and this is really unfortunate) I'm starting to get a bad faith feel off of him, I even started an RfC on him in order for him to see that he was trying everyone's patience so he could stop, take a breath and move on a better editor. <sigh> I wish he would drop the subject on the AMA, it is gone it should rest in piece before this becomes the circus that the Espernza Closing was. It would be great if he could come back but his track record as of late makes me wonder if he can really ever accept that the AMA is done. Æon ^{Insanity Now!} 22:57, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

• Note: Pat has left a comment on his talk page, basically saying "I need to think about this". BTW, I would strongly oppose any attempts to get him involved in any other forms of DR, such as MedCab or MedCom. He can be a productive editor, but not when it comes to dampening down strife. His record seems to be more one of causing wikidrama than preventing it. Moreschi ^Talk 14:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Moreschi, Pat has had some serious issues with the DR process in the past and having him in any DR step could cuase a huge problem. Æon ^{Insanity Now!} 22:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] El_C appears to be unwilling to discuss indef block

For once, I agree. --Hemlock Martinis 05:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What a change in policy

Enough. El_C 03:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection

More admins may wish to express an opinion on some pretty drastic changes that have been made to this page over the last 2 months. The page discusses when the main page FA should be semi-protected. Changes have been made (see this version [12] for example) to suggest routine semi protection for the rest of the day in the case of high vandalism. This does not to my mind in any way match our present approach (or the approach we should take). To my mind semi-protection should be reserved for extreme vandalism such that reverters can no longer keep up and should be for brief periods and reassessed every hours or so. There appears to have been limited input from admins (or indeed the wider community for some time). If interested, please join the discussions on the talkpage. WjBscribe 23:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

In case anyone feels inclined to compare the previous page to the current one: 11:41, 4 April 2007 and 22:06, 11 June 2007. – Steel 00:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There has recently been reversion of changes to this page claiming there is no consensus to change policy, despite a large number of editors offering support for a change and very few supporting the current policy. A survey of opinions was also posted allowing users to place themselves on a continuum of position from full protection to never protect. This was deleted today as well. It has been suggested that the survey was biased and canvassed, and that the discussion has not been sufficiently advertised. Notification of the discussion has now been posted to all pages suggested. I request comment on recent changes to pages, discussion of the policy, and a notice appearing for registered users like the one I'm seeing above ('Early registration for Wikimania 2007 is open'). It has been suggested this is not important enough to justify such a notice, though I believe it's a very important policy and has wider impacts for its reflection of Wikipedia's philosophy. Richard001 08:02, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for bringing this here. I had no idea that this guideline that metamorphosed into such farcical nonsense. Moreschi ^Talk 09:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I dunno, I'm starting to think protecting the main page FA isn't such a bad idea. It's currently vandalized at such a ridiculous rate that it's really making Wikipedia look bad. A good number of readers (higher than 1%) are clicking through from the main page and hitting on vandalism. I don't think it's worth it to keep the page unlocked at this rate. In the absence of stable versions, we need some way to always make sure to present the best version of the article to our hundreds of thousands of readers coming off the main page, and protecting the article as soon as it hits the main page is the best way to accomplish that. Maybe we could implement the stable versions hack using templates — move the article over to a working version and leave that editable, while copying over the best version to the main article name, protecting it, and adding a template to the top saying, "You are reading a stable version that has been identified as good. To see the most recent version, and to edit the article, see the working version." --Cyde Weys 09:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

How about we semiprotect it, and put a template on the article saying "This article is semiprotected to prevent vandalism while it is featured on the front page. If you are unable to edit this article, please suggest any changes on the talk page"? It's simple, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. Free editing of the featured article is a wonderful ideal, but it isn't working. Neil ╦ 09:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we decided yet, but certainly, if we do choose that route, it will need to be phrased in a manner that more friendly to newcomers who may well be puzzled by such terms as "semiprotected", etc. But this isn't a change to be undertaken on a whim. El_C 10:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• One of the most worrying problems is that sometimes people are unsure what is vandalism and what is not, a kid doing a study project could easily believe a serious piece a vandalism was fact here is an example [13] I quite like Cyde's idea or failing that I cannot see the harm if the front page being at least semi-protected (established editors only) with others being asked to add any useful information to the talk page where it could be added to the article by an established editor. Giano 10:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• Hey, that's what I said. Neil ╦ 10:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• Ah you conflicted me when I first tried to post, perhaps we are psychic twins seperated at birth? Giano 11:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• Ooh, scary thought :) Neil ╦ 19:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Or just get more people, especially admins, watchlisting the Main page FA? I don't think many do. Put a note on every one's watchlist saying "Please consider watchlisting and reverting vandalism on today's FA. Help save the wiki!". Would probably work just as well. Many of the best edits to main page FAs do come from IPs, I've seen a number of examples. Moreschi ^Talk 10:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It certainly would be better for our image if we could keep Main page entries stable and open. El_C 10:20, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Which reminds me, Wikipedia:Flagged revisions could and should help with that. We should implement that ASAP. Moreschi ^Talk 10:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

After sympathising with User:Dave souza for having to revert so much vandalism on a main page FA, I found he was rather enjoying the work! User_talk:Dave_souza/Archive_7#Congrats_about_Charles_Darwin Thincat 11:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I always watch the main page FA when I deny a protection request for it at WP:RFPP. I usually catch a few vandals but see hours go by with no bad edits. If we make an effort to have our anti-vandalism people specifically watch TFA, we should be able to keep it vandalism-free for 98% of the time without protection, while allowing everyone to experience how cool it is to edit the first article they come across. Kusma (talk) 11:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Is there a way to put Wikipedia:Today's featured article/{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}} on my watchlist? --Aude (talk) 11:27, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It wouldn't matter; that page you're referring to is protected anyway (you're talking about the summary that appears on the main page, which is always fully protected). --Cyde Weys 11:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

You can check [[Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:Today's featured article/{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}}]] though, which is mostly the changes to today's FA: Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 14, 2008. Kusma (talk) 12:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That's more what I'm looking for. It would be great if those pages linked to Wikipedia:Today's featured article/{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}} could automatically go on my watchlist and possibly be taken off when no longer linked there. Maybe that's a bug request. Otherwise, I can't remember to always add the featured article of the day. --Aude (talk) 12:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Such capability would also help enormously in watching Portal pages like {{Portal:Mathematics/Featured article/{{CURRENTYEAR}}_{{CURRENTWEEK}}} which tend to experience a lot of vandalism, but not always watched that closely. --Aude (talk) 12:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, a cascading watchlist. I want one of those. — CharlotteWebb 13:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that what Special:Related changes does? Carcharoth 15:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I check my watchlist much more often. If the main page article is on my watchlist, I'm likely to catch vandalism quickly. But, I can't spend all day clicking on Special:Recentchangeslinked/Main_Page to promptly catch vandalism to the main page article. Same with all the portal pages. --Aude (talk) 15:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• It would seem to me that, given our current size, whether or not the main page is protected does not make a meaningful difference to our impression of being "open and free to edit". >Radiant< 12:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
• I'm a little dismayed that no attempts seem to have been made to encourage administrators to take part in the discussions on Main Page protection. We're the people who have to deal with protection requests and have the most experience in whether protection requests are appropriate. From my experience, people just start pushing all the buttons on their latest Javascript edit tools without actually checking to see whether there's a large amount of vandalism coming from different IP addresses or accounts, or whether simply blocking one account or one IP address is likely to solve the issue. Sometimes a school classroom will decide to all target the same article, simple rangeblocks and such can cure these problems almost as quickly as blocking just one IP address. I know some editors would like the Main Page to be a shining beacon to all our new visitors, but I'd much rather have the main page being used as a honey trap for vandals, with vandalism being quickly and effiencently dealt with on the Main Page and with the perpetrators blocked. It's much better than having to read complaints from readers who have contacted us because they've come across an article that has remained vandalised for weeks or months. If we do routinely protect the main page, they'll just hit Random article much more often and vandalise the first page they come across. Nick 13:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
  • That assumes that vandals want a certain amount of vandalism, and they will spend as much effort as they must to get that amount of vandalism. Admittedly, some vandals truly dislike Wikipedia, and they have that mindset, but they also already know that main page vandalism is useless, since it will just be reverted. Most of the vandals we get are just passing by and being "cool", so they're willing to spend only so much energy vandalizing. They won't do a lot of work finding a page to vandalize. -Amarkov moo! 14:10, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

In my mind semi-protection should be reserved only for the most extreme instances of vandalism and then used for no more than 5 minutes (or however long it takes to block the dozen tagteam IPs, whichever is less). If policy must be bent, it is less damaging to the encyclopedia to block TFA vandals with fewer than optimal warnings than to leave the main page semi-protected. Vandalism to TFA is very often blatant; if someone inserts a shock image into the article by very tricky means, there is little need to warn them four times before blocking them. Semi-protecting TFA should be considered extremely damaging to the project; not only do the articles actually improve, and often from IP edits, but its a symbol of a fundamental principle of our community. Savidan 14:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I block clear vandals (obviously malicious intent, not testing) on the Main Page without warning if necessary. I prefer that approach to protection. Kusma (talk) 15:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, back in December there was a study done on about a week's worth of featured articles. (its in the talk page archives of that page.) If I recall correctly the featured article then was in a vandalized state greater then 2% of the time. Some days even saw times when the page was in a vandalized state for more then 4 hours if I recall correctly. I think about 90% of the anon edits were vandalism. In any case you guys should look at that survey, and consider doing a second one if you like. (I don't really see how things will have changed, but they could have). In any case we do have objective data on this, so I'd suggest that when talking about this you guys point to that, rather then using words such as many IPs help expand large parts of the article, and no evidence. I don't recall that many IPs helping during our study. Just a heads up, we do have some hard evidence :D. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 15:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not keep the main page FA unprotected because I believe it might be improved. I do it to make people see that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Kusma (talk) 15:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Uhhhh we don't allow anyone to edit just for the heck of it, we allow it as a calculated decision to improve the project at a faster rate. The point of Wikipedia isn't to let anyone edit, the point is to create a good encyclopedia. It sounds like you think the point is to just let anyone edit for no apparent reason. --W.marsh 20:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• Hmm - Today's Featured Article is supposted to show the world that Wikipedia can be as good as a traditional encyclopedia. It's not good for it be vandalised much of the time. However, it's possibly the first page new users will come across. They may be vandalising or they may simply be trying to figure out how to edit the project. They'll end up with a vandalism warning left by one of our army of Javascript tooled RC patrollers. They'll possibly be frightened off from editing further. How about we physically make the Sandbox the first port of call for new editors, not the featured article ? Perhaps we could have the featured article fully protected but with a sneaky template or hack which fakes an Edit This Page button leading to the sandbox ? Nick 16:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. From the sandbox, have further links to introductory pages. If people have genuine corrections to make, then tell them to put those on the talk page. One problem: you might get a good non-admin editor coming along and, seeing the article on the main page, decide to help improve it with some late copyediting, but be stopped by the full page protection. Would be annoying. Carcharoth 17:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Right now as I see the question is, are we ok with the main page featured article being in a vandalized state? How long is too long? 1% 2% 4% 8%? 2 hours? 4 hours? Hence why this is a very subjective call, and one that I don't think is well suited to a hard cut policy that says "do X all the time". Its more one of those things were we need to just look at the situation, if its being vandalized 6 times a minute, it just might be a good idea to simply protect the thing for a few hours. There are certain subjects that are very likely to get huge amounts of vandalism, and on those days its worthwhile to be liberal with protecting the page. There are some topics that are not vandal bait, and those are easily left unprotected the whole time. Its just a case of using common sense, and not applying this whole "it should always be protected" or "it should never be protected", some situations call for protection, others don't. :) —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 18:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dicholorophenoxyacedtic acid

Huh... well I feel like an idiot. I made a duplicate page of Dicholorophenoxyacedtic Acid, with the a in acid capitalized, and there already is one in existance. Will an administrator delete this one? (It's the short one)--LtWinters 14:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. Savidan 14:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

You could have just redirected them to 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (which I have done). Neil ╦ 14:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused. The log for Dicholorophenoxyacedtic Acid shows that LtWinters moved the page. Savidan, was the page you deleted a redirect or an actual page with content? 2,4-Dicholorophenoxyacedtic Acid got deleted then recreated as a redirect. Incidentially, Dicholorophenoxyacedtic acid seems to have been missed. I'll create that redirect. Carcharoth 15:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually only the talk page for it was delted. --LtWinters 15:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yea, I think we're good now. --LtWinters 15:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

You managed to confuse me even more! I think I've worked it out now: (1) 14:32 - you move Dicholorophenoxyacedtic Acid to 2,4-Dicholorophenoxyacedtic Acid; (2) 14:42 (see timestamp above) - you request Dicholorophenoxyacedtic Acid be deleted (as Neil said, you could have just redirected it, though it was already a redirect and it was 2,4-Dicholorophenoxyacedtic Acid that you could have just redirected); (3) 14:48 - both 2,4-Dicholorophenoxyacedtic Acid and it's talk page were deleted by Savidan; (4) 14:49 (see timestamp above) - Savidan reports deletion has been done; (5) 14:50 - Savidan deletes Dicholorophenoxyacedtic Acid (which was presumably a redirect after you performed the move); (6) some more discussion ensues in this thread and various redirects are created; (7) 15:37 - you recreate Talk:2,4-Dicholorophenoxyacedtic Acid and, presumably seeing the blue link on the article tab (caused by the creation of a redirect), ask for the page to be deleted instead of just the talk page, not realising both had been deleted as requested; (8) I get very confused but eventually work out what is going on (I hope).

Maybe Wikipedia:Move and Wikipedia:Redirect will help? Carcharoth 17:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I thought it seemed like an unlikely redirect (given that the article name is so long anyway) but I don't have any problem with it I guess. Savidan 17:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Rule to go by - Wikipedia:Redirects are cheap. If someone typed it, someone else might. Neil ╦ 19:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, I did redirect it after doing further research, hope it didn't cause too much trouble. --LtWinters 21:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. Please excuse my over-indulgent investigation of the electronic trail. :-) Carcharoth 00:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dealing with legal threats

If someone threatens to sue me, can I block them myself under Wikipedia:No legal threats or I am supposed to ask another administrator for intervention? Andris 16:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It would be better to ask someone else to intervene so that you won't be second-guessed, and perhaps someone else can find a way to defuse the situation. Newyorkbrad 16:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Here is the edit in question: [14]. The anon first tried to delete a paragraph with a negative information on a minor politician/civil servant. After me restoring the paragraph, the anon is threatening lawsuit in quite agressive terms. Andris 17:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

To respond to the other user's concerns, is the statement true? If it is, then it can't be defamation, no matter what. Statements of fact are never defamation. --Deskana (talk) 17:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Blocked 72 hours for legal threats (not longer because it's an anon). If the anon withdraws the threats I will consider unblocking. If the anon repeats the threats I will extend the block (and feel safe doing so if it turns out to be a static IP). In response to Deskana, you are certainly right under American law but I am not sure that is where the editor is located and I don't know where the "criminal prosecution" the editor is threatening would take place. Regards, Newyorkbrad 17:10, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's servers are in the United States, therefore they follow American (and Floridan) law. —Kurykh 17:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand that, but the editor whom I blocked was threatening "criminal prosecution" in another jurisdiction. Part of the harm that the "no legal threats" policy is meant to protect is the potentially intimidating effect of a threat of legal proceedings in any location, whether or not it's a valid threat. Also bear in mind that not all users edit anonymously, and that if a libel action were brought against an individual user, it could be attempted to be done in their home jurisdiction. Newyorkbrad 17:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone bothered to read the Latvian article to check whether the claims in our article on Kristine Jarinovska are true, or find an English-language source for the claims? It could just be the subject of the claim in the article complaining the only way they know how. Carcharoth 17:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• Also, the IP removing the paragraph is different to the one making the legal threat. Carcharoth 17:19, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
  • See the full history of the five edits in question here. Carcharoth 17:22, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) It certainly couldn't hurt for someone to do this. Andris, do you have any view on the substance of the edit? Regards, Newyorkbrad 17:21, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
  • A whole section based on a single source not in English, disputed by someone with some passion. Clearly it must come out until we have either a decent translation or confirmation from some English-language sources. I have said so on the Talk page. Guy (Help!) 17:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
• Actually, wondering whether the claim was properly sourced that was my very first response. A LexisNexis search turns up an English language news brief from the Baltic News Service datelined 2006-08-03 noting Jarinovska's suspension "after a conflict with Education and Science Minister Baiba Rivza". There is another BNS article datelined 2006-10-13 stating that she plans to return to work. Uncle G 18:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There are multiple sources for that conflict in Latvian but not much English language coverage. What is the right way to proceed?

The conflict in question is about the only thing for which Jarinovska is known to wider public in Latvia. Apart from it, she seems to be a non-notable public servant who does not merit a Wikipedia article. (Google search for Jarinovska in Latvian returns 527 hits, mostly news stories about her conflict. Google search in English [15] returns 39 hits and that includes Wikipedia and its mirrors.) Andris 18:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

If we continue discussing the content, Talk:Kristine Jarinovska is probably the right place for that. Andris 19:10, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, if this is the user's first offense, then a warning would be sufficient. Just alert the user that there can be no legal threatening at Wikipedia and if the user persists to make legal threats, then come back and then discuss a block but it's not fair to block a user for a first time offense. Just my opinion. Redsox04 19:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion log links

What's happened to the deletion log links? Normally, when was keeping track of deletion, restorations, and other entries in the page logs (when looking at AfDs and DRVs), I used the "check the deletion log" link from the "this page does not exist" boilerplate notice. Recently, that link was removed and the deletion log appeared below the "this page does not exist" notice. Now that way of seeing the deletion log has gone, but the link to "check the deletion log" has not been restored. You can still get to the log by typing the page name into Special:Log/delete, but can I take a wet trout to whoever has been playing around with the Mediawiki interface? Which pages are involved? Who has been editing it? And where is the discussion taking place? Thanks. Carcharoth 20:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't answer all your questions, but I can say that you can click the "undelete x edits" tab, or the "View or restore x deleted edits?" link to see the deletion log quickly. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 21:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The text is at MediaWiki:Newarticletext, edit that to change the interface text. GDonato (talk) 21:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC) ..and it was removed in this edit GDonato (talk) 21:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I've brought this up at WP:VPT. I don't believe the problem is related to the above edit. The problem just began a few hours ago. --- RockMFR 21:21, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The link has been removed from other places such as MediaWiki:Noarticletext, can someone revert at least one of these to provide a solutionin the meantime? GDonato (talk) 21:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I've restored the deletion log link to MediaWiki:Newarticletext and MediaWiki:Noarticletext (it was already there on MediaWiki:Nocreatetext). I'll go take a look at the commit logs and see if I can find out why the inline deletion log was removed. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems this was a bug, and has already been fixed. Once the fix is live, the edits I just made can be reverted again. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Carcharoth 22:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edwardjmokrzycki (talk · contribs)

I have just deleted Edwardjmokrzycki's userpage as blatant advertising (CSD G11) and indefinite blocked the account based on the promotional usernames portion of our username policy. The user has no edits outside of their userpage and Wikipedia:Introduction. If this were a company, this would be pretty straightforward. However, given this is an individual, I'm bringing it here for comment. The individual is apparently running for the United States House of Representatives (based upon a quick Google search, he's probably a minor candidate as I don't see even any local press articles on him). The userpage was promoting his campaign. What tipped it over to blatant advertising in my opinion was directing people to his website to donate money. As this is slightly different than our normal application of blatant advertising and promotional usernames, I'd welcome feedback. -- JLaTondre 01:14, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks fine. G11 applies to any namespace, and Wikipedia is not a political soap box. Thumbs up. Keegan^talk 03:34, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date articles

User:Topses has moved several January dates causing errors all over the pages. The user seems to have a history of vandalism. Admin help will probably be needed to move back the articles back. Gdo01 02:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• All fixed, redirs deleted, user indefblocked - Alison ☺ 03:01, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Omegatron

Omegatron undeleted HHO gas, an article to which he was a significant contributor, during deletion review; Omegatron rails on its deletion debate about repeated "disruptive" deletion nominations, but ignores the fact that all the previous deletion debates and reviews have ended in deletion. This is not acceptable behaviour. Guy (Help!) 07:17, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

a related message moved from WP:ANI:

An admin heavily involved in two articles ([16]-[17]) has undone its deletion.[18][19] while a DRV was under way. Could someone look into this and see if this is appropriate (I am not yet calling it the W-word). Can an admin unilaterally undo the deletion of "his" article if he disagrees? Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 07:28, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I would note that, while the article was speedied/salted, the AfD never actually closed that I can tell. For several hours the AfD sat open with the Admin's rationale attached but template unremoved, and a DRV was open for eight hours in that time. Aside from any other problems (which I'm not stipulating are problems,) the speedy undelete did solve the problem of having an open and active DRV discussion while the AfD topic was still open and being commented upon. In fact, one user (apparently unrelated,) made a comment about a different DRV, then commented on the HHO DRV, then commented at the AfD in succession, leading me to believe that the open DRV led the user to the open AfD.

My opinion is that a) The DRV was premature, since the AfD hadn't closed, despite the deletion. b) Omegatron's actions, for whatever motivation, undid what was becoming a rapidly confusing situation. c) The AfD, in being permitted to continue, harmed nobody, where continuing the DRV in this state had potential for being harmful. No harm, no foul. LaughingVulcan 04:10, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we wait for the deletion debate to end, and just let things lie until then. If the AFD recommends it be deleted, the article being up for two or three more days won't kill anyone. Neil ╦ 10:16, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with the latter, except that this is over a year old. The HHO gas warring is ancient. In other words, the "harmless" recreation and persistence of it has been a forever presence. If AfD rules and DRV rules, then that's pretty much it for an article that isn't vastly rewritten. When the article concerns something that people are making money on, then that gets much worse. It is not a wheel war to re-delete it: delete is the status it has gotten from previous deliberations, and supporters of the article are the ones who should wait until reviews are done. It is a misuse of administrator's powers to undelete without process. Geogre 11:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

You realize that the people who would make money off of this want the article deleted, right? They don't want their hoax to be debunked, and are trying to hide it.

And "ancient" edit warring is not even close to criteria for deletion. Should we delete Palestine Liberation Organization because it's prone to being edited? AfD is for articles we shouldn't have, in any form, or articles that are completely unsalvageable in their current form. These articles are neither. The last DRV explicitly said that the topic was notable enough to have an article and could be recreated. — Omegatron 17:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

My rationale:

It was speedy deleted for inapplicable reasons, despite the fact that a large AfD was in progress with no consensus for deletion.

The "Recreation of deleted material" criteria is irrelevant; the previous deletion was reviewed and closed specifically stating that a new article could be created with proper sourcing. Nominator is fully aware of this, and is only repeatedly nominating the article to be disruptive.

The "Blatant advertising" criteria is also irrelevant; the article clearly states that this is a hoax, and provides several criticisms from notable sources.

In the DRV, you'll also see complaints about Nescio's past nominations being improper ("the the last AfD skipped my attention because it wasnt delsorted and User:Nescio didnt notify anyone involved about the Afd"), and similar complaints in the current AfD for slipping Brown's gas into the discussion without most voters being aware of it. (You'll see several votes for deletion of "the article", as if there's only one article being considered, the box at the top right of the page only shows previous AfDs for HHO gas, but doesn't show the previous AfDs for Brown's gas.) One of the votes for deletion was apparently a mistake, etc. etc.

And, since everyone tends to assume things without actually doing any research, I am not a promoter of this "technology"; I think this stuff is completely bogus, but it's our duty to cover stuff like this in Wikipedia. Jimbo agrees. In the past AfDs, promoters actually voted for deletion, because they don't want their products debunked on Wikipedia. (To my knowledge, Nescio is not a promoter, but might as well be.) Please read both articles from top to bottom. — Omegatron 12:09, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Could you retract the NPA suggesting I am involved in promoting this material, and could you correct the false statement regarding the mistaken opinion voiced. AFAIK the commentator has not retracted his opinion. Your suggestion he did is highly inappropriate in light of your other behaviour in this AfD. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 09:58, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

This article has been deleted three times now. Perhaps there is a glimmer of notability there, but if there is, it needs to be in an article called HHO gas hoax or something along those lines, because as proved over the course of the last year, a NPOV article called HHO gas appears to be impossible to write. Nevertheless, regardless of the validity of the G4 speedy, the last person to undelete this article should've been Omegatron who has a long edit history on the article. EliminatorJR ^Talk 12:49, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean "shouldn't have been Omegatron".  :-) And you're probably right. But everyone agrees the speedy was inappropriate, right? Speedy deletion is only for very uncontroversial cases. As John said, CSD doesn't stretch nearly this far. Assuming that the speedy is obviously improper, what should I do in a situation like this in the future?

I don't think a move to HHO gas hoax is appropriate (for the same reasons we don't have articles named "Water fuel cell hoax", "Allegations of Bigfoot", or "Supposed Loch Ness Monster sightings") but we can discuss it on the talk page if you want. No one but me and Nescio seem to be participating on the talk page at all at this point. Lots of criticism about the article's state, but no helping hands to fix it. I've listed a lot of things that need to be done or researched. — Omegatron 23:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I speedied the articles. I don't in general mind if people undo my admin actions, though not everyone feels that way and I think it is policy to talk to the admin first. The problem here is Omegatron using admin tools in a situation where he is involved as an editor, and a party to the discussion about deletion. Still, a one-time lapse in judgement should not be a big deal. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

While the personal involvement of the undeleting admin may be problematic, I agree G4/G11 were clearly not applicable and/or erroneously assumed, the speedy deletions were "out of process" and shouldn't have happened in the first place. Femto 17:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. Man with two legs 00:02, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Deletion review states, "If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an admin may choose to undelete it immediately." If the speedy deletion was unquestionably incorrect, any admin may restore it, even an involved one. --BigDT 00:06, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I would recommend not quoting out of context. The next two sentences after that one are: In such a case, the admin who deleted the page should be informed. If there is disagreement, or it is unclear whether it was out of process, it should be taken to deletion review. The determination of "unquestionably incorrect" does not equate to "I disagree with your action". -- JLaTondre 01:16, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Likewise, "should" does not equate to "must", but yes, next time there'd better be some notification. Looks like 17 minutes after the deletions were undone, the deleting admin was already aware of it anyway. [20] This is irrelevant to the validity of the undeletion itself however.

The context here is that the pages were incorrectly speedied, isn't it? By definition, you probably disagree with an action when you want to undo it. That's not what the policy means. "If there is disagreement" means that a case should be taken to deletion review 1. when you already know that people won't agree with your undeletion rationale, or 2. when it is not unreasonable to expect active opposition to an undeletion. None of this seems to have been the case here. Or does anybody still maintain that these pages can be properly deleted per G4/G11? Femto 15:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

My comment was generic and not specific to this situation. -- JLaTondre 20:15, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Notes to closing admin:

• I see a slight majority for keep (16:14?), but without a strong consensus for deletion, AfD defaults to keep, anyway.
• Note that several people who originally voted "delete" have since changed their minds. That counts for a lot.
• The discussions about specific editorial and neutrality issues will continue on the articles' talk pages, where they belong. AfD is not for editorial or inter-personal disputes. I've asked the other party to move the interpersonal stuff to an RfC anyway.

I hope everyone who has participated in this discussion will move to the article's talk page and help write a really high quality article. — Omegatron 19:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Note that the apparent change of heart was after this user aggressively pursued editors, voicing a delete opinion, to reconsider. Leading one party to withdraw all together and another to be incorrectly cited as having made the wrong comment. Although techniqually allowed I think that if we went after talk pages of all participants in AfD's, or other fora, this might be construed as at best an overly zealous persuasion technique. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 14:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

• What "change of heart" are you talking about??
• Are you trying to say that it's against the rules to convince people to change their minds about their votes? Wikipedia is not a democracy; we make decisions based on consensus. It is based on a system of good reasons. Convincing other people to change their minds is the whole point. The fact that I was able to convince some people to retract their delete votes and others to change theirs to keep means that those keep votes count a lot more than a regular keep vote. Are you trying to say the the people who changed their minds are complete morons and only did it because I manipulated them? — Omegatron 23:50, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you trying to say that it's against the rules to convince people to change their minds about their votes? No, but following people around instead of limiting discussing to the AfD page is debatable.

As to the people who changed their minds are complete morons and only did it because I manipulated them? You might say so, I could not possibly comment.

Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 08:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm hereby registering my protest at the closure. It does not reflect consensus. If I counted correctly, 13 people recommended to delete, 20 to keep. Even considering the rough history of these articles, and allowing for individual judgement of the arguments, I fail to see how this can be justified as a community decision to delete per our deletion policy, not by a far shot. Femto 12:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Even if there were a slight majority for delete (which there wasn't), an admin following our deletion process would keep the articles:

• "If there is no consensus, the page is kept and is again subject to normal editing, merging or redirecting as appropriate."
• "When in doubt, don't delete."
• {{Afd no consensus}}

— Omegatron 23:50, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

See also User talk:Omegatron#HHO/Brown's Gas for another opinion.

Again the articles have been deleted inappropriately. Lack of consensus for deletion defaults to keep. Even if there was consensus for deleting HHO gas (there wasn't), there definitely isn't consensus for deleting Brown's gas. Will someone please restore these? — Omegatron 12:51, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, this time it'll need a proper deletion review. (Which I guess everyone wants to avoid. But if it's going to be necessary, there remain valid concerns about the procedure of this AfD.) Let's wait and see what Kurykh has to say. Femto 15:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately you forget to mention the inappropriate recreation of the articles. Consensus after consensus to delete, and then, while provokingly ignoring the reasons for deletion, simply write a new article that still fails WP:SPAM, WP:RS and WP:NOR. This falls under the heading WP:POINT. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 15:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't quite understand, who exactly are you accusing of disruption to illustrate a point? Everyone who participated in editing these articles? Femto 16:10, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

You're pretending to be unaware that the last DRV explicitly said that recreation was allowed. The current article was not even close to the same content as the deleted one, written again entirely from scratch, so recreation of deleted content doesn't apply at all. — Omegatron 23:50, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Reviewing as an uninvolved administrator, I find that the close failed to properly record differing community opinion for HHO gas and Brown's gas; I have restored Brown's gas as there was a consensus keep for that one and there's no proper question as to its historical, scientific or industrial notability and accuracy. I will not touch HHO gas with a 10-meter pole. Georgewilliamherbert 19:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion this was a questionable decision. But to delete it again would be rather silly and not getting us out of this mess. So for now I've undeleted the talk page too and added my comment there

Pjacobi 20:50, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

As the closing admin, I shall allow the undeletion of Brown's gas, but will not assent, nor will ever assent, to the undeletion of HHO gas without a DRV. Omegatron really needs to learn to stop vote-counting and learn that consensus or majorities in either direction cannot trump policy, nor can it ever trump policy. WP:RS, as a corollary of WP:V and WP:NOR, both core editing policies of Wikipedia, was violated with seeming impunity in this article, and hence has been deleted. I don't see why you are arguing against the proper application of policy. Remember, AfD is not, and is never, a vote. —Kurykh 02:56, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

We're not arguing against the proper application of policy. We're arguing against what we think is improper application of policy. With all due respect, it was the decision of the community, not yours alone, to determine what violates WP:RS and what does not.

• Wikipedia:Deletion review#HHO gas

Femto 12:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Wrong. Admins are not mechanical vote-counters; they are given wide latitude to determine whether policy is violated, and were given the bit to determine said violations without need to regard vocal protests to the contrary. Just because the majority said so does not make it true (the argumentum ad populum fallacy). It is the founding by multiple admins (as per past AfDs, all of which arrived to the same conclusion) that his article violated policy. If you think we all were wrong, go ahead and file an umpteenth DRV that will not do anything to make the article any more reliably sourced. —Kurykh 19:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• Oh no, I'm an evil rouge admin! I closed the deletion review on grounds that we've already had thirteen debates on the topic (11x AFD, 2x DRV) with the same outcome. The page has been salted, time to move on. >Radiant< 13:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't believe this.

What has the number of previous debates to do with the whole frigging thing? I thought AfDs are NOT about counting. Those AfDs that you count aren't reviews of the same content. Some aren't even about the same topic. Don't believe that troll who listed them.

There are uninvolved, independent people raising their concerns that the closure of an AfD did not follow policy. Who are you to ban any further discussion about it in the appropriate forum? I MAINTAIN another deletion review is the appropriate action to take. I MAINTAIN the consensus of THIS AfD about THIS article is NOT to delete. I MAINTAIN the closure is a slap in the face of Wikipedia's process. Femto 14:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• So you're saying that after thirteen debates with the same outcome, you need a fourteenth debate because you believe it'll have a different outcome? And I suppose that if that debate doesn't give the result you want, you'll open a fifteenth one? >Radiant< 14:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• I did not open the debate whose interpretation of its outcome I criticize. Femto 14:56, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

See also my statement at User talk:Omegatron#Outrage. Femto 15:18, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Query: can material on HHO be used in other articles? I presume mentioning it in the right context is OK, but reinserting the same or similar material without reworking and editing for context would be against the concerns raised at the AfD? Personally, I feel there might be a case for Brown's gas, which seems to be undergoing a minor wheel-war. Carcharoth 14:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Definitely. The ability to add the info within the deleted articles to other articles was explicitly stated and endorsed in my closing statement. And I can and will personally undelete Brown's gas if only one reputable source was found. —Kurykh 16:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I have unclosed the DRV. Radiant, don't do that. Closing an active no-consensus discussion is abuse of the community.

There are plenty of sources on Brown's gas; some of them mention the relatively minor but legit welding uses. Most of them also make unscientific claims about it. That it's out there is pretty hard to dispute and pretty easy to reliably source. The special properties are clearly not reliably sourced; it's easy to find both claims and debunking, and it's discussed enough to be notable as a pseudoscience pseudofraud or somesuch. Georgewilliamherbert 18:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• You are apparently one of those people who yells "abuse" immediately something happens they don't like? First, process for the sake of process violates WP:NOT. Second, despite your claim, after thirteen discussions already, this is in no way a "no consensus" issue. Third, removal of other people's comments is bad. Fourth, false accusations of abuse is also bad. Fifth, despite your claim I used no admin powers here. And sixth, you are an involved user with respect to this issue. All in all your actions here are highly inappropriate. >Radiant< 19:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
• Looks like I have to be blunt: please show the sources, don't tell me there are sources. —Kurykh 19:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
  • There are sources in the now-deleted Brown's gas article. They're not reliable sources as to the alleged magic effects, but they're reliable enough at documenting that something called Brown's gas, made by electrolyzing water, by standard scientific principles indistinguishable from stoichiometric oxyhydrogen, is in use in places. They also document Brown's patents, which were directly listed in the sources. The fact of "Brown's gas" is reliably sourced. Its properties over and above oxyhydrogen for welding et al are not reliably sourced anywhere. Perhaps the ultimate fix for this is to mention that, and those sources, and the controversy over the pseudoscience, in the oxyhydrogen article and redirect Brown's gas there, not salt it. Georgewilliamherbert 20:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that a redirect is needed. A salted page is silly, as people will read about Brown's gas or HHO elsewhere, they will come looking to see what Wikipedia says on the subject, and when they search for it they will encounter a salted page. Does no-one ever stop to think of that? Maybe that should be a principle all admins carrying out a delete should remember: think of the reader. Maybe they will then find themselves curiously attracted to the idea of a redirect. Having said that, there needs to be something at the destination article, as a redirect will otherwise just discourage creation of the content that is obviously needed: something explaining that there is controversy over this. Carcharoth 21:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can determine the only controversy surrounding the subject is limited to wikipedia and is about whether we should allow the presentation of hoaxy material without even one reputable source. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 23:02, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and from the sound of it, Brown's gas is a better article, not that non-admins can see that to check. If content there is merged to oxyhydrogen, then the original article should be undeleted for GFDL purposes. Carcharoth 21:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the contents of the Brown's gas article can be integrated into the oxyhydrogen article. How about merging Brown's gas into oxyhydrogen? —Kurykh 23:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please undelete that, merge the text (to a subpage if needed, with a note on the talk page), leave a (protected?) redirect in place to hold the edit history and allow the normal editorial process to sort out how the material in presented and in what balance. Honestly, if that had been done right at the beginning, then the drama of 14 deletion discussions could have been avoided. Will people never learn? Sorry, a bit overwrought at the moment! :-) Carcharoth 00:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New! IMPROVED!

Block now includes a "prevent this user from sending email" checkbox. Use with discretion. Guy (Help!) 21:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Cool...I suggest all rogue admins check the box hehe.--MONGO 21:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of having that in there ... but, as MONGO alluded, we .really. need a policy on when to use it. In an ideal world, it would only be available if the user is already blocked (in other words, no setting it preemptively). --BigDT 21:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with BigDT; it would be easier if this was a new type of block- totally seperate from the editing block feature. GDonato (talk) 21:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The only thing is the user can be reblocked as EMB if they are causing trouble. GDonato (talk) 21:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That's what I sorta wanted when I requested the bug, and it was then shown as a duplicate of something Raul654 had requested sometime last year. But I made decent use of it on idiots who were flooding my inbox.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

One random question: does EMB work with autoblock? In other words, Bob and Jim use AOL. We block Bob with autoblock. Is Jim's email now turned off until someone gets around to lifting the autoblock? (In other words, Jim can't email a friendly admin to ask for help?) --BigDT 21:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

No, block e-mail will effect only the current account, it won't carry over into autoblocks. AmiDaniel (talk) 00:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thx --BigDT 00:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

What prevents them from making a new account to send email? SakotGrimshine 21:51, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Account creation would be blocked. GDonato (talk) 21:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

They can still email wiki-unblock-en-l or whatever it is, if they have a burning sense of injustice. Neil ╦ 00:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

How do they prove they are who they say they are? Carcharoth 00:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Presumably the same way they have done for the last 6 years that system has been in place. Neil ╦ 00:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, thinking on it, they don't need to prove they are who they are, as they would have the password for the account. Editing after being unblocked would prove who they are. Carcharoth 10:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Accusations of French genocide against Algerians

Accusations of French genocide against Algerians this article was just recently deleted without any AFD vote by Philip Baird Shearer, he used the excuse that Algerian Genocide was deleted with an AFD vote and this is similar however that had a POV name (not a recognized genocide) whereas Accusations of French genocide against Algerians examined the accusations and included opposing viewpoints, it was well sourced and this is wholly inappropriate for an admin (who was previously involved in edit disputes in this article and about the issue of the Algerian genocide) to delete it with no AFD vote Bleh999 12:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:DRV. Viridae^Talk 12:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I notice this article was never listed there for a deletion review, seems very arbitrary Bleh999 12:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you may have misunderstood. WP:DRV is indeed to right place if you want to have the article restored. Before you take the matter to DRV, please consider contacting the admin in question, if you haven't already done so. -- Seed 2.0 13:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Again ???? I asked for that article to be restored a long time ago after it got deleted under G4. I don't want to wheel war, but G4 is not a blanket to forbid anyone to write an article about a subject that was deleted once... And a look at the deletion log would have shown that the article got restored once already... -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

No, this should not need to go through DRV. If you don't want it, AFD it. Neil ╦ 16:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BetacommandBot and Fair use

When starting the current Fair use tagging I planned 3 phases, but since Phase 1 has caused so much grief, I'm going to break Phase 2 into three parts. Also Im going to explain all the parts and my current time table.

Phase 1

• identify and tag all images with less than 20 characters, excluding templates, and skipping pages that have the non-free rationale template.
• this will re-start July 1^st, 2007 and should last no more than five days to tag the remaining 5478 images that meet that criteria.
  • this uses {{missing rationale}}, {{missing rationale2}} and {{dfu}} /or {{nrd}} depending on the upload date.

Phase 2

• check the image description page text for the title of at least one pages where the image is used. tag the image and notify users (per policy you have to state where you need it and why. and this only tags images with zero valid fair use rationales.)
• this will start on July 15, 2007 or when the image backlog from phase 1 is under 1000 images (which ever is longer).
  • I would like input for templates to use for this section. Im thinking the same templates as Phase 1.

Phase 3

• repeat phase 2 for every image use.
• this will start on either August 1^st, 2007 or August 15, depending on the number of images Phase 2 encountered. again this will also follow the 1000 image, or date (which ever is longer) method.
  • I would like input for templates to use for this section.

Phase 4

• have a bot remove images instead of tag images that fail Phase 3.
• this will start no less than 30 days or 1000 images (which ever is longer) from the completion date of Phase 3.
  • I would like input for templates to use for this section.

Suggestions and advice are welcome, personal attacks and complaints can be filed at /dev/null Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 00:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good plan to take a large step towards being closer to being legal with our FU images. ^(H) 01:08, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me too - I'd also just like to thank you for all the hard work you've done on this project; I know you got a lot of grief for it, but it's worth it. --Haemo 03:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest looking for the phrase "fair use rationale" as a section heading. There are many people (including me) who do not like to use any template to say that the image has a fair use rationale but rather specify the page layout by hand. --soum ^talk 07:53, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Or anywhere in the page, not just as a heading. Obvious variants "fair use reasons", "fair use justifications" and so on.Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 08:38, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Searching the entire page for the etxt has some obvious disadvantages. If something like "I will not provide a fair use rationale" is written, then also it will pass the analysis. Thats why I suggested leaving entire sentences out of it. Or may be ignore all instances of "fair use rationale" and variants and still some substantial (50+ characters) text should remain. --soum ^talk 10:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

what im looking for in phase 2 & 3 is if Image:foo.jpg is used on page Bar, Does the text of page Image:foo.jpg contain the word bar. so it shouldnt matter what templates are used. But I would like help creating templates to notify users of the improper fair use rationales. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 12:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

If an image includes a rationale, but does not say "Fair use rationale for article X" or "This rationale applies to article X" or whatever, but is used only in article X, we can assume good faith and conclude that the rationale was meant for that article only, and that the user inaverdently overlooked the fact. Rather than assuming the user does not understand fair use, or is trying to get us sued or whatever. In that case, what about using the bot to add the reference to the article? --soum ^talk 13:13, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

the issue is does that rationale cover said image use? its too difficult for a bot to judge the validity and what text makes up a valid rationale as there can be many permutations of the same idea phrased 1000 different ways. But one key to a valid rationale is saying where you claim the rationale is for. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 23:04, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you clarify phase 4 for me.What do you mean by "have a bot remove images" ? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 08:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

If [:Image:foo.jpg]] is used on page Bar and blah, Does the text of page Image:foo.jpg contain the word bar and blah. If it only finds blah the bot would remove it from Bar but leave it on Bar Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 12:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

How will this work for redirects? If I say "this image is fair use in bar", but bar has been moved to or merged into blah, will it be removed from blah? --NE2 11:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I presume it means he will orphan the images from articles where the article name isn't mentioned on the image description page. -N 08:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

In substantial discussion at WT:FAIR#Way forward, there is broad support for throttling to bot to 300-500 images or image-uses per day, a proposal put up by User:Eagle_101. This is a reasonable amount for third parties to be able to look at, and to add rationales for, when fair use is appropriate; rather than creating another impossible tag mountain that is more than can be humanly processed in 7 days or 10 days from tagging.

Note also broad consensus there to suspend CSD I6 until July 1, to give time to process the existing tag mountain without unnecessary collateral damage; and to rewrite I6 when not suspended to be 7 (or 10) days from tagging rather than from upload.

It would be a mistake to tag images so quickly that I6 had to be suspended again. Jheald 09:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Im doing a dry run now to get an Idea of how many images would be caught in each phase right now. when thats done Ill post the preliminary counts. But at last count phase 1 had ~5k images. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 12:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

300 images a day is way too low. As Cyde said, at that rate it's going to take forever to tag all the said inappropriate images. -Pilotguy hold short 13:40, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Betacommand said there were around 5K images. So @300 per day, it wont take more than 3 weeks, which should be acceptible, IMO. Remember tagging is not the goal, purging the offenders is. Thats not bots who will enforce it, its humans. And deleting images take a lot more effort than anything else. --soum ^talk 13:43, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

No reason to go at a snails pace, not unless it is making mistakes. At least 1000 a day, bots do work like that all the time. ^(H) 13:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Bots might, but people are another story. FrozenPurpleCube 15:34, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

You must be mistaking in what you remember Betacommand saying, because we are dealing with a lot more than just 5,000 images. At the snail's pace of 300 a day it will take way too long. The answer is to increase human participation, not throttle down the bot. A single person can easily handle 100 images in a day. It's not much work, just a lot of deletion. The directions for how to handle these tagged images should be presented in a very clear manner and advertised widely on such places as this board. --Cyde Weys 15:43, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I may be mistaken, but I think the idea is to give people time to write fair-use rationales. It is possible that among the huge piles of tagged images, there are some that could have genuine fair-use rationales. I'm all for getting bots to do the work, but is it not possible to rig up a bot to post notifications on the pages of all the uploaders and/or the talk pages of the articles using the images? On the other hand (my view), just announce in various prominent places that a large number of fair-use images without rationales have been tagged for deletion, then, after a set period of time, get a team of humans to delete them and replace the red-links with a placeholder image (straight removal of red-links might pass unoticed), and then allow a longer amnesty period of a month or so, in which people can request undeletion to add a fair-use rationale. That way, those image that are genuinely required will probably be rescued, those that weren't won't be, and in any case, most fair-use pictures should be obtainable again if really needed, and a fair use rationale added to the new upload. Carcharoth 15:53, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Carcharoth the bot notifies all users in the file history of an image,(except for a few users that I have on an ignore list), it also tags the image, and it leaves a note on the talk page of all the pages that use the image. Oh and to boot im currently working on a wikiproject notification opt-in option for the next round of images. and the 5,000 article count is to finish phase 1. phase 2&3 will generate a lot more images. that 5k count is the remainder of the original tag run that netted over 25,000 images. phase 1 is the loosest phase and should catch the fewest images. I expect phase 2 & 3 combined to identify 60,000+ images that need fixed. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 23:00, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

No, the time to write fair use rationals is now, or even yesterday. The images are still left with the tag for a week. If we lose any fair use pictures they can just be re-uploaded. ^(H) 15:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I quite agree that fair use images, if genuinely fair use, are probably widely available and can easily be reuploaded. So why not just delete all the fair use stuff now? Carcharoth 16:36, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Or, for that matter, they can very easily be undeleted. I've caught a couple of images on my watchlisted articles that got shuffled off the wiki coil because they didn't have rationales. Just undelete and provide a rationale. Voila, problem(s) solved. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:41, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

That requires a list of admins willing to carry out undeletions on request from non-admins. Carcharoth 16:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Or, even simpler, non-admins can create/re-create the talk page, and use {{editprotected}} to request admin assistance for the undeletion. Or would that be technically an incorrect use of that template? I would suggest that the rationale be provided before undeletion takes place, and that talk pages be restored along with the image (is that the default setting?). Carcharoth 16:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's remember (Cyde and H n.b.) that this is not about deletion, for deletion's sake.

Our objective here is the Foundation's requirement on us to achieve full compliance on image rationales by April 2008, and our obligation to wikiusers to manage this process with as little collateral damage, and as little undue bruising as possible. We should all keep in mind one of the fundamental injunctions of the project: Don%27t_be_a_dick Don't be a dick.

From what I have seen of BCbot's taggings, the clear majority of the images do have an acceptable fair use on the project. What they don't have is a rationale. There are people now gearing up to supply as many of those rationales as possible. It is reasonable to try to accomodate them.

BC reckons that there will be about 60,000 usages that will require rationales. At 500 taggings a day, that works out at 120 days - so about 4 months, well within the April 2008 deadline. And it may actually turn out to be fewer usages in the event, if BC can circulate his draft list to projects and other interested parties ahead of time -- so we may get there even sooner.

This is not about how much we can delete. It is about how with least upset we can get compliant. Jheald 23:55, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

One comment from a non-admin who is working in an area (numismatics) where many images have unknown copyright and thus must be considered to be fair use. I have been reading everything I can find about writing a fair use rationale. I have asked questions at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. I have tried to supply a valid fair use rationale on all images I uploaded. I assume I'm doing something wrong though, since I've used the exact same text for multiple images, which I'd like to replace with a template, but templates are supposedly not okay for fair use rationales. I have read many other users questioning why templates are not okay, or how to write a fair use rationale, and not getting sufficient answers. I certainly do not feel confident that I am doing things right, and do not know how to help fix the currency images that are currently not correctly tagged. So, until the guidelines are more clear, I can't see that it's time to tag more images. If it's so easy to write fair use rationales, can User:Betacommand or someone else tell me if Image:East Africa 1 cent (KM22).jpg has a valid rationale? Can you explain why I can't use a template for this and all the other coin images I've uploaded for the same page? If I and some other editors can get a little more help now, I think the bot will need to tag a lot fewer images as we go through and clean up. Ingrid 02:09, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

that is a red link image and Im not an admin, so I cant tell you either way, But see WP:FURG for a guideline on writing rationales. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 02:14, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot the ":Image". I fixed the link above. I've read WP:FURG, and followed it as best I can. But I ended up with what should be a template which makes me think it wouldn't be accepted. Ingrid 02:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

and you would be correct. you need to state why you need Image:East Africa 1 cent (KM22).jpg in that specific article. why must that page have Image:East Africa 1 cent (KM22).jpg on it? why cant we just delete the image? why must East African shilling have an image of the coin? see where my questions are going? if you can say that the page doesnt require the image then the image use is not compliant with fair use. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 02:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Now I'm stuck wondering who gets to decide if the page needs an image. I feel that it does, since the coin is described thoroughly, but a text description simply can't convey everything about it. But would a table of each type of coin produced with an image (where available) for each one be considered a gallery? I know I can convince the bot (at this point anyway), but I don't want to make any more effort to improve the article (in my view) if it will simply be deleted later. Ingrid 17:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Here is an idea, you are correct that table is basically a gallery. Instead of using a table why not have a section on the page about each coin? (I havent read the article but let me shoot a few ideas out) in that section have a history of the coin, has there been changes in the design? where did the design come from? what is the symbolism behind the markings/words? when was it first

minted? how long has it been in production? those are a few ideas. But if you get the idea behind those questions and similar ideas and put it in a section about a coin and use the image there, there will not be a problem with the usage of the image, and then make sure that the rationale on the image clearly states the need for the image on that page and there should not be any problems. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 17:50, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Jheald, I love any opportunity anyone gives me to bring this one out: Don't be a fucking douchebag. --Cyde Weys 02:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't me that titled that essay. I'm just saying it is something we should all bear in mind here. If the essay had been titled "Have a sense of balance and be excellent to one another", I would have linked to it as "Have a sense of balance and be excellent to one another". It's the content of the essay that's relevant here. (Read it, it preaches good sense). My apologies, I am sorry, if you identified the title with yourself personally. Jheald 08:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

just a heads up my old numbers are way off, here are my current numbers and Ive only checked up to the images starting with C (I'm somewhere in that letter). Phase 1: 47 || Phase 2: 27046 || Phase 3: 25712 || Total: 52805 those are the images that are not compliant. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 16:15, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Ive finished my pre-lim counts and they are: Phase 1: 2863||Phase 2: 135658||Phase 3: 123472||Total: 261993 Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 03:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

strike that there was an error in the checker. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 17:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: Phase 1: 5609||Phase 2: 143494||Phase 3: 19897||Total: 169000 Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 01:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

that is 48.9855% of our images. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 01:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of images with fair-use rationales

Hi there, is there some kind of problem with the tagging and deletion process of fair-use images? I've noticed User:Naconkantari has been deleting a lot of these images. These images had been tagged as being marked as fair-use and lacking a rationale but in response to this tag, a rationale had been added. Is the bot tag now being used as a deletion mark with no further checking? TimVickers 19:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Examples? I know there was some initial confusion with a change in the tag, the change being to say once you've added a rationale remove the tag. When the rationales were added, did you remove the tag? Have you discussed this with Naconkantari? --pgk 19:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The one I came across was Image:Britannica.jpg, I'm sure the tag did not mention that I had to remove it when the bot first added it. When did this change? Yes, I've mentioned this problem on their talk page, but since there seemed to be quite a few other examples I wondered if it was a wider problem. TimVickers 19:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The short answer is - there was some confusion with the template, which originally read "add a fair use rationale, don't remove the template" then was changed to "add a fair use rationale, remove the template" - Naconkantrari then we around deleting images with templates not realising some had fair use rationales - if one was deleted that shouldn't have been, Naconkantrari (or most other people - I will, for instance) can restore it. WilyD 19:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

In that example it does appear the template changed after you added the rationale, find any more like that and their shouldn't be a problem restoring them. --pgk 19:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That's the reason. I've undeleted it myself since that was the only problem. OK, thanks. TimVickers 19:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

See: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/FURG#Naconkantari.27s_deletions. Dragons flight 20:02, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I posted on ANI here to try to get some help reviewing the thousands of images Naconkantari deleted on June 6; tomorrow I'll have a look at how many people are willing to take part and we'll divide up the workload. If anyone is willing to help, please let me know. Naconkantari originally stated that he'd manually review the deletions, but he did not even begin to do so, and he hasn't been active since June 8 so I worked through his backlog of undeletion requests today. TomTheHand 00:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] So like...

What would happen if I tried to block myself? I almost just did it, but if it worked I'd have to bug someone else to unblock me. (Though I guess this constitutes bugging people to answer my question. Oh well.) My suspicion is actually that it just gives an error message of some kind? --Masamage ♫ 05:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe you would still be able to unblock yourself. I've seen it happen to other admins. -- bulletproof ^3:16 05:32, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It would work, and you would be able to unblock yourself. —Centrx→talk • 05:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

But uhh... If you don't mind me asking... Why would you want to block yourself in the first place?-- bulletproof ^3:16 05:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

There have been users in the past who asked to be blocked for a set period of time so they wouldn't be tempted to edit (like if they wanted to take a break). Lrrr IV 05:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Check out my block log, I have blocked myself a few times to test things. Viridae^Talk 06:04, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I know of two administrators who have accidentally blocked themselves, one of them three times! In all cases they unblocked themselves indicating that the previous block was in error, and lived happily ever after. Hesperian 06:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I just wondered what would happen, is all. X) --Masamage ♫ 06:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Look at El C's block log for some mildly amusing accidental self-blocks and unblocks. Carcharoth 10:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Formerly, blocking yourself was a very common way of trying to break the addiction. It's now supposed to be wrong to do it, but I don't actually know why it's wrong. Many of the old timers will have blocked themselves for particular times to take time off the project. Me, if I want a break, I just read some of the talk pages on the policy pages that are going haywire. That usually gives me all the motivation for time off I could wish. Geogre 11:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we should block on request and allow self-blocks, provided we disable the autoblock so there is no collateral damage possible. Kusma (talk) 11:19, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Blocking Policy says that self-requested blocks are not permissible, because of possible collateral damage. As I recall, this rule was introduced at the time when Wiki software had no option of disabling the autoblock. If we have the disabling option now, it might be the time to reconsider this part of the blocking policy. Andris 15:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

just unblock yourself saying oops. Ive blocked my self by accident before (I was using vandalproof) its no big deal, just unblock and move on. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 17:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

So when we say "collateral damage" what do we mean? (Also, what's autoblock do?) *learning learning learning* --Masamage ♫ 19:03, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• Autoblock is the function that automatically blocks the IPs of blocked accounts. So, if Willy on Wheels is on IP 127.0.0.1 when he is blocked, all users who use the IP 127.0.0.1 will be subsequently blocked if they try to edit. By the same token, if you block yourself, and you're on 127.0.0.2, all users on 127.0.0.2 will be blocked if they try to edit. "Collateral damage" is a term for the blocks that can wind up on friendly accounts due to blocks of vandals, and is the reason that people aren't supposed to self-block or request blocks for themselves. ♠PMC♠ 20:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• That makes enormous amounts of sense. Thanks! --Masamage ♫ 20:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Point of fact: autoblocks only last 24 hours. So in the above example, the Willy on Wheels account may be blocked for 48 hours, 1 year, or infinitely, but in each case the autoblock will only be set for 24 hours. As far as I know there is no way to adjust an autoblock, either, except lifiting them upon request. Natalie 06:20, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested indef block of an IP

I've been in email contact with district representatives of Upper Township School District. They wish to have IP editing from 209.204.71.2 (talk • contribs • info • WHOIS) indefinitely blocked, due to repeated vandalism, stating:

we believe it would be best for all involved, and it doesn't prohibit members of our school community from making meaningful contributions to the site. They would just have to either log on as a verifiable user, or they would have to make the contributions from home. Either way, they would still be able to contribute while keeping the vandalism to a minimum.

I've not yet done so, but I believe an indefinitate anon-only block of this address sounds like a reasonable course of action. The District Technician is confident the IP will remain static and is amenable to the idea of placing a notice on the talk page to contact the school principal or supervisor for any future questions regarding the IP's status. Any thoughts or suggestions before I move forward? — Scientizzle 15:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds OK to me, so long as there's a clear notice on the talk page explaining how to address the block should the IP be reassigned or something. We should probably encourage school administrators who take an active role in dealing with vandalism from their school's computers. MastCell ^Talk 16:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Indefinite is, as the proverb goes, a long time. How about setting the block for, say, a year and then they can reevaluate how it's working out. Newyorkbrad 16:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Instead of going knocking their door every year, how about indeffing it, and have someone notify us when its Whois record changes? Like the sysadmin there? As further failsafe, we can create a different category be created for them. And then code up a bot that periodically checks their WHOIS status and alerts of any change. --soum ^talk 16:19, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Worst case scenario if that changes, we will have a unblock request stating that the situation changed, and an admin could look up the DNS records. -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Newyorkbrad 16:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

If the IP changes and restricts someone not from the school district from editing, I'm sure we'll hear about it pretty quick :) -- Renesis (talk) 16:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

With our luck, the IP will probably be assigned to Fox News or Qatar next week anyway :) -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all the input...I think I'll do this:

• Indef block, anon only, allowing account creation
• I'll leave a clear message stating that the IP was blocked as requested by district officials ("contact them if you have any questions") but that editing while logged in should not be a problem
• I'll leave clear unblock instructions in the case of IP reassignment or a change of mind by the district
• I'll buy the school officials a bag of cookies for being proactive in helping to prevent further vandalism! :)

Cool? — Scientizzle 17:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds... er... fair and balanced, though I'd actually disable account creation (I typically do this with school blocks, since it jibes with the template, and the school administrator can always email us for account creation if needed). MastCell ^Talk 18:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It's done. And I went with account creation blocked. Thanks everyone. — Scientizzle 02:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Using Talk pages to Communicate with the media.

I've found an experienced editor (User:Jreferee) who feels it appropriate to use an article's talk page (Talk:David Chase) in order to explain a series of edits (vandalism and otherwise) to the article. Media articles on vandalized Wikipedia articles are daily fair in the press, and we may as well sort out this matter for future reference. It's my opinion that an article's edit history provides sufficient explanation and that talk pages should not be used to address the media or highlight for them actions taken by vandals. As a result, I think the subject matter might interest others here. I'm certainly interested in hearing more opinions on this matter. Rklawton 18:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I added the talk page post, you deleted it, I reposed it and asked you to work out our differences on my talk page. However, I appreciate your letting me know about your post here. Had we continued this matter on my talk page, eventually one of us would have thought of reviewing the post in the context of Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines - How to use article talk pages. Since the post was not directed towards improving the associated article, it was subject to removal per the guidelines. I removed it per the guideline. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 18:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Buffalo Sabres and Lindy Ruff

A persistent IP vandal using multiple IP addresses continues to vandalize these pages, which are otherwise not being actively edited. Can we get a semi-protect on them until this vandal goes away? ATren 20:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:RFPP, although I would think that semi-protection might be a good idea for both articles. x42bn6 Talk Mess 20:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I wasn't aware of that page. Thank you. ATren 20:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Numb3rs fair-use images

Some devoted fan or fans of the American TV series Numb3rs are edit-warring over the obviously excessive inclusion of multiple fair-use screenshots in character articles, eight of them in Don Eppes, nine in Larry Fleinhardt, and twelve in the case of Charlie Eppes. Could somewhat with the appropriate links to the fair-use policy at hand have a word with Charlie Eppes (talk · contribs) or 68.224.247.53 (talk · contribs)? --Calton | Talk 23:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CAT:CSD Nag

I know this must sound annoying, but could somone deal with the pages and images CAT:CSD as there's now more than 115 pages there. Astrovega 02:51, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There have been larger backlogs...I've deleted about thirty pages already. Sr13 07:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Damn it, I managed to empty it yesterday (look!) Neil ╦ 07:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know how many items are listed each day? It would be nice to have a few more admins to deal with some of the admin backlogs. Vegaswikian 08:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Nice, Neil ;). Not sure how many items are on each day, but you're right, Vegaswikian. I'm starting to hack at it a bit now... on this note, Images for Deletion has a large backlog as well... Haha, you can never run out of things to do here :). CattleGirl ^talk 08:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

And I've got it empty again (with, I believe, some help from CattleGirl). Now, if everyone would stop creating articles and uploading images forever, we'd be great. Neil ╦ 08:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Very rough count for the last 24 hours gives some 3750 deleted pages (all namespaces, talk included). I haven't broken it down between Prod, CSD, AfD, MfD, ..., and I of course haven't counted which pages were listed on CSD but not deleted. Still, it seems like a rather quiet period for deletions. On the other hand, the last 24 hours, only 2150 pages were created (and not yet deleted) in the main namespace as well. I suppose it will get busier again in September or so... Fram 09:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The CSD backlog is usually around 300 at 8AM UTC, I'd call today a slow CSD day ;) -- lucasbfr ^talk 10:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That's because I have nothing to do in work today, and have spent all morning deleting and fixing rationales - I've nearly cleared all the CSD and image speedy backlogs. Neil ╦ 11:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Ta-daaah! Neil ╦ 11:54, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I nearly had a damn heart attack when I saw it completely empty...I haven't seen that in months at the least. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 11:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

In the 24 hours mentioned above, there were 3853 actions listed in the deleion log, of which 73 were restores. These actions, split to namespaces, come out to:

• Main namespace - 1603 (41.6%); talk - 285 (7.4%)
• Category namespace - 111 (2.9%); Category talk - 17 (0.4%)
• User namespace - 260 (6.7%); User talk - 29 (0.8%)
• Template namespace - 36 (0.9%); Template talk - 6
• Images - 1466 (38%); Image talk - 29 (0.8%)
• Wikipedia namespace - 9; Wikipedia talk - 1
• Help - 1

This seems to indicate that the image deletions account for almost as much as article deletions - each of which is close to 40%. Od Mishehu 12:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Purely subjective and based on the last few hours deletin' I've done, but I would say around 20% of image deletions are images that have already been deleted at least once before. Neil ╦ 12:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I'll agree with the images being a good percentage of deletions. It's mainly because of us tightening down on fair use images, I would think. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 12:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• In response to Neil - can't we SALT images? >Radiant< 12:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There are some at WP:PT, for example Image:Pump.jpg. non-admins can't upload there. -- lucasbfr ^talk 13:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Radiant - I believe we could, but probably a better development would be for the uploaders to always be notified via their talk page when an image they uploaded is tagged for deletion (this does not always happen) - this would inform them as to what they should be putting on images they upload. The requirements are now so strict and convoluted, I bet a lot less than half of the image uploads actually remain. If I go through my deletion log, I see lots of bluelinked images which now have the correct tags (clearly some people do learn). Neil ╦ 13:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem isn't the size of the backlog, but the fact that it takes so long to get an imaged speedy deleted after tagging. The last two I tagged, according to the log, waited eight hours to be deleted. That doesn't sound very speedy to me. There's just too many jobs and too few admins. Astrovega 13:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Er... maybe I'm crazy, but eight hours doesn't sound that bad to me. Part of the problem is that the category gets the most attention when it's backlogged; if all the admins deleted just ten items a day, we could keep it well under control. EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:56, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

How bad is the need for more admins? I've been kicking around the idea of making a request, but since Wikipedia:Nominations for sainthood is such a daunting process, I'm hesitant. Nevertheless, every time I check Special:Newpages and retrieve the standard 50 articles, I see at least three articles that deserve speedy deletion -- mostly non-notable bios, attack pages, and spam. Thoughts? --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 15:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Increase the emancipation requirements - require 500 edits before you can create a page. That would solve an incredible amount of problems with new pages. Neil ╦ 16:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That just might work, too. Incidentally, 3 speedies out of 50 is way better than it was when I was doing more NP patrol, back when anons could still create articles — back then it seemed more like 25 out of 50. The decrease seems to have been mostly in the easy cases ("hi mom!!1!"), though; the ones that remain seem to fall more often into the trickier categories where you actually have to spend a few seconds to tell if it's a speedy candidate or not. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:02, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I know I must sound like the Time Cube guy to you experienced users, after about a month of poking around and trying things out, Wikipedia really looks like one of the world's truly great bureaucracies - nothing happens until an admin approves it, and there just aren't enough admins to approve everything in a reasonable amount of time, concentrating power in the hands of a few. I'm going to keep editing, but I'm going to stick to fending off vandals and doing other meaningful tasks rather than try to get anything deleted. Astrovega 15:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

If you think there aren't enough admins, maybe you should find reasonable users to nominate at WP:RFA. Od Mishehu 15:04, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It's ironic that just when [C:CSD]] is at a constant low, thanks to some admins focusing their attention there, you are complaining that it is too hard to get anything deleted. We can always use new good admins, but deletions is one of the things that run rather smooth nowadays (with the usual exceptions of course). Fram 12:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dialup ip addresses and 3R

When a user is using an IP address that changes several times in a 24 hour period -- perhapse they are using a dialup accout that allocates an IP address on demand. What is the procedure if they are in breach of the WP:3R rule? It seems pointless blocking the IP addreess, so can a 24 hour protection on the page that is being edited in breach of the 3R rule be applied? Is there a guidline that covers this? --Philip Baird Shearer 18:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/69.157.117.117 --Philip Baird Shearer 12:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Feature request, feedback wanted

As an admin, I would find it helpful if a user's deleted contributions also showed up as a subset of their contributions list (ie like deleted versions of pages appear at the top of the history "View or restore 6 deleted edits?") that way when someone is reported as creating attack pages, being disruptive etc we can easily check their deleted contributions rather than requiring the name of the page that has been deleted to look at them. What does everyone else think? Anyone else want to add this to bugzilla for me in a clearer way? Viridae^Talk 01:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I would love that function. — Scientizzle 02:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

This used to show up on Kate's Tool on the toolserver, but it was removed for being a privacy violation somehow. --W.marsh 02:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me :-P ^demon^{[omg plz]} 02:31, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems we're getting close. --MZMcBride 02:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou both of you. Viridae^Talk 03:54, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Kate took down the deleted edits viewer because it included edit summaries, which sometimes contained libellous material or personal info. That was before oversight. Chick Bowen 04:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I've wanted this for at least a couple years. Thanks for the links. Antandrus (talk) 04:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I have wanted it for a while - just got around to writing down what i wanted though. Viridae^Talk 06:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

That would be great :) CattleGirl ^talk 04:52, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I for one would be way more useful at WP:AIV. Sometimes I just have to go, "Uh, I dunno" and wait for someone else to be bolder than I am. --Masamage ♫ 05:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Sweet! I've always wondered why there wasn't some version of this function. I always get a little nervous blocking people for article creation vandalism. Natalie 06:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

This would help admins find vandalism patterns which involve article creation. Od Mishehu 07:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Sweet to have that! Sr13 07:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Even as a non-admin, this would be a great feature. I remember we used to have something to this effect, but I asked on IRC not too long ago for a list of my deleted edits and was told that they could no longer do it. - hahnchen 18:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question - as an admin, what would you do?

Here's a not hypothetical question for admins:

Someone joins Wikipedia today and starts making controversial edits. These edits make changes to articles (in this case, Cyclone Larry and Cyclone Tracy), changes to bits of the article that are included by the standard of the relevant WikiProject (in this case, WP:WPTC). This standard has consensus within the WikiProject and is followed for all articles (in this case, to include a comparison against the U.S. Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale). This user repeatedly removes this information after being reverted, claiming it's just a "guideline" (fair enough). But the guideline has widespread consensus (or even, arguably, unanimous support) within the project. The new user has come off as a dick (history of Cyclone Larry: an edit summary shows "WPTC has no rules, only guidelines, so this article has been guided back to the domain of accuracy"). This user has nearly violated WP:3RR.

What would you suggest? This obviously isn't going to go away with a simple slap on the hand. And what he's trying to remove has widespread support for inclusion which is unlikely to change, so is there really a point discussing the issue over again? Do we (meaning the majority) just keep reverting every time he tries to change it?

Thoughts? – Chacor 12:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

No @ the keep reverting suggestion - the wikiproject does not have the power to dictate a subjects contents, I suggest you try and engage him on his talk page and talk it over. Viridae^Talk 12:13, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Correct on the first count, but what is important to remember is that there's widespread-to-unanimous consensus for what he's trying to remove. Regardless, if he tries to change it again any time soon he breaks WP:3RR, so... – Chacor 12:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing you're referring to The Snout? Here's an example edit. The editor was removing, from an article about an Australian tropical cyclone, a sentence about a classification system that is only used in America - and all the sentence said was that it's not known where the cyclone falls on the scale. What's the problem? I don't see how this is relevant to the article at all. --bainer (talk) 12:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, there is consensus to include, in non-U.S. storm articles, a general comparison against the U.S. scale. Regardless, having double-checked, the sentence he removed was rather incorrect (the guideline is to use the Joint Typhoon Warning Center's estimate as the comparison), so... moot point. – Chacor 12:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Some further tangentially-related discussion split to User talk:Thebainer. – Chacor 12:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

What do you know, he's a vandal. Can't say I'm surprised. – Chacor 12:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that doesn't look too good. In the spirit of don't bite and good faith, I've left a warning/suggestion on his talk page. We'll see how he responds. MastCell ^Talk 15:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] HeivenDuarm (talk · contribs) unblock request

This new user appeared today and redirected the user/talk pages for indef blocked Drennleberrn (talk · contribs) to his/her own pages. I indef blocked HeivenDuarm (talk · contribs) as an obvious sockpuppet of Drennleberrn. I declined HeivenDuarm's request for unblock on the grounds they were allowed to contribute positively with the direction to request an unblock through their main account. HeivenDuarm reverted the unblock denial as "trolling" and included a call to unblock longtime blocked sockpuppet Crayolacrime (talk · contribs). I protected the talkpage to prevent further abuse of the unblock template and given the call to unblock a long stale sock, I suspect the person behind this account has been around for quite a long time. Long story short, if anyone wants to review the denial of request for unblock, the page protection, or any of my other actions in regards to this account, feel free to do so.--Isotope23 16:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• This edit is all I need to see. I fully endorse your actions. If Drennleberrn is not banned he may get it if he insists. MaxSem 17:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
• This edit justifies it even better, I think. WilyD 17:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• I should mention that the "positive contribution" HeivenDuram was making to Wikipedia was a redirect of "Great jumpin' monkeys" to Monkey Island.--Isotope23 17:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• This person has already made lots of socks to push spurious AFDs on Wiki articles. --MichaelLinnear 23:13, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair Use of Images on Led Zeppelin

Fair use policy with regards to images confuses me enough that I wanted to ask here for some guidance. On the Led Zeppelin article, there are four shots of the group performing live. These are fairly high res screen-shots from various DVDs. None of them have fair use rationale provided, but that could probably be easily fixed. They are all used in the Hebrew Wikipedia article, which is Featured there. However, I have to wonder if they are necessary/appropriate at all, as it should not be impossible to find free images of a 70s rock band. There has got to be some image around that somebody would provided under creative commons or other free license. As screen shots on the articles about the DVD, they might be reasonable, but they are not used there. One of the images is used on the Heavy metal music article, which also appears to heavily rely on non-fair images. Another is used on Royal Albert Hall ostensibly because the band performed there. Same with Madison Square Garden. Interestingly, none of them are used in articles about the DVDs where they have fair use rationale. I labeled 1977-04-30_Pontiac_ALS.jpg as disputed fair use a while ago and it has now been deleted. The same issues were in my m ind there as well. Thanks. —Gaff ^ταλκ 18:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I am so glad that I posted my question here hoping that an experienced admin could give me some guidance. The response has really helped shed light. —Gaff ^ταλκ 06:20, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest taking the question to the Village Pump Policy page? Corvus cornix 16:34, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:UAA and WP:AIV

These two noticeboards should be combined. There is no point in creating an additional page for admins to monitor and for users to have to learn the shortcut and remember to go there, when just having one page would be just as simple. Yes, AIV wasn't technically isn't supposed to have usernames, but there's no reason why blatantly obvious violations couldn't go there instead of to a whole new page. Neither page ever has much of a backlog, so we don't have to worry about the combination making the unified page unmanageable, and both have, essentially, the same phttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&action=edit&section=34 editurpose: to make obvious blocks where no discussion or difficult decision-making is necessary. A system where there was just one page for both of these tasks would be far more efficient than the current one, and would, albeit only slightly, decrease the huge amount of learning and memorization of pages for new users. --Rory096 19:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

One point that was made during the creation of WP:UAA (which was not that long ago), was that a username in violation of policy is not a form of editing abuse, which is what reports made to WP:AIV concern. I don't know how much weight that argument has, but it was mentioned. Leebo ^T/C 19:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, if reports made to AIV currently are for editing abuse, but then people started reporting usernames, reports to AIV wouldn't just concern editing abuse. Problem solved. --Rory096 19:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[ec] I believe that the crux of the issue is that "AIV" stands for "Administrator intervention against vandalism" (emphasis mine), which WP:U violations are not. AIV backlogs should be cleared as quickly as possible, as often the integrity of various articles is at stake (not to sound too dramatic), whereas username violations aren't quite the issue. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's MUCH better to keep them separate for several reasons, the main one being that if there are 10 vandals on AIV waiting to be blocked, you want me blocking the ones causing a problem rather than the ones whose only problem is a username. --BigDT 19:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with BigDT. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 19:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, it is good that the boards are seperate because it keeps important issues in WP:AIV and admins who are actually interested in usernames can deal with the username problems. GDonato (talk) 19:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

But it doesn't really make a difference! There's no point in having an entire additional page whose biggest backlogs can be cleared in about a minute, and whose purpose fits rather well with another page. --Rory096 20:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

(ec) So perhaps there should be different sections separating usernames from vandalism, or perhaps by priority. Blatant username violations only take a few seconds to block anyway, so does it really make much of a difference? Anyway, there's very rarely a huge backlog on AIV, and UAA, judging from the history, almost never has more than 4 users on it at a time, so it's not much of a change. Also, if the two pages were combined, admins who only monitor UAA might help out at AIV, and admins who monitor both wouldn't have to waste time switching between the two (not that it probably makes much of a difference anyway, but meh). --Rory096 19:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to have a page with both lists, can't you just make a page in your userspace that transcludes them both? —David Eppstein 20:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

That... damn, that's a really good idea. I'm gonna make a few tweaks to see if I can add both noticeboards to my admin page. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, it ain't pretty, but User:EVula/admin#Faux AIV Noticeboard and User:EVula/admin#Faux UAA Noticeboard work fairly well as shortcuts to both noticeboards. I might do more work to make it look nicer, but for now, that's fine. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't AIV used for usernames violation not so long ago? I think it is best that both noticeboards are kept separately, for the same reasons as above. The reports at WP:UAA would add more traffic to WP:AIV that is backlogged often enough without. -- lucasbfr ^talk 20:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Unofficially, yes, it was used for usernames, though they were supposed to go to RFCN. AIV backlogs are rarely very bad, and can usually be cleared quite clearly if someone's actually watching. Anyway, just having an additional section in AIV would solve the problem, we don't need an entire new process for this one task that is very rarely used (compared to other pages, traffic at UAA is tiny). More processes is NOT a good thing! --Rory096 20:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The major problem with AIV handling username problems was that unless usernames were blatant, admins referred them to RFCN, a very bitey place for newcomers. UAA allows admins that have a strong understanding of the username policy to evaluate all usernames there without clogging up AIV and without the need for RFCN all the time. Secondally, users with username infringements are not vandals, and should not be labelled as such. Admins that don't wish to monitor usernames don't have to watch the page, they can concentrate on AIV, the 2 boards being kept seperate simply organises things much better. Ryan Postlethwaite 20:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Is it not the same with UAA? The description of that page says it's for blatant usernames, and those that require discussion are sent to RFCN. Let's not play semantics here; the purposes of both pages are basically the same, to block obvious violations of policy, whatever we call it. Having two separate board may "organize" things, but it's creating more unnecessary processes that help to make Wikipedia a very difficult place to contribute for newcomers, because there are so many things all over the place that have different names and slightly different purposes. We should consolidate where possible, and this is definitely a place where it's possible. --Rory096 20:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Since creating the new noticeboard for just usernames things have gone much better. Things are going just fine. This is a solution looking for a problem. ^(H) 20:45, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think ryan has an excellent point when he says that jsut because the username is innapropraite does not mean they are vandals. Often it is the opposite. It is offensive to label a good faith editor as a vandal. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 20:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The names aren't important, we can alter the name. Either way, these two processes should be combined. --Rory096 20:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Uh... don't take this the wrong way, but perhaps you should be more familiar with the process(es) before making suggestions about how to improve them. We don't arbitrarily rename users; WP:U-violating editors are indefinitely blocked, but are welcome to register new accounts (considering the fact that they rarely have actual edits, this presents no issue) or they can be unblocked so that they can request to be renamed. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Wait what? I meant we could rename the process, not the user... --Rory096 20:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, my misunderstanding. Gotta be more specific; when talking about renaming the username noticeboard, saying just "name" lends itself to confusion. :)
At any rate, I'm still opposed to the combination of the two boards for the myriad of reasons that everyone else has presented. I applaud your desire to improve the way things go around here, but I think you're just plain wrong (and, to be fair, a lot of the people who are arguing against are the ones that would be the most affected by the combination). EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying that having UAA instead of RFCN isn't better, but having less process pages would be even better than that. Combining AIV and UAA would reduce the amount of bureaucracy, which is a good thing. If something is a good thing, why shouldn't we do it? --Rory096 20:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Plus the general consensus was that username violations were in the way at AIV, the majority of people welcomed the move to an area where admins interested in username could watch it. It is a fundamentally different type of violation than vandalism. ^(H) 20:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Having a different section on AIV would work just as well. Anyway, when were username violations on AIV, and who said they were in the way (there are very few username violations that end up reported, and they're easy to handle, so it seems like it wouldn't be much of a problem)? --Rory096 20:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Having it on the same page in another section would not allow for separate watchlist items. Frankly I have seen the benefit of the separation, but I have not seen any evidence of a problem caused by the separation. ^(H) 21:01, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Quite simply, it's just more crap that people have to know in order to contribute. Yes, it wouldn't cause problems for you, or most experienced editors, since they already know about it, but what about all the new contributors who have to learn about all these processes that we have? There's no point in making even more when we don't have to. --Rory096 21:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

No the username violations went to WP:RFCN, not WP:AIV most of the time as AIV would redirect them there. RFCN is not really well suited to dealing with User:a;sfdoiawpefpwermpaescifoeapvnrpaesmrsdpc, but that name is not vandalism. Its not hurting anything to have the additional page. Much ado about nothing :) Also the vast majority of reports are generated by WP:TWINKLE, so the only people really seeing the page are the admins. And rarely do new users ever get involved in watching the new user feed anyway. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 21:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not much ado; a change would require very little effort. Yes, we don't want to use RFCN, but that's the old system, and with the new system, UAA is very similar in terms of how it works to AIV, and the combined page would make it simpler for users. As for new users, I don't mean anons who edit once and leave, I mean people who are just joining the community. --Rory096 21:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

As of now, UAA seems to be working fine. Why is this such a pressing issue as to be discussed on AN? Couldent a proposal be drawn up or something? My opinion is it does not appear to be broken lets not create a hubub and drama. Lets write articles or something? -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 21:16, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Huh? It's not a particularly pressing issue, just a minor annoyance, which is exactly why I mentioned it here. Creating a proposal (besides defeating my entire point of having less process), would be overkill for such a minor change; a simple discussion is far more efficient, and I certainly wouldn't categorize it as hubbub or drama. --Rory096 21:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Minor annoyance to who? Seems like the admins are ok with this, (they are the ones that have to watch it after all), and the vast majority of reports are done by users that don't even know or care where the reports go. Just a thought. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 21:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it's exactly because there are so many process pages that people can't learn all of them that people don't know where they go. Perhaps we should make Wikipedia less of a hopelessly disorganized bureaucracy so that newer users can more easily learn all the pages, in case they have to do something without the help of TWINKLE. --Rory096 21:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[ec]Merely combining two distinctly different boards, which is something that every single person in this discussion has opposed (with the sole exception of you) is not something I'd call a "minor change". You've yet to explain how this is a legitimate need that needs to be addressed. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, it's not a huge problem; Wikipedia won't explode if it's not done. It's a legitimate need because it's making Wikipedia more difficult for new users to "learn." No, it's not a horrible problem, but yes, it is a minor change that would make some difference. Just because others oppose it doesn't mean it's a change that would make much a difference, and this discussion probably is more effort than any extra effort it might have taken to either do the change, or the extra effort necessary for new users to learn the change. --Rory096 21:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

But... you're not showing that anyone is legitimately and consistently being confused about where to report username violations. Someone reports it to AIV once, is told not to do it again and where to report it next time, and then they know. And, with all due respect to the users, but the very administrators who "have to watch both boards" should have equal say in such a matter, and we've voiced our opinion: it's optimal the way it is. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It is not the effort involved, it is that we think it would work less effectively if we did as you describe. ^(H) 21:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I can understand that, and that's fine, but it seems to me that many people above didn't really say that. Oh well, it doesn't matter. I suppose this little debate is over. --Rory096 21:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Rory, while it is clear that you disagree, consensus seems to want it as it is now. ^(H) 21:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, it's not a big deal. --Rory096 21:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

You can do a page that includes both noticeboards, but that would be unwatchlistable, though (not that you can't watchlist both pages separately and still use your page for editing). -- lucasbfr ^talk 08:54, 14 June 2007 (UTC)